Naval Warfare in Total War since Empire.

[Abdülmecid I]

A very informative and well-researched video from Darren, as usual. He describes the history of the implementation of naval battles in our favourite gaming franchise, carefully detailing the advantages and weaknesses of each version. He also cites every excuse Creative Assembly has used to justify their omission in Warhammer (their reasoning in the first title was actually different to that of the second one), Three Kingdoms and Troy. The bit about the supposed intellectual rights of Man O' War was also news to me, although I must say that the creativity, determination and imagination of the reddit community never cease to amaze me! It reminded me of the also debunked rating excuse about the blood & gore packs.

In what concerns the gradual, but now perhaps permanent removal of naval warfare, I think the crux of the matter lies with the... naval bombardment in Fall of the Samurai. It should be described as a marketing feature, mainly designed to provoke excitement in promotional visual material. Unfortunately, it probably inspired the disastrous decision to add amphibious battles in Rome II. As we all know, despite the hype, they proved to be indifferent, demanded a huge amount of resources and led to controversial policies and innumerable bugs and glitches. Capture points, unfinished sieges, overpowered transports, triremes proudly crossing the desert, marines suicidally jumping to the ocean and entire armies starving to death in a remote corner of the Mediterranean Sea were the result of the sloppy introduction of an unnecessary and historically dubious feature.

Therefore, it's not difficult to understand why the developers chose to ignore them in the fantasy world of Warhammer. Simply put, the dramatically increased expenses would not have been counter-balanced by a proportionate growth in sales. Unfortunately, the mild reaction from players encouraged them to also abandon them in Three Kingdoms, a tent-pole game, which, in spite of its high price, features one single culture and thus does not offer much variety in two-dimensional art, military rosters and urban buildings. I wonder whether the complete absence of the maritime aspect is at least partially responsible for the extremely low retention rates of Three Kingdoms, despite its record-breaking pre-order figures, in a debacle similar to the Metacritic controversy. As for the future, I think the only realistic hope for their return would only be in a specific historical context, where their inclusion is essentially mandatory. The 18th or 17th centuries enjoy strong prospects, for example, but I can't say the same for a game focused on Medieval Europe, George Martin's books or pagan mythology.

[Incendio]

Thank you very much Abdulmecid I for uploading this video, is something I had been looking for since years and this analysis helped me to narrow down me preferences in regards of Total War series. I've also noticed the decline in terms of quality of naval battles in Total War saga from Shogun 2 Total War, but I still have interest in Rome 2 and Attila. I don't know how to explain that and I am almost sure some of you would disagree but I like Attila Total War naval battles, more than Rome 2 Total War but those are engaging and in my opinion more detailed than Rome 2. I am somewhat interested in Thrones of Britannia, in part because of its naval battles, but by watching some videos on youtube, I'm not strongly convinced if they adds a distinctive value in respect of the previous titles. I mean, I find Attila Total War more interesting and appealing in this respect than Thrones of Britannia as I don't see too much variety in Thrones of Britannia, because I feel naval battles in this title are limited to "melee sieges" in transport vessels. Furthermore, Attila looks even better in terms of graphics (vessel models, particle effects, variety of textures, etc.). It's a shame Troy Total War is planned to not have any naval battles, not even landing in Troy lands, this is disappointing in my opinion. I'm done with Total War saga because is lacking of this amazing feature, believe me or not, but I started playing Total War because of the naval battles in Empire Total War.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the video, I think I will replay it, because contains very useful information of a topic I am really interested in. Thank you for sharing this video.

[Daruwind]

--I had some massive problems posting this comment so it is heavily edited. I wrote here to wait with comments

I have a few problems with video.

R2 - majority of showed content is from first year. I agree R2 launch was very problematic from many reasons but right now especially with latest patches it is not so tragic trainwreck. Plus I was playing R2 and naval combats from day1 (heck even did some small mods for R2 like adding harpoon trireme - it is not ingame due to often bugs ...) and the rate of naval bugs was quite low. Yup,they could happen but it was never in every battle. 1 of 10, 20? more likely...

Darren is missing overall point why naval combat worked so well in Empire and not later. Except Empire, all other games are not true high sea/deepwater actions. They feel like coastal/shallow waters. In Empire there are actual continents and trade theatres. Napoleon, Attila, Rome 2...we are sailing around Europe. ToB...just around Britain. Shogun 2...just around Japan banana. This is main issue with naval combat in Napoleon and FotS. While the combat is great, the campaign part...you are just blocking ships and protecting your part of map around Europe or Japan. In shortly you can have land empire not caring to much about navy. This is also true for Wh1 and 3K, there is simply no reason for many faction to use actual naval. If 3K was featuring Korea and Japan, then perhaps but unless the naval travel would be way way super advantage or only possibility how to reach certain parts of map, only then players would probably use it regularly. Again I love naval combat and would love its return in form of Empire II

Wh1-2 I have actually different arguments which were usually not so visible but which are probably even more true. Firstly do you guys understand what is naval combat in Wh lore? It is as ridiculous as is the Blood Bowl game. There is everything. Magic ships, flying ships, vikings, gunpowder ships, rotting carcasses of dead sea monsters, floating cities... Basically each race has 3-5 unique models usually with unique functionality. Which is at the top paired with second more generic problem. CA never solved properly issue how to depict transports vs professional navy ships. Issues like ramming in R2 and sea sickness are dirty tricks, but things like depicting tranporting artillery units, cavalry, elephants...You can justify that those won´t participate except maybe human parts..And now imagine all various monsters from Wh lore crawling all around different ship designs. How do you animate that? Trolls on Dwarf size iron clads? Sea Hydras, Giants? Because in Wh you cannot justify leaving some units under deck...At best it would require combined naval/land battles but what if one side wins naval part while second land part? Who wins? Navy?

Thus saying I would love some naval combat in Troy and future TWs. However I need campaign map that would justify usage of it. Which is something like:
Empire:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Wh lore:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Only Wh2 and probably Wh3 (Empire2) are reaching such continent/water complexity in my eyes. I would love Naval combat in every TW yet not everyone really needs it if there are almost no penalties when you lack it. Like seriously look at 3K map. Unless there are conditions like in real history,that armies require river navy to move around..if the land is almost as traversable, there are not many reasons to deploy navy. This is not argument that navies are useless. I want map changes to make them important! In Napoleon I can play British Empire with just a few ships. The trade system is simplistic and very often the ships are only tranports. Firstly CA needs to create maps and reason for navies to exist, to matter. Without that..Honestly how much different would be Shogun 2 without navies? ToB? FotS has at least naval bombardment, Rome2 combined battles not caring how much bugged you think they are, Empire has trade theatres and without armed escort, trade ships would sooner or later be sunk unlike in Napoleon.. Still imagine Rome2/Attila campaign maps. You can easily move from Rome via Syria and back to Carthage without need for actual navy. I want navy to matters to ravage coastlines, port settlements and more.

And now to 3K. To me it looks like CA ed up once more like with Norsca. And 3K active players dropout is due to it, which can be described as content drought as of lately. We had pre-order DLC and just one normal DLC which is mediocre. I still don´t have problems with game and will wait because we have the same birth problems with Wh1 and its weak DLCs like pre-order WoC, Wood Elves, Beastmen and Norsca for Wh2. Yet now everyone is praising Wh2 to be finally great. It took time to get there..(which is not saying CA should not finally learn to lower number of similar problems as R2 had problems, Attila too, Wh1, Wh2..now 3K still problems ) I´m just waiting for Korea and other interesting stuff..because all the negatives were listed rightfully. Low variety in everything.

[Abdülmecid I]

Sorry Daruwind, but I really don't see how naval warfare is even comparable to magic and violation of natural laws in historical games. As for naval battles in Warhammer, AAA games are usually supposed to provide a wealth of content for a high price. Creative Assembly's fantasy franchise certainly fulfills the second requirement, so I disagree about their implementation being unfeasible. The relationship between quantity, quality and money is only subjectively determined, but, at least in what concerns the Three Kingdoms, the shadiest business practice, in my opinion, was the extremely high cost for the consumer, despite it being the polar opposite to its predecessor, offering only one culture, significantly limited military rosters and, despite all that, continuing to omit naval warfare.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Nothing to see here.

Regarding the importance of naval battles, Darren touches the issue a bit, but, anyway, I doubt anybody would complain about different naval strategies or fleets playing a more marginal role in 19th century Japan or 3th century China than in the colonial empires of the 1700s. However, you indeed raise a valid point about the declining importance of the game's maritime aspect. I'm still playing vanilla Rome I and Medieval II and I have noticed that in the older titles, navies are sometimes absolutely crucial for the success of a military expedition, in contrast to Napoleon or Fall of the Samurais. In my Teutonic campaign, I just attacked Denmark-controlled Scandinavia, but my invasion would have eventually failed, hadn't I generously invested in a strong navy. The primary reason for this discrepancy is probably the radical simplification of the casualty replenishment system since Empire (rather ironic, as Palpatine would argue). Maintaining long lines of communication is no longer necessary (in fact, it's counter-productive in older titles and now technically impossible, as small armies are now strictly forbidden, for the sake of "tactical dilemmas"), because units nowadays regain their power either automatically or with the push of a button.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Move along, citizen.

Back in the good old times, however, you were forced to always send reinforcements to the front or the enemy will gradually grind you down. I still remember my "green snake" of Mayans crossing the Mexican desert to massacre the Apache or my Parthian elephants slowly traveling from Persia to Gaul, in order to defeat the bloody Romans. Obviously, when it comes to overseas operations, fleets were totally essential, but that's no more the case in Napoleon or Rome II, where your Imperial Guard and Praetorians will recover in a matter of minutes, even if they fight in the most inhospitable Russian taiga. It's perhaps an interesting example of how streamlining and corner-cutting directly or indirectly undermines several aspects of the game, further undermining its fragile stability.

[Basileos Leandros I]

To be honest, this is kind of a shame. I loved naval battles in Empire TW and Napoleon TW, and even in FoTS where you had ironclads and special type of foreign ships that would make the battles very engaging and a lot of fun. Granted, I'm a bit biased because I love naval battles and I play World of Warships a lot, but they were a very welcome addition to TW and a great new strategic component.

It's a shame that we won't probably see naval battles any time soon but at least we have Empire / Napoleon / FoTS to keep us busy.

[Alwyn]

Regarding the importance of naval battles, Darren touches the issue a bit, but, anyway, I doubt anybody would complain about different naval strategies or fleets playing a more marginal role in 19th century Japan or 3th century China than in the colonial empires of the 1700s.

I agree.

However, you indeed raise a valid point about the declining importance of the game's maritime aspect. I'm still playing vanilla Rome I and Medieval II and I have noticed that in the older titles, navies are sometimes absolutely crucial for the success of a military expedition, in contrast to Napoleon or Fall of the Samurais. In my Teutonic campaign, I just attacked Denmark-controlled Scandinavia, but my invasion would have eventually failed, hadn't I generously invested in a strong navy.

This sounds like an exciting campaign. I agree that navies are sometimes vital in the older games. Fleets can be useful in Napoleon and Shogun II, because of the ability to get trade income (I haven't played Fall of the Samurai).

The primary reason for this discrepancy is probably the radical simplification of the casualty replenishment system since Empire (rather ironic, as Palpatine would argue). Maintaining long lines of communication is no longer necessary (in fact, it's counter-productive in older titles and now technically impossible, as small armies are now strictly forbidden, for the sake of "tactical dilemmas"), because units nowadays regain their power either automatically or with the push of a button.

This is where we see it differently. In games with automatic replenishment, logistics still matters - and I don't miss repeatedly clicking on depleted units to replenish them (to be fair, I'm thinking here of the manual replenishment in Empire, while I believe you're thinking of the different replenishment mechanic in earlier games). For example, in Rome II, there's zero replenishment in enemy lands, units replenish faster in regions which can recruit that type of soldier, some buildings and general traits (expertise in logistics) offer small bonuses to replenishment and replenishment takes longer than some previous games (such as Empire, where depleted units regain full strength in two turns, if I remember correctly). If a depleted army faces another battle, the player must choose between merging depleted units, waiting for replenishment and recruiting mercenaries.

I'm confused by the statement that "small armies are now strictly forbidden" is this issue about games after Rome II, is there some new mechanic which prevents the player from using small armies? I use small armies in Empire, Napoleon, Shogun II and Rome II, the game doesn't stop me. I can see that they're unlikely to be useful in Napoleon, as the AI routinely uses full stacks - but I routinely use them in Rome II (as does the AI), I can't afford full stacks everywhere.

Obviously, when it comes to overseas operations, fleets were totally essential, but that's no more the case in Napoleon or Rome II, where your Imperial Guard and Praetorians will recover in a matter of minutes, even if they fight in the most inhospitable Russian taiga. It's perhaps an interesting example of how streamlining and corner-cutting directly or indirectly undermines several aspects of the game, further undermining its fragile stability.

In Rome II, if the Russian taiga is enemy (or neutral) territory your Praetorians won't replenish at all, unless you capture the region capital or retreat to a region you own. Instead, you're likely to lose soldiers to attrition in winter. My armies often take around seven or eight turns to recover full strength after a major battle, depending on where they are. Elite troops (like Preatorians) tend to take longer, because units recruit more slowly in regions which can't recruit that type of unit and elite units tend to be recruited in a few major military centres.

Fleets in Rome II are more useful for military operations than in some previous games, since they can land marines to help the player take or defend ports. While I enjoy Empire, it seems odd to me that one regiment of militia can keep 20 ships of the line out of a port, even though in reality the ships could have landed a large force of marines. In Rome II, a strong force of marines landed by warships can take a port from a weak militia force without needing an army - and a fleet's marines can be the difference beteween victory and defeat when you're attacking a large army which is defending a port.

As for 'fragile stability', I get crashes in Rome II less often then in older games.

[Daruwind]

Sorry Daruwind, but I really don't see how naval warfare is even comparable to magic and violation of natural laws in historical games.

In Empire, navy is essential and sooner or later you will have to invest into it.

While you can play Napoleon, Shogun 2, Wh1 and many other bigger/smaller campaigns without need to build single ship during whole game. Of course in FotS ships are useful for naval bombardment, of course they can trade in Napoleon.

But my arguments lies that we need ships to matter. We need campaign map requiring navy like it was suppose to be in 3K. But it is not. There are a few rivers, you can easily move around without ships and because there is no Korea, Japan of Philipines..there is not threat. In R2 roman navy matters because you can easily conquer port cities because navy is shortening path around Meditterean but you can move around. You can play whole campaign without single ship if need be. But you will not cross magically water from Europe to America or from Old World into Ulthuan/Lustria/Naggoroth. But in Wh1 why do you need navy. Exactly what for? Because ocean is on one side of map but there is nothing behind it. Of course it can serve for quicker transport like Shogun 2 but ultimately you are just closing part of map around coastline.

I don´t need navy in Wh1. I want it in Empire2/Wh3, i want ships to matter, i want campaign maps that require ships and can reward naval factions. I like ships, i´m just practical because i don´t want half baked version like in ToB whish is basically for nothing. Or maps that doesn´t require navy at all.

As for naval battles in Warhammer, AAA games are usually supposed to provide a wealth of content for a high price. Creative Assembly's fantasy franchise certainly fulfills the second requirement, so I disagree about their implementation being unfeasible.

I don´t agree here. All TWs so far have human skeletons, animations and basically always it is one time period. (You don´t have vikings vs galleons) For ships in Wh lore, the ammount of combinations of races, skeletons, animations....is staggering. It would be either very limited or just for show. That´s not good enought for me. Either do it fully for 100% or use resources for something else.

The relationship between quantity, quality and money is only subjectively determined, but, at least in what concerns the Three Kingdoms, the shadiest business practice, in my opinion, was the extremely high cost for the consumer, despite it being the polar opposite to its predecessor, offering only one culture, significantly limited military rosters and, despite all that, continuing to omit naval warfare.

And here I must agree. My udnerstanding is, CA is trying to create similar testbed/base for bigger game like with Warhammer. Sadly the initial replaybility and variation is low. I will still wait for a few more DLCs to see what they will add. But assessment of current situation is correct and it is seen on player drop off.

[Lord Baal]

I agree that they should have introduced naval battles for Total Warhammer 2 at least, I could tolerate it barely on Total Warhammer 1 but for 2...

Is understandable they might have to either stretch or create new things to accommodate it. Black arks would have to be either nerfed in terms of size, changed altogether or better yet, present them as an amphibian battle. First you start a siege against a side of the ark, and try to download your army into it, capturing some point or destroying part of it on the process. A victory for the assaulter might not result in the insta destruction of the ark if this is the first successful attack on it, but perhaps it cripples the vessel travel speed and destroy buildings on it. And after two or three assault more the ark is sunk?

[izzi]

The main issue is that CA wants to deliver a game (or expansion or DLC) every year. This is a part of the problem. They concentrate their resources more on things that are campaign and land battle related. Maybe it's the best that CA just take they're time when developing a game (like before). Now it seems more and more that their games or more glitchy and buggy from day one. But i guess this will never happen as this path has been taken by most game companies this days. Probably for financial reasons. Making a game before was like creating art. Than you take your time with it, so it becomes a master piece. Now this days it's like "whatever". Let us make a nice graphical appealing game and who cares if the game is glitchy or buggy or doesn't make sense? The customer pays for it and in the meantime they can test it for us and we patch it in the meantime. CA will not put time or any effort in the naval aspect of their games if they stay on making every year a game.

[Abdülmecid I]

I really doubt that CA's business plan has changed significantly since the "Golden Age". Releasing one game per year has been the norm since the original Shogun (2000). Then we had the Mongols (2001), Medieval I (2002), the Vikings (2003), Rome I (2004), Barbarian Invasion (2005), Medieval II (2006), Kingdoms (2007), Empire (2009), Napoleon (2010), Shogun II (2011), Fall of the Samurais (2012), Rome II (2013), Attila (2015), Warhammer I (2016), Warhammer II (2017), Throb (2018) and Three Kingdoms (2019). The only exceptions are 2008 and 2014 (bad news for 2020, I suppose!). Paradoxically, Empire was originally destined for a 2008 release, but that was cancelled, presumably due to it being still in an alpha stage (nonetheless, the game was still published in an awful state, which had gained Internet notoriety at least until the fateful 3rd of September). Similarly, the void in 2014 is generally explained by CA being busy fixing the issues plaguing Rome II, so we can conclude that these years were not the rule.

The only change is the proliferation of DLC packs, but these digital add-ons add so little, that I'm a bit skeptical about them gravely affecting the time-schedule of Creative Assembly. I'm also certain that no company, benevolent or malevolent, ever viewed its products as pieces of art, instead of simply means to accumulate profits. Every company aims for as frequent releases as possible, while also trying to decrease the time spent in development, in order to reduce the expenses. The crux of the matter lies in detecting the precarious balance creating a product sufficiently satisfying to your customers and also cheap enough, so that you can maximise your income. It's safe to assume that naval warfare was removed, precisely because it was judged (probably wisely, from the perspective of CA) the disappointment generated to a specific number of consumers will be easily negated by the decrease in expenditure.

This is where we see it differently. In games with automatic replenishment, logistics still matters - and I don't miss repeatedly clicking on depleted units to replenish them (to be fair, I'm thinking here of the manual replenishment in Empire, while I believe you're thinking of the different replenishment mechanic in earlier games). For example, in Rome II, there's zero replenishment in enemy lands, units replenish faster in regions which can recruit that type of soldier, some buildings and general traits (expertise in logistics) offer small bonuses to replenishment and replenishment takes longer than some previous games (such as Empire, where depleted units regain full strength in two turns, if I remember correctly). If a depleted army faces another battle, the player must choose between merging depleted units, waiting for replenishment and recruiting mercenaries.

I'm not sure if it could be described as logistics, though. It's a very simplified mechanic, which relies almost totally on who owns a specific region, without taking into consideration many other potential factors, like infrastructure, distance from capital, road system and etc. There's essentially zero interaction from the player, while it's also less realistic. Apart from your armies getting replenished just one turn after you capture the city, absolutely no replenishment while campaigning in foreign lands is also rather extreme and historically inaccurate. In my opinion, the only objective advantage of the new implementation is that the player is no more required to spend any time planning about sending reinforcements to the front.

Anyway, to connect this with the issue of the navies' declining importance, auto-replenishment (or the push-the-button replenishment of Empire) mean that maintaining any sort of contact with your center of power is no completely unnecessary. As France, I conquered the entire Indian subcontinent with only my initial two armies, without sending a single unit for support. Such a strategy would be unthinkable in Rome I or Medieval II, as attrition from the constant battles, even if they were won decisively, would eventually exhaust the offensive. Consequently and somewhat ironically, fleets in Empire only play a crucial role at commerce and are basically insignificant for colonial adventures. This changed somewhat with the introduction of amphibious warfare, but Normandy-style landings are not a pinnacle of historical authenticity, not to mention the fact that the feature caused so many problems and bugs (the capture-the-flag controversy must have been the only universally despised aspect of a Total War game) that Creative Assembly finally completely abandoned not only the Omaha beaches, but naval warfare in its entirety.

My admittedly cryptic remarks about the small armies and fragile stability were references to the army cap (which, to me, punishes skirmishing and role-playing) and Rome's II lack of balance (even today, it's actually more efficient to auto-resolve battles with deploying only cheap infantry than manually playing them).

[izzi]

You could be correct. It's true that that the naval aspect of the game hasn't been really that good and some consumers have complained about it. But CA is pretty notorious of just removing things before trying to fix the issue. I think it's because they do not want to put their time and effort (and resources) on finding the issue and fix it. For example in Shogun 2 (and Fots), they have fixed the issue (or bug) with friendly fire that was happening in ETW/NTW. But with that, they created another bug and that's when artillery stop firing (when their own units are in their line of firing) and just limber and do a suicide attack towards the enemy line. They never stay put and wait until their own units aren't in their line of fire. So you see that CA has to test better their games. And trust me, that's a very annoying bug in Fots when you are making mods for the game.

[Lord Baal]

Perhaps a variable upkeep for units could both be more realistic and address the logistic problemns while also keeping things simple.

The farther a unit is from the nearest supply depot or province of origin or building where it can be recruited, the expensier is the upkeep, and whenever has to resupply men, the upkeep gets even higher.

It's far too simplistic for my tastes but would be a easy "fix" to this issue.

Anyway, it seems that for naval battles for the current games, having not near the same variance as land battles in the case of Total Warhammer, and having the same kind of units just different flags in Three Kingdoms the naval battles wouldn't have to be the resources black pit everyone seem to assume.

Heck for Total Warhammer they could have reused Empire, Rome 2 and Thrones of Britan assets with just some cosmetic changes for half the navies in the game.

[Incendio]

Today I want to speak about Napoleon Total War.

In my opinion, Napoleon Total War should have been the logical continuation of the historical events of the Age of Reason (18th century), the historical period of Empire Total War. I don't know the reasons why Creative Assembly simplified the Napoleonic Wars and limited them to Europe continent. They removed America and India from the campaign map, both continents were available in Empire Total War and it would have made sense to keep them in Napoleon Total War. As a result, the naval aspect of the game was relegated to the background as there is no need to build a fleet to be successful in the campaign. What astonish me is why Creative Assembly assumed America and Asia continents didn't play an important role in Napoleonic Wars naval campaigns. This meant a break with the previous historical period covered in Empire Total War. Napoleon Total War could have been the best Total War title in terms of the naval aspect. They missed a great opportunity, it's a shame, they already had the map covering America and India...

[alhoon]

Jumping in without reading much of the thread:
I liked the Naval battles in ETW. I found them "Meh" in S2TW. I ... didn't play any at R2TW, perhaps 1-2 or something. Let's face it, the Autoresolve feature in R2TW produces results that I cannot ever compare to with manual game.
Now, in Attila Total War, I did play a few naval battles with my Fireships but they were not too great.

In NTW sea battles were just a minor concern in my games when they shouldn't have been. In ETW if those buttholes close your main port, your economy goes down the drain. There are whole theatres that you keep with just your ships and that's where the money is. In NTW, it could create food shortages (Replenishment penalties) etc.

All in all, Naval battles are very important in ETW and... that's it.

[izzi]

Well i do understand your reasoning, the Napoleonic Wars where mainly fought in Europe. Yes they could have included the War of 1812 (kind of a sideshow of the Napoleonic Wars, but an important for the US nation that was still pretty young) or the Mysore War in India against the British (Mysore was an ally of the French). But heck, what can you do about it. I just do not understand why they continued in the 19th century with the Victorian Age. Now that's a time frame i am interested about. But well...I am making my mod that comes approx. just after the Napoleonic Wars, so let's see how it develops. Ship battles in fots by the way where pretty good.

[Abdülmecid I]

I don't think that replenishment rates or attrition were affected by ports in Napoleon. The former was influenced by infrastructure and the supply depots buildings, while the latter only occurred during winter in Russia or in the Alps. The importance of navy in Napoleon was based only on trade either between your allies and protectorates or between the small "trade theaters" that existend on the edges of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean (for example, coffee from Izmir and sugar from the Carribean). They were a bit profitable, but for practical purposes, only Spain, France and the United Kingdom could theoretically exploit them. Essentially, the only major naval battle that ever happened was between the starting fleets of Villeneuve, Gravina and Nelson. Only in the end of the campaign, there could be a major engagement between the player's faction and the remaining faction of France, Spain or Britain, but by that point, you have already won and literally swim in untold riches.

In my opinion, Napoleon Total War should have been the logical continuation of the historical events of the Age of Reason (18th century), the historical period of Empire Total War. I don't know the reasons why Creative Assembly simplified the Napoleonic Wars and limited them to Europe continent. They removed America and India from the campaign map, both continents were available in Empire Total War and it would have made sense to keep them in Napoleon Total War. As a result, the naval aspect of the game was relegated to the background as there is no need to build a fleet to be successful in the campaign. What astonish me is why Creative Assembly assumed America and Asia continents didn't play an important role in Napoleonic Wars naval campaigns. This meant a break with the previous historical period covered in Empire Total War. Napoleon Total War could have been the best Total War title in terms of the naval aspect. They missed a great opportunity, it's a shame, they already had the map covering America and India...

It's a classic case of budget cuts. The reception of Empire was so negative that Creative Assembly was encouraged to release Napoleon as a standalone game and probably reduced the expenses as much as possible. This meant significantly less work (fewer units and factions) and also got rid of several bugs, like for example Prussia trading Silesia for Venezuela. The saddest part is that we also lost the immediate periphery of Europe, as Napoleon was the first Total War game, where the entirety of the south and eastern Mediterranean coastlines were removed. I suppose that the lack of the Moroccan Sultanate or the Berber States didn't really harm the game, but the castrated version of the Ottoman Empire was particularly bizarre. It rendered it a very weak empire and pretty much guaranteed that no other major power would emerge, apart from Napoleonic France and the Coalition Kingdoms. Unfortunately, the 2009 controversy forced the franchise to jump from the largest map ever featured to the tiniest one, in the space of one year. The crux of the matter is that it was not the consequence of ignorance on historical matters or lack of imagination, but a conscious business policy, which probably resulted into a larger net profit for the company than the alternative scenario of investing too much into a product marked by the dismal failure of its predecessor.

[Love Mountain]

Is it bad that I simply want an updated version of Rome I, Roma Surrectum mod? Quite frankly, I find Roma Surrectum 2 to be a better game than Rome 2 Total War: DeI mod. The limited building slots, updated Warscape engine, the absurd replenishment mechanics, and the awful general/army general system. Quite honestly, I find that Roma Surrectum 2 does almost nearly better, but suffers greatly from the ancient game engine.

[alhoon]

I don't think that replenishment rates or attrition were affected by ports in Napoleon.

They were not. As such, naval battles were a tiny sideshow in NTW since they didn't do much. I was suggesting how they could make the naval battles and blockades more important in NTW by saying that they could tie replenishment to ports. A blockaded port that gives a -5% replenishment in that area and increasing unhappiness by turn is something you would deal with.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Is it bad that I simply want an updated version of Rome I, Roma Surrectum mod? Quite frankly, I find Roma Surrectum 2 to be a better game than Rome 2 Total War: DeI mod. The limited building slots, updated Warscape engine, the absurd replenishment mechanics, and the awful general/army general system. Quite honestly, I find that Roma Surrectum 2 does almost nearly better, but suffers greatly from the ancient game engine.

I've got a similar feeling but towards M2TW mods like Europa Barbarorum II, Stainless Steel or Broken Crescent - with exactly those points (few buildings in cities, auto-replenishment, lack of personality of the generals) with one additional point (domination of the sniping-army-groups tacticts). I simply want more of the old stuff.

[Love Mountain]

I've got a similar feeling but towards M2TW mods like Europa Barbarorum II, Stainless Steel or Broken Crescent - with exactly those points (few buildings in cities, auto-replenishment, lack of personality of the generals) with one additional point (domination of the sniping-army-groups tacticts). I simply want more of the old stuff.

Agreed. I just want updated graphics and multi-core support. Maybe more modding tools to do things like change UI or adding scripts. The old games are honestly superior in gameplay. Though I will concede that new games typically introduce interesting elements. I think Empire introduced a lot of interesting things. The small "towns", the "growth" mechanics where new cities are spawned, tech tree research are generally good things imo, visible trade routes...

I also think ancillaries are handled better in the newer Total Wars, and some RPG elements are interesting, especially in Three Kingdoms. But the trait system in older games is obviously superior, not to mention the family trees...