I quite liked AOC as well. But I’m still enjoying TOB despite all the issues you pointed out, and absolutely loved S2/FOTS/ROTS and the more recent 3K.
Still really liking this one. And started a new campaign as Kingdom of Mierce and it’s a blast, you start basically surrounded by enemies and fighting for your life from the 1st turn.
Here’s steam review below I wrote last week on it:
Chalk this one up under “best to form your own opinion” about a game, which given that I’m still writing a review is mildly amusing (assuming anyone bothers to read it).
Initial reactions were fairly negative so I gave this a pass until it was on sale. I’m glad I circled back as this has proven to be a very enjoyable game and a much better work by CA than the initial reviews indicated.
The art style is very well done, I particularly like the use of stain glass art throughout, it’s just brilliantly done.
The time period and type of units commonly used for the period fit Total War like hand in glove with the usual cast of unit types: spear, sword, archer and cav. The RTS tactical battles are as enjoyable as ever. I like the implementation of supply lines for your troops and especially like the slow pace of recruitment and that units initially recruited are at about half strength and take time to come to full battle readiness. This means you’ve got to plan not only for supplying your troops but you’ve got to plan in advance on recruiting them. No more instant armies to the rescue.
Speaking of planning, the map is HUGE, so be ready to either recruit a lot of armies or spend a lot of turns getting them somewhere. I’d of suggested to CA they tone it down a bit. Sure it makes a nice bullet point on the ads to say huge map, but it’s just absurdly large when you keep in mind we’re talking basically about a map comprising modern UK (at least until they blow themselves up via Brexit). Was this map the brits at CA compensating? ;)
The province development has been negatively talked about as if it was over simplified, I don’t see it. The provinces have a number of options for development and finishing out buildings connects back to research that’s now gated by the need to build certain buildings or conquer provinces with them in order to unlock a research chain. This makes for an interesting challenge. Not only that, some of the research items produce negative effects making it necessary to weigh what you get against the downside.
I’ve completed one campaign as King Alfred of West Seaxe and had an absolute blast conquering and maintaining vassals on the way to victory. I’ll be diving back in again shortly because I love this period of history and think the TW game mechanics and units for the period are particularly well suited to it and make for a fun campaign and an entertaining game.
Put it on your calendars
Can’t imagine that deal would have been cheap to organise, even if only for the period of the first 24 hours of release. Big thumbs down for no planned cross-play support though. Ugh, seriously, segregating the online community never works well for multiplayer. Not even like it is impossible to do, AoE2:DE allows for crossplay between X-Box Live and Steam for crying out loud.
Might end up having to double dip for a Steam copy later for decent mod support and the mod workshop too. According to CA’s FAQ at least, mod support is going to be dependent on EGS’ roadmap being implemented. Been a while since I’ve enjoyed a CA game unmodded unfortunately.
The first dip is free, so it’s really only paying for the 2nd dip. :P
Paying Australian prices for it though, so it might as well be a double dip when it eventually releases on Steam. :P
CA typically sells at least a few DLCs for TW titles, does this mean they’re waiting till it’s on steam to do that or just not selling any for this one?
I’ve not looked yet, but I would expect the gnashing of teeth by the TW community over this will be fun to watch.
This is probably for the best. It’s not been clear to me that the “Saga” part of Total War Sagas has really been thought through - it just seems like another headline banner to put just another Total War game under. Clearly they have enough talent and assets that using an existing engine with big tweaks and new art is much easier/cheaper for them to do. I really wanted something like tight, heavily scripted, thoughtful and complicated battles and not another messy 100 hour campaign, but that’s so baked into the engine/design process they don’t seem to be able to break out of that mindset.
But I was wondering if/when they’d move to Epic - the Steam cut has to really hurt at this point. That they’re more or less telling it as it is straight out and saying kind of all the basic details of why they’re doing it is really the only way this doesn’t turn into a giant hate fest. But, tbh, I’ve not been impressed with any of the Saga games and something about this one seems underwhelming as well, so maybe using it as an enormously expensive advertisement is the right way of going about it.
Is there an actual date for this anywhere? I sure as hell don’t want to miss the freebie window!
13.08.20 - I am sure someone here will post it that day as well.
And nice - For free? Thats rather generous. This was another title I wasn’t sure I was getting, based on their previous Saga game, but for free - no worries!
Either 12 August or 13 August I guess, judging from that tweet above with the Steam release date.
Thanks!
I imagine they’re doing the freebie to alleviate all the rage that will come their way because of the exclusivity part. I suppose in an ideal world we’d imagine that the extra profit they’ll get from Epic would be equivalent to the amount they’ll forgo with the giveaway.
I dont think people, outside a select few stubborn ones, really rage anymore over Epic exclusives. So, I dont imagine this will cause many furrowed brows.
What would cause many furrowed brows, were Warhammer 3 on Epic, but due to how the two previous ones have worked, I doubt that will happen.
Well, apart from the whole lack of crossplay between EGS and Steam versions if you want to play any sort of multiplayer with friends or the community. When I have to make sure I own the game on the same store\platform as them to play together that is when I get annoyed. Not a uniquely EGS problem since Microsoft has been very guilty of it in the past with games like Halo Wars 2, for example.
However, Epic’s push into the market is starting to exacerbate the problem after most developers started giving up on using 3rd party online services and relying on Steamworks for their multiplayer back-ends. I excused it for older games coming to EGS due to costs of retrofitting crossplay in, but the fact a new game isn’t offering it either is annoying.
Probably more a SEGA\Creative Assembly thing in terms of who to blame for splitting the online playerbase, but still an annoying by-product of the current PC market.
Seeing as I own every WH 1/2 DLC on steam, I would be very irked to find that WH3 was an epic exclusive. That is putting it mildly.
Aye - thats the reason I am certain its not going to happen with that franchise.
Well as i’ve said i’m betting War 3 is an entirely new setting in the Age of Sigmar universe and so doesn’t need back compatibility with War 1 or 2. Wouldn’t be a problem if they move that way.
Did CA give up then on merging all three together? Because when warhammer was rolled out that’s what they were talking about happening.
I mean it’s just conjecture but
- There’s really nothing left to make of the Warhammer classic world. Just bits and bobs like Chaos Dwarves and Chaos armies. Hardcore fans think that’s cool - are they really going to spend 3 years or whatever to make Chaos Dwarves? I wonder.
- They’re not obligated to do this. I mean they said it however many years ago but they’re not selling these things as being forward compatible, imo.
- Performance on another map 1/3 larger again would be a real obstacle.
- There’s already a Chaos invasion as the major framing device. War 3 would just be, i guess, just more Chaos invasion.
whereas
- Age of Sigmar has mix and match armies. Which would really change up the balance.
- Setting is new. Stupid, but new.
- Medieval Space Marines. They would be the first (as far as i know) to be the video game equivalent to represent Immortals or whatever they’re called.
- Games Workshop would probably prefer they start pushing players away from the Old World setting into the future setting they’ve laid out.
OTOH, maybe a super climactic end of the world War 3 has some appeal, and then they could do Warhammer Age of Sigmar a couple years later.
If they do make War 3 Age of Sigmar i can see a
“final” End of the World scenario for War 2. ring released eventually.
I don’t think the Saga sub-series has been that good of a idea, commercially speaking. I suspect that is part of the reason they made a deal with Epic with the game.