Which total war games have the best battles?

[Square Box]

What total war games have the best battles and battle engines. Tell me what you think please.

[Messsucher]

My quick intuitive take: Medieval 2. My fondest memories: Medieval 1.

[닝닝 공주님의 기사]

Originally posted by Litigious1:

What total war games have the best battles and battle engines. Tell me what you think please.

medieval 2 is very unstable because, when you press r after movement
sometimes they would run, and sometimes they would still walk.

def not recommended.

[Buldor]

Atilla.

Medieval 2 - spears aren't spears. Pikes don't work. AP doesn't work. 2H is worthless. Most forms of ranged are worthless. And charges don't always work, whilst full cavalry spam is optimal.

Rome 2 - Pike > Everything, cavalry is for decorative and time saving purposes only.

Shogun 2 - YARI ASHIGARU

Empire - Drag out your line, arty in mid. AFK.

Napoleon - Repeat above

Warhammer - good warhammer game, zero strategy and units half the time are decorative.

Thrones - Worse version of Atilla.

Atilla has a lot of issues, but good play allows weaker units to beat stronger, whilst things like cavalry are powerful whilst not being everything else obsolete. Same with archers and ranged units. You want some, but you're not using 19 of them. Plus sieges were amazing. Rome 2 (now) is ok, but sieges and how a tier 1 pike unit will destroy top tier everything else the AI uses, is meh, right?

[LSD]

Originally posted by Dying Soon:

Originally posted by Litigious1:

What total war games have the best battles and battle engines. Tell me what you think please.

medieval 2 is very unstable because, when you press r after movement
sometimes they would run, and sometimes they would still walk.

def not recommended.

They default walk. You press R to make them run. That's it. It's only the more recent ones that default to run.
M2's real bugs are things like pathfinding, and AI that can't manage its finances.

[Messsucher]

Originally posted by Buldor:

Atilla.

Medieval 2 - spears aren't spears. Pikes don't work. AP doesn't work. 2H is worthless. Most forms of ranged are worthless. And charges don't always work, whilst full cavalry spam is optimal.

Rome 2 - Pike > Everything, cavalry is for decorative and time saving purposes only.

Shogun 2 - YARI ASHIGARU

Empire - Drag out your line, arty in mid. AFK.

Napoleon - Repeat above

Warhammer - good warhammer game, zero strategy and units half the time are decorative.

Thrones - Worse version of Atilla.

Atilla has a lot of issues, but good play allows weaker units to beat stronger, whilst things like cavalry are powerful whilst not being everything else obsolete. Same with archers and ranged units. You want some, but you're not using 19 of them. Plus sieges were amazing. Rome 2 (now) is ok, but sieges and how a tier 1 pike unit will destroy top tier everything else the AI uses, is meh, right?

Have to mention regarding Medieval 2, that yes, full cavalry is the way to go, it is like painting the map clean with them :D The question was not which has the most realistic, the question was which have "the best" :D

And regarding Rome 2, cavalry is very useful to take annoying ranged units out, especially ranged missile cavalry.

[Blegh]

Originally posted by Messsucher:

Have to mention regarding Medieval 2, that yes, full cavalry is the way to go, it is like painting the map clean with them :D The question was not which has the most realistic, the question was which have "the best" :D

Full cav being the best way to win doesn't make for a fun game

[LSD]

Originally posted by Blegh:

Originally posted by Messsucher:

Have to mention regarding Medieval 2, that yes, full cavalry is the way to go, it is like painting the map clean with them :D The question was not which has the most realistic, the question was which have "the best" :D

Full cav being the best way to win does make for a fun game

Full yari ash is the way to win S2, full line infantry is the way to win Empire+Napoleon, full pikes is the way to win R2.
CA don't make balanced games, they make arcadey RTS games in a historical-looking setting.

[Messsucher]

Originally posted by Blegh:

Originally posted by Messsucher:

Have to mention regarding Medieval 2, that yes, full cavalry is the way to go, it is like painting the map clean with them :D The question was not which has the most realistic, the question was which have "the best" :D

Full cav being the best way to win does make for a fun game

Yeah, this I meant, you said it.

[[*UNITY*]_ james]

Battles in Med 2 and Rome 1 generally seem to have the best unit collisions and most cohesive formations out of all the TWs, and units don't feel "floaty" compared to later games. However, they also have problems of their own (Buldor pointed out some of them). IMHO older players tend to greatly exaggerate how good the battles were in those games.

Warhammer perhaps has the most cinematic and beautiful battles out of any TW. The unit variety also cannot be beat, and correspondingly the amount of tactical options you have is impressive. But its also easier to win campaign battles with doomstacks in Warhammer than in other TWs. Battles are also arguably too fast and a bit twitchy.

Rome 2, Attila, and Shogun 2 have some neat matched combat animations, but you oftentimes won't have time in a battle to zoom in and appreciate them.

3K, on extreme unit scale, can have very large and impressive-looking battles. General duels are better in this TW than in any other title as well. Regular infantry, however, usually swing their weapons in the air when they attack opposing soldiers, which can look awkward at times.

I cannot speak for Shogun 1 and Med 1, and I barely played Thrones and Troy. Troy apparently has some of the worst battles according to the TW community; Thrones' battles actually look pretty decent (in my opinion, the best unit collisions in any post-Med 2 TW are in Thrones), but the unit variety is among the worst.

Perhaps my favorite battles are in Napoleon. Battle graphics still hold up decently well; good tactical diversity; and terrain matters even more as even slight elevations in the battle map can ruin your units' line of sight. Empire is somewhat similar, but unit behavior is a bit derpy in that game. I highly suggest you play Napoleon on multiplayer for the full experience: battles against the A.I. tend to be somewhat bland.

[Messsucher]

Originally posted by LSD:

Originally posted by Blegh:

Full cav being the best way to win does make for a fun game

Full yari ash is the way to win S2, full line infantry is the way to win Empire+Napoleon, full pikes is the way to win R2.
CA don't make balanced games, they make arcadey RTS games in a historical-looking setting.

Well, in Empire four cannons (or even more) with canister shots and the rest infantry is the way to win. Have to say "realistic" has always been a big illusion in TW games, the bigger the illusion the less you knew of the actual battles. That's why I think I can enjoy so much overpowering Cavalry Hordes in Medieval 2, since there is not that much realism to begin with. And gaming wise rock/paper/scissors begin to be rather repetitive and less fun.

By the way, warfare has been very unbalanced many times. We all know examples of this, so no need to make a list, but since there has been talk about Empire, I think it would be fitting to mention how Gatlings unbalanced battle in Africa, British vs. Zulu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ulundi


4,200 British, 1,000 Africans, 2 Gatling Guns, 10 cannons vs 12,000–15,000 Zulu

Casualties: 13–18 Brits killed, 69–89 wounded vs 473 Zulu killed, 1,000+ wounded.

Just saying this to my defence of enjoying full cavalries in Medieval 2 :D Arcade fan would be too much to bear with :D

[Emir Ismael]

of course i will recommend Attila

[Cabbage]

Originally posted by LSD:

Originally posted by Blegh:

Full cav being the best way to win does make for a fun game

Full yari ash is the way to win S2, full line infantry is the way to win Empire+Napoleon, full pikes is the way to win R2.
CA don't make balanced games, they make arcadey RTS games in a historical-looking setting.

You can't balance bad AI. That isn't the fault of the battle mechanics. Just don't take full yari ashigaru, pikes, etc if you are fighting the AI, or find humans to play against.

[HistoryPlayer]

Originally posted by Emir Ismael:

of course i will recommend Attila

If you are rich and can pay thousands of $ to have a computer that can play it decently

[Yews]

Three Kingdoms if you don’t mind the 1-man general units (which isn’t a game-breaker for me because these 1-man units basically behave the same as the 160-man units with the sole difference that visually it’s 1 guy), the lack of matched combat animations (which I prefer because it’s more realistic and also positively affects battle flow, but seems most players hate it because they play for the spectacle of the duels between individual warriors (which actually also happen in this game (and are its major focus), just between the generals rather than the nameless warriors)), and that winning units never push losing units back like they would in real life (which is a sacrifice I can live with in exchange for the very realistic delay between orders and the units’ reactions to them — which is exclusively present in Three Kingdoms and elevates it above every other instalment for me). Easily the most advanced battle engine to date. Troy, Warhammer III, and Pharaoh are ♥♥♥♥ compared to Three Kingdoms, battles-wise — despite their later releases; because they’re all based on a morally outdated fork of TW Engine that I really hope we’ll never see CA use again.

Britannia if you don’t mind that winning units never push losing units back like they would in real life.

Medieval II if you don’t mind the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ graphics, the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ UI, the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ controls, the fact that it runs like ♥♥♥♥ on contemporary hardware, and the fact that it’s less of a historical game than Three Kingdoms is.

Originally posted by Buldor:

Rome 2

Originally posted by Buldor:

cavalry is for decorative

Surely you can’t be serious.

Originally posted by HistoryPlayer:

Originally posted by Emir Ismael:

of course i will recommend Attila

If you are rich and can pay thousands of $ to have a computer that can play it decently

Not even a thousands of $ computer allows you to play Attila decently.

[LSD]

Originally posted by 𒂍𒀀𒈾𒍢𒅕:

Originally posted by LSD:

Full yari ash is the way to win S2, full line infantry is the way to win Empire+Napoleon, full pikes is the way to win R2.
CA don't make balanced games, they make arcadey RTS games in a historical-looking setting.

You can't balance bad AI. That isn't the fault of the battle mechanics. Just don't take full yari ashigaru, pikes, etc if you are fighting the AI, or find humans to play against.

You can balance unit stats though. Why do yari ash stand toe-to-toe with samurai? Why do cav only deal damage on the charge and then stand around getting poked to death?
Lack of meaningful balance updates is the answer (plus awful combat simulation on the Warscape engine).