A few things I think the TW series should have

I'm making this thread because... I want to. Also, I would like to see if people agree with me.

There's "a few" things I would like to see in the Total War series. I'm not going to explain my suggestions very much as I believe they should be fairly easy to understand.

• Since buildings are build over multiple turns, the payment should also be. This would be more realistic - you don't have to pay everything up front, and if you're lacking money the construction may simply be halted and continued later. Aborting construction should not give you (all) money back as this is not how it works in real life.
• Since diplomacy is not something that goes on between two nations at a time, the TW series should have multi-national diplomacy. Congressions, as I like to call it.
• Since raw recruits in real life aim and shoot poorly (as they really do not want to kill humans), the difference between no chevrons and one chevron should be huge, while the difference between one and two chevrons (and so on) should be smaller. This way experience will really count for something. Of course this should not be applied to "elite" units as elite soldiers probably are taken from already existing units.
• Less killing, more routing. I hate the bloodbaths. Winning battles with morale instead of sheer numbers is a lot more interesting and historically accurate.
• This one is a biggie. The ability to "loosen up" units in certain areas, such as forts. Having to operate with units instead of soldiers in such areas is a very clumsy procedure and not really historically accurate. I'm not sure how this could be done, but I really think a classic drag-and-select system where soldiers operate more individually instead of as units should work. If one unit takes the wall you should be able to order half the soldiers to walk left and the other half to walk right, stay still or whatever you like. Of course the units should still be represented as units in the UI in order to make regrouping possible.
• Officers. The units need officers who actually do play a role on the battlefield. A unit should not be able to fire by rank without an officer telling everyone when to shoot! If the officer or officers are killed, some abilities (such as fire by rank and square formation) should not be available and the unit should rout sooner. I don't know if "officer" is the right word to use, but at least some men who are above the rank of private - to keep order among the ranks.
• Here's a small suggestion. Having flanks exposed damages morale, being attacked from behind damages morale, a lot of things damages morale. How come I never see the words "concerned: surrounded"? Surrounding a unit should have a massive effect on morale. Almost surrounding a unit should probably make them attempt to flee, completely surrounding them should, well, make them surrender or fight to the death. I remember soldiers fighting to the death in Rome...
• I mentioned units surrendering. Soldiers or entire units and perhaps even armies should really be able to surrender to the enemy.
• Routing soldiers should still defend themselves! 142 soldiers fleeing from the battlefield, chased by 16 men on horsebacks... They should at least stop for a moment to kill them
• CA... If you don't want to release mod tools, at least release map editor tools so that the community can make maps for custom or online battles. If people are allowed to create - and fight on - stunning battlefields, the online community would live a lot more. You can't possibly lose money on this.

I have not been studying the news about N:TW very closely - are any one of my above suggestions to be included in the upcoming game? If not, well, there will always be another TW game.

That's it for now. Write whatever you like or don't write at all.

Those are all things I'd be interested in seeing. I'd rather have them get better BAI but seeing these would be a real bonus. Something that would be cool would be a POW system sort of like the prisoners in MTW2 except you can send them to like a camp or something. It should also reduce region public order because in general people don't like having prisons near them . U could then trade them for POW's of your men. Bigger Ships would be nice to. 3rd 2nd and 1st rates should be more common than in Empire. I'm tired of going against Brigs and Fluyts with my my main battle fleet with a first rate, a 2nd or two, several 3rds and some 4ths.

I agree with you! in fact, I agree so much that +rep is in order!

My biggest agreement is winning through Morale. No more 95% destroyed armies.

- a few features you listed are hardly can be done in terms of the coding or AI. Or not critical to the game (like constriction payments). However, two points I would like to mention.

Originally Posted by ChristianB

Since diplomacy is not something that goes on between two nations at a time, the TW series should have multi-national diplomacy. Congressions, as I like to call it..

There are more important gaps in ETW / NTW diplomacy – that is no new states can be created – something Napoleonic era was famous for. Until we get that, congresses are less important.

Originally Posted by ChristianB

Less killing, more routing. I hate the bloodbaths. Winning battles with morale instead of sheer numbers is a lot more interesting and historically accurate...

This is the most important feature on your list. This is something that actually put NTW into fantasy games section. Morale checks system needs a serious revision if CA want to achieve some historical accuracy. A must features for this are:

- Organisation / disorder factor to formation (hence more formations –line AND column) E.g.- disordered unit is far less efficient in shooting and should not participate in a hard melee but retreat / rout if attacked.

- Musket fire is too powerful – it is unrealistic and unhistorical. In ETW 160 soldier line unit kills 45-50 line unit solders through fire by rank (all three ranks fire). That is 28-30% hit the target. Nonsense. In my opinion a musket 3 rank (arguably there should not be three ranks volleys, but only two) volley should not cause more than 5-10% casualties depending on the shooting unit. I realize ETW / NTW have a timing scale to make the game playable but in ETW it appears to be overkill. If played on normal speed with 20 stack army, by the time I attended my flanks and come back to my centre my line infantry in the centre have 50% casualties and are about to rout. The battles are too fast and too deadly. Since NTW has 2 weeks turns and we were promised to have far less spam battles (which are not fun) isn’t it about time to extend tactical battles and make them more important.

- As you suggested exposed flanks / rear should have a great negative impact on morale.

- Artillery fire should cause a massive negative impact on morale too.

If we see all this features implemented you will find that players will have to form their armies in depth as it was historically because they would not be able to rely one a thin line which was simply too vulnerable. Until we get this I say NTW will have linear 18th century tactics with Napoleonic uniforms.

In fact am I going to open a topic on that on yuku forums which CA monitor lets see if they respond.

I think at the morale system for RTW and M2TW is pretty unrealistic as well. The more I look into studies in regards to the face of battle, the more apparent that the model does no work even for the classical age.

Julius Caesar mentioned that in battles, the winners only suffered a lost of 5 percent, while the losers would tend to suffer 12-14 percent.

In our games, the losers tend to suffer a lost of a 100 percent!

However, having such a low percentage of lost doesn't mean the game is going to be fun. It does not help if the army is able to constantly reform themselves battle after battles.

If the losers lost a battle and suffered a lost of 15 percent, I should not be expected to fight the remaining 85 percent.

Originally Posted by Kolyan

- a few features you listed are hardly can be done in terms of code or AI. Or not critical to the game (like constriction payments). However, two point I would like to mention.

I didn't read much beyond this point due to your abuse of [b]. I don't know what you're trying to achieve, but it's probably not working.

As for the AI thing - of course AI is the main issue, but if I made a thread complaining about the AI, it would be pretty worthless and and a waste of time. Everyone know the AI needs fixing.
As for the code thing - you're wrong. Perhaps the "loosen up" part, but everything else should be fairly easy. I'm no computer engineer, but I know these things are possible because there are so many more way complicated stuff in other strategy games.

I now remember some minor things I forgot while writing the first post. I'll just leave them here.

• I understand there's a difference between "shattered" and "broken" when it comes to routing units. Okay, units rout but why do all the soldiers run the same direction? Broken units' soldiers should be running in "all" directions away from the enemy.
• When on the battlefield, one can easily move single or multiple units backwards or forwards, or rotate them in either direction (also there's the increase ranks/files) using some handy buttons on the lower right of the screen. How come there's no "move left/right" buttons as well?

Originally Posted by ChristianB

I didn't read much beyond this point due to your abuse of [b]. I don't know what you're trying to achieve, but it's probably not working.

dont take it personally.

less accurate musket fire (like in darthmod) would be good, line infantry can murder each other too quickly something like 10-20 percent would be better

The moral system proposed in this thread is poorly thought out. In order to have a 90% survival rate for armies all units would have to flee as soon as they received 10% casualties. Unless you want your entire army to rout after a small number of deaths this system will be incredibly annoying.

I'd also like to point out that while only 10-15 % of the losing army may have been killed many more would have been wounded, often so badly that they could not longer fight, and some would have deserted. Maybe the 'Enemies Killed' list should be changed to 'Enemies Killed, Wounded, or Missing'.

Originally Posted by uanime5

The moral system proposed in this thread is poorly thought out. In order to have a 90% survival rate for armies all units would have to flee as soon as they received 10% casualties. Unless you want your entire army to rout after a small number of deaths this system will be incredibly annoying.

I'd also like to point out that while only 10-15 % of the losing army may have been killed many more would have been wounded, often so badly that they could not longer fight, and some would have deserted. Maybe the 'Enemies Killed' list should be changed to 'Enemies Killed, Wounded, or Missing'.

Yep, it would be really annoying to have your army rout after 10% casualties, and it would be unsatisfying to simply rout a nearly full army and call it a victory. I say stick with 50-75% battlefield casualties, but gain back a percentage of wounded soldiers after the battle, like in previous total wars. Prisoners would also be cool, but I do know that during Nappy's reign, he refused to trade prisoners, so it would be pointless in NTW.

I would also like to see a more robust spy system, though I am not exactly sure what could be done.

Originally Posted by uanime5

The moral system proposed in this thread is poorly thought out. In order to have a 90% survival rate for armies all units would have to flee as soon as they received 10% casualties. Unless you want your entire army to rout after a small number of deaths this system will be incredibly annoying.

I'd also like to point out that while only 10-15 % of the losing army may have been killed many more would have been wounded, often so badly that they could not longer fight, and some would have deserted. Maybe the 'Enemies Killed' list should be changed to 'Enemies Killed, Wounded, or Missing'.

I did mention wounded soldiers in a later post. I do, however, like your suggestion a lot, it should also be quite easy for CA.

If the color barer is killed another soldier should pick up the colors. Back then losing the colors would be disastrous for moral and order in the unit not to mention honor which was hugely important in the Napoleonic era.

Originally Posted by ChristianB

I'm making this thread because... I want to. Also, I would like to see if people agree with me.

There's "a few" things I would like to see in the Total War series. I'm not going to explain my suggestions very much as I believe they should be fairly easy to understand.

• Since buildings are build over multiple turns, the payment should also be. This would be more realistic - you don't have to pay everything up front, and if you're lacking money the construction may simply be halted and continued later. Aborting construction should not give you (all) money back as this is not how it works in real life.
• Since diplomacy is not something that goes on between two nations at a time, the TW series should have multi-national diplomacy. Congressions, as I like to call it.
• Since raw recruits in real life aim and shoot poorly (as they really do not want to kill humans), the difference between no chevrons and one chevron should be huge, while the difference between one and two chevrons (and so on) should be smaller. This way experience will really count for something. Of course this should not be applied to "elite" units as elite soldiers probably are taken from already existing units.
• Less killing, more routing. I hate the bloodbaths. Winning battles with morale instead of sheer numbers is a lot more interesting and historically accurate.
• This one is a biggie. The ability to "loosen up" units in certain areas, such as forts. Having to operate with units instead of soldiers in such areas is a very clumsy procedure and not really historically accurate. I'm not sure how this could be done, but I really think a classic drag-and-select system where soldiers operate more individually instead of as units should work. If one unit takes the wall you should be able to order half the soldiers to walk left and the other half to walk right, stay still or whatever you like. Of course the units should still be represented as units in the UI in order to make regrouping possible.
• Officers. The units need officers who actually do play a role on the battlefield. A unit should not be able to fire by rank without an officer telling everyone when to shoot! If the officer or officers are killed, some abilities (such as fire by rank and square formation) should not be available and the unit should rout sooner. I don't know if "officer" is the right word to use, but at least some men who are above the rank of private - to keep order among the ranks.
• Here's a small suggestion. Having flanks exposed damages morale, being attacked from behind damages morale, a lot of things damages morale. How come I never see the words "concerned: surrounded"? Surrounding a unit should have a massive effect on morale. Almost surrounding a unit should probably make them attempt to flee, completely surrounding them should, well, make them surrender or fight to the death. I remember soldiers fighting to the death in Rome...
• I mentioned units surrendering. Soldiers or entire units and perhaps even armies should really be able to surrender to the enemy.
• Routing soldiers should still defend themselves! 142 soldiers fleeing from the battlefield, chased by 16 men on horsebacks... They should at least stop for a moment to kill them
• CA... If you don't want to release mod tools, at least release map editor tools so that the community can make maps for custom or online battles. If people are allowed to create - and fight on - stunning battlefields, the online community would live a lot more. You can't possibly lose money on this.

I have not been studying the news about N:TW very closely - are any one of my above suggestions to be included in the upcoming game? If not, well, there will always be another TW game.

That's it for now. Write whatever you like or don't write at all.

As far as I can see with NTW, none of this will be in. Except for morale, in all TW games units have suffered a morale loss due to being flanked or attacked from rear. i`ve had enemy units flee just seeing my units go onto their flanks without even attacking, like they know what`s about to happen.

So you got 1 out of 10.

But I`d love all these things in too.

less accurate musket fire (like in darthmod) would be good, line infantry can murder each other too quickly something like 10-20 percent would be better

i agree with you on that for the most part. they need to figure out a way to have it less effective at long range, like you said 10-20% but at close range like say 30 meters at the enemy should be slaughtered with like 50% causalities.

Even at close range there were quite few causalities.

One thing that annoys me about the massive amount of deaths is that there seems to be rather few wounded soldiers. Now, military history is not my strongest subject but shouldn't there be more wounded soldiers? I mean, perhaps 30 % of a unit could be shot in battle but I guess most of these would really just be wounded, thus, they should be able to heal after a while. Anyone of you history-lovers out there care to shed some light on this?

I don`t know why you bother. CA already made it clear that they do things that make it `fun` (whatever their version of fun is). This clearly explained to us when we asking the likes of Lusted andthat other guy, I forget his name, to keep ship shooting realistic. In the end when we asked why can`t they keep it real, they just said `Becasuse we want to!`

They really don`t give a toss when it comes to making things more authetic or realistic -only in looks.

They said that? Very well then, I won't bother buying another Total War game. There are better fantasy games out there.

I mean, perhaps 30 % of a unit could be shot in battle but I guess most of these would really just be wounded, thus, they should be able to heal after a while

Yes true but unless they add a ground breaking wounded soldiers system wounded soldiers wont work, so they would be included in deaths. It would be great if they added the wounded soldiers stat from RTW and MTW2 so we know how many men we get back after a battle.

I personally miss the campaign interface of RTW and Medieval II, I really don't like the new system of many small towns in one province with one big city, I want more than just one troop producing centre goddammit!