General discussion thread for anything even remotely related to the the Total War games.
What you'd like to see in future titles, epic battles, mods, etc.
I'll start with a mod. Did I ever mention I like mods?
Third Age: Total War
It's a total conversion for Medieval 2: Total War Kingdoms situated in Middle-Earth. In other words, it's basically Lord of the Rings: Total War.
It's very very extensive, and I can personally vouch for the quality of it. I won't go too much more into detail in this post, but the main features as well as download links can be found in the main thread on their forums, which is linked below.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=253976
That mod was very easy. I played quite far with Misty Mountain Orcs (not among the strongest factions) and never really got into any trouble. My brother also played couple of different races and confirmed my feelings. The quality is very good though and the map is good as well. That would be great mod to play in multiplayer campaign mode but it's too bad Medieval doesn't have one.
As you saw I posted this in the Napoleonic Wars thread. But I figured I should post it here too. I'd like to see this in a Medieval III Total War.
That you can found your own cities.
Having a council that gives you missions is optional.
I'd like it if you could build the cities yourself so that they were different from one another.
More control over trade fleets and trade in general. And putting that more in focus that you might need to acquire specific objects through trade to reach your goals.
Also, when you conquer cities from other countries, you can 'steal' their technology.
Perhaps they could implement more characters like they have in the expansion pack in Medieval II, where Britain gets King Richard Lionheart, etc, and that characters such as these can influence battles and public opinion of you. Also it would be great with more 'local' soldiers to certain cities and places, like Sherwood Archers.
It would also be nice that not all games ended up the same, that it would be possible to change the world in more ways. That what you do might have more impact...
I'd also love if they made a new Rome Total War, as that and Medieval are the ones I've liked the best so far.
(03-08-2010 08:51 AM)Nate Wrote: [ -> ]That you can found your own cities.
That would be an interesting feature, but I don't really see how it would fit in. There is something similar to it in Empire, but that's more like villages or towns. And you don't found them yourself
(03-08-2010 08:51 AM)Nate Wrote: [ -> ]Having a council that gives you missions is optional.
Aren't the quests optional to do already? There's no punishment for failing to do them, right?
I also believe there are no such councils in Empire.
(03-08-2010 08:51 AM)Nate Wrote: [ -> ]I'd like it if you could build the cities yourself so that they were different from one another.
How do you mean? The siege map? The selection of buildings? The one in the campaign map?
(03-08-2010 08:51 AM)Nate Wrote: [ -> ]More control over trade fleets and trade in general. And putting that more in focus that you might need to acquire specific objects through trade to reach your goals.
You have a lot more control over trade in Empire, and trade in general is a much more important aspect of your economy than it was in Medieval.
(03-08-2010 08:51 AM)Nate Wrote: [ -> ]Also, when you conquer cities from other countries, you can 'steal' their technology.
That could work if it only applied to capitals or the last city of a faction.
(03-08-2010 08:51 AM)Nate Wrote: [ -> ]Perhaps they could implement more characters like they have in the expansion pack in Medieval II, where Britain gets King Richard Lionheart, etc, and that characters such as these can influence battles and public opinion of you. Also it would be great with more 'local' soldiers to certain cities and places, like Sherwood Archers.
Personally, I wouldn't enjoy characters like that, as I prefer moulding my own generals and such. But that's just a matter of taste. Local soldiers are already kinda in (barely), and I wouldn't expect much more of those. They would hog too much resources that the devs could spend elsewhere.
What I'd personally like to see in future Medieval titles is basically some of the improvements seen in Empire (especially the way you restore regiments to their full strength) plus some improvements to the AI and AI-related stuff. I especially find the pathfinding and hunting down fleeing troops very messy. And not in a good way. I've had hundreds of cavalry units struggle to take down ten fleeing infantry units, which is kind of funny to look at in fast forward, but also very frustrating.
Blank maps where you can Distribute factions, or even custom factions for which you picked a few special units, specialties and names. MP Campaign.
Aren't there historic figures in Empire already too. I think Prussia for example starts with Leibniz. I'm sure there are others in game too.
A Medieval with a better siegs system
It's frustrating trying to deploy your troops in a city, especially large groups.
AI also sucks at it, to be frank, and thus seems to get unfair advantages(count the amount of times your siege goes up in flames compared to their siege).
Also, I'd like for it to be more feasibly to work through diplomacy and trade. When I tried to make The Merchant Nation of Venice people jumped me within a few rounds without my troops even coming near their borders.
(03-08-2010 02:52 PM)TGC Wrote: [ -> ]Blank maps where you can Distribute factions, or even custom factions for which you picked a few special units, specialties and names. MP Campaign.
Custom factions would be awesome, but that sounds more like something someone would make in a mod. Also, MP campaign. Can't believe I forgot to mention that
MP campaign is a must!
(03-08-2010 09:47 PM)apo Wrote: [ -> ]Aren't there historic figures in Empire already too. I think Prussia for example starts with Leibniz. I'm sure there are others in game too.
There are quite a lot, yeah. But I generally don't use them, rather preferring to hire new generals in their 20s so that I have time to turn them into custom-tailored killing machines before they die from old age.
(03-08-2010 11:35 PM)Unahim Wrote: [ -> ]A Medieval with a better siegs system
It's frustrating trying to deploy your troops in a city, especially large groups.
AI also sucks at it, to be frank, and thus seems to get unfair advantages(count the amount of times your siege goes up in flames compared to their siege).
Also, I'd like for it to be more feasibly to work through diplomacy and trade. When I tried to make The Merchant Nation of Venice people jumped me within a few rounds without my troops even coming near their borders.
It is indeed frustrating trying to place your troops among buildings. I noticed it had gotten better in Empire, so it's probably all but fixed in Napoleon. I think it's a safe bet that it would be a lot less painful in Medieval 3 if it ever comes.
I never noticed an unfair advantage on the AI's part, but I generally don't notice things like that
And I agree with the diplomacy thing. As I mentioned, one of the greatest improvements in Empire as opposed to Medieval 2 is the diplomacy system.
Would anyone be willing to try Third Age: Total War? I know some of you have tried it before, but there have been a few patches since then. And I don't play Silvan Elves any more, Una
Seems like Empire is a better game than my first impression was of it. Maybe I should try it one more time. Anyway, about founding your own cities, it's something which would be interesting, because it could change everything for you. Maybe the storyline (if they worked on that. For instance in Medieval, if you play England, and you quit and do it again, it's practically identical. It would be great if what you did affected more how the game developed. I don't know how they would implement this, but it would be awesome if they did), and sometimes it would be practical with a new castle between those mountains, or a city closer to another city if distances are great.
Well, the council and the missions, you're right, you can choose not to do them. And the repercussions for not doing them aren't all that, but it's annoying to get missions from a council, from the pope, from some random guild in southern france when I'm the sole ruler of an Empire. When you don't do them they get mad at you, and I don't know if the happiness in your settlements reduces if you don't do them, or if it's just the pope's missions that are mandatory (I never do them though, except for the occasional build a church or recruit a priest missions), but still! In that age a king was second only to God! --- But it's not that big a deal. They can be interesting from time to time. I haven't decided yet about this, because you brought up a good point. One which I do automatically already; I choose not to do them.
What I meant about building your own cities is that you can build it from scratch. This should be optional, like you can still just click on "I want this building in my city" and it will appear, and every city will be identical, or you can choose a more Caesar III-ish way of building. I'd absolutely love a game if they combined the way you build cities in Caesar III with the map and battles of Total War games. These customized cities could therefore be more unique, and perhaps some cities that are already on the map (like London) have their own specific buildings, like The Tower. And it would be great if not all cities could have the same buildings. Like Toledo in the center of Spain in Medieval shouldn't have a dock, in my honest opinion, unless this was normal practice in ancient times...
About the trade thing in Empire, I didn't get to try it very much, but it seems cool. It would be great though, in Medieval, that you could actually create your own trade fleet and it was a more important feature in the game.
Stealing technology; I guess you're right Verret. But it would be logical, wouldn't it? That if you conquer a spanish city with a dockyard (assuming that the spaniards had some specific technology not available for the english) you could steal their seafaring technology and bring it back to London and use it there.
I agree that it is awesome to make your own generals etc. For instance when Admiral Toby discovered America. Great! But I still think, that if you did the right thing and not the previous king died before he had a son, that characters such as Richard Lionheart would bring interesting flavor to the story. Of course, this is part of what I want when I say that what you do should influence the stories. If you use the king in battle and he dies before he has a son, you wouldn't get Richard Lionheart, etc. But perhaps just a random general later whom you can make a hero on your own.
And yes, general AI improvement would be great. But then again, you could say that for about any game on earth.
What are some good mods for Medieval II Vanilla and Kingdoms, Third Age aside? I've recently 'acquired' it and am getting bored of vanilla and of THAT DAMNED POPE who keeps telling me to stop attacking Denmark and Portugal, while they attacked first.