What do we want from the next Total War game?

[al Roumi]

I'm pleasantly surprised at how speculative and open this discussion has started, usually "what next" discussions for TW descend rapidly into what era of history to plunder/recreate. That said, the article is a bit out there for me...

I agree to an extent with Andres that the RPG elements are positive and could bear strengthening. I appreciate the detail which comes with a focussed narrative and it massively adds to my personal imersion in the game. While a proceduraly generated TW would be intelectualy interesting for game designers/journos, it would suffer massively from exactly what causes me to drop campaigns - exhaustion of interest and imagination.

Give me a historical context, paint me a narrative and give me an AI I can feel good about destroying. I consider that a fairly calculated statement as I appreciate that there are countless trade-offs in making what is, first and foremost, a specific gaming experience -not a historical or war-fighting tactical simulator. I need enough of each ingredient (history, narrative and challenge) to be engaged. It's quite a precarious balance in some ways -something a-historical would lose appeal, as would a lack of narrative and of course no challenge. Equally, something slavishly historic would probably be distinctly un-fun, a narrative-less campaign devoid of meaning or compulsion and a truly over-strong AI discouraging.

I really like the way TW skips around the world and through time. There is a definite tie between TW games and my personal knowledge of history and the world - usually each game will encourage me to do a lot of reading on each period. With that in mind, I would very much like TW to remain grounded in history - but I would probably play and enjoy a fantasy/sci-fi based game, it's just it would undoubtedly suffer for the lack of background available for interested players.

I suppose Empire showed what can disapointingly happen when the achievement does not match the ambition. Napoleon (which I've only recently picked up) in some way corrected the horror, but one thing which was strongest in Empire and that I liked is the situation in an era of transformational change. I'm sure it adds to the difficulty of coding the AI and balancing the end-game however.

Finally, for a game at least half about tactics, I find TW could do a lot more to actually model these -or make it easier for the player to utilise historicaly consistent tactics. For example, much more could have been made of the column/line/square infantry formations in Empire, Napoleon and Sogun2:FoTS. Also, what happened to the detailed Roman legionary maneuvres that could have been coded for Rome? And conversely, it seems perverse to have dark-age units deployed in square formations, why not have more amorphous blobs where deployment/organisation is less meticulous. What I'm really suggesting is that the existing battle formations available to the player (and AI) be reworked to include maneuvres, making them more than just a tool for the deployment phase. Why not issue more general commands i.e. forward march, flank, fall back etc, than specify exactly where each soldier in your unit stands by stretching out a line? You could state you want a 3 deep formation or a large cavalry wedge and your grouped units would repsond as a formation, not atomised particles commanded by an omniscient and omnipotent general.

I may have got lost in details at the end there and apologise for the over-long post but there is a lot of ineresting stuff that could yet be done with TW.