That’s why I hope for a revisiting to the good ol’ Shogun days! I’m not much of a demo person, so I have yet to play Empires myself, but I really hope its as good as people are making it out to be. And by people I mean biased media source.
I wasn’t responding to RepoMan. I’m sure he’ll be perfectly happy with what looks to be an excellent game. I was responding to your rather silly assertion that a historical wargame shouldn’t be worried about its historicity or wargamey attributes.
If Medieval 2 was featured in a History channel special on the weapons of the era, I’d say some historical accuracy was intended in its development.
I haven’t really got into Total War games since Shogun… I find trying to conquer Eurasia is just too big of a task and there are too many territories and areas to be attacked from, etc. In Shogun, I could focus on moving up my front line etc. and while I was very involved in the economy, I also saw alot of action. It was challenging but I never felt overwhelmed.
Bows are more fun than guns anyways.
Not really. All of the Total War games are still like this; “deadlier” is sort of a relative term. For instance, I won when I played the demo battle of Brandywine, but I don’t think I wiped out any of Washington’s units, with the exception of one artillery squad that took a cavalry charge from the rear (they didn’t really stand a chance). The rest I merely routed, but that’s all that’s required to win, and most often the way it happens.
It all depends on playstyle really. A unit in TW loses morale when it has:
Few friends to its side (and when they rout, it will take a huge morale hit too)
Enemies to its side, or much worse, rear.
Charged by cavalry, with flank or rear charges being progressively worse
Taking hard casualties (especially artillery fire can be damning in this aspect)
What this boils down to is you either smash two lines of infantry and you get major frakkin carnage as they maul eachother but nobody routs, because the lines remain relatively intact. But mr Chick would cunningly trap his enemy in one or more fire sacks, ensuring they take fire from at least two sides, while manouvering his cavalry to rout the weakest units in order to entice a mass rout. It can be done, just takes more mouseclicks really.
I agree. It’s one of the reasons i hold Shogun TW dear to me. Around Rome TW they began to slightly raise the pace of the battles. Making the infantry run a bit too fast, the lethality a bit too high, etc. Of course they still are very different affair than DoW 2 or AoE or another RTS, i am talking more about the gameplay at a fine-tuning level, but they lost a bit of realistic gameplay in the transition. In Shogun things like fatigue or morale were more important, and because of that, indirectly things like distances and height terrain were also a bit more important.
It’s not like they aren’t fun games as they sell it (i have Empire preordered), but imo they could be still better.
I didn’t say that a historical wargame shouldn’t be worried about those things. However, I think it’s a mistake for anyone to think that what CA is trying to accomplish with the TW games is a “historical wargame” with a great degree of historicity or realism. As I noted above, the historical battles included don’t even try to represent the true number of troops engaged. Another obvious factor is the relatively thin strategic layer. So why should you or anyone else hold them to that standard?
This isn’t Combat Mission or Crown of Glory and it should be obvious to anyone by now that CA has no interest in competing with those types of games. They are always going to sacrifice realism in favor of what they consider “fun.”
… and if Rome and Medieval are anything to go by then modders will bring in the “historical accuracy” that some players value so much. It’s very cool that Creative Assermbly has included enough modding space in their releases to allow modders to do that. Other than that please add my excitement to the one exhibited by you gentlemen…
My impression is that the pace of battle is slower than Medieval 2 or Rome. Especially Rome, in terms of infantry speed, etc.
(I also think Morale remains paramount throughout. You win by making people run and you make them run by scaring them to shit.)
KG
I agree with Kieron (also his Eurogamer review. At least so far).
I’m no grognard, so this series (alongside Civilization) is my perfect mix of history and fun (oh noes). I played Shogun a lot and the first medieval quite a bit. I never got into Rome, perhaps because of the lack of things that go boom. I wanted to play Medieval II, but never found the time and then this was announced and I decided to skip it instead.
Morale are still the crux of battle. When I win against a superior force, it’s because I manage to hold while they break and scare their friends to break as well. It’s true that battles are very deadly (especially if you use autoresolve), but most of the deaths when you’re in control of the forces happens when the soldiers rout… throwing down your gun and turning the back to a horseguy (to show my non-grognardy sense of terminology) with a sword, seems like a pretty dangerous idea in this game.
(I have now wiped Denmark of the map and would like the Swedes to stop bothering me, while I go kill some indians… of the red sort. The other sort will come later)
Good news then, Kieron. I have played the demo, but i didn’t want to judge the mechanics (for good or bad) until playing more in the full version.
Why are people playing this already (I mean the final game, not the demo) when the Steam download isn’t even preloading?
Some people are reviewers. Some people are excited. Some people are both.
KG
They’re jerks who hate us.
My pre-order turned up on monday, although sadly i need steam to authenticate it before i can play. Loads of people have pre-orders sat at home, but we are all waiting on steam to unlock them so we can play i think.
Curiously, the website says the NA release is March 3rd, but the stores all say the 4th.
It is one of those games that is shipping today, won’t hit stores till Wed.
Again I must agree with Kieron.
… and salwon, except that I don’t hate you (too busy hating the Swedes for that).
Morale was super important in Rome and Medieval II, not just in Shogun. While those two games offered battle on a more massive scale than Shogun or Medieval I, they still centered around using combined arms to defeat enemies through breaking formations and routing. It is possible to fight battles in Rome/MEd2 where the losses on both sides are heavy, but it’s far easier to use strategy to rout enemy units and take apart huge enemy armies piecemeal by doing so. It’s always been one of the things I liked the most about the tactical aspect of the games, using morale against an opponent. There are even units and formations specifically designed to take advantage of such tactics.
I look forward to the challange that a different age of warfare will bring to the Total War series. I can’t wait to form infantry squares against cavalry, use artillery to soften morale and fight naval battles. Unfortunately my backlog is rather full at the moment, so I don’t anticipate picking up Empire until it’s had a chance to drop to the $40 or less range in a month or two.