The End of Your Empire

[zchmrkenhoff]

I think that one of the reasons why at the end of a strategy game there is no challenge is that we fundamentally fail to understand culture and empires to the degree that we need to. The moral character of the people needs to be evaluated, to the extent that as you become more powerful and rich, there should be an attribute that shows how your people are becoming weaker and corrupted.Your military should become weaker, more ethnic, populated by undesirables, and finance & etc should come to dominate your country. Basically, the sort of internal dissension that realistically racked an empire needs to be present in these games in order to make them more viable to play.


We should incorporate Spengler into strategy games, accurately portraying not only the rise, but also the fall of cultures and empires.

Is there anything like this for ANY Total War game?

[ccllnply]

It's a very good idea. However, you're probably asked far too much of the Total War games, especially the newer ones.

Older TW games, (specifically MTW and RTW) had massive civil wars that really proved a challenge in the late game when you had just got so powerful that there was no point continuing. Empire Total War had this as well but this was really just a nuisance more than a challenge.

[M2TWRocks]

I understand where you're coming from, but hate the idea. It's easier to understand why TW games play out the way they do if you've played all the way from the beginning. They started as a risk style game almost exclusively focused on warfare and occupation of territory as a condition for winning. As time has gone on, people have complained about just about everything from the horns on viking helmets to lack of naval invasions. But initially, the game was simply a game of territorial conquest. If you start throwing all sorts of obstacles into the "late" game, for me, it just makes finishing or winning a campaign annoying and convoluted.

CA has tried many things recently in an attempt to create an interesting mid to late game, but it almost always just involved a gigantic scripted event that has nothing to do with the choices you've made. The sort of suggestions you mentioned are attempted by CA with things like corruption, and increasing levels of imperium or whatever it's called in game. It just drags things out in my opinion.

I will say this: You should try out Attila TW and play as the Western or Eastern Roman Empire because the gameplay resembles pretty much exactly what you're talking about.

[zchmrkenhoff]

I understand where you're coming from, but hate the idea. It's easier to understand why TW games play out the way they do if you've played all the way from the beginning. They started as a risk style game almost exclusively focused on warfare and occupation of territory as a condition for winning. As time has gone on, people have complained about just about everything from the horns on viking helmets to lack of naval invasions. But initially, the game was simply a game of territorial conquest. If you start throwing all sorts of obstacles into the "late" game, for me, it just makes finishing or winning a campaign annoying and convoluted.

CA has tried many things recently in an attempt to create an interesting mid to late game, but it almost always just involved a gigantic scripted event that has nothing to do with the choices you've made. The sort of suggestions you mentioned are attempted by CA with things like corruption, and increasing levels of imperium or whatever it's called in game. It just drags things out in my opinion.

I will say this: You should try out Attila TW and play as the Western or Eastern Roman Empire because the gameplay resembles pretty much exactly what you're talking about.

Sounds like you're opposed to my idea because of previous attempts of how it seems to have been implemented, but this is not sufficient reason to be opposed to it in earnest.

[D@gget]

It would be an interesting lesson, but I imagine players would feel aggravated to see things start degenerating beyond their control.

[Abdülmecid I]

I think that one of the reasons why at the end of a strategy game there is no challenge is that we fundamentally fail to understand culture and empires to the degree that we need to. The moral character of the people needs to be evaluated, to the extent that as you become more powerful and rich, there should be an attribute that shows how your people are becoming weaker and corrupted.Your military should become weaker, more ethnic, populated by undesirables, and finance & etc should come to dominate your country

I disagree. Immoralism and materialism were used from a couple of puritanist Greek and Roman authors to justify the decadence of ancient empires, but it has little to do with reality and is actually an indication that the said authors were jealous of their neighbors' wealth. Since Shogun, CA has tried to make the last stages of the game difficult, by easily adding some unrealistic challenges, liek Realm Divide, Attila the Full-Stacks Spammer and so on, without realising that the original RTW was closer to history. What is needed is the comeback of the "distance from capital" mechanism, which decisively influenced the public order and a more accurate and complicated recruitment system. The ancient empires stopped expanding, not because Xerxes or Commodus enjoyed a good meal, but because expansion was logistically impossible and financially harmful. Their social structure being relied on slaves captured during their continous conquests, not being able to epand further meant that they would gradually collapse. That's what CA should try to implement and that's why Rome's I system was more historically accurate on this aspect, although still far from perfection.

[Baldwin of Jerusalem]

Very well put Abdulmecid!

[command_codes]

I disagree. Immoralism and materialism were used from a couple of puritanist Greek and Roman authors to justify the decadence of ancient empires, but it has little to do with reality and is actually an indication that the said authors were jealous of their neighbors' wealth

A projection. Hardly the case. The merchant's excuse.

Since Shogun, CA has tried to make the last stages of the game difficult, by easily adding some unrealistic challenges, liek Realm Divide, Attila the Full-Stacks Spammer and so on, without realising that the original RTW was closer to history. What is needed is the comeback of the "distance from capital" mechanism, which decisively influenced the public order and a more accurate and complicated recruitment system. The ancient empires stopped expanding, not because Xerxes or Commodus enjoyed a good meal, but because expansion was logistically impossible and financially harmful.

I like the Civil wars and barbarians have a much higher mobilization, but otherwise a post not without merit.

Their social structure being relied on slaves captured during their continous conquests, not being able to epand further meant that they would gradually collapse. That's what CA should try to implement and that's why Rome's I system was more historically accurate on this aspect, although still far from perfection.

Of course, that means that they have been hollowed from within, exporting their fighting men as colonists and replacing them with slaves