Expectations. Realistic or otherwise.

[JackDionne]

What are my expectations when it comesto TW:3K


It's actually quite broad, I am hopingfor lots of factions which judging from what I have read on theforums there will be no shortage. I am also hoping for some uniquecampaign play that will give China it's own unique game play flavor.I am expecting smooth game play from day one of release.


I am hoping CA takes advantage of thatmotion capture studio they made sure we knew about when Rome II cameout. I want to see unique animations. The obligatory groan kick isgetting old in Attila. I am not expecting an Avatar conquest doesn'tmean I don't want one. I would even pay for it separately.


Back to the motion capture animationsstudio of CA. I feel they dropped the ball on this when they had theopportunity to show the proper throwing of the Plumbata. The Plumbatais a throwing weapon that the Romans had very similar to a lawn dart.It's thrown underhand. Had they been able incorporate that into thegame it would of brought the game to another level. I am hoping theydon't get complacent with the uniqueness of TW:3k.


I am also looking for historicalaccuracy in unit detail. I am expecting it to be epic, more so thenany of it's predecessors. I would also like to see some spin offgames dealing with Korea at a later time.


These are a couple of my expectationswhether realistic or not we will soon find out. I am not a computerguy but I see threads on a new engine and stuff like that for thegame. I decided not to comment on things I don't know anything aboutin that regard.

[zoner16]

Things I need:

• River battles and naval bases - This is a pretty big one. The rivers in this period were incredibly important, both as strategic barriers and highways for men and supplies. While there were only a couple of really big naval battles, it was mostly because nobody could really contest Wu's naval dominance. Controlling stretches of river through naval bases on them should be a major goal for most factions.
• Supplies, of some description - Most records and other retellings of the period feature supplies prominently. Guandu was won by the destruction of Yuan Shao's supply base, and much diplomacy was conducted by terms of supplies. Regional supplies like in Divide et Impera would be a great add. If I don't want the enemy marching through Hanzhong, just turning it into a wasteland should be a viable option.
• Chinese Bureaucracy - We've had offices in Total War, but nothing comes close to the intricacies and importance of the Han Imperial bureaucracy. Giving certain officers positions within the army and the government shouldn't just be a way to get some nice bonuses. You want the best people in the best places. We don't need too many stats, but having a bit more than the Command/Administration divide from THRoB would be great.

Things I really want:

• Lots of Officers - In most Total Wars, we've been pretty limited on the amount of officers kicking about because we usually lack things for them to do. Well, if you want to really recreate the feeling of the Three Kingdoms, you'll need a lot of them, running the bureaucracy, fighting on the frontlines, and manning garrisons. Honestly, leaderless armies are less of a want for me than multiple officers per army. I want a real command structure in a full stack, with the ability to customize my officers to be good at different things, whether that be aura buffs, logistics, frontline command and more. I want to be able to commit officers to battle without sweating too hard at the thought of losing them. Not because they're Warhammer immortal, but because they're a level 3 officer who I have 6 more of I can replace with if they die. Of course, the level 10 commander should still be someone I value greatly, but having loads of junior officers to watch either die in battle or rise through the ranks is what makes the stories of this era so gripping.
• Wounding/Capturing - Going with the above, I'd really love it if we can do something with enemy officers besides just kill them. Capturing them would be a great addition to diplomacy and intrigue as you could either ransom them back or try and turn them to your side. Betrayals and ransoms were pretty big in this time period too after all. As an addendum, adding wounding for more than just story characters would be great way of incentivizing putting officers in battle and preventing the situation where the player reaches 220AD and none of the major players of the Three Kingdoms are around because they all died 20 turns into the game.
• Legitimacy - This goes two ways. Both you as a ruler, and your family as a candidate to form a new dynasty. Like Shogun 2, raping and pillaging your way across the land may be expedient, but it should make your people resent you and other warlords wary of you. But take it a step further and say that in order to be even remotely worthy of declaring a new dynasty, you have to show you're both strong enough and/or virtuous enough for people to accept you. This gives different routes to victory. You could be ruthless and destroy all other contenders, or you could attack evildoers, protect your neighbors, make your land prosperous and safe, and at the end of the day, people will declare you emperor because Heaven clearly favors you. Maybe you could even declare yourself emperor prematurely (a la Yuan Shu) and get everyone to hate you as a kind of challenge run.

Things I'd like:

• Treasury - Kinda like warhammer, I'd like to collect renowned weapons, armor, and other trinkets. Unlike Warhammer, these shouldn't give any big combat or command/administration buffs. Instead, their effect should be mostly ceremonial and psychological. You should give them to your officers to increase their loyalty and the respect others have for them, you can trade them to other factions in diplomacy, or you can hold onto them to make yourself look more regal and make your people proud. Imperial regalia, good from distant lands, mythic artifacts are all contenders of things that can be found, given in events, or scavenged from the battlefield.
• Bandit/Pirate armies - Kinda like Medieval II and Empire, it'd be great if there was a faction for just marauding bands of outlaws that spawned under certain circumstances, like low public order, reduced military presence, or just because. It'd make a good way for junior officers to get experience, and as in history, a good potential recruiting ground for experienced commanders and strong fighters.
• Imperial Family Mechanics - The game starts in 190AD, when the Han Dynasty is still technically in power. While people have lost a lot of faith in it, they haven't completely given up on it. Control of the emperor or being a member of the imperial family should be a huge buff to your faction, since the name of Liu holds meaning in the mind of the nobles and the people. Being able to issue imperial edicts would be great, as would the ability to grant imperial court positions and enoff people with noble titles.

[JackDionne]

You made some excellent points about everything but in particular the river aspect. Hopefully it will be incorporated.

[roarer]

What a good format you got here, I am gonna use it XD


Things I need:


These are based on the 3 most critical battles of the era : Guandu , Chibi (Redcliff) and Yiling/Xiaoting. My ideas are mainly based on the historical records (ie not the novel) and the work of Chinese Professor – Fong Bei Shen(方北辰). (I translated his name into English myself can't find anything online).


1) Massive fire attacks : Both Chibi and Yiling are decided by huge fire attacks. And they don't directly burn the troops, instead they burnt artificial structures when the enemy are camping. In Chibi, all Cao cao' ships are burnt, and the fire spread into the camp at the shore. In Yiling, at the initial attack, 40 camps are burnt. The flame did not serve as a weapon to kill directly, instead it destroy morale and confuse the enemies.


The laziest implementation would be only allow flaming attack for this 2 historical battles, which hopefully CA will not do so. A better implementation would allow us to use fire attack in regular battles. However, fire attack can become OP easily. Therefore, CA will need to balance it so that it cannot be exploited. We need a lot of factors to be favorable, before fire attack is viable, and player active input can stop attempts of fire attack. In Chibi, the attack succeeded partly because the fake surrender of Huang Gai allowed him to get closer before igniting. Of course, wind direction and strength also play a critical part.


The best implementation in my eyes, would have to borrow the ideas in the “Arts of war - The Attack by Fire chapter”. Moreover, read about other historical records of successful and failed fire attack to draw more ideas.




2) River – naval battles
All three critical battles were fought along rivers. In Guan Du, Yuen Shao crossed the Yellow River to attack Cao Cao. However, since Cao cao did not defend the river crossing, so no naval battles took place. In both Yiling and Chibi, battles are fought along the Yangtze River. As most people are rather familiar with Chibi, I will skip most of it. The River width shrink at Chibi, making the current quicker, and sharp turns of the river make it harder to maneuver ships. This amplified the advantage of more experienced Wu's naval force. In Yiling, Liu Bei actually advanced along Yangtze with three parallel forces. 2 land armies along the 2 river banks and a naval force in the center. However, the formation was broken when the army reached Xiaoting (after passing Yiling). This is because the waters close to Xiaoting has reefs and the current is much more quicker. Moreover, with the steep mountain cliffs, the land forces and naval force won't be able to support each other. Therefore, Liu Bei has to re-organize his troops, and have his naval force landed before further advancing. Both land forces and the naval forces all merged into 1 force. The army become denser and more vulnerable to fire attack.


As everyone knows, wind strength and direction play an important role in naval battles. There were a few minor battles between Liu Biao and Sun Wu which can give us more insight in naval battles.


3) Army supplies:
Guan Du is won because Cao Cao burnt Yuen Shao's supplies causing morale to plummet. Then his 2 remaining famous generals switched side. In the campaign against Dongzhou, despite early success Sun Jian's force found against Dong Zhuo's force, the lack of supplies forced him to retreat. The route which Zhuge Liang chose to invade Wei is mainly based on consideration for protecting his supplies route. In his first invasion, he had to retreat once the troops guarding Jieting is destroyed, because his supplies route is threaten.


In game terms, at the very least, CA may add a separate camp on enlarged battlefield and allow us to capture/destroy it to affect morale. And this sounds lame! The way I see it, ancient armies supplies came in batches, just like when Caesar was in Gaul. Therefore, a basic supply system should include collection of supplies from provinces, transporting to front-line supply depots (like WuChao in Guan Du), then distributing to front-line camps.


I would suggest having depots outside of our Total War battlefield. Instead, if we want to attack a depot like in Guan Du, we would have to send troops out of the battlefield and lose control of them. And the success chance will simply be determined by AI simulation of the leading general, quality & quantity of the troops.


On top of our same old battlefield, if we zoom out far enough, it will turn into a tactical map showing areas that our camera cannot reach within our battlefield camera. Only on this tactical map will the supply depot be shown. It will also show the forces sent for the attack, and the enemy reinforcement sent to support the depot defense force and any reinforcement coming from other directions. With this said, we can allow varying degree of success from disrupting the distribution of supplies from depot to the main army, or even a loss of the depots. This will have effects on morale and fatigue and even troops loyalty.


The ultimate aim for my idea is to provide more elements to decide a battle, and more ways for the 2 armies/players to interact.

[Intranetusa]

As discussed in the forums.totalwar.com threads, they should make river battles and river/canal travel very important - basically turn rivers and canals into an incredibly useful superhighway to move armies, navies, provide trade boosts, become a place for battles, etc.

They should link the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers together, as there was already a canal and tributaries linking the two that were large enough to send ships through. (the thread on forums.totalwar specifically mentions an incident of Tsao-Pei building a navy along the Yellow River and sailing it through canals and tributaries into the Yangtze River)

[Yue Fei]

These are all great ideas, but perhaps I'm a bit too jaded by Creative Assembly, because we'll probably not get any of them, or if we do, they'll be implemented poorly.

[PikeStance]

Things I need:
sinip

Great Post!

What a good format you got here, I am gonna use it XD

3) Army supplies:
Guan Du is won because Cao Cao burnt Yuen Shao's supplies causing morale to plummet. Then his 2 remaining famous generals switched side. In the campaign against Dongzhou, despite early success Sun Jian's force found against Dong Zhuo's force, the lack of supplies forced him to retreat. The route which Zhuge Liang chose to invade Wei is mainly based on consideration for protecting his supplies route. In his first invasion, he had to retreat once the troops guarding Jieting is destroyed, because his supplies route is threaten.


In game terms, at the very least, CA may add a separate camp on enlarged battlefield and allow us to capture/destroy it to affect morale. And this sounds lame! The way I see it, ancient armies supplies came in batches, just like when Caesar was in Gaul. Therefore, a basic supply system should include collection of supplies from provinces, transporting to front-line supply depots (like WuChao in Guan Du), then distributing to front-line camps.


I would suggest having depots outside of our Total War battlefield. Instead, if we want to attack a depot like in Guan Du, we would have to send troops out of the battlefield and lose control of them. And the success chance will simply be determined by AI simulation of the leading general, quality & quantity of the troops.

The ultimate aim for my idea is to provide more elements to decide a battle, and more ways for the 2 armies/players to interact.

I think the dynamic of loyalty on the part of Generals would be an interesting dynamic. It is certainly within the framework of what they had developed in ATW and R2TW

On top of our same old battlefield, if we zoom out far enough, it will turn into a tactical map showing areas that our camera cannot reach within our battlefield camera. Only on this tactical map will the supply depot be shown. It will also show the forces sent for the attack, and the enemy reinforcement sent to support the depot defense force and any reinforcement coming from other directions. With this said, we can allow varying degree of success from disrupting the distribution of supplies from depot to the main army, or even a loss of the depots. This will have effects on morale and fatigue and even troops loyalty.

Can you not choose the developer's camera in the preference file anymore?

These are all great ideas, but perhaps I'm a bit too jaded by Creative Assembly, because we'll probably not get any of them, or if we do, they'll be implemented poorly.

You cynic. I can guarantee you the factions would not be differentiated enough and they will be the historical inaccuracy of equipment etc to drive some people insane.