Warhammer will be next but what then?

[Jurand of Cracow]

There are many periods I'd love to see, medieval (again), Renaissance (English civil war dlc), Victoria, empire (again) even a pre history Stone Age would be cool. But it's more features I'd like tbh. I'd love to be able to recruit a generic unit eg peasant levy or knights and then be able to choose how heavily armoured they are, what weapons they carry, etc similar to what you do for heroes in warhammer.
eg, mtw3:
you recruit a unit of Knights, depending on tech/faction you can give them light mail, heavy mail, plate, gothic armour or even Milanese. You can choose whether they're mounted or not, horse armour or no, whether they use a shield (type of shield too) and weapons (sword, mace axe, plus two handed variants). They'd be able to get different weapons mid campaign without recruiting a new unit.

This would be absolutely horrible for me - pure arcade with fantasy units. There are dozens of such games. I play the TW games because they have some link to history (and I play only the mods which give more historical feel). This is why I haven't bought Warhammer. If CA would go for such solutions, I hope there would be competitors I could switch to,as I did for instance with the Ultimate General made by DarthVader.

[Doomsday]

This would be absolutely horrible for me - pure arcade with fantasy units.

Don't think you're getting me.
I'm not suggesting a Skyrim style game where a unit has the ability to use every item in the game.
Using a medieval total war example, I am not suggesting every faction gets access to longbows. Nor am I suggesting England/Wales can recruit knightly longbowmen. Both examples would be ahistorical, the longbow was an english/welsh weapon used by the lower classes.

But a knight may very well use any number of weapons. Men grouped together in a single unit wouldn't have all used the same weapon and would often change weapons as the need arose.

Using a longbow unit example;

A player recruits longbowmen as England. They are asked whether they want them unarmoured, leather, mail or partial plate. The player should be asked whether they want to give them a melee weapon, e.g dagger, sword, billhook. Any heavier armour would be ahistorical so the player isn't able to stick his longbowmen in say, full gothic plate. As it's a longbow unit, it shouldn't be able to swap the longbow for a crossbow, nor should it ever equal a knight in melee combat. what choices you get for both weapons and armour would depend on tech researched, lower class units shouldn't use mail until you've researched a tech allowing it, no billhooks until it has been invented etc. It'd be more historically accurate than either Rome 2 or Attila.
In the first, factions are denied access to certain units (often spearmen or archers) when both spears and bows were commonly used by virtually everyone.
In the second, you lose access to levy tier units as you tech up, being forced to recruit elites. My idea would allow the player to decide whether they wanted to spend more money having say, a heavily armed longbow unit, able to hold it's own against other peasant units, or to rely on faster, purely ranged men, should the player feel mid game a unit is under-performing, they should have the option to change equipment, for a price.

[Huberto]

I noticed a small update to the "what the TW teams are working on" page on Totalwar.com as of September 1.

Historical Team – Unannounced Total War Title

Pre-production for our next historical major release continues apace, with the team working on pretty much all areas of the game at this stage, but particularly jaw-dropping are the character and campaign map concepts that are starting to crop up around the studio with increasing frequency.

It will still be some time before we are able to share anything specific about our next big historical game. The official social media channels, and the world’s press will certainly tell you when there’s more to reveal.

My guess remains that this historical game will be announced at EGX/Rezzed next year March 30-April 1 in London.

https://www.egx.net/rezzed

[ITClown]

I agree- I have not played nor will I ever play Warhammer TW- fantasy just isn't my thing, period. If others like it, that's totally fine, but I don't. Ideally I'd like either one of the following:
-Victorian era/Empire II (I think E2TW is somewhat likely as they've made a sequel for pretty much all of the TW games except that, it's the one I'd like the most too, with a lot more of the world to conquer, but don't make it too much like Paradox's Victoria series)
-WWI (unlikely, but it'd be cool)
-The gap between MTW and ETW, that would be cool as well. Pike and shot as many have suggested.
-Not going to happen, I know, but Med III would be cool as well.

I just really hope they don't release another fantasy game before they release a historical one. As I said, I really don't think Warhammer should have made it's way into the TW series because then its fans will start calling out for another Warhammer or fantasy title.

[Huberto]

I just really hope they don't release another fantasy game before they release a historical one. As I said, I really don't think Warhammer should have made it's way into the TW series because then its fans will start calling out for another Warhammer or fantasy title.

It's clear from their September 1 update that the second WH title is farther along than the historical title and they have a majority of CA staff working on the WH follow-up.

https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/183522/what-the-total-war-teams-are-working-on-updated-1st-september-2016

Warhammer Team –Total War: WARHAMMER trilogy
Work on the sequel itself has now been well underway for a while, with the majority of staff working on the massive amount of content being prepared for the second part of the trilogy.

[Xhepnon]

What about ANCIENT or a ANATOLIAN or MEZOPOTAMIAN Total War since mesopotamia was the craddle of civilizations? If it is to be taken seriously there is a huge potential.

Check this out there were ancestors of Greeks persians eagyptians armenians turks and much more little civs living in at same time fighting each othet while exploring world by their own ways of thinking that was a brutal and mythical time period which i find very intresting.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Orient.png

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...es_of_Anatolia

http://realhistoryww.com/world_histo...a_Turkey_2.htm

Spoiler for images: 

[ImperatorAndreas]

Bronze Age Total War would be cool; with Mycenea, Egypt, Hittites, Babylon, etc.

[Flinn]

Bronze age has my vote too

[NostalgiaFan]

What about ANCIENT or a ANATOLIAN or MEZOPOTAMIAN Total War since mesopotamia was the craddle of civilizations? If it is to be taken seriously there is a huge potential.

Check this out there were ancestors of Greeks persians eagyptians armenians turks and much more little civs living in at same time fighting each othet while exploring world by their own ways of thinking that was a brutal and mythical time period which i find very intresting.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Orient.png

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...es_of_Anatolia

http://realhistoryww.com/world_histo...a_Turkey_2.htm

Spoiler for images: 

I was always thinking of something like this. It would be awesome if we had this but I don't think they will go for it sadly. In the future I definitely see it as a possibility but we would have to wait for it. Would love to play as the Assyrians since they were like the first true militaristic empire made with their focus on strong and powerful armies.

[Destraex]

Unless they change graphics engines it does not matter. Bit my vote would be for ww1 total war or medieval 3. With med3 I hope they go to smaller battles with less shimmering jaggy merged units that ate unidentifiable at range.

[BarnicleBill1]

I've always kinda wanted a game where you can build up your empire, in a more complex way, but with the campaign and battle mechanics of total war. My idea is of a game where you start as a small group of settlers, choose a historical/cultural background that determines their theme then build from there. You recruit units like in total war but you choose what they are armed and armored with, you build buildings but you choose the layout and defensive structure of your city. From their you go and eventually build other cities.

[Kraut]

Bit my vote would be for ww1 total war or medieval 3.

With the latest statements ("new, untouched era") Med3 is ruled out.

[BallButton]

Well, to finally put the nail in the coffin, CA have officially announced that Medieval will not be the next historical setting:

"However, during a roundtable discussion on the future of the Total War franchise, brand director Rob Bartholomew told Eurogamer that the team were in fact working on "an era we haven't tackled yet."

This means the next historical game won't be set in feudal Japan, the Roman republic or medieval Europe. Nor will we see a return to the Napoleonic Wars or the fight for American independence.


"Did he? That's interesting of him," added creative director Mike Simpson when pressed for further details on Bartholomew's comment. "Yes, it's a brand new era. It's not something we've done before.""

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...nt-tackled-yet

[PikeStance]

How exactly is this a nail in the coffin?
The produce commercial success game after game.

[BallButton]

"However, during a roundtable discussion on the future of the Total War franchise, brand director Rob Bartholomew told Eurogamer that the team were in fact working on "an era we haven't tackled yet."

This means the next historical game won't be set in feudal Japan, the Roman republic or medieval Europe. Nor will we see a return to the Napoleonic Wars or the fight for American independence.

"Did he? That's interesting of him," added creative director Mike Simpson when pressed for further details on Bartholomew's comment. "Yes, it's a brand new era. It's not something we've done before.""

That's exactly how it's a nail in the coffin, the next TW will NOT be Med 3 or Empire/Napoleon 2.

[PikeStance]

They also stated that they will test the limits of the engine in the next released. This doesn't sound like a bad thing. It may be more prudent to wait until we know more before passing judgement.

[EU Empire is fubar]

For me Warhammy was the most boring game ever in the history of Total war. I hope they go back to realistic stuff like Empire total was (less buggy than release state) . Give me Empire total war 2. It wont be fubar. Get it my name is EU Empire is fubar. Get it ? Giz a bit of rep guvnarr? OK so staying on topic please CA give us a realistic battle game where I can use units that existed or can be modded into any unit I want from the timeframe. I want Generals that existed. Many of them. Good unit cards. Unit descriptions . Not Orcs and Goblins. They are not real. I think.

"However, during a roundtable discussion on the future of the Total War franchise, brand director Rob Bartholomew told Eurogamer that the team were in fact working on "an era we haven't tackled yet."

This means the next historical game won't be set in feudal Japan, the Roman republic or medieval Europe. Nor will we see a return to the Napoleonic Wars or the fight for American independence.

"Did he? That's interesting of him," added creative director Mike Simpson when pressed for further details on Bartholomew's comment. "Yes, it's a brand new era. It's not something we've done before.""

That's exactly how it's a nail in the coffin, the next TW will NOT be Med 3 or Empire/Napoleon 2.

This means it will be WW1. They will have to keep trench warfare out of it. I remember some CA guy talking about tanks from ww1 being possible in a magazine.

[Pinarius]

No, it can still be about the 1600s, which would make much more sense.

[drpolgi]

I just really want a new gunpowder based game. As I remember when they started to work on Attila they said the next TW game would not be a sequel and it still was a Barbarian Invasion 2. I hope they will make something like Empire with a working AI and a much better map and later a Napoleon DLC.

I do not want to have the next TW game being another sword/bow/catapult style game. To be honest the way TW battles go there is not much difference between Shogun / Rome 2 or Attila. The only thing that is better in these battles than in ETW/NTW is the AI can handle it better (select all units and attack).

In ETW the AI did not work at all and I still played it for more than 400 hours. I have 800+ hours in Napoleon, most of this time was multiplayer. Those multiplayer battles were so much fun. Not 5-15 minutes battles like in the newer TW games but sometimes the 60 minutes limit we had for historical battles was not enough. I know it had seroius balance issues and everybody wanted to play as Britain or France (maybe Prussia for the light infantry) but still it felt like a battle. I still remember some of the best battles like winning 3v3 the battle of Waterloo or especially Auserlitz as the French.

One thing would be very important. Please use a new engine. Rome 2 / Attila / Warhammer all look awful if you watch the battles from a longer distance. I know if you go close units have fantastic details but the whole picture of the battlefield is terrible even on the highest settings.

[PikeStance]

This is true. There really isn't much difference between Rome 2, Attila, and Shogun 2 (except FotS). It is the same smash mouth tactics with different factions. WWI will not work. I haven't played the mod, but I did watch some on youtube and ti clear the mechanics of TW is not right for the era. Better to HOI4 and download the mod.