What Next for Total War?
The Total War games are ones that have come to define PC gaming, since the release of Shogun in 2000, this series has interwoven both grand turn-based strategy and awe inspiring real-time fights in majestic fashion. The next instalment in the series; Empire: Total War (due for release in March) promises to do the same, but what can we expect to see after this?
Will developers The Creative Assembly revisit an earlier game, perhaps a new Shogun or Rome? I say no, all signs point towards the next game being based in the modern era, the 20th Century seems right. The new engine for Empire features naval battles and all-out rifle warfare, both of which are defining characteristics of anything major conflict since World War One.
Further support for this theory comes from Mike Brunton, someone who has worked on every Total War game as a writer and designer. In a piece by Jim Rossignol (PC Gamer 197) which analyses the history of the Total War games Brunton gives us a hint of what to expect.
“Let’s just say we have some staff that have tiny joygasms over Tamiya and Trumpeter plastic tank kits and leave it at that. We won’t be able to restrain them forever.”
It is surely fair to say that there is a strong likelihood of the next game from The Creative Assembly bringing us into the modern era; they have a game engine that can deal with the combat and a team that has some strange fantasies about plastic tanks. What more of a hint do we need?
68 thoughts on “What Next for Total War?”
I think this raises interesting questions. I didn’t think they would ever take the franchise to the 20th Century, or the modern period, simply because it seemed too tongue in cheek to play as an agressive expansionist power in modern times- I mean, global takeovers are all fun to organise and enact out when its well in the past and in times when it was even a fundamental part of civilisation such as the war-orientated periods of Rome and Shogun. But taking over the world in a 20th Cenutry setting is just going to be too evocative of a certain bunch of crazed Germanic expansionists; and in a modern setting it is I think even more inappropriate to play as a world power with the sole intention of militarily occupying the globe. Would it bother me? Not particularly, but I can see a lot of people objecting to a game in which people can have a jolly jab at seeing if they can do a better job than Hitler did , or having a go at building the 4th Reich in a modern setting. Should it? Is it stupid to be more sensitive to bloodshed that happened 60 years ago to bloodshed that happened 2,000 years ago? Perhaps its no different from any other WW2 or modern warfare game which I of course see no problem with, and I’m being oversensitive, but I think being the actual mastermind behind starting global war rather than just being a pawn soldier is more of a gray area.
Hitler: Total War?
I can understand why they aren’t going back to remake shogun total. They have a new engine that is designed for gun warfare, very different from earlier total war gmes. They will make the most of what they have already created after all this engine was made from the floor up. I’m sure they will come back, and when they do, the graphics will be better than ever! (that is if we aren’t wasted by nukes)
“You currently have too many jews in this region. At this time it would be best to upgrade your shower rooms and research larger scale death camps. Remember, too many jews in one area will keep the honest German worker down”
but seriously, the problem I thought about was with a WW1 game. How would you get around the hideous stalemates of trench warfare that made the great war so horrible? I can’t see how that would play out in-game
I’d say the American Civil War would be the logical next step. This takes place around when Empire ends and features interesting new units like ironclads and even Gatling guns. The problem with it though would be the relatively short period it lasted (four years.)
I also think the 20th century seems unlikely. First of all you have the battles of WW1, which mainly took place in the trenches with both sides lobbing shells at each other. Not surprisingly, we haven’t had many games in which you can fight WW1. There’s also the problem of essential off-map support units – aircraft, artillery. Nothing similar has yet been implemented, and I don’t think they will.
*Unless*, that is, they completely redesign the series. Which at this moment seems like the most likely option.
Absolutely — American Civil War would be the next best step. There are so many American Civil War gaming fans out there looking for the right game, and Total War would be that game.
Anyone ever play Close Combat back in the 90’s? I could see Total War emulating that kind of gameplay if they designed a new engine to support WW2 era warfare.
I’d rather see something a little more unorthodox, like Shogun again. Bare in mind the next total war and both the Empire expansion(s) and the [New]:Total War will be based on the Empire engine. We’ll probably see a Kingdoms style expansion with multiple settings I reckon – and specifically, there *will* be something detailing Napoleon’s campaigns, and probably an American Civil War expansion (since I don’t imagine they’ed need to add volumes of stuff to get it right)
So I personally would love to see one themed in China – especially because I’d love to see all the Chinese super-ships in action.
I know some people will accuse me of heresy to even mention this but, I have to. Although this series has always gone out of it’s way to accurately represent human history. Wouldn’t it be nice for those of us who like a little fantasy if GamesWorkshop handed over the Warhammer fantasy tabletop realms to the Total War team. That would be a great game, even if they made up their own Fantasy realm, with it’s own lore. The potential is undeniably there…
Hi D3Vnull
Have you not had the pleasure of playing the mod, lord of the rings total war?
I think it would be good to see a total war game based in the 20th century. WWI would be a good start. I also don’t think that peoples sensitivities would be an issue, its only a game right?
People’s sensitivities are ALWAYS an issue. Velvet Assassin was just a game, too.
Another problem with the 20th century setting would be that it doesn’t really correspond to the TW game style. For a battle you would need to recruit massive amounts of troops, but deploying would be almost impossible because you would have to move them individually to be effective on the battlefield.
Also, the campaign map would have to be different, with some “defcon” like elements (ex: nuclear missile launches).
Diplomacy would also have to change, because now you don’t become the leader of a country by marrying your princess to the previous leaders son(medieval).
Most historians today claim that the 20th century is the most chaotic and dramatic time of mankind, especially after 1914 (WW1). Many would also refuse to call the 20th century by one era, more likely to be dozens – still debated issue how to classify certain periods. History has many eras and periods with distinctive cultural, militaristic and technological traits fit for total war games, but I’m convinced that it would be difficult to make a meaningful game set to the 20th century. Either it would span two many social and scientific breakthroughs to be realistic, or it may be set to a much too narrow time-span to be as action-oriented as the other games in the series (example: Empire ranges 1700 – 1799).
On the other hand I would love to see a game set to the first kingdoms in the middle-east at 2500 bc. The factions would be many smaller kingdoms, varied in beliefs and ideologies, alliance forged by one king, then war declared by his successor. The real battles would be also vary from the other TW games as the armies would comprise of tens of tousands, most commonly divided into waves of charges, battles then lasting longer. While most other TW eras require a lot of money to get troops, this part of story would need a fast growing population to produce figthing men. Weapons at that time could vary greatly, but more important in these great battles where the training and morale.
Bit of historical guffaw here: The 20th century can easily be broken down into different sections. The first section stretches from the late 1800s to 1918, the lead up to World War One had many roots in the events of the late 1800s especially with the foreign policy antics that the Brits were getting up to.
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1918 to 1945 was the next era, this saw the Treaty of Versailles rip Europe to pieces and create a mess that, in reality, still has not been solved. The Treaty ultimately led to the rise of the Nazi party (if it wasn’t them, the Communists would have taken Germany) and the ensuing Second World War.
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From 1945 on everything becomes much more international, that is not to say that stuff wasn’t happening around the world up to 1945, just Europe was the centre of attention.
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Don’t ask me about dates, it is too late for me to dredge them from my memory, but the Cold War was broken down into several phases. I have forgotten which historian created this idea, but simply put the Cold War went in waves, ‘First Cold War’ I think was until the Cuban Missile Crisis after which detente occured (maybe a bit later than the Crisis but whatever). This detente lasted until Reagan came along and caused tensions to rise yet again.
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Ultimately the ‘Second Cold War’ ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Unioin and the related mess. Some could say we are still in a period of the Cold War with East-West relations still see-sawing from good to okay to bad and so forth.
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This doesn’t really contribute much to TW, but maybe I will write a comment about that tomorow :)
Before they get into the 20th century, we still need more improvement on guerilla warfare added into the game, as far as I can tell Empire Total War doesn’t really have much of it available excluding the ambushes and with much of World War 1 being fought in trenches and World War 2 being fought in cities and villages, etc… and like a few others before me mentioned planes and artillery of course will play a huge role and correct me if I’m wrong but I’m fairly sure planes need to land and resupply after awhile haha
so if anything I think they should work on that
Yeah it did strike me as a little odd in Empires, when you raided a region belonging to pirates. The pirates all line up in neat ranks. I’m not a history expert but I am pretty sure pirates would have engaged the enemy a little differently. Favouring guerilla warfare as you mentioned
Mythrilfan said:
I
> CA have always been on a bit more of a
That is a very good point you make at the end of your comment Ceipher about the holocaust, they can’t just ignore it in a game which covers such an amount of detail as the Total War games do. Interesting thing to think about.
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Also the American Civil War sounds like an ideal candidate for an expansion pack!
Didn’t they ignore the slave trade in Empire?
I’m pretty sure I went through the entire issue of 20th Century Total War here. I even gave it a pithy name!
Ah it seems you did Phill! Thought the discussion was covering something we had talked about before..
I think a Total War game spanning from the period of the American Civil War and running through the turn of the century and up to WWI is a pretty likely idea, and I have to say that I would really love to see one set for this time period (both the Civil War and Spanish-American wars are intriguing). I really can’t see how CA would implement air power into the Total War franchise, but they *might* be able to get away with omitting it if their game runs up to and ends around 1914, because air power was still in its infancy and was really too much of a factor by that time. Leaving air power out of a WWI game would not be as inexcusable as leaving it out of a game set at any later date. Also, if they go with any more modern time periods than the current one, they really have some major work to do on their cover system, it’s REALLY buggy as is.
i feel like there’s no way Total War will try to cover anything post world war 2. first of all, i can’t even imagine the headaches they would have trying to come up with a diplomacy system for the complex post-colonial world after World War 2 – complete with all its multinational organizations like the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, and WTO. then there’s the nightmares that nuclear weapons pose for a game attempting some level of realism. first off, turns in total war games have always been at least half a year, but that just wouldn’t make sense given a game world in which there is a proliferation of nuclear weapons. because once there are a large number of them in the game (which would be hard to avoid if you are trying to accurately portray the world post 1950 or so) then clearly there is the potential for the world to be totally irradiated in a day. even if they made each turn a day, how would the turn-based nature of the campaign map account for the split-second decisions that would determine the result of any stand-off between two-nuclear armed countries? shit would be over in less than a day – and by shit i mean everything on the entire world map and whatever campaign you are playing. if you want to have a viable grand campagn like in other total war games and not little scenarios or something else, its hard to deal with a world in which everything can suddenly end in a very short amount of time.
but on top of all those reasons i just gave, even if they could successfully render all of these complicated things into the game, they still couldn’t make a game that covered all of the 20th century.
this idea is based on two assumptions i am making
1) most TW games cover roughly a 100 year period
2) the TW people won’t try to cover the world post-2000 because it is too soon to deal with terrorism either morally or in game mechanics and because they would probably be skittish about getting close to the future in their game world. i just can’t picture TW making anything resembling a sci-fi game.
so with these two assumptionsthe only choice left for them if they want to even try to cover the world post-1950 is to do a 20th century game that has dates like 1900 till 2000. trying to do that would mean that not only would they have to overcome all of the problems with accurately representing the complexities of the world post WW2, but they would have to somehow try to create a non-linear world in which all these changes are introduced slowly as one climbs up some sort of tech tree.
it seems like the best choice for a time period that would have pretty steady growth in technology is something like 1815-1918. but they could easily try to rig up some simplified auto-resolve-esque air battles and try to go till 1945. however, i have the feeling that they know World War 2 could be a Total War game unto itself and they’re saving it for later.
China, Warring States period would be sweet. This was the era in which many of the Chinese military classics were written, including ‘The Art of War’ (Sun Tzu). The period also saw Iron replacing bronze as the main components of weaponry, and cavalry replacing the easily broken chariot. We have 7 distinct powers fighting for control, as well as local warlords. Surrounding powers would be weaker, but still able to cause some upsets if well managed; Korea, Japan, Eastern Russia, South-East Asia, etc…. Bring in some RPG elements for generals and historians, it would be great. Imagine protecting Sun Tzu as he travels around with, and watches your armies do battle… after a while he would complete the art of war and initiate a civ style wonder or golden age. Political pressure, bribes, and threats to get great generals and leaders to join your side, etc….
i would really like to see a remake of rome and make it the start of rome and work it’s way up to a full story.even the same with m2tw you take the new graphics they have going for empire and work them in and just make a really good game. or even use those graphics and do a game like m&B that gives you a deeper feel for the game and even look to put it online like wow though i have never played wow and dont plan to i just think it’s stupid but mke it a real time feel where you work your way up as a solider and fight for your king against tons of people online.
While I would love to see Rome or Medieval remade, they have already done it once with Medieval, why should they do it a third time? I think they are best doing something new for their next title rather than going back over old ground.
A fundemental part of Total war is the solid blocks of men that are hurled into one another and this is typical of all the periods covered by the series so far. To progress to the modern day era would mean sacrificing this aspect of the total war game play seeing as small squads and units are what dominate the modern era.
I personally think they should revisit the Shogun period. :D
CA – Australia will probably work on a number of mid 19th Century campaigns (US Civil War – Crimea – Franco/Prussian etc.), while CA – UK work on adapting the Warscape engine for the Ancient period for a Rome 2 TW or, if they stick to the new personality storyline genre, Caesar TW.
There are two periods i would like to see in a total war game which is the mid 19th century to the turn of the 20th century. which would include the American civil war the Austro-Prussian War the Franco-Prussian War and many minor conflicts like the start of the Boer wars this time period had many great innovations like steam powered and armored ships mass produced rifles instead of muskets and many styles of repeating rifles where introduced.
The second period is the modern age leading up to the jet age which is the start of the 20th century to the mid 1950’s which would obviously include WWI and WWII but would also cover the Spanish civil war and the Russian civil war which is the rise of communism. Also i heard a whole bunch that people are sick and tiered of WWII games but i have yet to play one total war style and that would be a game i would want. The tank battles would be so awesome that i might just have to jump up and down in joy and the naval battles would be intense to the point of screaming if your prized carrier or battle ship goes down!
The problem with a modern TW, as has been raised before, is that the nature of combat changed to such a drastic extent (especially considering WW2) that the whole nature of the TW battles would have to be changed. Not that I wouldn’t want to see that of course ;)
Hey i am not saying that Modern Total war would not be a challenge especially with the change over from trench warfare to mechanized warfare and the fact that many of the artillery peaces have a huge range by the turn of the century but many of the smaller peaces would work and you could have a special power to call in the larger artillery strikes along with aircraft and it would change the series completely. But i don’t think the technology to pay due tribute to that time is here right now any way so i would be more up for mid 19th to early 20th century leading up into the modern era. To pay true tribute to the modern era the maps would have to be enlarged 4 times to make most artillery and newer ranged weapons work along with a full world map (minus the poles nothing really happened there). Like i stated before the whole series would have to be drastically changed that’s why the period leading into it would be nice because it would start some of the changes and make them more gradual for the people who have trouble adjusting quickly also who is to say the total war franchise has not been drastically changed already mass muskets, cover, a new style of campaign map, change is good… generally haha
Thats a good point that going 19th/early 20th would provide a stepping stone of sorts towards any more modern setting.
I’m hoping for new shogun or rome, by making a modern style total war, it would change the series completely.
The next one should be about the “American Civil war”, yeah I couldn’t think of a better idea,The Blue, and the Grey: Total War.
Oh man, i cant wait for a Total War in modern Era !!!
1st, 2nd and finally WWIII ;)
Anyway this age, XX century is not so paeceful even today, its just that biggest nations decide to dont directly engage each other; same of that was did in the American Colonial Age. But things can change expecially in a game and with WWIII at the doors ( hope that in real life it will be avoided anyway ).
There are many games that already did something like that, World in conflict, EndWar, now R.U.S.E. But none of them have the deep feeling and quality of Total War with strategy on world map and on the battlefields.
Introducing regional resources and areas in Empire its historically correct and will bring us directly to modern era, where regional areas are very important not less than regional main city.
least but not last, none of them have so deep strategy and tactical choice and consequences also on battefields. Total War: Modern Era will be a Very Beautiful Big Boom ! Cant wait for it :)
What I would like to see in the Total War Series is a move toward the future. However, instead of conventional world powers warring against one another- I think it should be new exciting unforeseen factions. And I also believe that the game itself should run until the year 2001. This is simply because, 2001 marks a new era in history that is no longer a tributary run-off of previous generations like the world wars and the cold war. Logically this game should run from 1880-2001. Over the span of time I do believe this should be historically accurate. Especially when hitting the Cold War. Instead of conventional large factions fighting each other, the proxy wars established by the two super powers should be emphasized. With micro-management and traditional maintenance of the older games kept as usual within these powers. Last thought however, I do believe that revolutionary factions with in these time periods should be created or generic realistic spin offs, and have the option of taking over the world. Whether those factions are militaristic, fascist (hyper-nationalistic), communist, Globalist (Imperialist), or anti-imperialistic factions is completely up to the discretion of the game creators. I do believe there is no limit to what can actually occur in this new game. And the series should remain as exciting and fresh as it always has. If the Total War franchise actually is encouraged by my words and uses them, just make sure in your interviews with game magazines and G4 you sight your source as RandomGuy. Not for money or publicity reasons, just for the hell it. Lol. I already know copyright realities. I freely shared the information, just would be awesome to see my name said on G4. lol.
Oh yeah, last thing I forgot. Anarchist, terrorist, and radical factions that want to break empires would be good as well. They would fulfill the traditional roles of barbarians and rebels in the game.
In my opinion i think that total war should revisit the Japanese era and make a Shogun total war 2 now that would be awsome, conquering japan with the mighty samurai in 3D not 2D, and then possibly attack china or fend off the mongols……..awsome.
I would love to see Word War II Total war or World War Total war next. It would be different than any other total war have been. Probably something more like Company of Heroes. But that would just kill the creativity of Total War series.
Would it really be so hard to do games upto the end of WW2? Most of the comments about air/arty/other issues are only being mentioned because we are used to having those units being commandable units. In reality the only interaction a commander has with those forces is requesting actions (sending locations to be attacked, etc).
Would it be so hard to have a “engineers” unit that could build air bases and defenses around the map (expanding their dynamic map system)? Station air units at those bases (like spies and diplomats are moved now)? Depending on conditions of the global map you would have certain aircraft and supporting fire at your disposal to issue requests too. All you would honestly need is an interface to choose units/areas to attack.
Honestly even the large scale aspects of the combat could just be expansions of existing systems. Drag a group of bombers/fighters onto an enemy fortification or base, you approve the mission (maybe an attack this target every turn? check box) and then it resolves (everything from lost planes to damage to the target). Then those air assets or artillery assets would not be fully avaliable to respond to battles occuring in their coverage area.
My guess is Civil War + Expansion, then the leap WW1 + Expansion, Then WW2 + Expansion
WW2 stands the biggest chance of being a total botch (worse than E:TW)
One additional comment, personally I would like to go east again before we jump forward in time to WW1! I would also like to see them put a lot more time into diplomacy/logisitcs/command (from an empire managment side).
I would love to see war bonds, debt, and politics make their way into any civil war game (and are essential to representing WW1 and WW2).
Also my main reason for thinking they are very serious about moving forward in time was the development of “technology” in the E:TW series. It is just as relevant as it was to the previous games so why did they add it this time around? It just screams “dry run” for expanding the series into time periods where technology drives warfare (post civil war period).
Good points Nikolas, especially about the ‘dry run’ of E:TW for future titles. A worry I have about a more modern TW is whether they would be able to include real politics/economics on a scale and level of depth necessary to make the game feel real.
This discussion partly inspired this post – http://thereticule.com/2010/03/time-for-games-to-grow-up/
wwII would be very possile for total war. they would only need to play the mechnaics like a british minaute wargame. Planes come in and do air strikes and the players control companies of infantry and tanks. It would be a nightmare to run but it is possible.
I vote for American civil war. Someone said that it only lasted for four years – in this reality yes. It could have dragged on for longer especially with foreign power involvement.
Also it would be great to have some increased political options in the mould of No Greater Glory (if anyone out there remembers that classic – http://www.classic-pc-games.com/pc/strategy/no_greater_glory.html).
Hey,
Consider this:
World War II only – so a 1920 to 1950 time period – 30 years, divided into 200 turns of about 1-2 months’ duration each so that gets the campaign map out of the way. Obviously the armies being moved around the map now become divisions and corps, the air units I think should have various possible ‘missions’, strategic bombing, fighter hunting or tactical air support to ground troops. Each of the missions can be played differently.
As to battles, with the 20-unit Corps (10 unit division) zooming into the battle-map, each unit card would represent a regiment/brigade/battalion or company, depending – for eg – infantry regiment, Panzer brigade, motorcycle battalion and mortor company.
Of course, blocks of men and lines of infantry is long-gone, so these regiments will behave differently – more formations and specific orders like – spread out, take cover (use whatever cover is available), ambush, defend, assault, lay down covering fire etc.
Essentially, the tactical elements of WW2 era combat have so many other games to take inspiration from that it shouldnt be a problem – TW would just add realism, depth, scale and amazing environments and an awesome physics engine. Aspects like morale being added to WW2, with the psychological impact of aerial bombardment etc would be amazing.
As to air combat – the strategic bombing could be autoresolved by default – impacting the enemy’s settlement buildings depending on the amount of anti-air defences etc.
Fighter hunting missions could be simply a roving air combat in which the attacking/defending squadron can be controlled in the air – it would have to be a new aspect of battle like land and sea. In this case, the player view could be above and slightly behind the area of the dogfight and fighters continue to circle if not given orders to engage – Empire Earth’s modelling of air combat could be inspirational.
Ground support would consist of the main battle being the land battle, with air unts coming in for a limited period (fuel limited) for targeted strafing/recon runs …
I’m sure its possible and I’m really hoping for TW to do WW2, I think it’ll be the best one ever.
and as to the tech tree etc, there was a sufficient improvement in tech just over the years of the war to make an entire tech tree!
think of:
armoured tactics changing pre- and during the war for military research
bolt-action rifles giving way to the M1 Garand and finally the StG 44 assault rifle
tanks improving vastly between 39 and 45
aircraft too – think of the Me262, the P-51 Mustang and all of the US’s bombers – unthinkable in 1939!
missiles – V1 and V2
nuclear tech – this is the one i think should be a game-ender … like soo difficult to get that should a player get it … he wins.
but also like amphibious ops, trucks and jeeps (horse drawn transport was still big in the early years of the war) … blah blah – so the short time period would be a change from early TW titles, but i think it would still work great …
WW2 is too big, important and complex a conflict to be just a part of a century-long gaming experience …
They need to make a lord of the rings total war!!!
Lord of the Rings Total War would be immense, isn’t there a mod for one of the TW games which involves the Lord of the Rings world?
Sarge, that is one monster of a post, you have some good ideas for how to do a WWII based TW, the rapid advances in technology would be amazing to witness in the game!
What about the preliminary run up to WW1, the rise of military enforced democracy in war (the end of colonial\facist expansion):
The American Civil War
Indian Wars (American)
Balkan Wars
The Ottoman Empire’s influence in Europe
The Boer War(s)
Misc Wars (Lots going on in Africa, South America, China)
Misc Revolutions
Looking at the increased use of Guerilla tactics/attrition, trench warfare, jungle warfare, mechanisation, fabrication etc.
There may not be any real links between any/some of these conflicts but they were an important stage in developing a permanant change in politics and tactics when applied to what was coming next WW1.
Ancient Greece, Warring city states, that’s what I say.
i think its a good idea. a new game rquires a lot of effort however, if the staff are willing to put that effort into a game, especially those of total war, i think it will be a good game. the problem with modern war however is there are limitation on the level of accuracy they ould make the game, in other words, this game will be plaied by people world wide. you would’t want to be putting ideas into the heads of some hammas support
trying to get back at the jewish state. if however its based on WW2 or WW1, it would be better. WW1 battles are to an extend slightly similar to colonial era with the exceptions of automatic weapons and tanks of course. i personally would like to play WW2 total war. but machine guns, aircrafts and aircraft carriers provide a whole new dimension to the game which has never been explored before. total war is good because it enables the player to act as not only a military commander, but also as a statesman? how would the role of the player be in WW2? in my opinion total control of the nation you represent is not fun as it would be pretty much similar to the previous total war games, which were good but its just repetitive. declaring war that can be rejected by the congress in the case of the united states is certainly a new feature which would be interesting to explore. in other words your decisions can only be a part of many other which the computer makes.
the battlefield are also important, do we want to recruit units of tanks, artilleries, infantries and aircrafts separately, or do we recruit armies complete with the equipments they can afford based on their funding? also how do we control units, individually, as squads, battalions…etc? how is aircraft used, call them in from outside the battlefield (which sounds more like total war), or have their bases within the battlefield. there is also the option of naval artillery support in the Pacific battlefields. very interesting to see how they would make it. also nations are vanquished and formed in WW2. perhaps rebels can also be controlled as the take on their oppressor and establish new states.
What a bunch of wusses. A video game that hurts your feelings? Boy there are going to be a lot of virgins in the future. Nobody likes a wuss especially women. Also many of you have no grasp on history. WWI was not fought entirely in the trenches. That was later in the war on the Western front. Also the modern period would be boring. Empire total war sucked enough. The should have kept true to their previous games not smash empire and civ 4 together and call it a day. Also there was ONE cold war aka Arms race between east and west until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Modern warfare is boring we don’t need a game like that. In every modern gay game the technology never fails which is fake.
Warpath you must really suck at Empire total war to say it sucks. lol
How about an Colonial Africa Total War?
I am a huge fan of the TW series. When I first played Rome: TW, I fell in love with the detail and depth in fighting as well as taking control over political options within cities. When I acquired Medieval 2: TW, I was again amazed by the graphics and control over cities, etc… but one thing that has played true in my mind is the capabilities of TW going back more into legend than into history. Following a more Age of Mythology route. They can still say that they are following history, just history that written in legends and epic poems. Your faction leader could be Hector of Troy, or Achilles, or even Ajax, etc… maybe not include certain units like a pegasus knight or cyclops, but implement the moral men had with the backings of their gods and goddesses.
Another opinion I have is that if you take a look back at the first few TW games, you could not control ship battles. What they could do in a modern setting is give you control of ships and not of planes, until they make the next addition in which they figure out how to make it more realistic. As to the units, I think Sarge is right and you could even have a requirement be to research how to have troops move in such a way, while still having to keep the line formation. This would show that your faction is more advanced by increasing your armies abilities to survive. One thing still looms in my mind though. I have read every post here and the one that hits me the most is the princess comment. It is true that you cant just have family rule the world. My personal opinion is the move to a Roman senate like government in america, but have say war generals (like in Medieval TW 2 American expansion or even the Teutonic expansion) lead your armies into battle whilst you have political leaders, not priests, move throughout your land and promote themselves towards becoming your faction leader when certain faction leaders give you bonuses to certain parts of civilization. Such as improved worker happiness, or more war money, or a decrease in building times.
But regardless of what TW does, I will love it.
Hello you,
first of all sorry for my bad english, i
A lot of people have mentioned the American Civil War, can’t deny that it would make for a really good setting, but how long did the war last? (never studied it unfortunately) How much time either side of the start/end of the war could there realistcally be?
If the report from RPS (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/05/28/son-of-a-shogun-shogun-2-total-war/) is to believed (and I think it should be) then it seems like Shogun 2 may be the next step for Total War. Shock horror all around or joy?
among TW gamers that was expected, with rather dissipointing Empire and Napoleon CA will abandon gunpowder era
even do we arent sure will next be Shogun 2 or Rome 2
and some China Total War seems very likely too
another opinion is that next may be in era of Rome with map from Atlantic to Japan
we’ll wait for E3 and find out!!
And its been settled its going to be Shogun II http://pc.ign.com/objects/076/076283.html while i would have preferred a step forward in the series instead of a “remake” i have no duet that Shogun II will be great.
oh ya also Chris Evans the American civil war lasted 4 years 1861-1865 if my remembrance of American history serves me right but some American might no better then me lol. But there was the Franco-Prussian war 5 years later, and the American Indian war 5 years after that, along with the Russo-Turkish war and all the Anglo wars just to name few, and lets not forget the Boxer rebellion and the french Indochina wars. That means at this point in time the world map would be the entire world due to battles in Asia, middle east Africa and the Americas! I think empire kinda left off around the beginning of the Napoleonic wars and they now covered the Napoleonic period so i wish they would have continued 1850’s to 1900’s just per WW1 this is when repeater rifles came into action and a more modernized guerrilla warfare started. Also to all the people who say WW1 would not be interesting battle because it was “trench warfare” you do realize you had to get out of the trenches in order to attack and win right.
That sounds best.I know people like to say that Emp and Nap were disappointing but I really enjoyed it. Plus they have to keep revolutionizing themselves or they’ll stagnate. Rome total war was a boring pile of sh*t cause there were no realistic factions to contend with. The imperialistic Europe phase is perfect because of all the factions it offers and the HUGE map. Im excited for shogun 2 but i don’t want too many sequels cause that sounds boring. As for air battles it might sound difficult but looking at games like order of war and battlestations i think it’s doable.
I agree with Grant and Derek. I would like to see WWI as well, though working in Airplanes and Airships might pose and interesting challange. It would be worth it to see human waves mowed down by machine guns. TW is by far my favorite game series to date.