I read that novel. Very interesting, especially when they pulled an 80 year old Longstreet out of retirement.Originally Posted by Assault Korps
Campidoctor
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
I read that novel. Very interesting, especially when they pulled an 80 year old Longstreet out of retirement.
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
That same guy wrote a whole series of alt his books, but 1900 is the really good one. Have you ever read Afrika Reich? The allies are slaughtered at Dunkirk, Churchill is removed, the new appeasement gov makes peace, creating a Nazi global superpower--pretty damn good book.
Civis
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
There are many things I'd like added, but my favorites are:
1) Supporting a claimant to the throne of another power or financially supporting a rebellion
2) Allowing Rakes to destabilize foreign governments through assassination
3) Naval battles that are close enough to shore for the shore to represent a terrain feature
4) Combined Naval/Land battles and Amphibious assaults
5) Port assaults with defenses depending on the type of port
6) Recruitment reduces region population
7) Unit maintenance grows with distance from the nearest friendly city (simulates supply lines unless we can get real supply lines)
8) Better resistance to foreign occupation
9) Regions are not automatically ceded due to capture but only through peace treaty. Until then unrest never reduces
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
Those are some great ideas. The last one, though, gets into the concept of "nation" which I don't think was highly manifest in the 1700s. The real American colonies after the revolution had far more of a sense of state/region than of being part of a country. I think ETW is realistic in it not being necessary to annex a country to absorb its parts. Successful annexation is more of a factor from twentieth century on.
Civis
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
The whole point to #9 was so no power, human or AI, could simply steamroll the map.
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
What's wrong with steamrolling the map? What would Genghis or Bonaparte do?
Civis
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
There's no reason you can't capture the entire map. You just can't own all the regions so easily. Via #9, you'd have to maintain sufficient forces to suppress regular rebellions. Check your history, as Genghis' or Napoleon's empire got larger, the slower they expanded, until (especially in Napoleon's case) the empire could no longer be 'occupied' and collapsed. It's more challenging if you're constantly watching your rear areas, even after capturing them.
Frothy Goodness
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
I agree with Assault Korps that Akarios' ideas are good. I would enjoy combined land/sea battles and battles between ships and port defences.
That would allow players to attempt 'cutting-out' expeditions against ports (to attack a port to capture warships) or missions to destroy enemy fleets when they are at anchor, such as the daring and successful Dutch raid on the Medway in 1667. I have read about British warships supported British landings in 1776 before and after the Battle of Long Island, and British ships attempting to land soldiers while under fire from French cannon during the British campaign to capture Quebec. I would love to have a new version of Empire which would make it possible to recreate these kinds of missions.
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
Yeah, ships versus infantry. That would be COOOOOL. This game already rocks HARD, though--make no mistake about that.
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
I've been long waiting for something that hasn't been made yet: Early Modern: Total War, or Exploration: Total War, or Pike & Shot: Total War, or 30 Years': Total War, or whatever, but you get it, 1500 to 1700, perhaps if there is enough tech to evolve the units, let it go from 1450 all the way to 1800, almost like Europa Universalis (the best game in the world).
Primicerius
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
I think an Italian Wars TW (1494 - 1559) in the style of Shogun 2 would be an excellent showcase of the pike & shot era. The complex politics of multiple city states vs emerging nations and empires against the backdrop of crusades against an expanding Ottoman empire challenging the boundaries of Europe. A compact concentration of war flavoured goodness.
Laetus
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
I'm not opposed to the idea of Empire 2, but it's chances of being a good game are incredibly low. Empire had a lot of aspects I thought were brilliant and in general I don't think its a terrible game, but it was probably the worst thing a game could be, and that is boring.
I haven't played Napoleon and this comment could be invalid a as a result, but I think it is very difficult to make a game based in this era based on the nature of the combat.
I would love to be proved wrong however.
Civis
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
Boramha, there's nothing wrong with ETW. It's just that given its scope (the entire planet), it was too large a game for CA to release when it did. That's why so much was left out. That's why we see fortress walls having occupation limits which aren't affected when troops are ON the walls. (it's likely it was originally intended to put troops IN the walls as well) It's obvious that the sea battle sandbox of entirely water was a short cut because they wanted to get the game out and didn't have it done in time. (they did for Rome 2 btw) It's pretty obvious they'd intended on having China and East Asia as well (some of the unused regions which aren't in the database, but appear to be present off map). There are a lot of little missing things you'll notice in game. It appears that they'd always intended to have more, but ran out of time. We'd just like to see that all implemented.
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
I want to see The Empire of Islam Total War, where you're invading the collapsing Persian and Byzantine empires, basing out of Arabia, and your general is Muhammad.
Civis
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
Just had another thought. Instead of #6 being reducing population through recruitment, create a new value called manpower (similar to GP) which reflect a percentage of the population (say 1%). This represents an absolute pool of manpower to create units from - both naval and army. All populations through history were able to support a number of troops without impacting their economies. This approach would reflect that. If you don't have enough manpower to recruit a unit, you can't. All the manpower from all controlled regions would pool together. This would allow very large countries to generate truly huge armies. Similarly, if you disband a unit, its manpower goes back into the pool. Remember this is an absolute pool; you don't get more unless your population grows. If your population drops for some reason, you wouldn't lose any units, but you'd not be able to recruit more.
Also...
10) Ability to upgrade existing units into better ones (e.g. upgrade militia into regular infantry) Admittedly, this is kind of a moot point if manpower points are adopted, but being able to upgrade would be getting a discount on building a more modern unit if upgrading an existing one rather than building it from scratch.
I know a lot of this stuff has been said before, but that doesn't make it less valid. I just wish CA would plan to update ETW.
Civis
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
Actually, this sounds like a mod for Rome II TW.
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
Islam is in Medieval TW, but not for the player. There's probably a mod. That's after Muhammad, though. He was in the early 600s.
Miles
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
I most definitely WANT....... ETW2..... oh heck yes
IMO ETW is the best Total war game by miles
But in ETW2 I'd like to see the African continent too, as well as the rest from 1
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
I am looking forward to Empire/Napolean/Victoria more than ANY other ERA they have done before or have not touched yet. Naploean is my favorite, but Empires campaign is by far the best if you play a mod that delves deep into the campaign script. The pace of the battles are much better too and allows you to fly around watching the eye candy.
Only things I would like to see changed or added are:
- Trading Fleets. Do away with specific points on a map to sit on, instead invest in trading fleets which is done through management screen instead of campaign map. Trading Fleets go through attrition due to how hostile waters are they are going through due to enemy coastlines and/or pirates.
- ARMY experience instead of individual. I have been begging for this since Rome 1. They finally started implementing it since Rome 2, but still not there yet. I am talking about experience which allows them to use ranked fire, grenades, spikes, accuracy, better equipment (that shows in game), etc etc for that specific army. Instead, focus research into the availability to allow those armies to learn once they achieve enough experience. This should go without saying, but Armies and Navies should be few.
- A better Naval Battle system. Maybe make the naval battles map VERY smaller and show more debris and encourage more close range broadsides from player and AI.
- PLEASE focus on Diplomacy. Once you think you have it right, play it over again to tweak even further. Once you are happy, do that again 35 times! -1 annual change in Empire/Napoleon for territory expansion takes 30 turns just to go away for ONE province and the AI can be beaten down to a pulp and still changes your peace treaty (with terms) to a enormous peace deal on their terms to get 5 provinces and loads of cash. Also, more wars should end after a single province is taken between AI vs AI wars. Focus on realism. Modders will come along later to make the next Darthmod so users and AI get huge incomes to build huge armies. It is much easier to mod for more than settings to give less and still make right.
- The entire world. Pretty obvious one there.
The rest I will gladly put trust in CA to do right on anything else they add. We will be getting a "Empire 2" some day. Just hope I am still alive when that time comes!
Re: I want Empire 2 Total War
I hope you're kidding. ETW was mediocre in vanilla form, and is halfway decent with certain mods (Darth Mod has been my favorite so far). The strategy map gameplay is okay to fairly decent (AI still lacks a lot in terms of strategy and diplomacy). The tactical battles are okay to subpar IMO. Prior to battle commencing, the units maneuver okay, or at least in a fashion that you would expect of musket-armed troops. And the line firing battles can be pretty epic (again certain mods like Darth Mod really enhance the gameplay here). But when the firing stops and infantry charge each other or cavalry charge, you really begin to see the shortcomings of ETW's game engine....the unit collision sucks and units pretty phase right through each other. And past a certain point, the strategic and battle gameplay in ETW just isn't the challenging. You build your trade empire, get loads of cash and flood the map with high-tier units. Now granted, you can always pick underdog factions (like Prussia or Portugal) to get a challenging campaign. The battle AI, while it was somewhat decent in the melee games of Rome 1 and Medieval 2, just doesn't have the capacity to truly challenge the player in a shooting battle (they pretty much charge their melee cav, leave their artillery in place to fire at will and throw their infantry into firing range in a piecemeal fashion). I can recall playing late game campaigns in Third Age Total War (Medieval 2 mod) with Silvan Elves and Rohan, with big, well-trained armies, and still feeling challenged, heck almost scared, of the Mordor armies I had to face in order to finish my campaign. I was being challenged and sometimes even defeated all the way into my last few turns...the AI, on the strategic and battle map, wasn't anything special, but was good enough to know how to use its melee units to good effect and was able to serious inflict casualties on me even when the tactical battle was in my favor.
ETW worked and came off as a half-decent game because it was a game based mostly on infantry and cannon fire...charges and melee combat, while it occasionally happened in that time period, wasn't the main focus of the game. The problem is when CA took that game engine from a shooting-based game and put it in a melee-based one (Rome 2, Atilla) people really began to notice how inadequate it was for melee combat...the melee combat in Rome 2 looks like utter crap compared to Medieval 2 (the graphics aside).
ETW was an okay to decent game. I certainly wouldn't say it was the best: Medieval 2 (with a nice mod like Third Age) really takes the cake IMO. Heck, Rome 1, vanilla or with mods, was a better gameplay experience than ETW and Rome 2. I can still remember my epic victories and close defeats and hard campaigns from both of those games; I can't say the same for ETW or any of CA's newer titles.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
