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.

[ChaataiKhan]

Empire, Napoleon, Britannia

[Berserk Slayer]

Historical games are not generally historically accurate, especially war games that have things like uniform map density, technological progression, attempts at symmetrical balancing (ie any faction can rule over all in the hands of the right player), balanced systems of trade - all of which can fly in the face of available source material.

Even "grognard-friendly" war games do not generally have clean hands on this score, and Total War is not one of those. On top of that the Total War series, specifically, allows "Hollywood history", so the answer is: none of them is "historically accurate", really. Nor can/should they be, much as it pains me to say it. You have to enjoy the history nerd wheat and ignore the nerdrage-inducing chaff.

So with that caveat out of the way: I love the nods to archaeological findings in Rome II and its expansions - some of the work they did on equipment is great. I rather like Britannia's attempts, too.

[Berserk Slayer]

Historical games are not generally historically accurate, especially war games that have things like uniform map density, technological progression, attempts at symmetrical balancing (ie any faction can rule over all in the hands of the right player), balanced systems of trade - all of which can fly in the face of available source material.

Even "grognard-friendly" war games do not generally have clean hands on this score, and Total War is not one of those. On top of that the Total War series, specifically, allows "Hollywood history", so the answer is: none of them is "historically accurate", really. Nor can/should they be, much as it pains me to say it. You have to enjoy the history nerd wheat and ignore the nerdrage-inducing chaff.

So with that caveat out of the way: I love the nods to archaeological findings in Rome II and its expansions - some of the work they did on equipment is great. I rather like Britannia's attempts, too.

Originally posted by SBA77:

King Arthur the Role Playing Game series

Loved the first game, for all its flaws. A shame it never continued. Loved the diplomacy option to get other factions fighting each other and always wished TW would do something like that in their historical games.

Originally posted by 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

Agree on FoG being worth checking out. Also I quite like KoH: Sovereign, where you can do all sorts of things in the campaign map (mostly using knights not the diplomacy interface) like setting factions against each other, creating/marrying into claims to lands and pressing them with diplomacy/war, fomenting rebellions in enemy countries that are really yours while ostensibly staying diplomatically "friendly", buying your way into the enemy court then assassinating the king so you can take control etc but I am wary of recommending that to TW gamers because the Knights of Honor battlefield is not, repeat not a replacement for Total War battles, it is fairly simple by comparison and mostly gravy for the campaign.

[Yews]

Rome and Medieval II are super clunky, their battle mechanics are largely outdated by now, and calling their sound effects and animations great especially compared to say Rome II is simply absurd. Shields work the way you describe in Rome II as well as in subsequent instalments, where also even peasants can be useful.

[TheOrangeBox]

Here's for the lovers of Medieval while they wait for the next TWM
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/202860/Real_Warfare_2_Northern_Crusades/

[SBA77]

Originally posted by TheOrangeBox:

Here's for the lovers of Medieval while they wait for the next TWM
-
https://store.steampowered.com/app/202860/Real_Warfare_2_Northern_Crusades/

And I felt kind of guilty for recommending games from 2009 and 2012 because I thought they might be too old :D

Originally posted by karoten2:

Knights of Honour II has a same formula to TW, strategic world campaign map and real time tactical battles, but it is more about kingdom micromanagment on the campaifn part, abnd has crappy battles

https://store.steampowered.com/app/736820/Knights_of_Honor_II_Sovereign/

Originally posted by Benny Kilgor:

Also I quite like KoH: Sovereign, where you can do all sorts of things in the campaign map (mostly using knights not the diplomacy interface) like setting factions against each other, creating/marrying into claims to lands and pressing them with diplomacy/war, fomenting rebellions in enemy countries that are really yours while ostensibly staying diplomatically "friendly", buying your way into the enemy court then assassinating the king so you can take control etc but I am wary of recommending that to TW gamers because the Knights of Honor battlefield is not, repeat not a replacement for Total War battles, it is fairly simple by comparison and mostly gravy for the campaign.

This, KoH 2 is about kingdom managment, not tactical battles

I always thought it as more of a light weight Crusader Kings with more RTS-like tactical battles. It's definitely more RTS-like than Total War, but I suppose that's the closest you are going to get.

[TheOrangeBox]

Originally posted by SBA77:

And I felt kind of guilty for recommending games from 2009 and 2012 because I thought they might be too old :D

There're three games in the series but this one has also a campaign map kinda like in Mount & Blade Bannerlord and the battles are definitely a Total War version - so crusader lovers will definitely have fun :)

[SBA77]

Originally posted by karoten2:

Originally posted by SBA77:

I always thought it as more of a light weight Crusader Kings with more RTS-like tactical battles. It's definitely more RTS-like than Total War, but I suppose that's the closest you are going to get.

the battles in KoH2 are crap :D You can check this video from 4:42 and watch 1 minute. It is in Czech language, but You do not need to understand, what he is saying, it shows how the battles are in practice

https://youtu.be/G1nLob0hfLQ

Yeah I've seen them before, like I said they look like the most basic of classic RTS battles, except without a base building and a rudimentary morale system.

[Berserk Slayer]

Originally posted by SBA77:

Originally posted by karoten2:

the battles in KoH2 are crap :D You can check this video from 4:42 and watch 1 minute. It is in Czech language, but You do not need to understand, what he is saying, it shows how the battles are in practice

https://youtu.be/G1nLob0hfLQ

Yeah I've seen them before, like I said they look like the most basic of classic RTS battles, except with a base building and a rudimentary morale system.

Yeah I wouldn't think badly of them for not having tactical depth in the battles like TW, all they are meant to do in Sovereign is provide a fun diversion every now and then, and a healthy dose of nostalgia for the toy-like battle aesthetic of the original. Most people will play a few of them and autoresolve most of the time because it's about the campaign.

I think a lot of people either see battles and the map and think it's like TW, or they see the UI, warscore etc and think it's like CK. The truth is it's not either of those things but option 3) a KoH game.

It's a good game, I'd just be wary of suggesting TW fans go play without being forewarned.

[SBA77]

Originally posted by Benny Kilgor:

It's a good game, I'd just be wary of suggesting TW fans go play without being forewarned.

Exactly, it's the battles that make TW what it is. Without them you'ed have a less complex grand strategy game. It wouldn't even be a 4X because you don't usually have resource gathering, and colonization/city building. IMO Knights of Honor would be a better recommendation for Paradox fans, or at least people interested in Paradox games but feel intimidated by them.

[Yews]

Originally posted by Hugh de Salle:

You have fallen into the CA trap of eye candy and a bit of blood.

I don’t consider any game in the series eye candy except Troy (where water actually looks like water, shame it’s only there to look pretty), and I dislike how blood looks and works in every instalment it’s in – except Troy where chariots leave blood trails behind them when they run over people.

Originally posted by Hugh de Salle:

Single entity battles are by far the worse edition to total war games where one soldier matches another soldier instead of actually using numbers to win it uses % to hit in the older games soldiers could actually surround and kill even back stab other soldiers.

Not sure that I see what you mean but if you’re talking about the animated duels between individual soldiers then they’re gone since Britannia – warriors surround and backstab each other en masse both in Three Kingdoms as well as in Troy (and now Pharaoh which is literally Troy Barbarian Invasion), with the scripted animations being reserved for the single-entity units (which I say function borderline same as general bodyguard units except the general takes all the credit because he’s literally the only member of the unit; this also isn’t a new unit type because the original Shogun Total War had that ♥♥♥♥).

[Hexagoros]

Originally posted by karoten2:

most historical accurate Total War? definitelly Napoleon, Empire has overpoverd native Americans

and most inaccurate? definitelly Rome 1, there are too many absurd things,

Troy is in special place, The Trojan War itself is not real historical event, its protagonists (heroes) like Achiles, Prince Hector, Odyseus are fictional characters, but... it is set in real historical setting - bronze age Mycenaean Greece and Anatolia, and Troy makes actually great job to depict this setting,

Empire's most ludicrous thing was the Pikeman dominance. you legit didn't need to build anything else. Just build a 20 stack of pikemen, and you were good to go.

And Rome 1 was an absolute clown fiesta.

[Yews]

Rome II only became bland with Emperor Edition because the community complained non-stop that the game looked far too vibrant to be convincingly Classical so they replaced the original brilliant UI with bland ugly ♥♥♥♥ and downgraded the graphics. You can mod all of that back and make the game look as good as on release day if not better. The general speeches are in the game, the family trees were patched in and are probably the most fleshed out in the series, most settlements in the ancient world had no walls, the sheer volume of content in the game absolutely dwarfs everything that came before at once, the battles are easily much better than in Rome Total War at least because the units actually react to orders. The number and the complexity of mods for Rome II also dwarf the Rome Total War scene, as well as player numbers. The only reason Rome Total War is legendary is that it was a revolution in the technical department back when it came out, and it was in fact more of eye candy for its era than Rome II for its era.

[Hexagoros]

Originally posted by Hugh de Salle:

Originally posted by Hexagoros:

Empire's most ludicrous thing was the Pikeman dominance. you legit didn't need to build anything else. Just build a 20 stack of pikemen, and you were good to go.

And Rome 1 was an absolute clown fiesta.

You dont need to build 20 stack of pikemen nobody forced you too how about policing your own game or even modding it , The pikemen could be modded took 2 mins.

Rome 1 is legendary because the modding community made it so , Rome 2 was awful its bland and boring and the battles are crap they did away with general speeches and family trees took walled settlements for minor settlements in essence they stripped down the game and gave you eye candy instead.

Police my own gameplay?

So it's on me to gimp myself, rather than on CA to make sure that freaking Pikemen weren't the strongest unit in the game by a mile? And in a game about the Age of Sail no less?

Sorry buddy, but that's the way CA made the game. That's on CA, not me as the player. Why go through the trouble of building balanced armies, when I could instead just stack pikemen? That idiocy is on CA.

And if you can't see the progress in Rome 2 Emperor Edition over Rome 1, I'm sorry but this either just isn't your genre, or you're simply no longer the target demographic. Rome 2 Emperor Edition is an objectively great strategy game.

And why do you keep banging on about "eye candy" as if "eye candy" is a bad thing? Rome 1 is almost twenty years old. It's painful to look at now.

Also last I checked Rome 2 Emperor Edition 'does' have family trees and politics, probably the most fleshed out of the series.

[Havean]

Originally posted by Hugh de Salle:

Originally posted by Hexagoros:

Empire's most ludicrous thing was the Pikeman dominance. you legit didn't need to build anything else. Just build a 20 stack of pikemen, and you were good to go.

And Rome 1 was an absolute clown fiesta.

You dont need to build 20 stack of pikemen nobody forced you too how about policing your own game or even modding it , The pikemen could be modded took 2 mins.

Rome 1 is legendary because the modding community made it so , Rome 2 was awful its bland and boring and the battles are crap they did away with general speeches and family trees took walled settlements for minor settlements in essence they stripped down the game and gave you eye candy instead.

So why is okay to police yourself for Empire total war and not build doomstacks but It's not okay to police yourself in Warhammer and not build single entity uinits?

And are you saying that Rome 1 is crap without Mods? You may be right.