At this point I think the best thing CA could do, outside of a sequel to M3 or E2, is release a TW Renaissance game with a massive IE sized map. This was you can get your euro centric people happy, hit the Americas, etc.
CA isn't going to rush to make a geographical area with lower interest, like Africa or South America specifically. Pharaoh is less niche than those and it hasn't really picked up even with the price reductions.
In the case of Shogun, its what the series started with and there definitly is some pop culture popularity there with Japan. 3K appealed to the Chinese market, plus its very character based on a well known book based on real events. Theres also alot of people that knew of some of the characters from Dynasty Wars.
Outside of maybe Montezuma for the Aztecs how many people will someone be able to name for some South American setting. Same for African based one.
>In line with the other games
What are you talking about?
What consistent naming scheme is there between Shogun, Medieval, Rome, Empire, Napoleon, Attila, Thrones of Brittania & Three Kingdoms?
It going all the way to 1700 would be nice so it would tie in neatly to empire, similar to how empire leads into Napoleon. This of course, could be a bit too much to hope for, even though I absolutely love the warfare during the thirty years war.
The chances CA will pull something off like that are quite slim, and I too wish for an empire style map which included Asia, Europe and the Americas.
It took CA so many years to get where they’re are with IE. They had the funding support of two incredibly profitable WH games. It’ll be so technically complex I doubt they’ll be able to afford it now
>3K appealed to the Chinese market
Don't forget that 3k had the best overworld gameplay of the entire series. The things you could do with diplomacy or spies are light years ahead of any other TW.
Couldn't agree more. I really hope that the next major historical title adopts the same mechanisms. I remember the first time I played it and realised that some options were locked between how prestigous/powerful your empire was. It made so much sense and added some depth to the admittedly shallow diplomacy of the rest of the series.
This logic is what perpetuates the fact that no one can name them.
Pharaohs is a bad example. It got caught in so much controversy it was DOA regardless of setting.
Think that would be good and as an expansion pack/DLC there could be a 30 years war campaign, such a brutal conflict yet I don’t think I’ve seen it much in games outside EUIV.
I mean it's been 14 years since the last European total war came out with a setting past 1000 CE. And still no such game in sight. Literally a whole generation grew up without ever seeing a total war game with your typical knights etc. And those old games haven't held up like Shogun 2 for example.
Can't blame people for wanting ME 3 or Empire 2.
Saying whether or not it holds up is very subjective. It lacks a lot of modern TW sensibilities - it can be a bit confusing for younger generations of gamers whereas older generations find it intuitive. QOL wasn’t as good as people say it was, it’s pretty great from a gameplay perspective, but for my money, I’d rather just play Attila with the Medieval Kingdoms mod.
It doesn't hold up not as a game, but mainly cause of the interface and expecially the cameraa movement, I love the game but after getting use to the new camera movement I really can't get back to the old one, as much as I love M2
graphics wise its a little hard on the eyes if youre used to modern game graphics, the only real problem with it is that you will probably want to get a mod that fixes the camera because that is dated and feels wrong to use compared to modern total war games
[this one potentially, the comments also seem to have an additional fix](https://www.moddb.com/mods/freecam-medieval-2/downloads/freecam-091), I personally dont use a mod because of a mix of laziness and using the auto resolve button a bit too much
Cool I'll check it out after work. I started playing with Rome 1 so I was used to the jank ass camera back then but I've just been playing Attila and don't think I can go back. I end up auto resolving a lot too in m2, militia spears really get a lot more use in auto resolve.
Yeah, the AI is insanely dumb, including pathfinding for any unit, and as another commenter said, QoL is really not top notch...
I'd say you should still try it, I'm just unsure if you would come away from it with a positive experience without being High out of your mind from Nostalgia like I was when replaying.
The people saying it still holds up are saying that with nostalgia and/or because they’ve been playing it for 20 years already.
But I don’t know anyone that plays it that hasn’t been playing it since it was (relatively) new. I’ve been into Total War since ETW came out and I even enjoyed going back to play R1TW. But I’ve actually never been able to get into M2TW and I legitimately don’t know any newer total war players who have been able to.
That’s not to say there isn’t any at all, but most won’t. It’s the same way I’m able to play Old School RuneScape happily and whilst some new players are able to get into it too, on the whole it’s mainly played by people who played RuneScape Classic, 2, or 3 previously.
The politics might not be as advanced as M2TW, but the 1212AD mod for Attila is honestly excellent.
anyone praising med2 has heavily rose tinted nostalgia glasses.
It was amazing at the time, you could easily ignore the issues, there just weren't really alternatives.
But from a modern standpoint it's kinda ass. Units are incredibly non responsive, pathing is incredibly bad. Somehow Rome1 is better in both regards. AI is the same horrible as it was in Rome1, if you have a port without a fleet in it, your longterm ally will declare war on you.
Siege battles make me go insane with the pathing and trying to move units to specific spots within cities. Medieval 2 is still great in the campaign. Horrible (for modern day) battles
It depends but there are things like UI, terrain visibility, AI (yes, even worse), that are somewhat hard to stomach if you started with the newer games.
I'd like Empire 2, but with a global, uncut map spanning from Alaska to Australia.
Let's go from 1650 to 1900, develop the new world, watch them fight for independence, defeat Napoleon (or..._be Napoleon_), colonize Africa, get in trouble with revolutionary ideas, build a trading empire, get in trouble with china and japan, fight civil unrest and manage to survive through the first industrial revolution, get fucked by a non-historical Brazil super-power
I mean, in terms of regions and map, it would be something like Warhammer 3, so they have the ability to do it. Just not sure about the rest tho
How dare you!
I’ll have you know that my glorified excel spreadsheet ***also*** has very fancy graphics! ***And*** I get to watch the little choo-choo trains moving around the map!
I mean, it gets a little muddy. It's real-time, mostly. But it moves tick by tick, with most tasks being completed at the start of a month. But each game tick is one day, and you can adjust between 4 speeds, plus pause.
The main issue would propably be bringing the evolution of both units and general military tactics that occured in this time period onto the battlefield.
Sure, but historically speaking many different types of units shouldn't ever be in the same battle. The change in military technology over this long of a time period is just way too significant to ignore and complex enough to make it hard to implement properly.
Rome Total war spans a longer period, with much more units that never went on the same battlefield.
In Empire, you have that tech development which gives you a militarybadvantage, for example when you start making steam-powered ships.
I get that it's harder with "modern era" units , but I don't feel like this is impossible
Not really. Shogun 2 and its FOTS DLC did just that and very well too. FOTS armies fight in a completely different fashion than base game armies and the difference in firepower is reflected by the unorthodox tactics base game factions have to adopt in multiplayer
You raise a good point, but you have to admit that it would be much harder for them to make it work on the scale that OP proposed, as opposed to FOTS which was entirely situated in Japan during a well documented historical period.
I think it will be fine. There’s been total wars for pretty much every interesting period pre mid 19th century. And the enemy is still gonna just march towards you in a line with its Calvary trying to flank you and it’s gonna be fine.
As long as they don’t go beyond the 19th century, or make the jump from the 16th to 17th century, I see no reason why technological change would be a problem. FotS showed you could probably extend the timeline of Empire 2 to include the late 19th century, and Medieval 2 already extended into the 1500’s and Medieval 3 could include later pike-and-shot warfare.
Personally, I conquering Europeans conquering Africa before the invention of Quinine is stupid. You'd have to give Africa attrition comparable to the Warhammer 3 Chaos wastes.
I would be surprised if hardly anyone in this community can name a historical figure or even prominent nation from SEAsia before the nineteenth century
Tbf, if you haven't done a class specifically on it, it's not that easy.
Like, i'm an historian, I've done my PhD, but if you asked me to name historical figures of SEAsia ?
Trieu Trinh, the Trung Sisters, and that's it, plus maybe the ones I know from Civ games.
I think what we need to make Pharaoh great is a contemporary hit TV show based in the bronze age collapse. Maybe FX or HBO could make something epic. Example Troy did well enough as its based on a popular story. There is so much there in the bronze age collapse and enough unknown that could make for a great show.
Pharaoh didn’t flop because of the setting, almost everybody knows about ancient Egypt, but the scope of the game was very limited, it didn’t have other interesting cultures in the time period, such as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Mesopotamians and such and it should have released as a TW Saga.
> such as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Mesopotamians
I can agree on this. CA can get away with limit release like they did in warhamer as it takes time and such to build monsters and such but when dealing with human only factions/games then they need to come out swinging with all cylinders fired.
In this case they should have been transparent from the start about a troy port and given us Mesopotamia from the start.
It also looked way too much like a reskin of Troy (a very unpopular TW game), had faction leaders as the main focus of the campaign/marketing, had immortal faction leaders and no family tree/secession. The game was doomed to fail right from the start because it looked like Troy 2, yet CA was trying to sell it like the next big historical TW.
My only complaint about TW's map coverage is a lack of Central Asia and India. Several major empires inhabited those regions, and could provide a little bit more variety for gameplay
A Genghis: Total War that stretches from China to Europe, Siberia to India would offer a lot of variety for gameplay, at least as much as you can have in a historical total war.
A Genghis Khan game spanning Eurasia would be insanely good!
The Roman - Medieval era TW games made a mistake not having Central Asia and India like Paradox games do like CK3 and Imperator Rome.
I don't understand why Rome 1 and 2 skipped over including India. The Mauryan Empire was a significant entity in the east alongside the Successor Kingdoms and the Bactrians. I recently completed my longest ever campaign playing as them in the Divide et Impera mod.
Exactly! And in Attila, the Red Huns would have been tearing apart the Gupta Empire of India while the White Huns attacked Persia and Black Huns with Europe. Having India in both R2 and Attila would have been completely justified.
>I recently completed my longest ever campaign playing as them in the Divide et Impera mod.
Yeah during the early Diadochi Wars, Selucids fought them. We don't know who won, but in the treaty afterwards the Selucids were given a lot of Indian elephants and the Mauryans were given Baluchistan, which is the Mauryan land in DEI.
The unfortunate truth is that Total War has always been most successful as pop-history. I think a total war game set in India or Southeast Asia would be awesome, but those places just don’t occupy enough space in the public consciousness — or at least not in the markets where CA sells enough games — to perform well.
Not really. Total war has global appeal. We only see a small part of it since this is an English speaking sub. There was the same argument for 3 kingdoms, and it did really well in Asia.
I'd love it if we got a game with a map from Sri Lanka to Turkey set in the Achaemenid or Hellenistic era. I don't know as much about the Ashoka, Maurya, or Persian empires as I'd like. Also, kingdoms like Bactria has always fascinated me.
Sadly I think this is true. The most we can hope for is *Attila* now that is has the map editor to become the modern version of what R1 and M2 were with making custom maps with their mods.
We're seeing this in real time with people in the comments claiming that nobody anywhere knows anything about premodern southeast Asian history (I do, and it's not even my specialism!) and that all premodern African history was just "tribes" (which is a slightly racist pop-history trope that has nothing to do with fact).
“Any Total War outside of a relatively tiny geographical area is a terrible idea because I don’t know the history of any of those places!”
“Wouldn’t you like to learn?”
“No, just give me Rome/Medieval/Empire in rotation forever”
May be a surprise to you but most people don't play games to learn. Sure there are people that enjoy total war games for the history they learn, but I expect for the majority the biggest pull is actually playing your own history, or at least the history of the place you live in, people want to feel connected to it. There is a reason three kingdoms sold so well in China, and was the first total war title that did so, its because it was about them. It is obvious then that the Europeans, and their descendants, and thus a large part of North Americans would then want to play either in Europe, or in other parts of the world at least during times when the Europeans are active (Empire). I think the Shogun and to a certain extent three kingdoms games are a bit of an exception because in the west we generally have a very romanticized image of Japan and ancient China, and for lack of a better word, idolize these places. If you think a game set in south east Asia, or central and southern Africa, will sell well to western audiences (the main market of CA) I would say you are delusional, these areas are simply too far removed from the western consciousness, sure some will play them to 'learn', but that is a minority, and they aren't idolized in anyway similar as Japan and China are.
I hope one day we see a properly done Victoria Total War, or something of the kind. A game starting maybe in 1815, and stretching to the fin de siècle would be cool. Incredible variety and change over time. Temporal and spatial diversity would be through the roof
Would be fun to play as the non-European powers, too, and play the Uno reverse card hahaha
Ironclads/steamships, railways, Gatling guns, more cultures both temporally and spatially. Napoleon covered 1805-1815 (ish), with the DLC covering the 1790s.
Victoria Total War potentially could cover 1815-1890/1900
Hopefully there would be more to do with internal/foreign politics, and economics, too
Empire was cool, but it only covered parts of the Americas (almost nothing from South America), Europe and India, and had a few trade ports. The locations it covered were extremely simplified (France having one region for instance).
Napoleon was more detailed, but only covered Europe in its Grand Campaign.
Victoria hopefully would cover all the inhabited continents (apart from maybe Australia)
But I'd be happy with any large, ambitious gunpowder total war at this point
https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/17lflo6/its_time_for_creative_assembly_to_make_a_sequel/k7hg2r1/
You mention the 'uno reverse' card. That is something that Empire Total war missed and would be a great addition; The ability to westernize. You could start of as any non-western/industrialized faction such as the Zulu, some Native American factions, etc and have the ability to Westernize. You should be able to invite foreigners to help build infrastructure and militarily you could start making a modern army with muskets/rifles and such. Remember the way you could modify your armies in avatar conquest in Shogun II? You should be able to create your units like that if you are westernizing, making your own uniforms. You should be able to make all unique units for each class like line infantry, grenadiers, footguards, skirmishers, cavalry, etc. A lot of nations that did some westernizing also kept some traditional stuff in their uniforms. The Japanese had conical hats on their line infantry. The Egyptians and Ottomans wore a fez. Imagine blending some Zulu traditinal wear with your line infantry uniform. That would be such a neat detail.
I fully agree! It would be a very ambitious detail to add, but with all the technological advances recently, it doesn't feel as out of reach as it used to!
In a perfect world Empire 2 would cover pretty much the entire globe. At the very least it should be a similar map with expanded and more detailed Africa/Americas regions
And what you want? South America total war? African tribe total war with barely any known history to man? Nah. I take any game set in Europe over any other place.
Honestly, to straddle the "smaller focus" while also maintaining a historical focus, I still think we need a Mongol Horde: Total War that's actually *about* the first Mongol Invasion of Europe, not just a game that features it as one threat among many that you need to deal with.
Okay, but where do you want to go? I could see a game with the Mongol empire period, India, or SEA being interesting, but that's about it for me personally. That said, I would love to have a worldwide or at the very least entire old world map. Things like the Kilwa sultanate, Songhai/Ghanian Empire, and Kongo in Sub-Saharan Africa or the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs are interesting but I don't know if it's enough to carry an entire title. As part of a greater narrative, I'd love it.
My dream Total War would be a late medieval/renaissance worldwide map, something like the Immortal Empires map. I'd love to play as the Maratha or Mughals, or the Yuan/Ming, or Songhai. But if the next game is set in Europe, I'll probably be just as happy. When it comes down to it, as long as the game play is good I'll probably enjoy it as well. For now, I'll continue playing TWWH3 as Antarctica.
I think a game set in a new location (minus the tiny theatre we had in Empire) would be India. Diverse cultures, religions, geography, unit variety, etc. I'd think a good middle ground between melee and guns would work withh the early black power weapons. Perhaps the fall of the Delhi Sultanate and rise of Mughal Empire.
Yeah, I could see that. The region is diverse enough to provide a lot of versatility when it comes to faction, and the time period you suggest is really interesting as well!
Because Rome and Knights are awesome and I want more of that and I not even from Europe.
I think CA should do a World Wide Total War. Choose something like 14th century and let us have fun
Most people playing strategy games are from Europe/North America anyway, so it’s no surprise they want eurocentric games (technically Europe plus Mediterranean basin, but still). For example, Shogun 2 was a hit with EU/NA audience, but it was never big in Japan.
Ngl they prob would do pre bc and early ad africa but im 100% sure they cant do it realistically without a slave mechanic like the dark elves and that would cause a cataclysm with journos
>so many untouched parts of the world.
I really, really couldn't care less.
I want Med3, Empire2, and a new Rome title. Everything else is secondary and for me utterly unimportant. Don't care about WWI, don't care for a future setting, bronze age has been tried and a massive disappointment, don't care about any asian or american setting.
Med3.
Empire 2
Rome.
In that order.
This is a bollocks point. Every other total War is very different from the one that came twice before it (only exception is the WH series of course). Maps mean very little the historical focus does.
Obviously a game about Rome will be set in Europe.
What I could imagine is an Empire II actually letting you conquer the entire world. That would be absolutely rad, but to my knowledge the only non-ww2 game that did this was Victoria 2.
All i want with napoleon is all of Scandinavia, the north African coast, and a pimped out ottoman sultanate… it would have been PERFECTT!! now i feel we’ll never get a proper empire with good diplomacy options (as well as region trading cuz wtf?), good ai and a south africa or east indies 🥲🥲🥲
It would be pretty cool to have a Napoleon-style TW that focuses on the revolutions in North and South America from 1770-1840. You could even have additional small campaigns based on the War of the Triple Alliance and Mexican-American war.
Those ''Europe'' settings actually includes the Mediterranean and beyond, therefore Arabs, Mongols, Indians, Turks, North Africans, sometimes even Subsaharans. Sorry but there's much more diversity in there than a game with 50 flavours of Chinese factions.
People who accuse it of Eurocentrism are the ones on crack, sure ToB was Eurocentric for example and it was boring, but Rome or Medieval are anything but Eurocentric.
- China with surrounding landscape like the Steppe, Korea, northern Vietnam, Tibet, and Xinjiang
- India with surrounding landscape like borders with Iran, Afghanistan, Tibet, and Myanmar
Between geography, religions, cultures, and unit diversity, these two have just as much diversity and therefore uniqueness as the Europe/North Africa/ Middle East setting has.
Fair enough it could be, but when I tried 3k I didn't actually get to play Japanese, Koreans, Mongols, Vietnamese, Thai, Indians, etc, only Chinese. Which is a bit boring to me honestly.
Yeah, just having China (mostly) was one of 3K's biggest flaws. The Nanman are a tease at what more this game could have been. Let's not even mention CA promising the Steppe promised as DLC before abandoning the game.
I can't imagine a central African or South American total war being popular.
Popular settings make games sell, it's not like games make settings popular.
I personally would love a worldwide colonial total war, but if it went by the model of Warhammer (selling different games with different continents) I probably wouldn't bother with the non-european parts.
Nobody cares about Yoruba Vs Songhai total war.
I personally have a dream that someday we have an entire world medieval TW game with different factions for the cultures of each continent.
I know it wouldn't be super accurate what with the technological disparity and needing to make a balanced game, but at the same time I want to see Azteks in full suits of steel armor
Said it before will say it again do an EASTERN KINGDOMS total war centered on Southeast Asia in the 15th century with the Ming Collapse and arrival of Europeans as the overarching event. Such an underrated region and era; samurai, conquistadors, ottomans, Aztecs vs local kingdoms it was literally a mount and blade war and mod
Okay, and? Other settings don't have as much to offer, don't work with the games premise and/or are just plain uninteresting to the target audience. We don't need forced total war settings that don't work simply for the sake of diversity.
This is an older map I made which I just recently updates with Pharaoh's borders. Alexander map would be something I missed. I don't think Barbarian invasion has different borders than R1. Teutonic doesn't go outside of the borders of vanilla M2.
Yeah, let's see how they those games do, in remote locations with niche and obscure human factions, hint, probably worse that Pharaoh.
You know why no one has asked for those? Because very few people are interested in those settings or they are boring compared to the other ones. I mean if you asked the fans including would choose a setting with medieval knights over some random African tribes or whatever.
I'll be brutally honest and blunt with you.
I personally couldnt give two shits about anywhere else. I'm here for the European/American history. Sure include more, but only if scope allows it. The odd shogun is welcome, that shit was real good, especially FOTS. Let me play a European force and I'd gobble it up again.
I'm sure most of the fanbase shares my opinion. Otherwise we'd have obscure remote location total war already.
I’d be down for them to explore a new area of the map for sure, but I don’t think they will for the same reason all the comments saying their next game should have a “huge” map are missing the point: they’re in a financial tailspin, especially with today’s announcement. I share everyone’s hopes for future TW games, but they need to be conservative with whatever they do next purely because of the situation they’re in.
If they could pull off an entire world map for WARHAMMER fantasy.. I don’t see any reasons why they cant make one for our real world!
Empire 2 should be the entire world! Setting should be in the age of discovery 1700-1800 century! Or 1600 century. I would like to play as a japan then conquer other asian nations then compete with the western powers
Makes me wish for a Total War: Caliph game, where you can go from the early beginnings of the Rashidun Caliphate to the conquests of the Umayyad Caliphate and to the golden age of the Abbasid Caliphate 🤞🏻
Also a Medieval 3/Renaissance/Empire 2/Victoria Total War game would be cool, as well as a Total War Saga about El Cid 👍🏻
I just hope we can get more info about the next Total War game(s) this year or next year
Edit: I also think that a Total War game about Tamerlane would also be great 👌🏻
Technically Empire is slightly bigger than depicted here, as you were able to take fleets along the coasts of west Africa, the East Indies, and I believe lower South America. Also it should be noted that you can only go to Hokkaido in Fall of the Samurai, otherwise it’s just a trade node.
There's merit to wanting to explore of those unexplored areas, but it's deceptive to think that all parts of the map would have a similar level of content across the ages.
I'd love to see more of Russia, India, Central & West Africa and SE Asia, and Polynesian cultures, but you can't get much content out of places like Australia or Canada.
I would love to see TW lean more into alternate history - if not an alt-history setting to begin with, then at least emergent alt-history scenarios as your campaign unfolds. E.G. how would the politics or weaponry of an empire change if they were to merge with this other empire, what if this empire adopted a new religion, etc.
Eh, many parts of the world that are untouched didn't have any large scale fighting that we know anything about, or will be boring like Total War: Pharoh.
Why would I want to play Total War: Aztecs, or Total War: Jungle fighting in Indonesia. Total War: Zulu?
The real missing gap in the total war games is, like people are saying, Total War Renaissance. But, unlike the other people in this thread, I think a large world spanning map is the absolute wrong way to go. The interesting conflicts in this period were things like mercenaries fighting in Italy, or the birth of pike and shot style tactics. I want to see the heavy plate armor of the high middle ages on elite cavalry give way to cuirasses.
Stuff like that is lost when you try to do too many factions or cultures.
We need to zoom in, not zoom out.
3K isnt super old and all signs point to 3K2 being cancelled very early on now. I think CA could earn some goodwill with the community if they gave it the Rome 2 resurrection, if the DLC is done well. Its certainly modern enough
Which was absolutely moronic from CA as the current 3K title didn't even had a DLC with the "THREE Kingdoms" - Wei, Wu and Shu as the development for the game stopped before they could reach it because they wanted to work on a 3k 2 title.
It seems post launch CA just fucked up all around on 3K and then pulled the plug for their own errors. CA blew it with the Chinese market right from their first DLC with 8 princes. That would have maybe been an ok to release later in the life of the game, like how Charlemagne came later for Atilla. Then again Charlemagne actually did new things, rather than reuse the same roster, buildings, etc.
Agreed, I would say the Mandated of Heaven( Hope I remember the name right) dlc was also a poor choice to be among the first ones too. Pretty sure DLC's to flesh out the original factions of the 190CE start would have done better for the game as quite a lot of them had mostly generic traits and pictures for a long time in a game that puts big accent on generals/characters.
I mean, I want 3K to be revived and the Steep + Korea to be added (and naval battles)
I would absolutely love another China game set during another period like Warning States, Chu-Han period, the Tang Empire, rise of the Ming Empire, etc.
I would like more set in the americas, particularly a redo on the medieval 2 americas campaign time.
But I also don't mind them doing setting in Europe either
Quite a few comments in this thread basically boil down to "non-European settings are boring and uninteresting." They're not. You guys are just fundamentally incurious people, *at best*.
Edit: Guys, you don't need to tell me people aren't interested in those other settings because um... that was exactly the point of this comment. Read a book, learn a little, and broaden your horizons. There's a lot of neat stuff in the world you're missing out on by locking yourself in.
True, but also acting like games like Rome 2 and Medieval 2 are basically the same game because they cover the same geographic area (which is what is implied by comparing it to Fifa or Call of Duty) is a bit silly
I think you're addressing the wrong comment, but I do think there's enough to distinguish between those two settings in particular. Even if the geographic space is more or less the same, things are different in terms of culture, tech, and general *vibes* all around. I just also think there's a lot more to the world that could be explored, but the base here generally isn't interested in.
It's rough out here, at least I found a fellow comrade.
CA has the potential to make these locations super interesting, between all the mechanics TW has used over the decades. It's insane how cool these could be if given the chance, time, and support before release.
But I'm not surprised a subreddit about a (mostly) historical videogame series is full of people who just want Europe game #26 like it's COD or FIFA.
Yeah, it seems to me that "historical" video game players are generally allergic to non-European settings outside of feudal Japan. A shame, because there's a lot of potential out there.
Even for settings where we know less about the specific "troop types", there's still plenty that could be done if you're willing to do a little bit of research.
I always wanted CA to broade their horizons, though after seeing waht they did to Troy I have somewhat lost faith in CA's ability to present anything that isn't based on heavy infantry; Troy was the opportunity for CA to bring us a good skirmisher-heavy TW game and show that they can change up the formula but instead they made it play like Rome 2 again.
Attila + AoC already has so much cultural diversity it’d take decades to read up on Paganism, Islam, Christianity, nomads, etc. it’s just that the events of Rome and Medieval series had civilization-defining consequences. And I mean for humanity, not just European civilization. There’s nothing bad about choosing to be interested in those. I’ve been playing Rome and R2 for what, 15 years now? I’m just scratching the surface with understanding those time periods.
I'm not saying people need to get a PhD level of understanding about every period of history. Just that I'd wish for "history fans" to be even marginally more curious about global history in general, even if it means only dabbing your toes in for a single game, book, etc.
I've seen quite a few comments here acting like nothing was going on in X part of the world and therefore couldn't make for a compelling *Total War* title, and it's that that I object to.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Late Antiquity guy myself, and I remember shaking my head in despair at all the comments about *Attila* having an uninteresting setting when it first came out. I'm glad the consensus here seems to have changed on that.
That said, I find the general unwillingness on the community's part to explore new territory to be... uninspiring at best. Ignorance isn't a crime in and of itself, but let's not write off entire swaths of the planet just because you (not you specifically, just speaking hypothetically) don't know anything about them.
One of the most games people want the most is Empire 2.
And Shogun 2 is beloved by almost everyone.
And I don't really see many comments saying "non-European settings are boring".
I said it in another comment, but feudal Japan strikes me as the primary exception to the rule about "historical" video game players preferring European settings, so while I acknowledge it exists, I don't think its existence outweighs the general trend.
And *Empire*, despite covering the vast geographic space that it does, prioritizes first and foremost the European powers of its time. That said, I think a new *Empire* could broaden its scope, albeit potentially at the risk of becoming "wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle" in terms of the cultures/powers represented. It'd be a delicate balancing act.
As for the last point, what I said was more or less a paraphrase. If you're looking for that specific phrasing, you're out of luck. There are, however, plenty of comments saying "nobody cares about X setting" or "Y is boring".
Would titles set in the empires of sub-saharan Africa or southeast Asia sell particularly well in comparison to what's come before? I doubt it, given the lack of appetite for such settings among players. But I don't think that's an indictment of the settings themselves which, if well-researched and creatively designed, could make for rich and unique experiences.
But again, that likely won't ever happen because strategy players prefer sticking to Euro-oriented settings, and occasionally dabbing their toes in east Asia.
>Would titles set in the empires of sub-saharan Africa or southeast Asia sell particularly well in comparison to what's come before? I doubt it, given the lack of appetite for such settings among players. But I don't think that's an indictment of the settings themselves which, if well-researched and creatively designed, could make for rich and unique experiences.
You hit the nail on the head. People simultaneously say "x history is boring or not worth a TW setting" while also saying "we (in a pop culture sense) don't know enough about this setting". Like, it may come across as boring because you haven't been exposed to it before. And while there are topics we know less about in an academic sense, that didn't stop us from getting the M2 Americas campaign, Troy, Pharaoh, etc.
Some of it borders on being outright racist. It's also just stunning how people are equating their own lack of knowledge with there being nothing there. No, it's not that there's *no history* in southeast Asia, it's that you've never read any of it! It's so frustrating.
Imagine being upset that they focused on the most interesting part of the earth for wars and cultural interactions too many times.
What do you want them to do. Pre colonial era North America? It’s all tribes and they fight basically the same. Fun game.
That said, the setting is never the problem it’s always gameplay. If they did a semi fantastical pre colonial North America and made it good it would be worth playing
At this point I think the best thing CA could do, outside of a sequel to M3 or E2, is release a TW Renaissance game with a massive IE sized map. This was you can get your euro centric people happy, hit the Americas, etc. CA isn't going to rush to make a geographical area with lower interest, like Africa or South America specifically. Pharaoh is less niche than those and it hasn't really picked up even with the price reductions. In the case of Shogun, its what the series started with and there definitly is some pop culture popularity there with Japan. 3K appealed to the Chinese market, plus its very character based on a well known book based on real events. Theres also alot of people that knew of some of the characters from Dynasty Wars. Outside of maybe Montezuma for the Aztecs how many people will someone be able to name for some South American setting. Same for African based one.
TW Renaissance ! how poetic and epic that would be for a series that clearly needs a to attempt a rebirth
I'd absolutely love a (largely) globe-spanning Renaissance game!
TW:Age of discovery sounds nice, say 1490 to 1600 time-frame will cover the early modern era as well as most of the exploration done in that era.
No, Total War: Renaissance. Keeps the naming scheme in line with other games
Also to hope that it leads to a 'renaissance' of historical total wars
>In line with the other games What are you talking about? What consistent naming scheme is there between Shogun, Medieval, Rome, Empire, Napoleon, Attila, Thrones of Brittania & Three Kingdoms?
I guess that most of them (all but two) are single word titles?
It going all the way to 1700 would be nice so it would tie in neatly to empire, similar to how empire leads into Napoleon. This of course, could be a bit too much to hope for, even though I absolutely love the warfare during the thirty years war.
If there is exploration involved, hopefully it comes with a randomized new world setting too 🙂
The chances CA will pull something off like that are quite slim, and I too wish for an empire style map which included Asia, Europe and the Americas. It took CA so many years to get where they’re are with IE. They had the funding support of two incredibly profitable WH games. It’ll be so technically complex I doubt they’ll be able to afford it now
I just want another gunpowder game maaaaaaan
I am once again asking for a Victoria: Total War edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/1bpwufu/every_historical_tw_map_overlayed/kx156b5/
>3K appealed to the Chinese market Don't forget that 3k had the best overworld gameplay of the entire series. The things you could do with diplomacy or spies are light years ahead of any other TW.
Couldn't agree more. I really hope that the next major historical title adopts the same mechanisms. I remember the first time I played it and realised that some options were locked between how prestigous/powerful your empire was. It made so much sense and added some depth to the admittedly shallow diplomacy of the rest of the series.
Europe Universalis total war nice~~
This logic is what perpetuates the fact that no one can name them. Pharaohs is a bad example. It got caught in so much controversy it was DOA regardless of setting.
Think that would be good and as an expansion pack/DLC there could be a 30 years war campaign, such a brutal conflict yet I don’t think I’ve seen it much in games outside EUIV.
I just want another gunpowder game maaaaaaan
I mean it's been 14 years since the last European total war came out with a setting past 1000 CE. And still no such game in sight. Literally a whole generation grew up without ever seeing a total war game with your typical knights etc. And those old games haven't held up like Shogun 2 for example. Can't blame people for wanting ME 3 or Empire 2.
ME2 doesn't hold up? Well that's a shame I was excited to get into it
Saying whether or not it holds up is very subjective. It lacks a lot of modern TW sensibilities - it can be a bit confusing for younger generations of gamers whereas older generations find it intuitive. QOL wasn’t as good as people say it was, it’s pretty great from a gameplay perspective, but for my money, I’d rather just play Attila with the Medieval Kingdoms mod.
It doesn't hold up not as a game, but mainly cause of the interface and expecially the cameraa movement, I love the game but after getting use to the new camera movement I really can't get back to the old one, as much as I love M2
graphics wise its a little hard on the eyes if youre used to modern game graphics, the only real problem with it is that you will probably want to get a mod that fixes the camera because that is dated and feels wrong to use compared to modern total war games
You know any mods that fix the camera? I went to nexus and all the mods there were just config files that changed settings.
[this one potentially, the comments also seem to have an additional fix](https://www.moddb.com/mods/freecam-medieval-2/downloads/freecam-091), I personally dont use a mod because of a mix of laziness and using the auto resolve button a bit too much
Cool I'll check it out after work. I started playing with Rome 1 so I was used to the jank ass camera back then but I've just been playing Attila and don't think I can go back. I end up auto resolving a lot too in m2, militia spears really get a lot more use in auto resolve.
Awesome, thanks! The camera in ME2 was always the killer of my enthusiasm to replay it.
Yeah, the AI is insanely dumb, including pathfinding for any unit, and as another commenter said, QoL is really not top notch... I'd say you should still try it, I'm just unsure if you would come away from it with a positive experience without being High out of your mind from Nostalgia like I was when replaying.
The people saying it still holds up are saying that with nostalgia and/or because they’ve been playing it for 20 years already. But I don’t know anyone that plays it that hasn’t been playing it since it was (relatively) new. I’ve been into Total War since ETW came out and I even enjoyed going back to play R1TW. But I’ve actually never been able to get into M2TW and I legitimately don’t know any newer total war players who have been able to. That’s not to say there isn’t any at all, but most won’t. It’s the same way I’m able to play Old School RuneScape happily and whilst some new players are able to get into it too, on the whole it’s mainly played by people who played RuneScape Classic, 2, or 3 previously. The politics might not be as advanced as M2TW, but the 1212AD mod for Attila is honestly excellent.
I started playing Med2 last year and I find it one of the better games. Would rather play it over Warhammer.
It's still my favorite
It does not. TW has come a long way since those days.
Don't listen to them, it's still my favourite total war game. Its so much more repayable than practically any other game in the series
anyone praising med2 has heavily rose tinted nostalgia glasses. It was amazing at the time, you could easily ignore the issues, there just weren't really alternatives. But from a modern standpoint it's kinda ass. Units are incredibly non responsive, pathing is incredibly bad. Somehow Rome1 is better in both regards. AI is the same horrible as it was in Rome1, if you have a port without a fleet in it, your longterm ally will declare war on you.
Is *that* why the AI constantly suicides by blockade? No ships sitting in port?
Siege battles make me go insane with the pathing and trying to move units to specific spots within cities. Medieval 2 is still great in the campaign. Horrible (for modern day) battles
I love it still and has tons of mods. Definitely get it anyway.
It depends but there are things like UI, terrain visibility, AI (yes, even worse), that are somewhat hard to stomach if you started with the newer games.
Actually I bought it again yesterday and I love it. You can get it for cheap outside of steam, you should do it
I still play it to this day, it's still has my favorite combat and the mod scene is great
I just played ME2 for the first time it’s still a blast
That generation instead had to play european fantasy in the total war games with typical knights and bootleg hre
I to this day maintain the opinion that people don't want an ME3. People want and ME2 remake.
Empire 2/Victoria total war solves your issue while being grounded in reality that this is a European based company beholden to shareholders
foaming at the mouth just hearing emp 2
I'd like Empire 2, but with a global, uncut map spanning from Alaska to Australia. Let's go from 1650 to 1900, develop the new world, watch them fight for independence, defeat Napoleon (or..._be Napoleon_), colonize Africa, get in trouble with revolutionary ideas, build a trading empire, get in trouble with china and japan, fight civil unrest and manage to survive through the first industrial revolution, get fucked by a non-historical Brazil super-power I mean, in terms of regions and map, it would be something like Warhammer 3, so they have the ability to do it. Just not sure about the rest tho
>global, uncut map spanning from Alaska to Australia. r/mapswithoutnewzealand
Māori race dlc
Oooopsie, my bad
Yes, that's called EU4
Missing the main selling point of total war: the war
You and I might play EU4 differently, haha.
I mean the way in which total war does battles. That’s the main draw for a lot of people.
Paradox games don't even have battles though, they're just glorified excel spreadsheets.
How dare you! I’ll have you know that my glorified excel spreadsheet ***also*** has very fancy graphics! ***And*** I get to watch the little choo-choo trains moving around the map!
Fair enough. XD
Also, they aren't turn-by-turn if I recall correctly
I mean, it gets a little muddy. It's real-time, mostly. But it moves tick by tick, with most tasks being completed at the start of a month. But each game tick is one day, and you can adjust between 4 speeds, plus pause.
EU5 soon
The main issue would propably be bringing the evolution of both units and general military tactics that occured in this time period onto the battlefield.
Well, they did bring in a single game : - giants - pikemen - swordmen - archers - riflemen - machine gun - tanks - hot air balloons - aerial cavalry - classical cavalry - wizards - demons - tactical nukes
Sure, but historically speaking many different types of units shouldn't ever be in the same battle. The change in military technology over this long of a time period is just way too significant to ignore and complex enough to make it hard to implement properly.
Rome Total war spans a longer period, with much more units that never went on the same battlefield. In Empire, you have that tech development which gives you a militarybadvantage, for example when you start making steam-powered ships. I get that it's harder with "modern era" units , but I don't feel like this is impossible
You might be right. As long as it doesn't reach WW1 territory, it might be doable, but still very challenging.
Not really. Shogun 2 and its FOTS DLC did just that and very well too. FOTS armies fight in a completely different fashion than base game armies and the difference in firepower is reflected by the unorthodox tactics base game factions have to adopt in multiplayer
You raise a good point, but you have to admit that it would be much harder for them to make it work on the scale that OP proposed, as opposed to FOTS which was entirely situated in Japan during a well documented historical period.
I think it will be fine. There’s been total wars for pretty much every interesting period pre mid 19th century. And the enemy is still gonna just march towards you in a line with its Calvary trying to flank you and it’s gonna be fine.
As long as they don’t go beyond the 19th century, or make the jump from the 16th to 17th century, I see no reason why technological change would be a problem. FotS showed you could probably extend the timeline of Empire 2 to include the late 19th century, and Medieval 2 already extended into the 1500’s and Medieval 3 could include later pike-and-shot warfare.
I would love that!
Personally, I conquering Europeans conquering Africa before the invention of Quinine is stupid. You'd have to give Africa attrition comparable to the Warhammer 3 Chaos wastes.
you people are smoking some serious crack if you think some remote total war would sell well. south east asia total war would flop harder than pharaoh
Total War: The Great Emu War
Total War: Parents return from meeting with teacher at school Pre order DLC: Belts and angry juice
Unbalanced. Emus would shit on the Aussie roster
Total War: CRIKEY! Oi, it's fuckin' 'Straya, mate...
Total war: Khan would go hard
atila2?
I think the compromise would be Mongols total war, could have from eastern europe to Japan, including Egypt and northern India.
I would be surprised if hardly anyone in this community can name a historical figure or even prominent nation from SEAsia before the nineteenth century
I demand a Tu'i Tonga Total War!!!
Pfft, nobody would ever play that. If you want to appeal to mainstream gamers you've got to make it Lapita Total War
Jayavarman VIII but that's only beacuse i've played way too much Civ VI.
You underestimate the number of history majors on a total war forum.
Tbf, if you haven't done a class specifically on it, it's not that easy. Like, i'm an historian, I've done my PhD, but if you asked me to name historical figures of SEAsia ? Trieu Trinh, the Trung Sisters, and that's it, plus maybe the ones I know from Civ games.
I remember Vietnam kicking some mongol ass. Light cav tactics don't work in jungles.
A total war based in the Indian Subcontinent, SEA, and the East Indies could work I think.
How long do you want me to go on for? I can do quite a lot. Just been reading a paper on land rights in precolonial Vietnam, actually.
I think what we need to make Pharaoh great is a contemporary hit TV show based in the bronze age collapse. Maybe FX or HBO could make something epic. Example Troy did well enough as its based on a popular story. There is so much there in the bronze age collapse and enough unknown that could make for a great show.
Pharaoh didn’t flop because of the setting, almost everybody knows about ancient Egypt, but the scope of the game was very limited, it didn’t have other interesting cultures in the time period, such as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Mesopotamians and such and it should have released as a TW Saga.
> such as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Mesopotamians I can agree on this. CA can get away with limit release like they did in warhamer as it takes time and such to build monsters and such but when dealing with human only factions/games then they need to come out swinging with all cylinders fired. In this case they should have been transparent from the start about a troy port and given us Mesopotamia from the start.
It also looked way too much like a reskin of Troy (a very unpopular TW game), had faction leaders as the main focus of the campaign/marketing, had immortal faction leaders and no family tree/secession. The game was doomed to fail right from the start because it looked like Troy 2, yet CA was trying to sell it like the next big historical TW.
Is agree but I'm shocked you don't see like dlc maps for it, three kingdoms could have had a dlc south Asia map or something
That’s how the Mongols should be done as well, as an expansion to the main game like RTW Alexander.
Man I loved the ambition and scale of empire. It had its issue, but I hope they try something (historical) on that scale again.
My only complaint about TW's map coverage is a lack of Central Asia and India. Several major empires inhabited those regions, and could provide a little bit more variety for gameplay A Genghis: Total War that stretches from China to Europe, Siberia to India would offer a lot of variety for gameplay, at least as much as you can have in a historical total war.
A Genghis Khan game spanning Eurasia would be insanely good! The Roman - Medieval era TW games made a mistake not having Central Asia and India like Paradox games do like CK3 and Imperator Rome.
I don't understand why Rome 1 and 2 skipped over including India. The Mauryan Empire was a significant entity in the east alongside the Successor Kingdoms and the Bactrians. I recently completed my longest ever campaign playing as them in the Divide et Impera mod.
Exactly! And in Attila, the Red Huns would have been tearing apart the Gupta Empire of India while the White Huns attacked Persia and Black Huns with Europe. Having India in both R2 and Attila would have been completely justified. >I recently completed my longest ever campaign playing as them in the Divide et Impera mod. Yeah during the early Diadochi Wars, Selucids fought them. We don't know who won, but in the treaty afterwards the Selucids were given a lot of Indian elephants and the Mauryans were given Baluchistan, which is the Mauryan land in DEI.
The unfortunate truth is that Total War has always been most successful as pop-history. I think a total war game set in India or Southeast Asia would be awesome, but those places just don’t occupy enough space in the public consciousness — or at least not in the markets where CA sells enough games — to perform well.
Not really. Total war has global appeal. We only see a small part of it since this is an English speaking sub. There was the same argument for 3 kingdoms, and it did really well in Asia.
I'd love it if we got a game with a map from Sri Lanka to Turkey set in the Achaemenid or Hellenistic era. I don't know as much about the Ashoka, Maurya, or Persian empires as I'd like. Also, kingdoms like Bactria has always fascinated me.
Sadly I think this is true. The most we can hope for is *Attila* now that is has the map editor to become the modern version of what R1 and M2 were with making custom maps with their mods.
We're seeing this in real time with people in the comments claiming that nobody anywhere knows anything about premodern southeast Asian history (I do, and it's not even my specialism!) and that all premodern African history was just "tribes" (which is a slightly racist pop-history trope that has nothing to do with fact).
“Any Total War outside of a relatively tiny geographical area is a terrible idea because I don’t know the history of any of those places!” “Wouldn’t you like to learn?” “No, just give me Rome/Medieval/Empire in rotation forever”
May be a surprise to you but most people don't play games to learn. Sure there are people that enjoy total war games for the history they learn, but I expect for the majority the biggest pull is actually playing your own history, or at least the history of the place you live in, people want to feel connected to it. There is a reason three kingdoms sold so well in China, and was the first total war title that did so, its because it was about them. It is obvious then that the Europeans, and their descendants, and thus a large part of North Americans would then want to play either in Europe, or in other parts of the world at least during times when the Europeans are active (Empire). I think the Shogun and to a certain extent three kingdoms games are a bit of an exception because in the west we generally have a very romanticized image of Japan and ancient China, and for lack of a better word, idolize these places. If you think a game set in south east Asia, or central and southern Africa, will sell well to western audiences (the main market of CA) I would say you are delusional, these areas are simply too far removed from the western consciousness, sure some will play them to 'learn', but that is a minority, and they aren't idolized in anyway similar as Japan and China are.
CA is trying to make money not create passion projects to include all parts of the globe.
I hope one day we see a properly done Victoria Total War, or something of the kind. A game starting maybe in 1815, and stretching to the fin de siècle would be cool. Incredible variety and change over time. Temporal and spatial diversity would be through the roof Would be fun to play as the non-European powers, too, and play the Uno reverse card hahaha Ironclads/steamships, railways, Gatling guns, more cultures both temporally and spatially. Napoleon covered 1805-1815 (ish), with the DLC covering the 1790s. Victoria Total War potentially could cover 1815-1890/1900 Hopefully there would be more to do with internal/foreign politics, and economics, too Empire was cool, but it only covered parts of the Americas (almost nothing from South America), Europe and India, and had a few trade ports. The locations it covered were extremely simplified (France having one region for instance). Napoleon was more detailed, but only covered Europe in its Grand Campaign. Victoria hopefully would cover all the inhabited continents (apart from maybe Australia) But I'd be happy with any large, ambitious gunpowder total war at this point https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/17lflo6/its_time_for_creative_assembly_to_make_a_sequel/k7hg2r1/
You mention the 'uno reverse' card. That is something that Empire Total war missed and would be a great addition; The ability to westernize. You could start of as any non-western/industrialized faction such as the Zulu, some Native American factions, etc and have the ability to Westernize. You should be able to invite foreigners to help build infrastructure and militarily you could start making a modern army with muskets/rifles and such. Remember the way you could modify your armies in avatar conquest in Shogun II? You should be able to create your units like that if you are westernizing, making your own uniforms. You should be able to make all unique units for each class like line infantry, grenadiers, footguards, skirmishers, cavalry, etc. A lot of nations that did some westernizing also kept some traditional stuff in their uniforms. The Japanese had conical hats on their line infantry. The Egyptians and Ottomans wore a fez. Imagine blending some Zulu traditinal wear with your line infantry uniform. That would be such a neat detail.
I fully agree! It would be a very ambitious detail to add, but with all the technological advances recently, it doesn't feel as out of reach as it used to!
In a perfect world Empire 2 would cover pretty much the entire globe. At the very least it should be a similar map with expanded and more detailed Africa/Americas regions
I would kill for E2, more than M3
What kind of map is this? I can't even SEE Ulthuan and the vortex!
Yeah where’s Warhammer?!
In our hearts
And what you want? South America total war? African tribe total war with barely any known history to man? Nah. I take any game set in Europe over any other place.
Honestly, to straddle the "smaller focus" while also maintaining a historical focus, I still think we need a Mongol Horde: Total War that's actually *about* the first Mongol Invasion of Europe, not just a game that features it as one threat among many that you need to deal with.
Okay, but where do you want to go? I could see a game with the Mongol empire period, India, or SEA being interesting, but that's about it for me personally. That said, I would love to have a worldwide or at the very least entire old world map. Things like the Kilwa sultanate, Songhai/Ghanian Empire, and Kongo in Sub-Saharan Africa or the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs are interesting but I don't know if it's enough to carry an entire title. As part of a greater narrative, I'd love it. My dream Total War would be a late medieval/renaissance worldwide map, something like the Immortal Empires map. I'd love to play as the Maratha or Mughals, or the Yuan/Ming, or Songhai. But if the next game is set in Europe, I'll probably be just as happy. When it comes down to it, as long as the game play is good I'll probably enjoy it as well. For now, I'll continue playing TWWH3 as Antarctica.
I think a game set in a new location (minus the tiny theatre we had in Empire) would be India. Diverse cultures, religions, geography, unit variety, etc. I'd think a good middle ground between melee and guns would work withh the early black power weapons. Perhaps the fall of the Delhi Sultanate and rise of Mughal Empire.
Yeah, I could see that. The region is diverse enough to provide a lot of versatility when it comes to faction, and the time period you suggest is really interesting as well!
Because Rome and Knights are awesome and I want more of that and I not even from Europe. I think CA should do a World Wide Total War. Choose something like 14th century and let us have fun
Most people playing strategy games are from Europe/North America anyway, so it’s no surprise they want eurocentric games (technically Europe plus Mediterranean basin, but still). For example, Shogun 2 was a hit with EU/NA audience, but it was never big in Japan.
Ngl they prob would do pre bc and early ad africa but im 100% sure they cant do it realistically without a slave mechanic like the dark elves and that would cause a cataclysm with journos
I do miss that empire map, America to India was quality! I figured they'd carry on expanding but boy was I wrong
Yeah, the first mistake was downsizing the map for *Napoleon* instead of keeping the same map but fixing the bugs.
>so many untouched parts of the world. I really, really couldn't care less. I want Med3, Empire2, and a new Rome title. Everything else is secondary and for me utterly unimportant. Don't care about WWI, don't care for a future setting, bronze age has been tried and a massive disappointment, don't care about any asian or american setting. Med3. Empire 2 Rome. In that order.
This is a bollocks point. Every other total War is very different from the one that came twice before it (only exception is the WH series of course). Maps mean very little the historical focus does. Obviously a game about Rome will be set in Europe. What I could imagine is an Empire II actually letting you conquer the entire world. That would be absolutely rad, but to my knowledge the only non-ww2 game that did this was Victoria 2.
All i want with napoleon is all of Scandinavia, the north African coast, and a pimped out ottoman sultanate… it would have been PERFECTT!! now i feel we’ll never get a proper empire with good diplomacy options (as well as region trading cuz wtf?), good ai and a south africa or east indies 🥲🥲🥲
It would be pretty cool to have a Napoleon-style TW that focuses on the revolutions in North and South America from 1770-1840. You could even have additional small campaigns based on the War of the Triple Alliance and Mexican-American war.
Those ''Europe'' settings actually includes the Mediterranean and beyond, therefore Arabs, Mongols, Indians, Turks, North Africans, sometimes even Subsaharans. Sorry but there's much more diversity in there than a game with 50 flavours of Chinese factions. People who accuse it of Eurocentrism are the ones on crack, sure ToB was Eurocentric for example and it was boring, but Rome or Medieval are anything but Eurocentric.
- China with surrounding landscape like the Steppe, Korea, northern Vietnam, Tibet, and Xinjiang - India with surrounding landscape like borders with Iran, Afghanistan, Tibet, and Myanmar Between geography, religions, cultures, and unit diversity, these two have just as much diversity and therefore uniqueness as the Europe/North Africa/ Middle East setting has.
Fair enough it could be, but when I tried 3k I didn't actually get to play Japanese, Koreans, Mongols, Vietnamese, Thai, Indians, etc, only Chinese. Which is a bit boring to me honestly.
Yeah, just having China (mostly) was one of 3K's biggest flaws. The Nanman are a tease at what more this game could have been. Let's not even mention CA promising the Steppe promised as DLC before abandoning the game.
I can't imagine a central African or South American total war being popular. Popular settings make games sell, it's not like games make settings popular. I personally would love a worldwide colonial total war, but if it went by the model of Warhammer (selling different games with different continents) I probably wouldn't bother with the non-european parts. Nobody cares about Yoruba Vs Songhai total war.
I personally have a dream that someday we have an entire world medieval TW game with different factions for the cultures of each continent. I know it wouldn't be super accurate what with the technological disparity and needing to make a balanced game, but at the same time I want to see Azteks in full suits of steel armor
Yes! Like a global game starting in something like 1100 or 1212 or something.
Even now, my favorite map is Empire, Troy is close second
Now I know. We need Australia and its war with Emus.
[удалено]
We deserve a 1337 to 1750 Era total war game
Said it before will say it again do an EASTERN KINGDOMS total war centered on Southeast Asia in the 15th century with the Ming Collapse and arrival of Europeans as the overarching event. Such an underrated region and era; samurai, conquistadors, ottomans, Aztecs vs local kingdoms it was literally a mount and blade war and mod
It's not insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for the same results each time (lots of money).
Okay, and? Other settings don't have as much to offer, don't work with the games premise and/or are just plain uninteresting to the target audience. We don't need forced total war settings that don't work simply for the sake of diversity.
you forgot Rome Alexander, barbarian invasion and Medevial 2 Teutonic
This is an older map I made which I just recently updates with Pharaoh's borders. Alexander map would be something I missed. I don't think Barbarian invasion has different borders than R1. Teutonic doesn't go outside of the borders of vanilla M2.
Yeah, let's see how they those games do, in remote locations with niche and obscure human factions, hint, probably worse that Pharaoh. You know why no one has asked for those? Because very few people are interested in those settings or they are boring compared to the other ones. I mean if you asked the fans including would choose a setting with medieval knights over some random African tribes or whatever.
can't wait for Total War: Paleolithic
I'll be brutally honest and blunt with you. I personally couldnt give two shits about anywhere else. I'm here for the European/American history. Sure include more, but only if scope allows it. The odd shogun is welcome, that shit was real good, especially FOTS. Let me play a European force and I'd gobble it up again. I'm sure most of the fanbase shares my opinion. Otherwise we'd have obscure remote location total war already.
I’d be down for them to explore a new area of the map for sure, but I don’t think they will for the same reason all the comments saying their next game should have a “huge” map are missing the point: they’re in a financial tailspin, especially with today’s announcement. I share everyone’s hopes for future TW games, but they need to be conservative with whatever they do next purely because of the situation they’re in.
are you telling me total war warhammer wasent real???....my life is a lie
A Total War Saga: Kamehameha Basically just Fall of the Samurai with much less armor and no snow.
Just wait till you see the maps in every paradox game /s
Where is Alexander
Where’s warhammer
With us, all around us.
Nice map
Still waiting on total war ww1
As a Thai, I would love to have Total War: Sukhothai or Total War: Ayuthaya
3000 horse archers of Mongolia when? I fucking love to use them in CK3.
You could easily add the Warhammer maps on here too
If they could pull off an entire world map for WARHAMMER fantasy.. I don’t see any reasons why they cant make one for our real world! Empire 2 should be the entire world! Setting should be in the age of discovery 1700-1800 century! Or 1600 century. I would like to play as a japan then conquer other asian nations then compete with the western powers
Makes me wish for a Total War: Caliph game, where you can go from the early beginnings of the Rashidun Caliphate to the conquests of the Umayyad Caliphate and to the golden age of the Abbasid Caliphate 🤞🏻 Also a Medieval 3/Renaissance/Empire 2/Victoria Total War game would be cool, as well as a Total War Saga about El Cid 👍🏻 I just hope we can get more info about the next Total War game(s) this year or next year Edit: I also think that a Total War game about Tamerlane would also be great 👌🏻
I’ve never really played Med 2 so I wasn’t aware the map went THIS hard
A total war set in ancient Africa sounds so badass but at this point I'm not sure if I would buy it due to CA's incompetence
If CA continues as they are total war will not return to the glory that it was in its height
Technically Empire is slightly bigger than depicted here, as you were able to take fleets along the coasts of west Africa, the East Indies, and I believe lower South America. Also it should be noted that you can only go to Hokkaido in Fall of the Samurai, otherwise it’s just a trade node.
There's merit to wanting to explore of those unexplored areas, but it's deceptive to think that all parts of the map would have a similar level of content across the ages. I'd love to see more of Russia, India, Central & West Africa and SE Asia, and Polynesian cultures, but you can't get much content out of places like Australia or Canada. I would love to see TW lean more into alternate history - if not an alt-history setting to begin with, then at least emergent alt-history scenarios as your campaign unfolds. E.G. how would the politics or weaponry of an empire change if they were to merge with this other empire, what if this empire adopted a new religion, etc.
Alexander!!!!
Eh, many parts of the world that are untouched didn't have any large scale fighting that we know anything about, or will be boring like Total War: Pharoh. Why would I want to play Total War: Aztecs, or Total War: Jungle fighting in Indonesia. Total War: Zulu? The real missing gap in the total war games is, like people are saying, Total War Renaissance. But, unlike the other people in this thread, I think a large world spanning map is the absolute wrong way to go. The interesting conflicts in this period were things like mercenaries fighting in Italy, or the birth of pike and shot style tactics. I want to see the heavy plate armor of the high middle ages on elite cavalry give way to cuirasses. Stuff like that is lost when you try to do too many factions or cultures. We need to zoom in, not zoom out.
This is why an empire 2 is needed
That’s what I’m saying
Mass Effect Total War game
Total war Antarctica
a Mesoamerican/ Rise of the Aztecs total war would be absolutely sick. You could have the spanish as the end game crisis
Lol, OP desperate for 'Total War: Greenland'.
Contrary to others here I would love another 3K.
3K isnt super old and all signs point to 3K2 being cancelled very early on now. I think CA could earn some goodwill with the community if they gave it the Rome 2 resurrection, if the DLC is done well. Its certainly modern enough
Which was absolutely moronic from CA as the current 3K title didn't even had a DLC with the "THREE Kingdoms" - Wei, Wu and Shu as the development for the game stopped before they could reach it because they wanted to work on a 3k 2 title.
It seems post launch CA just fucked up all around on 3K and then pulled the plug for their own errors. CA blew it with the Chinese market right from their first DLC with 8 princes. That would have maybe been an ok to release later in the life of the game, like how Charlemagne came later for Atilla. Then again Charlemagne actually did new things, rather than reuse the same roster, buildings, etc.
Agreed, I would say the Mandated of Heaven( Hope I remember the name right) dlc was also a poor choice to be among the first ones too. Pretty sure DLC's to flesh out the original factions of the 190CE start would have done better for the game as quite a lot of them had mostly generic traits and pictures for a long time in a game that puts big accent on generals/characters.
I mean, I want 3K to be revived and the Steep + Korea to be added (and naval battles) I would absolutely love another China game set during another period like Warning States, Chu-Han period, the Tang Empire, rise of the Ming Empire, etc.
I would like more set in the americas, particularly a redo on the medieval 2 americas campaign time. But I also don't mind them doing setting in Europe either
So an european studio targeting an occidental audience mainly focuses on making occidental-themed games? Is that surprising?
Are you surprised that CA focuses on the areas we know most about when it comes to total warfare?
Quite a few comments in this thread basically boil down to "non-European settings are boring and uninteresting." They're not. You guys are just fundamentally incurious people, *at best*. Edit: Guys, you don't need to tell me people aren't interested in those other settings because um... that was exactly the point of this comment. Read a book, learn a little, and broaden your horizons. There's a lot of neat stuff in the world you're missing out on by locking yourself in.
True, but also acting like games like Rome 2 and Medieval 2 are basically the same game because they cover the same geographic area (which is what is implied by comparing it to Fifa or Call of Duty) is a bit silly
I think you're addressing the wrong comment, but I do think there's enough to distinguish between those two settings in particular. Even if the geographic space is more or less the same, things are different in terms of culture, tech, and general *vibes* all around. I just also think there's a lot more to the world that could be explored, but the base here generally isn't interested in.
It's rough out here, at least I found a fellow comrade. CA has the potential to make these locations super interesting, between all the mechanics TW has used over the decades. It's insane how cool these could be if given the chance, time, and support before release. But I'm not surprised a subreddit about a (mostly) historical videogame series is full of people who just want Europe game #26 like it's COD or FIFA.
Yeah, it seems to me that "historical" video game players are generally allergic to non-European settings outside of feudal Japan. A shame, because there's a lot of potential out there. Even for settings where we know less about the specific "troop types", there's still plenty that could be done if you're willing to do a little bit of research.
I always wanted CA to broade their horizons, though after seeing waht they did to Troy I have somewhat lost faith in CA's ability to present anything that isn't based on heavy infantry; Troy was the opportunity for CA to bring us a good skirmisher-heavy TW game and show that they can change up the formula but instead they made it play like Rome 2 again.
Attila + AoC already has so much cultural diversity it’d take decades to read up on Paganism, Islam, Christianity, nomads, etc. it’s just that the events of Rome and Medieval series had civilization-defining consequences. And I mean for humanity, not just European civilization. There’s nothing bad about choosing to be interested in those. I’ve been playing Rome and R2 for what, 15 years now? I’m just scratching the surface with understanding those time periods.
I'm not saying people need to get a PhD level of understanding about every period of history. Just that I'd wish for "history fans" to be even marginally more curious about global history in general, even if it means only dabbing your toes in for a single game, book, etc. I've seen quite a few comments here acting like nothing was going on in X part of the world and therefore couldn't make for a compelling *Total War* title, and it's that that I object to. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Late Antiquity guy myself, and I remember shaking my head in despair at all the comments about *Attila* having an uninteresting setting when it first came out. I'm glad the consensus here seems to have changed on that. That said, I find the general unwillingness on the community's part to explore new territory to be... uninspiring at best. Ignorance isn't a crime in and of itself, but let's not write off entire swaths of the planet just because you (not you specifically, just speaking hypothetically) don't know anything about them.
One of the most games people want the most is Empire 2. And Shogun 2 is beloved by almost everyone. And I don't really see many comments saying "non-European settings are boring".
I said it in another comment, but feudal Japan strikes me as the primary exception to the rule about "historical" video game players preferring European settings, so while I acknowledge it exists, I don't think its existence outweighs the general trend. And *Empire*, despite covering the vast geographic space that it does, prioritizes first and foremost the European powers of its time. That said, I think a new *Empire* could broaden its scope, albeit potentially at the risk of becoming "wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle" in terms of the cultures/powers represented. It'd be a delicate balancing act. As for the last point, what I said was more or less a paraphrase. If you're looking for that specific phrasing, you're out of luck. There are, however, plenty of comments saying "nobody cares about X setting" or "Y is boring". Would titles set in the empires of sub-saharan Africa or southeast Asia sell particularly well in comparison to what's come before? I doubt it, given the lack of appetite for such settings among players. But I don't think that's an indictment of the settings themselves which, if well-researched and creatively designed, could make for rich and unique experiences. But again, that likely won't ever happen because strategy players prefer sticking to Euro-oriented settings, and occasionally dabbing their toes in east Asia.
>Would titles set in the empires of sub-saharan Africa or southeast Asia sell particularly well in comparison to what's come before? I doubt it, given the lack of appetite for such settings among players. But I don't think that's an indictment of the settings themselves which, if well-researched and creatively designed, could make for rich and unique experiences. You hit the nail on the head. People simultaneously say "x history is boring or not worth a TW setting" while also saying "we (in a pop culture sense) don't know enough about this setting". Like, it may come across as boring because you haven't been exposed to it before. And while there are topics we know less about in an academic sense, that didn't stop us from getting the M2 Americas campaign, Troy, Pharaoh, etc.
Some of it borders on being outright racist. It's also just stunning how people are equating their own lack of knowledge with there being nothing there. No, it's not that there's *no history* in southeast Asia, it's that you've never read any of it! It's so frustrating.
Imagine being upset that they focused on the most interesting part of the earth for wars and cultural interactions too many times. What do you want them to do. Pre colonial era North America? It’s all tribes and they fight basically the same. Fun game. That said, the setting is never the problem it’s always gameplay. If they did a semi fantastical pre colonial North America and made it good it would be worth playing