Feature requests - what's missing from Total War?

[PROMETHEUS ts]

Added new features ...

[DannyTh3Man]

I would love to hire the Wako pirates to raid enemy trade and trade nodes with no diplomatic hit to myself
I find it would be very useful to pay pirates to cause problems with a rival clan. An economic war if you will.

[crzyrndm]

Could you please shift the battle results screen back to being straight after the battle finishes (ie. before a loading screen) and add a replay button for custom battles atleast. The AI armies are always reselected each time you play them which is really annoying if you want to try and do something specific. Having the replay button as soon as you end the battle would halve the reloading time if not more. The Medieval 2 one (attached) was a good example of this

PS It'd be nice to see this in S2 (and wouldn't take too much effort (hopefully)), as testing mechanics is currently a real pain

[egor]

What is missing?
Source code for MTW2 Engine...
Ahh, would love it.
Or even an SDK?
From CA point o' view it shouldn't even matter anymore, as anyone who has wanted to obtain the game illegally ( ofc. the honorable people here in twcenter say nay to those things) has already done it and the .exe was cracked just couple of weeks after initial release, so file protection just harmed the casual player/fan.
Just like partially releasing source code of Wolfenstein: ET made it lots better, it could be same for mtw2.
And think of the possibilities...

[sapped]

What is missing?
Source code for MTW2 Engine...
Ahh, would love it.
Or even an SDK?
From CA point o' view it shouldn't even matter anymore, as anyone who has wanted to obtain the game illegally ( ofc. the honorable people here in twcenter say nay to those things) has already done it and the .exe was cracked just couple of weeks after initial release, so file protection just harmed the casual player/fan.
Just like partially releasing source code of Wolfenstein: ET made it lots better, it could be same for mtw2.
And think of the possibilities...

yeah like adding multi-core support, thats the only thing missing

[egor]

yeah like adding multi-core support, thats the only thing missing

It could be possible to add, if source code is published, i think

[Border Patrol]

More hyper-focused mini campaigns as seen in Napoleon would be fantastic.

[Filius]

I´d love to see the hotseat option again...yes,yes

[jackwei]

I said this another forum but here it is:-

would if there could be an option to make your steel or ironwork factories produce war materials in times of wars instead of the usual machinery and so on that could make your economy very rich and maybe even have investors similar to agents on the map and you can send them to make investments in other nations to give you extra income to your nation or if your nation has alot of good natural resources and good economics other nations can invest in your nation then make you very wealth in terms of revenue.

Banks is something we've needed big time so we can borrow money in times of war and after it is over whatever income you get can go back to paying the loan backs, as historically despite the government did loans from banks in order to pay for their wars for funded their machines by printing new money and making investors and people buy bonds. Since the AI has economy bonus too i say it fair for the players to be able to have banks to help them.

Who knows if your economy is the best then other nations will ask borrow money from you and will have pay you back their debts and if not then blockade them into submission to pay it back or declare war on them so they cough up their dues!!

I talked about been able to refuse a line formation in infantry just like chamberlain did at Gettysburg on little round top as he did at right angles to he could counter-attack the Confederate flanking maneuver on his left.

Complete destruction of cities if it means burning it to the ground and renaming as i very much enjoyed buildings being set alight in RTW by siege equipment, however arrows from archers or units like infantry should be able to burn buildings down with torches especially if you want to sack a city as isn't that what they really did when they burned cities down??

[PROMETHEUS ts]

may be for a renaissence tw in Italy but not think so for Japan no?

[CptAustus]

How about taking control of your agents during their assignment, just like you do with your generals during theirs.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

Updated my features list :

Features :

1 I woudl like is that the units fight exactly where the map shows not preloaded campaign maps for regions like in STW 1 and 2 I want more like RTW but improved terrain ofc and also naval from boats to land battles ...

2 A terrain editor like the one in Stw 1 ..... and a system that allows automatic download of the custom maps when joining a battle with a custom map , then a list of the maps to be able to clean or deleted the ones we do not like ....

3 I am really missing from STW is the music adaptation to the events in battle map , I remember it was really giving some "mood" to the scene in STW 1 and this is totally missing from STW2

The deploy
The Mobilize
The Battle

differentiation in sound music that started when that event happened .....

4 the game is too much aggressive making loads and loads of stack army and there are no more the small battles for a small castle like in STW1 where you could enjoy small battles as well as huge ones


5 there is usually no time to organize decent armies usually you collect the stuff you can build and send towar that is quite unrealistic , it should be found a system to break this thing and allow to build proper armies made of archers , infantry , spears etc not just spears just archers and so on ....


6 Another cool feature woudl be to have possibility to watch the battle from the eyes of a soldier and why not avatarize it and start fighting , may be avatarizing a command leader and guide the small unit into battle from the field rather than from the top ...

Will add more when they come to my mind ....

Ok added new feature :

7 I would like to have a much more detailed campaign map and diplomacy options , just like in the Europa universalis series , and a japan map like the sengoku game woudl allow more strategy on map level ...

The way I see this is the following :

8 macroregions ( like the ones CA placed ) and subregions , the subregion each provide a small portion of the taxes , levy and resources to the macroregion that collects all , the macroregion has a city and all the microregion have a castle , the castles can be placed on the map and have more than one in the same region a main one that can get the updates and smaller ones that cannot get bigger updates so u have smaller castles to keep with small garrisons and larger ones ....

9 levy system should be changed to something more natural and realistic than "buying" units that usually leads to a patchwork army of randomized on what u can build stuff just massed packed and sent to the enemy ...

it shoudl have a army build editor where you can decide the typical army composition and then on the base of that the upgrades and the discoveries shoudl work , not on discovering new unit types , but on discovering new abilities for the armies to combine those units ... so you can have some army template that the AI helps you to build and levy up when you can ....


10 Max armies Also there shoudl be a maximum number of superlarge armies that can only be kept organized if you have the "general" inside and some retainers so the more retainers the larger the army can be , the other armies cannot and shoudl not go over small numbers like 1 to 3 units in order to have more minibattles , also thelarge armies shoudl be very heavy and slow tomove , require lot of resources and possibly a supply line ( in red ) very visible when highlighted shoudl show the supply direction for the army to upkeep , otherwise the army could not go foward and woudl suffer from attrition ...

11 War room like in old times STW1 with many features in it ..

12 Bridge battles and field enhancements as this means one bridge cutting in two the map and unpassable river , nice fights arouse there... as for enhancements m,ore features like usable buildings like in NTW and may be keeps and small castles that can be entered and used garrisoning ...

13 Fix the Online campaign quiting :"Ok I have tried this online campaign stuff wel I made severall allies , playes severall turns , isolated my eenemy m, conquered his main region , I didn't get the victory , but the other guyquits and cant win ...
Now this makes me quite pissed off couse is a lot of time wasted and the other guy quits and it ends all in a soap bubble ...
So if the other opponents quits it shoudl give automatic victory to the other ... or penalties or wathever... online campaigns take a lot of time and deserve more attention , is quite annoying thatt you can't win becouse theother guy just needs to quit befoure loosing ... or even when right after loosing ... "

14 your own Castle as a further avatar customization so that you can have on the battle map and improve with severall things like walls turrets and keep , gates etc so that you can even defend your own homeland ....?
may be cool woudl be also to have your own war room to see your retainers court in ...

15 Strategic Battlefields I woudl like for once that CA tried to implement some step in the middle from Castles and open battlefields , I amnot talking of the small barraks they did in empire and NTW but something more complex and evoluted ...
Imagine a battlefield where both opponents start at a right distance from a village walled with some towers or a keep hanging on a cliff , and other small structures around , that woudl be quite amusing to fight for and could be a third type of battles alongside
with sieges and land battles, I woudl include in those also bridges battles and other things like enchampments , coastal ports , etc....
Those could be strategical battles , where you have to gain control of key locations that ofc can also give the actual bonus stations you have already now ingame but much more evolved , with much more importance for fortifications , this woudl also allow for
more "toughtfull" gameplay where the field plays a lot more in the game ...
other features coudl be also natural features , that do not just rely on wood , hill , passable river , unpassable terrain , but I woudl add mudflats , swamp , dry ( cloudy) terrain , glaciers, cracks in terrain , stone slopes ( working sort of like the walls of a castle atm ) that
units can climb or slide over etc....
combine all those things together and you will have a superbattlefield full of very interesting things to do and decisions to take ....

16 More tight Castles Castles are too open wide and look moe like flat hilltops than nice building castles they would need moretight castles just like the ones we see in the islands in the naval fights ...

[andymate]

1. Allow user to control reinforcement armies. Have a tab with the generals faces on the right hand side and you can switch between the generals armies. In options set how many armies you can control at once. For slower computers select 1, for faster you could have 3 or 4 full stacks on the screen. Allow for ai assist as well.

2. Make it so the ai builds armies with good composition. At the moment i get armies full of archers in shogun , its highly boring to verse.

3. Less castle/fort fights and more open battles. I find i lose more troops defending in a castle then i do in open battle.

Most people have already said changes to diplomacy/economy so i won't add anything there.

[crzyrndm]

Today I decided to take a break from Shogun 2 and go back to Medieval 2. Fed up with people in MP, and I wanted to test the latest AI mod (Really Bad Ai, which btw is very impressive).

It occured to me some hours into playing, that the things that S2 does well, M2 does badly (or atleast, annoyingly), and vice versa.

I mean, S2 has working AI, mostly good balance between cav/inf/ranged units, understandable diplomacy, and trade income depends upon trading with another faction (which lowers income for dominant factions instead of increasing it), and a tight economy. In contrast, M2's AI is pathetic (even VBAI dosen't get it near S2's), Cav are so OP you can rout armies of spears with them, and trade is between regions not factions (trading with yourself...), and an economy that always resulted in bank balances in atleast the hundreds of thousands (I never could spend it all).

But replace all it's faults, and you have a map that is 2-3 times larger and mostly non-linear(every faction is a completely different campaign), so many different economic/civic development buildings to complexify the economy (well more than build a market anyway), and combat is slow enough that you can zoom in and watch the action.
And then there are the sieges. Siege towers and ladders, boiling oil, fighting in the streets, useful siege engines, spies opening the gates (), and just an over all better feel to them than S2's. Graphically, they might be inferior, but you just never notice while you're playing them (Gameplay over Graphics ).

PS It also has the most epic unit out. Nothing else causes as much carnage in the right situations as the byzantine firethrower, and it's mangonel is also much more impressive than anything since.

[ngr]

There are some features that I’d like to be implemented or returned in TW one day. I post here in addition to my separate topic.

1. Returns:

• Glorious Achievement victory. Just conquering same set of regions with different factions doesn’t really make game very replayable. There should be overall statistics points and special historical tasks. Victory statistics should be understandable and logical (like in MTW or Civ4, not like in NTW).

• Battle maps that are generated from strategy map title (like in RTW and M2TW).

• Possibility to retrain troops to upgrade armour and weapon (like in RTW and M2TW) - it’s realistic. Bonus for moral and accuracy should be left unretrainable.

• If there are different eras with different sets of units during game, then outdated units should be upgradable to new ones (like in MTW).

• Capture of rallying troops for subsequent ransom, enslaving, execution, sacrifice, release, etc. Additional income and character traits from such actions were really fun. For ransom troops could be selected separately (e.g. you can choose to buy back your general and knights but leave levies to enemy’s will). Captured troops could be also kept imprisoned for quite long time and later used in diplomacy to exchange for your troops captured by enemy or release them as condition for ceasefire. But such imprisoned troops should decrease every turn depending on time speed of game (e.g. it should decrease slow in game where one turn is one month, but do it fast in game where one turn is one year).

• Wounded warriors that could be recovered from casualties after successful battle.

• Surrender for besieged city (like in NTW). But there should be possibility to negotiate different options of surrender initiated either by besieger or defender. Immediate attack of troops that left surrendered city should add dishonor traits to general and faction leader.

• Height advantage in battle, at least prolonged flights of arrows.

• If there is spy in army, then enemy disposition should be visible to player at deployment stage of battle.

• Diplomatic option for trading territories. But AI should understand that some regions are more important than others and don’t trade it easily like in NTW.

• Proper admirals (like in NTW). And imho there should not be naval traits for other characters.

• If you order unit to move to new position during pause this position should be visible (by holding space key) right after order, not after end of pause (like in first MTW, iirc).

• Blood (at least as very cheap DLC).

2. Battles and sieges:

• Weather and environment cause more effect on combat. Heavy rain, snowfall, scorching heat will reduce stamina (of course, some units should be resistant to such conditions). Moving uphill (even slow walk) should always reduce stamina of units (though some units could be resistant to it). Mud, deep snow, water in ford will reduce speed of movement. Heavy fog, night will reduce moral of basic units in defense. Rain, snowstorm, duststorm will reduce distance of arrow flight. Frontal wind will also reduce distance of arrow flight, but tail wind will increase it. Angular wind should decrease accuracy of archers. Height advantage for archers should be returned too.

• All reinforcement troops take part in battle at same time, not small stack by stack. I remember how fun were such battles in MTW, even if I suffered crushing defeat. Plus it’s just logical to really outnumber enemy on battle map if you outnumber him on strategy map. Though armies should appear on battle map after some time according to their distance from main combatants (like in NTW). Bookmarks above unit cards will easily allow player to switch between his armies.

• Exhausted units stop any activity except self-defense until they recover stamina. It should be applied to retreating units too.

• Possibility to launch any attack or only ambush as surprise assault on enemy camp. Maybe it should be special trait for advanced generals. Such attack could start at night or early foggy morning. Most of enemy troops should be stationed inside tents or lay on the ground, though one or two units should be on guard. Surprised enemy should suffer moral penalty and act slower.

• Attackers are visible to defenders of besieged city during deployment stage of siege. Also it could be trait for advanced general to launch surprise attack on city so that defenders could not see disposition of attackers before beginning of battle.

• Manual control over city gates in siege battle.

• Button that set unit (or all your units together) to automatic pursue of every routing enemy on battle map.

• Ability to save your own formation in battle and apply it to your army in next battles. These long manual preparations of my favorite formation before almost every battle is one of the most boring aspects of the game.

• Quicksave in battle. Battles could last quite long but you not always have time to finish it. If you have to stop play right now, you can pause, save and exit game, then you can continue battle from the moment you saved.

3. Strategy map:

• If you choose to retreat instead of battle, you should be able to choose the place to where retreat instead of moving automatically to random place. AI retreat moves should be more logical. And it should be possible to retreat as much as your movement points and landscape allows you, not just one time.

• Decreased speed of army movement on enemy territory. Movement into hostile land is not quick march on friendly territory. There should be scouts in front of marching army, some stops in case of suspicious activity around, more time for finding forage, proper night camps, etc. – it all takes more time.

• Bonus for some troops in mountains: stamina bonus on battle map, ability to cross small mountains on strategy map.

• Troops presence make some positive effect on public order when troops are stationed in province, not in city itself (like in all TW games). Troops stationed in city should only increase this effect.

• Garrison troops keep experience after battle and don’t start with zero xp in next siege. On the other hand, they should replenish like other troops, not magically recover themselves just the same turn after battle. If you have large army stationed in city and cannot use all garrison troops in siege, it would be great to choose which garrison troops you want to use in coming battle. And I think that garrison troops should not be available to new owner of city right after conquest.

• Possibility to catapult infected animals into city during strategy level of siege to cause plague among besieged troops and citizens. If besieger army fights with sallying enemy or occupy infected city, it should be infected too.

• Castles as minor settlements of certain provinces (like port, blacksmith, factory, etc.) in Medieval and Renaissance games. They should be placed on strategic locations, but not necessary. They could give some bonuses to units (e.g. moral or accuracy) or/and allow to hire some special troops. And of course they should be additional fortifications to defend strategic locations.

• Mountain passes on strategy map that will be really narrow place in battle.

• Swamps as impassable terrain on both strategy and battle maps.

• Frozen rivers and lakes that would be possible to cross on both strategy and battle maps during winter.

• It should be possible to hire mercenaries from abroad only (what’s the point in giving additional payment to somebody if you can just have him as common levy in your regular army?). There were certain regions famous as source of mercenaries in different periods of history (e.g. Numidia and Libya in Antiquity, Aragon and Scandinavia in Middle Ages, Ireland and Germany in Renaissance, etc.). If you border or trade with faction that own such region, then in your border or port provinces you can hire mercenaries available for corresponding region (special button for hiring mercenaries could be placed right to unit recruitment slots in your city). But if you own such region yourself, you cannot hire any mercenaries from this region. Though there could be multiple provinces available for certain type of mercenaries (e.g. medieval Aragonese mercenaries could be hired from provinces of Barcelona, Saragosa and Valencia). Mercenaries could be also hired by your general in corresponding province (if this province does not belong to your faction).Cost of hire and replenishment rate of mercenary unit should correspond to diplomatic relations with faction that own “mercenary source” region. Friendly relations will decrease cost and increase replenishment, war will hugely increase cost and make replenishment almost stopped.

4. Factions and diplomacy:

• Traits for every playable faction should be more unique to make more diversity of factions, rather Civ5 style than S2TW style. It would be great to have really unique abilities for factions, not just “plus some percents”. Moreover there could be one positive and one negative trait for every faction according to historical realities (e.g. “+10 charge for all cavalry units” but “-1 loyalty to all generals” for Russia; or “+25% to trade income” but “-50 to relations with any neighboring faction” for Venice).

• Better communication with allies. There should be possibility to plan war against enemies. For example, you suggest your ally to start war against other faction and could choose which provinces of that faction should be occupied by you or your ally. Also you could specify time of invasion: immediately or after some turns. If you agree with your ally to start war after some turns, then after those turns there should be option for you (and your ally) to start war, postpone till next turn or cancel invasion. If one of allies decides to cancel war, it should negatively affect relations with other ally. Postponement will not affect relations but it should be limited to some number of repeats only (e.g. 3), after that you can only start or cancel war. During war if one of allies decides to occupy province which was previously suggested to other ally, it should negatively affect relations with all other allies. On the other hand there should be possibility to return to ally a region that he lost earlier. Same could be done by AI to human player. There should be also possibility to call for help: one ally asks other ally to help him in certain province. There should be option to negotiate peace together with allies. Though allies could decide themselves either to stop war or continue. On the other side AI allies could negotiate peace themselves and then ask human player if he want to stop war or continue it alone.

• Simple communication with AI ally in battle: hold, attack, fire, outflank them from right/left/rear, stay in defense to right/left/rear of me, retreat, etc. Though AI could ignore your orders and prefer to act independently (e.g. if ally general has more stars than your general).

• Better communication with vassals. You should be able to grant more territory to your vassals, specify amount of tribute (in percents of vassal’s income), order to start or stop war against other faction (even without your own participation in that war), choose defensive or offensive tactics and order to occupy certain provinces of enemy. You could also call for help of vassal in certain province. And you should be able to annex vassal, but it will cause negative effect on public order in former vassal provinces (large anger should decrease every turn after annexation but small negative points should stay forever as memory of former independence). Annexation will negatively affect relations with that faction if it will reappear again.

• Faction can offer itself to become vassal of other faction.

• Possibility to ask other faction to stop war against third faction.

• Possibility to gain some of technologies known to rival faction when you destroy this faction.

5. Characters:

• Trade ships should not be naval military units, but kind of characters (like general who is character on strategy map but military unit on battle map). Number of trade ships should be limited like number of spies, monks, etc. (for example, one ship per each trade route available to port).

• All generals who participate in battle gain some experience. Though commander should gain the most of it.

• Governors as strategy map characters.

• Possibility to disband strategy map characters.

6. Navy and naval battles:

• Ships should have capacity limit for transporting troops. There should be more realistic size of fleet for transporting army, not just one ship for full-stack army.

• Possibility for ships to use friendly ports on strategy map.

• Receive some booty if you capture trade or pirate ships in successful battle.

• Ships run aground in naval battles.

• Ship could be boarded by two enemy ships from both sides.

7. Trade:

• Small inner trade income for luxury goods which faction imports itself by ships from trade posts.

• Significant amount of luxury goods available to faction cause positive effect on public order (e.g. 1 happiness point for every 3 luxury items).

• More diversity of tradable resources for provinces.

8. Cities:

• Unique plans for major cities according to time period of game. Ideally there should be unique plan for every city, but I understand that it’s too much work to do. City structures could be the same for every city of certain culture, but put on unique terrain (like in RTW and M2TW). Random city plan generator (which will remember generated plans for every city) could be better. No more clone castles and cities, please – it was one of most unfun features of NTW and S2TW.

• Coastal cities on battle map situated right on coast, not near it. Rivers that flows through city or along city walls.

9. Tasks and events:

• Possibility to choose between different variants of reward for completed task instead of giving just one variant that is not always useful.

• Task to build certain unique building in certain province (e.g. build Coliseum in Rome in next 30 turns). There would be special temporary construction slot in city for this building only. Such building could give some bonuses to faction (like in NTW).

• More tasks during middle and late game, with more diversity of tasks. Tasks should be more logical.

• More diversity of negative random events.

10. UI:

• Clocks somewhere (like in Civ).

• It will be useful to see written number of units (1 to 21) in army and not to count it yourself.

• One more bookmark for city to see which garrison troops are available there.

• Three statistics screens with list of all your provinces to see which buildings you can construct, which land and naval units you can recruit in corresponding provinces.

• When you select faction list below strategy mini-map, it would be useful to place on mini-map icons to see which factions you trade with, which are enemies and which are allies. In S2TW list of factions bellow mini-map is actually useless.

• Statistics list under strategy mini-map to see religion, culture, etc. for all provinces, with information depicted on mini-map.

• It would be great to see on strategy mini-map armies, fleets and characters of factions which you’re at war with. Of course, if they are at visible zones. Such icons could be painted with colors of corresponding factions. It would be useful to see allied units too. You could add one more list under mini-map or just add switchers to existing lists of armies, fleets and characters: “You”, “Allies” and “Rivals”.

• For battle UI: buttons that will move units right and left, not just forward and back or rotate. Buttons that increase/decrease rows of unit could be combined in one set only (not two different big buttons aside of forward/back set).

11. Dear CA, please, make one of Your next games to be “Genghis Khan: Total War” with map stretching from Europe to Japan. I’m tired of only Europe or Japan maps : )

There are also some features of S2TW which imho should be changed in upcoming titles.

1. One of the main problems of the game is that strategy map AI knows how to attack, but doesn’t know how to defend itself. Defending AI must be seriously reworked. AI should keep sufficient army near borders with unfriendly factions. AI should not move all its troops just to one side of empire leaving all other provinces defenseless (imagine that D-day was just pleasant seaside walk because all nazi were busy on eastern front!). AI troops should not leave city right after conquest just to cause rebellion in the province, but should wait till public order will be normal (even without presence of troops in city) and leave city only for counterattack. Moreover AI should not expand too fast without armies enough for defense from all necessary directions. It’s too easy (and boring) now to conquer numerous “empty” provinces of large AI faction while its troops are busy somewhere else.

2. Ambushes are almost useless now and needs to be revised. Battle map should represent ambush conditions more accurately: there should be road (if ambushed troops were caught on it) with forest at least on one side of it. If the tile on strategy map is hilly, then it should be hills along the road. Both forest and hills should be quite close to zone of ambushed troops. Ambusher troops should be placed closer to ambushed troops (maybe at arrow flight or shot distance). Ambushed troops should start battle in march formation, with decreased morale and they should be visible to player at deployment stage of battle.

3. Battles on bridge should be revised. There should be only one bridge or ford on battle map, so there should be really hard fight for it. If you want to outmaneuver enemy defending bridge, it should be done on strategy map, not on battle map. Defending AI troops should be placed closer to bridge (to prevent human player from placing troops in proper formation after crossing the bridge), but not too close (it should not be reached by arrow/fire shot from other bank). In case of artillery fire from enemy, AI should replace its troops far from bridge, out of fire, or even retreat.

4. Speed of combat should be decreased so that players would be able to see all those great animations. Now the action is so quick that I play battles mostly at bird-view mode and any combat animation is absolutely useless for me. What’s the point of making this great animation if player just cannot see it?

5. Levels of difficulty of game should be revised. Now at hardest levels we see only cheating from AI – absolutely no fun. I want challenge but not cheating! Instead there should be more passive or aggressive behavior of AI, more predictable or unexpected AI decisions on different difficulty levels.

6. AI behavior:

• AI factions now seems to forget about any province if it fell to rebels (most likely it’s bug). But such “easy-to-conquer” provinces should be primal targets of AI expansion.
• AI should know that open gates are better way into besieged city than climbing on walls. Actually I never saw in S2TW that AI use already broken and open gates or try to open it to get into my besieged castle.
• AI generals should be more careful in battles, take part in combat less frequently and avoid combat if losing badly. It’s too easy now to kill enemy general in battle.

7. Battles:

• Gates should not be automatically opened for routing besiegers who try to escape from castle after unsuccessful attack.
• Spies in army should not always open gates in besieged city. There should be some chance of success for this action.
• Archers should not rotate whole unit to shot new target – they should just turn around while standing at the same place. Sometimes it happen in game, sometimes not.
• When grouped units are ordered to move to new position behind them, they first run crisscross, then towards new position, then crisscross again to stand on proper place for each unit in group. Surely it’s bug that must be fixed.

8. Diplomacy:

• If you are at war with faction, it should be possible to demand to become vassal at any time.
• It should be impossible to join trade embargo against ally (I’m not sure if it was noted and already fixed).

9. Strategy map:

• Many provinces are too small and cities are too close to each other. In some parts of map during one turn your army can start from your border city and easily capture neighboring rival city or even two. Map should give more space for field battles and more time for defenders to prepare. Maybe scale of map should be increased.
• Radius of control for armies and fleets should be increased. It will give defending army more chance to intercept sudden invasion.
• Movement radius for cavalry units on strategy map should be significantly wider then radius for infantry units. Now it’s just a little difference.
• Pathfinding on strategy map should be revised so that pathblocking will happen less often. Automated units should be smart enough to walk around friendly units.
• Strategy map characters should not block path for armies and other characters.
• Cities, characters, etc. should be strongly faded and all names of objects should be hidden if they are far from center of screen. It’s too much “noise” now on the map.
• Ports should be depicted on undiscovered parts of strategy map too (if the map in next TW will be done the same artistic way as in S2TW).
• Technologies that gives just additional experience to new recruits seems to be quite useless and too artificial (invented for increasing of research time only). Imho each new technology should give some real advantage to faction.
• Certain trade resource should not be imported and exported at same time. It’s strange, for example, if trading with Takeda you buy their horses and sell your horses to them. If both factions have the same resource it should not be tradable between them.
• If faction that trade with you lose its port which was used for this trade, then trade route should be automatically connected to another free port of that faction (if it’s possible), and trade agreement should not be cancelled.
• If your trade route that supply you with resources from “outmap” faction was blocked by enemy or pirates, these resources should be connected to another port of your faction (if it’s possible).
• One of early levels (before trade route) of port in S2TW seems to be unnecessary.
• Replenishment in ROTS is TOO SLOW. Especially when AI spams you with endless full-stack armies (I play just on hard level). Ok, keep the speed of replenishment like that – but do something with enormous AI armies. Or return faster replenishment.

10. Characters:

• Gaining new trait of characters should be revised. For example it’s illogical that ninja improves his assassination skills after successful sabotage mission. Maybe there should be access to only certain parts of traits tree after certain actions (e.g. after sabotage you could choose sabotage and personal traits, but not assassination traits).
• It’s quite illogical that buddhist monks can initiate unrest in christian provinces and christian missionaries can initiate unrest in buddhist provinces. Imho provocation actions should be attached to other characters, not religious ones. Or religious characters could initiate unrest in regions of corresponding religion only.
• Judges (or other public order keeping characters) should not trial other judges. It’s illogical - they are not criminals.
• All relatives should remain in faction after death of old leader. Now daughters of old leader and all children of brothers of current leader completely disappears. It should be way to use them too for faction. Now there is three blocks on family screen: current ruling family, brothers and generals. You could simply add one more block for all relatives that are not members of current ruling family. Or/and make more detailed tree for brothers and generals. RTW-M2TW style family tree was more suitable for these purposes.
• Why heir cannot be commissioner of something at the same time? These two subjects should be separated.

11. Units:

• New recruits are overexperienced after construction of advanced levels of buildings and research of many technologies. First, it’s just illogical that new units are much more experienced then most of veterans which fought many battles. Second, it provoke player to wait long time to finish chain of certain buildings and research of certain technologies and then start “real” game and expansion. Third, it’s actually quite annoying to often disband your veteran units because you can now hire more experienced newbies. And you cannot stop yourself from such hire-and-disband process, because in such game conditions it’s just logical. So imho ultimate experience for new units should be limited to 2-3 initial levels, other should be gained in battles. Experience from technologies is bad and unrealistic idea imho.
• Making conditions for some advanced units to be both construction of new level of building and research of technology is just surplus complication of game – there should be only one condition. Those new levels of dojos that you can construct but they will give you nothing new until you research some technology – it’s just weird.
• Special resources required for construction of buildings is great idea. But it should be revised more logically. Silk and cotton required for dojos – wtf??? Gay samurais that don’t go battle without fancy dress?
• System of buildings required for units is excessively tangled in ROTS. There are two separate buildings for basic and elite units – well, ok. But why there is third building for elite naginatas and monk warriors together? I mean, I could understand why monks has separate building. But why naginatas are excluded from other elite units and why they are mixed with monks?

12. UI:

• Cards of grouped units in battle should be arranged more logically. The order of cards on UI panel should reflect position of corresponding units on map: the most left card is the most left unit, the next is less left unit, etc.
• Unit cards in battle UI should not be drag-and-droppable – it only mess up groups occasionally.
• If you select your entire army where grouped units mixed with ungrouped units and order it to move to another location by dragging mouse over that location, your army should not stretch into one line but keep formation like one entire group (the same way it work when you select grouped units only).
• In diplomacy screen if you return from negotiations with faction to list of all factions, you should return to line of the faction you talked to, not to the top of list. Constant scrolling is really annoying.
• In diplomacy screen the amount of trade should be shown on trade icon for factions which you trade with.
• When you select province list below strategy mini-map, there should be all specific resources and regional specialities shown on mini-map, not only tradable resources.
• When one of your characters is imprisoned, assassinated, wounded, etc. there should be type of character (ninja, monk, etc.) written on pop-up message, not only name of character.
• There should be name and type of character written on pop-up message about suspicious or natural death.
• When you click on “zoom” button in pop-up message about blocked port, son come of age, imprisoned character, etc., next message should not pop-up until you click “OK” button.
• Assassination movies for strategy map agents should be different to movies for military characters.

[military tribune]

I don't have time to go through all the posts under this thread, so there maybe some repeating of posted points. But would like to add a few of mine to future Total War titles:

1. Additional military units must not be spawned if factionwide limit of manpower is reached (not speaking of mercenary units). The calculation of manpower limit is provided by game core engine not by script.

2. Army commander is usually not supposed to personally fight in combat. He watches how battle progresses with his guards and staffs on site but not fight in person in most cases.

3. Battles in cold-steel era were generally fought in set-piece manner, i.e. soldiers walked out the camp and were grouped into battle formation and then proceed towards enemy. There are few examples of meeting engagements that the opposing armies met each other accidently or unexpectly. But in general, if one side "refuse" to fight, battle won't happen. I suggest that in future tw game, battle occurs on the empty ground between two camps. And one side could opt not to fight.

4. Rivercrossing battles must be reworked. I would suggest on strategy map level, river can be crossed in almost all sections but an army losses all its movement points for such crossing. If Julius Caesar had to build a bridge before he could across Rhine with his army, I don't see why others could easily locate a "secret" ford in downsteam as to where Caesar built the bridge.

[Bucle_CT]

Three suggestions for any-era Total war game:

1.- Control reinforcement armies-->this can be easily implemented by an option that allows the user to switch between comanders (the main army's one or the one in the reinforcement). This was done before in games like Imperial Glory (Ithink) and is a very interesting option.

2.- Siege Naval Battles--> when a port is blockaded with a fleet inside it, there has to be the option of breaching the blockade, but with the strategical and tactical advantage of the blockading fleet, having a better position. This can be balanced including a port land defenses system (e.g.,catapuls or cannons, depending the era)that could be either built in campaign as a new construction , or represented by some -siege- units. Of course, there would be needed a totally new battlemap concept (port maps), and this leads me to my third suggestion....

3.- Anphibious battles --> When a landing army is intercepted by a defending one in campaign map. The scenario is quite particular for this new kind of battle, where the defending army has a better tactical possition in land , but the landing army has the support of its armada (cannon fire/catapults, again, depending on the era).

..I think that's all folks, think about it.

[Humble Warrior]

Today I decided to take a break from Shogun 2 and go back to Medieval 2. Fed up with people in MP, and I wanted to test the latest AI mod (Really Bad Ai, which btw is very impressive).

It occured to me some hours into playing, that the things that S2 does well, M2 does badly (or atleast, annoyingly), and vice versa.

I mean, S2 has working AI, mostly good balance between cav/inf/ranged units, understandable diplomacy, and trade income depends upon trading with another faction (which lowers income for dominant factions instead of increasing it), and a tight economy. In contrast, M2's AI is pathetic (even VBAI dosen't get it near S2's), Cav are so OP you can rout armies of spears with them, and trade is between regions not factions (trading with yourself...), and an economy that always resulted in bank balances in atleast the hundreds of thousands (I never could spend it all).

But replace all it's faults, and you have a map that is 2-3 times larger and mostly non-linear(every faction is a completely different campaign), so many different economic/civic development buildings to complexify the economy (well more than build a market anyway), and combat is slow enough that you can zoom in and watch the action.
And then there are the sieges. Siege towers and ladders, boiling oil, fighting in the streets, useful siege engines, spies opening the gates (), and just an over all better feel to them than S2's. Graphically, they might be inferior, but you just never notice while you're playing them (Gameplay over Graphics ).

PS It also has the most epic unit out. Nothing else causes as much carnage in the right situations as the byzantine firethrower, and it's mangonel is also much more impressive than anything since.

I believe MTW2`s good outweighs the bad stuff easily. I actually think the BAI is only slightly worse than STW2`s (STW has the advantage of actually being able to see far to its lefta nd right flanks).

Of course, Sieges are the golden crown of MTW2 because it uses real historical processes and makes you use realistic tactics to attack or defend. It is indeed way more epic than STW2 sieges as well. IN MTW2 a siege feels like a nail-biting siege. You almost feel you`re witnessing a siege as it WOULD have been in reality as you try to bottleneck an attack- Not like STW2 which makes a guy shake his head. Graphically, it still stands up well with mud and blood too! This is why MTW2 still remains my most favourite TW to date. I can barely withstand STW2 sieges and only play them if I must... A far cry from MTW2.

So sad that CA lost the plot on sieges. They misunderstand what truly makes a siege epic. It`s not bum rushing, it`s the push and pull and meat grinder that was the reality and the nailbiting battle to either breach or hold the line while watching thousands of men die trying for you or dying against you! To immerse the Player into a time long ago... Not to play command and conquer RTS!

p.s. Did I forget to mention that the siege BAI in MTW2 also know how to use cannons in sieges, in fact all siege weapons, holding back its men until a breach? Where in STW2 I have yet to see the siege BAI use siege weapons while holding its men back? No matter what CA say MTW2 siege BAI is by far superior to the bum rush wall climbing spider men of STW2.

[walrus2517]

I'll second that realistic battle maps should be brought back over the current and very limited pre-made selection in S2. Don't get me wrong, RTW could come up with some wild battle maps, but it still beats fighting the same battles and sieges over and over again on the exact same maps.

Other than that, my only suggestion is just don't make the next TW game Shogun 3. I'd had enough of Japan after just one campaign.

[The Norseman]

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