While I personally don't care for the "unlockable" aspect, I fully agree that CA's approach to *playable* factions is going the wrong direction. As much as I appreciate the uniqueness of each Warhammer faction, the replayability is severely limited without resorting to DLC.
+Ted Thilander I want formations back. It doesn't make sense for a unit that's getting peppered from arrows but not in melee to just stand there and not set up a formation with shields or to spread out.
I'm all for formations, but they should not just be a combat bonus that you can toggle on and off. Rome 2 formations were more "special abilities" than formations: each unit would have *at most one* formation, and it would just give a flat combat bonus at the cost of movement speed. The actual formation that the men were standing in was not important. Even the "loose" formation, which was meant to defend against missiles but weaken bracing, actually proved in unit tests to perform *better* against cavalry charges compared to the standard tight formation.
There's ONE feature I've desperately wanted back since Rome: The ability to view your cities on the battle map at any time, and watch your little people walking around their streets. It's such a minor feature, and trivial to implement (hell, Attila even had civilians running around during siege battles! just let me push a button to start a "battle" with no troops!). But it made building up your cities so much more satisfying when you could check in on them once in a while and see the big Roman governor's palace in the middle of that barbarian town you'd conquered, or the shiny new temple in your capital, or whatever. They've improved the "spectacle" aspect of their games across the board with every instalment, but they've been steadily eroding features that add _flavour_ to the world at the same time. I guess it's part of the more "arcadey" tack they're taking, but I want my cities to feel like actual cities, not just a menu of upgrades I unlock. I want my generals to be people with a family and a personal history, not an upgrade tree. Maybe this makes me some sort of simpleton, but I play Total War games because they support ~~MY IMMERSION~~, not because they have the most sophisticated, in-depth gameplay or skill-based balanced multiplayer. I role-play, I can't help it.
Not only that, but letting you look at cities in advance let you have pre-existing defensive playbooks. Like the city layout with only 2 narrow thruways into the center courtyard, I've had small phalanx defense troops demolish larger armies.
First time I played Medieval TW 2, I was 11-10. When a kid can play this "complex" game no problem, makes me wonder how simpleton these newcommers to the franchise are
Hey guys just one more thing I wanted to say, I said that HOI4 was Streamlined. That's really not fair for me to say. Because I haven't even played the freakin game. Some people that have played the game told me that it was more streamlined. But keep in mind I know little about the game. I was more trying to express that more and more games are going with a simplistic approach.
As someone with 200 hours in Hearts of Iron 3, I can safely say that streamlining the game is possibly one of the best things they could have done for the series. No one should have to spend 80 hours just learning how to play a game, or even just learning the dang rules. As for Total War, I never felt like the games needed to be streamlined. But it almost feels like CA is buckling under pressure from Sega to appeal to the widest audience possible and they don't even seem to really QA test their games anymore. the fact of the matter is that Total War stopped being Total War with Shogun. Until they bring back the slow-paced thinking man's games that Medieval 2 and Napoleon were, I fear it will remain that way. :/
Can't believe I'm saying this but there are times when streamlining is good. HOI is something that really needed it as HOI 3 was so unnecessarily complicated.
From what I've seen of HOI4, it's got very indepth systems like in HOI3, but they are all incredibly intuitive. HOI3 was not intuitive. At all. Its mechanics were incredibly confusing.
What you said could easily apply to EU4 though. EU4 introduced the concept of monarch points, which are magical manna points which are spent to calm down peasants, increase stability, change government type, research technology, and basically do everything.
+Adam Peretz (n00bypl4y3r) I mean, monarch points are an abstraction of the idea of the monarch of a nation making decisions and taking actions, which in turn allows the player to actively take a part in advancing the country rather than just guiding passive systems. Active decisions make for a better game as opposed to games that are just basically spreadsheet simulators. HoI4 by comparison to HoI3 allows players to do much more with their country, especially for small countries. And I think that it will be a better game as a result. The difference for total war is that we expect a level of simulation in the combat that just isn't there in the later games. And Total War didn't really need to be streamlined in the first place. You could pick the game up after a few hours. Meanwhile, Hearts of Iron is a game that after 100 hours you might still not fully understand or even grasp. That's why it's okay to streamline HoI and why streamlining Total War sucks.
I agree with many of your sentiments. Every time I get into a Total War mood, I soon drift back to Medieval 2, Empire and Shogun 2. I think Shogun 2 was the last game where the battles felt truly immersive and Rome didn't feel the same. I also felt disconnected with the arcadey interface.
Nah dude Rome and Medieval 2 are my favourite games in the series can lose hours! Rome 2 however its okay but rather dull. I just tried to play Troy TW and man that game is totally boring way too much menus.
I think the older games feel more real because how the combat is simulated, the units felt like they had real mass and inertia unlike now. Why I belie new games are less then what we expect them to be, is the inherent flaws of the game engine coupled with the fact CA is removing features faster then they are adding them.
What pisses me off the most on the new Total War games is the building and managing cities on the compaign map. On Medieval II, you could build a LOT of diverse buildings in almost any city, while in Rome II two you have up to 6 spots to build some quite limited sutff! ...And fuck, why can't I build walls on minor settlements!! It's so arcady and lame like this! ...Just make Medieval II again with better graphics, that's all I ask of them! XD
And I also agree that the battles are becoming waaaay too short. I miss those huge maps in which you could actually use flanking tactics! Now you just charge and hit buttons for unleashing lame abilities... There is no more strategy on the game!
What do you mean? Medieval II used the same building archetypes, warhammer just made it more clear and got rid of the unnecessary buildings. Also medieval II isnt as good as you remember it is, now that its competing with our newer games. Clarification: These are things fanboys and shills would say to you.
Napoleon city management is chaos. You have no taxes, and I already built theatres and operas for you. Then you rebel and somehow fabricated full fledged, experienced armies out of nowhere
For me, the biggest problem i've had over the last few titles is the speed of battles. They just go too fast before they're patched. The older games had slower battles which allowed more tactics to be used and also to be able to enjoy the look of those battles
also i didn't even know how much i agreed with you until you said that when u play pre-shogun total war games it doesn't feel like your playing a game and also the one thing that makes me sad is that since shogun 2 generals don't matter that much, because you can always hire new generals
Raymond Berry yeah but in recent games they've had 'free' seige equipment, like the ladders that come out of nowhere in warhammer, or grappling ropes in Empire, or wall climbing in shogun
I feel like Rome 2 is in a good place now. The Emperor Edition significantly decreased battle speed. It's now the slowest from any of the recent (Shogun 2 onwards) TW games.
A matter of preference. Shogun 2 is definitely more polished and a more grand game. Definitely my second favourite. Which reminds me, a pity about Empire not being more polished and better researched. Caroleans with bayonets? What sorcery is this?? :O
if you play empire with Darth mod, IMO its the best TW game (in terms of campaign) you can create huge battles (10000+) huge empires awesome naval battles. Napoleon is a better game, but the campaign is boring compared to empires.
I guess I should try again to fix it up. Got any opinions on Imperial Splendour? That total conversion mod that seems to add a lot tof awesome stuff, even if they never managed to fix the bloody pikemen.
You forgot about one of the biggest issue of newer total wars: Modding tools. Its getting worse and worse. This is why med2 is still quite popular, thanks to so impressive mods like third age. But i guess they prefer releasing new game+dlc for more cash grab than making a longer lived tittle.
thats why they dont make modding tools - they dont want their games to be longlasting masterpieces , they want as many cashgrabs as possible - look at it this way - if we relese modding tools some people might make ogres from trools and might make a nation and in that case we have to either not make a ogres DLC or we have to work harder to get to justifiable quality to be able to make a DLC and expect people to buy it .
Well yea i know the idea why hold out on mod tools, but we all would rather have them included. Not our fault that lots of mod are way better than vannila, damn lazy and greedy companies
if they actually made a really good game we wouldnt have to mod it and they wouldnt have to patch it up , also some mods are just for personal preferances .
That logic sucks though. Everyone bought Barbarian Invasion or Kingdoms, new features meant more mods. Even with the current dlc system, each extra campaign means more focused mod possibilities. They could sell the same, and gain more loyalty / happy costumers. Look at bethesda for instance, you can make million modifications to their games, and yet everyone buys new dlc.
The thing to remember about Warhammer though is that their deal with Games Workshop prevented them from being able to provide any serious modding tools. (GW wasn't willing to support anyone altering the image of their products)
I think it was a total waste not to have a Yi Soon Shin DLC for Shogun. It would be awesome to have a naval focused campaign and to include Ming China and Joseon Korea
The idea is great be can't be done, consistently speaking that is. First of all Admiral Yi is, undoubtly, one of the greatest military commander of all time - from logistic to military training, from military engineering to actual combat, as well versed in methodically planned strategies than improvising a plan with limited ressources... there's close to nothing this man seemed not being able to achieve. So it make sense to believe that we could make a total war game out of him. But the problem is that, for this particular campaign, the odds are so overwhelmingly in the Japanese's favors that it would be impossible to reproduce that conflict in videogame condition (at it's peak, the Admiral Yi faced odds of a 10 to 1 in terms of ships.) The fact that, taking into account the means and technology available at the time, the Admiral Yi Soon managed to utterly crush the Japanese says a LOT about his talent at warfare. But total war players would never be able to reproduce what he did, because - except if he's a complete amateur - the opponent controlling the Japanese would never fall to Yi's tactics the same way the Japaneses did historically because the game's mechanics would allow him to visualize the battlefield with the software's perspective and not the human one. Let me developp a bit further on that point. At the Battle of Myeongnyang, Yi's navy faced and defeated a 133 strong Japanese fleet with merely 12 of his own *without taking a single loss*, all thanks to a very special water current found at the geographical place where the battle was fought - a current that Yi was fully aware of it's peculiar trait and precisely on which he used bet everything. In real life Yi could do that because he knew the terrain and had exclusive access to the geographical knowledge of his homeland geographical and topological water and landscape, while the Japanese did not - in a Total War game *every* player can be aware of those informations. That simple fact completely blow away any chances of accurately depicturing the conflict from a realistical standpoint because it would be impossible to surprise an opponent that would be arleady aware of the places in which an ambush would take place and would adequatly do his best to avoid them.
A bit late, but there is a mod for Shogun 2 called "Morning Sun". The latest version which is 2.0 or something includes Korea China, Japan, and a bit more around that area. I've never been too interested in the area so I can't say exactly what's there, but the mod is really nicely done and if you look it up you can probably get it.
I agree man. Collision in units is a big problem. You can get a unit that's fighting another to reposition around it while taking minimal losses. Makes no sense. No men would run away from a 1v1 during a big battle just to reposition.
Nah, it's not that. Collision is when units touch eachother and can't walk through eachother. It's like if you are in a crowd of people. In real life, you can't go through people. In Rome 2, your soldiers can literally walk through eachother.
PandinusRex it absolutely is, however there are smaller development companies coming out with the more realistic games on the opposite end. I know it’s a different genre, but in the FPS world while Battlefield and COD are continuing to dumb down WW2 we got Post Scriptum on the other side of the spectrum. The market provides
General: Damn it we lost a knight unit , and here there arent any knights to recruit in egipt . Shall we hire some local or mercenary alternatives ? Soldier: Why sir , we can just hire some fine scottish knights . General : It doesnt work like that you illiterate peasant! Soldier (pulls a unit of knights out of his arse) : Yes it does sir !
One of the things that really bothers me is how dumbed down Warhammer is, and how poorly balanced, etc. The AI cheats in this game more than ever. I've got every achievement in the game (minus the elf ones now that DLC is coming out + the get 10 allies since factions don't like to ally much on legendary). The AI bonuses on legendary make the battles virtually impossible to win unless you have super beefcake army vs regular shitty units. Even then, every battle is basically a fight to the death since the enemy units will repeatedly turn around and return and every single one will fight you to the absolute death. The fact the AI can just completely ignore terrain is annoying. Your armies positions on the maps arelargely irrelevant. Enemy armies are virtually impossible to catch unless the AI basically lets itself be caught by you. I don't know how many times I've marched in circles trying to catch a single stack that constantly outpaced me. The fact they could outrun my army, go besiege a settlement, sack/raze it, then move out of range again within the same turn is a constant source of frustration. The fact AI can blithely ignore rivers in regular march is retarded. The sieges being cut down to an approach to one wall with no actual city really hurts the game. Sieges are not fun. At all. They all play out identically. And I guess that's next major gripe. Basically every battle feels the same. I guess it's not like Rome 2 though where you play as the Romans and a single unit can kill 700 enemies (Had 1 unit of Principes singlehandedly destroy an entire army), but eh. I guess my biggest gripe with Warhammer Total War is that I haven't had the epic moments I've had in Shogun 2 or Rome 1. Rome 1: Faced a 5, full-stack combined force of SQPR, Scipii and Brutii. They besieged Rome. If I lost the battle it'd open up a front I'd have difficulty resecuring. If I won, I'd have achieved victory. It was 10000 vs 2000. I won and had 500 troops left. Shogun 2? So many crazy moments. Most recently, I played Fall of the Samurai. Was besieged. I had 2000 men garrisoning a fort. Got besieged by a combined force from Obama and one of the red/pinkish factions. 13000 men vs
That's indeed a problem with modern players, they jsut rush for achievements/objectives are if it was a competition, that's why I like teh fact that steam achievements doen't give you anything
Yup, this is the problem with modern people. They really can't think. They will imagine some little gripe, some little thing and they will ignore everything that was said. This is why I usually block people under my comment section. It is waste of time to debate with huge chunk of them.
I realy liked empire's campaing map, having random buildings outside the city meant raiding and rampaging armies meant something, it also made the map feel more alive. But alas, its completely pointless with rome2's retarded no units without generals bullshit, since you can't send 3 line infantry a skirmsher and an outdated cannon to guard your sipce farm from marathan raiders.
You make some good points. I have to agree with the siege battles and multiplayer, especially with Warhammer. Its by far my biggest gripe with the game. I also loved how in Medieval 2 when you upgraded your troops Armour, that would be visually represented on the battle map. I think since Med 2 thats never been in any future titles, and in Warhammer that would of been awesome considering the different items you can collect and equip on your lords/heroes post battle.
Medieval 2 one of the best moments I had was defending york with my heir to the throne against a surprise scottish attack with only wooden walls. I had 3 spear militia and 3 peasant archers. I didn't want to lose Prince Robert and the order of battle said I had no chance. But I destroyed one of the battering rams so they could only break one gate. Their army formed a long line waiting to get in because I had 2 militia blocking them and 1 in reserve. Meanwhile my archers pounded the troops exposed. Eventually I had to commit my reserve militia and things were not looking good. I had inflicted huge casualties but didn't want to lose my faction heir. Then an arrow luckily killed the enemy general as my men were wavering and I took the opportunity to charge my generals body guard through the gate to break their remaining force. Cant really do that anymore with the bad collision detection. Battle lasted 30 minutes.
We've all had fantastic battles like that. I think it's part of what made that game so great. I once had a 3 hour long battle against the Timurids' strongest army against a small garrison, when reinforcements were a whole extra turn away. At one point, I had some crossbowmen on the walls who ran out of ammo, so I had to bait the elephants near my ballista towers in order to kill them. Every one of my units had routed at least twice before I finally lost and they earned the most Pyrrhic of victories. I will probably never forget some of the amazing battles from M2TW.
Frank Bumstead I had this time in napoleon I was defending cleves mark I had defended from French attack with my 1 unit ofPrussian fusiliers, 1 unit of line infantry, and 6 pounder artillery. I had defended for 2 other attacks and my army was battered I had about 2/3 of my line infantry a half of my Prussian fusiliers, my general was fine but I only had one cannon left, the French used their largest army in the north east
You hit the nail on the head there, I used to love this stuff and was infuriating when you lost one of your best generals who you built up to be "the conqueror" or "the terrible" or "the great" but when you won it was awesome, but thinking back Napoleon was the best but MTW2 had huge problems, like the "distance to capital" made crusading almost impossible and the fact that it jumped 2 years a turn and you finally build your Knights Templar and there rubbish cause everyone's now using Guns or the Mongols barely had a chance to do anything because the Timurid's just rocked up. Also love the appearing factions. But completely agree, I would often replay games because I experienced up a unit of Knights that I had for years or rest armys to rebuild that unit that had survived countless heroic victories or even use my priests in a way that I got fond of them...it lost a lot of that, it's coming back a bit now which is good
Not to mention as he said in sieges where you kept your cavalry in reserve waiting for the right moment and angle to throw them in right before your spearmen broke or taking a risk and rushing them at there battering ram allowing them only ladders or siege towers to get in. Charges like that where you rolled the dice were what made the battles tactically brilliant
You said if siege battles are bad in the next historical title "ugh, I will still play total war but come on". So if CA makes a terrible game you will still buy it and play it.... so basically they can make a terrible game and you will still get it, why would they make a better game? Rome 2 ended my Total War purchases, the game was insulting to the player base. My personal opinion is nothing will improve in the brand if there is no financial pressure for them to change.
Automatic Replenishment ruined it. In Med 2 lifes were valuable and Cities took long to grow, it was not just " build one building and wait 3 Turns". The system of going back home and retraining your brave souls who have died for their country and bled for honor. Med 2 was EPIC, TW today is "only" fun. I gathered close to 300h already again in TWWH, but only because I´m so happy they are going into Fantasy finally. Also Archers feel week, no impact on hit, no staggering unless you were hit by 3 or 4 times. And also, the new TW´s look absoultly stunning but give you less and less time to see the battles as you are forced to micro every second if you not want to loose.
I like the idea of supply lines (but it has to be implemented with real thought put in). Think of Med 2 and say you successfully crusaded Acre. The replenishment would be extremely slow or none at all. It would increase as you get buildings like a port or buildings, but you can never recruit a new feudal knight there until much, much later if at all.
I agree with the single player battle stuff -- in the old games, even though there was no blood, fights just felt more visceral. I think one of the reasons is that the people were frail -- except for a handful of units, a single good hit will kill a man. It was also way harder to replenish your elite units, so you were really sad when any one of them died. Plus, I think the units just did a better job of keeping formation, so fights when you're say, the Romans just looked more organized.
You are right - because they tried to make the Games easier/more comfortable and more compatible to the casual Gamer they made it more easy to fill damaged Units. In Rome 2 if you had a special Armory in a Region in the East you needed to get your Army there to get the Equipment. With the most recent Patch in Rome 2 you can upgrade the Armor on your Army everywhere you do not need to send your Army to the Province with the Armory anymore.
I think for the next game they should balance such things as if you want a province unit bonus to become global you would have to build a special supply chain building in province that will have a relatively high upkeep representing the cost of keeping the logistic running through your empire.
I remember when the History channel was using Rome 1 to recreate battles as a way to understand the ancient world. It was amazing. I remember watching them do their own version of the 300 with their own custom units for the battle, and then breaking down the battle for education.
What's even worse is that CA's focus on aesthetics (i.e. battle choreography) practically nullifies the use of tactics. Soldiers fight one on one completely ignoring battle formations, therefore at the end we have a huge blob of soldiers fighting each other individually. Which means that there is no point in using tactics, since it will all en up in a huge blob, and any numerical advantage of a unit against another unit is not utilised, since all the idle soldiers in a unit will not attack an isolated enemy soldier, because soldiers fight ONLY one on one. In addition, I fail to see any impact the ground has on a battle (higher ground, forsts etc). In general, imho total war warhammer lacks completely the one element that built this frachise: battlefield tactics.
The collision is one of the details that made the old TW games so good. I used to just play custom battles just to watch the units fight each other. You'd get this one hoplite fending off three Persians at a time only to be stabbed in the back by a fourth. Now it's just the lame 1v1 dueling that makes watching movie battles so cringeworthy sometimes.
really if you play the game (Warhammer) it has the most diverse units ( in terms of the way you use them or combining that unit combined with a certain spell to form a really different army build that is nothing like your other army builds that you have for the same faction). Plus the factions play vastly differently from each other, as oppose to every other total war game were all the factions were reskins of themselves with some acceptions, but for the most part they all played the exact same. Warhammer in many ways was a disappointment, and that is one of the my many gripes with this game. It has so much untapped potential that would be easy to implement and the lack of many things in this game gave people that are new to the warhammer fantasy universe the wrong impression. But if you know the lore then you know the warhammer fantasy universe has so so much potential for feature rich gameplay that was not even touched in the game. This genuinely has the POTENTIAL to be the best total war, if people just get excited about enough to force CA to do the right thing. Sorry hope my rambling did not want bother anyone, I just have so many ideas, and I just get so passionate about total war and especially about warhammer as a universe it does not does not deserve such unfair treatment. Thank you for reading my comment.
A bit late but in "Warhammer Battlemarch" (it's like a really old version of warhammer total war but no city management, and worse but I still liked it) you could customize your troops from the helmet variation they wear, down to the clothing patterns and colors... was hoping this would make it into warhammer total war too.
War Bastard Yeah I was really disappointed once I found out there was no avatar conquest... such a BIG missed opportunity, but I guess if the game featured only the provinces of the empire we would have it, and much more.
My two biggest problems with Warhammer: Combat is too fast (as you laid out) The DLC is too expensive. £14 for a single army is just too much. £5-8 each and Id buy them all. At present, I have none of them and until they have a hefty sale, itll stay that way.
Which also means, Im playing with the same races over and over. After 120+ hours Iv walked away meaning all new DLC that I might have picked up where I still playing now I pass over.
YES! Finally SOMEONE understands what i've been preaching about since Shogun 2 was released! The amount of fanboys i've had turning down my view. I know exactly what you mean. Napoleon was near to perfect in the gritty realism in its battles. The fact that the armies were so large and, not only that, so similar in composition (only minor differences from nation to nation) meant that fights lasted a long time and ACTUAL STRATEGY was needed to defeat an online opponent. Shogun 2 onwards has just been an appeal to the wider audience because CA have realised they are making a lot of money from their sales. Instead of making games for us hard core strategy fans they have taken away from the strategy and focused on the visualisation of the games. That's why Shogun 2 had MORE focus on the individual sword fighting of each little unit than the actual strategy - the wider audience loved being able to watch this but for us long term fans it was a negative turn in the series. I think Rome 2 is a bit better now on that front, but it is still "arcadey" and quick. The ONLY part I disagree with you on (and it is a huge disagreement) is the avatar conquest. I believe the WORST game for online play was Shogun 2 BECAUSE it was unbalanced. For me, Napoleon was the height of online strategy. The fact that each army was SO similar in that army compositions were always going to be x amount of line infantry, x amount of cavalry etc. meant that strategy was required. The amount of times i've seen casual players being forced to use oblique orders and such to win battles on Napoleon is incredible. Shogun 2 was just like "Yeah, here's some cheesy graphics and cool fight animations, have a load of units and charge into a big mosh pit to watch the soldiers duelling - oh, don't forget to buy our red paint dlc pack."
YES YES A MILLION TIMES YES! This is EXACTLY my thoughts. Battle speed is ridiculous and arcady. for me the new games are practically unplayable without mods. For everything they made beautiful in Warhammer, they ruined the gameplay. The maps are basic and often terrible, HUGE battles are over in 5-7 minutes, accuracy is outrageous. Units just melt when they touch. A tabletop game would last for 2+ hrs. There is no reason that everything dies so fast. Lets just call a duck a duck. They are DUMBING DOWN total war. Also does anybody else feel like this game is NOT FINISHED? No unit banners, No squad leaders, no musicians, no seasons, Bretonnia isn't even playable without mods, super redundant maps. 10 hours and I'm already bored with this game. I have over 200 hrs on each of Rome2, Empire, and 300 hours on Medieval 2.
Well, Rome I was also fast pace. I have always seen armored units run across the maps like they were Usain Bolt. For me, only Medieval 2 made great use of speed rate and stamina.
CobaltLotus I guess its just my opinion that there are no unit commanders, banner bearer, musicians, or seasons. There is an entire unplayable unfinished faction. There are only maybe 3 or 4 maps for each region. Unit selection doesn't even come close to previous games. And the diplomacy still punishes you for playing well.
Wait... I have never touched the multiplayer while playing 600+ hours Shogun2, Medieval 2, Third Age and Empire. I thought most people only play Total War for singleplayer.
Thanks Pixie for this video which nobly exemplifies the correct way to create dialogue about a subject. Your channel is growing for a reason. Thank you Sir.
I miss when an army could move without a general. I know some likes this, but i'd like to move soldiers from one region to another or split my army without buying a general.
I thought I was the only one who felt that way. Everybody I know personally loved Shogun 2 except me because I hate how fast paced it was! I guess it's just because when you like history enough, it's about the quality of the historical feel, not the fast-paced arcade type style non-history buffs like. In Empire Total War, I actually felt like I was an English king set out to colonize America for resources. In M2TW, I felt like an Irish patriot reuniting the clans of Ireland. In Napoleon Total War, I felt like I was a relentless Emperor conquering Europe and other riches beyond that.
I generally agree with you, but i have to say i had most of my longest battles in Shogun 2 because positioning and strategy was extremly important if you have an similar skilled opponent, so some of my battles lasted for 40-55min and it felt like a real achievement if you won these.
I loved that in Shogun 2 being hit by a missile means your out. Seeing some soldiers in Rome 2 walking around with 6 pila in their bodies is just ridiculous
Shogun 2 was great! But I agree. It was really, really fast paced. The campaigns are very short, and it was hard to recreate the epic campaigns of say, Rome 1, or even Rome 2. And that's what I wanted from Warhammer. I wanted to carve out an Empire through bloody battle after bloody battle and then fight a vicious struggle for survival for power against Chaos - but that doesn't happen. Ever. Either i face them on Normal/Hard and they're a fucking cakewalk to defeat or I play on VH and Legendary and watch as Archeron is turned from the Everlasting into the Ever-gaping when the AI mercilessly rape his faction into a fine powder and take a big shit on him.
The sieges are absolutely appalling. The length of the battles is completely tragic, especially when on the table-top the game can go on for hours and hours. What a fucking shame, I couldn't agree more Pixie.
Well it's fair enough really, if people want to spend money on a certain colour scheme or whatever that's their money and that's fine, I personally get no enjoyment from it whatsoever and so for me it's a huge waste of money, but I don't have a problem with other people getting it. The irritating thing is when you go pay to win, like Sony did with Planetside a while ago (before they reversed the changes). Or when you release a game that actually isn't complete and then release the rest as DLC (which arguably Warhammer may be sort of doing).
Honestly, what is wrong with cosmetic DLC? It doesn't affect gameplay, meaning literally no one needs to buy it to be competitive, and it gives people who want a little extra flair to have a way to do so. Sure, it's cash grabby, but the reality is studios need to make money to make games. Cosmetic DLCs give them a way to do so without affecting the balance and playability of their titles.
At the risk of seriously derailing the conversation, how did Sony make Planetside pay to win? Pay to Win means that you can buy an advantage over your opponents. There are no items that *require* cash to unlock, and none of the unlockable items are even upgrades over the starting equipment. Granted, Daybreak has made some more questionable changes in the recent past, but to my knowledge, Sony never rolled out any Pay to Win model in Planetside 2.
Ahh yeah maybe it was Daybreak, not sure exactly when it happened as it was during a period where I was pretty inactive so I'm going off second hand information. Still there's a few slightly pay to win-y things about it even now (energy boosts, buying shield upgrades etc.), but all of these things are either pretty easy to unlock without spending cash or only give you a negligible advantage. PS2 may not have been the best example to pick, but it's what sprang to mind.
Paradox is working with Eugen Systems now. So there is a chance that they would be able to combine grand strategy and RTS into new series that would really challenge Total War.
You are for sure not the only one that feels this way, and I'm glad you've made your position clear of while loving the TW franchise, you can also dislike the parts that hinder it from becoming a better game.
42O well you're not wrong, I am of Japanese descent, but I definitely don't see how that at all pertains to the topic at hand. But nice try on trying to get a knee jerk reaction out of me.
Shortly put, they need competition. Also, Paradox grand strategy games do streamlining well: they are easier to understand and learn and use, but game itself is just as complex and challenging. You mentioned HOI4, and while there are still many features from HOI3 missing, it is just matter of time before HOI4 surpasses HOI3 becouse Paradox actually develops their games post launch, which makes them so much better. Total War should do the same, instead of having Medieval 3, they should have Medieval Total War, Rome Total War, Empire Total War and Shogun Total War, and Warhammer Total War and then just expand on each of them with expansions, patches and DLCs. After maybe 7 years, make Rome 2 that covers entire ancient world, Medieval 2 that covers entire medieval world, Empire 2 that covers entire gunpowder era and Warhammer 2 that covers entire Warhammer world. Shogun would not be needed becouse it would be part of Medieval or Rome or Empire. Imagine how much better Empire Total War would have been if Napoleon Total War expansion would have been part of it instead of separate game. Then make China Total war that would be part of Empire Total war etc etc and over time Empire Total War would cover entire world.
Paradox do DLC soam the right way, each new DLC is important to the game. CK2 was made like in 2012 and so was EU4 their comunities are still huge and i have 1000 hours on both and still play them with mods like GOT and warhammer
Agreed. Paradox is easily my favorite RTS Studio. With a bit of effort and local investment in the Nordic countries we could make game companies to compete with the big brands from the US.
Respect for using word "Nordic" instead of Scandinavia. But don´t invest too much into Finland or else we won´t succeed - weird thing about Finns, when ever we compete on equal terms or have advantage, we do badly. But when ever it is emergency or we are underdog, we do very well.
I really dislike how quickly the battles in Warhammer end. Sieges are the worst, it doesn't feel like I am fighting for the city street by street trying to capture it.
HOI4 is decent, but I prefer HOI3. I actually did not mind the cluttered management that turned a lot of people off. Also, Paradox strategy does not let you fight the battles which is the appeal of Total War.
alexbond45 I thought the same when I first started playing but even after a couple of hours you can see why they made the changes they did. There's never going to be a game that pleases everyone I guess.
CA please bring back free for alls. My greatest total war moments were the 8 player ffa scored resolution battles on Rome total war which would last for almost an hour. Very good points pixe I enjoyed this allot. Rome 2 was such a let down.
New Sub here Apollo...I've been watching your siege vids like crazy the past few days and I appreciate your detailed commentary and how enthused you are about the battles. My question is this, as a gamer who's interested in picking up the Total War franchise, based on the issues you've described, which game would be the best starting point and give me the most for my buck?
Oh my god I feel exactly same about Medieval II games, about how you actually really cared about your troops and tried not only to win but also to minimaze losses. Especially in singlepalyer mode, also thing about starting a war. It was brilliant in MW II for me. How your moves were affecting your relations with nations and pope was sometimes pain in the ass. And that was good because that's what made it so interesting. I really hope they'll made another mediaval game with feeling that you actually are in the battlefield.
oh and siege battles were amazing... i remember sieging cities for 40+ minutes :D when i had to watch my ammo so i can destroy critical towers and gate in second layer of walls.
I like that, unlike other TW youtubers that are bussy liking CA's ass(sorry for being a bit vocal), you don't just take whatever CA gives you and praise them for it but actually criticise them for some Things. If I could subscribe a second time I'd certainly do it.
I strongly agree with you! I suggest watch Reynold Sanity's video... total war has lost its soul since shogun 2. it became more focused on graphics rather than gameplay because of fast battles... disregarding many mechanics. Hopefully Medieval 3 retrieve total war's grandness...
One of my favourite things in Rome I's campaign were "seeing who" the young 'family' members would turn into. You didn't have direct control over their personalities, but could effect their personalities. Leave a lazy guy in a town too long, and they'd turn fat. Loosing battles, or winning battles. Letting routing enemies flee the battle, or killing everyone could turn a general into a tactician or a tyrant. And other times they seemed to have a mind of their own. some turning out to be gay, which would often result in them not marrying or having kids. Others turning out to be womanizers, occasionally getting assassinated easy... and still others being judgemental stiffs that made everyone except their wife and kids hate them. Loved seeing how some of those guys would turn out randomly. RTW2, you had too much control over the generals personalities.
Love ur thoughts totally agree. Another thing is formations, bring those back besides one or two. Also troops are becoming very Rick, paper ,scissors. It would be nice to have some more diversity in the troops for future games. But still there streering more towards cut and dray troop builds. And if that's the case more formations.
i completely agree, rome, medieval and napoleon had some kind of immersion that the games dont have since shogun 2. even though i enjoyed shogun 2 a lot!
PA pointed out one of the immersion reasons very well, there was no soldier reinforce on the go, you had to reinforce from your cities so you were were conservative with troops = you cared more about strategy and tactics = you were more immersed
This is really a love letter to total war, don't mistake it for anything else. Everything mentioned here needed to be said, thanks for sharing this fam. Come on guys! Let's make Total War great again!
As far as I was aware, CA weren't able to include weather/daytime aspects in the Total war: Warhammer game, because Warhammer themselves tied their hands. They didnt want anything in Total War Warhammer to be canon and such didnt want 'time' to be represented in the game. Lots of content issues in Total War Warhammer specifically are due to licencing disputes, not laziness...unfortunately. However I agree with all your points. Bring back the old total war!!
Nah, he kept his mouth shut until everyone bought it in the first week, that's why this video is coming out now, and besides this kind of criticism is in no way bad to total war, it allows them to see what big voices have to say about the franchise
Randomguyonyoutubewithnovidsandanywaynobodywillbeabletoreadmynamesoyay i understand that, and I agree, if anything that was a comment that was bashing CA's policy on early access.
One thing I don't get with CA is that they never used the avatar system from Shogun again! It was so fun to make your own army, paint it and so on. I played more multiplayer matches in that game than all other total war games combined. WHY IS IT NOT IN WARHAMMER!?! Warhammer was bloody made for a system like the avatars from Shogun.
I think this is a problem across all big budget games. They are getting stripped down and more expensive. Companies are prioritising graphics over content and the games are suffering because of it. Its been a slow process but compare the more modern total wars with the older ones. They have so much less stuff in them. I won't ever forget playing Medieval 1 when I was younger and conquering so much land and then my ruler died and it came up with "Your ruler will go down in legends". It's small stuff like that, even if it is just flavour, that really brought them to life. Your actions, even in skirmishes, felt like they had consequences and now they don't - its sad that its not just the Total War franchise that suffers this problem but seemingly all big budget games
Well done with the presentation and explaining your points, especially about the feel of the battles and changes with units. One thing I would add is the forced restriction of armies via "must have a commander". I actually cared about my generals more when they were not necessary for the army, but still significant members of the faction. I still remember some epic battles in Rome and Medieval II... My precious Praetorian cohort, Sacred band, Muire, Polish guard - how I cherished you and even marched you back home across a continent to save you.
For future historical titles, I really think they should do a few things at the very least. 1. Get rid of activatable abilities. Way too arcadey, maneuvering and knowing when to strike should be what gets the victory, not activating the headhunt ability or something. 2. Bring back retraining from Medieval 2 and Rome. You'll feel way more attached to your units if you have to spend money to replenish them instead of just waiting a few turns for them to regenerate. 3. Make stuff look less clean. Not just the battlefield itself, but the UI. I want the popups, tooltips etc. to look like scrolls or something instead of those bland borders from Rome II and Attila. 4. Make it a lot harder to knock down walls with catapults. Seriously, seeing the mighty walls of Constantinople topple to the ground after about seven hits is really stupid. A catapult should have to expend almost all of its ammunition to take down a section of stone wall like that.
I think it would be more fun to have to come up with more strategies than bashing down every single wall with a few lobbed rocks. Realism doesn't necessarily equal not fun.
They need to move away from the pre-destined mathematic calculations for unit combat. It makes it too set in stone. Before in med 2 or Rome 1, there was an air of uncertainty in every engagement between two units as the combat was based on attack speed, animation collisions and suchlike. Nothing was pre-calculated as it has been since Empire Total War and the advent of the Warscape engine. You could have a damaged units still cut its way through a full strength but inferior unit instead of the game essentially pre-calculating the engagment and coming to the conclusion that your damaged superior unit will not defeat the unit it is attacking. I've lost count of the amount of times I've had very good but damaged units in med 2 and Rome 1 beat full strength but inferior units simply due to the better skill (which meant faster attacking animations and more attacking animations on target) my unit had as well as the better armour and attack rating. I also want to go back to being able to have armies that dong have a named general with them. Thirdly, scrap multiplayer completely. Ever since it was added in Shogun 2 (I dont remember it at all in any previous games) the games have become every increasingly unrealistic, arcade-like, unrealistically 'balanced' and, in my opinion, boring. Fourthly, get rid of the city system that has been in place since Empire. Let me build my cities like I could in Rome 1 or Med 2. I want plenty of buildings and factors to take into account so I can actually say I am empire building. The current system is extremely game-like and unrealistic. As a branch of this, I want to have the tax systems of Med 2 or Rome 1 back, as in I want to be able to set taxes per city instead of as a blanket over my entire empire. Or let me create my own 'tax zones' which I can divide my empire into so I can set different tax rates for different areas. Fifthly, the public order system especially in the most recent games (Rome 2 onwards) is atrocious and ridiculously over-complex. CA needs to return to either the public order system used in the Empire-Shogun 2 days or to the system used in the Rome 1-Med 2 days. Lastly, unit collision. I find it astonishing that the recent Total War games have absolutely no collision or fuction for the push and shove typical to melee combat. The very first Total War game Shogun Total war had this, and the series had it all the way up till Med 2. Afterwards they went ot the vastly inferior warscape engine. Which is a piece of shit. They need a new engine, preferably one that does not rely on pre-calculated bullshit that takes all uncertainty out of combat or has no collisions for troops in combat. EDIT: On the campaign map, I hate that they ahve streamlined it so much and made it boring and bland. One thing I do like though is the in-the-field replenishment.
The only game that's felt arcadey to me has been Warhammer, though I feel this mostly comes from OP heroes and whatnot. Normal soldiers in Warhammer are mostly filler and that's something I don't like.
In my opinion The last total war games which had close epic battles and time consuming and tactics, is medieval 2. It forms its own line of battle, and if you do not send in the broken units with cavalry lasts so much fighting. It is the best because the units move slowly and realistically. Shogun 2 is nice but the fights are fast enough, there is no an own line of battle at least not as in med 2, and as well the units are moving fast .. Empire (played with mod) is gorgeous, sea battles and exciting land, however, I prefer melee combat. Rome 2 apart from the graphic does not give me the same feeling, of med 2, empire and Shogun 2 and rome 1 .. Med 2 remains the best in terms of sieges and as well as melee combat.
I think it would be better to retrain units like in Medieval 2 The system was, that you couldn't spam units you are just now able to recruit. Like, if you got the building to finally recruit feudal footknight, you could only recruit 2 or 3 of them. it made you much more attached to those units, especially elite units because you were like "I just got one feudal knight unit, if they get hurt, I can't retrain them for 4 turns" You werent just flinging them into combat because you were already recruiting 10 more of them, you needed them for dangerous situations and important battles. Thats one thing I like about the old TW titles.
Opinion: So much of the atmosphere was lost when they went from the old "parchment" style world map to a crappy looking 3D map with giants walking around.
We're in a strange place with total war. On one hand GW killed Warhammer Fantasy so this is like a last hurrah for the franchise and TBH they did the IP justice and brought it to life in the way everyone was hoping when playing older attempts like Mark of chaos. (?) However it is worrying that we might get a historical game next that is filled with immersion breaking abilities and a lack of staple TW mechanics that just add to the historic titles that we may never see again. Most we can hope for is that they do well with TW:WH going forward, make their money for CA & GW and then remember the mechanics that made older titles so immersive.
To your first point about the arcadeyness and losing the roleplay aspect, do you think that this is because of your increasing age? I remember playing Rome one for years as a kid in middle school and I would role play the shit out of it. Now i go back and look at Rome and have a hard time playing it. That role play feeling is just too hard to do now. Idk if its because of the decreasing quality of the newer games or because of my age
i agree with you. when i was about 13 i used to play medieval 2 total war. but if i go back to it now it just feels old and boring and i have the urge to play something new,. btw im 17 now so 4 years difference is a big one
+The Lad bro! You lost your imagination in 4 years?!? That's terrible! My cousin and I would load up medieval 2 play all night, drink beers, and rp as generals in our faction's armies in campaign mode. We were in our thirties! After playing warhammer all I can think of is why isn't this more like med2. Yes, I did actually find a wife
DUUUUUDE!!!!! That video prince of macedon put up of the siege defense is what got me started on total war! I only have Medieval 2 and the third age mod, but I've watched a lot of replays of the other games and I understand where your coming from. The Campaign complexity and overall strategy needed to win a battle is what i enjoy most. AAAAAAnd, aesthetic customization is a must for these kind of games. Keep makin awesome videos.
I couldn't agree with you more Apollo. Having been a die hard total war fan since the first shogun, I sadly gave up on this franchise after the slap in the face that was "Rome 2." I just had enough with CA, time and time again they have released games with many empty promises. I've finally realized that after buying Shogun 1, Rome 1, Empire, Napoleon Rome2, and even shogun 2 that CA really doesn't care about their games. They just care about how much money they can take from you. Literally the battle AI is just as bad or even worse than the AI going back to medieval total war. I was looking forward to Rome 2 so much. They promised so much, such as internal politics, improved siege AI, interesting civil war mechanics. All of that turned out to be false. Just utter garbage, I just cant stand a game company that has been so dishonest just to get a couple bucks, and their DLC's and chaos pre-order ransom crap just continues to prove how greedy this company has really become. I feel sorry for those people that fell for the very misleading / well choreographed battles that CA put on youtube, because CA is so good at hiding all their unfinished crap under a new coat of paint. This game aint worth 60$. It's the same old game with the same old problems just marketed under a new coat of paint.
I really wish I was less nervous about playing multiplayer. Looks like so much fun, but I'm just too nervous about how well I'm going to do, so I don't join :(
My fav total war was Empire I loved the scale of the campaign map and loved the line battles.There was nothing like sending 20 ships over to India packed with thousands of troops ready to shoot some elephants up and I really liked the diplomacy in that game too.In every play through there was 2 alliances that split the world's superpowers, which lead to shit going down all across the globe.I haven't really enjoyed multiplayer since Shogun 2 either I don't really feel the need to play multiplayer unless some friends want a game.I haven't bothered buying Attila and will wait for a price drop to get Warhammer(hoping for an awesome LOTR mod further down the line)
Pixelated, I have watched your videos for quite some time and you have millions of the epic third age total war battles and medival 2 replays, thank you for making me get medival 2. When you were talking about the immersion when you thought in medival 2 you felt like a empower I got the same feeling. Keep up the good work man.
CA should next make. a lord of the rings total war wouldn't you guys agree? the mod third age total war is just a mod with some glitches but it would be better with an OFFICIAL total war for lord of the rings like and replay
pay extra for what. like it would cost the same as warhammer. or less any price. they want and why is that a bad. and too logical. did you try to program a game like this
I just started playing total war with Warhammer and i totally agree with you. A new player base doesn't mean you have to stream line the game mechanics, if i wanted to play a more simple or arcade game i wouldn't have picked up total war in the first palce Ps: I want warhammer to be less arcady too, if it's fantasy or not doesn't mean anything, the more realistic you can make it feel the more enjoyable it is 12:38 that's freaking true, damn that would be awesome
medieval 2 had the perfect mix of sync kills and standard non animated kills. With Rome 2 everything was sync kills which put a lot of stress on systems because of all the individual animations going on throughout a battle, and also just didn't seem realistic because the charges didn't do anything. Then on the other hand with War hammer there are almost no sync kills, which is unrealistic af because every man/thing in a unit just seem to die from heart attacks. For example a empire swords man will swing at a skeleton and the skeleton will die even though in the animation the swordsman's blade would have no contact with the skeleton... Like wtf.
I couldn't agree more Pixie. I don't disagree with anything ANYTHING you said you are completely right. Oh, bye the way, Darthmod just over rules every thing. Darth Vader (that modder of course) should take over c.a. Forget c.a frickin' Sega!
I always find it weird when someone agree 100% with someone but I'm not going to argue. And no I don't think Vader should take over, he's already doing his own business
empire with darth mod could have been the best game ever... if those fucking ottomans didnt build so many armies by turn 100 you cant finish turn anymore...
I love warhammer. But the monstrous/independent units are SOOOOO OP. I get youre a hero or a dino, but if you can stomp through 600+ men basically alone??? So OP
TW needs to bring back the single unit selection nothing is more annoying than having to build a brand new army to keep up public order when in the past total war you could just select like 3 troop groups and send them in to keep public order.
+Gareth Roberts yea, or just to garrison a small force to keep a army at bay, also you could split your army to take small settlements, it was just better made the game more tactical
+Denis Zaruba exactly! They'd just have to do something to keep the AI from running around with single units like crazy, because that was the annoying thing. The AI still does it, they just use small armies. So definitely do that but fix the programming!
I feel exactly the same like you. The fast battles and the horrificly bad sieges are what I fear about coming to the next historical Total War. I don't care much about Warhammer (LotR would be awesome though :D), but if the next historical one is just as bad in these points like Warhammer, I would be really disappointed.
As someone who doesn't really play multi-player, I've also had issues with more recent TW titles. The problems you mention with the battles are there, of course, but I have found myself increasingly frustrated with settlement management, particularly in defense. For example, in Empire, many of your key settlement structures were no longer located safely within the walls, but were instead spread throughout the province where they were easily destroyed by marauding enemies, causing a drain on your time and resources to repair them. They then took this a step further in RTW 2: Now entire settlements are outright forbidden to build walls or defenses, leaving them completely open to enemy assault. The few that can build defensive walls are no better off, because armies spontaneously generate ladders as soon as they lay siege, rather than needing to spend several turns constructing siege engines. It's all become very fast-paced rather than considered and deliberate. And that's not even getting into further 'streamlining' such as limiting the variety of buildings settlements may construct, or even putting a hard cap on how many buildings you can have in a settlement because it's only 'supposed' to be a minor village. Well maybe I don't want it to be a minor village! Maybe I want to invest the effort in transforming this provincial backwater into a major metropolis and trade hub, like I could in prior games! Don't even get me started on lumping multiple settlements into larger 'province' structures so the entire province suffers if one of the three undefended and undefendable villages gets sacked. I don't know. It feels like so much of the campaign has become predetermined, and rather than imposing our will upon a world to forge an empire, we now are limited to colouring within the lines laid out for us, and told to feign excitement on cue when our forcibly-undefended frontier gets attacked and seized by some nobody one-city power that nevertheless has four full armies to play with. The old games? That felt like forging, and managing, a virtual empire. The new ones just... feel like I'm playing a video game. The verisimilitude has been lost, and it all feels so shallow.
Regarding your point about streamlined campaign, I do agree with almost everything. As a paradox games player (EU IV, HOI3 and Vicky2) I feel like the management side of the campaign is programmed for a 5 year old, absolutely 0 realism or depth. But the one mechanic that annoyed me the most in medieval 2 was the retraining mechanic, absolutely annoying need to micro EVERY unit of your army to replenish them. Instead of the stuff we have now where troops can replenish anywhere, maybe only replenish when garrisonned in certain provinces? I feel like the Medieval 2 system was too much work to the point it was annoying, but the current replenishment mechanics are too simple.
I have to disagree concernig the replenishment, I think it makes your elite units more valuble which makes a huge conquest more challenging. On the other hand if they did it kind of similiar to the way you describe, maybe only aktivate replenishment in provinces were you could recruit these units, it would work too.
Yes but that's why it was important to protect your units and use them wisely to avoid stuff like this happening too much (probably also another small detail that makes you care for your armies more). Also it was important to take into account that retraining uses general recruitment slots so this invites for a smart army managing especially when a larger army is approaching (retraining a very diminished veteran unit or recruiting a new slightly better equipped full unit for the next turn?). Auto-replenishing is comfortable and all but it takes away an extra strategic factor from army managing.
Only if SEGA gets out of the picture. They are making CA to do these games too fast and they want their money back, multiplied. Thats why CA has to do this stupid DLC policy
Ironically enough enough, I have been buying less total war games. Since Shogun 2, which was okay, I purchased Rome 2 out of hope of getting a good game. It was promptly dashed. I didn't return it out of some sort of loyalty I guess. I have more interest in Medieval 2 than anything recent. Such a waste.
They need to change the system of routing for example have a certain amount of men in a unit leave first and have them trickle so it should say 130 out of 200 men remaining, 30 fled so there's only 100 fighting some could come back they should also be treated as individuals so once they leave the unit they should not be part of it anymore so like the civilians running away in Attila so they don't all run away in the same direction. Also make the Ai care about one another so you see men dragging their friends away from the fight. This addition would make battles also last longer since units would be coming back as well and not all running away at the same time. there also needs to be less kill moves and more slashing and blocking and dodging. Battles should drag on be bloody and horrific kind of like how in shogun 2 the dead roll around on the ground in pain there should be people walking out of the battle without arms or crawling away without legs and then dying somewhere else with blood trails. Have all of this in the next total war and it will be my favorite hands down.
I agree completely with you And in warhammer where the fuck did my little city on the campaign map gone I want to build farms, to improve the defense of my city or to build some church or others things I Want to convert others territory to my religion and not just to rush from a city to another with my hero And the worst : WHAT THE HELL ! only 6 factions it is a joke ! Where are the saurus, elvens, oger, beastmen, demons, ... there are more than 15 factions in the warhammer game and I was waiting so much for this game to see them all on the battlefield And at liest that make any sens the games graphics are always improved but the maps are just ridiculous
My issues with the past couple of Total wars,1: Autoresolve is stupidly OP and doesn't reflect real battles at all. 2 stacks of shit beat 1 elite stack which is more expensive (Leg difficulty). Incorrect in actual battle. 2: Only a couple building slots per settlement, really? Not realistic and restrictive, I prefer medieval's format on this. 3: Trade goods are useless as AI won't trade as much (Leg diff). Also irrelevant amount of money. Better use building slot for something else. Lame!4: Diplomacy is unrealistic, AI mostly wont accept stuff that is in their favor, such as a trade agreement from which they would make more money then I would. (Leg diff, again, not sure about other diff)5: AI get stupid bonuses in order to make them work, otherwise their economy would be shit. (Nearly no upkeep, public order always high and bonuses in battle)Final note: Not sure if most of these issues are due to the difficulty rating, but I think this rating should not affect these things, but just make the AI smarter, not just out to annoy you, even if it is in their disinterest to do so.
The way I play I feel a connection to my units. I play Bretonnia using mods and I got a set of rules for myself, like a Knight Errant unit gets to be upgraded to Knights of the Realm if they get 1silver chevron and so on. (no building exp bonus cheese) So when you build a unit of weak squire(essentially) to a bunch of veteran knights or hell grail knights over the course of many many turns, you do feel a connection. What I do miss is definitely family trees in Warhammer. I haven't watched the entirety of this video Apollo, short on time, will get to it eventually. But I got the general gist of it, and I agree with the loss of Roleplay in the recent games. And army painting hell yeah. I had this battle once where a bunch of knights of the realm went around charging several vampire count units to death where finally they slew the vampire leading the army. I named them Silver Lances after the battle had ended, CA really did miss a huge oppurtunity when it comes to army customization both in multi and single player. But I have a feeling GW might have a hand in that too.
One thing I forgot to add. Why can I not do loose formation anymore lol. Or any formation really in warhammer
Ya, Halberdiers without Pike Wall Formation makes me super sad. Cav wedge formation, etc. :(
I agree
I am a sub when you were 1000
play medieval 2
Because of tabletop I assume.
When I begged the Total War gods for them to take more inspiration from Crusader Kings 2 I didn't mean the DLC aspect! :'c
Lourens Kaufmann LMAO!
Total war is a little bad when it comes to dlc, but nothing could even compare to the shit CK does X_X
T.J Aarons But CK's DLC system is awesome. just people jumping on the hate bandwagon lol.
TONYSTARK557 For the most part they are pretty awesome but a lot of them shouldn't be paid dlc.
TONYSTARK557 because having 200 pounds worth of dlc of which a lot of it should be in the game is good?
Here's the biggest one for me: Unlockable Factions.
Medieval 2 had this, and it practically tripled replayability. Enough of the unnecessary DLC.
It's more rewarding to open and modify the files yourself.
those days are GONE
ASLunar Rome total war did to
While I personally don't care for the "unlockable" aspect, I fully agree that CA's approach to *playable* factions is going the wrong direction. As much as I appreciate the uniqueness of each Warhammer faction, the replayability is severely limited without resorting to DLC.
@@tokiwartooth4404 You can even unlock the unplayable factions for custom battles that way
I personally disagree with putting more focus in multi-player I believe total war should focus on single player
I agree to this
At an 80 dollar price tag, they should work for that money and make good single player AND multiplayer. Like other AAA titles.
Shogun 2 was an excellent game for multiplayer and Rome ruined that
80 dollars? this is either because it's american or just more expensive idk. In europe it's 60 euros
xXYourhunterXx Sorry. 80 Canadian. But 60 euros is very hefty and should be able to make a good full fledged game
Warhammer total war needs formations. Dwarves need shield walls and pike men need pike walls.
this
Yes
not present in board game
+Ted Thilander I want formations back. It doesn't make sense for a unit that's getting peppered from arrows but not in melee to just stand there and not set up a formation with shields or to spread out.
I'm all for formations, but they should not just be a combat bonus that you can toggle on and off. Rome 2 formations were more "special abilities" than formations: each unit would have *at most one* formation, and it would just give a flat combat bonus at the cost of movement speed. The actual formation that the men were standing in was not important. Even the "loose" formation, which was meant to defend against missiles but weaken bracing, actually proved in unit tests to perform *better* against cavalry charges compared to the standard tight formation.
There's ONE feature I've desperately wanted back since Rome: The ability to view your cities on the battle map at any time, and watch your little people walking around their streets.
It's such a minor feature, and trivial to implement (hell, Attila even had civilians running around during siege battles! just let me push a button to start a "battle" with no troops!). But it made building up your cities so much more satisfying when you could check in on them once in a while and see the big Roman governor's palace in the middle of that barbarian town you'd conquered, or the shiny new temple in your capital, or whatever.
They've improved the "spectacle" aspect of their games across the board with every instalment, but they've been steadily eroding features that add _flavour_ to the world at the same time.
I guess it's part of the more "arcadey" tack they're taking, but I want my cities to feel like actual cities, not just a menu of upgrades I unlock. I want my generals to be people with a family and a personal history, not an upgrade tree. Maybe this makes me some sort of simpleton, but I play Total War games because they support ~~MY IMMERSION~~, not because they have the most sophisticated, in-depth gameplay or skill-based balanced multiplayer. I role-play, I can't help it.
I would love for that to be brought back. Cities would look majestic.
Not only that, but letting you look at cities in advance let you have pre-existing defensive playbooks. Like the city layout with only 2 narrow thruways into the center courtyard, I've had small phalanx defense troops demolish larger armies.
Role-playing and immersion, yes sir.
"that feeling like I'm the emperor" That is exactly how I feel while renaming my arachnarok to Snugglepuff
Lol
Why Snugglepuff?
Loyal like a Hufflepuff & it likes to snuggle?
+Dave Hoffman First the arachnarok snuggkes you closer; then he/she puffs poison in your body to make his/her love complete.
lol my second Arachnarok was McMuffin
First time I played Medieval TW 2, I was 11-10. When a kid can play this "complex" game no problem, makes me wonder how simpleton these newcommers to the franchise are
Right. Same here. I managed to beat shogun on the hardest setting as a 9 y.o.
And i am no genius by any stretch
Its just getting sad now.
Hey guys just one more thing I wanted to say, I said that HOI4 was Streamlined. That's really not fair for me to say. Because I haven't even played the freakin game. Some people that have played the game told me that it was more streamlined. But keep in mind I know little about the game. I was more trying to express that more and more games are going with a simplistic approach.
As someone with 200 hours in Hearts of Iron 3, I can safely say that streamlining the game is possibly one of the best things they could have done for the series. No one should have to spend 80 hours just learning how to play a game, or even just learning the dang rules.
As for Total War, I never felt like the games needed to be streamlined. But it almost feels like CA is buckling under pressure from Sega to appeal to the widest audience possible and they don't even seem to really QA test their games anymore. the fact of the matter is that Total War stopped being Total War with Shogun. Until they bring back the slow-paced thinking man's games that Medieval 2 and Napoleon were, I fear it will remain that way. :/
Can't believe I'm saying this but there are times when streamlining is good. HOI is something that really needed it as HOI 3 was so unnecessarily complicated.
From what I've seen of HOI4, it's got very indepth systems like in HOI3, but they are all incredibly intuitive. HOI3 was not intuitive. At all. Its mechanics were incredibly confusing.
What you said could easily apply to EU4 though. EU4 introduced the concept of monarch points, which are magical manna points which are spent to calm down peasants, increase stability, change government type, research technology, and basically do everything.
+Adam Peretz (n00bypl4y3r) I mean, monarch points are an abstraction of the idea of the monarch of a nation making decisions and taking actions, which in turn allows the player to actively take a part in advancing the country rather than just guiding passive systems. Active decisions make for a better game as opposed to games that are just basically spreadsheet simulators. HoI4 by comparison to HoI3 allows players to do much more with their country, especially for small countries. And I think that it will be a better game as a result. The difference for total war is that we expect a level of simulation in the combat that just isn't there in the later games. And Total War didn't really need to be streamlined in the first place. You could pick the game up after a few hours. Meanwhile, Hearts of Iron is a game that after 100 hours you might still not fully understand or even grasp. That's why it's okay to streamline HoI and why streamlining Total War sucks.
I agree with many of your sentiments. Every time I get into a Total War mood, I soon drift back to Medieval 2, Empire and Shogun 2. I think Shogun 2 was the last game where the battles felt truly immersive and Rome didn't feel the same. I also felt disconnected with the arcadey interface.
THE MEN AAH FATIGUED MY LOOORRD!
Nah dude Rome and Medieval 2 are my favourite games in the series can lose hours! Rome 2 however its okay but rather dull. I just tried to play Troy TW and man that game is totally boring way too much menus.
I think the older games feel more real because how the combat is simulated, the units felt like they had real mass and inertia unlike now. Why I belie new games are less then what we expect them to be, is the inherent flaws of the game engine coupled with the fact CA is removing features faster then they are adding them.
Older games? RTW with idiot graphics?
@@aderaihanfadlurrahman5650 grow up
@@NightOwl_-xk3nw just look at that name do you expect a backwater trog like this to understand anything beyond "muh pretty pictures" 🤣
@@joshjonson2368 I mean that's a fair point. I think I had a stroke reading that name
@@NightOwl_-xk3nw jungle names right heh
What pisses me off the most on the new Total War games is the building and managing cities on the compaign map. On Medieval II, you could build a LOT of diverse buildings in almost any city, while in Rome II two you have up to 6 spots to build some quite limited sutff! ...And fuck, why can't I build walls on minor settlements!! It's so arcady and lame like this! ...Just make Medieval II again with better graphics, that's all I ask of them! XD
And I also agree that the battles are becoming waaaay too short. I miss those huge maps in which you could actually use flanking tactics! Now you just charge and hit buttons for unleashing lame abilities... There is no more strategy on the game!
You can build walls in Warhammer....
I agree with you. New TW games are so arcade. Battles suck cause lack of strategy. And settlement managment... Gosh !!!
What do you mean? Medieval II used the same building archetypes, warhammer just made it more clear and got rid of the unnecessary buildings. Also medieval II isnt as good as you remember it is, now that its competing with our newer games. Clarification: These are things fanboys and shills would say to you.
Napoleon city management is chaos. You have no taxes, and I already built theatres and operas for you. Then you rebel and somehow fabricated full fledged, experienced armies out of nowhere
For me, the biggest problem i've had over the last few titles is the speed of battles. They just go too fast before they're patched. The older games had slower battles which allowed more tactics to be used and also to be able to enjoy the look of those battles
also i didn't even know how much i agreed with you until you said that when u play pre-shogun total war games it doesn't feel like your playing a game
and also the one thing that makes me sad is that since shogun 2 generals don't matter that much, because you can always hire new generals
and another thing, since empire total war they have made free siege equipment, they should make it that ladders have to be built before the battle
what? no, you have to build segue equipments in all total wars
Raymond Berry yeah but in recent games they've had 'free' seige equipment, like the ladders that come out of nowhere in warhammer, or grappling ropes in Empire, or wall climbing in shogun
I feel like Rome 2 is in a good place now. The Emperor Edition significantly decreased battle speed. It's now the slowest from any of the recent (Shogun 2 onwards) TW games.
Also, I agree with everything you said. Medieval 2 is the height of the series in my eyes.
A matter of preference. Shogun 2 is definitely more polished and a more grand game. Definitely my second favourite.
Which reminds me, a pity about Empire not being more polished and better researched. Caroleans with bayonets? What sorcery is this?? :O
if you play empire with Darth mod, IMO its the best TW game (in terms of campaign) you can create huge battles (10000+) huge empires awesome naval battles.
Napoleon is a better game, but the campaign is boring compared to empires.
I guess I should try again to fix it up. Got any opinions on Imperial Splendour? That total conversion mod that seems to add a lot tof awesome stuff, even if they never managed to fix the bloody pikemen.
Never got into Medieval 2 singleplayer. I like to dick around in custom battle but some how the campaign in M2TW never caught my interest
***** it is pretty fun, i recommend venice
You forgot about one of the biggest issue of newer total wars: Modding tools. Its getting worse and worse. This is why med2 is still quite popular, thanks to so impressive mods like third age. But i guess they prefer releasing new game+dlc for more cash grab than making a longer lived tittle.
thats why they dont make modding tools - they dont want their games to be longlasting masterpieces , they want as many cashgrabs as possible - look at it this way - if we relese modding tools some people might make ogres from trools and might make a nation and in that case we have to either not make a ogres DLC or we have to work harder to get to justifiable quality to be able to make a DLC and expect people to buy it .
Well yea i know the idea why hold out on mod tools, but we all would rather have them included. Not our fault that lots of mod are way better than vannila, damn lazy and greedy companies
if they actually made a really good game we wouldnt have to mod it and they wouldnt have to patch it up , also some mods are just for personal preferances .
That logic sucks though. Everyone bought Barbarian Invasion or Kingdoms, new features meant more mods. Even with the current dlc system, each extra campaign means more focused mod possibilities. They could sell the same, and gain more loyalty / happy costumers. Look at bethesda for instance, you can make million modifications to their games, and yet everyone buys new dlc.
The thing to remember about Warhammer though is that their deal with Games Workshop prevented them from being able to provide any serious modding tools. (GW wasn't willing to support anyone altering the image of their products)
I think it was a total waste not to have a Yi Soon Shin DLC for Shogun. It would be awesome to have a naval focused campaign and to include Ming China and Joseon Korea
yi sun-shin* which would be awesome
yi late shin
The idea is great be can't be done, consistently speaking that is.
First of all Admiral Yi is, undoubtly, one of the greatest military commander of all time - from logistic to military training, from military engineering to actual combat, as well versed in methodically planned strategies than improvising a plan with limited ressources... there's close to nothing this man seemed not being able to achieve. So it make sense to believe that we could make a total war game out of him. But the problem is that, for this particular campaign, the odds are so overwhelmingly in the Japanese's favors that it would be impossible to reproduce that conflict in videogame condition (at it's peak, the Admiral Yi faced odds of a 10 to 1 in terms of ships.) The fact that, taking into account the means and technology available at the time, the Admiral Yi Soon managed to utterly crush the Japanese says a LOT about his talent at warfare. But total war players would never be able to reproduce what he did, because - except if he's a complete amateur - the opponent controlling the Japanese would never fall to Yi's tactics the same way the Japaneses did historically because the game's mechanics would allow him to visualize the battlefield with the software's perspective and not the human one.
Let me developp a bit further on that point. At the Battle of Myeongnyang, Yi's navy faced and defeated a 133 strong Japanese fleet with merely 12 of his own *without taking a single loss*, all thanks to a very special water current found at the geographical place where the battle was fought - a current that Yi was fully aware of it's peculiar trait and precisely on which he used bet everything. In real life Yi could do that because he knew the terrain and had exclusive access to the geographical knowledge of his homeland geographical and topological water and landscape, while the Japanese did not - in a Total War game *every* player can be aware of those informations. That simple fact completely blow away any chances of accurately depicturing the conflict from a realistical standpoint because it would be impossible to surprise an opponent that would be arleady aware of the places in which an ambush would take place and would adequatly do his best to avoid them.
A bit late, but there is a mod for Shogun 2 called "Morning Sun". The latest version which is 2.0 or something includes Korea China, Japan, and a bit more around that area. I've never been too interested in the area so I can't say exactly what's there, but the mod is really nicely done and if you look it up you can probably get it.
they need a new engine. warscape just does not cut it. WE NEED A UNIT COLLISION MECHANIC
I agree man. Collision in units is a big problem. You can get a unit that's fighting another to reposition around it while taking minimal losses. Makes no sense. No men would run away from a 1v1 during a big battle just to reposition.
Exactly been saying this for years! But to be fair they did a pretty good job with Warhammer.
i'm sorry if i'm a noob but dont they have at least one unit collision mechanic like when one unit gets charged by horses
Nah, it's not that. Collision is when units touch eachother and can't walk through eachother. It's like if you are in a crowd of people. In real life, you can't go through people. In Rome 2, your soldiers can literally walk through eachother.
I miss Rome 1.2 cav charges.. Was empire the first game with the warscape engine?
The "dumbing down" of gameplay is a general thing in games nowadays, it seems....
PandinusRex it absolutely is, however there are smaller development companies coming out with the more realistic games on the opposite end.
I know it’s a different genre, but in the FPS world while Battlefield and COD are continuing to dumb down WW2 we got Post Scriptum on the other side of the spectrum. The market provides
General: Damn it we lost a knight unit , and here there arent any knights to recruit in egipt . Shall we hire some local or mercenary alternatives ?
Soldier: Why sir , we can just hire some fine scottish knights .
General : It doesnt work like that you illiterate peasant!
Soldier (pulls a unit of knights out of his arse) : Yes it does sir !
IMPERIALITY of Serbia I'm so confused... and, scared...
One of the things that really bothers me is how dumbed down Warhammer is, and how poorly balanced, etc.
The AI cheats in this game more than ever. I've got every achievement in the game (minus the elf ones now that DLC is coming out + the get 10 allies since factions don't like to ally much on legendary). The AI bonuses on legendary make the battles virtually impossible to win unless you have super beefcake army vs regular shitty units. Even then, every battle is basically a fight to the death since the enemy units will repeatedly turn around and return and every single one will fight you to the absolute death.
The fact the AI can just completely ignore terrain is annoying. Your armies positions on the maps arelargely irrelevant. Enemy armies are virtually impossible to catch unless the AI basically lets itself be caught by you. I don't know how many times I've marched in circles trying to catch a single stack that constantly outpaced me. The fact they could outrun my army, go besiege a settlement, sack/raze it, then move out of range again within the same turn is a constant source of frustration. The fact AI can blithely ignore rivers in regular march is retarded.
The sieges being cut down to an approach to one wall with no actual city really hurts the game. Sieges are not fun. At all. They all play out identically. And I guess that's next major gripe. Basically every battle feels the same.
I guess it's not like Rome 2 though where you play as the Romans and a single unit can kill 700 enemies (Had 1 unit of Principes singlehandedly destroy an entire army), but eh.
I guess my biggest gripe with Warhammer Total War is that I haven't had the epic moments I've had in Shogun 2 or Rome 1. Rome 1: Faced a 5, full-stack combined force of SQPR, Scipii and Brutii. They besieged Rome. If I lost the battle it'd open up a front I'd have difficulty resecuring. If I won, I'd have achieved victory. It was 10000 vs 2000. I won and had 500 troops left.
Shogun 2? So many crazy moments. Most recently, I played Fall of the Samurai. Was besieged. I had 2000 men garrisoning a fort. Got besieged by a combined force from Obama and one of the red/pinkish factions. 13000 men vs
" I've got every achievement in the game" " (nearly 300hours)" didnt look like you tried to enjoy the games atmosphere...
That's indeed a problem with modern players, they jsut rush for achievements/objectives are if it was a competition, that's why I like teh fact that steam achievements doen't give you anything
Takeda Shingjen WTF does that mean?
JonatasMonte did you guys really ignore everything he said because of one little not really important thing he said?
Yup, this is the problem with modern people. They really can't think. They will imagine some little gripe, some little thing and they will ignore everything that was said. This is why I usually block people under my comment section. It is waste of time to debate with huge chunk of them.
I want the campaign map to as simple as in m2tw because u see how far u have come and u feel like a real king.
agreed
definitely.
I realy liked empire's campaing map, having random buildings outside the city meant raiding and rampaging armies meant something, it also made the map feel more alive.
But alas, its completely pointless with rome2's retarded no units without generals bullshit, since you can't send 3 line infantry a skirmsher and an outdated cannon to guard your sipce farm from marathan raiders.
The older maps were so much better in my opinion compared to this region bullshit that constricts the map.
Ya after playing m2tw for so long then transitioning to Napoleon I was like "wtf"?
You make some good points. I have to agree with the siege battles and multiplayer, especially with Warhammer. Its by far my biggest gripe with the game. I also loved how in Medieval 2 when you upgraded your troops Armour, that would be visually represented on the battle map. I think since Med 2 thats never been in any future titles, and in Warhammer that would of been awesome considering the different items you can collect and equip on your lords/heroes post battle.
That's a great point. I really enjoyed that in medieval 2 too
+Pixelated Apollo you should do a warhammer campain
Medieval 2 one of the best moments I had was defending york with my heir to the throne against a surprise scottish attack with only wooden walls. I had 3 spear militia and 3 peasant archers. I didn't want to lose Prince Robert and the order of battle said I had no chance. But I destroyed one of the battering rams so they could only break one gate. Their army formed a long line waiting to get in because I had 2 militia blocking them and 1 in reserve. Meanwhile my archers pounded the troops exposed. Eventually I had to commit my reserve militia and things were not looking good. I had inflicted huge casualties but didn't want to lose my faction heir. Then an arrow luckily killed the enemy general as my men were wavering and I took the opportunity to charge my generals body guard through the gate to break their remaining force.
Cant really do that anymore with the bad collision detection. Battle lasted 30 minutes.
We've all had fantastic battles like that. I think it's part of what made that game so great.
I once had a 3 hour long battle against the Timurids' strongest army against a small garrison, when reinforcements were a whole extra turn away. At one point, I had some crossbowmen on the walls who ran out of ammo, so I had to bait the elephants near my ballista towers in order to kill them. Every one of my units had routed at least twice before I finally lost and they earned the most Pyrrhic of victories. I will probably never forget some of the amazing battles from M2TW.
Frank Bumstead I had this time in napoleon I was defending cleves mark I had defended from French attack with my 1 unit ofPrussian fusiliers, 1 unit of line infantry, and 6 pounder artillery. I had defended for 2 other attacks and my army was battered I had about 2/3 of my line infantry a half of my Prussian fusiliers, my general was fine but I only had one cannon left, the French used their largest army in the north east
You hit the nail on the head there, I used to love this stuff and was infuriating when you lost one of your best generals who you built up to be "the conqueror" or "the terrible" or "the great" but when you won it was awesome, but thinking back Napoleon was the best but MTW2 had huge problems, like the "distance to capital" made crusading almost impossible and the fact that it jumped 2 years a turn and you finally build your Knights Templar and there rubbish cause everyone's now using Guns or the Mongols barely had a chance to do anything because the Timurid's just rocked up. Also love the appearing factions. But completely agree, I would often replay games because I experienced up a unit of Knights that I had for years or rest armys to rebuild that unit that had survived countless heroic victories or even use my priests in a way that I got fond of them...it lost a lot of that, it's coming back a bit now which is good
Not to mention as he said in sieges where you kept your cavalry in reserve waiting for the right moment and angle to throw them in right before your spearmen broke or taking a risk and rushing them at there battering ram allowing them only ladders or siege towers to get in. Charges like that where you rolled the dice were what made the battles tactically brilliant
Modern games you charge the rear and units do not rout, a fucking joke.
You said if siege battles are bad in the next historical title "ugh, I will still play total war but come on". So if CA makes a terrible game you will still buy it and play it.... so basically they can make a terrible game and you will still get it, why would they make a better game? Rome 2 ended my Total War purchases, the game was insulting to the player base. My personal opinion is nothing will improve in the brand if there is no financial pressure for them to change.
I'm looking forward to the day they put micro transactions into their games.
Imagine CA actually commenting on this...
What is CA
california
+Nonenowhere Creative Assembly
+KarWong lmaaaaao
they most likely would but with random accounts xD
Automatic Replenishment ruined it. In Med 2 lifes were valuable and Cities took long to grow, it was not just " build one building and wait 3 Turns". The system of going back home and retraining your brave souls who have died for their country and bled for honor. Med 2 was EPIC, TW today is "only" fun. I gathered close to 300h already again in TWWH, but only because I´m so happy they are going into Fantasy finally. Also Archers feel week, no impact on hit, no staggering unless you were hit by 3 or 4 times. And also, the new TW´s look absoultly stunning but give you less and less time to see the battles as you are forced to micro every second if you not want to loose.
I like the idea of supply lines (but it has to be implemented with real thought put in). Think of Med 2 and say you successfully crusaded Acre. The replenishment would be extremely slow or none at all. It would increase as you get buildings like a port or buildings, but you can never recruit a new feudal knight there until much, much later if at all.
Idiot
I agree with the single player battle stuff -- in the old games, even though there was no blood, fights just felt more visceral.
I think one of the reasons is that the people were frail -- except for a handful of units, a single good hit will kill a man. It was also way harder to replenish your elite units, so you were really sad when any one of them died.
Plus, I think the units just did a better job of keeping formation, so fights when you're say, the Romans just looked more organized.
You are right - because they tried to make the Games easier/more comfortable and more compatible to the casual Gamer they made it more easy to fill damaged Units. In Rome 2 if you had a special Armory in a Region in the East you needed to get your Army there to get the Equipment. With the most recent Patch in Rome 2 you can upgrade the Armor on your Army everywhere you do not need to send your Army to the Province with the Armory anymore.
The reason for this was the engine was different and just had better collision, at least visually..
I think for the next game they should balance such things as if you want a province unit bonus to become global you would have to build a special supply chain building in province that will have a relatively high upkeep representing the cost of keeping the logistic running through your empire.
I remember when the History channel was using Rome 1 to recreate battles as a way to understand the ancient world. It was amazing. I remember watching them do their own version of the 300 with their own custom units for the battle, and then breaking down the battle for education.
How about the bad collission system of new TW games? And the soldiers only fighting 1vs1 by time
What's even worse is that CA's focus on aesthetics (i.e. battle choreography) practically nullifies the use of tactics. Soldiers fight one on one completely ignoring battle formations, therefore at the end we have a huge blob of soldiers fighting each other individually. Which means that there is no point in using tactics, since it will all en up in a huge blob, and any numerical advantage of a unit against another unit is not utilised, since all the idle soldiers in a unit will not attack an isolated enemy soldier, because soldiers fight ONLY one on one. In addition, I fail to see any impact the ground has on a battle (higher ground, forsts etc). In general, imho total war warhammer lacks completely the one element that built this frachise: battlefield tactics.
Well warhammer kinda fixed that at least cmpaerd to attila and rome 2
the whizkid I just want all their new games to have the out of battle features of tw warhammer
The collision is one of the details that made the old TW games so good. I used to just play custom battles just to watch the units fight each other. You'd get this one hoplite fending off three Persians at a time only to be stabbed in the back by a fourth. Now it's just the lame 1v1 dueling that makes watching movie battles so cringeworthy sometimes.
really if you play the game (Warhammer) it has the most diverse units ( in terms of the way you use them or combining that unit combined with a certain spell to form a really different army build that is nothing like your other army builds that you have for the same faction).
Plus the factions play vastly differently from each other, as oppose to every other total war game were all the factions were reskins of themselves with some acceptions, but for the most part they all played the exact same.
Warhammer in many ways was a disappointment, and that is one of the my many gripes with this game. It has so much untapped potential that would be easy to implement and the lack of many things in this game gave people that are new to the warhammer fantasy universe the wrong impression. But if you know the lore then you know the warhammer fantasy universe has so so much potential for feature rich gameplay that was not even touched in the game.
This genuinely has the POTENTIAL to be the best total war, if people just get excited about enough to force CA to do the right thing. Sorry hope my rambling did not want bother anyone, I just have so many ideas, and I just get so passionate about total war and especially about warhammer as a universe it does not does not deserve such unfair treatment.
Thank you for reading my comment.
I'd love to see an American Civil War Total War game. That would be amazing, if they did it right.
meee tooo
mod for empire of it btw
www.moddb.com/mods/american-civil-war-the-blue-and-the-grey
I don't think they'll do that, 'cause there will be only two nations. Check every TW games, Always more than 10 factions ^^
Fall of the Samurai gives you a taste of it, but lacks variety artillery; no mortars, howitzers, grenades...
A bit late but in "Warhammer Battlemarch" (it's like a really old version of warhammer total war but no city management, and worse but I still liked it) you could customize your troops from the helmet variation they wear, down to the clothing patterns and colors... was hoping this would make it into warhammer total war too.
War Bastard
Yeah I was really disappointed once I found out there was no avatar conquest... such a BIG missed opportunity, but I guess if the game featured only the provinces of the empire we would have it, and much more.
Yes M'lord your i con is a peasent from warcraft rigth
hendra harianto
Yes M'lord
War Bastard
It's an interesting concept, and a huge missed opportunity for warhammer.
Unfortunately Battlemarch was awful in pretty much every other mechanic. :'(
My two biggest problems with Warhammer:
Combat is too fast (as you laid out)
The DLC is too expensive. £14 for a single army is just too much. £5-8 each and Id buy them all. At present, I have none of them and until they have a hefty sale, itll stay that way.
Which also means, Im playing with the same races over and over. After 120+ hours Iv walked away meaning all new DLC that I might have picked up where I still playing now I pass over.
Quothcraft and
YES! Finally SOMEONE understands what i've been preaching about since Shogun 2 was released!
The amount of fanboys i've had turning down my view.
I know exactly what you mean. Napoleon was near to perfect in the gritty realism in its battles. The fact that the armies were so large and, not only that, so similar in composition (only minor differences from nation to nation) meant that fights lasted a long time and ACTUAL STRATEGY was needed to defeat an online opponent.
Shogun 2 onwards has just been an appeal to the wider audience because CA have realised they are making a lot of money from their sales. Instead of making games for us hard core strategy fans they have taken away from the strategy and focused on the visualisation of the games. That's why Shogun 2 had MORE focus on the individual sword fighting of each little unit than the actual strategy - the wider audience loved being able to watch this but for us long term fans it was a negative turn in the series.
I think Rome 2 is a bit better now on that front, but it is still "arcadey" and quick.
The ONLY part I disagree with you on (and it is a huge disagreement) is the avatar conquest.
I believe the WORST game for online play was Shogun 2 BECAUSE it was unbalanced.
For me, Napoleon was the height of online strategy. The fact that each army was SO similar in that army compositions were always going to be x amount of line infantry, x amount of cavalry etc. meant that strategy was required. The amount of times i've seen casual players being forced to use oblique orders and such to win battles on Napoleon is incredible. Shogun 2 was just like "Yeah, here's some cheesy graphics and cool fight animations, have a load of units and charge into a big mosh pit to watch the soldiers duelling - oh, don't forget to buy our red paint dlc pack."
Just because we disagree with you doesn't make us "fanboys", it just means we don't value what you do.
+Shrike No, I mean literally fan boys. I'm not labelling everyone who disagrees, just the fanboys.
SkipperPlaysTW oh, well, fair enough then.
Shogun 2 to was ok
Haha very funny but agrees
YES YES A MILLION TIMES YES! This is EXACTLY my thoughts. Battle speed is ridiculous and arcady. for me the new games are practically unplayable without mods. For everything they made beautiful in Warhammer, they ruined the gameplay. The maps are basic and often terrible, HUGE battles are over in 5-7 minutes, accuracy is outrageous. Units just melt when they touch. A tabletop game would last for 2+ hrs. There is no reason that everything dies so fast. Lets just call a duck a duck. They are DUMBING DOWN total war.
Also does anybody else feel like this game is NOT FINISHED? No unit banners, No squad leaders, no musicians, no seasons, Bretonnia isn't even playable without mods, super redundant maps. 10 hours and I'm already bored with this game. I have over 200 hrs on each of Rome2, Empire, and 300 hours on Medieval 2.
That's all purely a matter of your opinion. lmao
Well, Rome I was also fast pace. I have always seen armored units run across the maps like they were Usain Bolt. For me, only Medieval 2 made great use of speed rate and stamina.
CobaltLotus I guess its just my opinion that there are no unit commanders, banner bearer, musicians, or seasons. There is an entire unplayable unfinished faction. There are only maybe 3 or 4 maps for each region. Unit selection doesn't even come close to previous games. And the diplomacy still punishes you for playing well.
I totally agree! The Arcade-style have made the series less interesting to play. Very nice video Apollo, and hope CA will listen to it!
Please give us a new Empire, Medieval or Lord of the rings!!
Glorious_Britannia With the entire world now.
No! I can only accept The Lord of The Rings in New Engine. Same for Medieval III
They should make one of the Total War games about Modern day.
how would you do that?
Westeros.
Wait... I have never touched the multiplayer while playing 600+ hours Shogun2, Medieval 2, Third Age and Empire.
I thought most people only play Total War for singleplayer.
Third Age =/= Total War game
Thanks Pixie for this video which nobly exemplifies the correct way to create dialogue about a subject. Your channel is growing for a reason. Thank you Sir.
I miss when an army could move without a general. I know some likes this, but i'd like to move soldiers from one region to another or split my army without buying a general.
The Casuals are destroying strategy games.
Hearts of iron 3 vs line drawing simulator with dlc
I thought I was the only one who felt that way. Everybody I know personally loved Shogun 2 except me because I hate how fast paced it was! I guess it's just because when you like history enough, it's about the quality of the historical feel, not the fast-paced arcade type style non-history buffs like. In Empire Total War, I actually felt like I was an English king set out to colonize America for resources. In M2TW, I felt like an Irish patriot reuniting the clans of Ireland. In Napoleon Total War, I felt like I was a relentless Emperor conquering Europe and other riches beyond that.
I generally agree with you, but i have to say i had most of my longest battles in Shogun 2 because positioning and strategy was extremly important if you have an similar skilled opponent, so some of my battles lasted for 40-55min and it felt like a real achievement if you won these.
Shogun 2 was too fast and no unit variety in factions imo.
I loved that in Shogun 2 being hit by a missile means your out. Seeing some soldiers in Rome 2 walking around with 6 pila in their bodies is just ridiculous
Shogun 2 was great! But I agree. It was really, really fast paced. The campaigns are very short, and it was hard to recreate the epic campaigns of say, Rome 1, or even Rome 2. And that's what I wanted from Warhammer. I wanted to carve out an Empire through bloody battle after bloody battle and then fight a vicious struggle for survival for power against Chaos - but that doesn't happen. Ever. Either i face them on Normal/Hard and they're a fucking cakewalk to defeat or I play on VH and Legendary and watch as Archeron is turned from the Everlasting into the Ever-gaping when the AI mercilessly rape his faction into a fine powder and take a big shit on him.
The sieges are absolutely appalling. The length of the battles is completely tragic, especially when on the table-top the game can go on for hours and hours. What a fucking shame, I couldn't agree more Pixie.
"Nobody gets upset at cosmetic DLC". -- That's an interesting sentence to say.
I think he meant free DLC.
Well it's fair enough really, if people want to spend money on a certain colour scheme or whatever that's their money and that's fine, I personally get no enjoyment from it whatsoever and so for me it's a huge waste of money, but I don't have a problem with other people getting it. The irritating thing is when you go pay to win, like Sony did with Planetside a while ago (before they reversed the changes). Or when you release a game that actually isn't complete and then release the rest as DLC (which arguably Warhammer may be sort of doing).
Honestly, what is wrong with cosmetic DLC? It doesn't affect gameplay, meaning literally no one needs to buy it to be competitive, and it gives people who want a little extra flair to have a way to do so. Sure, it's cash grabby, but the reality is studios need to make money to make games. Cosmetic DLCs give them a way to do so without affecting the balance and playability of their titles.
At the risk of seriously derailing the conversation, how did Sony make Planetside pay to win? Pay to Win means that you can buy an advantage over your opponents. There are no items that *require* cash to unlock, and none of the unlockable items are even upgrades over the starting equipment.
Granted, Daybreak has made some more questionable changes in the recent past, but to my knowledge, Sony never rolled out any Pay to Win model in Planetside 2.
Ahh yeah maybe it was Daybreak, not sure exactly when it happened as it was during a period where I was pretty inactive so I'm going off second hand information. Still there's a few slightly pay to win-y things about it even now (energy boosts, buying shield upgrades etc.), but all of these things are either pretty easy to unlock without spending cash or only give you a negligible advantage. PS2 may not have been the best example to pick, but it's what sprang to mind.
i agree that battles are way to fast. :/
Imagine Europa Universalis meets Total War (or Crusader Kings meets Total War). That would be the last game I ever needed.
Paradox is working with Eugen Systems now. So there is a chance that they would be able to combine grand strategy and RTS into new series that would really challenge Total War.
@@Lagmaster33 - doesn't seem like it
You are for sure not the only one that feels this way, and I'm glad you've made your position clear of while loving the TW franchise, you can also dislike the parts that hinder it from becoming a better game.
42O I guess I'm a 'weeb'. Even though I'm not a white person addicted to Japanese culture, but nice try.
42O well you're not wrong, I am of Japanese descent, but I definitely don't see how that at all pertains to the topic at hand. But nice try on trying to get a knee jerk reaction out of me.
42O obvious troll is obvious. I'm not responding anymore, goodbye.
I want Empire 2 and/or Medieval 3... Could you Imagine that..?
Shortly put, they need competition.
Also, Paradox grand strategy games do streamlining well: they are easier to understand and learn and use, but game itself is just as complex and challenging. You mentioned HOI4, and while there are still many features from HOI3 missing, it is just matter of time before HOI4 surpasses HOI3 becouse Paradox actually develops their games post launch, which makes them so much better. Total War should do the same, instead of having Medieval 3, they should have Medieval Total War, Rome Total War, Empire Total War and Shogun Total War, and Warhammer Total War and then just expand on each of them with expansions, patches and DLCs. After maybe 7 years, make Rome 2 that covers entire ancient world, Medieval 2 that covers entire medieval world, Empire 2 that covers entire gunpowder era and Warhammer 2 that covers entire Warhammer world. Shogun would not be needed becouse it would be part of Medieval or Rome or Empire.
Imagine how much better Empire Total War would have been if Napoleon Total War expansion would have been part of it instead of separate game. Then make China Total war that would be part of Empire Total war etc etc and over time Empire Total War would cover entire world.
Now thats what I call a PRETTYDOPESUPERGAMELIFEPROLONGINGSLASHGOODREPUTATIONBRINGINGSLASHHAPPYFANCRETING idea
Paradox do DLC soam the right way, each new DLC is important to the game. CK2 was made like in 2012 and so was EU4 their comunities are still huge and i have 1000 hours on both and still play them with mods like GOT and warhammer
And CK2 and EU4 just keep getting better. And bigger, in the past both CK2 and EU4 had smaller maps with less provinces. And worse perfomance too.
Agreed. Paradox is easily my favorite RTS Studio.
With a bit of effort and local investment in the Nordic countries we could make game companies to compete with the big brands from the US.
Respect for using word "Nordic" instead of Scandinavia.
But don´t invest too much into Finland or else we won´t succeed - weird thing about Finns, when ever we compete on equal terms or have advantage, we do badly. But when ever it is emergency or we are underdog, we do very well.
I really dislike how quickly the battles in Warhammer end. Sieges are the worst, it doesn't feel like I am fighting for the city street by street trying to capture it.
You should play some Paradox games
LOL NOT HOI4.
HOI4 is fucking good.
HOI4 is decent, but I prefer HOI3. I actually did not mind the cluttered management that turned a lot of people off.
Also, Paradox strategy does not let you fight the battles which is the appeal of Total War.
alexbond45
I thought the same when I first started playing but even after a couple of hours you can see why they made the changes they did. There's never going to be a game that pleases everyone I guess.
Paradox is shit.
CA please bring back free for alls. My greatest total war moments were the 8 player ffa scored resolution battles on Rome total war which would last for almost an hour. Very good points pixe I enjoyed this allot. Rome 2 was such a let down.
Ohh yeah I forgot to mention that. FFAsare amazing I hope they add more to multiplayer in general
New Sub here Apollo...I've been watching your siege vids like crazy the past few days and I appreciate your detailed commentary and how enthused you are about the battles. My question is this, as a gamer who's interested in picking up the Total War franchise, based on the issues you've described, which game would be the best starting point and give me the most for my buck?
imo I think Medieval 2, or Napoleon would be a good place to start. But also Rome 2 is quite enjoyable.
Personally I preferred how Rome total war and empire was. The new format is harder for me. I think Shogun was the last good one.
Because you idiot
Oh my god I feel exactly same about Medieval II games, about how you actually really cared about your troops and tried not only to win but also to minimaze losses. Especially in singlepalyer mode, also thing about starting a war. It was brilliant in MW II for me. How your moves were affecting your relations with nations and pope was sometimes pain in the ass. And that was good because that's what made it so interesting. I really hope they'll made another mediaval game with feeling that you actually are in the battlefield.
oh and siege battles were amazing... i remember sieging cities for 40+ minutes :D when i had to watch my ammo so i can destroy critical towers and gate in second layer of walls.
I like that, unlike other TW youtubers that are bussy liking CA's ass(sorry for being a bit vocal), you don't just take whatever CA gives you and praise them for it but actually criticise them for some Things. If I could subscribe a second time I'd certainly do it.
I can totaly agree
Yeah, this vid was needed and wonderful for us that actally care about Total War.
I strongly agree with you!
I suggest watch Reynold Sanity's video...
total war has lost its soul since shogun 2. it became more focused on graphics rather than gameplay because of fast battles... disregarding many mechanics. Hopefully Medieval 3 retrieve total war's grandness...
One of my favourite things in Rome I's campaign were "seeing who" the young 'family' members would turn into. You didn't have direct control over their personalities, but could effect their personalities. Leave a lazy guy in a town too long, and they'd turn fat. Loosing battles, or winning battles. Letting routing enemies flee the battle, or killing everyone could turn a general into a tactician or a tyrant. And other times they seemed to have a mind of their own. some turning out to be gay, which would often result in them not marrying or having kids. Others turning out to be womanizers, occasionally getting assassinated easy... and still others being judgemental stiffs that made everyone except their wife and kids hate them.
Loved seeing how some of those guys would turn out randomly.
RTW2, you had too much control over the generals personalities.
Love ur thoughts totally agree. Another thing is formations, bring those back besides one or two. Also troops are becoming very Rick, paper ,scissors. It would be nice to have some more diversity in the troops for future games. But still there streering more towards cut and dray troop builds. And if that's the case more formations.
Rock"
A healthy dosage of nostalgia but I feel like Medieval 2 has never been bested for me everything since has never quite matched it for immersion.
no I only played napoleon seriously about a year ago.
I meant me
ohhh i see :P
i completely agree, rome, medieval and napoleon had some kind of immersion that the games dont have since shogun 2. even though i enjoyed shogun 2 a lot!
PA pointed out one of the immersion reasons very well, there was no soldier reinforce on the go, you had to reinforce from your cities so you were were conservative with troops = you cared more about strategy and tactics = you were more immersed
This is really a love letter to total war, don't mistake it for anything else. Everything mentioned here needed to be said, thanks for sharing this fam. Come on guys! Let's make Total War great again!
The musket round i sent through my neibourgers brain was also a love letter xD
As far as I was aware, CA weren't able to include weather/daytime aspects in the Total war: Warhammer game, because Warhammer themselves tied their hands. They didnt want anything in Total War Warhammer to be canon and such didnt want 'time' to be represented in the game. Lots of content issues in Total War Warhammer specifically are due to licencing disputes, not laziness...unfortunately. However I agree with all your points. Bring back the old total war!!
Well, there goes pixelated apollo's early access to total war games.
Nah, he kept his mouth shut until everyone bought it in the first week, that's why this video is coming out now, and besides this kind of criticism is in no way bad to total war, it allows them to see what big voices have to say about the franchise
Randomguyonyoutubewithnovidsandanywaynobodywillbeabletoreadmynamesoyay i understand that, and I agree, if anything that was a comment that was bashing CA's policy on early access.
One thing I don't get with CA is that they never used the avatar system from Shogun again! It was so fun to make your own army, paint it and so on. I played more multiplayer matches in that game than all other total war games combined.
WHY IS IT NOT IN WARHAMMER!?! Warhammer was bloody made for a system like the avatars from Shogun.
I think this is a problem across all big budget games. They are getting stripped down and more expensive. Companies are prioritising graphics over content and the games are suffering because of it.
Its been a slow process but compare the more modern total wars with the older ones. They have so much less stuff in them. I won't ever forget playing Medieval 1 when I was younger and conquering so much land and then my ruler died and it came up with "Your ruler will go down in legends". It's small stuff like that, even if it is just flavour, that really brought them to life. Your actions, even in skirmishes, felt like they had consequences and now they don't - its sad that its not just the Total War franchise that suffers this problem but seemingly all big budget games
Well done with the presentation and explaining your points, especially about the feel of the battles and changes with units. One thing I would add is the forced restriction of armies via "must have a commander". I actually cared about my generals more when they were not necessary for the army, but still significant members of the faction.
I still remember some epic battles in Rome and Medieval II... My precious Praetorian cohort, Sacred band, Muire, Polish guard - how I cherished you and even marched you back home across a continent to save you.
For future historical titles, I really think they should do a few things at the very least.
1. Get rid of activatable abilities. Way too arcadey, maneuvering and knowing when to strike should be what gets the victory, not activating the headhunt ability or something.
2. Bring back retraining from Medieval 2 and Rome. You'll feel way more attached to your units if you have to spend money to replenish them instead of just waiting a few turns for them to regenerate.
3. Make stuff look less clean. Not just the battlefield itself, but the UI. I want the popups, tooltips etc. to look like scrolls or something instead of those bland borders from Rome II and Attila.
4. Make it a lot harder to knock down walls with catapults. Seriously, seeing the mighty walls of Constantinople topple to the ground after about seven hits is really stupid. A catapult should have to expend almost all of its ammunition to take down a section of stone wall like that.
I have to disagree with no. 4. That's where fun vs realism arguments come
I think it would be more fun to have to come up with more strategies than bashing down every single wall with a few lobbed rocks. Realism doesn't necessarily equal not fun.
At last somebody voiced his opinion about the recent total war games. Thank you Apollo. LETS HOPE CA WATCHES THE VID
It's so adorbale how you care about the individual soldiers. That, my good man, is heart, and you should never lose it.
They need to move away from the pre-destined mathematic calculations for unit combat. It makes it too set in stone. Before in med 2 or Rome 1, there was an air of uncertainty in every engagement between two units as the combat was based on attack speed, animation collisions and suchlike. Nothing was pre-calculated as it has been since Empire Total War and the advent of the Warscape engine.
You could have a damaged units still cut its way through a full strength but inferior unit instead of the game essentially pre-calculating the engagment and coming to the conclusion that your damaged superior unit will not defeat the unit it is attacking.
I've lost count of the amount of times I've had very good but damaged units in med 2 and Rome 1 beat full strength but inferior units simply due to the better skill (which meant faster attacking animations and more attacking animations on target) my unit had as well as the better armour and attack rating.
I also want to go back to being able to have armies that dong have a named general with them.
Thirdly, scrap multiplayer completely. Ever since it was added in Shogun 2 (I dont remember it at all in any previous games) the games have become every increasingly unrealistic, arcade-like, unrealistically 'balanced' and, in my opinion, boring.
Fourthly, get rid of the city system that has been in place since Empire. Let me build my cities like I could in Rome 1 or Med 2. I want plenty of buildings and factors to take into account so I can actually say I am empire building. The current system is extremely game-like and unrealistic. As a branch of this, I want to have the tax systems of Med 2 or Rome 1 back, as in I want to be able to set taxes per city instead of as a blanket over my entire empire. Or let me create my own 'tax zones' which I can divide my empire into so I can set different tax rates for different areas.
Fifthly, the public order system especially in the most recent games (Rome 2 onwards) is atrocious and ridiculously over-complex. CA needs to return to either the public order system used in the Empire-Shogun 2 days or to the system used in the Rome 1-Med 2 days.
Lastly, unit collision. I find it astonishing that the recent Total War games have absolutely no collision or fuction for the push and shove typical to melee combat. The very first Total War game Shogun Total war had this, and the series had it all the way up till Med 2. Afterwards they went ot the vastly inferior warscape engine. Which is a piece of shit. They need a new engine, preferably one that does not rely on pre-calculated bullshit that takes all uncertainty out of combat or has no collisions for troops in combat.
EDIT: On the campaign map, I hate that they ahve streamlined it so much and made it boring and bland. One thing I do like though is the in-the-field replenishment.
The only game that's felt arcadey to me has been Warhammer, though I feel this mostly comes from OP heroes and whatnot. Normal soldiers in Warhammer are mostly filler and that's something I don't like.
In my opinion The last total war games which had close epic battles and time consuming and tactics, is medieval 2. It forms its own line of battle, and if you do not send in the broken units with cavalry lasts so much fighting. It is the best because the units move slowly and realistically. Shogun 2 is nice but the fights are fast enough, there is no an own line of battle at least not as in med 2, and as well the units are moving fast .. Empire (played with mod) is gorgeous, sea battles and exciting land, however, I prefer melee combat. Rome 2 apart from the graphic does not give me the same feeling, of med 2, empire and Shogun 2 and rome 1 .. Med 2 remains the best in terms of sieges and as well as melee combat.
I think it would be better to retrain units like in Medieval 2
The system was, that you couldn't spam units you are just now able to recruit.
Like, if you got the building to finally recruit feudal footknight, you could only recruit 2 or 3 of them. it made you much more attached to those units, especially elite units because you were like "I just got one feudal knight unit, if they get hurt, I can't retrain them for 4 turns"
You werent just flinging them into combat because you were already recruiting 10 more of them, you needed them for dangerous situations and important battles.
Thats one thing I like about the old TW titles.
Agreed that system needs to come back just like the time of the battles. But he at least there are a ton of mods for that btw i still enjoy tw games
Opinion: So much of the atmosphere was lost when they went from the old "parchment" style world map to a crappy looking 3D map with giants walking around.
We're in a strange place with total war.
On one hand GW killed Warhammer Fantasy so this is like a last hurrah for the franchise and TBH they did the IP justice and brought it to life in the way everyone was hoping when playing older attempts like Mark of chaos. (?)
However it is worrying that we might get a historical game next that is filled with immersion breaking abilities and a lack of staple TW mechanics that just add to the historic titles that we may never see again.
Most we can hope for is that they do well with TW:WH going forward, make their money for CA & GW and then remember the mechanics that made older titles so immersive.
To your first point about the arcadeyness and losing the roleplay aspect, do you think that this is because of your increasing age? I remember playing Rome one for years as a kid in middle school and I would role play the shit out of it. Now i go back and look at Rome and have a hard time playing it. That role play feeling is just too hard to do now. Idk if its because of the decreasing quality of the newer games or because of my age
no, lol im just a nerd and still role play.
In terms of role play, what are your thoughts on CK2?
i agree with you. when i was about 13 i used to play medieval 2 total war. but if i go back to it now it just feels old and boring and i have the urge to play something new,. btw im 17 now so 4 years difference is a big one
+The Lad bro! You lost your imagination in 4 years?!? That's terrible! My cousin and I would load up medieval 2 play all night, drink beers, and rp as generals in our faction's armies in campaign mode. We were in our thirties! After playing warhammer all I can think of is why isn't this more like med2. Yes, I did actually find a wife
Oh my gosh I know
the price of dlc's have been ridiculous since empire compared to medieval 2 that had a great dlc thing ;)
yeah almost 8 Euros for the Chaos DLC is just ridiculous and too high
+Tabu Main 8 bucks for content thats already in the game?
yup the only thing they really added are the quests and 2 cutscenes and that for 8 fucking bucks? I am lucky that I got it for free
DUUUUUDE!!!!! That video prince of macedon put up of the siege defense is what got me started on total war! I only have Medieval 2 and the third age mod, but I've watched a lot of replays of the other games and I understand where your coming from. The Campaign complexity and overall strategy needed to win a battle is what i enjoy most. AAAAAAnd, aesthetic customization is a must for these kind of games. Keep makin awesome videos.
I couldn't agree with you more Apollo. Having been a die hard total war fan since the first shogun, I sadly gave up on this franchise after the slap in the face that was "Rome 2." I just had enough with CA, time and time again they have released games with many empty promises.
I've finally realized that after buying Shogun 1, Rome 1, Empire, Napoleon Rome2, and even shogun 2 that CA really doesn't care about their games. They just care about how much money they can take from you. Literally the battle AI is just as bad or even worse than the AI going back to medieval total war. I was looking forward to Rome 2 so much. They promised so much, such as internal politics, improved siege AI, interesting civil war mechanics. All of that turned out to be false. Just utter garbage, I just cant stand a game company that has been so dishonest just to get a couple bucks, and their DLC's and chaos pre-order ransom crap just continues to prove how greedy this company has really become.
I feel sorry for those people that fell for the very misleading / well choreographed battles that CA put on youtube, because CA is so good at hiding all their unfinished crap under a new coat of paint. This game aint worth 60$. It's the same old game with the same old problems just marketed under a new coat of paint.
I really wish I was less nervous about playing multiplayer. Looks like so much fun, but I'm just too nervous about how well I'm going to do, so I don't join :(
No way man, hop on and have fun. If people get mad that's their problem
their :D sorry im butthurt
Be a positive difference on the battlefield and in chat. Don't worry about getting rofl-stomped; it's the only way you'll get better. :-)
Lags like a bitch in multiplayer.
hheEHehEHEHHEHE
gO to trUtHcONteSTCom, reAD THe PREsent
My fav total war was Empire I loved the scale of the campaign map and loved the line battles.There was nothing like sending 20 ships over to India packed with thousands of troops ready to shoot some elephants up and I really liked the diplomacy in that game too.In every play through there was 2 alliances that split the world's superpowers, which lead to shit going down all across the globe.I haven't really enjoyed multiplayer since Shogun 2 either I don't really feel the need to play multiplayer unless some friends want a game.I haven't bothered buying Attila and will wait for a price drop to get Warhammer(hoping for an awesome LOTR mod further down the line)
+hn to it should be easier Warhammer already has dwarves, trolls and orcs etc.
Pixelated, I have watched your videos for quite some time and you have millions of the epic third age total war battles and medival 2 replays, thank you for making me get medival 2. When you were talking about the immersion when you thought in medival 2 you felt like a empower I got the same feeling. Keep up the good work man.
My problem is my computer is not good enough to play the newer games
Consider yourself lucky
I feel u
When you get more money then by a new computer
total war rome 1 is still the best total war game I have played
Tim Engels I agree
Tim Engels without a doubt
CA should next make. a lord of the rings total war wouldn't you guys agree? the mod third age total war is just a mod with some glitches but it would be better with an OFFICIAL total war for lord of the rings like and replay
Yeah, I would even pre-order because I'd want to have the free Mordor DLC :D
Or just Tolkien themed in general, so we can simulate older battles from the Silmarillion. Would be too good.
+Tollp // NEVER preorder games...ever
+Tollp lmfaooo! no, you can't be the main baddies because that's too logical. you need to pay extra for that.
pay extra for what. like it would cost the same as warhammer. or less any price. they want and why is that a bad. and too logical. did you try to program a game like this
I just started playing total war with Warhammer and i totally agree with you.
A new player base doesn't mean you have to stream line the game mechanics, if i wanted to play a more simple or arcade game i wouldn't have picked up total war in the first palce
Ps: I want warhammer to be less arcady too, if it's fantasy or not doesn't mean anything, the more realistic you can make it feel the more enjoyable it is
12:38 that's freaking true, damn that would be awesome
Hey CA are you listening to this?
Im with you on all points mate.
medieval 2 had the perfect mix of sync kills and standard non animated kills. With Rome 2 everything was sync kills which put a lot of stress on systems because of all the individual animations going on throughout a battle, and also just didn't seem realistic because the charges didn't do anything. Then on the other hand with War hammer there are almost no sync kills, which is unrealistic af because every man/thing in a unit just seem to die from heart attacks. For example a empire swords man will swing at a skeleton and the skeleton will die even though in the animation the swordsman's blade would have no contact with the skeleton... Like wtf.
What about atilla?
I haven't played it so I don't really know :p
same as rome 2
I couldn't agree more Pixie. I don't disagree with anything ANYTHING you said you are completely right. Oh, bye the way, Darthmod just over rules every thing. Darth Vader (that modder of course) should take over c.a. Forget c.a frickin' Sega!
I always find it weird when someone agree 100% with someone but I'm not going to argue. And no I don't think Vader should take over, he's already doing his own business
oh yeah... but maybeu they should use his improved ai...
Darth and the guy that made the Napoleonic realism mod
empire with darth mod could have been the best game ever... if those fucking ottomans didnt build so many armies by turn 100 you cant finish turn anymore...
Yeah that Darth guy was a genius, and they lost their chance. Now he makes his own game, indie yes, but is doing fairly well and players love it.
I love warhammer. But the monstrous/independent units are SOOOOO OP. I get youre a hero or a dino, but if you can stomp through 600+ men basically alone??? So OP
TW needs to bring back the single unit selection nothing is more annoying than having to build a brand new army to keep up public order when in the past total war you could just select like 3 troop groups and send them in to keep public order.
Just... yes. Yes on every level
Especially since constructing garrison buildings doesn't affect public order.
+Gareth Roberts yea, or just to garrison a small force to keep a army at bay, also you could split your army to take small settlements, it was just better made the game more tactical
+Denis Zaruba exactly! They'd just have to do something to keep the AI from running around with single units like crazy, because that was the annoying thing. The AI still does it, they just use small armies. So definitely do that but fix the programming!
+Matthew Tuttle yea, but I don't remember the ai doing that in the games that had this system, but yea they can fix the ai,
I feel exactly the same like you. The fast battles and the horrificly bad sieges are what I fear about coming to the next historical Total War. I don't care much about Warhammer (LotR would be awesome though :D), but if the next historical one is just as bad in these points like Warhammer, I would be really disappointed.
"Next historical title"
*Me from 2021:* Oh ho ho...
As someone who doesn't really play multi-player, I've also had issues with more recent TW titles. The problems you mention with the battles are there, of course, but I have found myself increasingly frustrated with settlement management, particularly in defense.
For example, in Empire, many of your key settlement structures were no longer located safely within the walls, but were instead spread throughout the province where they were easily destroyed by marauding enemies, causing a drain on your time and resources to repair them. They then took this a step further in RTW 2: Now entire settlements are outright forbidden to build walls or defenses, leaving them completely open to enemy assault. The few that can build defensive walls are no better off, because armies spontaneously generate ladders as soon as they lay siege, rather than needing to spend several turns constructing siege engines. It's all become very fast-paced rather than considered and deliberate.
And that's not even getting into further 'streamlining' such as limiting the variety of buildings settlements may construct, or even putting a hard cap on how many buildings you can have in a settlement because it's only 'supposed' to be a minor village. Well maybe I don't want it to be a minor village! Maybe I want to invest the effort in transforming this provincial backwater into a major metropolis and trade hub, like I could in prior games! Don't even get me started on lumping multiple settlements into larger 'province' structures so the entire province suffers if one of the three undefended and undefendable villages gets sacked.
I don't know. It feels like so much of the campaign has become predetermined, and rather than imposing our will upon a world to forge an empire, we now are limited to colouring within the lines laid out for us, and told to feign excitement on cue when our forcibly-undefended frontier gets attacked and seized by some nobody one-city power that nevertheless has four full armies to play with.
The old games? That felt like forging, and managing, a virtual empire. The new ones just... feel like I'm playing a video game. The verisimilitude has been lost, and it all feels so shallow.
Regarding your point about streamlined campaign, I do agree with almost everything. As a paradox games player (EU IV, HOI3 and Vicky2) I feel like the management side of the campaign is programmed for a 5 year old, absolutely 0 realism or depth.
But the one mechanic that annoyed me the most in medieval 2 was the retraining mechanic, absolutely annoying need to micro EVERY unit of your army to replenish them. Instead of the stuff we have now where troops can replenish anywhere, maybe only replenish when garrisonned in certain provinces? I feel like the Medieval 2 system was too much work to the point it was annoying, but the current replenishment mechanics are too simple.
I have to disagree concernig the replenishment, I think it makes your elite units more valuble which makes a huge conquest more challenging. On the other hand if they did it kind of similiar to the way you describe, maybe only aktivate replenishment in provinces were you could recruit these units, it would work too.
Well summarized, fully agree. More campaign complexity: Yes, please! Bringing back the old style of unit micromanagement: Please, no!
Yes but that's why it was important to protect your units and use them wisely to avoid stuff like this happening too much (probably also another small detail that makes you care for your armies more). Also it was important to take into account that retraining uses general recruitment slots so this invites for a smart army managing especially when a larger army is approaching (retraining a very diminished veteran unit or recruiting a new slightly better equipped full unit for the next turn?). Auto-replenishing is comfortable and all but it takes away an extra strategic factor from army managing.
I WANT MEDIEVAL 3!
Only if SEGA gets out of the picture. They are making CA to do these games too fast and they want their money back, multiplied. Thats why CA has to do this stupid DLC policy
sega are cancer
I don't want them to ruin another game with a terrible sequel..
y u make me so sad
Ironically enough enough, I have been buying less total war games. Since Shogun 2, which was okay, I purchased Rome 2 out of hope of getting a good game. It was promptly dashed. I didn't return it out of some sort of loyalty I guess.
I have more interest in Medieval 2 than anything recent. Such a waste.
Warhammer didn't include the F*CKING LIZARDS!!
*FUCKING*
+boltinspartan117 Watcher because its the old world not new world lol
or SKAVEN i was looking forwards to that so much but, in future dlcs im sure theyll add them
they are gonna make 3 warhammer games
oh alright
They need to change the system of routing for example have a certain amount of men in a unit leave first and have them trickle so it should say 130 out of 200 men remaining, 30 fled so there's only 100 fighting some could come back they should also be treated as individuals so once they leave the unit they should not be part of it anymore so like the civilians running away in Attila so they don't all run away in the same direction. Also make the Ai care about one another so you see men dragging their friends away from the fight. This addition would make battles also last longer since units would be coming back as well and not all running away at the same time. there also needs to be less kill moves and more slashing and blocking and dodging. Battles should drag on be bloody and horrific kind of like how in shogun 2 the dead roll around on the ground in pain there should be people walking out of the battle without arms or crawling away without legs and then dying somewhere else with blood trails. Have all of this in the next total war and it will be my favorite hands down.
I agree completely with you
And in warhammer where the fuck did my little city on the campaign map gone
I want to build farms, to improve the defense of my city or to build some church or others things
I Want to convert others territory to my religion and not just to rush from a city to another with my hero
And the worst : WHAT THE HELL ! only 6 factions it is a joke ! Where are the saurus, elvens, oger, beastmen, demons, ... there are more than 15 factions in the warhammer game and I was waiting so much for this game to see them all on the battlefield
And at liest that make any sens the games graphics are always improved but the maps are just ridiculous
My issues with the past couple of Total wars,1: Autoresolve is stupidly OP and doesn't reflect real battles at all. 2 stacks of shit beat 1 elite stack which is more expensive (Leg difficulty). Incorrect in actual battle. 2: Only a couple building slots per settlement, really? Not realistic and restrictive, I prefer medieval's format on this. 3: Trade goods are useless as AI won't trade as much (Leg diff). Also irrelevant amount of money. Better use building slot for something else. Lame!4: Diplomacy is unrealistic, AI mostly wont accept stuff that is in their favor, such as a trade agreement from which they would make more money then I would. (Leg diff, again, not sure about other diff)5: AI get stupid bonuses in order to make them work, otherwise their economy would be shit. (Nearly no upkeep, public order always high and bonuses in battle)Final note: Not sure if most of these issues are due to the difficulty rating, but I think this rating should not affect these things, but just make the AI smarter, not just out to annoy you, even if it is in their disinterest to do so.
I don't care about multiplayer. I'd rather they spend the time on making the AI and single player experience better.
I can understand that
Hey Pixelated Apollo would you be interested in a 1v1 in Napoleon Total War?
can you please bring back M2TW!
i ever had a 2v1 siege battle and im as the single faction fighting 2 Holy Roman Empire as portugal
and thaat battle last for 30 min
sorry that*
The way I play I feel a connection to my units. I play Bretonnia using mods and I got a set of rules for myself, like a Knight Errant unit gets to be upgraded to Knights of the Realm if they get 1silver chevron and so on. (no building exp bonus cheese)
So when you build a unit of weak squire(essentially) to a bunch of veteran knights or hell grail knights over the course of many many turns, you do feel a connection. What I do miss is definitely family trees in Warhammer.
I haven't watched the entirety of this video Apollo, short on time, will get to it eventually. But I got the general gist of it, and I agree with the loss of Roleplay in the recent games.
And army painting hell yeah. I had this battle once where a bunch of knights of the realm went around charging several vampire count units to death where finally they slew the vampire leading the army. I named them Silver Lances after the battle had ended, CA really did miss a huge oppurtunity when it comes to army customization both in multi and single player. But I have a feeling GW might have a hand in that too.