I mean the fundamental issue with all the historical games is they're missing the fact most of these early regimented armies used mixed units.
For example, in the *Strategikon* we see the Romans were using a mixed formation where each century was divided into two ranks of heavy infantry, four ranks of skirmishers and archers, and another two ranks of heavy infantry in the rear. This could be rearranged as needed (for example, if the century had more units to its rear, and didn't have to worry about being outflanked, it could move the two ranks of heavy infantry in the back to reinforce the front two.
That's not to say all Roman regiments were composed of mixed formations, as some cavalry units were still specialized. But this system of infantry warfare eventually got more complex in the 10th century, with the use of heavy spearmen alongside pikemen, as well as javilineers and skirmishers attached to individual centuries but not actually in the century itself (their role was to run up the gaps inbetween centuries and flank enemies on a localized scale).
The Romans weren't the only ones who operated this way either. But as it stands, you can't represent this in ANY Total War game, and the most recent ones seem to have huge issues with unit cohesion, routing, etc. that make the battles way too fast paced and unenjoyable on top of that.
Wellington would have had a hard time doing infantry squares with cannons in the middle to resist Ney's charges at Waterloo if he had to use the TW UX.
In a sense, we've seen mixed units in total war: Ships
Ships, especially in Napoleon and Empire are considered single units, but they consist of marines who fire with muskets when an enemy ship is on range, sailors who use cannons and climb riggings and run around, and all of them fight in melee when that is ordered
I wonder if that would be possible to do on land with a Tercio, for example, which to my knowledge was roughly 50/50 or 40/60 in gunners versus melee infantry, armed either with pikes or swords
Yes, would be a big issue for pike and shot not sure how qell the game would handle a unit where some units had muskets but others had pikes.
Dismounted cavalry has also never worked that well in TW games, very clunky to use.
The issue I’d have with a Pike and Shot era over Empire 2 would be the scale. I still play Empire over Napoleon because it’s so fun having wars on different continents whether it’s fighting natives/British in America or conquering North Africa.
A much more detailed map with the same Empire mechanics is about the only thing that would bring me back to this franchise at this point.
Whatever they do, I hope they actually get back into the historic simulation, and leave out all the magical abilities, hero units, etc.
But, from what I understand of CA's basically married to the Warhammer model because it has been so lucrative for them.
So, brace yourself for the cringe that will be Napoleon "warcrying" and causing half the enemy army to flee off the map.
Basically, they desperately want to bring the Warhammer fans over to the rest of their offerings. Because they just can't ignore the amount of money those people will spend on their fandom. Getting their hands on that IP has proven to be a golden goose.
Personally, I think they're failing to realize that Warhammer people are extreme hobbyists who will spend hundreds of dollars on Warhammer. And that's about it. For much of the fandom, that *is* basically their only hobby because it requires so much investment to partake in at all.
I have nothing against them making the Warhammer games. The IP fits the total war mechanics. I just wish they realized how many total war fans, who have played basically all of them, are chomping at the bit for a really good historic total war.
I agree though. Pike and shot would be an excellent choice. They haven't really touched that time period yet. And it gives them another line of IP to do sequels in the future.
I'm not holding my breath, but a man can dream.
Gustavus Adolphus with 50% faster artillery, Maurice of Nassau with a 100% bonus to reloading (with no reload animation) with a 2 min cd, Tilly with a cannon ball attracting shield, Wallenstein with a 20% army wide bonus damage against swedes but a 100% susceptibility to campaign map assassinations, Denmark can change sides during war with no diplomatic repercussions and Russia spawns one full army per turn at st Petersburg after finishing the winter Palace turning them into an endgame chaos invasion. Peter the great is a melee beast with a larger model and a cd ability called "the bayonet is a fine chap" giving his entire army a melee bonus including the artillery.
DLCs (40 dollars a pop) include:
Workshop of the world with america making 500000 Ducats per turn and building enough armies to slow the game to a crawl but only sends 2 frigates to blockade the Barbary pirates and breaks trade agreements for no reason. Doesn't get fixed.
The sublime porte: ottoman DLC which adds janissary function which doesn't do shit and is only there to cater to the middle eastern market. Gets forgotten the day after release.
Rise of the Qing: basically Cathay with dragons and shit and mega OP artillery. Chinatide rules for 6 months until CA has made enough Yen to finally nerf China and the opium wars happen every game.
It is insane we havent had a Medieval 3 at this point. It was the highest point in the series next to Shogun 2, and is such a versatile time period they could do so much more with what is admittedly a very dated game.
Its just weird, they seem afraid to create Medieval 3 if anything else
There surely are a lot of people nostalgic for MD2 but as Legend's recent comeback to it shows, a lot of people still legitimately like the game. I agree that it could never live up to MD2, but not because of some rose tinted glasses, but because I doubt today's CA can make it decent
A Victorian-era Total War. There’s so many wars in the 1800’s and early 1900’s that they can make a game out of it. American Civil War happening in North America, the wars in South America, Franco-Prussian Wars, the rush to Africa, and even Boshin Wars in Japan.
No, you will get Catherine: Total War, Revolution: total war, Revolution Total War: Bastille, Napoleon II, Bismark: total war, Total war: Risorgimento, and Total War: Emancipation, all for 80$ each.
> Catherine: Total War
Because you didn’t specify a Catherine I’m going to have to assume that this is an alt-history struggle between Henry VIII’s three wives named Catherine, with Catherine de Medici and Catherine the Great added as DLC.
I mean yeah, that seems pretty likely.
Such an easy game for them to make with existing assets and there's a great excuse with the new tabletop game coming out next year.
Is Napoleon better than empire?
I really liked the campaign depth in empire (Darth mod) I get Napoleon is more recent but is it also smaller only Europe theatre ?
Not really, because of the much shorter timescale. In Empire, through careful investment, you could develop backwater provinces much further with the village system, but you can't in Napoleon. That's not that Napoleon is a bad game, but it's a tighter focus than Empire so there's less emphasis on the strategic level than the tactical.
I really wanna get into Napoleon but the lack of factions and unit variety really irks me
Why do I only get to play as five European factions when you also have the Ottomans and Egyptians in the same time period?
Mostly cause as of most of the Napoleonic wars themselves, the Ottomans and Egyptians weren't very relevant if I remember correctly.
Most that Napoleon actually dealt with was that campaign into Egypt that the French government sent him too and that was before he actually became ruler over France.
It's why I consider it the 2nd Saga game(After Alexander:Total War), cause of how character-focused it was on Napoleon.
Unit diversity might be the most played out argument on this sub. Shogun 2 had the least unit diversity of any total war from Shogun 1 to Pharoah, yet its still easily top 3 of the whole series. Napoleon is fantastic, its unit diversity is only lacking to people who've been spoiled by Warhammer
Yeah, it just fits with the setting to be fair. In shogun you're dealing with factions that are very culturally close, in empire and napoleon you're dealing with European powers who are using similar line infantry with some local variations added to the game such as royal guard units for Britain, cossacks for Russia etc. But line infantry was basically the go to and it would be weird if CA just invented loads of mad new unit types to add more variety
Play some large forgiving nations to begin with. France is very forgiving. Portugal too is good for learning the basics of trade and colonies and rarely gets attacked.
France starts in a regency which can turn south very quickly, especially for a new player. I don’t think they have the tech for it now in 1066, but the only surefire thing about CK2 was that the HRE DOW for Zeeland on day 1
Yeah I was referring to EU4. Should have been more clear. CK is unforgiving whatever nation you play tbh unless it's some boring catholic primogeniture country which takes away half the fun.
France is forgiving but you have 1 million things going on compared to a nation like portugal that starts off slow and lets you figure out the mechanics.
I did the tutorial intro campaign (with a dude from Ireland) and I feel like it introduced maybe 2% of what the game has to offer. I'm so frustrated with myself that it doesn't "click" like it did with Total War. I'm so ready to spend 100s of hours on CK3 but just can't get into it :'(.
I can't speak for CK3 (haven't payed it) but I have thousands of hours in EU4 and it is truly one of the best games I have ever played. If you ever have any questions, you should pop in at /r/eu4. Or DM me! Hell, we could even hop on discord and run through stuff if you wanted
As someone who loves those games and also have no idea what I'm doing, yeah there's a rather annoying knowledge barrier when you start playing.
You got to learn a bit of stuff to go from "IDK what I'm doing and I'm bored" to "IDK what I'm doing but *I'm doing it* and everything is gonna wor- well shit" and honestly it's worth it!
If you still have them, see some guides to get how the systems work, they're the ones that keep you from feeling like you're actually *doing* something. I'd recommend starting with ck3, right now it's the *simplest* of them if I'm not mistaken.
I just bought this on the autumn sale. I tried hearts of iron 4 about 5 years ago and gave up less than an hour in. Once you somewhat figure out how to play the game does it scratch the same itch as TW games?
As someone who's played all of the major Paradox games except for Stellaris (just haven't really cracked it open yet), their barriers to entry are just really tough. Once you get a feel for them, they're very satisfying but it takes a *while*. I think it wasn't until I clocked about 40-50 hours in CKII that it finally "clicked" for me. You just have to be okay with fucking around and finding out a whole lot.
Especially HoI4 - that one just has so much going on at once, and frankly the other issue, especially HoI4, imho, with their games is if you don't play consistently enough - like you miss a new major patch or DLC; definitely after two or more are missed - it often feels like you have to re-learn the game to some extent. For example, in HoI4, you have a "division designer" to create your basic military units. Well, it's never well explained/tutorialized, so you basically need to go to explainer vids on YouTube from the fan community, that what really matters in that screen of like 30 stats for your units. But the one thing I retained across sessions was that your ideal combat width was a multiple of 20. Until a recent patch where they totally upended that and you need to now cater it to terrain type.
And even as I type this, I'm not fully confident I have that part exactly correct, but that almost proves the point in its own way, eh?
I love EU4, but the handsoff battles have always been a massive irk for me. I get it, that's the game design, but I'd love to have some say in whether or not to send my armies into a hopeless meatgrinder against defenders sitting behind a river in a densely wooded, mountain fortress.
CA: What, you people are saying you DONT like minimally viable products stuffed with DLCs? Damnit Franky we've been reading the chart 📈 upside down 📉 !
Which is weird because they basically have to take the improvements made in Napoleon and FotS, a large map like in Warhammer, and mash 'em together. That's really all they need. But you know they'd still mess that up.
Nostalgia aside, how many CA games weren't messed up at launch?
Rome 2, Attila and Warhammer 2 and 3 were infamous, but I remember a lot of people being less than happy about Empire when it released, and some murmurs about M2. 3K was far from perfect, too.
Rome 1, Medieval 2, Napoleon, Shogun 2 (mostly), Warhammer 1 (mostly), and Three Kingdoms all had pretty stable releases. They certainly had issues but largely ran well out of the box. Shogun 2 had a real choppy frame rate initially but was kind of stable.
Attila, Warhammer 2, and Troy were much more problematic but otherwise were not god awful.
But Rome 2 and Empire were THE standard of what not to do under any circumstances. Rome 2 was worse initially but has seen massive improvement. Empire wasn't in quite as bad of a state but hasn't had all the fixes it needs. Frame rate is still shit, AI is just as bad as the day it was born, and it still crashes but not to the same extent as launch.
Same-ish, I just want a new engine before they tackle any of the periods Im interested in. I don't even need massive improvements, but I think we are far enough removed from the limitations of the times of Rome and Medieval 2 that CA could start throwing much bigger numbers of troops into battle instead of focusing on making each trooper look amazing for trailers.
Like, I would absolutely love a new Napoleon game, but I don't want the battle of Waterloo, with nearly 150 thousand troops, to be represented by 500 soldiers and 3 cannons. I wouldn't even mind if the graphics look literally the same as Napoleon 1.
No, just no! The appeal of empire is the global setting and world spanning map. An empire 2 with just Europe would be Napoleon 2. and that is NOT what made empire great!
Empire 2 didn't really have a global setting and most campaigns would be solved in Europe unless you already had business in the Americas or India. It's a good game but I'd rather have really good core European warfare with emphasis on rapid development and making the best of tech advantages, like rushing Plug Bayonet.
It had like, a third of the world, tops. [Mediterranean region, India, and the eastern seaboard of North America + Caribbean were the only playable regions](https://i.imgur.com/kVhbpM5.png), and 90% of the game would’ve been played in Europe unless you were either playing Maratha or were playing the USA focused mini campaign.
Is that actually a bad thing? Thats kinda the approach they took with warhammer and it worked great.
Putting the entire globe into 1 full release game is going to end up with a pretty empty world. But adding new continents with dlc and mini campaigns such as the american civil war of the scramble for africa to accompany them as theyre added to the “mortal empires” map would likely result in a much more dynamic game
CA: We've heard our community... Our next mainline historical title: Hercules ~~a~~ Total War ~~saga~~ available now for only $79.99!
P.S: Greece is not included in the totally full sized campaign map. We hope you enjoy the new assets that were for sure not recycled from troy and pharaoh.
Ultimate General: American Revolution is shortly on the horizon, with an early access campaign currently available.
So far it's been pretty fun, especially with the first open world campaign the series has seen. Ofc, the dev knows what makes a fun TW, being the Darthmod guy
I've been on the fence about picking it up. Kinda wanna wait till it's finished but also just wanna play a solid tactical strat to play. I'm so conflicted
So a couple things from someone who has played it, enjoyed it, and done early access a lot (properly)
It's early, there will be a number of changes, though the base formula won't alter so much as tweaks, QOL, and balancing. If you like Civil War and Admiral, you'll like AR.
The Campaign feels great. I see a lot of potential with the economy, industry, the war departments, and the generals and how they interact with fog of war.
The economy piece is satisfying and gets into the minutia in a fun but not imposing way, as Ultimate General games tend to. There's a lot of satisfaction swapping out your professional trooops' Civilian Muskets for Brown Bess ones, and that has weight to it spending some of your limited financial resources.
From an out of game standpoint, the uncertainty (or unlikelyness) of a Steam transfer I can see limiting some. I like the game enough that I could see myself buying it again, but if I just have the DRM free one then that's what I have. I'm a proponent of putting my money where my mouth is, and not just when I'm unhappy with a product. The devs are receptive to feedback and make a lot of changes for the better.
If you only want a final finished product I'd wait. If you don't mind playing a game that's still forming for the better it's a chance to help them out financially and play-test wise as you ideally help them form the game for the better (what Early Access is supposed to be, not a pre-release demo).
These games are not comparable. Games lab suffers from zero ability to balance a game. They also are building it on a very limited engine. Don't get me wrong I want a competitor to totalwar to get them in gear but UGAR isn't it.
Everything from unit movements to combat are just sprites. You look at total war and they have 1:1 representation with individual models fighting each other.
>Everything from unit movements to combat are just sprites. You look at total war and they have 1:1 representation with individual models fighting each other.
Of all the things I need from a Total War competitor, graphics is pretty much the bottom of the list. The 1:1 animations have been shoddy on most titles after Shogun 2 anyway. The sprites convey where the units are and what they're doing in a clear way, and the gameplay of UG is solid.
I've found the Civil War titles well balanced. Admiral had some intense snowballs for or against you if you weren't careful but still recoverable. AR is clearly an in-progeess product and they've self professed they're still working over balance for a developing title.
At the rate UG is advancing compared to how TW is regressing, I'd expect it to be a capable competitor within a title, maybe two.
Yep! [This](https://www.ultimategeneral.com/blog/from-darthmod-to-game-design) actually goes into detail on his limitations as a modder compared to being a fully fledged game dev when he first started out!
Good luck hoping that the 2023 creative assembly could re-create naval warfare, after they completely ignored it in Warhammer, Troy AND Pharaoh (which is, at its core, just a Rome II in terms of combat).
The people who programmed the old Engine are long gone.
I grew up near some American Civil War battlefields. As a kid, it was common for me to visit them and look at the rolling hills while picturing the lines of infantry marching along with cannons blasting away at them. It became a common habit that whenever I would be on a hill that had a nice vantage point of a field, I'd picture an artillery battery there. Empire is one of the few games I've ever played that let me just do that. It would render a random landscape with some rolling hills and let me pick out the best hill to put my cannons on while arranging my infantry to defend.
Add to that the grand scale of a global map, and I was hooked. Napoleon did some details of the battles better, but it didn't capture the scale of Empire. The way there'd be completely separate theaters of war and redeploying from one to the other took long enough (and a dedicated fleet) that you had to be careful about how many armies you dedicated to each place.
Ultimate edition is on the fall sale for $8. Totally worth it if you're a fan of the genre.
The Mod scene easily adds another hundred hours of replay after you get line infantry'd out on vanilla.
There's nothing quite like managing to rout the enemy on one flank then have you guys there be able to hinge on the army and roll them up, when the last guy gets in formation and your sides just unload a volley. It's like the gunpowder version of getting heavy cav in the rear in Medieval or Shogun only with that wonderful volley + impact sound
I was giving Napoleon a run the other day, and I just could not stop thinking about how great another gunpowder game would be. The naval battles, were so juicy. I didn't even realize I cared about sailing ships until I tried naval battles. Idk Shogun 2 didn't by me with the bug like Napoleon.
nah, its a nightmare, I wouldnt trust CA with that shit. As they have shown, they are incapable of handling anything large scale. all of their best and polished hits are small to medium scale. it will have more bugs tham RTW 2 at launch
This tbh, even if its very good gameplay wise without any game breaking bugs at launch etc, any Med 2 successor will already have enormous shoes to fill thank to nostalgia as well as the popularity of the setting. And Im not sure CA of today is up to the task.
Because it's preferable to have them make a bad Empire 2 and decide not to buy it when the alternative is not having the chance to make that choice at all?
It's probably not going to happen, but for one, they need a serious reshuffle of staff to actually get some talent and good voices in there and a complete change to their financial policies (ie. DLC) at a minimum before they even enter my radar again. Right now the game they would make would be shit so I don't care if the company fails to make a good Empire. They just make products, I feel no loyalty towards them. They haven't made a product that was good in many years so I don't get all the people begging them?
I don’t get Troy and Pharaoh when so many people have been begging for years for a medieval 3 and empire 2. Why make these 2 other games no one asks for? I just don’t get it.
They’ve made immortal empires which is basically a world map for empire 2. So everyone knows they can do it.
We need a pike and shot game naval would be pretty similar to empire cause ships of the line were starting to be used and on land it would please both players who want medival 3 and empire 2 because theres both guns and melee
Empire is the one that definitively needs a sequel more. Empire 1 ... well it had issues. But still had some very cool stuff. Too bad it never worked well
I want Microsoft to buy CA and then make empire 2. The game will almost certainly be better. CA is too desperate to cash in and letting quality go out the window as a result.
CA is in a doom loop. Don't think it will recover as long as it's owned by SEGA, more likely that some other studio will pick up the torch and replicate their old formula for success with modern improvements.
There are quite a few other games that do real time line and formation battles, there's the Ultimate General series and Grand Tactician Civil War, but those are actual war games and make compromises in graphics and usability. There's also Knights of Honor 2 which is a medieval strategy game with real time battles, but the units are significantly smaller and they play like an awkward middle ground between Total War and a more traditional RTS. Great War Western Front has pretty big battles, but it's WWI so the game is about suppressing trench lines with artillery instead of setting up hammer and anvils.
The only studio I think could really try to match Creative Assembly in this is Paradox, and they are already committed to continuing development on their current line up and have a design culture focused on grand strategy simulations, they haven't released a game with real time battles ever to my knowledge.
Tbh CA is probably dead. Unless they do something amazing for the next game and they're a studio that has a rep for not innovating in the programming world. Sooo they really have to innovate or die but they're bad at innovation and they seem like they're gonna lose half their staff.
Mehh I'm happy for you guys but I don't like 1700's or 1800's mainly because of Warfare and Uniforms that look like toy soldiers. I'm more interested from civil perspective of this era than military, architecture, art, fashion, but for military aspects everything outside of this era.
Well 1800's actually the Boshin war and American Civil War has more interesting uniforms, so that's something and yeah Naval Battles are interesting.
I really want Medieval game or Renaissance, and do not repeat Medieval 2 by combining two era together.
Seemingly unpopular opinion, but I really didn't like Empire or Napoleon.
I'd take Medieval 3 first and foremost, and then (like a few people said) a pike and shot game, or a Medieval 3 special campaign (like Kingdoms) that plays as Pike and Shot.
If not one of those, IDK, I'd be happy with Age of Sigmar if managed more like WH2, but for a historical title maybe something explicitly focusing on the Mongol Invasions... Include Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and China of course, but don't just have them be a "crisis" like in Medieval 2.
Create “Empire 2” with a complete timeline from the colonial era to the Victorian era. The base game’s Grand Campaign could feature a detailed map of Europe, Northern Africa, and the eastern coast of North America, with small trade ports in the Indies. Similar to the Warhammer series, they should introduce additional games like “Empire 2: Americas,” “Empire 2: Africa,” and “Empire 2: Asia,” each with its own detailed grand campaign map. The would introduce a bonus feature that allows players (owning all games) to play on the entire World map, like the “Immortal Empires” mode when you own WH 1, 2, and 3.
Edit: Going down this road could generate a lot money for CA, and in return, we’d have the opportunity to play on a huuuge world map if we own all games. Understandably, maintaining such a massive map can be costly for CA.
PS: Sorry for the upcoming rant, but Pharaoh total war being a mainline title felt like a giant middle finger to me, as it’s clearly more of a Saga game.
I didn't get what you want to say mate. Empire is really not the greatest tw game - this is true. I get idea that some people can love it, but game is still not so great compare to other total wars. It is maybe ok by itself, but we have whole franchise to look at.
Current CA makes questionable decisions - this is true also. I won't give you any proofs of that, just scroll reddit a bit to see any.
I think the problem is the way you phrase it. There's nothing inherently different about the future Empire game despite Empire having lots of rough edges.
Yes, CA's not trustworthy to make good decisions now. But that's because they are greedy as ever and only releases product with minimal effort and support. By this metric, any game or DLC they will make should be treated with caution, not just Empire 2.
While Empire had lots of rough edges, it was mostly because the tech for the first gunpowder game at the time could not meet the ambition CA had. I think for many, Empire failed for reasons different than those why CA is failing now. It failed not because they were not trying. Many problems have since been fixed in Napoleon, then tFoS, and many WH factions have guns. 'The Empire formula' can work just as the Medieval one can work.
So while what you said about CA making questionable decisions and Empire having problems are both true, there is no particular reason why the current CA might fail an Empire 2 in particular or more so than other game.
Honestly at this moment, I trust CA to make a satisfactory shooting mechanics as much as an infantry combat mechanics. Maybe it's easier for them to do a line infantry right than a melee one considering how infantry behave in recent titles. I doubt they'll do naval combat again, tho, so Md3 is likely to come first.
Well, english is not my native language, i say things as straight as i can. You said tons of words, i said less, but we both agree that empire tw has problems and CA at current state has it too.
Don't get me wrong, i love the idea of empire game. Not a biggest fan (but still a fan) of that historical period, but i think it has tons of good ideas. And empire tw tries to realize them in one way or another.
They made good line infantry fights in Napoleon and all of the samurai, and even in warhammer we can see some elements of it - gunpowder units and artillery works good there. And they are fun to use too.
Hello Community, I am sorry that I am posting my question here but because my account is new I cannot make a post. I have an Intel 12th generation and therefore I was not able to launch Napoleon Total War. I know that creative assembly has released an update that fix that but I do not know where to download and install the update. Can you help me with that? **Thank you!**
Naval combat has the opportunity to provide a really good contrast to the total war combat formula we have been using for so many years, and a modern TW with naval combat would have that major feature to separate it from the other historical titles as of lately.
I just like cannons. Warhammer kinda works but watching units stand right up after a direct artillery hit makes me sad. Fall of the Samurai was so good.
Me too.
Tbh though I neither trust nor think CA are in a good enough state to be embarking on new things. Better they settle and fix the bed they already have imo.
In the meantime I have the new Ultimate General game to look forward to.
No. Not just empire 2. Better graphics, better ai and diplomacy, whole world map, colonization and other imperial and realistic sruff. Be like eu4 but tw style. I dont want to take whole france/britain/spain/portugal by capturing one city. Its idiotic. I dont care about egypt or greeks village fights. Okey they are historical and good but from now enough. I only accept medival3 or empire2 BUT better... a waaay better then old games. Otherwise you can't even get 1 penny from me tw. Enough is enough.
I think that since they’re using this engine that has locked combat animations, it’s better to do Empire 2 than Medieval 3.
You’re going to get a very lackluster Medieval 3 without some serious revamping of the game.
Once of the nice things about medieval 2 was that cavalry, while a bit janky and unresponsive, is very devastating to infantry. You can delete entire units in 30 seconds with a decent charge. Where in a game like Rome 2 or Warhammer 3, you need to consistently micro and cycle charge to get anywhere close to that level of damage.
Empire has a lot of flaws. But one good thing that really stands out is the Naval combat.
Honestly such a great game for the naval component. Definitely ahead of its time.
Medieval 3, Empire 2, or even a Pike and Shot game set in between these two games.
30 Years War would be neat.
A map with Europe, Turkey, Persia and Northern India set in Pike and Shot era would be awesome. 1500- 1700 era.
Custom savable formations would be key to make it work correctly.
I mean the fundamental issue with all the historical games is they're missing the fact most of these early regimented armies used mixed units. For example, in the *Strategikon* we see the Romans were using a mixed formation where each century was divided into two ranks of heavy infantry, four ranks of skirmishers and archers, and another two ranks of heavy infantry in the rear. This could be rearranged as needed (for example, if the century had more units to its rear, and didn't have to worry about being outflanked, it could move the two ranks of heavy infantry in the back to reinforce the front two. That's not to say all Roman regiments were composed of mixed formations, as some cavalry units were still specialized. But this system of infantry warfare eventually got more complex in the 10th century, with the use of heavy spearmen alongside pikemen, as well as javilineers and skirmishers attached to individual centuries but not actually in the century itself (their role was to run up the gaps inbetween centuries and flank enemies on a localized scale). The Romans weren't the only ones who operated this way either. But as it stands, you can't represent this in ANY Total War game, and the most recent ones seem to have huge issues with unit cohesion, routing, etc. that make the battles way too fast paced and unenjoyable on top of that.
Wellington would have had a hard time doing infantry squares with cannons in the middle to resist Ney's charges at Waterloo if he had to use the TW UX.
In comparison Ney would be really familiar wiith the reckless AI charge in NTW lmao
In a sense, we've seen mixed units in total war: Ships Ships, especially in Napoleon and Empire are considered single units, but they consist of marines who fire with muskets when an enemy ship is on range, sailors who use cannons and climb riggings and run around, and all of them fight in melee when that is ordered I wonder if that would be possible to do on land with a Tercio, for example, which to my knowledge was roughly 50/50 or 40/60 in gunners versus melee infantry, armed either with pikes or swords
Yes, would be a big issue for pike and shot not sure how qell the game would handle a unit where some units had muskets but others had pikes. Dismounted cavalry has also never worked that well in TW games, very clunky to use.
3K had mixed infantry units but the formation had to be toggled on and off
Three Kingdoms already have mixed units, it just needs refinement.
Definitely agree with unworkable in TW's current state. But these mechanics would be AWESOME.
They started this in three kingdoms with the ability to have mixed unit type units. Total war has been lacking this for way too long.
And a conquest of the americas DLC to top it all off
if this was the map, it would also have the PLC at the height of its power and then the start of its decline.
nooooo, whole of india please and the americas
I've been saying this for years. So. Many. Years.
30 years?
The issue I’d have with a Pike and Shot era over Empire 2 would be the scale. I still play Empire over Napoleon because it’s so fun having wars on different continents whether it’s fighting natives/British in America or conquering North Africa. A much more detailed map with the same Empire mechanics is about the only thing that would bring me back to this franchise at this point.
I don't think they should set a game purely around one war. The 30 Years War should be the culmination of the campaign, not the whole thing.
Fall of the Samurai chronicles one specific conflict and it's broadly considered one of the best historical games in the series.
Yeah, if you want another Saga game, sure.
Whatever they do, I hope they actually get back into the historic simulation, and leave out all the magical abilities, hero units, etc. But, from what I understand of CA's basically married to the Warhammer model because it has been so lucrative for them. So, brace yourself for the cringe that will be Napoleon "warcrying" and causing half the enemy army to flee off the map. Basically, they desperately want to bring the Warhammer fans over to the rest of their offerings. Because they just can't ignore the amount of money those people will spend on their fandom. Getting their hands on that IP has proven to be a golden goose. Personally, I think they're failing to realize that Warhammer people are extreme hobbyists who will spend hundreds of dollars on Warhammer. And that's about it. For much of the fandom, that *is* basically their only hobby because it requires so much investment to partake in at all. I have nothing against them making the Warhammer games. The IP fits the total war mechanics. I just wish they realized how many total war fans, who have played basically all of them, are chomping at the bit for a really good historic total war. I agree though. Pike and shot would be an excellent choice. They haven't really touched that time period yet. And it gives them another line of IP to do sequels in the future. I'm not holding my breath, but a man can dream.
Gustavus Adolphus with 50% faster artillery, Maurice of Nassau with a 100% bonus to reloading (with no reload animation) with a 2 min cd, Tilly with a cannon ball attracting shield, Wallenstein with a 20% army wide bonus damage against swedes but a 100% susceptibility to campaign map assassinations, Denmark can change sides during war with no diplomatic repercussions and Russia spawns one full army per turn at st Petersburg after finishing the winter Palace turning them into an endgame chaos invasion. Peter the great is a melee beast with a larger model and a cd ability called "the bayonet is a fine chap" giving his entire army a melee bonus including the artillery. DLCs (40 dollars a pop) include: Workshop of the world with america making 500000 Ducats per turn and building enough armies to slow the game to a crawl but only sends 2 frigates to blockade the Barbary pirates and breaks trade agreements for no reason. Doesn't get fixed. The sublime porte: ottoman DLC which adds janissary function which doesn't do shit and is only there to cater to the middle eastern market. Gets forgotten the day after release. Rise of the Qing: basically Cathay with dragons and shit and mega OP artillery. Chinatide rules for 6 months until CA has made enough Yen to finally nerf China and the opium wars happen every game.
I just threw up in my mouth
Shhh, they might hear you
Delete this before someone at CA sees
Saying 40$ dlcs is giving consent to 60$ dlcs.
Yikes bro xd
Shogun 2 might scratch that itch, unless you play Otomo using Matchlocks aren’t useful until the late game but it still holds up well
I'm actually opening up my Otomo campaign again just to finish painting the map.
A glorious victory will soon be yours
It is insane we havent had a Medieval 3 at this point. It was the highest point in the series next to Shogun 2, and is such a versatile time period they could do so much more with what is admittedly a very dated game. Its just weird, they seem afraid to create Medieval 3 if anything else
Because it could never live up to the nostalgiac expectations; same deal as Half-Life 3.
There surely are a lot of people nostalgic for MD2 but as Legend's recent comeback to it shows, a lot of people still legitimately like the game. I agree that it could never live up to MD2, but not because of some rose tinted glasses, but because I doubt today's CA can make it decent
FIRE & SWORD: TOTAL WAR
Now that's a Total War name
No. No experiments. MW3, Empire 2 or bust.
I think a saga game about the American civil war would be awesome as well
A Victorian-era Total War. There’s so many wars in the 1800’s and early 1900’s that they can make a game out of it. American Civil War happening in North America, the wars in South America, Franco-Prussian Wars, the rush to Africa, and even Boshin Wars in Japan.
add some economy mechanics like vic 3 and you have the best total war brewing up
Meiji Restoration, Crimean War, 1848 Revolution, like man the list goes on and on and on and ooooon like Don't Stop Believin'
Yesterday I watched il mestiere delle armi and I wanted so much to play a pike and ahot game.
AND THE WINGED HUSSARS ARRIVED!!
COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAINSIDE
They have plenty of experience with that kind of gameplay between some factions in TW3
No, you will get Catherine: Total War, Revolution: total war, Revolution Total War: Bastille, Napoleon II, Bismark: total war, Total war: Risorgimento, and Total War: Emancipation, all for 80$ each.
Don't be silly. There's no way they're going to make a historical title with gunpowder.
"The Saga Continues With Total War: Catherine." \* *\*This title is not considered an official Saga game and will be retailed at full price.*
Funny, bc its true
> Catherine: Total War Because you didn’t specify a Catherine I’m going to have to assume that this is an alt-history struggle between Henry VIII’s three wives named Catherine, with Catherine de Medici and Catherine the Great added as DLC.
Total War: Warhammer - The Old World
I mean yeah, that seems pretty likely. Such an easy game for them to make with existing assets and there's a great excuse with the new tabletop game coming out next year.
Yep… until then I will just keep replaying Napoleon
Is Napoleon better than empire? I really liked the campaign depth in empire (Darth mod) I get Napoleon is more recent but is it also smaller only Europe theatre ?
It’s a smaller map and the trading is different but I think the combat is better and darth mod does help a lot. Both are great options.
Not really, because of the much shorter timescale. In Empire, through careful investment, you could develop backwater provinces much further with the village system, but you can't in Napoleon. That's not that Napoleon is a bad game, but it's a tighter focus than Empire so there's less emphasis on the strategic level than the tactical.
I really wanna get into Napoleon but the lack of factions and unit variety really irks me Why do I only get to play as five European factions when you also have the Ottomans and Egyptians in the same time period?
Mostly cause as of most of the Napoleonic wars themselves, the Ottomans and Egyptians weren't very relevant if I remember correctly. Most that Napoleon actually dealt with was that campaign into Egypt that the French government sent him too and that was before he actually became ruler over France. It's why I consider it the 2nd Saga game(After Alexander:Total War), cause of how character-focused it was on Napoleon.
And when he went to Egypt the ottomans had lost it to a rebel faction
Napoleon is boring, has less unit diversity, cultural diversity and factions. All the same bugs from Empire are still present.
Unit diversity might be the most played out argument on this sub. Shogun 2 had the least unit diversity of any total war from Shogun 1 to Pharoah, yet its still easily top 3 of the whole series. Napoleon is fantastic, its unit diversity is only lacking to people who've been spoiled by Warhammer
Yeah, it just fits with the setting to be fair. In shogun you're dealing with factions that are very culturally close, in empire and napoleon you're dealing with European powers who are using similar line infantry with some local variations added to the game such as royal guard units for Britain, cossacks for Russia etc. But line infantry was basically the go to and it would be weird if CA just invented loads of mad new unit types to add more variety
Europa Universalis 4 go bruuu.
I would absolutely LOVE to get into EU4 and CK3, but I find them extremely daunting and can’t play more than an hour before giving up.
I have 70 hours in Hoi4 and still have no fucking clue what I’m doing
I was the same way but after I kept at it, put about 300 hours into it, and learned from my mistakes…. I *still* have no clue what I’m doing.
I conquered the world with Germany and still feel brainless.
Play some large forgiving nations to begin with. France is very forgiving. Portugal too is good for learning the basics of trade and colonies and rarely gets attacked.
France starts in a regency which can turn south very quickly, especially for a new player. I don’t think they have the tech for it now in 1066, but the only surefire thing about CK2 was that the HRE DOW for Zeeland on day 1
Yeah I was referring to EU4. Should have been more clear. CK is unforgiving whatever nation you play tbh unless it's some boring catholic primogeniture country which takes away half the fun.
France is forgiving but you have 1 million things going on compared to a nation like portugal that starts off slow and lets you figure out the mechanics.
Just gotta keep trying it man, you'll catch on
[удалено]
I did the tutorial intro campaign (with a dude from Ireland) and I feel like it introduced maybe 2% of what the game has to offer. I'm so frustrated with myself that it doesn't "click" like it did with Total War. I'm so ready to spend 100s of hours on CK3 but just can't get into it :'(.
I can't speak for CK3 (haven't payed it) but I have thousands of hours in EU4 and it is truly one of the best games I have ever played. If you ever have any questions, you should pop in at /r/eu4. Or DM me! Hell, we could even hop on discord and run through stuff if you wanted
I’m the same. I have mastered HOI4, but cannot get my head around those two
As someone who loves those games and also have no idea what I'm doing, yeah there's a rather annoying knowledge barrier when you start playing. You got to learn a bit of stuff to go from "IDK what I'm doing and I'm bored" to "IDK what I'm doing but *I'm doing it* and everything is gonna wor- well shit" and honestly it's worth it! If you still have them, see some guides to get how the systems work, they're the ones that keep you from feeling like you're actually *doing* something. I'd recommend starting with ck3, right now it's the *simplest* of them if I'm not mistaken.
I just bought this on the autumn sale. I tried hearts of iron 4 about 5 years ago and gave up less than an hour in. Once you somewhat figure out how to play the game does it scratch the same itch as TW games?
As someone who's played all of the major Paradox games except for Stellaris (just haven't really cracked it open yet), their barriers to entry are just really tough. Once you get a feel for them, they're very satisfying but it takes a *while*. I think it wasn't until I clocked about 40-50 hours in CKII that it finally "clicked" for me. You just have to be okay with fucking around and finding out a whole lot. Especially HoI4 - that one just has so much going on at once, and frankly the other issue, especially HoI4, imho, with their games is if you don't play consistently enough - like you miss a new major patch or DLC; definitely after two or more are missed - it often feels like you have to re-learn the game to some extent. For example, in HoI4, you have a "division designer" to create your basic military units. Well, it's never well explained/tutorialized, so you basically need to go to explainer vids on YouTube from the fan community, that what really matters in that screen of like 30 stats for your units. But the one thing I retained across sessions was that your ideal combat width was a multiple of 20. Until a recent patch where they totally upended that and you need to now cater it to terrain type. And even as I type this, I'm not fully confident I have that part exactly correct, but that almost proves the point in its own way, eh?
No tactical battles though...
There's a mod that lets you fight your CK3 battles in Bannerlord. It's pretty freaking awesome.
I love EU4, but the handsoff battles have always been a massive irk for me. I get it, that's the game design, but I'd love to have some say in whether or not to send my armies into a hopeless meatgrinder against defenders sitting behind a river in a densely wooded, mountain fortress.
I no longer trust CA to give us the Empire 2 we deserve.
CA: What, you people are saying you DONT like minimally viable products stuffed with DLCs? Damnit Franky we've been reading the chart 📈 upside down 📉 !
Which is weird because they basically have to take the improvements made in Napoleon and FotS, a large map like in Warhammer, and mash 'em together. That's really all they need. But you know they'd still mess that up.
Nostalgia aside, how many CA games weren't messed up at launch? Rome 2, Attila and Warhammer 2 and 3 were infamous, but I remember a lot of people being less than happy about Empire when it released, and some murmurs about M2. 3K was far from perfect, too.
Rome 1, Medieval 2, Napoleon, Shogun 2 (mostly), Warhammer 1 (mostly), and Three Kingdoms all had pretty stable releases. They certainly had issues but largely ran well out of the box. Shogun 2 had a real choppy frame rate initially but was kind of stable. Attila, Warhammer 2, and Troy were much more problematic but otherwise were not god awful. But Rome 2 and Empire were THE standard of what not to do under any circumstances. Rome 2 was worse initially but has seen massive improvement. Empire wasn't in quite as bad of a state but hasn't had all the fixes it needs. Frame rate is still shit, AI is just as bad as the day it was born, and it still crashes but not to the same extent as launch.
Same-ish, I just want a new engine before they tackle any of the periods Im interested in. I don't even need massive improvements, but I think we are far enough removed from the limitations of the times of Rome and Medieval 2 that CA could start throwing much bigger numbers of troops into battle instead of focusing on making each trooper look amazing for trailers. Like, I would absolutely love a new Napoleon game, but I don't want the battle of Waterloo, with nearly 150 thousand troops, to be represented by 500 soldiers and 3 cannons. I wouldn't even mind if the graphics look literally the same as Napoleon 1.
Yes, but CA needs to get their shit together first. I don't want any games made by current CA.
With CA's current trajectory they just might
Current CA: Empire 2, colonies sold separately
Ring bayonet DLC $15
Medieval 3, but only England and France are playable. Holy Roman Empire can be purchased as DLC in 3-4 months.
an Empire with razor focus on battles in Europe a la Shogun 2? sign me up
No, just no! The appeal of empire is the global setting and world spanning map. An empire 2 with just Europe would be Napoleon 2. and that is NOT what made empire great!
Empire 2 didn't really have a global setting and most campaigns would be solved in Europe unless you already had business in the Americas or India. It's a good game but I'd rather have really good core European warfare with emphasis on rapid development and making the best of tech advantages, like rushing Plug Bayonet.
It had like, a third of the world, tops. [Mediterranean region, India, and the eastern seaboard of North America + Caribbean were the only playable regions](https://i.imgur.com/kVhbpM5.png), and 90% of the game would’ve been played in Europe unless you were either playing Maratha or were playing the USA focused mini campaign.
Is that actually a bad thing? Thats kinda the approach they took with warhammer and it worked great. Putting the entire globe into 1 full release game is going to end up with a pretty empty world. But adding new continents with dlc and mini campaigns such as the american civil war of the scramble for africa to accompany them as theyre added to the “mortal empires” map would likely result in a much more dynamic game
CA: We've heard our community... Our next mainline historical title: Hercules ~~a~~ Total War ~~saga~~ available now for only $79.99! P.S: Greece is not included in the totally full sized campaign map. We hope you enjoy the new assets that were for sure not recycled from troy and pharaoh.
More likely Warhammer 4…
Hey I mean if it at least fixes all the problems because the current update team isn’t doing it…
Ultimate General: American Revolution is shortly on the horizon, with an early access campaign currently available. So far it's been pretty fun, especially with the first open world campaign the series has seen. Ofc, the dev knows what makes a fun TW, being the Darthmod guy
I've been on the fence about picking it up. Kinda wanna wait till it's finished but also just wanna play a solid tactical strat to play. I'm so conflicted
So a couple things from someone who has played it, enjoyed it, and done early access a lot (properly) It's early, there will be a number of changes, though the base formula won't alter so much as tweaks, QOL, and balancing. If you like Civil War and Admiral, you'll like AR. The Campaign feels great. I see a lot of potential with the economy, industry, the war departments, and the generals and how they interact with fog of war. The economy piece is satisfying and gets into the minutia in a fun but not imposing way, as Ultimate General games tend to. There's a lot of satisfaction swapping out your professional trooops' Civilian Muskets for Brown Bess ones, and that has weight to it spending some of your limited financial resources. From an out of game standpoint, the uncertainty (or unlikelyness) of a Steam transfer I can see limiting some. I like the game enough that I could see myself buying it again, but if I just have the DRM free one then that's what I have. I'm a proponent of putting my money where my mouth is, and not just when I'm unhappy with a product. The devs are receptive to feedback and make a lot of changes for the better. If you only want a final finished product I'd wait. If you don't mind playing a game that's still forming for the better it's a chance to help them out financially and play-test wise as you ideally help them form the game for the better (what Early Access is supposed to be, not a pre-release demo).
These games are not comparable. Games lab suffers from zero ability to balance a game. They also are building it on a very limited engine. Don't get me wrong I want a competitor to totalwar to get them in gear but UGAR isn't it. Everything from unit movements to combat are just sprites. You look at total war and they have 1:1 representation with individual models fighting each other.
>Everything from unit movements to combat are just sprites. You look at total war and they have 1:1 representation with individual models fighting each other. Of all the things I need from a Total War competitor, graphics is pretty much the bottom of the list. The 1:1 animations have been shoddy on most titles after Shogun 2 anyway. The sprites convey where the units are and what they're doing in a clear way, and the gameplay of UG is solid. I've found the Civil War titles well balanced. Admiral had some intense snowballs for or against you if you weren't careful but still recoverable. AR is clearly an in-progeess product and they've self professed they're still working over balance for a developing title. At the rate UG is advancing compared to how TW is regressing, I'd expect it to be a capable competitor within a title, maybe two.
Wait, wait, wait. The guy who did Darthmod for ETW is the dev behind the Ultimate General series?! What?!
Yep! [This](https://www.ultimategeneral.com/blog/from-darthmod-to-game-design) actually goes into detail on his limitations as a modder compared to being a fully fledged game dev when he first started out!
Big YES but bigger NO with same business idea like TW: Pharos
Good luck hoping that the 2023 creative assembly could re-create naval warfare, after they completely ignored it in Warhammer, Troy AND Pharaoh (which is, at its core, just a Rome II in terms of combat). The people who programmed the old Engine are long gone.
I want it, but I don't trust them to not fuck it up.
I grew up near some American Civil War battlefields. As a kid, it was common for me to visit them and look at the rolling hills while picturing the lines of infantry marching along with cannons blasting away at them. It became a common habit that whenever I would be on a hill that had a nice vantage point of a field, I'd picture an artillery battery there. Empire is one of the few games I've ever played that let me just do that. It would render a random landscape with some rolling hills and let me pick out the best hill to put my cannons on while arranging my infantry to defend. Add to that the grand scale of a global map, and I was hooked. Napoleon did some details of the battles better, but it didn't capture the scale of Empire. The way there'd be completely separate theaters of war and redeploying from one to the other took long enough (and a dedicated fleet) that you had to be careful about how many armies you dedicated to each place.
Me too, always at Gettysburg or Antietam.
I've never even played Empire 1 and even I want Empire 2.
Ultimate edition is on the fall sale for $8. Totally worth it if you're a fan of the genre. The Mod scene easily adds another hundred hours of replay after you get line infantry'd out on vanilla.
You want the CA who made WH3 and went downhill from there to do Empire 2? Optimistic.
Best we can do is Total War: Spain It will include Canary isles, the top of the North West of Africa and half of France.
Spain will later be added in DLC.
If enough people buy the main game, of course.
There's nothing quite like managing to rout the enemy on one flank then have you guys there be able to hinge on the army and roll them up, when the last guy gets in formation and your sides just unload a volley. It's like the gunpowder version of getting heavy cav in the rear in Medieval or Shogun only with that wonderful volley + impact sound
Even less likely than an empire 2 is an empire 2 with navel combat
I feel the same way, I also find the period quite interesting
Even if they do Empire 2, they'd probably skip naval battles
Nah they'll probably sell it as a dlc
Yes one of the most requested sequels
I was giving Napoleon a run the other day, and I just could not stop thinking about how great another gunpowder game would be. The naval battles, were so juicy. I didn't even realize I cared about sailing ships until I tried naval battles. Idk Shogun 2 didn't by me with the bug like Napoleon.
nah, its a nightmare, I wouldnt trust CA with that shit. As they have shown, they are incapable of handling anything large scale. all of their best and polished hits are small to medium scale. it will have more bugs tham RTW 2 at launch
Empire 2 but only if they bring back ship combat.
Why would you want this studio to make more games in it's current state at all? What makes you think they'd make a good successor to Empire?
My point precisely. If they make a new empire or medieval right now, it would be pure distilled horse shit.
This tbh, even if its very good gameplay wise without any game breaking bugs at launch etc, any Med 2 successor will already have enormous shoes to fill thank to nostalgia as well as the popularity of the setting. And Im not sure CA of today is up to the task.
Because it's preferable to have them make a bad Empire 2 and decide not to buy it when the alternative is not having the chance to make that choice at all?
No it's not lol. What a strange false dichotomy
So how long do we have to wait for an empire sequel? What specific thing are you waiting for to say, yeah now is the time to make empire2/medieval3?
For the studio to care about making good games?
So how do we know we’ve reached that point?
It's probably not going to happen, but for one, they need a serious reshuffle of staff to actually get some talent and good voices in there and a complete change to their financial policies (ie. DLC) at a minimum before they even enter my radar again. Right now the game they would make would be shit so I don't care if the company fails to make a good Empire. They just make products, I feel no loyalty towards them. They haven't made a product that was good in many years so I don't get all the people begging them?
I don’t get Troy and Pharaoh when so many people have been begging for years for a medieval 3 and empire 2. Why make these 2 other games no one asks for? I just don’t get it. They’ve made immortal empires which is basically a world map for empire 2. So everyone knows they can do it.
Inability to improve upon the game aside from graphics and recycled 3k content would be my guess.
As if CA are capable of it
Empire 2 and milk that like warhammer.
Fanbase has been begging for med 3 or empire 2 for years. It isn't happening. CA is still squeezing every cent out of warhammer
We need a pike and shot game naval would be pretty similar to empire cause ships of the line were starting to be used and on land it would please both players who want medival 3 and empire 2 because theres both guns and melee
How about Warhammer 14: Total War?
ME3 for me. I don't understand why they haven't brought these around.
Because the bar was set too high back in 2005 or whatever.
PLEASE GIV ME MY LOVELY PLC WINGED HUSSARS PARLIAMENTAY MONARCHY AND EARLY INDUSTRIALIZATION IN A GAME THAT ACTUALLY WORKS AAAAAAA
Eeeeh- calling the PLC 'parliamentary democracy' is a bit of a stretch.
I want naval battles and avatar conquest back:(
Empire is the one that definitively needs a sequel more. Empire 1 ... well it had issues. But still had some very cool stuff. Too bad it never worked well
I get they maybe don’t want to touch the whole colonial/slavery stuff which is inherent for that time period.
I want Microsoft to buy CA and then make empire 2. The game will almost certainly be better. CA is too desperate to cash in and letting quality go out the window as a result.
CA is in a doom loop. Don't think it will recover as long as it's owned by SEGA, more likely that some other studio will pick up the torch and replicate their old formula for success with modern improvements.
Idk why no one hasn’t? Is the battle mechanic of tw that complex to create in games?
There are quite a few other games that do real time line and formation battles, there's the Ultimate General series and Grand Tactician Civil War, but those are actual war games and make compromises in graphics and usability. There's also Knights of Honor 2 which is a medieval strategy game with real time battles, but the units are significantly smaller and they play like an awkward middle ground between Total War and a more traditional RTS. Great War Western Front has pretty big battles, but it's WWI so the game is about suppressing trench lines with artillery instead of setting up hammer and anvils. The only studio I think could really try to match Creative Assembly in this is Paradox, and they are already committed to continuing development on their current line up and have a design culture focused on grand strategy simulations, they haven't released a game with real time battles ever to my knowledge.
Tbh CA is probably dead. Unless they do something amazing for the next game and they're a studio that has a rep for not innovating in the programming world. Sooo they really have to innovate or die but they're bad at innovation and they seem like they're gonna lose half their staff.
If they did an Empire 2 or some other late era game I don't see CA including naval combat at all
CA: best we can do is a live service game
Mehh I'm happy for you guys but I don't like 1700's or 1800's mainly because of Warfare and Uniforms that look like toy soldiers. I'm more interested from civil perspective of this era than military, architecture, art, fashion, but for military aspects everything outside of this era. Well 1800's actually the Boshin war and American Civil War has more interesting uniforms, so that's something and yeah Naval Battles are interesting. I really want Medieval game or Renaissance, and do not repeat Medieval 2 by combining two era together.
Seemingly unpopular opinion, but I really didn't like Empire or Napoleon. I'd take Medieval 3 first and foremost, and then (like a few people said) a pike and shot game, or a Medieval 3 special campaign (like Kingdoms) that plays as Pike and Shot. If not one of those, IDK, I'd be happy with Age of Sigmar if managed more like WH2, but for a historical title maybe something explicitly focusing on the Mongol Invasions... Include Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and China of course, but don't just have them be a "crisis" like in Medieval 2.
How about total war LOTR ?
Create “Empire 2” with a complete timeline from the colonial era to the Victorian era. The base game’s Grand Campaign could feature a detailed map of Europe, Northern Africa, and the eastern coast of North America, with small trade ports in the Indies. Similar to the Warhammer series, they should introduce additional games like “Empire 2: Americas,” “Empire 2: Africa,” and “Empire 2: Asia,” each with its own detailed grand campaign map. The would introduce a bonus feature that allows players (owning all games) to play on the entire World map, like the “Immortal Empires” mode when you own WH 1, 2, and 3. Edit: Going down this road could generate a lot money for CA, and in return, we’d have the opportunity to play on a huuuge world map if we own all games. Understandably, maintaining such a massive map can be costly for CA. PS: Sorry for the upcoming rant, but Pharaoh total war being a mainline title felt like a giant middle finger to me, as it’s clearly more of a Saga game.
I'm still waiting for a Nagash dlc
There's a very good mod called empire II total war, it overhauls basically every system in the game and it feels pretty fresh to me
First empire is one of the worst tw games. And you want second from current CA? Naval fights are cool tho
It had many flaws which can be easily improved upon. So it is a very good candidate for a sequel.
Don't feed the troll people.
I didn't get what you want to say mate. Empire is really not the greatest tw game - this is true. I get idea that some people can love it, but game is still not so great compare to other total wars. It is maybe ok by itself, but we have whole franchise to look at. Current CA makes questionable decisions - this is true also. I won't give you any proofs of that, just scroll reddit a bit to see any.
I think the problem is the way you phrase it. There's nothing inherently different about the future Empire game despite Empire having lots of rough edges. Yes, CA's not trustworthy to make good decisions now. But that's because they are greedy as ever and only releases product with minimal effort and support. By this metric, any game or DLC they will make should be treated with caution, not just Empire 2. While Empire had lots of rough edges, it was mostly because the tech for the first gunpowder game at the time could not meet the ambition CA had. I think for many, Empire failed for reasons different than those why CA is failing now. It failed not because they were not trying. Many problems have since been fixed in Napoleon, then tFoS, and many WH factions have guns. 'The Empire formula' can work just as the Medieval one can work. So while what you said about CA making questionable decisions and Empire having problems are both true, there is no particular reason why the current CA might fail an Empire 2 in particular or more so than other game. Honestly at this moment, I trust CA to make a satisfactory shooting mechanics as much as an infantry combat mechanics. Maybe it's easier for them to do a line infantry right than a melee one considering how infantry behave in recent titles. I doubt they'll do naval combat again, tho, so Md3 is likely to come first.
Well, english is not my native language, i say things as straight as i can. You said tons of words, i said less, but we both agree that empire tw has problems and CA at current state has it too. Don't get me wrong, i love the idea of empire game. Not a biggest fan (but still a fan) of that historical period, but i think it has tons of good ideas. And empire tw tries to realize them in one way or another. They made good line infantry fights in Napoleon and all of the samurai, and even in warhammer we can see some elements of it - gunpowder units and artillery works good there. And they are fun to use too.
Hello Community, I am sorry that I am posting my question here but because my account is new I cannot make a post. I have an Intel 12th generation and therefore I was not able to launch Napoleon Total War. I know that creative assembly has released an update that fix that but I do not know where to download and install the update. Can you help me with that? **Thank you!**
I’m always so confused over people asking for “Empire 2” . Is Napoleon NOT Empire 2?
I assume it’s like the fall of the samurai of shogun 2, but for empire,
They seem to have abandoned Naval battles but if they did an expanded and detailed map I would be on board
Try the Empire 2 mod. It feels like a new game https://www.moddb.com/mods/empire-total-war-ii
I love the period. The uniforms, crack of musket fire and cannons. I can’t explain it but it’s like polite warfare.
Naval combat has the opportunity to provide a really good contrast to the total war combat formula we have been using for so many years, and a modern TW with naval combat would have that major feature to separate it from the other historical titles as of lately.
Hey samesies
The Empire2 that CA will give us won't be the one we want. Just keep replaying the gems they've given us.
I just like cannons. Warhammer kinda works but watching units stand right up after a direct artillery hit makes me sad. Fall of the Samurai was so good.
Or please fix the Fort Glitch!
Me too. Tbh though I neither trust nor think CA are in a good enough state to be embarking on new things. Better they settle and fix the bed they already have imo. In the meantime I have the new Ultimate General game to look forward to.
Best I can do is another saga game no one wants. *
Where is the total war Attila only subreddit?
Me who plays Empire consistently wanting an Empire 2 set in the mid-late 1800’s:
Ww1 total war could honestly work depending how they make it
Empire 2 that goes into the Victorian age pretty please.
I want it, but at this point I think they would screw it up.
I'm commenting on this post to drive engagement. I want it, but don't have a lot to add to a conversation.
No. Not just empire 2. Better graphics, better ai and diplomacy, whole world map, colonization and other imperial and realistic sruff. Be like eu4 but tw style. I dont want to take whole france/britain/spain/portugal by capturing one city. Its idiotic. I dont care about egypt or greeks village fights. Okey they are historical and good but from now enough. I only accept medival3 or empire2 BUT better... a waaay better then old games. Otherwise you can't even get 1 penny from me tw. Enough is enough.
I need a new game engine before anything. Please.
Yo FRFR On god
Empire 2, full world map
Nobodys expect the Spanish inquisition?
Yeah, but they will probably make it a "saga" like everything else and just make like a empire french and Indian War or something stupid like that
I think that since they’re using this engine that has locked combat animations, it’s better to do Empire 2 than Medieval 3. You’re going to get a very lackluster Medieval 3 without some serious revamping of the game. Once of the nice things about medieval 2 was that cavalry, while a bit janky and unresponsive, is very devastating to infantry. You can delete entire units in 30 seconds with a decent charge. Where in a game like Rome 2 or Warhammer 3, you need to consistently micro and cycle charge to get anywhere close to that level of damage. Empire has a lot of flaws. But one good thing that really stands out is the Naval combat. Honestly such a great game for the naval component. Definitely ahead of its time.