People want a realistic total war but no one plays britannia

[Lt Dan]

So under any yt video I watch about the new troy game everyone says that they want a historical accurate game without heroes and myths etc. Most of them want a medieval 3 or a new empire.
But if the coommunity wants a game without heroes and stuff, why they dont play britannia. I guess it was the last total war game wich was historical accurate and hadnt superheroes in it, but three kingdoms was much more played then britannia.

[Warriordude]

I actually enjoy Thrones of Britannia, play mods mostly though, my favorite time period along with Empire Total war time period. I actually agree with you to a point. I like the heroes, if not to overpowered rather have historical real heroes, not sure I'll like the mythical God beasts heroes or whatever in troy. Troy looks pretty but not sure I'm going to buy it yet. I bought Three Kingdoms but only played it a few hours and uninstalled it, just couldn't get into the time period I guess. I hope they make a new Empire Total war 2, that would be a great game.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Lt Dan:

So under any yt video I watch about the new troy game everyone says that they want a historical accurate game without heroes and myths etc. Most of them want a medieval 3 or a new empire.
But if the coommunity wants a game without heroes and stuff, why they dont play britannia. I guess it was the last total war game wich was historical accurate and hadnt superheroes in it, but three kingdoms was much more played then britannia.

TW3K was able to tap into the Chinese market, which helped it a lot.

That was probably a big reason behind developing 3K to begin with, as most game and film companies have been trying to get into that market over the last few years.

You can see it when you go on the TW3K Steam forums: just tons of threads with titles in Chinese characters, and all of this conversing going on in Mandarin or whatever.

[will.case1111]

More people would play this game if it had more features and fewer were turned off by its savage critical reception. It lacks key features, such as agents and religion due to misguided streamlining and an amputated post-release development cycle.I don't understand the reasoning for the spartan ascetic with features, but I can pull an explanation out of my back pocket to explain the shortened post-release development.

Thrones was at best passable at release, but the Warhammer man-children trashed it beyond all recognition because somehow other people enjoying a different type of game upset them and it allegedly took away development resources from feeding their DLC addiction.

The crushing review bombing likely decimated sales and motivation and as a result CA shifted their priorities elsewhere, ending any real hope of rounding out this game with more features and a probable 1066 DLC. They did the bare minimum and dropped it. Who can blame them?

Incidentally, the same will happen to Troy unless its gameplay bears some resemblance to WH with heroes and other pop history chaff. That's why 3K got a free pass from the WH review bombers, despite being a cluttered and flashy, but ultimately shallow, exercise in monotonous busywork.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by will.case1111:

More people would play this game if it had more features and fewer were turned off by its savage critical reception. It lacks key features, such as agents and religion due to misguided streamlining and an amputated post-release development cycle.I don't understand the reasoning for the spartan ascetic with features, but I can pull an explanation out of my back pocket to explain the shortened post-release development.

Thrones was at best passable at release, but the Warhammer man-children trashed it beyond all recognition because somehow other people enjoying a different type of game upset them and it allegedly took away development resources from feeding their DLC addiction.

The crushing review bombing likely decimated sales and motivation and as a result CA shifted their priorities elsewhere, ending any real hope of rounding out this game with more features and a probable 1066 DLC. They did the bare minimum and dropped it. Who can blame them?

Incidentally, the same will happen to Troy unless its gameplay bears some resemblance to WH with heroes and other pop history chaff. That's why 3K got a free pass from the WH review bombers, despite being a cluttered and flashy, but ultimately shallow, exercise in monotonous busywork.

Troy will probably get mixed reception as well.

I think this guy makes a strong argument:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DODdYxeuo_Q

As he points out, ToB wasn't really the first "Saga" title. Both NTW and Attila basically did the same thing, being expansions off ETW and Rome 2, respectively, as ToB expanded off of Attila.

Also, as he points out, all of these titles got very mixed reviews initially.

Attila is appreciated now, but there was a big hate train for it in lead up to release, and it initially had only around 67% positive rating.

NTW also got a lot of hate for being seen as just a glorified ETW dlc, and people were angry as well for all of the problems that remained in ETW.

So it was ironic when people were slamming ToB, and bringing up Attila, because Attila basically underwent the same hate, before emotions stabilized.

We've been seeing that with ToB too: scores improved a lot going into 2019, and they've been improving ever since.

Years from now, ToB will be looked back on as a good TW, and some new title, like Troy, will be catching all of the hate.

It's a cycle that the TW community goes through over and over again.

But yeah, these "Saga" style releases are always going to be fighting an up hill battle from day one. Even if ToB hadn't axed the agent mechanic, or had the religion mechanic from Attila, it would have still displeased a good chunk of the community, for the reasons that guy Melkor cites.

[Spookymancer]

Originally posted by will.case1111:

the Warhammer man-children trashed it beyond all recognition

The reaction from Warhammer fans was actually more like 'wow, siege battles are so cool in this game! but there isn't much unit variety, it's kinda boring, no replay value, wouldn't it be cool if CA made a lord of the rings game some day? XD ah well back to warhammer'. Most warhammer fans got bored, left a positive or negative review saying "buy on sale" and never looked back.
History fans, however, were more than happy to savage the game:
"A reasonably mediocre Total War title that you could easily ignore [...] Get Total War Attila and the expansion Age of Charlemagne before even considering this title."
"Why a negative review? Simple, of the near 20 years of me playing Total War games this is the one that has broken me."
"I had avoided buying the game as CA has slipped further down from being a decent company. The games are getting more simplified and generic for mass consumption."
"Breaks my heart to say but I can’t recommend this game even though I love the Total War games."
"Total War Shogun 2 was much better in most aspects."
On and on it goes.
Even a casual perusal of the reviews will show you that nearly all of the negative reviews start with "Long time total war fan." How on earth would a 'warhammer man-child' even know to complain that ToB is just a reskinned Total War: Attila mod, unless a history fan told them?

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Spookymancer:

Originally posted by will.case1111:

the Warhammer man-children trashed it beyond all recognition

The reaction from Warhammer fans was actually more like 'wow, siege battles are so cool in this game! but there isn't much unit variety, it's kinda boring, no replay value, wouldn't it be cool if CA made a lord of the rings game some day? XD ah well back to warhammer'. Most warhammer fans got bored, left a positive or negative review saying "buy on sale" and never looked back.
History fans, however, were more than happy to savage the game:
"A reasonably mediocre Total War title that you could easily ignore [...] Get Total War Attila and the expansion Age of Charlemagne before even considering this title."
"Why a negative review? Simple, of the near 20 years of me playing Total War games this is the one that has broken me."
"I had avoided buying the game as CA has slipped further down from being a decent company. The games are getting more simplified and generic for mass consumption."
"Breaks my heart to say but I can’t recommend this game even though I love the Total War games."
"Total War Shogun 2 was much better in most aspects."
On and on it goes.
Even a casual perusal of the reviews will show you that nearly all of the negative reviews start with "Long time total war fan." How on earth would a 'warhammer man-child' even know to complain that ToB is just a reskinned Total War: Attila mod, unless a history fan told them?

Yes.

The impression I got was people claiming to be big history fans and "long time TW fans" were the ones lashing out the most.

As you said, the fantasy-only crowd was always "meh" about it anyway. There were people in the fantasy-only crowd raging on Reddit and on the TW dot org against ToB, because they were under the mistaken impression that ToB was holding up WH dlc development...but as with any community, I can't imagine those who were so extreme and review bombed made up most the community. Most of the WH community, even the WH-only community, was pretty ambivalent.

The target base for ToB was obvioulsy people who played and liked titles such as Med 2, Attila, AoC, and such, and of course, I'm sure SEGA was hoping to bring in some new people to TW, intrigued by a "Viking game" because of the decent amount of attention given to "Vikings" in recent years on TV and YoutTube.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

Originally posted by will.case1111:

More people would play this game if it had more features and fewer were turned off by its savage critical reception. It lacks key features, such as agents and religion due to misguided streamlining and an amputated post-release development cycle.I don't understand the reasoning for the spartan ascetic with features, but I can pull an explanation out of my back pocket to explain the shortened post-release development.

Thrones was at best passable at release, but the Warhammer man-children trashed it beyond all recognition because somehow other people enjoying a different type of game upset them and it allegedly took away development resources from feeding their DLC addiction.

The crushing review bombing likely decimated sales and motivation and as a result CA shifted their priorities elsewhere, ending any real hope of rounding out this game with more features and a probable 1066 DLC. They did the bare minimum and dropped it. Who can blame them?

Incidentally, the same will happen to Troy unless its gameplay bears some resemblance to WH with heroes and other pop history chaff. That's why 3K got a free pass from the WH review bombers, despite being a cluttered and flashy, but ultimately shallow, exercise in monotonous busywork.

Troy will probably get mixed reception as well.

I think this guy makes a strong argument:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DODdYxeuo_Q

As he points out, ToB wasn't really the first "Saga" title. Both NTW and Attila basically did the same thing, being expansions off ETW and Rome 2, respectively, as ToB expanded off of Attila.

Also, as he points out, all of these titles got very mixed reviews initially.

Attila is appreciated now, but there was a big hate train for it in lead up to release, and it initially had only around 67% positive rating.

NTW also got a lot of hate for being seen as just a glorified ETW dlc, and people were angry as well for all of the problems that remained in ETW.

So it was ironic when people were slamming ToB, and bringing up Attila, because Attila basically underwent the same hate, before emotions stabilized.

We've been seeing that with ToB too: scores improved a lot going into 2019, and they've been improving ever since.

Years from now, ToB will be looked back on as a good TW, and some new title, like Troy, will be catching all of the hate.

It's a cycle that the TW community goes through over and over again.

But yeah, these "Saga" style releases are always going to be fighting an up hill battle from day one. Even if ToB hadn't axed the agent mechanic, or had the religion mechanic from Attila, it would have still displeased a good chunk of the community, for the reasons that guy Melkor cites.

I'd also add that when other titles came out, they were accused of "streamlining" or "dumbing down" as well.

Two huge targets of that kind of sentiment were ETW and Shogun 2.

ETW had no family tree, no family management, simplified provinces, was accused of cookie-cutter units and lack of faction variety (ie every faction save two has Line Infantry and melee cav as the core build), etc. Additionally, it had lost Med 2's unit pool mechanic, had really lackluster siege battles, infinite ammo for cannon and mortar units, the generals' speeches from RTW and Med 2 were gone, mediocre scoring/soundtrack, very poorly done Historical Battles, etc. The initial impressions from vets were that the game was dumbed down, streamlined to appease new consumers, and was generally a buggy, clunky mess.

ETW also caused a big uproar because it was the first TW game to have day 1 DLC, and even retailer-specific preorder DLC.

That didn't it stop it however from becoming one of CA's best selling titles, ever. Today, it is now one of the most played TWs and has an excellent overall rating.

Shogun 2 got a lot of praise, but it took time. Initially, it was a polarizing entry. The "streamlined" province system from ETW/NTW made a return, as did the lack of unit pool mechanic. Lack of faction or unit variety was cited as a big negative, because of the single, Japanese culture for the world map. There was a lack of variety in battle maps, especially siege maps. Many players did not like Realm Divide, and/or the very aggressive nature of the strat AI scripting and big AI buffs.

All the while, Med 2 and RTW were referenced as the ideal to look to, the pinnacle that had never been attained again, but that CA must strive to recapture.

So it followed similarly with ToB: accused of being dumbed down, streamlined, appeals to Med 2 and RTW nostalgia, etc.

The critical difference, imo, is that ToB was mercilessly attacked by most of the "influencers" in the TW community, particuarly on Youtube.

In the earlier days, Youtube was not the thing it is now. We didn't have the same community, with lets-plays, Twitch streams, and all of that. Furthermore, the "Influencers" back then always gave TW the benefit of the doubt.

After Rome 2 release debacle, that started to change.

So if ToB had been released back in, say, 2010, there would have no doubt been a lot of trashing in forums and Reddit...but the TW influencers would have been playing it, they would have been showcasing gameplay and telling people in reviews or previews about its good points, and that 'while it might not be for everyone, it still has a lot for fans of the series,' stuff like that...like they did with Shogun 2, NTW, ETW, heck even with Attila.

With ToB, we had guys like ArchWarhammer, DarrenTW and LegendofTotalWar bashing the game *in previews*, essentially giving it a negative review before it was even released.

And then, basically boycotting the game post-release, not making streams of it. The only streams you saw of ToB from prominent channels post release were of siege battles, almost always prefaced with a statement to the effect, "hey guys, yeah Thrones sucks, but I'm doing a siege match because it does sieges well."

In prior releases, even the most botched TW releases ever - ETW and Rome 2 - reviewers and influencers focused on the good or the ambitions of the titles, and hung out hope for their audience that what was lackluster or clunky would be fixed. So a lot of praise was heaped on ETW for its naval battles, for example, and the many negatives of the campaign game were downplayed or just ignored altogether. Rome 2 likewise got good praise for its scope, for its visceral new combat animations, for its ambitious nature, and the totally botched release, things like capture flags on battle maps and lack of any family management, was assuaged by the influencers and reviewers.

With ToB though, it was basically: list every, single thing you don't like about it, and mention only one or two things (at most) that you do like about it; and rather than hold out hope for the title's future, instead express resignation that the title was a missed opportunity and should be well forgotten.

So CA and/or SEGA can blame themselves for a lot of this, imo, because of Rome 2. The fallout from that was just too big, coming on the heels of the botched ETW release, the anger over NTW being seen as a rebranded ETW expansion that did not fix ETW's problems, and the shortcomings of Attila. Shogun 2 repaired things to quite a degree, but it was still a polarizing title, because of the single culture map and such. Many fans were looking for a "Med 3" or "ETW done right" aka ETW 2, and instead they get the announcement of new "Saga titles."

CA meanwhile had some disgruntled people, over corporate bs: Darren was a one-time employee of CA, and LegendofTotaWar had beefs with CA when 2018 started, for example.

Darren had arguably been hired by CA to get him to stop making negative impressions as an influencer, in the time of Wrath of Sparta and Empire Divided. Darren was already getting very critical and had a meh attitude about their new content. So when he finds himself not employeed by CA just about a year later, ToB is sitting there as the obvious target to focus fire on.

It isn't going to help your new game's release cycle when big community influencers have an axe to grind with the development studio.

Then there is a cascade effect: a big Youtuber like LegendofTotalWar makes a Top 5 Worst TW list video - with ToB being the #1 spot - so then guys with much less subscribers and viewers, like Melkor, ape him with their own Top 5 videos, essentially parroting what he says.

If the big influencers all "agree" that "ToB is the worst entry," then littler guys get "free" credibility if they agree as well. Bandwagon effect.

Meanwhile, CA brings a lot of this on themselves yet again, because of the impression that is given. So look at CodyBonds or LionHeart, for example: fairly big TW YouTubers who have positive things to say about ToB...but CA does sit downs with them and invites them to events...this gave an impression to many viewers that these guys were brown nosing or whatever. All this did was make the "we all acknowledge that ToB is worst in series" crowd look more like the "dedicated base." So it's a self-feeding cycle.

[easytarget]

If I were CA I wouldn't spend much time worrying about it. It's just in the nature of things with PC games there will be people who want to whine. If you took any of it to heart you'd go mad and stop making games.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by easytarget:

If I were CA I wouldn't spend much time worrying about it. It's just in the nature of things with PC games there will be people who want to whine. If you took any of it to heart you'd go mad and stop making games.

Yeah I picture a SEGA exec speaking in an Uhtred voice: "Pre-Order Sales is all."

XD

[Elliott]

I think Saga games are a great but they are smaller and more focused games, people who want medieval 3 or empire 2 are not going to find what they want because its not a full epic scope historical total war game. The last game we got of that scope was Attila and even then you could see that as a large expansion that details the end of the period that was covered in Rome 2 similar to Shogun 2 and Fall of the Samurai.

So really the last brand new full on epic scope historical game was Rome 2 which came out nearly 7 years ago... yikes!

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Elliott:

I think Saga games are a great but they are smaller and more focused games, people who want medieval 3 or empire 2 are not going to find what they want because its not a full epic scope historical total war game. The last game we got of that scope was Attila and even then you could see that as a large expansion that details the end of the period that was covered in Rome 2 similar to Shogun 2 and Fall of the Samurai.

So really the last brand new full on epic scope historical game was Rome 2 which came out nearly 7 years ago... yikes!

Yeah pretty much. Attila is basically BI, and ToB is the new generation's VI, so that leaves Rome 2.

[Keefyfingers]

Im really sad to see CA's next title will be a fantasy setting. I really hope they will do an American Civil War title in the future.

[easytarget]

What title are you referring to?

[Protagoras]

Some people raged about the campaign mechanics on their YT channels, the auto resolve guy

Anyway, the battles are great. My only complaint about ToB is the turn times. They take forever. I can overlook the easier campaigns, cause I play TW for the battles. One more time, auto resolve guy <3

Please CA, better turn times for ToB.

[ChaataiKhan]

I think best 0f total war after Shogun 2 's. I have palyed 86 hours. If this game would Med 3, I would play probobly 1500 hours. This is a mini game faction-culture lack. I love eleemnts of gameplay adn realism.