What will be the next total war game?

[wangrin]

Problem with planes is that you have to add a third dimension to the pathfinding and to AI system... Good luck CA.
I highly doubt that CA will go further than late XIXth century.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

Problem with planes is that you have to add a third dimension to the pathfinding and to AI system... Good luck CA.
I highly doubt that CA will go further than late XIXth century.

People have point it out that it could be just like in Wargame.

[Ciciro]

People have point it out that it could be just like in Wargame.

But if its just like Wargame, then why the hell would you play it then?

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

But if its just like Wargame, then why the hell would you play it then?

Becouse that game doesn't do a good proper campaign map and really what you can do with it. And the list is long.... (don't really burn all that for it, it just I can see how it will work out).
But! the point stands you as the player are really limited in what works out on the campaign map, which is why it won't be the same "fish" in the lake.

[SanderP]

Empire 2 from 1700 to 1880, but please finally create a world map before going for this.

[Khan84]

I would like to see something new, maybe WW1 or American Civil war.

Regards
Khan

[PointOfViewGun]

As I said before, I'm hoping for something completely different. Middle Kingdom: Total War. It's the perfect setting for a Total War game. It's scale would be magnificent. It also has the advantage of being an era that's never been done. I got a thread on this, please participate in the poll.

[Count von Orlok]

"We've basically got a list of pretty much everything that anyone could imagine on it," he says of plans for forthcoming Total War games. "We have constant arguments about not what we should do but the order in which we should do them. There are so many options and I don't think we're going to run out of ideas. I think it'll be a long time until we do anything with a three in it."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-30-inside-the-creative-assembly

[PointOfViewGun]

"We've basically got a list of pretty much everything that anyone could imagine on it," he says of plans for forthcoming Total War games. "We have constant arguments about not what we should do but the order in which we should do them. There are so many options and I don't think we're going to run out of ideas. I think it'll be a long time until we do anything with a three in it."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-30-inside-the-creative-assembly

That's an interesting find!

[Maklodes]

My favorites:

1. Total War: Reformation (1517-1697) -- Somewhat European-focused, but could include some areas beyond. An age of bloody religious conflict (worse than the crusades), with tactics and strategy undergoing transformation at the remnants of the Medieval way of war are transformed into proto-modern armies. Starts at the end of Medieval II, ends at the beginning of Empire.

2. Total War: Caliphate (633-1073) -- Centered around the Middle East, starting with the great contention between the upstart Arabs and the weakened Persians and Romans. However, the game could extend east into the ruins of the Gupta Empire, where Huns and various local strongmen vie for power, or into the barbarian kingdoms of the West, where a new civilization struggles to emerge atop the ruins of the Western Roman Empire, in spite of the raids of Vikings, Magyars, and Arabs.

3. Total War: Three Kingdoms (220-280) -- Centered in China, the game beginning as the Han dynasty ends. In addition to the Shu, Wei, and Wu, various barbarians factions can take advantage of the troubles such as Xianbei successor hordes, Nanman tribes, or even perhaps some Yellow Scarves who manage to reorganize beyond "mildly troublesome rebel scum" status.

My least favorites:

1. Total War: Victoria -- This period is interesting from the perspective of grand strategy, but the tactics -- the emphasis of a Total War game -- of the period seem rather boring. The only really viable force on the land battlefield are rifle-armed infantry and some artillery. Naval warfare perhaps showed some more dynamism, with the rising role of steam power and eventually ironclad warships, but I don't think naval warfare can really carry a TW game. (Through WW1, with the rise of tracked vehicles, air power, and such, tactics got more interesting again -- although how well a TW style game can represent that is an open question.)

2. Total War: Aegean -- pre-Hellenistic (before Philip of Macedon and such) Greece. Like Victoria, this strikes me as an age of interesting politics, interesting strategy, and slightly dull tactics, but with hoplites in lieu of riflemen.

3. Total War: Redux -- something we've seen before like Empire 2 or the like. Meh.

Interesting ones I don't know whether I like or not:

1. Total War: Fantasy -- I'd sort of like to see something other than A Song of Ice and Fire or Warhammer as the basis (think outside the box!), but it could be interesting. Or could be terrible. I don't know.

2. Total War: Modern -- A World War II type game or something could be interesting. Certain the age was an interesting one strategically and tactically from my view, but whether it could be handled with anything like a conventional TW engine is uncertain.

3. Total War: Civilization -- melding a 4x strategy game's "ground up" development from stone age to space age (or whenever to whenever), possibly including randomly generated strategic maps, and including the TW tactical battle game, could be amazing, but I don't know how well it would work.

[Fallen851]

I'd like to see a total re-do and re-release of Rome II before anything honestly.

It is my favorite era.

[Maiden_Ante]

I'm actually hoping for an 'Empire II' of some sorts. Empire had probably the best potential of all games released so far, with the poorest execution. If we view Rome II as a test-run of bigger campaign maps and a game system that includes the newer concepts of technology trees and what not, then it'd be possibly the best Total War game thus far. Regarding the complaints about Rome II, most of them are justified - though I've been lucky and able to play the game with minor graphic glitches only. And without the bugs, Rome II is a great game.

[voltiguer15]

Empire 2: 1860-1910
World map, historical events such as the Civil War, the Italian and German Unifications, the Scramble for Africa.

[Count von Orlok]

Empire 2: 1860-1910
World map, historical events such as the Civil War, the Italian and German Unifications, the Scramble for Africa.

[Baldwin of Jerusalem]

Empire 2: 1860-1910
World map, historical events such as the Civil War, the Italian and German Unifications, the Scramble for Africa.

My thoughts exactly...I was actually quite hopeful that FotS was going to be a precursor of this but sadly it wasn't...They had developed all of the necessary ingredients apart from trench warfare, which I'm sure they could have added with a few design changes.

[goonarboy]

Re-vamps.....

1 Medieval 3
2 Empire 2

Empire had the potential to be amazing and unfortunately is now very poor game-play in regards to Napoleon, Shogun 2 and Rome 2. For me either of the the re-vamps above would be excellent.

New

Total Civil War......could include French, English (from both medieval and Charles 1st periods), American

[chrissher123]

I would like a medieval 3 next but wouldn't mind an empire 2. Just no warhammer total war (Their warhammer game can borrow things from total war but shouldn't be part of the series)

[goonarboy]

I would like a medieval 3 next but wouldn't mind an empire 2. Just no warhammer total war (Their warhammer game can borrow things from total war but shouldn't be part of the series)

Totally agree.
would be interested in a LOTR total war though

[Yayattasa]

Several Chinese settings are interesting.
12th-13th century Southern Song: This campaign could serve as a preclude to the Mongol invasion in the west. Easily integrated as an extra campaign in a possible Medieval 3 game. Would include, at least, the Nan Song (Sòng Cháo), the Jin (Anchun Gurun - Dà Jīn), the Xi Liao (Hala Qidan - Dà Liáo), the Xi Xia (Minyak) and the Great Li (Dablit guaif - Dàlǐ). Other possible additions include the Koryŏ, the DaQi, the kingdom of Qocho and the Khwarazm Shahs (Khwārazmshāhiyān).
It's an interesting period because it includes several ethnic groups (Han, Khitan, Jurchen, Tangut, Tibetan, Mongol, Turkic, Bai, Yi and many others) and religions (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Tengriism, Islam, etc.).
3rd century Chu-Han contention: More suitable for an expansion/DLC, it was a civil war period after the fall of the Qin. The main characters would be Xiang Yu (the leader of Chu) and Liu Bang (the leader of Han).
17th century decline of Ming: Another diverse period, could be its own game, or and extra campaign to Medieval 3/Empire 2. Includes the rise of the Manchu (Jurchen from the Song period), the interactions with the Portuguese and the Dutch, the Tokugawa Shogunate, several rebelious factions and generals, and other neighboring kingdoms. It's a nice setting because it was mostly not explored in other games.

Biggest problems with the setting include the lack of public familiarization with it. When people saw Shogun 2, they were quite accustomed to the samurai representation in western media, so it felt familiar. The only setting that could gather such familiarization is the Southern Song one, because people are used to the figure of Genghis Khan and the mongols.
I also did not mention the Three Kingdoms era because Koei really warped it (in Dynasty Warriors, mind you) and causal gamers could complain if it did not look like Koei representation, which is a shame, and it was an period as interesting as the other, but it's a totally plausible setting.

[Maklodes]

Interesting take. What's your view on the Spring and Autumn or Warring States periods before the Qin unification?

Re: Dynasty Warriors

It's funny because most of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is like "One of Yuan Shao's scouts intercepted one of Cao Cao's messengers, and now Yuan Shao has accurate intelligence on Cao Cao's grain reserves! Aren't you riveted? Read on." while the combat is all sorta glossed in one-sentence descriptions, either being "Then the two combatants fought each other in fifty bouts, but it was all kinda a draw. Whatever." or "Lord Guan charged and cut off the n00b's head with a single stroke of his green dragon crescent blade. Pwned." Somehow, Koei turns this into "use Lü Bü's superpowered backflipping spinning halberd attacks to singlehandedly kill everyone!" And, I mean, Lü Bü did kinda have amazing personal combat abilities going by Luo Guanzhong, but, y'know, it ultimately didn't get him that far. Even the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is exaggerated when it comes to the role of the prowess of individual warriors in these things, but Dynasty Warriors makes that the focus. Then again, Star Trek (except maybe some seasons of Deep Space 9) was all about "let's see if we can use diplomacy and/or pseudoscience to solve problems peacefully," while tons of Star Trek games are like "blast everyone with phasers!"