Most historical accurate Total War?

[HistoryPlayer]

Hopefully there are some historians here that can bring to the light in your opinion what is the most historical accurate Total War including from Shogun 1 to Troy and this one? I cannot bring an answer because History is my hobby, I dont have education in History and also I dont own all Total War games.

[i-dot]

MUST HAVE NAVAL BATTLES!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2984411943
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Delta

[SBA77]

Originally posted by karoten2:

Troy is in special place, The Trojan War itself is not real historical event,

Aaaaand Pandora's Box just opened

[Yews]

Empire was the first instalment that was actually trying to be historical. It’s still very broad and far too zoomed out in order to portray the era truly faithfully (with a single settlement standing in for a couple countries and entire countries missing altogether), but it’s still a massive improvement over the literal fantasy of everything that came out before (Rome represented as 4 countries with nonsensical names in Rome Total War whereas all the Greeks are a single country; Russia as a tiny-ass chiefdom in the far north and Milan owning Genova in Medieval II — literally nothing to discuss there, it’s basically Warhammer in everything but name). Empire is also the first game where the music actually sounds like it could originate in the era the game is set in (in the previous games the music is essentially rock (/pop) with a couple old-timey instruments thrown in).

Napoleon is in turn an obvious improvement over Empire. Looks like the narrower scope allowed the devs to actually research everything much better and also depict the geography convincingly enough for me to suggest that Napoleon could very well be the answer to your question, even though it’s still not a literal sim and it simplifies and generalises a lot of things such as the settlement layouts for instance. It’s also deliberately designed to be alt-history because it’s set up to allow the player to do things Napoleon never did — like erasing Russia from the map.

Shogun 2 is sadly not even that accurate and is more of a ‘Western-stereotypes-about-Japan’ game than a faithful depiction of what the Warring States era was like in real life — the broadest basics such as the existence of several social classes among the warriors and the array of factions are good, but the unit types are far too varied, as in, I fear that most of the units you can field in that game never actually existed, and also half the factions depicted as ‘minor’ were actually fairly important and some of the ‘major’ factions were barely active. The game is sort of a middle ground between the real Warring States Japan and the fantasy depiction from the original Shogun Total War, not dissimilar to how Three Kingdoms is somewhere in between the real Three Kingdoms China and the epic, and how Troy is somewhere in between Homer and actual Mycenaean Aegean. Also, I think I’ve just provided a succinct assessment of the historicity of those two games.

Rome II is comparable to Napoleon if Napoleon randomly contained two separate countries where a single country should be, united separate countries into a single faction, and depicted one faction completely convincingly while the neighbouring faction was borderline fantastical. It resembles AI-generated imagery, in the sense that it looks very impressive if you don’t pay too much attention to the details, and it stops making sense when you realise that the Praetorian Guard was literally a general’s bodyguard unit in real life, but in the game you can make a full stack of Praetorians (insane in itself) except they cannot accompany the general, which was literally their job description in real life. All in all, you can tell that the devs were trying hard, but the result is not consistent. Also, marketing hurts the historicity hard. For instance, the faction Sparta should not really be in the game, the faction Cimmeria should not be called Cimmeria, the Berserkers should not be naked fanatics, the Praetorians should not be visually distinct from ordinary legionaries — you get the idea; everywhere where CA could force a modern stereotype about the Classical world, they did.

Attila is like if Rome II was made by Neo-Nazis 😀
No, seriously, riddle me this:
Lviv and Kyïv are in the game and they’re controlled by blue-and-yellow ‘Anteans’ — who are the historical tribe today’s Ukrainians like to trace their history from. Lviv is a High Medieval settlement and simply shouldn’t be there; Kyïv might be older but in the game it’s also bluntly called ‘Arheimar’. Arheimar is the legendary seat of power of the Gothic kings in Medieval Germanic lore, which the Goths interestingly never actually control in the game. The devs basically make Kyïv the capital of legendary Gothia, which is let’s say ‘problematic’ on several levels.
The Antean country borders the Sclavenians — these guys are pretty much just a stand-in for today’s Russia; they live in ‘Hyperborea’ which, today’s Russian Neo-Nazis believe, is an old name for Russia, when it was a divine superpower inhabited by radiant giants who exclusively consumed ambrosia or something. Except in real life the toponym ‘Hyperborea’ is super vague to locate it reliably, the in-game province is made up of Medieval Russian cities, and the tribe Sclaveni lived on the Roman border in real life — not in bloody Moscow.
About every Slavic unit is decorated with patterns today’s Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian Neo-Nazis like to plaster all over the place and claim that they are ancient and somehow inherently Slavic — except in reality those pictures are all either poorly disguised Nazi German iconography, or ‘appropriated’ from unrelated sources. What all that imagery is doing in the game is as puzzling as the question why about every nomadic tribe is squint-eyed even though we know that at least half of them were Caucasians. The game also takes for granted the Hungarian claim that the Huns and the Hungarians are totally one and the same, even though the Magyars are also a separate faction in the game. The Huns are also represented as some sort of unstoppable supernatural forces which is ridiculous historically speaking and is a very Romanticised depiction.
The game also by design does not allow female characters, like at all. A woman cannot lead in this game; full stop. Except women were queens and warlords in this era, but the game just replaces them with random male characters, just like Rome II replaces known men with made-up female characters. Attila is like, SJW Rome II’s evil edgy sister. The lesser campaigns are oddly mostly free of problems though — including Britannia which is basically a standalone Attila campaign. It’s like they took everything bad about Rome II and Attila and finally fixed it. Except this is also the moment when the series became too cartoonish for my taste again.

No one knows what Pharaoh is going to be like, but my cartoonishness complaint remains and also the only Sea Peoples warlord we’ve seen so far literally had a Medieval name.

In short: Post-Medieval II games are definitely much better from the authenticity point of view than pre-Empire games are, but there’s no clear winner because they all have their own problems. It appears that as a separate game, Britannia might be the best-researched of them all so far, but I’m no expert in British history.

[HistoryPlayer]

Thank you for your answers. Are there alternatives to Total War? I already own Empire, Napoleon, Shogun 2, Rome 2 but I am no longer interested in the new games as I feel those are not what I am looking for. I am mostly interested in 18th century, napoleonic wars, 19th century but I am also open to other periods. Games does not necessary need to have very good graphics or same gameplay mechanics as Total War. Could also be turn based games. Thank you.

[Defmonkey]

Napoleon in my view is one of the more accurate of the Total War games... the campaigns going through Napoleons life are quite good, the Egyptian campaign itself being one of my favorites.

As for other games.... there are a few..... how about ultimate general civil war or age of sail for your preferred time period? or knights of honour: sovereign for something a little closer to the map and strategy of Total War?

Edit: If you want something more complex... you could try grand tactician civil war 1861-1865. Has a bit of jank but its working very close to the sources and has things like order delays, rivalry disputes if leaders don't get along and other complexities.

[HistoryPlayer]

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

Napoleon in my view is one of the more accurate of the Total War games... the campaigns going through Napoleons life are quite good, the Egyptian campaign itself being one of my favorites.

As for other games.... there are a few..... how about ultimate general civil war or age of sail for your preferred time period? or knights of honour: sovereign for something a little closer to the map and strategy of Total War?

Edit: If you want something more complex... you could try grand tactician civil war 1861-1865. Has a bit of jank but its working very close to the sources and has things like order delays, rivalry disputes if leaders don't get along and other complexities.

Game-Labs has Ultimate General: Civil War and Ultimate General: Gettysburg, which one is better? Age of Sail is also a great game although I miss campaigns for France and Spain, but is deeper than Total War in the naval aspect, having the wind a big role in battle mechanics, also has great diversity of ships. I completed british campaign I will try the american campaign.

Grand Tactician I remember to enjoyed Seven Years War as is my favourite period and contains historical battles. I still have to check Grand Tactician, is a bit expensive but not as much as Pharaoh.

[Defmonkey]

Originally posted by HistoryPlayer:

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

Napoleon in my view is one of the more accurate of the Total War games... the campaigns going through Napoleons life are quite good, the Egyptian campaign itself being one of my favorites.

As for other games.... there are a few..... how about ultimate general civil war or age of sail for your preferred time period? or knights of honour: sovereign for something a little closer to the map and strategy of Total War?

Edit: If you want something more complex... you could try grand tactician civil war 1861-1865. Has a bit of jank but its working very close to the sources and has things like order delays, rivalry disputes if leaders don't get along and other complexities.

Game-Labs has Ultimate General: Civil War and Ultimate General: Gettysburg, which one is better? Age of Sail is also a great game although I miss campaigns for France and Spain, but is deeper than Total War in the naval aspect, having the wind a big role in battle mechanics, also has great diversity of ships. I completed british campaign I will try the american campaign.

Grand Tactician I remember to enjoyed Seven Years War as is my favourite period and contains historical battles. I still have to check Grand Tactician, is a bit expensive but not as much as Pharaoh.

I have not played Gettysburg but the general consensus that i have noticed is that civil war is the better of the two. Though you can get both of these for a good discount during a good sale (up to as much as 75% for civil war and 90% for Gettysburg. EDIT: you may also get further discount with the loyalty bundles on offer, so check each game page including age of sail to see whats on offer as is possible for discounts to stack)

[Yews]

Gettysburg and Civil War are like Empire and Napoleon.

[Kendji]

For me, the question tends to be is this game belivable or close-enough to historical to mod the rest of the way. Warhammer would be a mountain of work to get it to Historical. While Three Kingdoms may get close [with mods], but difficult to get it just right. Was it Attila that had that impressive medieval mod? For me, the modding community is part of the purchasing decision and in determining how many hours I play the game.

[Yews]

Shogun 2 and Rome II are not on the list I guess, because they make no sense even with all the mods there are, and Warhammer is in turn high up the list because every detail CA missed, modders threw in. Empire has Darth which made sure to redo as much as possible as close to history as possible without compromising the gameplay. Troy has no mods but is already as close as our knowledge of the era allows.

[TheOrangeBox]

Originally posted by HistoryPlayer:

Thank you for your answers. Are there alternatives to Total War?

You could look into the Field of Glory II and Field of Glory Empire for a total package.
FoG II is focused on battles while FoG-E is focused on grand strategy campaign map. You can play them in integration mode or individually.
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/660160/Field_of_Glory_II/
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1011390/Field_of_Glory_Empires/

There's also the Medieval settings if the Ancient one doesn't inspire you
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1368870/Field_of_Glory_II_Medieval/
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1985050/Field_of_Glory_Kingdoms/?curator_clanid=4563585

[Kendji]

Originally posted by Yews:

Shogun 2 and Rome II are not on the list I guess, because they make no sense even with all the mods there are, and Warhammer is in turn high up the list because every detail CA missed, modders threw in. Empire has Darth which made sure to redo as much as possible as close to history as possible without compromising the gameplay. Troy has no mods but is already as close as our knowledge of the era allows.

Well yes, if we look at modability without taking the goal into account. Warhammer isn't a historical title, if the question above would have been about the most true fantasy title to it's source material. However, if I as a customer want to play a historical game as a middle eastern power, modding Pharaoh would be easier etc. :)

[Yews]

In short, like I said, post-Empire instalments are all comparable in terms of historicity, with mods, but even with mods there are still problems such as Katana Samurai (they never existed but the entirety of Shogun 2 is pretty much built around them), 2nd century AD Romans in the 3rd century BC (the only campaign where the Romans at least resemble Romans at least visually is Rise of the Republic), Etruscans not being Etruscans (also exclusively addressed in Rise of the Republic), Carthage being two countries in Grand Campaign and one country in Hannibal at the Gates (it should be vice versa); Neo-Nazi Slavs who live in completely wrong locations in Attila (and the mods that are on the Workshop only make this even worse as far as I can tell). Three Kingdoms and Troy can be forgiven for such transgressions because they base themselves on the epics first and on archaeology second, but they probably sin against both in some respect. The narrower scope Napoleon and Britannia are easily the most accurate of them all.

[Lord von Games]

Looks like this may be the most accurate total war game ever, historically, detailed, historical tactics, options, dynamics, etc. https://youtu.be/5GhewaDijS4

[SBA77]

Originally posted by HistoryPlayer:

Are there alternatives to Total War?

Guess it comes down to what you would consider an alternative. There are plenty of faux-grand strategy historical games out there, and some that even attempt to have RTS battles instead of just two sprites beating each other up as dice are rolled in the background, but almost none of them have the same style of combat as Total War, they are all much more RTS-like.

The closest game I've seen to Total War is the King Arthur the Role Playing Game series, but those came out 14 years ago with the second and final game in the series flaming out as a broken, bug-ridden mess 11 years ago. Also if the name did it give it away they weren't historical game in the slightest and were based on the King Arthur myths, so not what you're looking for.