Increasing the penalties of war

[oneah]

From previous Total War games I've started to wish that wars and battles would have bigger meaning. That from time to time battles could be the break of balance. This however has not been achieved yet.

Correct me if i'm wrong but from what i understand the current system works like this:

Losing a battle originates the following:

• A decrease in army size
• A increase in gold income
• Potential loss of a settlement(if your defending)
• A delay on capturing the enemy settlement(if your attacker)
• Relation penalty with neighbors

So obviously some of these are going be a big deal depending on the size of your territory but i find that the more and more you get to the late game and your empire grows the less and less the battle results matter.

War needs to be expensive to the point where you really need to question if its worth attacking your enemy. Battle results need to have an impact on the population, on the economy, with other empires and specially an impact on the region that battle occurred. The game of course needs to identify these things.. If your empire is big and your having multiple battlefronts, a battle result in Britain should not have impact in Egypt.

I don't mean by this that every battle needs to be the cling between a lost or won war. The game needs to see how many units are being committed in each battle and evaluate. Some wars never had big battles and were just a group of small encounters.

In the end what i mean is... I don't want to be a big empire, lose a big battle and be like this: "Well, i guess i gotta wait 5-6 more turns to try again".

I wanna be like: ", i gotta commit way more to this side now thanks to that", "Damn i just lost the war for Britain". Note: i don't actually say stuff like that while playing but you get the point.

Thanks for reading.

[oppaiO_O]

read somewhere that they are gonna make less bigger battles that matters more to the player than having battle after battle... dunno how this is gonna be implemented but its a start towards the right direction

[ironbrigade]

War needs to be expensive to the point where you really need to question if its worth attacking your enemy..

I could not agree more, it takes away the fun and excitement of battles when the outcome does not really matter. If you happen to lose than its damn, know I have to wait 1-2 more turns to take that citie.

[Maklodes]

It would be good if deaths on the battlefield lead to a bit more unrest/decreased public order -- perhaps even if you win the battle but lots of people die. I think that widows, orphans, and parents with dead sons shouldn't be so blithe. (Perhaps wars fought on your home turf, defending your cities, might give fewer penalties, since it's more "war of necessity.")

At least it's not like Civilization II, where if you were a democracy or republic, losing units away from cities actually increased the happiness of the units' home cities, since the happiness penalty was for units outside of cities, so those units ceasing to exist meant they no longer imposed that penalty.

"Mrs. Wilson, we have news about your son."

"I should hope so! I'm sick of having my Danny away from home being ordered around for the glory of our current fascist president's imperialist wars of conquest! I am really angry about what the government is doing now."

"Mrs. Wilson, I'm sorry, but your son is dead."

"Really? That's fine. Now that I know he's not in the army away from home anymore, I'm happy."

[Evalation]

It would be good if deaths on the battlefield lead to a bit more unrest/decreased public order -- perhaps even if you win the battle but lots of people die. I think that widows, orphans, and parents with dead sons shouldn't be so blithe. (Perhaps wars fought on your home turf, defending your cities, might give fewer penalties, since it's more "war of necessity.")

At least it's not like Civilization II, where if you were a democracy or republic, losing units away from cities actually increased the happiness of the units' home cities, since the happiness penalty was for units outside of cities, so those units ceasing to exist meant they no longer imposed that penalty.

"Mrs. Wilson, we have news about your son."

"I should hope so! I'm sick of having my Danny away from home being ordered around for the glory of our current fascist president's imperialist wars of conquest! I am really angry about what the government is doing now."

"Mrs. Wilson, I'm sorry, but your son is dead."

"Really? That's fine. Now that I know he's not in the army away from home anymore, I'm happy."

I agree the this is where the citizenry can play a major role in the game. In reality if you dont have a population willing to send their sons,husbands and etc.. into war then you cant really do anything about it, because if you start a war for no reason simply to conqure your population may see you as a war monger and revolt. Like the Vietnam war for us Americans, the citizens thought we were there for the wrong reasons and they started riots in the streets, and protested everywhere.

[HanSomPa]

I agree the this is where the citizenry can play a major role in the game. In reality if you dont have a population willing to send their sons,husbands and etc.. into war then you cant really do anything about it, because if you start a war for no reason simply to conqure your population may see you as a war monger and revolt. Like the Vietnam war for us Americans, the citizens thought we were there for the wrong reasons and they started riots in the streets, and protested everywhere.

Not everyone in Rome was a citizen, nor were Romans against war in general. In many cultures at that time War was viewed as a hobby almost... There's probably a reason that almost every able male was trained in the art of war at some point during those times. War was such a fundamental part of diplomacy that it would be silly to instill a huge penalty for creating one...

Let's take into account communication. It would take a long while for any nation to assess the magnitude of any other nation's conquest, unless they were extremely close. Borders were fickle things back then, changing many times and with many disputes happening...

Many times war was started not to conquer, but to plunder. Gauls sacked many, many cities invading Rome itself at one point. Was there retribution? Yes, but how many years later? The vast, and powerful Seleucid empire was in many wars, sometimes more than one at a time. Did that soil any relations? Nope, everyone already hated their guts. Did Ptolemies get boned by anyone for double teaming? Nope, not even spanked on their hands. So you see, citizens don't mind war. It's so common, and so prevalent, that its considered to be the natural order. Besides, you underestimate the Roman propaganda machine

[Fallenempire]

good point

[Condottiere 40K]

You'd have to keep track where units were recruited from.

[Maklodes]

You'd have to keep track where units were recruited from.

You could just have an empire-wide penalty for widespread battle deaths.

[Dejeyo]

I absolutely agree. Losing a (large) battle should be quite a blow to your army's morale. They should increase the penalties so if your neighbour attacks you and you are not ready for war you are affraid of what will happen.

[ironbrigade]

Or hurt your kings popularity as well, also hurt in diplomacy as other countries wont fear you as much.

[MathiasOfAthens]

I dont think a loss of an army or thousands of men should result in a higher income next month. Obviously, you wont have to pay for those men so you would think you should have more gold but then again that wouldnt sit very well with history would it?

When huge armies were lost wasnt there some sort of negative to the empire's income? This is prob pretty technical stuff dealing with ancient economies that most of us wouldnt know. Economically speaking there would be more money available but the state would have also spent a lot of money on the army to begin with and that would be a lost investment. That has to be represented somehow? Perhaps a national revolt risk percentage?

When Augustus lost the an army in Germania the blow to the Empire wasnt too severe because I would imagine there were not too many external enemies at the time and plenty of available legions to counter any threat.

[The True Roman]

Well the game is called Total War, They don't want to discourage you from going on the warpath.

[oneah]

Well the game is called Total War, They don't want to discourage you from going on the warpath.

As much as Total War sounds nice for a game title, sometimes i wish they had named it something else so that people didn't take it to this extreme.

[Paragon]

As much as Total War sounds nice for a game title, sometimes i wish they had named it something else so that people didn't take it to this extreme.

Shogun Totally decisive battles?

[HanSomPa]

Shogun Totally decisive battles?

More like Sim City for the type of gameplay a lot of these people want.

"Let's spend years on one campaign... Adds value to the game AND extends it's shelf life! Yeah!"

[Condottiere 40K]

Shogun Totally decisive battles?

Total War: Allied Backstabbing Bastards

[Godless Pickle]

They could add a population resource so the player couldn't spam endless armies, instead having to choose more carefully when to invest your armies.

[XxAndrewxX2525]

The only reason there isn't much of a penalty when you lose is simply because of the AI (sounds weird, right?). You guys have to remember, after a defeat, the AI isn't thinking, "Wow, this is great. Their entire front is now undefended and we should launch all of our troops at it.", or "Well, that's one large army out of the way, we should retreat and recuperate our army.". The AI cannot make decisions like that, so therefore, you don't have much to worry about, as the same army will still be mindlessly moving towards your closest settlement without added troops or anything of the like. Whereas if you could imagine a human vs. human campaign, losing a rather large battle would be quite devastating, as a human opponent would know how to capitalize and move onto your undefended settlements.

But for now, unfortunately, we're going to have to live with the incompetent AI and, if your like myself, continue restricting ourselves to its standards so it's atleast somewhat a challenge.

[Wodeson]

In Shogun 2 wiping out an enemy clan's field army gave you the opportunity to conquer multiple provinces, or extract favorable peace offers from them.