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Total War Games Suggestions: What you want to see change.
Sky
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
On the TotalRome.com forums, we would talk about thing we wanted to see in the game, ideas we would like to see expanded, etc, so I am curious what you guys are thinking.
Really, I want to make a video with these ideas and post on Youtube for Creative Assembly to look at and use as a guide for future projects.
1. Many people wanted to control ship battles, and that looks like it has been done for a new iteration.
2. Many were hoping for an arrangement like Civilization, where you can plant forts and settlements where you wanted. I support this idea for a number of reasons.
I think a concept they could use is allow for the creation of cities anywhere, and forts anywhere. But the cities could only be built so close to each other. Remove these separate "ports," and instead just have the city act as the port.
3. Have forts that can be upgraded, from temporary wood and earth, to more permanent stone and iron. And, have Repair/Retrain options. Maybe even allow armor/weapon upgrade facilities.
4. Have roads that you can create where they go. Have invading armies able to stop, or loot, commerce on these roads.
5. It looks like they are finally adding options to the supporting armies in a battle. I hope we can finally be able to create specialized armies (like say one full of siege engines) and you can give broad to specific instructions for behavior of that army.
6. Laying siege, in Roman times, meant digging siegeworks, trenches, palisades, fences, towers, planting stakes, digging trap falls.
7. On land next to water, allow ships to participate in battles, with either automatic controls, or direct control of the ships. Imagine a battleship cruising along and firing broadsides at enemy formations or fortifications.
8. Allow the creation of wall fortifications across the game map. So a fort can be built at a pass, but a player can build a line of fortifications across a large gap, or to deter enemy movement from one direction.
9. Allow the construction of multiple, and exotic, structures. So if you have a connection of some sort (road or sea lane, plus a friendly relationship) you can build facilities that that foreign faction uses. The drawback being it will generate some unrest. So a player can decide they want to build a race track to stage games, but depending on whom they talk to for that racetrack technology, they could either get some friendly Catholics, some standoff-ish Orthodox, or alien Muslims. Imagine "banks" with Jewish contingents of the population. If there is too much unrest in a nation, the people will damage those structures and slaughter the population related to that. (So building a structure will generate so much of whatever product you want, but the longer built, or bigger the upgrade, the more of a population you will have, and the greater the effect).
10. Allow more then one structure to be built at a time. More structures cost more money, and will increase the population.
11. Get rid of turn based. Instead of it be more "day-to-day" so moving across a map is more realistic. The player decides when to "fast forward." Also, this could allow a player to "raid" rival territory, simply moving unto it and slowly getting money from that land. Moving over enemy land, as a raider, will increase the amount of loot you get, but antagonize the population to you more; so conquering this nation later will make the people more angry with you.
12. Have some facilities exist outside of the city, so they can be targeted and damaged/destroyed by rival factions.
13. Have strategic agents have more options. So merchants will be able to wander around on their own. Have assassins automatically attack targets of opportunity. Have diplomats sitting in your cities help generate peace.
What else guys?
Really, I want to make a video with these ideas and post on Youtube for Creative Assembly to look at and use as a guide for future projects.
1. Many people wanted to control ship battles, and that looks like it has been done for a new iteration.
2. Many were hoping for an arrangement like Civilization, where you can plant forts and settlements where you wanted. I support this idea for a number of reasons.
I think a concept they could use is allow for the creation of cities anywhere, and forts anywhere. But the cities could only be built so close to each other. Remove these separate "ports," and instead just have the city act as the port.
3. Have forts that can be upgraded, from temporary wood and earth, to more permanent stone and iron. And, have Repair/Retrain options. Maybe even allow armor/weapon upgrade facilities.
4. Have roads that you can create where they go. Have invading armies able to stop, or loot, commerce on these roads.
5. It looks like they are finally adding options to the supporting armies in a battle. I hope we can finally be able to create specialized armies (like say one full of siege engines) and you can give broad to specific instructions for behavior of that army.
6. Laying siege, in Roman times, meant digging siegeworks, trenches, palisades, fences, towers, planting stakes, digging trap falls.
7. On land next to water, allow ships to participate in battles, with either automatic controls, or direct control of the ships. Imagine a battleship cruising along and firing broadsides at enemy formations or fortifications.
8. Allow the creation of wall fortifications across the game map. So a fort can be built at a pass, but a player can build a line of fortifications across a large gap, or to deter enemy movement from one direction.
9. Allow the construction of multiple, and exotic, structures. So if you have a connection of some sort (road or sea lane, plus a friendly relationship) you can build facilities that that foreign faction uses. The drawback being it will generate some unrest. So a player can decide they want to build a race track to stage games, but depending on whom they talk to for that racetrack technology, they could either get some friendly Catholics, some standoff-ish Orthodox, or alien Muslims. Imagine "banks" with Jewish contingents of the population. If there is too much unrest in a nation, the people will damage those structures and slaughter the population related to that. (So building a structure will generate so much of whatever product you want, but the longer built, or bigger the upgrade, the more of a population you will have, and the greater the effect).
10. Allow more then one structure to be built at a time. More structures cost more money, and will increase the population.
11. Get rid of turn based. Instead of it be more "day-to-day" so moving across a map is more realistic. The player decides when to "fast forward." Also, this could allow a player to "raid" rival territory, simply moving unto it and slowly getting money from that land. Moving over enemy land, as a raider, will increase the amount of loot you get, but antagonize the population to you more; so conquering this nation later will make the people more angry with you.
12. Have some facilities exist outside of the city, so they can be targeted and damaged/destroyed by rival factions.
13. Have strategic agents have more options. So merchants will be able to wander around on their own. Have assassins automatically attack targets of opportunity. Have diplomats sitting in your cities help generate peace.
What else guys?
Sky on
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Posts
Improved espionage systems, as well as AI.
Larger variety of units, perhaps.
The ability to found cities would be a great addition.
And yes, if they included ship battles...well, it would be the best game ever.
Everything said above I agree with, and it makes me excited just thinking about it...and it makes me wonder what time period the next TW will take place in.
Oh my god.
All my cocks are cumming.
I love you so much for bringing this to my attention.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
cough...
sorry, my inner mongul hoard leader slipped out.
That is all.
It's that good.
Or at least Shogun II: Total War, with improvements to the combat engine, but still the same basic strategy map gameplay.
Maybe make the Warrior Monks less ridiculous, and arm them historically. As in, they used guns. A lot. In fact, fighting the Ikko-Ikki is where Mori Motonari learned the value of firearms, after seeing loads of his troops killed by them.
And tone the killer geishas down. This ain't a Tarantino movie. Leave the decimation of ruling houses to the ninja.
Invading AI needs to be more aggressive and defending AI needs to be less dumb.
Small scale and large.
Fighting with 2 units in some kind of assassination skirmish is fun.
Or maybe I suck at sieges.
Besides that, anything that results in more field battles will make me happy. MII campaigns always seem to result in precious few field battles. Rome seemed to have a decent amount, but I want big armies coming out to meet me when I cross their borders, not cowering in a castle while I stomp all over their farm land.
I'm not thrilled with the idea of building new towns. Perhaps scripted new settlements, but building new towns seems like it would just add more complexity and slow the game down for no real gain. The AI already can be beaten by cheap tricks, being able to plop down castles anywhere would break the game even more.
I'd like diplomacy to be better. I play the campaigns on Medium, and within in a short amount of time I have abysmal ratings with everyone, despite having the pope in my pocket. I shouldn't have Allies backstabbing me if I don't buy them off every 3 turns. I quickly stopped trying to make any alliances in M:TW2.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
As said by everyone else, the ability to ravage and pillage the countryside and claim their food. And with that, the requirement that you have to stock your armies with food or risk starvation. Pillaging is done automatically by blockading, whose radius also determines the countryside you pillage (preset by developers for balance) You can remedy this with the aforementioned pillaging, or spending coin to buy supplies in neutral territories. Also, if you have a fort established at enemy territory, you may choose to no longer pillage them (thus eliminating the requirement of spreading your forces out in a territory) and choose instead to strongarm the populace to bring their produce to you, making the fort a self-sustaining fortress while the defenders languish in their settlement.
But trade routes may still exist in the sea, so naval elements are still important to a determined force attempting to starve out a settlement. The same blockading principles on land also apply to sea forces (without the ability to establish forts of course, but also gaining supplies from trade convoys) The need to feed the populace also exists for the defenders as it does for the attackers. Every trade route in land and sea that is blocked, and every countryside that is being pillaged by the attacking force is one less source of food to the settlement. If the amount of food arriving to a settlement is less than the food they require to maintain their stores, than the settlement's stores start to dwindle, until finally, starvation sets in and the populace is forced to capitulate. But if there are many trade routes to a settlement, you may need to plug up a lot of them to ensure that the settlement is not getting an amount of food to replenish their stores.
In Empire: Total War, please model the entire world, and please allow me to automate trade routes with actual physical galleons in the map. With the importance of maritime trade in this period, disruption of it should be a viable and important strategic concern. Recreate the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade, and the great Silver Trains running in the Spanish Main. Escort your great trade fleets with everything from pinnaces to ships-of-the-line.
Also, in Empire, do not make the numbers ridiculously crazy in naval combat. Maybe 1-4 ships per unit, so that it doesn't become ridiculous. Ships, when in the same combat space as a land combat (i.e. a chance coastal engagement, or an assault on a coastal settlement) can contribute to the battle by bombarding the enemy. Make an exclusively amphibious assault possible, such as support ships bombarding the settlement while smaller craft undertake a landing on the settlement's port.
Also, last but not least, WHERE'S MY SHOGUN 2, GODDAMIT?!
Not this Mark of Chaos bullshit.
I think that the more you war on a land, the more the population dwindles, so even the size of the city shrinks.
More like, you can build whatever you want (but maybe for the castles, or since they should keep just cities, the recruitment facilities should not be limited).
May you live a thousand years.
I agree. I am curious what they can do with a new Shogun.
Actually, for that matter, since I have been playing "Romance of the Three Kingdoms VII," I'm curious what they can do with China. And make it so you can play some China campaigns like over thousands of years, have the option to choose from a variety of scenarios.
(And if they go the "Romance" route, even better. Let me pick a general to personally command, and I can have that guy go "solo" or "with his retinue" to switch between a strategic and tactical unit.)
And I liked those monks. They could beat anything. But they'd get slaughtered in the process.
Hell, I do that now in M2:TW.
Since the enemy general is standing on the left hand side, charge in with my cav, and I have taken the guy down in the first encounter. Like you guys say, just gets too easy after that.
And here I thought I was the only one who sets the difficulty to VH/VH, and still find the game too easy at points.
Less of a meat grinder? That's why you got to draw their forces around, make them chase you, and move some units in to take the city center and hold it, while having some troops stand in the road, blocking and fighting those that come to reclaim it.
But I miss being able to take over towers and have them work for me automatically. Having to keep an unit sitting near the towers to man them is nice and all, but I liked having to work capturing towers into my strategy.
For more field battles, that's why I would like to see the addition of "raiding."
Either make it an option to select, so when you move thru enemy land, you move slower, but you see a path of devastation (burnt land) left in your wake, and your treasury increases with the more land you cover. The enemy suffers a greater and greater decrease in revenue as a result, too.
For M2:TW, I'm playing as the Byzantines and have a three castle front in the Balkans, keeping the Italians (Papal States, and those green backstabbers) and the ... why am I blanking on names now? The Huns? Hungarians? Not the Poles.... Anyways!
I'm sitting in my three castles, and I feel like I'm a rock on a seashore, wave after wave crashing into me. It's nice that now the enemy AI is using their own agents to try to make problems for me, but otherwise, yeah, too weak of an invading force.
But, it seems that when I employ the same tactic over and over again, after twenty times the AI starts changing tactics, but it could be that the enemy faction has achieved a higher level of development, so it can field different units.
Yeah, even as I was writing the idea of building new towns, I was thinking about how to make it "fit" or work.
The concept in my mind now is: A general moves to an area. You can see a spot, or move unto a spot and see a message that says "Good spot for a town." Now, each town will have it's "area of influence" and since resources are now a factor, having agent will generate some revenue, a road will generate more, a nearby town even more.
Also, an army of workers, or when you have peasants in an army, that gives you "construction" options. So I can have an army of workers (I don't want them to have to have a leader, but I think they should just to make it "harder" for the player) and set them to making roads, towns, forts, canals, bridges, tunnels (get thru those mountains, or under some waterways, even England had canals that went thru tunnels), or those walls I mentioned before.
Something else I had thought of: Have a "supply network theory." If I have one town, it can only build so much, it has to draw on the resources of the local land. Now, if I build a port, any other ports that can reach it will now add to the resources available, so any new construction/recruitment will have a lower cost. Build a second town, and that will add to lowering the cost of the first town, and the second town benefits from the road and first town and it's port.
The other concept with this idea is that I could have a city on the coast, discover a valuable resource far inland, and make a road that crosses several provinces to that resource. Now, settlements will spring up along that road, but be small. The city will increase in size, and the settlement at the resource will increase in size. If the road crosses a river, the settlement there will increase. If I build another road to some other resource, or a road crosses mine, the settlement at the crossroads will increase. ("Increase" meaning it will grow at a faster rate then normal.)
Anyways, back to "building new towns."
I think the natural inclination would be to build along the coastlines (historically accurate) and rivers (also historically accurate). To get at resources inland, you have to send guys in to build new towns. Roads... I think the player can decide where they go (and can decide how many to build), but the quality of the roads is regulated and upgraded thru the local settlement. So you can have a dirt track cleared by a work party, but the city has to put the funds into making it gravel or stone.
In this way, a player can make "land grabs" trying to encircle as much land as they can before bumping into rival factions. The settlements on the "front" would receive more attention, and the player can then expand into his/her own interior.
The logic being, a player will want to secure some land, beef up the defenses along the borders, and then work on developing infrastructure to raise revenue.
And agreed on the AI and diplomancy. I think I heard somebody say it was like The Daily Show version of foriegn policy or something.
They shouldn't, but I fricken love it when I can pull that off.
Creative Assembly claimed M2 would have a better AI.
1. "Circumvellation" (sp?) as the Romans called it. That's where you dig a siege trench around the place you are besieging. That is what Rome was missing.
2. Agreed. "Food rations" can be a way to further complicate the gameplay, and in game you have select various options (buy food, take food, forage for food, Auto-Manage). Running low of food hurts morale and effectiveness of troops, run out of food and troops start dying/fleeing.
3. I like where you are going with that idea, but you get into some real complex ideas on the numbers side of things, and I kind of like how a settlement will have so many stores prepared. I just think they need to fix the movement and turn based side of things, so it doesn't take me a year, a whole flippen year, to move from one city to the next.
4. To get a world map, they would probably have to do some things, like tone down graphics or make the world map easier to render. Something.
I was thinking that for a port city, have it appear in the battle map as an actual port city, with quays and the like. During a battle, you could "sneak" troops into the harbor and the enemy AI will be "unaware" till a sentry or whatever is alerted. You could even stage a diversionary attack or something while sneaking your guys in.
Imagine watching a unit of guys board some boats and watching those boats make their way into the water and across the harbor. Then a matter of getting into the city, thru sandy beaches, or climbing quays or the sides of ships. Once inside the city, the units can do whatever you need them to.
I think if you make the turns "day" length, you could have weather play a factor, affecting road travel, devastation to land, freezing over of rivers/lakes, etc.
And something else from earlier, unrelated to you: Canals are essentially roadways of water, so having them increases revenue, connecting to resources/towns/roads/canals adds more. And then they have an added affect of increasing farm land, so population increase there, too.
Great suggestions, guys. Keep 'em coming. (This will likely be a long video to Creative Assembly, but let's face it, I think they half-ass each new game they put out.)
As in, let me play the campaign with/against my friends?
And with real battles and not auto resolved ones!
And don't tell me that isn't possible!
That's about the most important thing that needs to be fixed. The multiplayer mode sucks as it is right now.
I support this :^:
And of course better AI is always needed.
Sneaky..
If I am creating my own history within the game, then surely women can play a different role than they did in history and currently in the game. They're used, in Medieval, sometimes, as ways of securing an alliance. Other than that, they are mindless non-entities with names... and they all look alike. What about the famous warrior women of our real past? Jeanne D'Arc, Boadicea, Gráinne Mhaol? If the Pope can be secretly female, why can't one of my generals?
I want the option to view my city in all it's splendiferous glory without having to wait for it to be attacked, thanks. We had it in Rome, why take it away?
Better AI? Yeah. In my current game, my vast empire stretches from western Spain to east Egypt. My power, wealth and influence is complete. One of the remaining few European factions is the Holy Roman Empire. They have three provinces with bugger all wealth. We have been happily allied for a very long time, and a couple of years ago they even married one of their princesses to my faction heir. Why then, did they decide to break our happy alliance and attack me? A few turns later, they were wiped out. Is that very likely to happen?
I want the option to choose what religion my kingdom will go by, so I don't have to deal with that arsehole the pope. And don't tell me I can choose to go against him, because all hell breaks loose around me when it does. In my latest game I went down to Italy with specially prepped armies and kicked the fuck outta the Pope's armies. There are no Papal States, though the state of our relations apparently changes every now and then, the Pope is still alive somehow (presumably hiding somewhere), and I still have to bother with the College of Cardinals, and then deal with the next wanker to take the position. If I want to attack the Danes, I will, dammit! Stop telling me to attack the Egyptians when they're on the other side of the world! I don't see you excommunicating other Christian nations when they decide to attack me. If my faction leader suddenly decides that he worships the all powerful Boognish, whose avatar consists of a rhinoceros' head, a panda's torso and a giraffe's legs, painted blue and orange polka dot, then all my people should follow suit, and we won't have to deal with the fecking Pope anymore. All we have to worry about then is that people keep painting themselves blue and polka dot orange every third day.
I love you, Total War, but sometimes you irritate me so.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
With Empire, I'd like to see it made very expensive to attack other European countries, especially as the centuries progress. The era was characterised by the collective realisation that brown people without guns are easier to fight and steal stuff from than other Westerners. I hope most of the conflict comes from being in contention over colonies. Being able to roll over the Channel and conquer Paris would suck.
I think a good way to work that into the game (and M2:TW was demonstrating this with the castle/city wall upgrades), as soon as you build one training center, it can provide that type of troop to anywhere else.
You balance by making it cost more to create a unit elsewhere, and retrain/replenish elsewhere. And if that unit is in the field, regardless of general or no, it can replenish. Just make it so it can only replenish so much.
So it's more like, when I build a barracks that allows me to recruit spearmen, I can now recruit spearmen in any other city. And any general can have spearmen "brought" to him. The difference is that it will take longer for the spearmen to get to a place. The limiting factor is that only so many spearmen can be trained at any one time.
So now I have to budget my training. This works for me.
And for replenishing troops, same thing. If one unit is going to replenish, then that means one training unit will be short some troops, and thus "un-available" for recruitment. So if two spearmen are available for production each turn, and one unit replenishes, then only one unit is available for training. If several spearmen are retraining, the number will continue to be taken away and eventually even dip into the other training unit.
How do you get around that? Build more barracks to produce more spearmen.
This way, you can now have specialized cities where a certain unit is produced. And the units produced go anywhere you want them too.
If you don't like how it will take so long for a particular unit to reach a destination, construct the facility closer.
Now, as to scale, this is where I think making the turns span less time, like even say days, is a better idea. Makes unit movement more realistic, and also construction and recruitment times. Rather then taking years and years to get something done that you know would not take so long (a whole year to build a tavern?!) it will take months.
Same for recruitment and marching armies.
If I am England and the Scots decide to come south, I will receive a notice of their movement and start paying attention. When I deem they are coming for my land, I now have to decide what to recruit.
I could go for a large number of peasants, which I can recruit instantly, some spearmen which will take a few days, etc.
I had an idea that to train a high level unit, you have it locked into a "creation" que, but it will actually start out as a group of peasants and slowly go thru the process of becoming the different units before becoming the finished product. (Kind of based on the descriptions from the Roman legions from R:TW.)
So, an unit follows a "career path" to reach it's end, and you can now decide if you want to recruit peasants to form a very green recruit unit, or pick and choose veterans from experienced units to put into a newly formed, and elite, unit. (I hope that makes sense.)
China Total War
DO IT
You are quite obviously insane. MTW 2 multiplayer is more fun than Starcraft's was in its prime.
Then in the epilogue, your empire is swept away in the historical destruction wrought by the marauding "sea people" circa 1200 BC, and some archaeologist is shown unearthing a statue of your ruler, built by an unknown ancient civilization. So you aren't necessarily building an alternate history with your conquests, it could just be an undiscovered chapter.
The American Civil War was a good example of a total war. Europe didn't have any in the 19th century, really, though.
No offense, but the Civil war does not even come close to the destruction and scope wreaked by the Thirty years war. I know parts of it can compare, but as a whole? No chance.
Personaly, I expect the Napoleonic wars to be the expansion, as they are, aparently, excluded. The Civil war is unlikely as they would have to introduce a vast amount of new concepts - massed artillery, railways, trenches, machine guns. It is one of the first modern wars, while Empires focuses on the wars fought in the style of the 18th. century.
So how that would work for a human player is "You have been deposed" - then while you of course replace yourself, your actions are constrained for a turn or two - the military might refuse to fight, or the cities not produce.
Two new strategic units: Horse Scouts, Supply Wagons.
Represented by a man on a horse, Horse Scouts have a radius highlight when you select them. Any unit within the highlight will receive a movement bonus. And having radii overlap each other from a city to the deployed army further increases the bonus. Even more if you have a line of horse scouts all the way back to your capital and faction leader.
Represented by a wagon, Supply Wagons also have a radius highlight. Connecting two towns, the towns receive bonuses to building and recruitment. Marching armies receive a bonus in terms of their casualities slowly replenishing. And if an army of yours is engaged twice in a turn, it will be more fully recovered for the second round of combat.
Unfortunately, these strategic units can be targeted by rival factions military units and captured for cash reward. You can stack these units with military units, though.
do you have any idea how long a game would take? seriously.