CA has confirmed that they've got both a new fantasy TW game and a historical TW game in the works, alongside the Alien Isolation sequel.What are your hopes, fears and predictions?
>>1868467The company is recovering from a financial infarction and basically running their last chance to produce something not totally humiliating before SEGA pulls the plug. If the historical title is anything but Medieval 3 they're certifiably insane.
>>1868467>hopesnew engine that rework stats, combat, morale, fatigue, pathfinding, "formations", the whole real time gameplay experience>fearslol, lmao even>predictionssame old reskin of rome2
>>1868474also (samefaggin) SEGA are niggers because they fall for Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio memes, aka "duh you have to re utilize the same engine and assets", when yakuza kinda worked because they had talented writers and the engine got reworked every time, until like a dragon but that is another topic.TW FUCKING NEEDS a new engine, the graphics are more than ok, but gameplay wise it's the same old shit, nothing makes sense especially for a strategy game
>>1868467While CA has turned around a lot of the bad press they were getting earlier this year, they will still need to pull something big to pull the historical fanbase back in. My guesses, not ordered in likelihood, are:>Med 3The big one, people have been asking for it for more than a decade, but that hype could be a double-edged sword, in the same way you saw with R2 and WH3; fucking it up will not leave much room for forgiveness.>Empire 2Empire was an entry point for many players, but it was also deeply flawed in more ways than can be counted. A second try at it could bring in significant numbers, and even if CA makes its usual mistakes, it will probably be better than Empire 1.>Pike and ShotAn unexplored era with a mix of different gameplay styles to satisfy a wide player base and, depending on the size of the campaign map, plenty of room for DLC, too. >WW1This game could make or break Total War's chances of entering modern warfare. The best-case scenario is that it proves that CA can make a TW game with automatic weapons and succeed; the worst-case scenario is a glorified tech demo that barely functions.For the Fantasy game, I think you can whittle down the choices to>LOTRI think no explanation is needed here. I don't know if WB would be willing to give them the rights or what the DLC would look like, though.>ASOIAFEhhh, it could work, but they'd need to greatly expand their diplomacy systems and character interactions to make it feel right.>WH40K or Star WarsNot gonna happen until the WW1 game happens.>anything elseWould be a guaranteed saga-tier flop that nobody cares about
>>1868467>hopeshistorical twfearshistorical tw>predictionsMore WH slop
>>1868497After 3 games I doubt they'll make more WH unless GW buries them in cash.
>>1868467>HopesNone.>FearsMore warscape shitslop.>PredictionsMarvelhammerfags will buy it anyway,
>>1868499Well I hope you're right, there's still good potential for historical titles, but seems to me they got too comfortable with WH
>>1868503It's so sad you never learned to read. I guess that's what you get when you drop out of preschool.
>>1868492>ASOIAFReskinning Three Kingdoms would be enough>>186846740k and med3 would drown them in money and they could milk those successfully for a decade at least. It's also what I want. I don't believe that they will get Lotr or Asoiaf licenses.
>>1868492WW1 would require basically an entirely different engine because it (and the rest of modern war) were fought in a manner wholly different from premodern, marching wars.In a way that's not a bad thing. It gives them an excuse to put together a new engine and pay off accumulating technical debt, which in turn enables a lot more options moving forward and allows them to escape the stale template their current engine has them trapped in.But at the same time an engine is a big investment and SEGA would be footing the bill. I just don't see that on the cards after Hyenas flushed so much funding down the drain, after CA's recent string of difficulties and considering the whole industry is on shakey ground right now. At very least they will probably have to demonstrate a resounding success and a return to stable profitability before funding a new engine would be on the cards.That's why Med 3 probably makes the most sense. Their next title is make-or-break regardless of the hype so you might as well bet big. It maximizes the amount of work that they can effectively reuse from WH3 and is basically the only period where you could use the Immortal Empires concept of a global map without just becoming Empire 2.
>>1868467I think the historical title will either be Medieval 3 or Empire 2. After the mixed receptions of their recent historical (or "historical") titles it makes sense to go for a certain hit. I doubt they'll go for something completely new at this time.Not sure about the fantasy title. I doubt it's more Warhammer despite what the 40kiddies have been screeching about. If it's more pop-culture slop like LotR or GoT I will seethe. Stupid wildcard answer: A Baldur's Gate spinoff. I hope it'll be something original though, even if it wont sell as well I'm really fed up with franchiseshit in general.
>>1868492>it proves that CA can make a TW game with automatic weaponsTotal Warhammes already has shit like gatling guns.
>>1868509Hell FotS had gatling guns.
>>1868508I wouldn't like either, but I'd rather have a GoT TW than a LoTR one. That shit is everywhere already.
>>1868467At this point, I don't want any historical TW from them. It's definitely going to be shit.
>>1868533Unfortunately lotr is the better choice.It captures the fantasy audience and the historical audience because every historical player played the med2 lotr mod.Lotr is a fairly alive video game franchise excluding the gollum flop.GOT left on a sour note for many people with the final season. While the rings of power is a polarizing show it's active with a decent sized base, and the jackson films are still popular and relevant.None of this will matter though because without fundamental changes in the engine any non warhammer game is going to flop. And CA just doesn't have the money or technical expertise for that anymore.
>>1868542this>DONT FORGET TO EQUIP THE SWORD OF ARTHUR TO GIVE YOUR ARMY +6 TO ATTACK>DONT FORGET TO PRAY TO THE SCHOOL OF GNOTICISM TO GIVE YOUR CHARACTER +5 TO ADMINISTRATION>EQUIP THE RING OF FORGIVENESS TO GIVE YOUR CITIES +25% TAX BONUS
>>1868474>reskin of Rome 2As far as I understand these games are reskins of Empire.
I still don't see how they can make a WW I gane or a Victorian era game.Imagine playing the Battle of the Somme and it's just 12000 troops duking it out in an afternoon with Warhammer combat.That's just beyond parody. At least Empire/Napoleon made an effort to look like it belongs in that time period, even thought it was as innacurate as it gets.
The sad truth is that CA could just give Rome 2 a medieval makeover and slap on the "Medieval 3" title and it would still sell like hot cakes.
Total War: Middle Earth would print more money than Warhammer.Change my mind.>muh modsYes exactly, they were awesome.
>surviving horrorWell, that's one way to describe playing those awful games
All I want is Medieval 2 remaster like they did for Rome I and fix the UI for modern audiences and I'm happy until they finally make Empire II.
I'd love nothing more than to see CA on a redemption arc, but the company's past the point of return and already dead. They won't make a new engine. Any real talent has already left and the chances of the current devs evolving the franchise any further are very slim. They'd make a Medieval 3 if they could but unfortunately they've demonstrated plenty of times that they're no longer capable of making good games. Their new alien game will be disappointing. Their new historical game (if it even ships) will be a dud. Because it won't be Medieval 3 or Empire 2. It'll be about Majahajbit Indians or some shit
>>1868706>>1868706Third Age Total War mogs almost every historical TW title and I don't even like fantasy TW. They could just reskin Attila or Rome II with the same factions and map and it would sell better than almost any previous TW title.A GoT TW would be shit but I can imagine them trying to use it to emphasize their shitty faction management/agent mechanic implemented since Rome II. Actual combat would just be Attila tier "Stark Spearmanni vs Lannister Spearmanni" with like 2 unique units per faction.
>>1868808anyone with a different take from this is living off copium. its over
>>1868492>I don't know if WB would be willing to give them the rights Didn't WB lose the rights to Embracer Group? >or what the DLC would look like, though.Mostly fleshing out the map. I expect the game to start with Gondor vs Mordor and Rohan vs Isengard. Possibly with Harad thrown in as dlc. That leaves the entire north for DLC.
>>1868543>Lotr is a fairly alive video game franchise excluding the gollum flop.It is?
>>1868644rome 2 forced generals to lead armies which is one of the main sources of problems for these games
>>1868808True, but we can only hope.Alien Isolation 2 or something like that would be awesome, and there's a chance a Three Kingdoms 2 comes out.
>>1868740Same. The situation is so terminal that I would prefer just that coming from CA. Then modders could work on a Pike & Shot TW and other periods or even other fantasy media until CA gets their shit together (which they probably won't).
Call me a doomer but I think CA is too far gone personally. I understand the people calling for Empire 2 I owned the first game on disc and it was one of my first video games. I just dont think CA has it in them to make a proper sequel. I have a feeling it would just be warhammer ranged combat but tweaked with none of the innovative systems needed to model the combat of the period. Thats why I want a medieval 3. Much safer pick though I do believe CA will find some way of fucking it up. If empire 2 is announced though the shills will go absolutely insane. 3 videos a day from andys take with 7 different sponsors shilling overdrive
>>1868492>WH40K or Star Wars>Not gonna happen until the WW1 game happens.WH40K has already been confirmed to be in the works by insiders and leakers.
>>1868492CA would never do sth grand like rome2 for historical title anymore
>>1868937How, CA still struggle with 5000 dudes on screen, and they are planning to make games where random battles would reach millions?
>>1868937>source: I made it up
>>1868943is dawn of war not a 40k game because there aren't 5 billion units on the map>captcha
>>1868857True, but that an easily achievable feature even in Medieval 2 with a few lines of code. SSHIP has it as an option when you start a campaign.
>>1868492CA is never doing a pike and shot era videogame. It's a time period that is never going to be portrayed in media as long as anglos dominate the cultural landscape.>LotRYeah, can't wait how they portray the nowadays pozzed Tolkien legendarium
>>1868644no, I wouldn't say that, shogun2 was an big improvement on empire on all fronts, fall of the samurai is the best gunpowder TW and is miles better than empire, and I liked empire.the last big changes in the TW formula were introduced in warhammer1, the 2 polished it, single units and magic.
>>1868943I don't know why no one ever figured it out, but there weren't ever 1000 on screen, the engine processes only 20 (40) units max, the unit card is the unit, the single soldiers are just for display and little more (I suspect they are also involved in determine flank and rear attacks). formations are stat value changes, it doesn't matter how many soldiers are "engaged" in combat(until wh3 I think, but I don't know).Imagine a single square, red, and a single square, blue. they independently attack each other, and there is a percentage based on stats to score a hit, if yes then the receiving end takes a HP loss of weapon damage minus bullshit. When the square takes damage equal to the hp of a single soldier, triggers an animation sequences of killing. all the other animations are just for show.
>>1869130Unless you literally want to have a game where colored squares bump into eachother, you'd still have to show the individual soldiers on screen regardless of whatever they act as a formation or not. It's rendering and animating all the little dudes (and the environment, and lighting effects and such) that makes the game run poorly on shit computers, not how the combat numbers are calculated.
>>1869056>It's a time period that is never going to be portrayed in media as long as anglos dominate the cultural landscape.rent free
>>1869130Individual entities are fully modelled and have been since Empire. These aren't two abstractions trading numbers behind smoke and mirrors anymore.It's not anything special for an engine to be able to render thousands of entities nowadays. Most triple A games have more destructible objects with physics than TW has bodies in a battle and more polygons in the models of their barrels and chairs than there is in spearmanii.Aside from just technical debt, the challenge in TW is pathing, since that guzzles resources and there's no really efficient way to do it.
>>1869145The catalonian is right tho. All is England and its successors.
>>1869153the entities are pure cosmetic, all the decision making and combat is based on the unit scale, that's the gameplay. there is no mechanic about entities cohesion, number of enemy entities or anything at the level of a single soldier, or multiple soldiers, it's all at the unit level. basically it's a time race, who can deal more damage to the enemy faster wins, even super shit 0 stat units can deal damage, they don't do just because they die too quickly.
>>1869166Dear Santa, please please please let CA announce they've finally figured out how to do tercio warfare adequately within the total war design paradigm but they're only doing the ECW/3 Kingdoms, because I want to see if excessive seething and butthurt can literally make heads explode.(Also being able to mod in my old Knot regiment would be pretty cool)
>>1869166I'm Spanish, but not Catalonian.
>>1869234Wrong retard
>>1869153Pathing of individual units is literally the only thing interesting about these games to me, because that's what sells the fantasy of it being a real battle fought between soldiers, but CA always manages to disappoint.Big battles are just smokes and mirrors if individual entities aren't fully modeled.It's why I play standard RTS instead. At least there you have 200 vs. 200 individually pathing units that can also get out of formation, if you aren't careful.
>>1869056>It's a time period that is never going to be portrayed in media as long as anglos dominateWhat are you talking about, the English Civil War and Cromwell's reconquest of Ireland both take place there
>>1868831>I expect the game to start with Gondor vs Mordor and Rohan vs IsengardIt would be funny if they made Mordor a pre order bonus like they did with Chaos is Warhammer 1
>>1869266Sorry but nuTW doesn't actually have individual soldiers fighting each other like Rome or M2. Two units perform a fighting animation and soldiers die at the rate determined by unit stats. That's all, just a completely empty experience that has somehow been duping retards for 15 years now.
Just make Medieval 3, put everything possible into making it good, then I don't give two shits if CA collapses into bankruptcy afterwards.JustMakeMEDIEVAL3and make it good
>>1868467CA is incapable of making a good game.
>>1868937>leakersLegend made it the fuck up
>>1869367I doubt they will. Could see them splitting Mordor into several factions, with the main one being a purposefully overpowered npc only faction though.
>>1869407Wrong.
>>1869407If you want a demonstration of how wrong you are, just look at Warhammer 3 since it's more obvious there than in the more mundane games. Two units with the same stats but different animations can be significantly different in terms of combat effectiveness. Or look at how something like Skarbrand or a Tomb Scorpion do vastly more damage depending on how many units (as in individual models, not formation blocks) get caught in their charge animation.
>>1869266so how it works if I'm wrong?
>>1869522Fuck off, pajeet
What cool fresh settings do we have left for TW games?
>>1868467If they wanted to generate the slightest bit of hype, they would have announced that they're making a historical and fantasy game on a brand new ENGINE. They can make a dozen more games hamstrung by Warscape and I wouldn't give a toss, they're not having a single cent from my wallet. TW is a dead franchise kept alive by Warhammer kiddies' sunk cost fallacies. They made the Bronze Age game people have been begging for for years and it flopped. CA is finished, it's just a matter of how long they put along before SEGA stops sharpening the axe and just swings it.
>>1869578They didn't make a bronze age game though, they repackaged a troy dlc as a standalone game about egypt that happened to be set vaguely in the bronze age that failed to leverage any interesting bronze age events.What they did to fix it after was admirable but too little too late.
I hope for an Attila remake. A Fall of the Roman Empire one. A really big one.
>>1869569you can't even respond me without namecalling. for anyone who might be interested, test it yourself, pick a very strong mele unit vs a weak one, see the result, then do it vs 2 of the same weak unit, then vs 3, 4, 5 and so on. don't surround or flank or anything, my advice is to make units as deep or long as possible, to have a frontal length that is equal or less of the enemy, you'll see that even if 90% of the weak unit won't do any combat what so ever, you will steamroll the superior one.
>>1869600Attila is the one game that will never ever get a remake. Despite becoming a cult favourite it sold like absolute shit and was abandoned immediately.What will happen instead is that CA will just steadily borrow Attila mechanics for newer games, which we've already seen in Pharaoh.
>>1868467lol at this point i think the only competent thing they could pull off is a remaster of med 2. at least they would end on a okay note, not so horrible failure of med 3 or some lord of the rings tw
>>1868499Time for WH40K.Primaris only.
>>1869415>Just>Make>MEDIEVAL>3They will>and make it goodLMAO
>>1868467I don't have hopes I have NEEDS:I want them to make a game where you can workshop the stats of your units and what equipment they wear.I want classic fantasy races with a skin color slider.I want customization for my faction buildings both visual and stat-wise.I want a procedurally generated map that's not the fucking Mediterranean for once.I want armies that are not locked to a hard number of units.I don't care if you make them stickmen just give me the hundred of thousands armies! You can't see all that precious detail in action anyway in the new TW since they added so much micro you need to keep the whole battlefield in sight and babysit everything!TLDR: I want the next Total War to have a level of customization like AOW4.
>>1868467>HopesNew Engine, Pike and Shot Italian Wars type shit for a historical game and AOS for fantasy one>FearsOld engine, Rome 2 reskin yet again for historical game, dunno about fantasy one as I don't really have a setting I would hate it to be in>PredictionsEngine remains as they keep struggling to retool it into something usable for newer entries
>>1869278Both those things happen in the XVII century.Pike and shot is XV and XVI.
>>1869056I hope they do make a poke & shot game just so you obnoxious spergs will finally shut the fuck up about it
>>1868467>hopesThe company spontaneously combusts.>fearsThe current iteration of the company makes another dogshit title.
>>1870378Kiss me faggot.
>>1868467It’s gonna be Medieval 3 and Warhammer 40k. These titles will either do amazingly well and CA will be rebirthed or they will fail epically and CA will die violently. There is no inbetween.
>>187038540K makes no sense in a Total War game, it's in space so there's nothing they can use for a game map unless CA decides to retool the engine for a space game.
>>1868492Total War can already do automatic weapons. Shogun 2 had Gatling Guns and they functioned fine.What CA would really need to prove for a WW1 game is that they can handle squad-based formations and cover mechanics that aren’t a janky broken mess.
>>187037617th century is totally pike and shot dude. Even in the War of Spanish succession and Swedish-Russian war during the 18th century some pikes were still being used.
Pike and Shotfags always seem to ignore the fact that Empire literally starts on the Pike and Shot era and your core earlygame units are pikemen and gunners.
>>1868469You just know it won't be medieval 3, it will be some retarded pick and be barebares as fuck
>>1870402In the Thirty Years' War, the definitive conflict of the early 16th century, pikes were certainly being used, but not commonly. They would be seen more in garrison/defense than a battle or skirmish. There is even a quote from an author who was kidnapped into the war as a child:>Whoever kills a pikeman whom he could spare, murders an innocent. A pikeman does nothing to anyone who does not run into the pike himselfSpringinsfeld by Grimmelshausen (1670)So they'd definitely be included in a game set in this century, but it's not a pike & shot setting. >>1870412Empire starts in 1701 nigga. Pikes existing doesn't mean pike and shotte.
Hope that your favourite era doesn't get a game until/unless CA reworks the battle engine and allows us to make armies without generals again
I'm 100% convinced that people only ask for pike & shot because it's a meme to ask for pike & shot.
>>1870398Ironically this would have been easy a year ago since SEGA owned Relic and thus also owned the patents to the cover and squad mechanics from Company of Heroes/Dawn of War. But then they lost that, which makes a 'modern' war game from CA much more difficult.Though honestly if I were CA I would just approach it the way Empire/Nap/FotS handled Light Infantry. A unit of infantry is a Company of ~100-200 entities. They take a loose formation by default, maybe clusters of 3-4 that are widely spread out over an area, and become 'tight' when there's a trench, building or other form of large cover they can cluster around. When they are moving, they automatically take cover in the environment (you can borrow the terrain mechanics from Troy/Pharaoh) and have a stance button to toggle between normal movement where they'll stop to fire and advance between firing cycles, cautious movement where they crawl forward prone and won't shoot on the move, and aggressive movement where they just charge into bayonet range with no regard for cover.You can code cover as just terrain tiles that provide passive effects, but then 'sell' it by giving infantry animations that make them look like they're taking cover and moving from shelter to shelter.Unironically the biggest technical challenges for CA would be trenches and shell craters, because their engine doesn't currently support any form of dynamic terrain deformation.
>>1870429It's not, it's just an interesting period imo, very total war-ish. Besides, it is the missing timeframe between Medieval 2 and Empire.
>>1870402The bayonet gets introduced and its role expanded all the way through the XVII century, wich means the death of pike and shot.Plus you have generals like Gustavus Adolphus who started to effectively use the musket line in warfare.
>>1868467Their new historical game will be a warhammer clone stuffed with layers and layers of gamey systems just like fucking pharaoh
>>1870412You're on that tech level for about 3 turns.
>>1868467They should make an original fantasy game instead of IP slop.
>>1868492>Not gonna happen until the WW1 game happens.Why would they wait until after the game people wouldn't buy to make the game people would?
>>1870812Because it's best to prototype new tech and new design with a low key disposable project you can use as a tech demo and abandon quietly. Then you use that tech to make the big IP license project a success. If you do it backwards then technical issues can sink your big expensive IP game and you have nothing to fall back on.
>>1868467>Total War Zulu PLS!!!!
>>1870412Yeah and pikemen are so shit you literally just delete them to free up funds for useful units because warfare already shifted away from tercio squares.
It's actually shocking how irrelevant pikemen are in Empire and yet in FOTS your spear levy are indespensible.
>>1870834>Because it's best to prototype new tech and new design with a low key disposable project you can use as a tech demo and abandon quietly. Then you use that tech to make the big IP license project a success. If you do it backwards then technical issues can sink your big expensive IP game and you have nothing to fall back on.lmao this makes no sense
>>1868469delusional
>>1868706this
>>1870967>It's actually shocking how irrelevant pikemen are in EmpireIt's set in 1700.
>>1870967Because wooden Japanese fortresses are impervious to cannon fire and force you to assault with melee units, and fits balance is so shit that it's best to just use spearmanii instead of the more expensive and premium traditional units.
>>1868467I hope it's not Warhammer.
>>1871091Also europe long since shifted away from levy armies to professional ones. On paper Japan was shifting to professional armies but it was still a transitory period with a lot of we need bodies and don't have enough guns or training for them. And their chief enemy was other japanese with equal issues. So spear spam was a good enough stopgap.
CA doesn't know how to make fun battles anymore. The bloated HP and armor system will ruin the feel of any historical game that they make. Charges feel limp. The old morale system is broken/nonexistent. Sieges just keep getting shittier and shitter. It's going to suck.
>>1868467Shogun 3 and The Witcher are the most likely. Shogun 3 is a perfect panic button and The Witcher is the most popular fantasy IP they can get for relatively cheap that also focus on "heroes" like Warhammer.
>>1872162>Shogun 3>Panic button After the Hyenas fiasco I fully expect these morons to go fully Ubislop and make all the Samurai Niggers.
>>1871091>>1871064Spear levy are for counter cavalry. They aren't for assaulting castles, as they don't have the morale for it. Defending castles, sure, but you need at least yari kachi.
>>1871064Sweden in the 1700s was using pikemen aggressively. But otherwise, yeah.
>>1871098It's Warhammer 4
>>1870424Whenn you say kidnapped into the war, do you mean forcibly conscripted?
>>1870802Total WR Hyena's when?
fantasy games print money and history games get boring after a while as there is only so much unit variety you can makethey need to stop pandering to historyfags and focus on making LOTR total war and other fun settings
>>1872395>Join the -ACK!
>>1872249Nah, CA for all these memes still try to portray settings as properly as they can. Total War Warhammer still doesn't have a single nigger in it, this is a game they are supporting since 2016. They did make sure to include as many females as they can though. And the one donut steel character they were allowed to made up was a fat woman.What will happen in Med3 is that they will make muslims "protagonists" and make sure to include Joan of Arc and Jadwiga, which is extremely popular lately for no reason at all.>>1870429Why? Europa Universalis alternative is a nonbrainer to make. It's retarded that it still wasn't made actually. If CA weren't retarded they would make Med3, Empire 2 and their own EU during all those years instead of meme shit like Troy and Pharaoh.>>1868944>>1869426Valrak, Volund and Legend at least confirmed it. Valrak in particular is reliable, almost all his leaks are true since he mostly gets them from GW itself to start building up hype.
>>1870429but its actually great period for world conquest with plenty of different factionsyou could make separate theaters(like in empire 1) - europe, asia, middle east, americasyou have plenty of gunpowder empires including china, nippon, persia, ottomans plus euro factions
>>1872520>They did make sure to include as many females as they can though.I agree with you but most if not all of the female legendary lords in the Warhammer games where already big players in the lore, right?
>>1872274>It's Warhammer 4Oh for fuck's sake, man....
>>1872614Mostly correct. They did add one original female character: The opera singer ghost with the vampirates in Warhammer 2.
>>1872595That's literally just empire again. The problem with like and shot is that it's not meaningful distinct from early line infantry or late medieval. All 3 have the same unit types with a different aesthetic. But the main thing is that both medieval and Napoleon eras have a big variety of units and tactics as technology and doctrine shifts through the era and different cultures had widely different approaches to warfare, whereas pike and shot is a snapshot of a handful of wars between the two eras that only really encompassed Spain, Portugal and a few minor spats between central European nobodies.There's just nothing there. At most you could stretch a more interesting era to overlap pike and shot, but there's no reason for it to be its own game.
>>1872751It's plenty distinct. Warhammer Empire is pike and shot, and the gameplay there is fine.The real problem with both pike and shot as well as linemannii is that the eras lack any "epic units" that are a requirement of a good TW game. Rome has its elephants, Medieval has both elephants and Ottoman cannons, but once gunpowder becomes commonplace things quickly focus on mundane levies. Standing armies don't make an appearance again until the 19th century.
>>1869471In the med2 mod the evil factions are Mordor, Moria, isengard, gundabad, harad & rhun. The Mordor faction is led by the witch king and Sauron is the evil "pope" npc faction who can call "crusades"
>>1872755Man why do p&sfags always know absolutely nothing about the era they still. Is it some bizarre nationalism thing?
>>1872761The Ar-Adunaim are evil too.Even of they are the most fun faction to play with.
>>1872762Do you think elephants were used in pike and shot era, or are you going to try to claim some random example of a mercenary company counts as a "standing army"?
>>1872780Having a professional standing army was the defining characteristic of the Spanish and Portuguese during that era. Their model was so monstrously effective it set the standard that other European armies raced to copy and is the reason words like "brigade" are still used today.
>>1872780PLC have standing army, not very numerous but professional. Ottomans had standing army same for Moscovy, French, Spain, or Sweden. Even if all of them also used mercenaries, auxiliaries and levies.
>>1872751That is wrong tho. You had different take on pike and shot in western europe but eastern countries had more cavalry and firepower focus, not even mention persian camel artillery.DESU I do not understand your whining, it would be definitely more diverse than Shogun roster or even Medieval roster, not mentioning Empire. You would have factions with all types of infantry(melee and ranged), various cavalry, artillery and other(battle wagons, camels, even elephants if you include India).
it's going to be m2tw remastered
>>1872826Amen to that
>>1868923>>1868808/threadEven just looking at what former programmers on glassdoor have to say pretty much sums it up, the management are retards that have driven out all the creative people it's quite literally this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlBjNmXvqIM
What would be your ideal starting factions for Lord of the Ring Total War?
>>1876337Iron Hills dwarves.
>>1872520>They did make sure to include as many females as they can though.It's okay because they're hot.
>>1872826its not happening
>>1868467>hopesmedieval 3lotr>hopes-fatal dose of hopiummedieval 3 but it actually spans from the dark ages to pike and shot era, bridging attila and empire basicallydominions>expectations (and fears)1 new saga-like historical game 40K
>>1877085>medieval 3 but it actually spans from the dark ages to pike and shot era, bridging attila and empire basically>dominionsProbably wouldn't be out of the realms of possibility with DLC.I'm sure there are poeple out there who would pay for $300 worth of DLC for a long and wide spanning Medieval 3. CA could even make the Middle East, Africa and Americas into DLC.
>>1876337THE ELVISH NIGGAS AND THE HUMAN NIGGAS AND DWAAARVES
>>1876337Every faction in DaC except Dol Amroth wich is just a fiefdom of Gondor, and the fan-fic factions.This is what I want. What you'll get is Guyladriel and nigger dwarves and elves.
>>1868467>hopesa new engine, any setting would be fine as long as we're done with the Rome II reskins>fearsmore of the same>predictionsmore of the same
Fuck Med3 it's been so long we need a new Rome.
Medieval 3? Pike and Shot? But what about a new multiplayer first person shooter based on Overwatch or Team Fortress but with a colourful cast of diverse anti-hero characters?I have even an idea for the title, maybe "Jackals" or something. "Come to the band! "
>>1877367Right. Rome 3 or the ship sinks.
>>1868467My prediction is that CA is awful now, and is incapable of making any games I would enjoy regardless of setting so there is no sense hoping for anything. I guess I hope they spectacularly fail so someone else can come and fill the void.
Maybe they can make a persona total war
>>1877812The problem is there is no guarantee that will happen, if any competent studio wanted to compete with them they could have done so a long time ago, because CA's games have been shit for way longer than they've been good by now and the only reason they're still around is because of the fantasy paypigs supporting them.Once CA finally manages to upset everyone beyond repair that will be it, no competent studio has a good reason to fill their niche because TW isn't even that popular to begin with.
>>1868467>hopesa good game>predictionsa bad game
>>1877135>the fan-fic factionsIsn't that half the roster?
>>1878003>The problem is there is no guarantee that will happenI don't see the issue. In one scenario we have nothing, and in the other we have garbage. CA is terrible now and deserves to be destroyed.
>>1876337Same as TW: WH1
Surprising absolutely no-one, it's 40k or AoS.
>>1868467I want a fantasy game that is less fantasy than Warhammer.
>>1878337We already have Troy and 3K.
>>1878367I want firearms still and Troy/3K aren't fantasy enough.
>>1868467>hopesRevert back the last 13 years of development and restart from Shogun 2 engine.
>>1868664i'd like units to be more responsive and delete the 'at slope of the mountain' maps.
>>1878437Troy has a good system where you can choose how much fantasy it is.'historical' but embellishedTruth beyond the myth: Fake fantasy with fake mythical unitsMythological: Real mythos with fantasy creatures>>1878311Shame, they could have made the above changes to Pharaoh Dynasties and capitalized on the popularity of age of mythology with the least effort required. I really fucking hope it's not AOS but it is the most logical choice, hopefully they introduce a procedurally generated campaign map with options to transfer your hero from a campaign to the next.
>>1872886Steve Jobs himself was an absolute piece of shit that led directly to 10,000 dollar pieces of plastic that only cost 100 dollars in materials and labor. Fuck him and I'm glad he died of ligma.
>>1878577>capitalized on the popularity of age of mythologythey tried with troy and it went nowhere
>>1879058They didn't, not on release anyway, and that's when it mattered most. Mythos was when they finally did what they were supposed to but it was already too late.
>>1878241The issue is we lose in both scenarios, and with how things are going we are way past the point of no return. We will watch CA crash and burn when they finish ruining their reputation among the Warhammer pay pigs while we have no worthy successors to Rome I and Medieval II. Unless you're completely indifferent to Total War in general this just really sucks.
>>1879191We've already lost, they aren't going to make anything good. But CA is an awful company that actively worked towards making everything shittier, gayer, and making good games worse and then lying about it in hilarious fashion. So I would prefer CA die sooner rather than later.
>>1878807Who the hell is Steve Jobs?
Fantasy TW: Middle-Earth (enough with fucking Warhammer already)Historical TW: Empire II or WW1 ("b-but muh trench warfare!" Fuck off. That shit will still be more fun than the fucking Warhammer 40k TW you guys are trying to manifest)
>>1876337All strategy games of all kinds either go for multiple barely different factions or 3-4 unique ones. Which does make it funny how much of an outrage there was for TW:W starting with this same number as well. And this same thing would happen in TW:Lotr too, just like it did in bfme. There would be Rohan vs Isengard and Gondor vs Mordor. Factions would be split into multiple smaller independent ones. Later they would expand game with expansions adding different factions and areas of the world. Like war in the north between Erebor, Dale and Easterlings. For Southern expansion with Haradrim they could steal DaC idea of Black Númenórean remnants so you could squeeze at least 3 races out of there - them, Umbar Corsairs and Haradrim themselves
>>1872755What's the point of a pike & shot game when on turn 1 the player can switch to tactic that supplanted it: less pike, more shot.What are you going to do, hard cap the players army compositions to a certain pike:shot ratio? Or just force the AI to build shitty armies with not enough guns?
>>1880197>Don't build enough pike.>Get fucked by Cav.WOW.
>>1880200>realize you don't need half your infantry on pikes>replace most with guns, keep some to cover flanksCongratulations, you just teched past tercios before ending turn 1.Speaking of tech, bayonetes have to be the ultimate endgame tech seeing as they end the era. Going to be a pretty lame tech tree when every advancement is subordinate to "attach pointy object to musket"
Anyone hoping for a new engine is delusional. That's a massive undertaking that requires talent, a vision for the future, and financial investment. This is going to be a last hoorah of the hacks that milked TW dry, trying to prove to the board that the franchise is still profitable.
>>1880230>Going to be a pretty lame tech tree when every advancement is subordinate to "attach pointy object to musket"That's like half of Empire's military tech tree, my lad.
>>1880197Maybe make the matchlocks slow firing and cumbersome as in rl
>>1880200>shoot cavalryProblem solved.
>>1880200Cuirassiers are awesome.
>>1880240In practice an engine wouldn't be developed inhouse, just outsourced to some cheap 3rd party in India that specializes in it. It's not a matter of vision or talent, just das kapital.Whether CA has the money for it or not depends on whether SEGA agrees to pay for it. In the past, by CA's own admission, they had been given enormous latitude by SEGA and virtually blank checks as long as they made a decent funding proposal. This is how Hyenas was allowed to happen. The fact that they have been trapped within the same crippled, aging engine since Empire (Two thousand and fucking nine. 15 whole ass years) was CA's own decision, eschewing every oppourtunity for funding to develop a new engine. Now they're in the doghouse, and have much less freedom to waste SEGA's money.Until recently SEGA viewed CA as a prestige studio. Their projects didn't need to be hugely profitable, they just needed to reputable and well-regarded while not completely bleeding money. It was CA's own decisions which ruined that prestige. It's a mixed blessing, because the people responsible for the decisions that have been steadily destroying the company across 15 years no longer have the power to continue making those poor decisions--hence why we got the little miracle that was Dynasties. But it also means SEGA is far more wary of spending, and CA is far less likely to get the money it needs to embark on ambitious technical projects or, at bare minimum, pay off the enormous capability debt their engine has accrued over such a long period of byzantine management.I think any forthcoming TW game, even with great decisions and good will behind it, is doomed to fail if it doesn't deviate from the formula at very least as much as 3K did and ideally a lot more than that.
>>1880326>>1880240The engine is not the reason why the recent games are bad, that's something only someone who doesn't develop games would say.
>>1872780>there aren't any elite units>>some random example of a mercenary company>no not those elite units they don't countfaggot
>>1880197Make guns slow to reload and inaccurate until you get technologies/unit veterancy
>>1880304>let's pick a period that distinguishes itself from earlier eras of melee warfare by the presence of firearms>let's make the firearms shit so melee doesn't feel marginalizedPerhaps now you're starting to realize why this game design thing isn't easy.The best way to handle it would be to have melee and ranged weapons exist within the same 'unit' and fight together as they actually did in the period. Then instead of choosing between recruiting pike or shot, you get both and the combination of the two shapes how you fight.CA currently isn't actually capable of making a unit like this, as modders are painfully aware, so making a pike and shot game that isn't just an earlygame Empire/fots do-over would demand some new tech.
>>1880362Wouldn't that result in stacks of 19 pikeshotmanii and 1 general's bodyguard
>>1880366In the same way that a historical game can have 19 spearmanii. The 'shot' in pike and shot was contributed by short barreled close-ranged firearms that were really only effective a few meters from their target. You could hurl a javelin farther than these guns could kill, but what made them so effective was that they could defeat the protection that would shrug off an arrow or a javelin or a pike. They were, in practice, supplementary equipment for melee formations, that gradually evolved into their own ranged formations as the technology improved.So if you think of it like a normal TW roster, the pikeshotmanii would function as your spearmanii--the defensive frontline bulk, while other weapons and formations from the era would fulfill other rolls like dedicated ranged infantry, offensive infantry, etc. Many of which could also benefit from mixing unit types.Despite the dominance of pike and shot formations like the tercio in the era, much of the armies of europe at the time were made up of mercenaries, auxiliaries and irregulars that were variously armed, and of course the compositions and organizations of these armies and their auxiliaries changed rapidly through the period as technology and tactics changed.Obviously for gameplay purposes the armies you would actually field would be rather apocryphal compared to history--in the same sense that Rome 2 lets you field greek armies that aren't 19 hoplitemanii in phalanx or roman armies that aren't hastati in evenly spaced squares.
>>1880393I think it would be better if you had a pike unit and a gun unit and you stretch the gun unit in front of multiple pike units. The pikes protect the guns as they fire away. The Medieval 2 way
>>1880362I never said it would be easy, but it all comes down to balance. All TWs are just simulacri of the real thing, you'll never have a perfect deciption of warfare with it.
>>1880393But I think you have the right idea with mixed pike-shot units as the mainstay infantry and other troops as dedicated units, that would be very fun imo
>>1880393>The 'shot' in pike and shot was contributed by short barreled close-ranged firearms that were really only effective a few meters from their target. You could hurl a javelin farther than these guns could killyou are cluelessstop talking
>>1880197>What's the point of a pike & shot game when on turn 1 the player can switch to tactic that supplanted it: less pike, more shot.Easy: balance the unit stats and prices. In real life pikemen did not require as much training as the shot (one period treatise asserts that a pikeman can be better trained in 4 days than a musketeer in 4 weeks) and shot frequently drew a higher wage.Shot shouldn't be able to beat an advancing pike formation on unobstructed ground, or defend itself against horse on open ground.
>>1880421Yeah weren't the swiss pikemen really famous for wrecking everybody's shit in battle?Though I think they used to run when confronted by missiles instead of slowly advancing like others did to keep the formation intact... And that worked until their (french) employers got cocky and did a pikemen stack versus a balanced army with artillery and handguns that kicked the swiss in the teeth time and time again.
>>1880421It would be cool if veterancy had a big impact on unit stats, when recruiting stuff you can increase the recruitment time for better starting rank, and mercenaries have high ranks on recruitment. That way you could either shit out a stack of retards and hope they shape up in the coming battles, take your time to build a trained and capable force, or say fuck it and dump your coffers for mercenaries
>>1880197See FOTS. If melee units can close the distance (which they can and will), then swords and spears rape linemannii.
>>1868506>I don't believe that they will get Lotr or Asoiaf licenses.When you see shit like Shadow of mordor or Gollum honestly, there's no issues.Same for Asoiaf, the fat fuck is pretty shill with the geek medium.
>>1880593The real problem is that DAC for M2TW and whatever the LOTR mod for Attila is called will heavily dab on whatever official products CA manages to shit out.
>>1872346He was taken off the street as a child and put into non-fighting duty to support the Hessian forces. Then he was made a soldier when he became a little older. Back then, they had dudes scouring the bottom rungs of society for orphans, bums, and transients to forcibly take in. The Thirty Years' War was a mass casualty conflict where men died in droves, so they were desperate. It counts as forced conscription but it was purely opportunistic as opposed to being ordered to serve by an authority and then being scooped up for duty. They just opportunistically captured men/boys who they thought had no family to protest and put them in the forces.
>>1880197>What are you going to do, hard cap the players army compositions to a certain pike:shot ratio?I would do this through limiting factors that can slowly be mitigated, such as available resources and technology. That's how it happened IRL after all. At the very start, some bumfuck village would certainly not be producing musketeers, your middling cities might be able to produce a couple, and your few advanced cities could produce a few more. This would make musketeers a limited resource without using gay hard caps. Then, as resources/technology develops, your capacity to recruit musketeers grows and weans you from needing men with long sticks.This was a pretty short transitional period, so you wouldn't expect it to look the same over decades. Other periods of history could be expected to look fairly consistent over 50 year periods, but this one was rapidly changing. In this game, every power on the map would be working to develop more firepower and rely less on melee. Of course you'd need a competent team to make a game like that, but it's not impossible.
>>1880701They could use something like Troy's resource system. Have a "munitions" resource that is spent on shot, artillery and ships with cannon, and each of those units also requires a bit each turn for upkeep. It requires investment into buildings like "gunpowder mill" or "cannon foundry" or something to get more, and you can trade foreign nations for it. Horse could also be a resource but with fewer options for improvement, mostly a regional resource.Since its a big period CA could start with just a short period like 30yw or italian wars. Even English Civil War if parliament, Cavaliers, the Covenanters and Irish catholics were all separate factions (maybe a few more?)
>>1880771Cossacks/American Conquest has coal and metal mine resources which deplete with every musket or cannon shot. It works well since you can't just keep blasting the enemy with cannons or ships forever and you need to save up enough for your musketeers to keep shooting. So you have to be a little smart about it
>>1880451they were very mobile and more offensive oriented, their high cohesion and discipline helped a lotthey were using shorter pikes(easier to carry) and halberdstheir tactic was to go fast and break enemy in melee - OG pile of violence
>>1880771that would be good but make it to be used in battle(ammo need replenishment that consume it)
