Why New Total Wars Are Worse Than Rome I

[Majora]

The matching between strategic and tactical maps was in may opinion the best feature of TW games, it was the feature making these games absolutely unique among the other RTS games, now, for I don't know what reason, this feature has been discarded in favour of a set of preselected maps, so that in the new games all the battles look the same.

I miss the variety and the matching tactical-strategic map.

The peasant/ashigaru scenario is absurd, as they don't have the morale to stand and fight professionals. Surrounded, they'll shatter.

[jackwei]

The battles are just more entertaining in RTW for me more fun as seeing Prince of Macedon doing multiplayer videos and Many a True Nerd youtube video on the brutii campaign reminds me of how great TW was all the way through to M2TW when the series was making enormous strides but it is a shame everything changed after ETW release despite the good naval battles that game has with the exception of Shogun 2 and FOTS being the last great TW games in my opinion. I do hope RTW is HD remastered as it deserves to be as that is that game mainly responsible for making the Total War franchise into a monster followed by Medieval II with just everything the same with better graphics and only a few added features could be more senate offices still existing after SPQR is destroyed by you as well as able to convert a captured city into your cultural city for an example:- a Carthaginian huge city can be converted into a Roman huge city .

[RangerGxi]

RTW's battles are great but there's more to its greatness than the battles. I loved how the strategic map actually represented how the Roman Empire functioned. You had to train Roman legionnaires in the populous central territories to reinforce the frontiers and support them with Auxiliaries. You had to manage squalor in a way that prevented rebellion (r2 encourages rebellion as a way to deal with rebels) and could actually specialise your cities to suit your needs. It was great.

It gets a lot of hate but the division of Rome was a good idea. Better than the abortion of a political system in RTW2. You're either stable and it's boring or you're just playing with a bunch of negative modifiers.

[oorestis]

Now tell me that I'm just a ing idiot, I'll accept it, but please, now that I've begun to write down my personal truth made of regrets and complaints about those wonderful old games, let me write here this:
do you know a feature that I immensely loved in Rome TW? This: watching my cities on tactical map whenever I want!

Yes, OK, it's a silly detail, but for me (as player I'm a builder! I love building things, I love it!) it was a great pleasure watching my temples, my aqueducts, my barraks, growing and the city changing with them!
I loved spending some time, watching men and women walking around in the street (think that I would add men wearing toga, children, animals, carriages, old men, gladiators, people from foreign countries, crowding the streets ..) I loved watching a barbarian town slowly turning into a Roman town, as I loved adding a Hellenistic temple in a Persian town and watching the effect ..

.. all in all, I'm still here asking myself why has CA discarded that small beautiful and funny feature!

No Diocles, you are not an idiot. There are thousands of players who missed that feature including myself. But not many complain about this much because this feature only existed in Rome 1 only, so the only people who are likely to have missed it is mostly the old generation of players who CA doesn't care much about. Sometimes CA is like Hitler. They only care about their newly bred fanatical young generation and not the old one. So only from that perspective, I don't think CA will listen to "such" fan requests anymore in 2017.

Again you are not the only one. When I saw their Rome 2 fake trailer in 2013 I thought that by them using the words "the best total war game ever" meant it would literally include ALL the features everybody loved. At that point most of the fan base only thought CA messed up their muskets games, and yet greatly improved things with Shogun 2. But when we saw that trailer, millions of fans thought they saw an improved Rome 1 game.

We were wrong. Even before release on every trailer they released I would always comment on youtube exactly what you just said right now. That we want to see the feature of interacting with our cities. Seems CA did hear some of the screams because they released Attila trailers later on showing townsfolk once again. But it turned out to happen only in battles. And with their new tiny units you can't even see them, unless you pause the game and try to spot them like you are spotting deer and elephants running away.

Most importantly of all the way CA addressed this problem and in general as they address any problem, made many of fans of such features feel like idiots and obsolete relics. I cannot stop CA from exploiting old fans of successful titles with fake trailers to spike views on youtube for their marketing Sega campaigns, but It is within my power to re-assure people like you, that liking a game feature does not make you an idiot.

Hell CA needs to be feel honored from you even liking their work, and they should feel the idiocy for not respecting the fact. Maybe if players weren't so much on the defensive, CA might have listened more to fans. So no you are not an idiot, and maybe fans need to stop calling themselves that period.

[RangerGxi]

No Diocles, you are not an idiot. There are thousands of players who missed that feature including myself. But not many complain about this much because this feature only existed in Rome 1 only, so the only people who are likely to have missed it is mostly the old generation of players who CA doesn't care much about. Sometimes CA is like Hitler. They only care about their newly bred fanatical young generation and not the old one. So only from that perspective, I don't think CA will listen to "such" fan requests anymore in 2017.Hell CA needs to be feel honored from you even liking their work, and they should feel the idiocy for not respecting the fact. Maybe if players weren't so much on the defensive, CA might have listened more to fans. So no you are not an idiot, and maybe fans need to stop calling themselves that period.

That's a strange characterization. It's probably not fair to call CA Fascists over this.

Honestly, from a business perspective, it makes sense to remove features and simplify the game. People come for the war and they want to win battles and paint maps. The managing of empires and the actual supply-side of the army is just boring to most people. You see the same thing happening with paradox, they make it easier to expand rather than more difficult because the hardcore audience is either stuck in the past playing older titles or deep into mods.

[G. Ward]

I think, with Rome I, the game was a real labourof love - it's clear that the developers really wanted to make an amazing gamefor the PC. They achieved this - however, they signed a contract with SEGA in2005 (one year after the game's release) and halfway through the development ofMedieval II Total War - it was too late for SEGA to that up.

Then came Empire. And, although I personallyliked it; I acknowledge that it was the beginning of the deterioration in gamemechanics for the franchise. Perhaps SEGA had something to do with this? or theshareholders behind the scenes, they have a massive influence on thegame-industry as they back projects solely for financial gain and so aredisconnected from the process of making and playing games.

There are some interesting, relatively unknowncomplex game-mechanics present in Rome 1 which just simply aren't present inthe newer games.

For instance:

Trade - In rome 1, every region has base resources which are automatically traded with everyone who has a direct land route. Trade rights triples your trade income with the factions

Paved roads double land trade
The further away settlements are, the less income you gain
The resources you are exporting and importing effect trade route value
Th population of a city directly effects your trading income (the higher the better) - this represents people who buy the imported goods.

Of course then there is the obvious stuff like the traits and retinue of the family member in the city and the buildings in the settlements.

The greatest thing about Rome 1 is that it's easy to play - just start with the excellent tutorial provided by CA in the game - but hard to master. This adds a layer of intrigue to those willing to discover the details beneath the surface of the already outstanding game.

Thanks

Have a Nice Day

06/12/17

-V

[G. Ward]

That's a strange characterization. It's probably not fair to call CA Fascists over this.

Honestly, from a business perspective, it makes sense to remove features and simplify the game. People come for the war and they want to win battles and paint maps. The managing of empires and the actual supply-side of the army is just boring to most people. You see the same thing happening with paradox, they make it easier to expand rather than more difficult because the hardcore audience is either stuck in the past playing older titles or deep into mods.

Yeah, facist's is a bit far

Corporate is better.

[oorestis]

That's a strange characterization. It's probably not fair to call CA Fascists over this.

Honestly, from a business perspective, it makes sense to remove features and simplify the game. People come for the war and they want to win battles and paint maps. The managing of empires and the actual supply-side of the army is just boring to most people. You see the same thing happening with paradox, they make it easier to expand rather than more difficult because the hardcore audience is either stuck in the past playing older titles or deep into mods.

I didn't get what you were trying to say in your last sentence...I tried, but I just can't..
Anyways, "business perspective" is not the right attitude for running any business... not just the game business. Ask anyone of the old generation, people who have had shops or even large businesses for decades, and they will agree with me. They will agree on the fact that, in a service, the costumer comes first. Customers never cared about a business's finances, and they aren't supposed to. It's all about providing the service, an enjoyable experience, and this part is also enjoyable for the owners, to please customers. This is basic stuff..

But today I begin to realize not only we live in a world were businesses no longer follow this rule ( and to think games fall into the entertainments industry...) it actually makes it ten times more embarrassing... but now you even have customers such as yourself and many other backing down, and taking the side of businesses and it's owners, people you don't even know what sort they are, instead of defending your consumer rights, like we are all supposed to.

So no thanks. You can speak up for businesses on their "decisions" and fall for statements made by their CEO's every 2 years or something, jsut to show face and "support" for customers, were they talk on how they "have no choice" in these decisions and have to ruin features, games, experiences, and raise prices.. but growing up you will slowly understand the true nature of such humanity. I already have. I suggest you do the same.

I also wanted to add that, we were discussing about viewing cities on the tactical map, that's it. I don't know why you started talking about supply chains, painting maps, and comparing a total war game with paradox which is a completely different game.

And finally, I don't use implications in my writing and I'm a person who is very specific on what he says. The whole point of me mentioning Hitler, is not because I was "implying" CA is fascist. This what you might have wanted to understand because you wanted to, but don't imply I said it.
I said that.. because now it's 2018 and Rome I is a 2004 game, means it was played by another generation. It's a historical fact that when Hitler was brainwashing Germany in the early 1930's it is well known the younger generations fell for his lies much more easily than the eldest, who remained skeptical. It is the same scenario with the Total war games, it has nothing to do with fascism. Some of us may still like them since 2004 and we are still fans, but every new generation such as children, grow up to experience the latest things and ideas, just like with the Nazis. It is completely natural. They don't know any better and can't help it.

So all I was trying to say is that because it has been so long since Rome I, the old fans have moved on, and now CA is making games for a generation that simply doesn't know any better because they never experienced Rome I like we did, when we only had that and nothing else existed. So CA quite obviously...may have won the game. The new generation of children is the company's future. So why care about some guys who now are in the 20's, screaming they want tactical views of their cities..It's the same with Hitler, he didn't care about the old generation because he knew the german youth was the future..
Well I hope I have cleared it up now...

[crazyroman]

"Cough,cough" Europa Universalis IV,Crusader Kings II etc.....An answer to RangerGxi about games being more simplistic because thats what people want....