Originally Posted by
fightermedic
I wish they would have gone full on mythological with this one... As is it is, it seems to sit in a slightly weird spot between realistic and fantasy, even more so, than Total War games always seem to do
I can sort of excuse this given it's not their main line cup of tea, and a Saga, in my view, is an opportunity to explore and innovate. I dunno how or if that will really occur here, but that inherent split I don't have a true bone with. I do think it's more ado for a series that is very heavily interested in using fantasy to make the history appetizing when the history could well do that on its own.
Originally Posted by
Spitfire -WONDERBOLT!
This is the most redundant sentence ever. It's just repeating the question.
The post has a lot of lines like this. The FAQ overall hurt my impressions with its writing and statements.
Originally Posted by
PointOfViewGun
Somehow those news bits have not been in my radar. I have no idea how.
Don't feel bad, it was early in the month where off-hand conversation on discord made my privy to the possibility.
Originally Posted by
Slaytaninc
This looks like it's going to be an even more boring version of Thrones of Britannia. I'm going to pass.
On the contrary, it seems like it wants to integrate substantially more systems and push a fantasy side amidst the historical premise. I imagine it will have more raw things to do and involve a great deal more scripting and campaign tidbits than ToB hoped to achieve.
Originally Posted by
izzi
Boring as hell. Getting tiered of all those melee specific games. ETW2 when? Pike and Shot when? Victoria TW when? With Naval battles, when? Jeezes! Just don't care CA! Give the gunpowder boys something. The melee and fantasy boys had enough for now.
If this board is any indication, while the gunpowder boys certainly have a voice, it isn't an especially large one, and I think you will find people hard pressed to agree that historical contexts and a good melee are an expended resource for a good total war game. My total disinterest in those periods aside, of course.
Originally Posted by
Boicote
For the first time since Attila, I'm interested in a TW games (Warhammer, Thrones of Britannia and 3K are not my thing). However, I'm a little disappointed with the naval battles. I would prefer to autoresolve them (just like in Rome 1 and Med 2), rather than see both armies disembarking to fight on land.
I quite agree, this isn't even a naval battle. It's a disappointment that after 10+ years of actual naval battles existing in the series, the design has boiled to "I give up, just make them disembark and call it a land battle".
Originally Posted by
Leonardo
Yeah, why not give us soficated guys a brand new engine in the next game like the 30 years war.
I think you'd want to be pushing this for a Saga title if anything, as that's a smaller scale opportunity for them to bugger up before applying a new engine to a full scale game. This is what I mean when I say the saga series has some true potential for innovation.
Originally Posted by
EmperorBatman999
Do people like these quasi-fantasy games now, or is CA losing touch with their old fanbase?
I'd say a combination of both, really. Portions of the old base don't follow along, but with the new fans and old ones who enjoy the remaining and new elements alike, they just don't matter.
Originally Posted by
PointOfViewGun
Literally everyone that liked Greek history wanted a Total War game that covered Troy.
In context of the preceding comment, sure. However, lets make an example. Advocates for medieval 3 may not necessarily be thinking of 'hero' mechanics (substantive characters do not need to have the total war approach to heros to be decent, just to head that off) and mechanics built on medieval superstitions, either.
Originally Posted by
izzi
I do miss the time where game companies actually made art like games. Now it's about how much they earn. For me TW lost it's source. It's now about "what earns the most", so let us mix fantasy with history.
I wonder, if gunpowder total war games hit off and gunpowder games were repeated ad nausiem, we'd see this comment from the same source today. Not a dig, just curious. We can't really know, but I think it's a fun thing to think about.
For my part I do think if CA did a better job with splitting teams, there would be merits to having a gunpowder-oriented team or simply an initiative to throw one in every couple of games. I feel gunpowder inherently loses some of the appeal of total war, but that's just what I glomped onto with Shogun and Medieval onwards, and in a wider scope it has full legitimacy to be explored.
Originally Posted by
izzi
I will make my own masterpiece mod with Fall of the Samurai (Victoria TW with a world map).
Best of luck with this effort.
Originally Posted by
Abdülmecid I
Pretty sure that private, profit-seeking companies always aimed at money and not artistic expression. [...] I understand your complaints, but it seems to me more of a case about changing tastes, in comparison to the mainstream approach. Heroic duels sell and the popularity of Brad Pitt films will be guaranteed for our generation, at least. If Troy fails commercially, then there's a great chance that CA will abandon this fusion of fantasy and history, in favour of either keeping them separate or concentrating exclusively on the former.
I think the impression of games losing 'artistic passion' is rooted in gaming's origins as a nerdy niche, and its evolution into a mainstream, multibillion dollar business. Older games may have felt more authentic and less 'for the money' because what sold certain generations and maximized margins while still being acceptable simply wasn't known. It was safe to stick to expansions and the like, and only after the tentative trying and resounding success of the smaller DLC model did many of the things we see today become standard. In relation to your comment, I think the answer here is 'both'. I do think older games had a fundamentally higher interest for passion and innovation over tweaking and selling what works along thin lines because those lines weren't defined, nor was 'more' standardized. Nowadays with a mainstream audience, those lines are very distinct indeed.
Originally Posted by
PointOfViewGun
I believe that bolded statement does an injustice to Thrones of Britannia. That game was and is beautiful.
You think it was beautiful and the broader audience simply doesn't agree, perhaps not visually, but in terms of any degree of mechanical depth and replayability with the rest of the series. Sure, it's pretty, but that clearly doesn't hold people. In the context of what you quoted, there hasn't been a disservice at all. Enjoying the game and finding it beautiful is a perfectly valid opinion. Throb's incredibly muted arrival and subsequent lack of popularity and enjoyment in the wider base compared to every single other thing in the series (we need to go back to shogun here to find an even playing field) is simply a fact.
Originally Posted by
AnthoniusII
So you read Hilliad...So DESCRIBE the duel between Achiles and Hector.
I am curius if you read that part...I am waiting your description. Remember that in Greece we study Hilliad both in its original text and its modern greek translation ....
I am waiting your description...
If you say Troy's portrayal of history is 'raping' greek history, this comment is a blatant molestation of good debate. It's not his job to prove a point for you. Prove a point on your own substance or prove you have none at all, a bark without bite. The latter part of post #57 should have taken this one's place, and even then, clarity would be immensely useful in actually convincing people.
I can't imagine Troy would be a good representation of history at all, and I think the mechanics in particular are counterthesis to a good historical portrayal in general... but the former's just a derivative of how total war in general works and the latter is on a mechanical level not really entailing the language you utilize on the historical portrayal of an as of yet unreleased game. This comment holds through pages 4 and 5 as of this posting.
I'm more interested in the mechanical approach than the exact parity of history anyways, so other than this I'm not interested in the given conversation.
Originally Posted by
ep1c_fail
Total War: Troy. Good meme CA.
I wonder if they'll bother fixing their siege AI for a game which is inspired by a siege battle.
We can only hope. I'd call it a bit little too late, but at least that would be strong innovation for a small scale title.
Originally Posted by
Sagat
Total War has never been 100% historically authentic, they've said it numerous times... so all the kids getting upset at everything not being 100%
I'm not even sure Anthonius is necessarily driving at perfect accuracy, so all encompassing 'everyone on that side shut up' comments aren't very helpful. Calling people kids with overtly sweeping judgements of position is probably not going to have the effect you want.
Originally Posted by
Sagat
when have naval battles ever been something to do in Total War ?
When they integrated it into Empire and made multiple attempts to do it across the series. It's about time for them to give a serious go at making it viable, at least, in my line of thinking.
Originally Posted by
PikeStance
I also not a big fan of hybrid games based on legendary stories of the past. It seems to be lazy development. You will spend a lot less time developing a game if you are not bogged down with historical accuracy.
Unless you are asserting research is a highly demanding and massive portion of development, I would argue this really just doesn't apply. They have to make models regardless. They have to make/revise (probably more of the latter, but I digress) mechanics regardless. These can be done with sweeping efforts towards historical accuracy regardless of the amount of sourcebooks they pore over in an effort to get particular helm designs or exact details right. That's simply never been the crisis in total war. Medieval 2 for its various deep inaccuracies remains a key entry on its mechanical merits despite the laughably terrible accuracy in some cases that doesn't light a candle to what must have gone into Rome 2, which itself is not working on historical accuracy as the primary contributor of its popularity. Et al. If that entire statement was invalidated by the sarcasm bit, then... sorry? I don't see the point of the comment otherwise.
Point being, fast and loose or even 'decent but not historian' approaches to historical accuracy are not pointers towards the effort put in actually developing the game. I can gurantee there are many things that they could put together that have nothing to do with the past few page's back and forth on history that would make this game among the top if not the top regarded entry for accurate portrayals, like reworking the basic feel of melee and making a more innovative political system.
Originally Posted by
Anna_Gein
I am not sure if the setting could translate well in the TW sandbox formula.
Originally Posted by
Lifthrasir
I agree. A game based on the Greco-Persian Wars (499 - 449 BC) would have suited better for the TW serie and would have offered much more options IMO.
Would you not agree that since this is a Saga title, the choice of period is not inappropriate? For a main line total war game, certainly, but - and I know success can't be used to call this a viable metric - the precedence so far is limited context and narrative basis, making a fully fledged sandbox oozing diversity of content not required to get by. Surely there's enough to be done, if done right, to make something of a deliberately smaller scope play well.
Originally Posted by
Abdülmecid I
There's a bit of contradiction between sandbox game and three ways to occupy Troy/late-game boss. I find the latter especially alien to the essential concepts of strategy video-games, in general, and the Total War franchise, in particular.
Extremely alien. I'm not going to judge too far until release, but this is a key issue for me in where Total War seems to be going, paired with this,
Originally Posted by
Abdülmecid I
A bit weird they removed the recruitment system of Throb, as it was one of the few (perhaps the only) feature that was actually praised for adding realism.
Seriously? We're adding boss mechanics and we can't so much as paste a mechanic with good reviews from one game to another that wouldn't hurt one lick?
Originally Posted by
athanaric
There are glaring issues that have plagued every TW title since at least Rome I (the earliest one I've played), and probably before.
Feel free to say 'evey TW title'; as a player of the originals, there were of course issues, although Medieval 1 came across as remarkably better polished in many regards than Medieval 2. Off the top of my head the faction select system alone had better depth on historical merits.
Originally Posted by
Carmen Sylva
The diplomatic system of Rome I and Med II was unrealistic nonsense with journeys from several years from Rome to Antiochia, while in reality the journey would only last 18 days via ship.
Nothing wrong with a new implementation doing it better.
Not saying this is what you're doing or thinking, but I'd really like the series to approach features as things to improve, rather than things to just remove if they seem meh at a given time or precisely because they have issues like this.