Total War thread

[Strelok]

So making this thread mainly because I've gotten back into the series via Attilla (which if you ignore the frankly shamful amount of factions removed for DLC is a great game), and the closed alpha f2p game Total War Arena.

Now I'll assume most of you know how total war works, but if you don't it's a turn based strategy game where you build your nation and it's armies, and then when those armies clash, you go into a RTS game. Armies max out at 20 units, and each unit is comprised of a couple hundred soldiers all fighting in a formation. Things like fatigue, exaustion, maintaining flanks, all all those sorts of things of melee age battles are in (plus a few games from the age of musket).

The two games on the horizon for them are an adaption of Warhammer Fantasy from before GW blew up the timeline, so it's pre End-Times, not Age of Sigmar. That is due to release sometime late this year or early next year. The other one, Total War arena, is a more arcadish (fatigue isn't modeled, units only have a running speed, unit size is a bit smaller than in the retail games, 100 men per unit usually vs 160) multiplayer game in the style of games like World of Tanks and Warthunder. Each player chooses 3 units from a particular army, of which there are currently two, Rome and Greece, with Gaulish barbarians next on the list. They can choose any combination of units they have unlocked, provided the general they have selected has been leveled up as well. Then teams are assembled of 10 players, and you go at it untill either their enemy base is captured or you've routed all your enemies fighters.

The f2p game is currently in closed alpha as I said, but on the site where you can request a steam key, several countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, usually get acess immediatly because that's where the server farm is. So if you want to try it, and you live there (or "live" there) you can go sign up for it.

https://playarena.totalwar.com/

For single player games, the one I'd recommend starting with is actually Rome 2, which most people know of from it's frankly abyssmal launch. But after a couple of years of patches, It's an extremely solid product, and more unlike the slightly mechanically better Attila, the vast number of cultural fighting styles without any DLC available gives it a great amount of replay value. (If you try to fight like you would as Romans as the Greeks for instance, you'll get your ass handed to you). Just try to wait for a sale as it's still stupidly expensive when it isn't. Most people instead recommend Shogun 2, but I never really liked that one, especially as it's seige battles were.. underwhelming owing to how the Japanese built their fortresses.

And with that, I'll leave you with one of my favorite screenshots I took from a singleplayer campaign.

Spoiler: large

 

[DrunkTails]

The original Rome Total War still holds a very special place in my heart. I play it every now and then whenever I have the chance.

 

[Admiral Piett]

As someone who holds an interest in warfare throughout the 17 and 1800's, Napoleon and Empire total war didn't disappoint at all when it came to the battles in my opinion (That being said, I never got into the naval battles they had), disappointment came with Empire's campaign after I played Napoleon, and I wanted the scale of the Napoleon total wars map on Empires global scale.

 

[ASoulMan]

I've played Spartan: Total Warrior, even though it's more of a spin-off hack-and-slash rather than a strategy game like the main series.

 

[Strelok]

Patch 10 just dropped for Arena, which gave missiles a much needed nerfing, and fixed several weirdnesses issues / bugs with the melee system that negated a lot of melee strategies that should have worked but didn't in the past.

https://blog.totalwararena.com/

 

[exball]

>tfw this will probably suck as hard as Rome 2.

 

[HeirenPlaya]

I haven't been gaming in almost a year, but I used to play a lot of the original Rome and Medieval II, the latter being the best Total War game that I have played, in my opinion. Empire was addictive when it came out, but very buggy, and it felt like an unfinished game. I loved the addition of naval battles, having multiple build queues, and the era that the game takes place in though.

 

[AN/ALR56]

What do you guys think about halo wars 2?
Its being made by the same devs.
Anyway the first Rome was my favorite game for years.
The replay value was gigantic and the soundtrack amazing,the diplomacy and city management were my favorite parts.
And the graphics? Incredible by 2004 standards,I remember it lagged a bit on my phenom I x4,when you spawned dozens of thousands of units.
Shogun 2 was even better,sadly it lagged on my trusty phenom and the low fps ruined the experience for me.
Now I have a decent cpu,but my gfx card is now ded.

 

[Gayligula]

I haven't been gaming in almost a year, but I used to play a lot of the original Rome and Medieval II, the latter being the best Total War game that I have played, in my opinion. Empire was addictive when it came out, but very buggy, and it felt like an unfinished game. I loved the addition of naval battles, having multiple build queues, and the era that the game takes place in though.

lol Empire sucked. Shogun 2 was the last acceptable TW
Rome, Medieval II (and Shogun 2), fuck the rest

 

[Doc Cassidy]

>tfw this will probably suck as hard as Rome 2.

I'm not the biggest Fantasy Battle fan, but I'm looking forward to this.

 

[Tranhuviya]

Spoiler: Analysis of Chaos's Gameplay

Gameplay of the Chaos faction.
-They wisely choose to NOT take on the Dwarves when they're dug in, because of all that ranged firepower. Chaos is mostly fast well-armored melee units, and lacks a true war machine game.
-Tech tree focuses mostly on unit improvements via the Favor currency, which gets higher and higher. The end-tier unit is the Dragon Ogres.
-Travelling settlements, meant for recruiting units and heroes- and providing upkeep reductions. You can retreat to these, but only as temporary respite. The Dark Lords are never satisfied, fam.

All in all, the Norscan encourage being on the move and having hordes ravaging the lands. Like the Dwarfs, the Warriors of Chaos reward winners- losers are given nothing, or worse by the Dark Gods.

Spoiler: Analysis of Dwarfs gameplay

-The Book of Grudges is very much a factor in the Dwarfs's gameplay - for example, VC conquer a settlement, you get a grudge. If you settle this, you gain gold for new units and command benefits- but gain too many, and it's gonna be difficult to keep up.
-Tech tree focuses on both the Hold, which provides good bonuses to your settlements, and your army- and resistance to Chaos corruption. A very focused tech tree for your purposes, whatever they may be.
-Settlements are for digging and staying put in well-entrenched defensive positions. Combined with the sheer amount of defensive firepower, a late-game Dwarfs empire should be quite hard to uproot.

The Dwarfs are a unique combo- the Book of Grudges encourages you to win repeatedly, but also to defend your lands. Thus, you will be digging in.

Furthermore, your army itself is a combo - well-armed ranged units are kept safe by moderately good melee units. Slayers can be deployed to deal with larger foes, and can be used to fight foes who others can't.

 

[Adamska]

I've been sticking to mods of Rome and Medieval 2 for the past few years. In particular I'm really playing the fuck out of Third Age Total War: Divide and Conquer 0.52.

Also was and am a big fan of Europa Barbarorum.

 

[Strelok]

So i already posted my thoughts on Total Warhammer in the 40k thread, but I'll sum it up here. This game is so good it has legitimatly ruined my confidence in CA for future games. Wait what? how does that make any fucking sense? Well allow me to elaborate.

Back when Attilla had come out, and people were still a bit wary as while it fixed several of the Rome 2 issues, it was still just essentially an expansion pack and was a bit limited, and carrying much of R2s baggage, out came the announcement that they would, indeed, be making a -gasp- FANTASY game instead of a historical game. Que stick in the mud arseholes getting really really salty about the fact that it was "some magic shite afor kiddies" or something retarded like that. Also a lot of people salty is was Warhammer not LOTR, but that's neither here nor there. Quick to react, SEGA or CA mentioned they had another historical game in the far pipeline, and it would be handled by the historical team.

In other words, the refreshing change of pace of Warhammer Total War, where many longstanding issues were fixed, and other things revitalized, were solely because a presumably fresh faced dev team with new perspectives and new ideas had come in. So while they will be working on the next 2 games in the Warhammer triolgy, the next historical game... will be by the dev team that made the last two fuckup games.

As it stands though, this game deserves the praise it's given, and the steam reviews at 75% tell the story considering it was straight up busted for a bunch of systems at launch before the first hotfix, so the first 1000 or so reviews were "it wont even launch" negatives.

I will elaborate on things I didn't in the 40k thread, namely how the factions play very, very differently. So we'll start with the Empire and move east. Keep in mind Brettonia does have a unique roster but is not playable yet, and is all but confirmed (owing to files still in the game, such as partially complete audio dialogue for factions speaking to a Brettonian player in the diplo menu) to be the still as of yet unspecified first FreeLC Race that was announced.

Ok so the Empire. The Empire is the most standard race, as after all they are a vaguely rennisance era human faction. They play like a traditional Total War faction, their first course of action is to resecure Reikland in the wake of Karl Franz's fractuous election, and then consolidate the Empire either through confederation (convincing elector counts to be fully absorbed back into the empire at large) or beating the piss out of the Counts who won't help. After that you will likley be facing the start of the chaos invasions, as well as the Vampire Counts who have finally secured themselves above their rival kinsmen. Unit wise, the empire is made of squishy humans, but with a few tricks up their sleeves. Artillery, handgunns, the Luminark, and the Steam Tank can turn the tide of battles, as well as the best cavalry in the game excluding the Brettonians.

Next up, and the first faction to break the mold, is the von Carstein lead Vampire Counts. They have almsot all the same diplomatic options as the Humans and Dwarves, as they are not unthinking monsters, but schemers and manipulators. WHat does make them stand out is their armies. Unlike the living who subsist off the bounty of the land, the dead are kept in their state by a tainted, magic aura. What this effectivly means is that in provinces tainted by the undead's magic, the undead do not decay while the living races take attrition. The reverse is true for untained or chaos tainted land. The Untainted-chaos-undead mechanic works like religions in other TW games. In battle the Undead's morale functions differently to the other races. Instead of being when the unit willrun away, it's how much power the reanimation spells have. Should the situation get out of hand and the necromancer lose control of the situation, the undead instead will start taking additional damage from their spells failing, ending in them straight up ceasing to exist in an instant. The tradeoff is untill they reach that point, they do not flinch, they do not back down, they will happily feed themselves into whatever meatgrinder you wish. Recruitment wise the Vampires can raise cheap fodder undead no amtter where they are, and have much larger pools to do so from in areas where battles recently took place. Lastly, while they have many terrifying flying and monstrous creatures, the undead have no ranged abilities at all excluding magic.

The Dwarves meanwhile exist on a system of being stubborn little assholes. Any slight against a dwarven player is written in the Book of Grudges, and in order to keep your populace content, the grudges must be anwsered, usually by beating the piss out of whoever wronged you, be it a character or faction. As such a dwarven player will have to weigh what is smart vs what is "right". Unit wise the dwarves are slow, have no cavalry, and are tough as nails, taking little damage or morale loss compared to other races. They have access to gyrocopters, which can drop payloads on enemies or fire on them from above. Their organ gun is also fairly impressive.

The Orcs, (With a C, not K) have perhaps the second most limited diplomatic options, second only to Chaos. They cannot negotiate trade with other factions. As such their income is either going to be derived from their settlements, or through the good old fashioned orcy way. Hitting things till they stop moving. And hitting things you must. Each Orc army has a "fightyness" rating, which goes up from winning battles and drops from losing or sitting on your arse doing buggar all. If it gets really fighty an allied WAAAGH army will spawn, giving you twice the killyness. If it drops too low, the boyz will start beating each other instead of your enemies, resulting in attrition.

Lastly, Chaos, which for reasons I won't get into but probably can be summed up as Fuck SEGA, are a DLC faction, and free to preorders or those who buy in week 1, aka before the 31st. They are a horde faction, mechanically familiar to anyone who played the Huns in Attilla, except not a faction stuck microing 20 fucking cavalry units. Each army builds its own hangers on and buildings in their camps, and they take attrition if stationed too close because of course even Chaos Undivided is still Chaos.

Spoiler: Chaos Playable Spoilers

It becomes very apparent why Chaos were a DLC faction if you play any of the normal races, as the endtimes events make it clear chaos wasn't even supposed to be made playable, a decision made likely before either GW said "no there has to be a playable chaos faction" or SEGA went "yo you spent dev money to make a chaos faction, make it playable and charge money for it, bitch".

Playing as another faction the arrival of Chaos is a major gamechanger as they carve a swath through the empires essentially fucking eveyrthing up if you can't stop them and their Norsica allies, where there either isn't an equivalent for Chaos factions, or the game will throw a 'lol Tzeenetch betrayed you' event to the same effect. I'm not sure which as I haven't really played Chaos that far yet.

Lastly, without mods (And CA did make this a launch day mod for those that don't care about Lore), each race can only capture and build where they would lorewise. So Empire, Vampires, and Brettonians (Plus the other non Norse human factions, such as Kislev, Border Princes and Tilea etc) compete from the same above ground places, while the dwarves and Orcs compete for the underground. Other than that they can only sack or raze the settlements. Chaos, as a horde faction, has no need for the material world and just burns down everything.

So I've rambled long enough, but the TLR is TW:W is both the total war, and the Warhammer we've been waiting ages for.

 

[Strelok]

Aaaand my empire game was abandoned because I had waited too long to tech up, and Chaos and Norse ripped through me like butter and the Border Princes betrayed me and beseiged my southern holdings while the Vampires were still being cunts. RIP.

Gonna dwarf it up this time.

 

[KingGeedorah]

While the Warhammer game looks dope, I wish CA got their shit together and made either Empire 2, or make Civil War: Total War.

 

[Strelok]

While the Warhammer game looks dope, I wish CA got their shit together and made either Empire 2, or make Civil War: Total War.

Be careful what you wish as, as I mentioned, the dopeness of the Warhammer game was because they put new people on the project. God knows how the people actually behind R2 and Attilla could fuck that up.

Also they'd never make Civil War except maybe as a DLC for an Empire era game. Not nearly enough factions or diplomacy.

 

[KingGeedorah]

Be careful what you wish as, as I mentioned, the dopeness of the Warhammer game was because they put new people on the project. God knows how the people actually behind R2 and Attilla could fuck that up.

Also they'd never make Civil War except maybe as a DLC for an Empire era game. Not nearly enough factions or diplomacy.

Yeah diplomacy would be lacking but I'm sure you still would be able to give each side (and different states themselves) unique time period flair.

Your pretty much dollars to donuts with it being a DLC for a bigger game though, like the campaigns in Rome 2.

 

[Strelok]

So messed with some of the quest battles (these are optional setpeice battles in the campiagn that award various loot, such as some wargear, or an agent before you normally can recruit them, but can also be played on their own much like historical battles in previous games). One of Sigvald the magnificent's quest battle speeches is a solid 3 minute alliteration. Just... goddamn. Feel bad for the poor bastard they told to write it.

 

[Tranhuviya]

Decided to load up some Rome, jacked around with the tutorial mode to bone up on the series's gameplay tenets. Might I state that I find it quite odd a woman is advising me, in ancient Rome?

Velites are good when combined with Triarii (WE ARE THE GODS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER), perfect for pushing those filthy Greeks to their knees. I prefer to have Triarii hold the foe's attention while the Velites flank to throw rocks.

 

[Adamska]

Velites are good when combined with Triarii (WE ARE THE GODS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER), perfect for pushing those filthy Greeks to their knees. I prefer to have Triarii hold the foe's attention while the Velites flank to throw rocks.

Shame you don't really have a core of them for a good while then eh? From what I remember in base Rome (I tended to play Europa Barbarorum, rather tougher and bitching mod that really plays with what was there back then), Egypt was OP due to having a flexible army that includes all sorts of horseshit.