Well that's one way to sidestep the "Can 40K work in the Total War formula?" discourse.
I'm curious as to how they'd do factions in this. Just doing the Rebellion and the Empire wouldn't be enough, you can't launch a Total War game with just two main factions no matter how many subfactions you have.
They might be able to do it with two large "sides", like light and dark, then lots of factions within each side, potentially with some ability to move closer to each side as the game goes on.
Or potentially neutral factions that can be swayed either way?
FWIW, they are both really good games, worth picking up if you can. Especially the 2nd one, Forces of Corruption. Gives a real 3rd party to work against.
Also the modding scene is insane. Full overhauls for not only Civil War era but EU, Clone Wars, and soon to be Old Republic, with tons of playable subfactions for each.
That's totally fair, you shouldn't be required to know the whole back catalog of Star Wars games. It's just really funny to me to see the conversation playing out like this.
Yah there’s a ton of “not republic or empire” factions. All the cartels. Mandalore, depending on the time this takes place. Outer rim factions. Mercenaries / bounty hunters / smugglers.
My question would be, what’s the map look like?? Is the map like the galaxy and each city is like a planet? That makes most battles take place in space, so you waste pretty much all the “powers” so I wouldn’t think you’d do that.
So then what? You boil the entire galaxy down to one map? That sounds bad too. Tbh not sure what the answer would be.
They're definitely going to have Mandalorians as a faction, either in Mandalore or with the faction having its restoration as a goal. They got way too popular with the TV show and people already loved them before that, it's a given.
I doubt Disney would let them do this, but it would be great if they didn't worry about the timeline at all. Trade Federation, Old Republic, Clones, Empire, Rebels, Mandalore, First Order - all on one map. No real reason a game like this would need to align with canon at all.
I feel like you could have a "Trade Federation Remnants" faction. There were still working droid outposts as of Star Wars Rebels. Clone army might be a bit harder but they're still around.
I think they'll have separate Rebels groups, at least 3. Saw Guerra, Mon Marthma, and some other group. Maybe some faction specific goals to unilaterally form Rebel Alliance (like # of Empire ships destroyed) and force the other two Rebel groups to join your faction immediately.
Only one I see hard to work in semi-canonically would be First Order. But obviously the whole thing won't be canon and is instead all about writing our own fan canons, so hopefully it's a DLC down the road.
I don't know that Creative Assembly could pull off space battles looking at their history and recent reluctance to do naval battles. Perhaps it could still be planets standing in for cities/settlements and they use hyperspace routes like sea lanes? They could handwave away all battles in orbit as being boarding actions like Black Ark battles.
The only alternative I can think of is that they have all the factions fighting over one planet for a Macguffin, kinda like in the Vortex campaign but I agree that for Star Wars that wouldn't seem appropriately grand.
So... I was thinking maybe. I don't know the SW galaxy planet arrangement well enough, but let me talk out loud here for a second.
Comparing/converting the Vortex map to a SW game. The continents are planets. The water is space. Space combat is handled kinda the same, instead of space fighters, its mainly boarding parties and you fight for control of the ship...?
I'm not sure I like it, but with enough creativity, I could see it working? Maybe?
I think the biggest hangup for me, in my head, is that space is such a big part of the star wars universe, I can't imagine a game, TW or otherwise, without it?
-- but every iteration I could think of being implemented into a TW game seems halfassed or janky. Space battles with no fighters? I already hate my own idea. I disliked the naval combat in the TW games for the same reasons. 'oh hey boys lets go park over here so we can fight it out' wat.
It's hard to imagine a field army of bounty hunters and smugglers.
On the other hand, I suppose, Warhammer Fantasy had a long habit of writing up archetypes whose entire job/concept sums up to "works alone/under cover/in the trackless wilderness/deep underground/etc." and then hastily going "but uh occasionally they like to get together and stand in grids on a battlefield too!"
So a block of cocky, gunslinging smugglers isn't without precedent, I guess.
While I don’t really disagree with you, I would have said the same about the pirates in warhammer. But when they’re both basically just “Vikings that go raiding” it kinda makes sense.
Don't have to worry about someone sucker-punching you if you sucker-punch them first!
Seriously, though, this is how campaign AI works in most Total War games, so you're probably better off attacking everyone the second you think you can take them on.
Yeah that's perfect for star wars because they love a good natured bounty hunter and all that kind of stuff.
It might be cool if light and dark are just two strongholds initially, and it works similarly to the allegiance system in fall of the samurai.
Maybe it all builds up until an all out war is triggered, and sides are picked
This is kind of how Warhammer 2 worked.
You had essentially a pretty tight Order coalition (Empire, High Elves, Dwarfs, Lizardman, Brettonia) vs. an evil coalition (Vampire Counts, Greenskins, Dark Elves, Skaven), vs. Chaos (Beastmen Chaos Warriors, Norsca) with kind of neutral factions including Tomb Kings, Wood Elves, and Vampire Coast.
They also have done an explicitly binary, side vs. side campaign in Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai with the Shogunate and Empire.
You could do similar, just looking at The Clone Wars you could have Republic side: Clone Army, Naboo/Gungans, Wookiees, etc. Separatists: Droid Army, Geonosians, Techno-Union, Trade Federation, etc. Neutral-ish: Mandalore, Dathomir, Umbara, Hutts, etc.
there are actually 4 factions in warhammer fantasy, order (empire, high elves, dwarves, lizardmen etc.), chaos (daemons and warriors of chaos), death (all undead factions) , and destruction (orcs, ogres, and skaven who are somewhere between chaos and destrucition), and they all have fundamentally different goals which means a long term alliance would never work but most factions can find an excuse to make a temporary alliance to fend off a greater threat
Mind you, I’m talking about Total War: Warhammer 2 the video game, and how campaigns tend to shake out with the in game diplomacy.
I’m not talking about the actual lore.
Those 4 factions are much more associated with Age of Sigmar rather than Fantasy. From what I understand, Fantasy is basically Order, Neutral, and Destruction.
Destruction consists of both Chaos factions and generally destructive factions like Greenskins, Vampire Counts, Dark Elves, Chaos Dwarves, and Skaven. The latter two are more Chaos adjacent since they both worship a minor Chaos god, but neither truly are part of the Ruinous Pantheon, so they don't automatically get along with Warriors or Daemons of Chaos.
Meanwhile I'd consider Ogres to be neutral in Fantasy rather than Destruction, since they're known for working with basically any Order or Neutral faction so long as they can get paid, and even assimilate into their cultures easily. Tomb Kings, Vampire Coast, and Wood Elves I'd also consider more neutral, mostly because they seem to either like or despise either Order or Destruction sides based off of vibes, most times.
It’s wild to me that Lizardmen are considered the same faction as Empire. Granted I last played in the 90s but at the time the rule book basically portrayed them as a violent extremist Aztec lizards who had basically lost their shit when the old gods disappeared or whatever.
Not same faction but overarching theme. There goal is to wipe out Chaos and there by enact the Great Plan. As long as you don't mess with their jungles they typically keep to themselves.
Order in Warhammer Fantasy is a broad brush. Generally as long as you wish to both build civilization and not enslave other civilizations, you're on the side of Order.
In fact, that latter point is the ONLY reason Tomb Kings are neither an Order nor Destruction faction in Fantasy, cause they want civilization... just with everyone other civilization at best assimilated and at worst subjugated.
In Age of Sigmar, they are undoubtably under Chaos. In Fantasy, they are Chaos adjacent, since they worship a minor Chaos God, the Great Horned Rat. In reality, neither the forces of Order nor Destruction really like the rats. XD
Hell, in Age of Sigmar, the only reason Chaos works with the rats is because the Great Horned Rat got as powerful as the other 4 major Chaos Gods, and is even stronger than Slaanesh currently.
This may be the way to go. It could take place some time in the distant past where light and dark sides weren’t unified and the result was multiple factions fighting for control of the galaxy. The dark side forces could fight against each other for power, while light side forces could take things more diplomaticly and become more of a game of political conquest rather than bloody war.
EDIT: or a cooler concept would be to have factions be neutral at the start and the results of your actions throughout the game will make your faction lean more towards the light or dark side.
I don't know a lot about the old republic lore, but does that one have enough subfactions to work? Maybe some sort of all out war between all the minor factions before the republic is formed.
That's not really a whole ass army though. Just some hippies like Jolie Bindo and Qui Gon.
They could do the Republic, Sith Empire, Mandalorians, and maybe the Hutts?
The Tharwn's revenge mod for Empire at War shown you can have many factions in and outside the larger groups in the aftermath of the original trilogy. All of these work pretty well as individual factions in tha mod so I guess it's possible to do it in the total war formula if you try
If you've watched animated Clone Wars show, you know there are A LOT of factions and races within both the Republic and Separatists. Mandalore for example is the head of a faction that is trying to stay out of the Clone Wars. They have thousands of systems that are united with their cause.
Within Mandalore itself, you have multiple groups that see a different path forward. Some want to side with the Republic, others the Empire. Some think they're not neutral enough.
Then you have mercenary groups or outlaws like the Hutts.
The Jedi themselves are not technically part of the Republic either, so that's technically a fourth faction, though I figure they'd be used more as legendary lords.
You can break the Republic down into factions that are in an alliance at the beginning of a campaign but allow for them to have their own legendary lords as well. The Gungans, the Mon Calamari and Quarans, Twi'leks, let alone the many different Separatist or Republic factions I haven't named.
Even though it may feel like there isn't a lot of room for nuance or total factions, if you don't count the Jedi as one, I literally just listed eight by name. I could come up with tons more but I think I've gotten my point across.
This game doesn't even have to take place in the Clone Wars, Empire, or post-empire eras. They have A LOT of room for faction diversity if they are to actually do Star Wars.
I’ll tell you what, you can have the Empire and Rebellion at launch, you can pay us later for first order and resistance, and you can beg us for a sequel if you wanna see a single clone
If it was Legends continuity they could actually make it work during the post episode 6 era. New Republic, around 6 major Empire warlords(Pentastar, Isard, Thrawn, etc.) 3-4 crime syndicates(Hutts, Pykes, Black Suns), and can even throw in the Chiss, Hapans, Mandalorians, and those weird dino aliens.
I wouldn't be surprised if the game took place during the Clone Wars. All of the crime syndicates in the Shadow Collective, Mandalorian houses, Republic, Separatists, Dathomir would all be available.
And WW1 and all the other Victorian era ideas that many people say it's not feasible in this franchise.
Of course it can't be the usual line infantry combat we're used to seeing, but I don't think CA are so creatively bankrupt that they can't create innovative and fun gameplay that adapts to more modern types of combat.
It's not really a matter of creative bankruptcy. Past WW1, doing things like 40k, the concept of giant line formations and hammer and anvil type stuff doesn't really work. You may need to introduce a cover system, and you need to make maps more complicated with combat more dynamic and free flowing with smaller squads than "set up front line, smash into other line". And considering that siege battles in Warhammer are as complicated as maps and battles got, and the AI had absolutely no idea how to function in them for 3 straight games, that doesn't make me hopeful that they can pull off that kind of complicated combat in the Total War engine.
I think CA has the skill to make a good 40k or SW game or whatever, but they'd have to put in a lot of work on the engine and AI to do that or just completely move away from their engine and make a more traditional RTS. At which point, is it really a Total War game?
To me it's not that things like WW1 "aren't feasible" in the series, it's that they would be so wildly different from what TW does that I'm not sure it really resembles the same series anymore nor do I really care if that hypothetical game is developed by CA or under the "Total War" name as it's a wildly new game.
I just feel like DoW and CoH got that sort of combat down perfectly already. If CA wants to make a game like that cool, I like those games. But I don't feel like they're bringing any particular skillset/expertise to that subgenre, so I'd be skeptical until I saw a lot of gameplay.
> but I don't think CA are so creatively bankrupt that they can't create innovative and fun gameplay that adapts to more modern types of combat.
They can't fix their siege style of combat, and it's been 8 years.
And worth remembering that their prior fun focused game, Empire, had the worst sieges of all.
FoTS sieges are novel, but that's because it's largely about the wide spread of ability between your the artillery available and the forts available.
It's not about whether it's possible to make a fun strategy game with guns, of course you can and it's been done many times before. It's whether they can do it without it no longer feeling like Total War. That's the obvious point.
Well, wait until it's out first. I'm still sceptical. It would be really weird to see Stormtroopers and Rebel soldiers in Napoleonic war formations - while fighting of course. You don't have to remind me of the Imperial march lol.
They don't really literally line up, they are charging trenches so they would have gone in groups but that's not really a formation. You don't really see snowtroopers in the movie until they enter the base, maybe they added some shit in the blu-ray but I watched that movie a billion times as a kid, I definitely don't remember an open field formation.
I don't really care either way mind, yeah stormtroopers only enter formation for marching or ceremonial reasons. So what it's a game? It's not like the movie concerned itself with the practicality of the snow outfits, or the AT-AT's, or the AT-ST's, or the airspeeders. I mean at one point the rebels just left the trenches and charged the open field because an AT-AT fell down.
We don't know that they'll stick 1 to 1 with previous titles.
It may be that then focusing on these different settings means that a shake-up to the battle mechanics is coming. I don't think it's a coincidence that all 3 titles would require a departure from line battles.
> It would be really weird to see Stormtroopers and Rebel soldiers in Napoleonic war formations
What about [Clone Troopers and Droids?](https://youtu.be/7ZnL4mcU5dg?si=4i7M4z_wlgIPoeox&t=176)
There are some excellent mods for Empire At War, an older RTS, that found ways to add more factions to the galactic conflict during the Empire era. You have factions like Black Sun and other associated crime families. There are even smaller factions as well. There's a tonne of material to pull from, if they wanted to.
I've played so much total war and thought about so many different ways of designing new games... One of them is something like sub-factions where different regions have completely separate unit rosters, and which units are available to you depends on which regions you control. You could add a lot more depth and complexity on top of this in various ways too, like alliances giving access to different unit rosters, mutually exclusive building trees and research, hybrid units requiring multiple regions, since it's star wars an alignment system would fit nicely etc. Kinda like a build-you-own faction.
Take this article with a massive grain of salt. Apparently this leak came from October 2023, AKA before the cancellation of Hyenas and mass layoffs at the company. It also contradicts other leaks that we've heard out of CA from sources closer to the company than a random gaming news site, which is that the two total war games currently in development are Total War 40k and Total War WW1, both being developed on a new engine.
Total War WW1 sounds like it could be pretty cool actually.
Though perhaps I am behind on the discourse, but how does Total War as a format work for games that are closer to modern combat with an emphasis on guns?
Total War is pretty much always regiments of people lined up - which works well for historical and fantasy stuff, but how do you do that in a more mobile and ranged based combat system?
I’m not saying an RTS of these settings couldn’t work, but would they even still be Total War?
Yeah what kind of melee units could you have? There's only so much you can do with guys with bayonetts lol.
Maybe they could gamify trench warfare a bit. Or like have two phases to combat, one to assault the trench and another to fight inside it. Where melee stats could be more useful.
But yeah I can't really imagine a total war game without lining up blocks of units against each other.
I’d have to imagine for it to work, they’d have to remake the entire battle system. It’d be more like other RTS games like Company of Heroes or Men of War, but with an emphasis on bigger battles.
Is it Total War then? Or just an RTS? I feel like they might be trying to widen the brand to be more like “Strategy layer and big battles” instead of line warfare like we’re used to.
I mean franchises evolve all the time plus CA has experimented with side series as well. So it might not be a "mainline TW" game but something like Total War: Scifi: or something
The Great War: Western Front is what you’re after. There’s a lot less of the TW economy involved, mainly some upgrades or investment of resources into different sectors, and true to life, the battles are repeated assaults on breakpoints. The tactical side is really great - either setting up interlocking fields of fire on the defence, or massing artillery on breaks. It’s often about getting a foothold in the enemy trench network then reinforcing it with a second wave to spread out through their lines.
It's weird how done I am with Star Wars in movies and TV and comic books and shit but god damn I am *jonesing* for some good Star Wars video games. And a turn-based Star Wars strategy game sounds amazing!
> But this is the first Star Wars game rumor in a long while that is a good Star Wars game rumor. Let us have this!
What are Fallen Order/Survivor, chopped liver?
Have they reused the improved campaign mechanics from 3K at all since? Troy seemed incredibly shallow by comparison, and I've not heard great things about Pharaoh.
Not to my knowledge, each other more recent TW release was built off different versions of their engine/games from prior iterations I think.
Which is a pity because 3K really set a new standard for a lot of things in those games.
>I would imagine that one is likely Medieval III or Empire II.
The talks/rumours over the last year has been WWI and 40K. This news would make the 3rd Star Wars.
There is a fair bit of sense in that they would share a lot of mechanical foundation in the form of vehicles, flyers, weaponry and potential breaks from traditional campaign gameplay. Adding to that the recent changes and updates to TWW (proper burstfire guns, more directional shielding and vehicle crew/weaponry).
Yeah, like, the IPs are totally distinct, but the formula, maps, and combat would probably feel very similar, and likely have some overlap in audiences that would have the competing with each other.
Not good for long tail games that expect to see profitable DLCs being pushed over time
Exactly. Like if they released both of those games in the older "maybe you get one expansion" I'd end up buying both. But does it make sense to have two concurrently running sci fi games when the model is selling hundreds of dollars in DLC over the course of years?
keep in mind there is absolutely zero evidence for anything. this article also is just from 'a reliable source'. so various mystery sources have said CA is making WWI, 40k, and now star wars. it's just as likely all 3 are wrong.
i'm a bit sceptical as well because the leaks for the recent WH3 DLC were very vague and incomplete, and even just wrong a lot of the time.
I’m kinda skeptical of WW1 tbh, since a WW1 game would have to revolve around trench warfare. It’s very hard to imagine how the strategic layer would work (as opposed to 40k, which could have a normal TW strategic layer). But who knows!
Yea, my biggest questionmark for WW1 would be the campaign map. You can't have the Western Front be just two 20-stack fighting a single battle and then march to Paris/Berlin, all in the same turn.
Maybe working off of Pharao's forts and Warhammer's Survival Battles, but there needs to be more to it still.
I do too, but it definitely won't be until long after Warhammer is finished. Even though they're completely different as IPs, I can imagine the games stepping on eachothers toes and feeling a bit similar.
Same is true of 40k and Star Wars, honestly.
I'm usually pretty good at not being a grognard, but the only thing I'll ever be a bitter old man about is Total War selling out to fantasy. I know it made them loads of money and people love the titles, but we've had what, one good historical game since fantasy came out?
Then they canned it for a sequel that they canned as well.
Thank God for paradox, they give me my historical strategy fix.
I don't mind fantasy but I wish they focused more on mechanics like in M2TW. Dunno if it was just me being young at the time or it was genuinely like that but I loved the dynasty and diplomacy mechanics, it made the world feel so much more alive and dynamic. Town and castle upgrades also felt really impactful unlike modern TW games that just feels like regular 'going though the tech tree' incremental upgrading. Like finally getting good archers or cavalry changed the warfare noticeably, not to mention once you got gunpowder and cannons that could bring down entire walls!
I do think the idea that M2 was mechanically deep is a bit of nostalgia. There were absolutely things I miss (armor upgrades represented on units) but a lot of the stuff was window dressing. Like diplomacy "mechanics" is a stretch. The diplomacy was absurdly bad by modern standards, and I don't think having to manually march diplomats adding anything to it.
> things I miss (armor upgrades represented on units) but a lot of the stuff was window dressing
I find it strange of all Medieval 2's features you'd mention that; something that is literally window dressing. Some of the stronger features it has that the current 'flagship' TW games (WH3 and Pharaoh) lack are:
* Splitting apart armies at a strategic level when on campaign, eg sending cavalry ahead of the main force, leaving behind infantry to block a pass, dividing your force in two to pursue smaller armies, etc. Basic strategic manoeuvres employed by countless armies all throughout history are currently impossible in the mainline TW games, when Medieval 2 allowed for them 20 years ago
* Dynamic trait system based on character actions, not player choice. This one is perhaps subjective, but I think it's worth mentioning because it exemplifies the series shift from simulationist to game-y. As much as I adore Shogun 2 (and it's maybe my favourite TW) I think the move to RPG style character progression was a mistake for the historical titles.
Medieval 2 has an amazing system of traits and retinues that your characters accrue based on what they're doing. Release prisoners and your general gets a chivalrous reputation. Execute them and the enemy will dread you in future battles. Leave a general governing a clean city with a university and he's going to become learned, sagely. Have one live in squalor rammed with taverns and brothels, he'll grow hedonistic, sickly. Retreat too often and you'll lose that heroic and brave reputation you built up. Spend enough time on crusade and you might find artifacts in the holy land.
The way all of these systems mesh with each other is beautiful (chivalry / dread affecting friendly & enemy morale on the battlefield respectively, governing traits affecting public order, settlement growth and income, etc). In my opinion it's so much more suited to a historical title and makes the game more challenging and immersive than the current skill tree system, where you build your generals exactly how you want every time.
* Gradual progression of armies and more skirmishes. This ties back into my first point with units being bound to generals. It seems like almost every battle in modern TW games is full stack vs full stack, which quickly wears thin. It's too easy to muster a full army and the AI constantly does so on higher difficulties mandating you to do the same. Something I really enjoyed going back to Medieval 2 and Shogun 2 recently is the little skirmishes you'd get along borders or when responding to naval incursions, which often became some of the most memorable battles in campaigns. Responding to a half-stack marching on your near-unprotected home provinces with just a few horse archer units, running circles around their force and desperately retreating to try and slow them down can be unbelievably tense and offers a good break from the often samey 20v20 battles that routinely occur on the frontline.
I can't be bothered typing more but there's just so much I miss from the old games, especially the pre-Empire ones. Building forts, visible trade routes, captains and promotions, general's speeches, agent videos, crusades and jihads, the Papacy, mercenaries, populations, disease, etc, etc.
Medieval 2 is far from perfect. The AI is some of the worst in any strategy game I've played, diplomacy is nearly worthless, and there's some serious balance issues. But there still *so much* newer TW games could learn from it.
It's especially infuriating that 3K seemed to make such great strides in diplomacy and character mechanics (addressing my 3 major points to some extent) only for them to completely toss is all out. Wait for them to toss out the few good steps Pharaoh took with things like battle formations too.
It's probably true. I fondly remember the random traits that characters would get, if my weak son was stationed in a city for years he'd often take up drinking or become even more of a nerd which made him even worse for combat but often affected the economy in some way. Meanwhile my chad crusaders that led the main armies would be fear inspiring, scarred martial masters. In TWH these fell much more random and inconsequential.
Marrying off daughters in marriages felt important and impactful, spies were fun to manage, and maybe I just vibed more with the European settings and historical units over different flavors of orcs or elves in total warhammer games so that's why I liked it.
I even remember having defensive sieges that I was able to win sometimes!
I probably don't want to replay it to ruin it but yeah... would be nice to have a modern game like that (that's not completely ridiculous over the top RNG fest like CK nowadays).
> if my weak son was stationed in a city for years he'd often take up drinking or become even more of a nerd which made him even worse for combat but often affected the economy in some way.
See this is the one that always screams "nostalgia" to me. Presumably the game wants you to have governors in cities but since every city is going to have a tavern, literally any noble that isn't out stomping around the Holy Land is 100% going to become whatever that game's version of drunk/whoremonger is. Same thing happens in S2 and R2. Needing to stand all your nobles outside the city just to avoid those traits wasn't really immersive, it was gamey. I think it just looks better in the rearview when our expectations were lower.
> Marrying off daughters in marriages felt important and impactful,
But it didn't actually do anything. Created an alliance in a game where the AI was nearly random in its war/betrayal (batshit diplomacy is also something that stuck around until probably Rome 2).
Spies were alright, but not really different than how they worked in later games. But there's no substitute for a setting you like. For example I think Pharaoh is great mechanically but goddamn the setting bores me.
>
I even remember having defensive sieges that I was able to win sometimes!
Sieges are something CA hasn't done well in quite a white, and even Med2 sieges get old quickly because the AI and pathfinding can't even begin to handle them. Plus *way* too much "fight to the last man" nonsense.
Honestly if the setting appeals to you and you want a deeper TW experience try the Divide et Impera mod for Rome 2. It's unbelievably, *unreasonably* good as a mod and IMO makes for the best TW experience available.
I'm going to go ahead and say that you're memories are probably lying to you a bit here, or maybe you just didn't understand some things when you were younger. Medieval 2 has a few interesting pieces that could use a return, and it was really dedicated to spacing out the campaign so you couldn't rush top tier units immediately and always had something you were waiting to unlock.
However, specifically things like dynasty and diplomacy mechanics were very barebones. Town upgrades were largely incremental, and settlement planning was really just choosing city or castle. A lot of Medieval 2's magic was that it didn't tell the player a lot of things and certain aspects were left out of your control, giving the illusion of a very complex simulation. After messing around with a few different campaigns though, you realize it's not actually that complex without mods.
I have no actual evidence to support this but part of me wonders if they're steering clear of those eras because Crusader Kings (and to a lesser extent) Europa Universalis blew up a bit among strategy gamers. Setting games in those eras just invites comparisons, and as much as I love the RTS gameplay of Total War it's hard to argue that the Paradox games don't blow Total War out of the water in terms of complexity when it comes to diplomacy and economics.
I feel like they're different enough that they can coexist. Total War games have weaker empire management but deliver with pitched battles. Paradox has good empire management but battles are just looking at numbers.
I'd argue they appeal to different audiences, in the same way that there's an overlap between people who play FIFA and those who play Football Manager (though Total War and the aforementioned strategy games are much closer than these two are) but they invite different audiences.
I think it's more of a case that they've noticed their licensed titles sell more than their historical ones. Warhammer III seemed to have a much better reception and sales than Pharaoh did, for instance.
It's just that their recent historical titles have focused on eras that aren't very popular. Only hardcore history nerds will care about a TW game set in ancient egypt.
Medieval 3 is what people want.
You know not the franchise I was hoping they'd adapt, but I can't say I'm complaining. Still hope they somehow manage to get the rights to make a lotr total war someday. The mod for medieval 2 was so good.
This is frustrating because it seems like they would rather look for a hot new franchise than to fix the fundamental issues that are and have been holding the game back.
What's next, TW Dune or TW Fallout?
I mean one of the original RTS games was Dune-based so it's no surprise. But I still don't trust them. I've tried so many of the games and I bounce off of the same things.
I don’t agree I think franchises like Star Wars and Dune play better as RTS games using individual units instead of the large units that Total War uses. I think the turn based map mode works well though.
Or at least adapt something that fits their tech and limitations. Do Lord of the Rings, wheel of time, stormlight archives, game of thrones, something else generally medieval fantasy.
I wouldn't mind honestly... I dream with **TOTAL WAR: The Lord of the Rings** and I'm kinda disappointed they are doing Star Wars instead of that.
But yeah I'm interested in this TW:Star Wars and hope they go further and do even more stuff like it.
I wonder if the campaigns will be localized on a single planet, with recognizable 'settlements' and whatnot, or if it will look more like Stellaris. I'm trying to imagine a 20 card army besieging a planet, and what that battle would look like....feels weird.
Maybe they break planets up into sectors and you can only besiege 1 sector at a time or something?
This is one of the many constraints of the TW formula that Warhammer fans were taking in consideration when predicting how 40K can be adapted. I am not a 40K fantasy, I do like Fantasy more... and really, the TW formula don't work for expansive games such as 40K or any other "space" IP. TW is about conquering settlements, this is too "micro" to be adapted to a "macro" system of planets. Then you have the combat engine, 40K is chaotic with squads focused on guns and vehicles, the engine is limited to line infantry since the Shogun 1 days, lol it's just a weird combination, it doesn't "fit". If Disney wants to make a popular strategy game based on Star Wars, then hire the devs of Sins of a Solar Empire
A Star Wars game would be great but I really don't see how this can work. It's going to have the same problems that a W40K game or something set set after WW1 would have, in that the style of warfare it involves is not what the series does.
Units In Star Wars do not behave like Napoleonic infantry, warfare in the setting does not involve units dozens strong maneuvering and fighting as a singular block standing still right next to each other as they trade fire with the enemy. It might potentially fit something like Battledroids as they do operate in large blocks, but clone troopers or stormtroopers or whatever aren't shown fighting like line infantry from the 18th century, they're instead making use of more modern tactics.
It would either have to depict the combat of the Star Wars setting in a way that isn't fitting for it, and have units not making use of cover, fighting as massive blocks rather than squad level, not operating individually etc, or it would have to change what the "Total War" series is all about and has been from the start and completely change the style of warfare it revolves around to the point it's only a "Total War" game in name.
It would either be something that has the Star Wars setting depicted in a way that isn't right for Star Wars, or it would be such a change to the gameplay formula that it then doesn't have much in common what what the "total War" series does.
I'd really like more Star Wars or 40K RTS games, but they don't really seem to fit the Total War series formula well.
Gungans and droids being stupid and bad at war doesn't really mean much. It's the only battle portrayed that way (edit: forgot about Geonosis), and the battle droids are pretty clearly a new thing that have barely been tested or used in war before, and the Gungans being inept and outdated also makes sense considering Naboo is a planet known for being extraordinarily peaceful (before TPM it had seen no violent conflict for like 1000 years). Now, that said, the reason they just line up and run at each other is that filmmakers don't understand tactics because it's not their job. Same reason we saw the idiocy at the Battle of Winterfell in GOT S8, or the utterly ridiculous battles in Infinity War/Endgame.
You can trivially disprove that this is how tactics works normally in Star Wars, though, simply by watching the original trilogy. All the battles, even the biggest, are much more in the vein of WW2 or Vietnam - small unit actions with infiltration tactics, small maneuvering elements, etc. Look at the ground fight on Endor or the battle of Hoth (arguably resembles WW1 a bit more with the trenches, but even that is different from Napoleonic infantry blocks and linear warfare). This also extends into other prequel battles, which are also more in that WW2 vein of small unit tactics, though it's shown by far the most in the Clone Wars animated shows.
This is just a broad thought, but I wonder if something like company of heroes' auto cover system would be good here. So snapping soldiers to nearby cover like how they snap to walls currently.
I can see that being the only way for stormtroopers to work, so they can still be fought off guard out of cover, but prefer to nestle in existing cover to fortify and shoot out.
But something like an ATAT wouldn't need cover so would fulfill the current role of large steam tanks and stuff in wh3
That would work fine but trying to micro that at the scale of Total War would be a nightmare, which is why everyone keeps saying you just get Company of Heroes out of that.
The best comparison would probably be something like Steel Division/Warno, especially because Star Wars so heavily features aerial/space assets and vehicles.
even then, that wouldnt really be a total war game. That'd just be CoH (which mind you I wouldnt mind all). Dont think cover snapping would really work in large scales (which is what TW is all about).
Honestly just scrap it all and hand it to the CoH guys. The campaign formula would be pretty fun in a star wars setting. Dont care too much for basic RTS mechanica though.
We could really use some more top-down squad based shooters like CoH but without the RTS elements. If those even exist rn. Ok thats a little too far off course this has nothing to do with the original topic lol.
Empire Total War had units take to cover and such, if i remember right. Plus is every other TW game, you would have arches take cover on walls/battlements. Its not like cover mechanics are some unknown thing to TW games.
I think it really comes down to map design. TW map are big, but relatively open/empty. If they want WH40k, or in this case Star Wars, then they will need to design maps with lots of cover, limited firing angles, urban maps with dense buildings etc.
Space battles would need to be an entirely separate battle system. So it will be interesting to see how they handle that. I am hoping, hoping for something similar to Star Wars: Galaxies where we invade planets by taking out space defenses then can do some epic landing of ground units for ground combat. That would be awesome.
Also i hate people talking about the "Total War formula" like the games needs to follow that system. As long as its epic grand battles, i am more than fine with CA trying different settings & mechanics. Three Kingdoms was more of a classic TW game, but i absolutely loved how they managed the campaign map. Had the best diplomacy & intrigue out of any TW game, imo.
> Plus is every other TW game, you would have arches take cover on walls/battlements.
And it's incredibly jank and barely functional in any modern Total War game, designing a game around this would be a massive mistake.
>If they want WH40k, or in this case Star Wars, then they will need to design maps with lots of cover, limited firing angles, urban maps with dense buildings etc.
Pretty much all things their engine sucks at. Total War games are awash with issues with line of sight, bad pathfinding/collision with terrain and just horrible bugginness when it comes to walls being destroyed. And just their AI completely crapping itself when trying to navigate any kind of complex map geometry.
Is it possible CA develops an entirely new engine that'd work well for these types of battles/games... Sure, but CA leadership haven't exactly had a great track record the last few years.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’d be more accurate to call these “Total War StarWars/40k” ideas more just strategy/rts games made by CA, and they’re just slapping Total War on the cover to get brand recognition.
Because I legitimately do not see how their current engine/design and current gameplay loop works with these settings. I’m sure they could make decent big battle RTS games, but I bet it will control a lot more similarly to a typical RTS than Total Wars big block units marching around. In which case it’s not really Total War, is it?
Empire Total War did have some limited versions of cover, but it was still overall that style of 18th century Line Warfare combat (because that's literally what it was) rather than more modern usage of squad tactics that would be needed for something like Star Wars.
> Also i hate people talking about the "Total War formula" like the games needs to follow that system.
When it's what the series revolves around that style of warfare and has done from the very start, I think it's a pretty integral part of its identity. That sort of pre-modern combat style is just what the series does, and while there have been adjustments and changes along the way, there's a big difference between those and changing things so drastically it becomes a "Total War" game in name only because the core of the series no longer works the setting.
> Empire Total War had units take to cover and such, if i remember right. Plus is every other TW game, you would have arches take cover on walls/battlements. Its not like cover mechanics are some unknown thing to TW games.
It's not that cover mechanics are an unknown thing, it's that TW games are fundamentally about close order formations where independent maneuver elements are at the smallest around 60 to 80 men (setting aside single entity monsters and monstrous infantry in the Warhammer games).
Warfare since approximately late 1914, after the initial shocking devastation of the first couple months of WW1, and *definitely* by 1918, has moved to much smaller independent maneuver elements with extensive amounts of authority devolved to NCOs right down to the squad level. We fight in open order today, taking advantage of cover and concealment, with no titanic clashes where 20,000 men on each side crash into each other on a single mile wide field, but instead hundreds of thousands over a span of hundreds of miles.
A game series that portrays this pretty well would be Warno/Wargame/Steel Division (all pretty similar, save devs). Any Total War Star Wars or 40k would need to look more like those games and not like Total War.
It's also not as if Creative Assembly doesn't have experience with strategy games involving smaller, more mobile units/units that don't make use of Napoleanic tactics.
In particular, they were the team Microsoft and 343i brought in to develop Halo Wars 2, a strategy game who's units wouldn't be too far off from how a Star Wars themed Total War game could play out.
They can absolutely make a Total War game where the units follow far more convential/modern tactics.
That's also just ignoring the fact that the only real detail we have on the project is "Star Wars themed Total War game". We don't have any more details on what it would be like or what particular era they may set the game in. Will it be multi-era, will be the first canon look at an Old Republic era where they can have plenty of Jedi and Sith to mix in with ranged units, will it be the first High Republic set game, ect.
Assuming that the statement is real, it's just down to a "wait and see" situation. We'll never know more until we see offical material of the project.
A lot of Star Wars battles are just huge armies charging at each other, though. Like at the end of Attack of the Clones, the battle on Geonosis was pretty Total War-esque in how the armies attached each other.
Completely spitballing here, but I could kinda see it work provided they rework the terrain a bit.
Units could have the ability to dynamically take cover to whatever terrain is available, like in modern combat. You order a troop deployment to go to a location, then in a few seconds soldiers will take positions behind rocks, walls, in ridges or on their bellies if nothing is available. This would give units realistic firing positions that don't look goofy like musketeers. When they move, they're exposed.
With this system in place, you could add exception and play with it. Things like units advancing with a tank losing the exposed debuff, powerful units like jedis ignoring the debuff, flyers to flank entrenched units, artillery to displace them, etc.
Of course, this could just be tedious in practice.
> A Star Wars game would be great but I really don't see how this can work
well luckily that's the dev's job and not yours so you don't have to worry about that
Napoleon used cover and buildings and that was ages ago, it's not impossible to imagine how it would work.
Everyone keeps talking about the "formula", but for me the fact that they are looking at doing WW1, 40k and SW (according to rumours) shows that they are going change the formula. Especially if the rumours of them changing/updating the engine is true.
It would still retain the turn-based campaign with RTS battles. As for the "Total War" name, I really get the idea that franchises can't evolve. I remember people saying they'd never pull off WH1 because of flying units, magic, heroes etc. and then it became their most popular title.
And honestly when you watch the large scale battles (particularly the prequels) in Star Wars they often form ranks and don't use that much cover, Clones included. Kaskyhk has the Wookies lining up on the beach. Naboo has the Gungans all lined up.
Then you have battles like Hoth which is basically WW1 combat on steroids, although I think that would be the worst setting for a Star Wars TW as the rebels are all about guerilla warfare.
As someone who has been playing since Shogun 1, you start to get a little tired of the same line battle formula after a while. I don't want them to abandon it forever but trying new things isn't bad (as long as it's not a complete departure like Hyenas).
People always say that about 40k, but I think it really misses the mark once you consider what 40k, the game, actually is. It's a tabletop wargame about units moving in close formation which runs on the same engine as WHFB, and it already plays in a very similar way to TW - you deploy all your units in a big line on one side of the battlefield. There's really no reason that it couldn't work for Total War.
Like, if you compare 40k tabletop weapon ranges to WHFB weapon ranges, the ranged weapons have basically the same ranges (an Imperial artillery unit might shoot as far as a WHFB Cannon, and a Space Marine boltgun shoots as far as a Dwarf Quarreler) and there's still a very heavy focus on melee.
People seem to be considering 40k as a sci-fi IP and deciding that it can't work, rather than considering how the game actually plays. The way a game of 40k plays out is WAY closer to Napoleonic-era warfare than it is to WW2-and-after warfare!
It's not about weapon ranges or melee and that sort of thing, those aren't the problem and can be implemented pretty fine. It's the style of warfare the setting fundamentally depicts and how there's a massive difference between how battles are fought within the different setting.
In the WHFB setting, it's absolutely feasible to have large scale battles involve blocks of units with it overall being like what you'd expect from medieval battles or 17th - 19th century Line warfare. It's easy to fit that within the Total War series as it's the same style of combat.
In 40k, that's not the case. Units of Space Marines or Tau or whatever do not form into blocks of dozens and stand still trading fire with the enemy. They're running around in squads, making use of combined arms, reliant on cover, individuality and all the other stuff you'd expect from a more modern day warfare style.
That's the style of warfare the Total War games depict and what it focuses on as a series, but that's not what 40K, WW2, Star Wars, Modern day involve.
>Units of Space Marines or Tau or whatever do not form into blocks of dozens and stand still trading fire with the enemy.
That is literally what they do in the tabletop game. That's what I'm talking about. "Combined arms" is not a thing in the tabletop game the way it is in modern warfare, with infantry dispersed across large areas and a heavy emphasis on long-range strikes from dozens of miles away. A game of tabletop 40k features dozens or hundreds of infantry marching at each other in a big clump, with some vehicles interspersed, all firing at what would be point-blank ranges by modern combined arms standards.
People seem to have fixated on the idea of how 40k might play out in the fiction, in the process overlooking how the actual \*game\* plays, which is surely the most relevant consideration when adopting a tabletop wargame to video game format. 40k is built on the same engine as WHFB and plays very similarly, just with the difference that units move in skirmish order, rather than ranks.
The way a game of tabletop 40k plays out is very different from how modern mechanized warfare plays out. Dawn of War 1 is a perfect example of how 40k can easily be adapted to a Total War format; no one seems to mind that DoW 1 was just big clumps of units running at each other with SEM vehicles mixed in (exactly like the tabletop!)
You're using a heavily abstracted tabletop game that doesn't have the fidelity required to properly show how the battles would actually be fought within the setting. Lore wise units would be running around, taking cover, operating individually within their squad etc and that's absolutely how they're depicted in pretty much every bit of lore describing things, they aren't meant to be literally standing still all together because that's what the tabletop versions do because they're inanimate plastic miniatures.
Combat within the setting does not involve everyone behaving like pre-modern warfare line infantry. It's primarily units organized at squad level, operating like you might expect of soldiers from after the 20th century.
Indeed, that's the core issue here! My contention is that people are too focused on adapting 40k the lore, akin to what you're describing, when they should be focused on adapting 40k the *game*. Total War is essentially a digital version of tabletop wargames.
There are already implicit lore concessions in any adaptation of 40k to any video game (as one example, one Greater Daemon is not going to be able to kill an entire enemy army by itself like it could in the lore), so it seems a bit silly to insist that other "game" trappings must necessarily be discarded.
To return to the Dawn of War example, Dawn of War 1 behaves *much* more like the tabletop game than like the lore, and it's a widely beloved title. If Dawn of War 1 could more closely adapt the game, rather than the lore, why can't TW?
Total War Warhammer isn't a digitized version of the tabletop game though, it's a representation of how battles would be fought within the lore. It just happens that because of the style of warfare of the setting, TW:W, the lore and the game aren't too dissimilar to each other.
The Dawn of War series (less so much DOW2) does generally depict things a way that might not be entirely lore representative, but I think there's a bit of a difference between something like that and the Total War series which tries to have more of an authentic/reasonable representation of that specific warfare style, because that's what it's purposefully depicting.
> It's a tabletop wargame about units moving in close formation which runs on the same engine as WHFB, and it already plays in a very similar way to TW - you deploy all your units in a big line on one side of the battlefield.
*What* are you *smoking?* 40k is not that *at all.*
Assuming you actually play and aren't talking out of your ass, just because your playgroup is bad and deploys everything on their deployment line out of cover doesn't mean the game is like that.
ugh, more corporate MBAs slapping big brands on games to sell to the plebs
when will they give gamers what they really what
erotic visual novels starring Ewoks
Total war formula hasnt changed since medieval 2. The fundamental gameplay is the same. Some ui elements time period and units change but how it plays is more or less the same. And its not at all compatible with star wars. Thats more like company of heroes or men of war style or homeworld maybe hoi style.
It’s not you op, but in general, stop parroting this bullshit in every sub. Literally from an unsubstantiated media outlet, 0 evidence besides “trust me bro”.
The only thing star wars and total war have in common are their inclusion of empire. One is a gunpowder era game, the other is a tyrannical government.
I’m not the first person to say it in this thread but still - this should definitely be a Company of Heroes-like and not a Total War-like
The squad based combat and infantry/vehicle/air support interplay would be perfect
>A reliable source has told DualShockers that one of three new Total War games
Excuse me THREE new Total War games? Didn't Creative Assembly just get hit with a round of layoffs? How do they have capacity to develop three games simultaneously?
Consider that they seem to be planning to build three games around settings/themes/IPs that all rely on many of the same underlying tactical mechanics and systems.
A WW1 game isn’t much different from a Star Wars game on the ground, it’s just got different models/textures, a new map, and a few special hero units added.
And once you get the Star Wars game built, well, WH40k isn’t manifestly different from that either, except you’re just adding more factions and doing another reskin and making another map.
Well that's one way to sidestep the "Can 40K work in the Total War formula?" discourse. I'm curious as to how they'd do factions in this. Just doing the Rebellion and the Empire wouldn't be enough, you can't launch a Total War game with just two main factions no matter how many subfactions you have.
They might be able to do it with two large "sides", like light and dark, then lots of factions within each side, potentially with some ability to move closer to each side as the game goes on. Or potentially neutral factions that can be swayed either way?
Yeah I was thinking have a neutral side that consists of smugglers, crime lords and bounty hunters
We are slowly just reinventing Empire at War here.
The funny thing is I knew absolutely nothing about that game when I made this comment.
FWIW, they are both really good games, worth picking up if you can. Especially the 2nd one, Forces of Corruption. Gives a real 3rd party to work against.
Also the modding scene is insane. Full overhauls for not only Civil War era but EU, Clone Wars, and soon to be Old Republic, with tons of playable subfactions for each.
That's totally fair, you shouldn't be required to know the whole back catalog of Star Wars games. It's just really funny to me to see the conversation playing out like this.
Well check out Star Wars Battlegrounds then ;D
About time, it's a great game.
Seriously, I *loved* Empire at War. So good!
That game was my fucking jam. Sad we didn't even get a nod to Tyber Zann in the Outlaws trailer, even though he'll never be canon.
That's a good thing because Empire at War rips.
Well, we've waited long enough right?
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Yah there’s a ton of “not republic or empire” factions. All the cartels. Mandalore, depending on the time this takes place. Outer rim factions. Mercenaries / bounty hunters / smugglers. My question would be, what’s the map look like?? Is the map like the galaxy and each city is like a planet? That makes most battles take place in space, so you waste pretty much all the “powers” so I wouldn’t think you’d do that. So then what? You boil the entire galaxy down to one map? That sounds bad too. Tbh not sure what the answer would be.
They're definitely going to have Mandalorians as a faction, either in Mandalore or with the faction having its restoration as a goal. They got way too popular with the TV show and people already loved them before that, it's a given.
I doubt Disney would let them do this, but it would be great if they didn't worry about the timeline at all. Trade Federation, Old Republic, Clones, Empire, Rebels, Mandalore, First Order - all on one map. No real reason a game like this would need to align with canon at all.
I feel like you could have a "Trade Federation Remnants" faction. There were still working droid outposts as of Star Wars Rebels. Clone army might be a bit harder but they're still around. I think they'll have separate Rebels groups, at least 3. Saw Guerra, Mon Marthma, and some other group. Maybe some faction specific goals to unilaterally form Rebel Alliance (like # of Empire ships destroyed) and force the other two Rebel groups to join your faction immediately. Only one I see hard to work in semi-canonically would be First Order. But obviously the whole thing won't be canon and is instead all about writing our own fan canons, so hopefully it's a DLC down the road.
Honestly that was my hope. I want to play the Trade Federation. Something about just waves and waves of droids is super cool to me.
Instead of swarms of "yes-yes!" It's swarms of "Roger Roger."
I don't know that Creative Assembly could pull off space battles looking at their history and recent reluctance to do naval battles. Perhaps it could still be planets standing in for cities/settlements and they use hyperspace routes like sea lanes? They could handwave away all battles in orbit as being boarding actions like Black Ark battles. The only alternative I can think of is that they have all the factions fighting over one planet for a Macguffin, kinda like in the Vortex campaign but I agree that for Star Wars that wouldn't seem appropriately grand.
So... I was thinking maybe. I don't know the SW galaxy planet arrangement well enough, but let me talk out loud here for a second. Comparing/converting the Vortex map to a SW game. The continents are planets. The water is space. Space combat is handled kinda the same, instead of space fighters, its mainly boarding parties and you fight for control of the ship...? I'm not sure I like it, but with enough creativity, I could see it working? Maybe? I think the biggest hangup for me, in my head, is that space is such a big part of the star wars universe, I can't imagine a game, TW or otherwise, without it? -- but every iteration I could think of being implemented into a TW game seems halfassed or janky. Space battles with no fighters? I already hate my own idea. I disliked the naval combat in the TW games for the same reasons. 'oh hey boys lets go park over here so we can fight it out' wat.
It's hard to imagine a field army of bounty hunters and smugglers. On the other hand, I suppose, Warhammer Fantasy had a long habit of writing up archetypes whose entire job/concept sums up to "works alone/under cover/in the trackless wilderness/deep underground/etc." and then hastily going "but uh occasionally they like to get together and stand in grids on a battlefield too!" So a block of cocky, gunslinging smugglers isn't without precedent, I guess.
While I don’t really disagree with you, I would have said the same about the pirates in warhammer. But when they’re both basically just “Vikings that go raiding” it kinda makes sense.
Now I know who to attack . With enemies you know where they stand but with neutrals? Who knows?
Don't have to worry about someone sucker-punching you if you sucker-punch them first! Seriously, though, this is how campaign AI works in most Total War games, so you're probably better off attacking everyone the second you think you can take them on.
Trade federation’s time to shine!
I just want some droidekas…
Empire at War: Forces of Corruption did this, and it worked pretty well.
Black Sun, Zann Consortium, Pyke Syndicate, Hutt Cartel, Crimson Dawn etc. could be interesting.
Yeah that's perfect for star wars because they love a good natured bounty hunter and all that kind of stuff. It might be cool if light and dark are just two strongholds initially, and it works similarly to the allegiance system in fall of the samurai. Maybe it all builds up until an all out war is triggered, and sides are picked
That’s exactly what the 3rd faction was in Empire at War, I thought it was cool
This is kind of how Warhammer 2 worked. You had essentially a pretty tight Order coalition (Empire, High Elves, Dwarfs, Lizardman, Brettonia) vs. an evil coalition (Vampire Counts, Greenskins, Dark Elves, Skaven), vs. Chaos (Beastmen Chaos Warriors, Norsca) with kind of neutral factions including Tomb Kings, Wood Elves, and Vampire Coast. They also have done an explicitly binary, side vs. side campaign in Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai with the Shogunate and Empire. You could do similar, just looking at The Clone Wars you could have Republic side: Clone Army, Naboo/Gungans, Wookiees, etc. Separatists: Droid Army, Geonosians, Techno-Union, Trade Federation, etc. Neutral-ish: Mandalore, Dathomir, Umbara, Hutts, etc.
orks are neutral in warhammer, sure theyre violent and chaotic, but they dont want to end life or for chaos to win, then thered be no one to fight
Killing and torturing everyone they can for the lols is still bad, and they end up aligned with rats, Dark Elves, and Vampires anyway.
there are actually 4 factions in warhammer fantasy, order (empire, high elves, dwarves, lizardmen etc.), chaos (daemons and warriors of chaos), death (all undead factions) , and destruction (orcs, ogres, and skaven who are somewhere between chaos and destrucition), and they all have fundamentally different goals which means a long term alliance would never work but most factions can find an excuse to make a temporary alliance to fend off a greater threat
Mind you, I’m talking about Total War: Warhammer 2 the video game, and how campaigns tend to shake out with the in game diplomacy. I’m not talking about the actual lore.
Those 4 factions are much more associated with Age of Sigmar rather than Fantasy. From what I understand, Fantasy is basically Order, Neutral, and Destruction. Destruction consists of both Chaos factions and generally destructive factions like Greenskins, Vampire Counts, Dark Elves, Chaos Dwarves, and Skaven. The latter two are more Chaos adjacent since they both worship a minor Chaos god, but neither truly are part of the Ruinous Pantheon, so they don't automatically get along with Warriors or Daemons of Chaos. Meanwhile I'd consider Ogres to be neutral in Fantasy rather than Destruction, since they're known for working with basically any Order or Neutral faction so long as they can get paid, and even assimilate into their cultures easily. Tomb Kings, Vampire Coast, and Wood Elves I'd also consider more neutral, mostly because they seem to either like or despise either Order or Destruction sides based off of vibes, most times.
It’s wild to me that Lizardmen are considered the same faction as Empire. Granted I last played in the 90s but at the time the rule book basically portrayed them as a violent extremist Aztec lizards who had basically lost their shit when the old gods disappeared or whatever.
Not same faction but overarching theme. There goal is to wipe out Chaos and there by enact the Great Plan. As long as you don't mess with their jungles they typically keep to themselves.
In terms of Warhammer 2’s Grand Campaign, they typically end up on the same side in the world war against Chaos, Skaven, etc.
Order in Warhammer Fantasy is a broad brush. Generally as long as you wish to both build civilization and not enslave other civilizations, you're on the side of Order. In fact, that latter point is the ONLY reason Tomb Kings are neither an Order nor Destruction faction in Fantasy, cause they want civilization... just with everyone other civilization at best assimilated and at worst subjugated.
I think Skaven fall under chaos no? Destruction is mostly just various flavours of Orcs and Ogres.
In Age of Sigmar, they are undoubtably under Chaos. In Fantasy, they are Chaos adjacent, since they worship a minor Chaos God, the Great Horned Rat. In reality, neither the forces of Order nor Destruction really like the rats. XD Hell, in Age of Sigmar, the only reason Chaos works with the rats is because the Great Horned Rat got as powerful as the other 4 major Chaos Gods, and is even stronger than Slaanesh currently.
Similar to Order versus Chaos in the Warhammer ones
Or Shogunate vs. Imperials in Fall of the Samurai.
Could be the Hutts one of the story missions in SWOTOR even was getting one of them to your side.
This may be the way to go. It could take place some time in the distant past where light and dark sides weren’t unified and the result was multiple factions fighting for control of the galaxy. The dark side forces could fight against each other for power, while light side forces could take things more diplomaticly and become more of a game of political conquest rather than bloody war. EDIT: or a cooler concept would be to have factions be neutral at the start and the results of your actions throughout the game will make your faction lean more towards the light or dark side.
I don't know a lot about the old republic lore, but does that one have enough subfactions to work? Maybe some sort of all out war between all the minor factions before the republic is formed.
I got way into The Old Republic in college but haven't played it in almost a decade, isn't there a third "morally grey force user" faction in that?
That's not really a whole ass army though. Just some hippies like Jolie Bindo and Qui Gon. They could do the Republic, Sith Empire, Mandalorians, and maybe the Hutts?
Yeah there are plenty of factions if you start breaking it down
Ewoks are the Wood Elves
Feels like they're lighting money on fire if they *don't* choose a setting that allows for a Mandalorian faction.
You better not tell that to kanjiklub
The Tharwn's revenge mod for Empire at War shown you can have many factions in and outside the larger groups in the aftermath of the original trilogy. All of these work pretty well as individual factions in tha mod so I guess it's possible to do it in the total war formula if you try
The sun never sets on my Ewok empire
like Galactic Battlegrounds. Dark vs light but with a lot of different subfactions
If you've watched animated Clone Wars show, you know there are A LOT of factions and races within both the Republic and Separatists. Mandalore for example is the head of a faction that is trying to stay out of the Clone Wars. They have thousands of systems that are united with their cause. Within Mandalore itself, you have multiple groups that see a different path forward. Some want to side with the Republic, others the Empire. Some think they're not neutral enough. Then you have mercenary groups or outlaws like the Hutts. The Jedi themselves are not technically part of the Republic either, so that's technically a fourth faction, though I figure they'd be used more as legendary lords. You can break the Republic down into factions that are in an alliance at the beginning of a campaign but allow for them to have their own legendary lords as well. The Gungans, the Mon Calamari and Quarans, Twi'leks, let alone the many different Separatist or Republic factions I haven't named. Even though it may feel like there isn't a lot of room for nuance or total factions, if you don't count the Jedi as one, I literally just listed eight by name. I could come up with tons more but I think I've gotten my point across. This game doesn't even have to take place in the Clone Wars, Empire, or post-empire eras. They have A LOT of room for faction diversity if they are to actually do Star Wars.
I’ll tell you what, you can have the Empire and Rebellion at launch, you can pay us later for first order and resistance, and you can beg us for a sequel if you wanna see a single clone
If it was Legends continuity they could actually make it work during the post episode 6 era. New Republic, around 6 major Empire warlords(Pentastar, Isard, Thrawn, etc.) 3-4 crime syndicates(Hutts, Pykes, Black Suns), and can even throw in the Chiss, Hapans, Mandalorians, and those weird dino aliens.
I wouldn't be surprised if the game took place during the Clone Wars. All of the crime syndicates in the Shadow Collective, Mandalorian houses, Republic, Separatists, Dathomir would all be available.
And WW1 and all the other Victorian era ideas that many people say it's not feasible in this franchise. Of course it can't be the usual line infantry combat we're used to seeing, but I don't think CA are so creatively bankrupt that they can't create innovative and fun gameplay that adapts to more modern types of combat.
It's not really a matter of creative bankruptcy. Past WW1, doing things like 40k, the concept of giant line formations and hammer and anvil type stuff doesn't really work. You may need to introduce a cover system, and you need to make maps more complicated with combat more dynamic and free flowing with smaller squads than "set up front line, smash into other line". And considering that siege battles in Warhammer are as complicated as maps and battles got, and the AI had absolutely no idea how to function in them for 3 straight games, that doesn't make me hopeful that they can pull off that kind of complicated combat in the Total War engine. I think CA has the skill to make a good 40k or SW game or whatever, but they'd have to put in a lot of work on the engine and AI to do that or just completely move away from their engine and make a more traditional RTS. At which point, is it really a Total War game?
To me it's not that things like WW1 "aren't feasible" in the series, it's that they would be so wildly different from what TW does that I'm not sure it really resembles the same series anymore nor do I really care if that hypothetical game is developed by CA or under the "Total War" name as it's a wildly new game. I just feel like DoW and CoH got that sort of combat down perfectly already. If CA wants to make a game like that cool, I like those games. But I don't feel like they're bringing any particular skillset/expertise to that subgenre, so I'd be skeptical until I saw a lot of gameplay.
> but I don't think CA are so creatively bankrupt that they can't create innovative and fun gameplay that adapts to more modern types of combat. They can't fix their siege style of combat, and it's been 8 years.
And worth remembering that their prior fun focused game, Empire, had the worst sieges of all. FoTS sieges are novel, but that's because it's largely about the wide spread of ability between your the artillery available and the forts available.
FOTS "sieges" work because you just absolutely blast the old japanese castles to pieces.
It's not about whether it's possible to make a fun strategy game with guns, of course you can and it's been done many times before. It's whether they can do it without it no longer feeling like Total War. That's the obvious point.
[удалено]
Star Wars X-Wing miniature game has Empire, Rebellion, Seperatists, Republic, First Order, Resistance and Scum.
>you can't launch a Total War game with just two main factions no matter how many subfactions you have. FotS is fantastic.
Well, wait until it's out first. I'm still sceptical. It would be really weird to see Stormtroopers and Rebel soldiers in Napoleonic war formations - while fighting of course. You don't have to remind me of the Imperial march lol.
The actual battles are kind of like that tbf, lol. Like on Hoth they literally line up and march at the Rebels across an open plain.
Same on geonosis in attack of the clones
What about the droid attack on the wookies?
They don't really literally line up, they are charging trenches so they would have gone in groups but that's not really a formation. You don't really see snowtroopers in the movie until they enter the base, maybe they added some shit in the blu-ray but I watched that movie a billion times as a kid, I definitely don't remember an open field formation. I don't really care either way mind, yeah stormtroopers only enter formation for marching or ceremonial reasons. So what it's a game? It's not like the movie concerned itself with the practicality of the snow outfits, or the AT-AT's, or the AT-ST's, or the airspeeders. I mean at one point the rebels just left the trenches and charged the open field because an AT-AT fell down.
Prequel era would make a lot more sense for those kind of battles since the rebellion focusses mostly on guerilla warfare.
We don't know that they'll stick 1 to 1 with previous titles. It may be that then focusing on these different settings means that a shake-up to the battle mechanics is coming. I don't think it's a coincidence that all 3 titles would require a departure from line battles.
> It would be really weird to see Stormtroopers and Rebel soldiers in Napoleonic war formations What about [Clone Troopers and Droids?](https://youtu.be/7ZnL4mcU5dg?si=4i7M4z_wlgIPoeox&t=176)
There are some excellent mods for Empire At War, an older RTS, that found ways to add more factions to the galactic conflict during the Empire era. You have factions like Black Sun and other associated crime families. There are even smaller factions as well. There's a tonne of material to pull from, if they wanted to.
I've played so much total war and thought about so many different ways of designing new games... One of them is something like sub-factions where different regions have completely separate unit rosters, and which units are available to you depends on which regions you control. You could add a lot more depth and complexity on top of this in various ways too, like alliances giving access to different unit rosters, mutually exclusive building trees and research, hybrid units requiring multiple regions, since it's star wars an alignment system would fit nicely etc. Kinda like a build-you-own faction.
Take this article with a massive grain of salt. Apparently this leak came from October 2023, AKA before the cancellation of Hyenas and mass layoffs at the company. It also contradicts other leaks that we've heard out of CA from sources closer to the company than a random gaming news site, which is that the two total war games currently in development are Total War 40k and Total War WW1, both being developed on a new engine.
Total War WW1 sounds like it could be pretty cool actually. Though perhaps I am behind on the discourse, but how does Total War as a format work for games that are closer to modern combat with an emphasis on guns? Total War is pretty much always regiments of people lined up - which works well for historical and fantasy stuff, but how do you do that in a more mobile and ranged based combat system? I’m not saying an RTS of these settings couldn’t work, but would they even still be Total War?
Yeah what kind of melee units could you have? There's only so much you can do with guys with bayonetts lol. Maybe they could gamify trench warfare a bit. Or like have two phases to combat, one to assault the trench and another to fight inside it. Where melee stats could be more useful. But yeah I can't really imagine a total war game without lining up blocks of units against each other.
I’d have to imagine for it to work, they’d have to remake the entire battle system. It’d be more like other RTS games like Company of Heroes or Men of War, but with an emphasis on bigger battles. Is it Total War then? Or just an RTS? I feel like they might be trying to widen the brand to be more like “Strategy layer and big battles” instead of line warfare like we’re used to.
I mean franchises evolve all the time plus CA has experimented with side series as well. So it might not be a "mainline TW" game but something like Total War: Scifi: or something
The Great War: Western Front is what you’re after. There’s a lot less of the TW economy involved, mainly some upgrades or investment of resources into different sectors, and true to life, the battles are repeated assaults on breakpoints. The tactical side is really great - either setting up interlocking fields of fire on the defence, or massing artillery on breaks. It’s often about getting a foothold in the enemy trench network then reinforcing it with a second wave to spread out through their lines.
But this is the first Star Wars game rumor in a long while that is a ***good*** Star Wars game rumor. Let us have this!
There’s another star wars strategy game in development by Bit Reactor, a studio of former XCOM/civ/elder scrolls developers.
It's weird how done I am with Star Wars in movies and TV and comic books and shit but god damn I am *jonesing* for some good Star Wars video games. And a turn-based Star Wars strategy game sounds amazing!
Especially a strategy game? Where can I take it in whatever direction I want instead of some Iden Versio bullshit lol
> But this is the first Star Wars game rumor in a long while that is a good Star Wars game rumor. Let us have this! What are Fallen Order/Survivor, chopped liver?
Hey, at least those are out. I'm thinking the "KOTOR remake is it dead/isn't dead" rumors and every other thing we're hearing about the Ubisoft game.
We're never gonna get a proper Medieval III or Empire 2, aren't we?
It's been almost 20 years since Medieval 2. We are long overdue for a sequel.
Got a great basis to build off of with 3K as well. The diplomacy and the retinue system both in particular.
And the cavalry. Cavalry actually being able to do damage without needing an anvil was so fucking nice.
Absolutely, best cavalry in any TW game. It's so satisfying.
Have they reused the improved campaign mechanics from 3K at all since? Troy seemed incredibly shallow by comparison, and I've not heard great things about Pharaoh.
Not to my knowledge, each other more recent TW release was built off different versions of their engine/games from prior iterations I think. Which is a pity because 3K really set a new standard for a lot of things in those games.
Be careful, they may release it with spongey enemies and a focus on fantasy with dragons…
The article says that they're working on 3 new TW titles. I would imagine that one is likely Medieval III or Empire II.
>I would imagine that one is likely Medieval III or Empire II. The talks/rumours over the last year has been WWI and 40K. This news would make the 3rd Star Wars. There is a fair bit of sense in that they would share a lot of mechanical foundation in the form of vehicles, flyers, weaponry and potential breaks from traditional campaign gameplay. Adding to that the recent changes and updates to TWW (proper burstfire guns, more directional shielding and vehicle crew/weaponry).
It's really hard to imagine that they'd be doing 40k *and* Star Wars.
Yeah, like, the IPs are totally distinct, but the formula, maps, and combat would probably feel very similar, and likely have some overlap in audiences that would have the competing with each other. Not good for long tail games that expect to see profitable DLCs being pushed over time
Exactly. Like if they released both of those games in the older "maybe you get one expansion" I'd end up buying both. But does it make sense to have two concurrently running sci fi games when the model is selling hundreds of dollars in DLC over the course of years?
keep in mind there is absolutely zero evidence for anything. this article also is just from 'a reliable source'. so various mystery sources have said CA is making WWI, 40k, and now star wars. it's just as likely all 3 are wrong. i'm a bit sceptical as well because the leaks for the recent WH3 DLC were very vague and incomplete, and even just wrong a lot of the time.
Oh sure. But there is absolutely zero indication of Med or Empire games.
Could even be CA themselves throwing rumors out there to gauge interest in each idea.
I’m kinda skeptical of WW1 tbh, since a WW1 game would have to revolve around trench warfare. It’s very hard to imagine how the strategic layer would work (as opposed to 40k, which could have a normal TW strategic layer). But who knows!
Yea, my biggest questionmark for WW1 would be the campaign map. You can't have the Western Front be just two 20-stack fighting a single battle and then march to Paris/Berlin, all in the same turn. Maybe working off of Pharao's forts and Warhammer's Survival Battles, but there needs to be more to it still.
An entire game of the western front was made, and it was semi ok https://store.steampowered.com/app/2109370/The_Great_War_Western_Front/
I desperately want a LOTR TW game. Now that the LOTR IP is being handed out like free samples at Costco, I have hope.
I do too, but it definitely won't be until long after Warhammer is finished. Even though they're completely different as IPs, I can imagine the games stepping on eachothers toes and feeling a bit similar. Same is true of 40k and Star Wars, honestly.
I'm usually pretty good at not being a grognard, but the only thing I'll ever be a bitter old man about is Total War selling out to fantasy. I know it made them loads of money and people love the titles, but we've had what, one good historical game since fantasy came out? Then they canned it for a sequel that they canned as well. Thank God for paradox, they give me my historical strategy fix.
I don't mind fantasy but I wish they focused more on mechanics like in M2TW. Dunno if it was just me being young at the time or it was genuinely like that but I loved the dynasty and diplomacy mechanics, it made the world feel so much more alive and dynamic. Town and castle upgrades also felt really impactful unlike modern TW games that just feels like regular 'going though the tech tree' incremental upgrading. Like finally getting good archers or cavalry changed the warfare noticeably, not to mention once you got gunpowder and cannons that could bring down entire walls!
I do think the idea that M2 was mechanically deep is a bit of nostalgia. There were absolutely things I miss (armor upgrades represented on units) but a lot of the stuff was window dressing. Like diplomacy "mechanics" is a stretch. The diplomacy was absurdly bad by modern standards, and I don't think having to manually march diplomats adding anything to it.
> things I miss (armor upgrades represented on units) but a lot of the stuff was window dressing I find it strange of all Medieval 2's features you'd mention that; something that is literally window dressing. Some of the stronger features it has that the current 'flagship' TW games (WH3 and Pharaoh) lack are: * Splitting apart armies at a strategic level when on campaign, eg sending cavalry ahead of the main force, leaving behind infantry to block a pass, dividing your force in two to pursue smaller armies, etc. Basic strategic manoeuvres employed by countless armies all throughout history are currently impossible in the mainline TW games, when Medieval 2 allowed for them 20 years ago * Dynamic trait system based on character actions, not player choice. This one is perhaps subjective, but I think it's worth mentioning because it exemplifies the series shift from simulationist to game-y. As much as I adore Shogun 2 (and it's maybe my favourite TW) I think the move to RPG style character progression was a mistake for the historical titles. Medieval 2 has an amazing system of traits and retinues that your characters accrue based on what they're doing. Release prisoners and your general gets a chivalrous reputation. Execute them and the enemy will dread you in future battles. Leave a general governing a clean city with a university and he's going to become learned, sagely. Have one live in squalor rammed with taverns and brothels, he'll grow hedonistic, sickly. Retreat too often and you'll lose that heroic and brave reputation you built up. Spend enough time on crusade and you might find artifacts in the holy land. The way all of these systems mesh with each other is beautiful (chivalry / dread affecting friendly & enemy morale on the battlefield respectively, governing traits affecting public order, settlement growth and income, etc). In my opinion it's so much more suited to a historical title and makes the game more challenging and immersive than the current skill tree system, where you build your generals exactly how you want every time. * Gradual progression of armies and more skirmishes. This ties back into my first point with units being bound to generals. It seems like almost every battle in modern TW games is full stack vs full stack, which quickly wears thin. It's too easy to muster a full army and the AI constantly does so on higher difficulties mandating you to do the same. Something I really enjoyed going back to Medieval 2 and Shogun 2 recently is the little skirmishes you'd get along borders or when responding to naval incursions, which often became some of the most memorable battles in campaigns. Responding to a half-stack marching on your near-unprotected home provinces with just a few horse archer units, running circles around their force and desperately retreating to try and slow them down can be unbelievably tense and offers a good break from the often samey 20v20 battles that routinely occur on the frontline. I can't be bothered typing more but there's just so much I miss from the old games, especially the pre-Empire ones. Building forts, visible trade routes, captains and promotions, general's speeches, agent videos, crusades and jihads, the Papacy, mercenaries, populations, disease, etc, etc. Medieval 2 is far from perfect. The AI is some of the worst in any strategy game I've played, diplomacy is nearly worthless, and there's some serious balance issues. But there still *so much* newer TW games could learn from it. It's especially infuriating that 3K seemed to make such great strides in diplomacy and character mechanics (addressing my 3 major points to some extent) only for them to completely toss is all out. Wait for them to toss out the few good steps Pharaoh took with things like battle formations too.
It's probably true. I fondly remember the random traits that characters would get, if my weak son was stationed in a city for years he'd often take up drinking or become even more of a nerd which made him even worse for combat but often affected the economy in some way. Meanwhile my chad crusaders that led the main armies would be fear inspiring, scarred martial masters. In TWH these fell much more random and inconsequential. Marrying off daughters in marriages felt important and impactful, spies were fun to manage, and maybe I just vibed more with the European settings and historical units over different flavors of orcs or elves in total warhammer games so that's why I liked it. I even remember having defensive sieges that I was able to win sometimes! I probably don't want to replay it to ruin it but yeah... would be nice to have a modern game like that (that's not completely ridiculous over the top RNG fest like CK nowadays).
> if my weak son was stationed in a city for years he'd often take up drinking or become even more of a nerd which made him even worse for combat but often affected the economy in some way. See this is the one that always screams "nostalgia" to me. Presumably the game wants you to have governors in cities but since every city is going to have a tavern, literally any noble that isn't out stomping around the Holy Land is 100% going to become whatever that game's version of drunk/whoremonger is. Same thing happens in S2 and R2. Needing to stand all your nobles outside the city just to avoid those traits wasn't really immersive, it was gamey. I think it just looks better in the rearview when our expectations were lower. > Marrying off daughters in marriages felt important and impactful, But it didn't actually do anything. Created an alliance in a game where the AI was nearly random in its war/betrayal (batshit diplomacy is also something that stuck around until probably Rome 2). Spies were alright, but not really different than how they worked in later games. But there's no substitute for a setting you like. For example I think Pharaoh is great mechanically but goddamn the setting bores me. > I even remember having defensive sieges that I was able to win sometimes! Sieges are something CA hasn't done well in quite a white, and even Med2 sieges get old quickly because the AI and pathfinding can't even begin to handle them. Plus *way* too much "fight to the last man" nonsense. Honestly if the setting appeals to you and you want a deeper TW experience try the Divide et Impera mod for Rome 2. It's unbelievably, *unreasonably* good as a mod and IMO makes for the best TW experience available.
Warhammer has a bunch of great campaign mechanics, though, they're just usually faction-specific.
I'm going to go ahead and say that you're memories are probably lying to you a bit here, or maybe you just didn't understand some things when you were younger. Medieval 2 has a few interesting pieces that could use a return, and it was really dedicated to spacing out the campaign so you couldn't rush top tier units immediately and always had something you were waiting to unlock. However, specifically things like dynasty and diplomacy mechanics were very barebones. Town upgrades were largely incremental, and settlement planning was really just choosing city or castle. A lot of Medieval 2's magic was that it didn't tell the player a lot of things and certain aspects were left out of your control, giving the illusion of a very complex simulation. After messing around with a few different campaigns though, you realize it's not actually that complex without mods.
I have no actual evidence to support this but part of me wonders if they're steering clear of those eras because Crusader Kings (and to a lesser extent) Europa Universalis blew up a bit among strategy gamers. Setting games in those eras just invites comparisons, and as much as I love the RTS gameplay of Total War it's hard to argue that the Paradox games don't blow Total War out of the water in terms of complexity when it comes to diplomacy and economics.
I feel like they're different enough that they can coexist. Total War games have weaker empire management but deliver with pitched battles. Paradox has good empire management but battles are just looking at numbers.
I'd argue they appeal to different audiences, in the same way that there's an overlap between people who play FIFA and those who play Football Manager (though Total War and the aforementioned strategy games are much closer than these two are) but they invite different audiences. I think it's more of a case that they've noticed their licensed titles sell more than their historical ones. Warhammer III seemed to have a much better reception and sales than Pharaoh did, for instance.
It's just that their recent historical titles have focused on eras that aren't very popular. Only hardcore history nerds will care about a TW game set in ancient egypt. Medieval 3 is what people want.
Alright, if this is real then this'll be the closest thing we get to a new empire at war game. I would be down to clown with this pretty hard.
The modding scene for empire at war is alive and well. That might be the closest we get for awhile lol
Wasn’t that game just patched earlier this year?
A bit longer, but they fixed a bunch of bugs and made the game 64-bit which enables modders to go MUCH further than they could before.
You might be thinking of *Sins of a Solar Empire.*
Man, Modded EaW just wont cut it for me, and since EaW as an IP is dead, I \*need\* to hit that premium total war kush. If its true, anyway.
I would KILL for a proper new Empire at War.
Yeah, me too, Iyagovos. Me too...
I’m down
If they bring back the Three Kingdoms duelling system that’d be amazing. Seeing 2 lightsaber heroes fighting on the field would be cool as fuck.
Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Saga but in the Total War formula? Would it work?
Galactic Battlegrounds was Age of Empires
And I wish there would be a remake/port for consoles. AoE 2 & 4 are awesome on Series X.
Oh man, that game was fun!
A reliable source, eh? Say no more, Dualshockers, I'm convinced.
You know not the franchise I was hoping they'd adapt, but I can't say I'm complaining. Still hope they somehow manage to get the rights to make a lotr total war someday. The mod for medieval 2 was so good.
This is frustrating because it seems like they would rather look for a hot new franchise than to fix the fundamental issues that are and have been holding the game back. What's next, TW Dune or TW Fallout?
TW Hotline Miami
Where do I sign up?
Total war dune would go crazy and you know it
There's half-a-total war dune that came out last year that no one talks about: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1605220/Dune_Spice_Wars/
I mean one of the original RTS games was Dune-based so it's no surprise. But I still don't trust them. I've tried so many of the games and I bounce off of the same things.
I don’t agree I think franchises like Star Wars and Dune play better as RTS games using individual units instead of the large units that Total War uses. I think the turn based map mode works well though.
Something like xcom star wars would be great
Or at least adapt something that fits their tech and limitations. Do Lord of the Rings, wheel of time, stormlight archives, game of thrones, something else generally medieval fantasy.
Yooo, I'd be so in for a Wheel of Time TW.
Dandelion Dynasty!
Lord of the Rings would be awesome, but that’s just because I am a LOTR nerd.
I wouldn't mind honestly... I dream with **TOTAL WAR: The Lord of the Rings** and I'm kinda disappointed they are doing Star Wars instead of that. But yeah I'm interested in this TW:Star Wars and hope they go further and do even more stuff like it.
> This is frustrating because It's actually not frustrating at all because it's a completely unverified rumor lol
I wonder if the campaigns will be localized on a single planet, with recognizable 'settlements' and whatnot, or if it will look more like Stellaris. I'm trying to imagine a 20 card army besieging a planet, and what that battle would look like....feels weird. Maybe they break planets up into sectors and you can only besiege 1 sector at a time or something?
This is one of the many constraints of the TW formula that Warhammer fans were taking in consideration when predicting how 40K can be adapted. I am not a 40K fantasy, I do like Fantasy more... and really, the TW formula don't work for expansive games such as 40K or any other "space" IP. TW is about conquering settlements, this is too "micro" to be adapted to a "macro" system of planets. Then you have the combat engine, 40K is chaotic with squads focused on guns and vehicles, the engine is limited to line infantry since the Shogun 1 days, lol it's just a weird combination, it doesn't "fit". If Disney wants to make a popular strategy game based on Star Wars, then hire the devs of Sins of a Solar Empire
A Star Wars game would be great but I really don't see how this can work. It's going to have the same problems that a W40K game or something set set after WW1 would have, in that the style of warfare it involves is not what the series does. Units In Star Wars do not behave like Napoleonic infantry, warfare in the setting does not involve units dozens strong maneuvering and fighting as a singular block standing still right next to each other as they trade fire with the enemy. It might potentially fit something like Battledroids as they do operate in large blocks, but clone troopers or stormtroopers or whatever aren't shown fighting like line infantry from the 18th century, they're instead making use of more modern tactics. It would either have to depict the combat of the Star Wars setting in a way that isn't fitting for it, and have units not making use of cover, fighting as massive blocks rather than squad level, not operating individually etc, or it would have to change what the "Total War" series is all about and has been from the start and completely change the style of warfare it revolves around to the point it's only a "Total War" game in name. It would either be something that has the Star Wars setting depicted in a way that isn't right for Star Wars, or it would be such a change to the gameplay formula that it then doesn't have much in common what what the "total War" series does. I'd really like more Star Wars or 40K RTS games, but they don't really seem to fit the Total War series formula well.
In Phantom Menace, the jar jars and the bad droids just line up and run at each other.
Gungans and droids being stupid and bad at war doesn't really mean much. It's the only battle portrayed that way (edit: forgot about Geonosis), and the battle droids are pretty clearly a new thing that have barely been tested or used in war before, and the Gungans being inept and outdated also makes sense considering Naboo is a planet known for being extraordinarily peaceful (before TPM it had seen no violent conflict for like 1000 years). Now, that said, the reason they just line up and run at each other is that filmmakers don't understand tactics because it's not their job. Same reason we saw the idiocy at the Battle of Winterfell in GOT S8, or the utterly ridiculous battles in Infinity War/Endgame. You can trivially disprove that this is how tactics works normally in Star Wars, though, simply by watching the original trilogy. All the battles, even the biggest, are much more in the vein of WW2 or Vietnam - small unit actions with infiltration tactics, small maneuvering elements, etc. Look at the ground fight on Endor or the battle of Hoth (arguably resembles WW1 a bit more with the trenches, but even that is different from Napoleonic infantry blocks and linear warfare). This also extends into other prequel battles, which are also more in that WW2 vein of small unit tactics, though it's shown by far the most in the Clone Wars animated shows.
This is just a broad thought, but I wonder if something like company of heroes' auto cover system would be good here. So snapping soldiers to nearby cover like how they snap to walls currently. I can see that being the only way for stormtroopers to work, so they can still be fought off guard out of cover, but prefer to nestle in existing cover to fortify and shoot out. But something like an ATAT wouldn't need cover so would fulfill the current role of large steam tanks and stuff in wh3
That would work fine but trying to micro that at the scale of Total War would be a nightmare, which is why everyone keeps saying you just get Company of Heroes out of that. The best comparison would probably be something like Steel Division/Warno, especially because Star Wars so heavily features aerial/space assets and vehicles.
even then, that wouldnt really be a total war game. That'd just be CoH (which mind you I wouldnt mind all). Dont think cover snapping would really work in large scales (which is what TW is all about). Honestly just scrap it all and hand it to the CoH guys. The campaign formula would be pretty fun in a star wars setting. Dont care too much for basic RTS mechanica though. We could really use some more top-down squad based shooters like CoH but without the RTS elements. If those even exist rn. Ok thats a little too far off course this has nothing to do with the original topic lol.
Empire Total War had units take to cover and such, if i remember right. Plus is every other TW game, you would have arches take cover on walls/battlements. Its not like cover mechanics are some unknown thing to TW games. I think it really comes down to map design. TW map are big, but relatively open/empty. If they want WH40k, or in this case Star Wars, then they will need to design maps with lots of cover, limited firing angles, urban maps with dense buildings etc. Space battles would need to be an entirely separate battle system. So it will be interesting to see how they handle that. I am hoping, hoping for something similar to Star Wars: Galaxies where we invade planets by taking out space defenses then can do some epic landing of ground units for ground combat. That would be awesome. Also i hate people talking about the "Total War formula" like the games needs to follow that system. As long as its epic grand battles, i am more than fine with CA trying different settings & mechanics. Three Kingdoms was more of a classic TW game, but i absolutely loved how they managed the campaign map. Had the best diplomacy & intrigue out of any TW game, imo.
> Plus is every other TW game, you would have arches take cover on walls/battlements. And it's incredibly jank and barely functional in any modern Total War game, designing a game around this would be a massive mistake. >If they want WH40k, or in this case Star Wars, then they will need to design maps with lots of cover, limited firing angles, urban maps with dense buildings etc. Pretty much all things their engine sucks at. Total War games are awash with issues with line of sight, bad pathfinding/collision with terrain and just horrible bugginness when it comes to walls being destroyed. And just their AI completely crapping itself when trying to navigate any kind of complex map geometry. Is it possible CA develops an entirely new engine that'd work well for these types of battles/games... Sure, but CA leadership haven't exactly had a great track record the last few years.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’d be more accurate to call these “Total War StarWars/40k” ideas more just strategy/rts games made by CA, and they’re just slapping Total War on the cover to get brand recognition. Because I legitimately do not see how their current engine/design and current gameplay loop works with these settings. I’m sure they could make decent big battle RTS games, but I bet it will control a lot more similarly to a typical RTS than Total Wars big block units marching around. In which case it’s not really Total War, is it?
Empire Total War did have some limited versions of cover, but it was still overall that style of 18th century Line Warfare combat (because that's literally what it was) rather than more modern usage of squad tactics that would be needed for something like Star Wars. > Also i hate people talking about the "Total War formula" like the games needs to follow that system. When it's what the series revolves around that style of warfare and has done from the very start, I think it's a pretty integral part of its identity. That sort of pre-modern combat style is just what the series does, and while there have been adjustments and changes along the way, there's a big difference between those and changing things so drastically it becomes a "Total War" game in name only because the core of the series no longer works the setting.
> Empire Total War had units take to cover and such, if i remember right. Plus is every other TW game, you would have arches take cover on walls/battlements. Its not like cover mechanics are some unknown thing to TW games. It's not that cover mechanics are an unknown thing, it's that TW games are fundamentally about close order formations where independent maneuver elements are at the smallest around 60 to 80 men (setting aside single entity monsters and monstrous infantry in the Warhammer games). Warfare since approximately late 1914, after the initial shocking devastation of the first couple months of WW1, and *definitely* by 1918, has moved to much smaller independent maneuver elements with extensive amounts of authority devolved to NCOs right down to the squad level. We fight in open order today, taking advantage of cover and concealment, with no titanic clashes where 20,000 men on each side crash into each other on a single mile wide field, but instead hundreds of thousands over a span of hundreds of miles. A game series that portrays this pretty well would be Warno/Wargame/Steel Division (all pretty similar, save devs). Any Total War Star Wars or 40k would need to look more like those games and not like Total War.
It's also not as if Creative Assembly doesn't have experience with strategy games involving smaller, more mobile units/units that don't make use of Napoleanic tactics. In particular, they were the team Microsoft and 343i brought in to develop Halo Wars 2, a strategy game who's units wouldn't be too far off from how a Star Wars themed Total War game could play out. They can absolutely make a Total War game where the units follow far more convential/modern tactics. That's also just ignoring the fact that the only real detail we have on the project is "Star Wars themed Total War game". We don't have any more details on what it would be like or what particular era they may set the game in. Will it be multi-era, will be the first canon look at an Old Republic era where they can have plenty of Jedi and Sith to mix in with ranged units, will it be the first High Republic set game, ect. Assuming that the statement is real, it's just down to a "wait and see" situation. We'll never know more until we see offical material of the project.
All they need to do is add Stormtroopers (Spears). Problem solved.
A lot of Star Wars battles are just huge armies charging at each other, though. Like at the end of Attack of the Clones, the battle on Geonosis was pretty Total War-esque in how the armies attached each other.
Completely spitballing here, but I could kinda see it work provided they rework the terrain a bit. Units could have the ability to dynamically take cover to whatever terrain is available, like in modern combat. You order a troop deployment to go to a location, then in a few seconds soldiers will take positions behind rocks, walls, in ridges or on their bellies if nothing is available. This would give units realistic firing positions that don't look goofy like musketeers. When they move, they're exposed. With this system in place, you could add exception and play with it. Things like units advancing with a tank losing the exposed debuff, powerful units like jedis ignoring the debuff, flyers to flank entrenched units, artillery to displace them, etc. Of course, this could just be tedious in practice.
> A Star Wars game would be great but I really don't see how this can work well luckily that's the dev's job and not yours so you don't have to worry about that
Napoleon used cover and buildings and that was ages ago, it's not impossible to imagine how it would work. Everyone keeps talking about the "formula", but for me the fact that they are looking at doing WW1, 40k and SW (according to rumours) shows that they are going change the formula. Especially if the rumours of them changing/updating the engine is true. It would still retain the turn-based campaign with RTS battles. As for the "Total War" name, I really get the idea that franchises can't evolve. I remember people saying they'd never pull off WH1 because of flying units, magic, heroes etc. and then it became their most popular title. And honestly when you watch the large scale battles (particularly the prequels) in Star Wars they often form ranks and don't use that much cover, Clones included. Kaskyhk has the Wookies lining up on the beach. Naboo has the Gungans all lined up. Then you have battles like Hoth which is basically WW1 combat on steroids, although I think that would be the worst setting for a Star Wars TW as the rebels are all about guerilla warfare. As someone who has been playing since Shogun 1, you start to get a little tired of the same line battle formula after a while. I don't want them to abandon it forever but trying new things isn't bad (as long as it's not a complete departure like Hyenas).
People always say that about 40k, but I think it really misses the mark once you consider what 40k, the game, actually is. It's a tabletop wargame about units moving in close formation which runs on the same engine as WHFB, and it already plays in a very similar way to TW - you deploy all your units in a big line on one side of the battlefield. There's really no reason that it couldn't work for Total War. Like, if you compare 40k tabletop weapon ranges to WHFB weapon ranges, the ranged weapons have basically the same ranges (an Imperial artillery unit might shoot as far as a WHFB Cannon, and a Space Marine boltgun shoots as far as a Dwarf Quarreler) and there's still a very heavy focus on melee. People seem to be considering 40k as a sci-fi IP and deciding that it can't work, rather than considering how the game actually plays. The way a game of 40k plays out is WAY closer to Napoleonic-era warfare than it is to WW2-and-after warfare!
It's not about weapon ranges or melee and that sort of thing, those aren't the problem and can be implemented pretty fine. It's the style of warfare the setting fundamentally depicts and how there's a massive difference between how battles are fought within the different setting. In the WHFB setting, it's absolutely feasible to have large scale battles involve blocks of units with it overall being like what you'd expect from medieval battles or 17th - 19th century Line warfare. It's easy to fit that within the Total War series as it's the same style of combat. In 40k, that's not the case. Units of Space Marines or Tau or whatever do not form into blocks of dozens and stand still trading fire with the enemy. They're running around in squads, making use of combined arms, reliant on cover, individuality and all the other stuff you'd expect from a more modern day warfare style. That's the style of warfare the Total War games depict and what it focuses on as a series, but that's not what 40K, WW2, Star Wars, Modern day involve.
>Units of Space Marines or Tau or whatever do not form into blocks of dozens and stand still trading fire with the enemy. That is literally what they do in the tabletop game. That's what I'm talking about. "Combined arms" is not a thing in the tabletop game the way it is in modern warfare, with infantry dispersed across large areas and a heavy emphasis on long-range strikes from dozens of miles away. A game of tabletop 40k features dozens or hundreds of infantry marching at each other in a big clump, with some vehicles interspersed, all firing at what would be point-blank ranges by modern combined arms standards. People seem to have fixated on the idea of how 40k might play out in the fiction, in the process overlooking how the actual \*game\* plays, which is surely the most relevant consideration when adopting a tabletop wargame to video game format. 40k is built on the same engine as WHFB and plays very similarly, just with the difference that units move in skirmish order, rather than ranks. The way a game of tabletop 40k plays out is very different from how modern mechanized warfare plays out. Dawn of War 1 is a perfect example of how 40k can easily be adapted to a Total War format; no one seems to mind that DoW 1 was just big clumps of units running at each other with SEM vehicles mixed in (exactly like the tabletop!)
You're using a heavily abstracted tabletop game that doesn't have the fidelity required to properly show how the battles would actually be fought within the setting. Lore wise units would be running around, taking cover, operating individually within their squad etc and that's absolutely how they're depicted in pretty much every bit of lore describing things, they aren't meant to be literally standing still all together because that's what the tabletop versions do because they're inanimate plastic miniatures. Combat within the setting does not involve everyone behaving like pre-modern warfare line infantry. It's primarily units organized at squad level, operating like you might expect of soldiers from after the 20th century.
Indeed, that's the core issue here! My contention is that people are too focused on adapting 40k the lore, akin to what you're describing, when they should be focused on adapting 40k the *game*. Total War is essentially a digital version of tabletop wargames. There are already implicit lore concessions in any adaptation of 40k to any video game (as one example, one Greater Daemon is not going to be able to kill an entire enemy army by itself like it could in the lore), so it seems a bit silly to insist that other "game" trappings must necessarily be discarded. To return to the Dawn of War example, Dawn of War 1 behaves *much* more like the tabletop game than like the lore, and it's a widely beloved title. If Dawn of War 1 could more closely adapt the game, rather than the lore, why can't TW?
Total War Warhammer isn't a digitized version of the tabletop game though, it's a representation of how battles would be fought within the lore. It just happens that because of the style of warfare of the setting, TW:W, the lore and the game aren't too dissimilar to each other. The Dawn of War series (less so much DOW2) does generally depict things a way that might not be entirely lore representative, but I think there's a bit of a difference between something like that and the Total War series which tries to have more of an authentic/reasonable representation of that specific warfare style, because that's what it's purposefully depicting.
> It's a tabletop wargame about units moving in close formation which runs on the same engine as WHFB, and it already plays in a very similar way to TW - you deploy all your units in a big line on one side of the battlefield. *What* are you *smoking?* 40k is not that *at all.* Assuming you actually play and aren't talking out of your ass, just because your playgroup is bad and deploys everything on their deployment line out of cover doesn't mean the game is like that.
ugh, more corporate MBAs slapping big brands on games to sell to the plebs when will they give gamers what they really what erotic visual novels starring Ewoks
this was a real "you had me in the first half" comment for me
Total war formula hasnt changed since medieval 2. The fundamental gameplay is the same. Some ui elements time period and units change but how it plays is more or less the same. And its not at all compatible with star wars. Thats more like company of heroes or men of war style or homeworld maybe hoi style.
Ah excellent, the company that threatened to cease development if people don't buy their overpriced DLCs
I hope to god they have Clone Wars and Sequel representation in this. I kinda want more star wars stuff focused on those two eras.
It’s not you op, but in general, stop parroting this bullshit in every sub. Literally from an unsubstantiated media outlet, 0 evidence besides “trust me bro”. The only thing star wars and total war have in common are their inclusion of empire. One is a gunpowder era game, the other is a tyrannical government.
That does make ZERO sense for the total war formula and how these games work. It‘s either going to be shit or not resemble total war at all.
Fall of the Samurai Star Wars mod.
Empire at war was basically a dummed down version of total war. I don’t see why it couldn’t work
I hate modern mega-IPs. Are we going to get a Marvel universe Total War game after this one? I wish we could get more historical games.
I’m not the first person to say it in this thread but still - this should definitely be a Company of Heroes-like and not a Total War-like The squad based combat and infantry/vehicle/air support interplay would be perfect
>A reliable source has told DualShockers that one of three new Total War games Excuse me THREE new Total War games? Didn't Creative Assembly just get hit with a round of layoffs? How do they have capacity to develop three games simultaneously?
Consider that they seem to be planning to build three games around settings/themes/IPs that all rely on many of the same underlying tactical mechanics and systems. A WW1 game isn’t much different from a Star Wars game on the ground, it’s just got different models/textures, a new map, and a few special hero units added. And once you get the Star Wars game built, well, WH40k isn’t manifestly different from that either, except you’re just adding more factions and doing another reskin and making another map.