Thoughts on Medieval 3?

[Antiochus Seleukos]

Thoughts on Medieval 3?

[irishron]

Not on the TW3/Warscape engine, please.

[Roman Heritage]

If they stick with their rubbish Warscape engine, nope. I've had enough delutions with Rome II - I was so full of expectatives about it - and it turned to be just an eye candy rubbish with some decent ideas badly implemented. Honestly, it doesn't fare in any way better than a modded Medieval II.
I'll stick with Stainless Steel - unless they change part of their staff, engine, and policy.
I still love them for Medieval II. But if they ruin it with a badly done sequel, I'll thrash CA and SEGA. Better for them to change engine. And everything that ruined Rome II.

[AntonisTheGreek]

Why everyone says bad things about that "Warscape" engine?My only TW game so far is Medieval 2 TW(+Kingdoms),so I can't see for myself why the people dislike that engine...

[Roman Heritage]

Why everyone says bad things about that "Warscape" engine?My only TW game so far is Medieval 2 TW(+Kingdoms),so I can't see for myself why the people dislike that engine...

Medieval 2 isn't in warscape, that's why you can't understand XD

Warscape engine is meant for artillery and gunpowder games such as Empire or Napoleon Total War. A meleè based combat game - such as Medieval or Rome - doesn't fit Warscape. Also, Warscape suffers from a thing called Matched Combat: soldiers can fight each other only 1 vs 1. In Medieval, instead, you can see a group of peasants attack a knight from every side and kill him. Warscape is just full of cute fight animation, but all soldiers apart from a few will just stand and watch their companions die.
Trust me, I played Rome II, and I've came back to Medieval II, which is like 8 or 9 years older. Its engine its simply better for the purpose of the game.

[irishron]

Warscape itself is the graphics rendering engine. The real name for the game engine as a whole from Empire through Attila is Total War 3 but we call it Warscape since Empire's release for simplicity sake.

About Warscape and melee, I think this sums it up. http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-do-Melee-Well

[Antiochus Seleukos]

What 'new' ideas could be included in a potential MW3? Maybe China?

[irishron]

64bit native engine to remove the 4gb ceiling.
64bit native engine to take advantage of the new graphics cards' potential.
Multicore support. 2-core minimum, 4-core preferred.

After that, the things that matter for game play.
Ai programmers that can actually write one units can actually do pathfinding.
Diplomacy for the era that actually works.

No, I'm not talking about what Sega considers its present game buyers being teenage casual players that play it once and off to the next "hot game". They do tell CA what to make and when and to what audience of buyers.
I still think Sega has a console game mentality even if CA's roots are in pcs.

[N8dogg777]

If they don't go back to M2 style, I won't be buying it, not after the last few games released none of them matched up to M2, with a few exceptions of course, improved diplomacy, and agents in general, more factions, make recruiting times and retraining times are way too low in M2. M2 is almost the perfect strategy game for me, play on VH/VH as the Byzantines, and you will be offered a hard but very rewarding challenge.I play them over and over again and still have fun.

I really find the promotions in the newer games boring as well, In M2 there are what seems like thousands (including different levels of each) of different traits and retinue a General can get, the fact that they can get so many bad ones makes it that much more fun to build a good family tree. It is so rewarding to play a game where you just know you did everything right with the family tree, when it's so easy to lose control of it. That's only possible with all the really bad traits they get, the exception being Secret Love for a princess (really hate that one), and also Alcoholic trait, those two can be removed and I won't be disappointed

[N8dogg777]

and btw, I don't think this current group should make a M3, they have blown it too many times, just let us keep M2 for what it is, M1 was a great game, M2 improved upon it, I fear M3 would ruin them all. If they just take M2, add a few things to it, like better diplomacy, tougher retrain and recruiting times, and massive online campaigns that could take a group of 5 to ? people a while to complete would be awesome, remember the more gratifying things in life take time, it shouldn't be a one night and done campaign, I play my current solo campaigns for days, sometimes weeks at a time, anywhere from 1 to 8 hours a day, I want that from an online game, but kids these days want fast quick games that you play and move on like someone on here already suggested, strategy games like M2 are not for children, they are games for adults, so build it that way, Adults want a challenge from a game, not to sit down beat it in a day and move onto the next, stop putting games out that are meant for adults (War Games), but built for children, if they do that then maybe, just maybe I will buy it, but as it stands now Vanilla M2 is better than any Total War game, and I just really don't think this group is capable of improving it rather than ruining past or future games for me.

Also, Kingdoms Grand Campaign Mod is by far my favorite mod for any game ever and it's basically what Kingdoms expansion should have been rather than it's own set of games, love that mod and thank you again for merging the them.

[Maklodes]

Isn't TW: Shogun 2 a warscape game? It seems like I see a lot fewer discussions of how bad warscape is as applied to TWS2.

My "Next TW game" thread copypasta

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 (200-280) -- 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.

[UndrState]

Isn't TW: Shogun 2 a warscape game? It seems like I see a lot fewer discussions of how bad warscape is as applied to TWS2.

It is, you're right. But I think that has everything to do with how well implimented everything else is in that game.

[Dr. Conquest]

Thoughts on Medieval 3?

No web-based DRM, which should be the case for all games. One reason why Medieval II is my most recent Total War game.

[anonimo272]

i just hope CA concentrates more time in their titles á la Rockstar

[Theramines]

As mentioned above, definitely not on Warscape. This is most important.

CA did a lot of things well with MTW2; they would do well to go back and study what made it so much fun and try to expand and finesse those elements. Things like the music, variety of units and combat mechanics, meaningful family and generals, meaningful building choices, and so on.

There are a few things that diminish MTW2 and could be improved to make MTW3 a superior edition, including AI improvements, unit sizes and future design/aesthetic choices (I think TWR2 is unpleasant on the eye. Ugly, even), agent spam, siege mechanics, siege artillery should be immovable, etc. I'll leave those aside.

One of the things which I think should be addressed is the connection between the campaign turn and AI stack spam. Make the campaign more immersive so that there is less need to fill it with the white noise of endless battles. Take diplomacy. It could be expanded, so that it offers more subtle decision making with far-reaching consequences. Alliances, for example, need to be more practical and binding, so that events like betrayal are the exception rather than the rule. The AI camping armies in your territory and spamming agents should amount to declarations of war. Add more method to the the AI's madness. Along with enrichment of other gameplay mechanics in the campaign, like trade, building, recruitment, and so on, the campaign could be so much more immersive. Consequently, there would be enough to do in the campaign turn for the game to be enjoyable without the need to fight endless battles to keep it interesting. Make battles fewer and with greater consequences.

This could be rather overwhelming for new players, of course. Would it not also be possible to auto manage these things, if desired? Would it impossible to add a 'more battles' option in the campaign start menu for players who just want to fight lots of battles? Taking it even further, it might even be fun simply to let the AI control your faction and all you do is take command in battles; play simply as a noble or general and follow orders to march your army wherever your AI leader sends you, and make the best of it in the circumstances. Be the one heroic, shining light as your faction threatens to crumble under the weight of its own misfortune and incompetence.

I read somewhere in TW center that in the development of TWR2 they cut features in development, no matter how close to completion, if they didn't meet some kind of metacritic score. That is madness. Committees and camels come to mind. They need to sever the connection of the development process and metacritic scores. That must never happen again. Rather than trying to cover all bases with simplified features and trying to increase difficulty with faux mechanics like morale boosting, use auto-manage as an option for players who want a streamlined game. Allow the other players to make more decisions.

[46thCharlemagne]

Very good points made by Theramines, I agree with much of it.

As someone who still fanatically plays M2TW (not all the time, but it's over 7 years now of coming back to it), like many others who are fond of the game and the time period I love imagining the game with improvements where they are sorely needed. I know that game will never be made, it's just something many of us fantasize about, playing the game that could have been.

I would add that for the immersion aspect in the campaign game, the Blood, Broads & Bastards mod (which is incorporated into SS and I'm sure a few other major mods) adds a whole lot of fun role-playing aspects, that's something I'd love in a M3 game. Much more interesting princesses, noble titles and privy councils, tracking bloodlines, a much more volatile loyalty system leading to rebellions and sometimes outright civil war (unpleasant but historically accurate, but also pleasant as a challenge to manage as any dynast would have to), a supply system that isn't tedious (I love how it only affects the army's morale, but would accept if it caused a little attrition through death and desertion). I also really like the idea of an education system where for the first few turns of a family member coming of age you can specialize them in warfare, administration/governing or religion.

I still remember from my very first campaign in the vanilla game, when the Black Plague hit how terrified I was as each turn things got worse and worse until in the aftermath I was left with a handful of family members, depopulated cities, ravaged armies, and an empty treasury with many thousands in debt. Spectacular! Of course it lost its intensity after that, once I figured out how to minimize its effects in future campaigns, but I would love to see more unexpected natural events occasionally play a huge role in the direction of the campaign. Instead of a pop-up about a great storm in the Northwest of Europe, how about that actual storm hitting and causing the massive devastation that it did? Have events like that, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, epidemics, firestorms, all the way down to freak lightning strikes and such, affecting your game but not in a predictable way so that you are always blindsided when they do happen. That great general you were grooming who was leading his men in a glorious battle in the middle of a storm? Landslide, took him out along with most of his army. Deal with it. LOL I'm a masochist like that sometimes. If events like that were rare enough, I wouldn't mind the aggravation for the sense of realism. Tough balance to strike though.

Along these lines, why not portray just how common death was by having princesses frequently die in childbirth, failed pregnancies / stillbirths, children being lucky to survive to maturity, seemingly random deaths from diseases that aren't understood, and accidents like simply falling off your horse or a tragic fire. Again if you made them not TOO common, I could enjoy it as an added element to remind you how brutal life was in that age.

[RuthlessChubbz]

That sounds about perfect. Personally I'd just like musketeers, arbys, etc that have a better overall impact on the battlefield than your standard archers and crossbowmen, so that when the gunpowder age comes around I don't just go "meh".

[Yayattasa]

CA needs to revamp the political system for M3. M2 felt too centralized, you don't even have vassals or levies.

[UndrState]

CA needs to revamp the political system for M3. M2 felt too centralized, you don't even have vassals or levies.

LOL (and I agree) M2TW needs to have a love-child with Crusader Kings II , with an AI that knows how to fight a battle.

[Yayattasa]

LOL (and I agree) M2TW needs to have a love-child with Crusader Kings II , with an AI that knows how to fight a battle.

M3 would be perfect with the real battles and a "CK2-lite" famility management system. Said that, I still prefer the strat-map of Total War, unit diversity, and also prefer the building system of M2.