Some new news :D

[Welsh Dragon]

My feeling is much of the talent that made the historical titles many of us "old timers" thoroughly enjoyed, have since moved on from CA. I still have an extremely stale taste in my mouth after the release of R2 and refuse to buy Attila at full price, nor am I really itching to play it. Warhammer doesn't excite me as a fantasy title.

A full fledged historical title sounds at least a year off at this point and my biggest fear is it will be a title that is stripped, streamlined and hollow. They are going to seriously have to retrace their steps and reintroduce standard features back into their historical titles again for me to gain any sort of interest in their next big historical title.

Out of interest, what do you consider "standard features" that have been missing from more recent Total Wars?

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Epic28]

Out of interest, what do you consider "standard features" that have been missing from more recent Total Wars?

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

There may be mods for some of these now but here's a list of things I want to see returned.

Option for walls for every settlement, cities are individual (can build the full arrangement of options in every city) rather than streamlined into regions, bring back population as a metric for army recruitment in each city, remove army limits/no general needed for every army, open the campaign map back up (I feel R2 had so much "Map" but nearly all of Europe and Western Asia were locked into little linear forest trails), no auto-replenishing troops, General Speeches, family tree never needs to be removed (ATW added this right?), get rid of all the gimmicky click button special abilities and bonuses in battle (makes no sense), fix the agents so they don't all feel the exact same, retinue and traits reverted to R1, Med 2 style, A PRACTICAL UI (Rome 2's is so terrible, looks like an iPad game).

That's a sample.

[Welsh Dragon]

There may be mods for some of these now but here's a list of things I want to see returned.

Option for walls for every settlement, cities are individual (can build the full arrangement of options in every city) rather than streamlined into regions, bring back population as a metric for army recruitment in each city, remove army limits/no general needed for every army, open the campaign map back up (I feel R2 had so much "Map" but nearly all of Europe and Western Asia were locked into little linear forest trails), no auto-replenishing troops, General Speeches, family tree never needs to be removed (ATW added this right?), get rid of all the gimmicky click button special abilities and bonuses in battle (makes no sense), fix the agents so they don't all feel the exact same, retinue and traits reverted to R1, Med 2 style, A PRACTICAL UI (Rome 2's is so terrible, looks like an iPad game).

That's a sample.

Thanks for replying. Interesting.

I agree with you on some :

"General Speeches," I miss these so much. Especially the way they were tied to your generals traits.

"fix the agents so they don't all feel the exact same," I don't exactly think they feel the same. But I do like the way they used to each have an area that they were really good at.

"retinue and traits reverted to R1, Med 2 style," Agreed. I too am not a fan of the RPG style skill/trait trees. I much prefer the way in older games they organically gained traits from their actions, or inactions.

Some I'm not sure about:

"Bring back population as a metric for army recruitment," Undecided on this. There's a mod for Rome 2 which adds that sort of. People of Rome 2 : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=632833708

"option for walls for every settlement," Mixed views. On the one hand, makes a lot of sense (and I believe Attila and Warhammer have it.) On the other, I like unwalled settlement battles. (One of my all time favourite battles was in CiG, Mark Anthony and a ragtag band of Romans and Celtic Auxiliiaries, vs thousands of Belgians!.)

"open the campaign map back up (I feel R2 had so much "Map" but nearly all of Europe and Western Asia were locked into little linear forest trails)," Mixed views. I get what you're saying, but at the same time I think that having natural features which mean armies usually go down the easiest route makes a lot of sense historically and tactically.

"family tree never needs to be removed (ATW added this right?)," I think it has a place in the right games with the right settings (Medieval Europe, Feudal Japan, Attila) but don't feel it's needed for some (Rome/Ancient world, where power wasn't so hereditary, some more recent settings.) I play a lot of Rome 2, and I basically don't miss Family Tree. But if it was a Medieval game for example, I'd feel very differently, as that era is all about hereditary power struggles. Best compromise would I feel be to have the political/family tree system be implemented differently depending on the faction, but could be harder to pull off and balance.

And some I definitely don't want back:

"Cities are individual (can build the full arrangement of options in every city) rather than streamlined into regions." I feel that's not streamlining, it's adding depth and strategy. Because you can't just build everything everywhere, and because settlements are interconnected within a province, you have to make meaningful decisions about how to develop your settlements. Maybe having more slots per city I could see, but I think there should always be a limit because otherwise you can just turn every city into an "economic powerhouse military recruitment heavily fortified super city," with enough money.

"remove army limits/no general needed for every army," I prefer to have the limits, tied to the size of your Empire (Imperium.) And I also prefer needing a General to lead each one. I do miss the smaller skirmishes you used to have without this system, but still find this system more enjoyable as, along with things like Traditions, I feel a lot more connected to my individual armies and have to make sometimes difficult decisions about how best to use them.

"no auto-replenishing troops," I feel it's better than the alternative, which was me constantly merging units because it just never seemed worthwhile to pay to replenish them, when I could just have a chain of new units coming from my settlements to replace the units I lost through merging. Also think this system fills in much of the role that being able to move armies about without a general served, namely replacing lost troops.

"A PRACTICAL UI (Rome 2's is so terrible, looks like an iPad game)." I don't have a problem with Rome 2 UI in it's current form. Sure there's some areas for improvement, but I find it functional, practical (mostly) and easy to use.

So, like I said thanks for replying. Interesting to see someone else's point of view on this and nice to see we share the same view on some things, whilst disagreeing on others.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Daruwind]

There may be mods for some of these now but here's a list of things I want to see returned.

Option for walls for every settlement, cities are individual (can build the full arrangement of options in every city) rather than streamlined into regions, bring back population as a metric for army recruitment in each city, remove army limits/no general needed for every army, open the campaign map back up (I feel R2 had so much "Map" but nearly all of Europe and Western Asia were locked into little linear forest trails), no auto-replenishing troops, General Speeches, family tree never needs to be removed (ATW added this right?), get rid of all the gimmicky click button special abilities and bonuses in battle (makes no sense), fix the agents so they don't all feel the exact same, retinue and traits reverted to R1, Med 2 style, A PRACTICAL UI (Rome 2's is so terrible, looks like an iPad game).

That's a sample.

I´m sorry, it looks like Rome 1 / Med 2 are the best for you...

I have played all TWs, love them all for being little different, some better some not so good. With Attila you are missing a lot. It´s hard especially for WRE with many new features. It´s different settings than Rome 2 , however game is much more polished. (skill trees....)

warhammer, i can understand that you prefer real history to magic and fantasy stuff. However if you ever has chance to try it. Do it. It´s quite different. Each race/ faction has its own personality, style, abilities, features..... Trust me, im really strategical mind but from time to time it is nice to enjoy little WAAAGH of greenskins After playing warhammer, going back to other TW is real shock.... Man, i just wish Ca implement naval combat in warhammer,that would be awesome.

Discussion about buildings. Well my strategical part love it and if you remember old R2 penalties, not the latest patch, i love that. I had to think about how to develop province, what to build where..It´s for me another level of customization from older system city - whole empire to city - province - whole empire. It´s not perfect but either is building every building in each city... But definitely i would love to have little more of slots. Like 8/10 for major city, 6 for minor...

[Fredrin]

Surely the Rome II engine is too dated to use for the Campaign Pack DLC.

Unless they make it a Roman era setting using the Attila engine....?

[Welsh Dragon]

Surely the Rome II engine is too dated to use for the Campaign Pack DLC.

Unless they make it a Roman era setting using the Attila engine....?

How much difference is there between Rome II Engine and Attila Engine though? I also think the Rome 2 engine holds up well even today. And I get the impression a lot of people find it runs better too.

Also Rome 2 is played by significantly more players (often twice as many) which could also be a factor in deciding where to focus their resources.

(I'm also just hoping it's Rome 2 as I can play that, where as I can't play Attila because it triggers my severe light sensitivity and migraine headaches.)

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Epic28]

@ Welsh Dragon

For the sake of long replies, I'll shorten up your quote starting with what you are mixed/disagreement on. Also keep in mind, while I don't necessarily want these things to essentially be retroactive to how the worked in R1 or Med 2 (10 year old games), I still wish they were improved upon rather than some cases of being omitted altogether.

- Population just added a mechanic of depth to the old games that I found lacking in R2, granted now it still tied to building upgrades, but before you also had to decide if sacking or occupying would be worth the cost of drastically decreasing a towns population during an offensive to help in lowering the public order but would it be worth the lack of retraining or enlisting new units under your army? I can't really see a negative to population in a TW game.

- Walled Settlements. This is strictly from a gameplay perspective because I do enjoy not having to legitimately siege a walled city every time, village battles are definitely refreshing. But no walled cities I think hinders gameplay elements and promotes steamrolling to be able to assault and take over a city within the same turn without any siege equipment.

- Open Campaign Map. To me the massive "land" showcased was more of a gimmick to show the detail of the game, whilst in reality, you couldn't traverse your armies across a majority of it. Small gripe overall.

- Family Tree. I see your point regarding actual families in Rome 2 versus a medieval era game. I just used to really get attached to Generals in old games and always had favorites, feel like the family tree tabs mixed with the traits and retinue system help connect the generals to the players better.

- Cities Individual. As of now there definitely at least needs to be more building options/slots per city. In terms of regions versus individual cities, why not have both then? Combine it so that cities can still all have potential to build a dozen or so options, and also have it tied to a region where the three cities within can share similar benefits. I wouldn't mind a revised system of Med 2 of castles versus towns, do this to an extent of allowing a city to become a financial center with more economic and trade and education focused buildings versus a military one with barracks, unit upgrading, fortifications, etc. Basically like my opening statement of this reply, build on the old systems and improve where it lacked, rather than just throw it out completely. Maybe even a third city type focusing heavily on industry, mining, farming even?

- Army limits. The numerical limits of a full army aren't what bothered me so much as every army fielded a general and the skirmish battles of old were removed for the most part. It seemed too easy to just field a capable battle ready general out of nowhere (immersion breaking for me) but this ultimately is just a ripple effect of the gameplay changes since a family tree system was also removed.

-Autoreplinishing. Auto replenish in a city, garrison or general placed fortification only then? Didn't make sense to have soldiers randomly just come to your general in the middle of his march in the woods to reinforce. Minor issue.

- Practical UI. This one is mainly preference I suppose, find arguments on both sides.

There's probably plenty of room for discussion on these topics elsewhere as they really don't pertain to the thread overall but I appreciate the commentary back and forth nonetheless good sir.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

I don't really care what setting the DLC will be but I hope it won't be an unfinished cash grab.

When I played Age of Charlemagne with the Franks first, I thought it was awesome! Then I tried the Emirate of Cordoba... and I saw their architecture is Roman cities with churches next to the capture point! Yay....

Sure a lot of Roman architecture should be present but there was nothing showing that I'm not playing Attila Grand Campaign, the cities where exactly the same 400 years later. Hmm...

I like a lot of things about Attila, but the flaws are so immersion breaking!

[Welsh Dragon]

@Epic28

Thank you as well for the interesting discussion.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Condottiere 40K]

I heard speculation that the next game will be CHINA.

That's probably the only geographical area that could be successfully exploited.

Add in a Chinese language pack, and you have a vast potential number of new players.

[S-te-Fan]

I heard speculation that the next game will be CHINA.

That's probably the only geographical area that could be successfully exploited.

Add in a Chinese language pack, and you have a vast potential number of new players.

Yes I would very much like to see an asian campaign. Would be a great variation on Europe over and over again.

Furthermore, I would love to see a remake of the Americas campaign like in M2TW Kingdoms.

The potential on the Asian market could also be huge.

[perifanosEllinas]

Warhammer 2
-blablabla no new info

They announced that they are already developing cut content.

In an interview they also announced that the dumped down arcade sieges of TW:W will persist in TW:W2.

[Welsh Dragon]

They announced that they are already developing cut content.

Pardon?

They announced:

Otherwise, the New Content team are in the early concept and design stages for the first WARHAMMER II DLC out post-launch.

So additional content, made by a separate team for the DLC, the work to do this ultimately paid for by sales of that DLC. Plus a game that evolves after release with new enemies to fight against, new allies to fight alongside and additional content (possibly based on the first units, heroes, Legendary Lords, magic, maybe even a faction/race) even if you don't buy any of the DLC.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Rawr]

At what point does DLC cease to be cut content etc... It's a very cynical view to assume all DLC must be that.

Years ago when DLC was nascent it certainly felt that way. In terms of Total War? I've always been iffy with the DLC. That being said though, I think the handling of DLC for Warhammer 1 has been their best to date. Beastmen was lackluster (Mini campaign and roster felt very weak) but Realm of the Wood Elves was amazing (Beautiful mini campaign map with more factions, Oak of Ages scripts and a full roster). The fact that CA agree their handling on Chaos was bad and the evolution of the DLC quality in Game 1 has left me a little more optimistic about DLC plans going forward. Could it be better? Absolutely, but to just dismiss it all immediately as 'cut content' seems rather silly.

Also read that Blood and Gore will persist through to Game 2 (And I assume game 3).

[NostalgiaFan]

- Open Campaign Map. To me the massive "land" showcased was more of a gimmick to show the detail of the game, whilst in reality, you couldn't traverse your armies across a majority of it. Small gripe overall.

- Cities Individual. As of now there definitely at least needs to be more building options/slots per city. In terms of regions versus individual cities, why not have both then? Combine it so that cities can still all have potential to build a dozen or so options, and also have it tied to a region where the three cities within can share similar benefits. I wouldn't mind a revised system of Med 2 of castles versus towns, do this to an extent of allowing a city to become a financial center with more economic and trade and education focused buildings versus a military one with barracks, unit upgrading, fortifications, etc. Basically like my opening statement of this reply, build on the old systems and improve where it lacked, rather than just throw it out completely. Maybe even a third city type focusing heavily on industry, mining, farming even?

- Army limits. The numerical limits of a full army aren't what bothered me so much as every army fielded a general and the skirmish battles of old were removed for the most part. It seemed too easy to just field a capable battle ready general out of nowhere (immersion breaking for me) but this ultimately is just a ripple effect of the gameplay changes since a family tree system was also removed.

-Autoreplinishing. Auto replenish in a city, garrison or general placed fortification only then? Didn't make sense to have soldiers randomly just come to your general in the middle of his march in the woods to reinforce. Minor issue.

Agree with all of these, you're ideas for CA to revisit the Castle/City mechanic especially. I did like how you could have a choice between an army focused settlement like a castle and a economy focused one like a city. One would have less buildings but more quality of troops while another would have lesser quality of troops but more building to make.

If they could do that again and do more with it like give you a choice between a city that gives you more building options for trade, or more options for farms, or more options for law, or more options for technology, while having castles that could either be focused on more number of troops, or focused on better arms and armor, or better defenses for your fort, it would be great.

As long as they make sure to give you more building options then freaking 8. It annoys me in the new games how a great city like Rome or Constantinople which is supposed to be huge has little more then several actual buildings to make. 12 or more would be good because at least it would actually feel huge because you built it up that way instead of just having it be big because you made one or two buildings.

And I despise Autoreplinishing. Takes away any incentive to be careful with your troops when they can just come back to full health in the next few turns out in the field without any assistance. It is even more dumb when these troops are your elite soldiers and yet they are able to get their numbers back in a foreign land when just out of random people even when it took years to train them. That should only happen when your troops are something like peasants or regular militia who are in lands that are similar in culture to them. Having them be able to get their numbers back in the land of a different faction that does not even have access to those troops is immersion breaking.

I would argue instead for a type of supply line that you can establish in your army that allows you to replenish your troops so long as the supply line is not attacked by any scouting or raiding army when you are in hostile land. Would be great since Total War still has not done much with that part of warfare that is actually very important.

[joedreck]

Race DLC before Warhammer 2 are Tomb Kings.

[PaulH]

Just a reminder, Creative Assembly's E3 presentation is tonight, so there will likely be new news, to go with this new news

[Daruwind]

Well i plan to watch it, so might add some newer new news unless sombody will have faster fingers

[Welsh Dragon]

Well i plan to watch it, so might add some newer new news unless sombody will have faster fingers

I'm not really a videos/streams kind of person, so that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[LestaT]

Release date 28 September.