From Realism/real time animation to tabletop to Board Game - Total War in a nutshell and where it went wrong.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

I would describe total war as so:

Originally a game that tried to make tabletop wargaming more realistic and life like by making it both real time and animated. From this it regressed and became more tabletop like and finally more like a simple board game with a tonne of random made up campaign mechanics with very little progress on the original dream of animating and getting more realism out of tabletop battles. Total War just seems like a huge missed opportunity that never reached its natural conclusion and instead got hijacked and forced to change direction to suite ehat seems to have been a new influx of developers that had little passion for wargaming and a lot of passion for random rules instead of satisfying the serious history and wargaming fans.

In short I would not use total war games to show somebody how I thought combat was carried out to our best estimation from a given period. I treat total war games more like hollywood these days. Huge grains of salt and knowledge that the level of effort when it comes to the history probably runs along the lines of "its just a game", we sacrificed everything to make sure it was fun.

What I would say is that by now in 2023, I should have seen more realism and more clarity of animation. All I see are "fun" hollywood kind of "inspired by" rather than "based on a true story" kind of enthusiasm. It's lip service to the likes of historical fans.

What used to be a best of breed bar none is now just another game in all the noise that is a light version of a lot of other strategy games where the only point of different is now less so because it is just blob wars or flag wars where things happen so fast nobody can see from any height or know what is going on enough to react in time.

I have no faith that we can get back to the core historical game mentioned above and suspect that Scourge of War Waterloo reboot or Ultimate General American Revolution may replace it once they get a roll on in the next few years.

[Iskar]

There seem to be rather varying takes on what defines (or should define) the TW series. For me it was never only about the battles and I don't care how realistic the animated ragdolls are in combat as long as the outcome is reasonably expectably linked to tactics. Im fact, without the overarching campaign mechanics, why would I play TW instead of a dedicated battle simulator? The game would be about tactics only with no strategy.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

Originally posted by Iskar:

There seem to be rather varying takes on what defines (or should define) the TW series. For me it was never only about the battles and I don't care how realistic the animated ragdolls are in combat as long as the outcome is reasonably expectably linked to tactics. Im fact, without the overarching campaign mechanics, why would I play TW instead of a dedicated battle simulator? The game would be about tactics only with no strategy.

If you auto resolve the battles why would you not go for crusader kings or one of the many far superior games that focus on a campaign map?

[Iskar]

I don't autoresolve all battles, only the trivial ones. I am not saying I don't enjoy fighting the nontrivial ones - the degree of realism in animating the single soldiers' combat behaviour is simply not crucial for my enjoyment when doing so. What counts for me is combat behaviour on the level of entire units - how does terrain affect their performance, how do they perform against other weapon/unit types, how effective are their charges, how accurate their shooting?
Ironically, since you mentioned Hollywood, if I wanted to see close ups of a battle, I'd watch a movie.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

Originally posted by Iskar:

I don't autoresolve all battles, only the trivial ones. I am not saying I don't enjoy fighting the nontrivial ones - the degree of realism in animating the single soldiers' combat behaviour is simply not crucial for my enjoyment when doing so. What counts for me is combat behaviour on the level of entire units - how does terrain affect their performance, how do they perform against other weapon/unit types, how effective are their charges, how accurate their shooting?
Ironically, since you mentioned Hollywood, if I wanted to see close ups of a battle, I'd watch a movie.

I am talking about combat behaviour in the main AND being able to see the troops carrying out those behaviours. Since the new warscape engine was nerfed shortly after rome2's launch all I can make out most of the time is flags. Plus when rome2 launched they actually had to put some behaviours BACK in, like guard mode. This showed me not only that the devs were not serious about giving control to the player and giving us more battle features but removing them so that battles were simply high speed smash up derby affairs.

What I want really is better siegecraft (inside of walls that have fighting and outside of walls fixed, castle design by the player and more control over unit formations and training as well as proper supply mechanics. Perhaps a layer between the strat map and battles that depicts the pre battle movements to provide context to battles. Provinces that allow armies to attack things other than cities like earlier total war games.... that are not just dice rolls. Skirmishing where armies can send out skirmishers and foragers and be caught without them or have skirmishers\forage parties ambushed or chased... suipply trains that can be raided or attacked.

But we do differ in that I want LOD distances fixed so I can see my troops without using the flags and enjoy the spectacle of it all, I want to see the state my formation is in and how well it is matching the enemy formations front. Not simply a stat on a flag indicating cohesion. I want to see if my formation is being flanked gradually without having to be at point blank range. TOTAL WAR ARENA did this kind of thing VERY well and I would be happy to have that system without all the fancy animations and graphics in the modern games (that mean nothing because you cannot see them without being at point blank range).

What I don't want is for what I assumed were computer limitations back in the 90s when the original games were around being taken and made worse or the same. Not progressing at all. Heck I would even say that the original games up to but not including rome2 suspend my disbelief even today more than the modern games. Which have just become worse with their campaign map dice role mechanics and forced ideas for "increased fun". These mechanics are usually very arbitrary to give flavor but are rarely getting it right. They are tokenistic in my view and just make the game less playable and more complicated for very little believable reason.

As for you saying watch a movie. I do sometimes. But the point here is that I used to be able to watch my troops and therefore enjoy the whole point of total war games (which is their difference from other games) with the older titles. But I would like the newer titles to be fixed so I can come back and do the same.

Also by your response I am getting the impression you are a stats kind of person that carries out battles like they were accounting problems. I want battles moved away from accounting problems to what they were in real life more. Which was more human morale problems based on a tonne of very human behaviours and values. I'd prefer each unit card in total war to represent a set of behaviours for that unit based on their experiences, training, quality of the men including physical strength and upbringing as well as their confidence in the leader they have on the day based on that leaders interactions etc etc. Something that more tells a story of each unit of men and how they act on the field and why. What we have currently is more 1+1 = 2 = win battle.
That's very tabletop\board game logic and much less what ancient battles were about.


Total War was originally streets ahead of other games when it came to showing the human side of ancient\medieval battles. But no real elements that were not bean counter style mechanics have been added and you especially do not get the feeling of a units "physical weight" and fighting style in combat anymore. Your basically just watching a moba health bar slowly expire. If we had a mechanic for some units having dysentary or having drunk bad water before battle it would simple be a -1 stat INSTEAD of an actual mechanic you could manage in battle like the unit moving slower and you being able to manage them by stopping and letting them actually sit down rest so you can see them recovering strength for more fighting.

You get the idea. But if you enjoy it the way it is then I really don't understand why crusader kings would not be a better option. Especially if you just like watching the flags to see the stats change. Plenty of strategic games do that at the strat map layer without the need to ever go into a battle.

[Iskar]

Originally posted by Baron Solamnic KG ⳩:

Originally posted by Iskar:

I don't autoresolve all battles, only the trivial ones. I am not saying I don't enjoy fighting the nontrivial ones - the degree of realism in animating the single soldiers' combat behaviour is simply not crucial for my enjoyment when doing so. What counts for me is combat behaviour on the level of entire units - how does terrain affect their performance, how do they perform against other weapon/unit types, how effective are their charges, how accurate their shooting?
Ironically, since you mentioned Hollywood, if I wanted to see close ups of a battle, I'd watch a movie.

I am talking about combat behaviour in the main AND being able to see the troops carrying out those behaviours. Since the new warscape engine was nerfed shortly after rome2's launch all I can make out most of the time is flags. Plus when rome2 launched they actually had to put some behaviours BACK in, like guard mode. This showed me not only that the devs were not serious about giving control to the player and giving us more battle features but removing them so that battles were simply high speed smash up derby affairs.

What I want really is better siegecraft (inside of walls that have fighting and outside of walls fixed, castle design by the player and more control over unit formations and training as well as proper supply mechanics. Perhaps a layer between the strat map and battles that depicts the pre battle movements to provide context to battles. Provinces that allow armies to attack things other than cities like earlier total war games.... that are not just dice rolls. Skirmishing where armies can send out skirmishers and foragers and be caught without them or have skirmishers\forage parties ambushed or chased... suipply trains that can be raided or attacked.

But we do differ in that I want LOD distances fixed so I can see my troops without using the flags and enjoy the spectacle of it all, I want to see the state my formation is in and how well it is matching the enemy formations front. Not simply a stat on a flag indicating cohesion. I want to see if my formation is being flanked gradually without having to be at point blank range. TOTAL WAR ARENA did this kind of thing VERY well and I would be happy to have that system without all the fancy animations and graphics in the modern games (that mean nothing because you cannot see them without being at point blank range).

What I don't want is for what I assumed were computer limitations back in the 90s when the original games were around being taken and made worse or the same. Not progressing at all. Heck I would even say that the original games up to but not including rome2 suspend my disbelief even today more than the modern games. Which have just become worse with their campaign map dice role mechanics and forced ideas for "increased fun". These mechanics are usually very arbitrary to give flavor but are rarely getting it right. They are tokenistic in my view and just make the game less playable and more complicated for very little believable reason.

As for you saying watch a movie. I do sometimes. But the point here is that I used to be able to watch my troops and therefore enjoy the whole point of total war games (which is their difference from other games) with the older titles. But I would like the newer titles to be fixed so I can come back and do the same.

Also by your response I am getting the impression you are a stats kind of person that carries out battles like they were accounting problems. I want battles moved away from accounting problems to what they were in real life more. Which was more human morale problems based on a tonne of very human behaviours and values. I'd prefer each unit card in total war to represent a set of behaviours for that unit based on their experiences, training, quality of the men including physical strength and upbringing as well as their confidence in the leader they have on the day based on that leaders interactions etc etc. Something that more tells a story of each unit of men and how they act on the field and why. What we have currently is more 1+1 = 2 = win battle.
That's very tabletop\board game logic and much less what ancient battles were about.


Total War was originally streets ahead of other games when it came to showing the human side of ancient\medieval battles. But no real elements that were not bean counter style mechanics have been added and you especially do not get the feeling of a units "physical weight" and fighting style in combat anymore. Your basically just watching a moba health bar slowly expire. If we had a mechanic for some units having dysentary or having drunk bad water before battle it would simple be a -1 stat INSTEAD of an actual mechanic you could manage in battle like the unit moving slower and you being able to manage them by stopping and letting them actually sit down rest so you can see them recovering strength for more fighting.

You get the idea. But if you enjoy it the way it is then I really don't understand why crusader kings would not be a better option. Especially if you just like watching the flags to see the stats change. Plenty of strategic games do that at the strat map layer without the need to ever go into a battle.

Well, I'm a mathematician, so I am generally more comfortable with metrics than with humans :P

Less tongue-in-cheeky, I completely agree with you regarding improved mechanics. Those would be awesome.
And from a mathematical viewpoint as well it is preferrable when aggregated metrics (unit values) simply derive from the individual values of their constituents (the soldier models) instead of being just "slapped on". Yet from some experience in software development I can imagine that would put a bit too much stress on lower end machines.

As for CK and the like as an alternative: I *do* like the battles of TW. I love deploying lines of spearmen, ordering archer volleys, starting flanking manoeuvres and launching chariot charges (talking in the context of this game), I am just a tad more interested in the behaviour of entire units in this rather than that of individual soldiers.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

I agree with your interest in unit behaviour. But we are not getting this with any new mechanics and are not set up for the background to this with the campaign mechanics that should tie in seamlessly by now (20yrs or so after the original total war games). Heck after all this time we do not even have castle walls that work well. Even if they did fix that you can see that CA have had to stick to very basic walls to make things work at all.

[Iskar]

In fact, S2 was the only TW where I really enjoyed the siege gameplay. In alle others I vastly prefer field battles and grind through sieges with superior numbers and/or artillery.

[Noblesse Oblige [KG] ⳩]

Medieval 2 had - 3 rings of walls cities. We lost that mechanic.

Rome 1 had ladders, siege towers and mines that all had to be built over time. The mechanic was crude but aimed at being believeable. A far cry frome some later games where you magically just had siege engines of some kind available. The mechanic should have become better not worse. Like needing local resources and engineers to build the siege engines instead of just having every faction able to build them. Siege battles could be really interesting.

We lost commander speeches. This could have become a pre-game mini-game to either demoralise or enthuse your troops.

Remember when where ever a battle was fought that it would draw the literal terrain the campaign map characters occupied at the time? Making each map individual. Those maps were bland because they were basically procedural, but instead of improving that feature just got axed as I understand it.

We lost the ability to detach units for building forts and holding siege lines easily. This could have become a bunch of smaller enjoyable skirmish games where raiders competed with each other and vied for supplies to outlast the other.

We lost naval battles because the effort to make them good was too great.

Units got faster as time went on to placate those with no patience who did not really want tactics or to fight the battles.

We never got to Germanic light cavalry giving their light troops a lift or units with mixed weaponry that actually physically changed the way they fought. We never got individual clan units that had tribal leaders that if they fell would affect unit cohesion. We never really got to simulating every nation as rome in battle. I am sure the original devs would have eventually liked to get their.

We lost the ability to upgrade units individually and have that reflected in their visual representation in battle, Not that anybody can see that unless they are zoomed to the ground anyway now.

We just needed CA to fix some things like generals charging enemy armies on their own and such but instead since Rome2 we have sacrificed gameplay for soap opera simulator features. That is my general read of things.
I don't mind soap opera simulator as long as army campaigns and battles simulator is improved on. But that is not the direction total war games have gone. Total War developers seem to think that bright idea for features now involve invisible uncontrollable caravans that cannot be stopped or raided physically if I understand correctly. I should term all of these bright ideas as ABSTRACTION of features rather than PHYSICAL realisation of them. Which as I said before many other games do better and more realistically anyway.

I simply think that CA thought they could appeal to an audience that was not interested in battles and army campaigns. It's really strange when companies decide they hate their product and would prefer a fanbase that totally contradicts what the original fanbase was about. But plenty of companies have done this over the last 15yrs or so. It's a trend that is hopefully ending.

With this post I am kind of trying to reach out to CA now that they are at a crossroads and perhaps rethinking total war. Clean out your cupboards and put people enthusiastic about ancient historical warfare in charge of the next total war title. Don't be like hollywood and ignore your military advisors, put them in charge of development instead and arm them with the knowledge of what older total war games tried to accomplish. Namely to see how battles were fought in ancient times off the tabletop and into real time movement with a campaign map context.

Now I know their will be total war fans who have only been playing since rome2 and know no better than a soap opera campaign with lip service battles. Those fans think that the campaign map is the game. They could be kept as fans for sure but the focus should shift to simulating ancient warfare. Otherwise like I said, other games like crusader kings are better.

Right now Total War needs a new engine. I remember in Rome2 on launch things looked great but it was missing key features like guard mode and wondered why. Then when nobody could run the game well because of the new engine the game hard coded the level of detail to drop to nothing really quickly and it not only played badly but looked bad as well. Men no longer stood in lines properly and acted like mobs. That would have been great for barbarian factions, but organised roman legionaries as well? What was clear was that the priority was not the combat element for some odd reason. The men ran around almost as fast as horses making the battle maps feel small even though they were large.

The Warscape3 engine was never fixed but I am betting/guessing the total war dev team bloated with non essential personnel that tied up engine development money.

I gave up on total war long ago even though I have tried some of their titles since. Really given them a go. but it's no good. Without proper change away from "barely interested" interchangeable fantasy game devs to dedicated history nuts. I doubt their titles will grab me again. I just cannot suspend my disbelief like I did with earlier titles, the men really do seem like cardboard cutouts on the battlefields, literal numbers.

That is why I am looking forward to ultimate general american revolutioin. It may not have all the bells and whistles, but it just might scratch the itch for a game that tries to be a "living" version of what tabletop battles could not do.