The Disintegration of Total War's "Order of Battle"

Or "battle structure", or "army cohesion".
Your units can't work together while some of them can't work at all.
There's no point in trying to have an integrated tactical plan that utilises armies when single entity units turn the battlefield into a MOBA, and your actual units are so often not much more than spectators.
Here's the playlist for this critique series: • Total Decline: A Total...
The cavalry merry-go-round of 3K:
• Total War: Three Kingd...
The devolved discoordinated spread out clusterfuck that was my first Total War gameplay in 5y:
• Total War: Three Kingd...
Ramming gates with heroes in Troy:
• Troy Total War - Rammi...
The fundamental constant of katana vs. yari in Shogun 2:
• Shogun 2 - Katana Samu...
My speedrun gameplay of Mission 2 of Soviet in Red Alert 2:
• Red Alert 2: Soviet Ca...
The consistency in Dishonored 2 critique, this good video should have more likes:
• Why Dishonored 2 Sucks...
My using of spear circles in 3K to blob for trebuchets. Look at the kills the spears have at the end of the battle:
• Total War: Three Kingd...
Pikes being utterly worthless in Medieval 2:
• Medieval 2: Total War ...
The extremely ambitious 3K battle:
• Total War Impossible B...
The appropriate fragility of cavalry in Shogun 2:
• Cavalry are not strong...
The snorefest fight in Troy:
• Troy Total War - Battl...
The Third Age gameplay: • Third Age - Gondor Cam... , • Third Age - Gondor Cam...
0:00 Intro
0:45 The spur of the video
1:40 Unit abilities and 3K's hideous meta
3:15 The relegating effect of heroes and single entity units
5:00 The importance of consistency
11:00 The extreme disincentive from infantry in Troy/3k
13:00 The proper role of infantry in Total War
14:15 The consistence of effective gameplay in these games
15:00 The frustration of Scotland play in Medieval 2
19:00 Spears in 3K vs. spears in Shogun 2
23:30 How infantry played in Medieval 2 and Third Age
#totalwar #troytotalwar #threekingdoms
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[@Volound]

a lot of people finding this video recently. welcome everyone. here is the whole project this video became a part of. the total decline series: kzbin.info/aero/PLlmEEm6A0j5BqZmcDFQHFJeS64-Mg2uAH

[@orly444]

If Creative Assembly recreated Empire Total War, George Washington would be an overpowered, single entity hero able to kill 1,000 redcoats in a single battle. His special item, Wooden Teeth, would give him 100% armor penetration for 30 seconds.

[@caledavid4174]

WASHINGTON, WASHINGTON, TWENTY STORIES TALL MADE OF RADIATION

[@Pebble_Collector]

I know what you mean but I think it's just a preference thing. I'll be honest I like the addition of single entity units. It adds more depth and variety to the gameplay in my view. I got into Total War for the historical battles and when I heard they were bringing out a Warhammer Total War I had no interest in it and thought it sounded ridiculous. After playing TW Warhammer 2 I can say that I love it and don't think I can go back to historical total wars anymore. The units just feel so bland after you've had flying units etc. Just adds an extra dimension to the battles.

[@M4dM4n96]

@WillMansell I don't even play. I just like watching Empire:TW and Napoleon playthroughs - incredibly entertaining.

[@jeice13]

@@Pebble_Collector as much as i like the unit diversity in warhammer it does seem to come at the cost of ai quality and isnt embraced fully. I wish it still had things like age for the mortal races as it would make the immortality of vampires feel significant and when i recruit ethereals i want proper ethereals walking through town walls and getting stabbed for hours without injury. It would also be nice to still have the ability to move units without generals for SOME factions

[@zm1786]

thats historically accurate though

[@markderham9949]

One of my favorite moments in Total War was Medieval 2 when I took York with the heir to the throne and only 3 spear militia and 2 peasant archers. I was able to build a wooden wall but then all of Scotland attacked. I could not get an army there for relief before they had 2 rams and knew that if 2 gates broke it was over. Focused Fire on 1 and destroyed it and then waited for the main gate to break using 2 spear units to clog the gate while the 3rd stayed in reserve as long as possible. Arrows firing on the clogged enemy waiting for the break through. Was forced to send in the reserves but even then they were ever so slowly pushing out of the gatehouse. My archers were doing a number and still there were so many units. I sent the prince and honor guard to basically do a Rohan charge into the gate to stop the enemy push when an arrow killed their heir to the throne. My spearmen redoubled their efforts, I pulled my Prince back and the enemy army began to finally break off. The battle lasted almost an hour.

[@sweetiesupari3158]

Nothing is more satisfying in any total war than seeing a whole army chain rout after a decisive charge

[@tacoblude8208]

Other than showing the ai that they can’t just make 100 peasant units and call it a day and destroy there smug coward ai ass that only fights when they outnumber you

[@paperbagperson5634]

Using peasants as human shields for heavy cav charge.

[@tacoblude8208]

Paper Bag Person using generals to shield the peasants if your a communist irl

[@colinsanders9397]

There is one thing more satisfying. Maxing out the "dread" modifier in Medieval 2 so that the enemy army flees just because your general is present. That is the greatest feeling in the world.

[@sweetiesupari3158]

@@colinsanders9397 oh yeah, he's a war hero but he's also a huge dick lol

[@Skulliosus]

Tactics in this franchise ceased to exist the moment single entity came onto the battlefield, In something like Warhammer I’m okay with that, but I would rather play Achilles leading a unit of elite Myrmidons instead of a single entity blob maker easy to shoot into

[@Kip7300]

they promised that when they first announced troy saying they will never implement single entity units in the game

[@zissimus8462]

Welll..... First single entity was in original Shogun.

[@deceptionception]

@@zissimus8462 volound has covered that already in another video, that unit even if "strong" he's just a normal human that that WILL die if shot in the face unlike troy and 3 kingdoms, they might kill multiple people in a melee engagement but if someone stabs him HE WILL DIE.

[@LibertysetsquareJack]

Replying to Volund's thoughts beginning around 25:00, and his conclusion asking for thoughts: Volund, you *need* to play TW: Thrones of Britannia. The old school unit balance and infantry mechanics you talk about are in that game, as well as the old school general's unit style. There are no single entity units either. I agree with everything you have said in this video series regards Shogun 2 and Rome 2; but where I disagree is in your conclusion that with and from Rome 2 onwards it was never the same. Thrones of Britannia (ToB) went back to the old school TW battle and tactical design, arguably even more so than Shogun 2. The sad thing is, ToB had a huge hate train even pre-release, and it's become a sort of running meme that it "sucks." As a result, much of the TW community passed on ToB, and are unaware of how good it actually is. So again, I totally agree with the critiques you've leveled in this series, specifically regards Rome 2, WH, 3K and Troy; but you need to play ToB. I guarantee that if you give it a decent amount of hours and do an in-depth review of its combat and RTTs, that will be a *very* interesting addition to this series of yours.

[@zissimus8462]

@@deceptionception O was just talkingg about single entity. Not about OP heroes that are unkillable.

[@aarondoughty4638]

Remember when the total war series was regarded as the most historically accurate battle simulation? Can't say that anymore.

[@cosmoline_aesthetic]

more accurate does not necessarily mean more fun. Do you play scourge of war waterloo? Its super realistic. Id also rather play total war.

[@aarondoughty4638]

@@cosmoline_aesthetic I know what you mean but riding on dlc factions that hurt your wallet is also not fun. Dont play the game you mentioned I'm sure it's cool but I like a more feudal period of history myself pal.

[@cosmoline_aesthetic]

@@aarondoughty4638 they got a business model that works, not much we can do about it unfortunately, although i like expansions that add cool new mechanics and missions. What I've generally noticed is that hyper realistic games exist but they're very niche and not AAA production quality. I own and appreciate what they do, but they're an investment of time and patience that I dont feel up to when I just want to wind down after work.

[@reecelongden3500]

@@aarondoughty4638 It's funny because the modern games are actually MORE historically accurate than games like Rome 1, and yet people still complain. Take Rome 1's Egypt, for example. That's Bronze Age Egypt, not Roman-Era Egypt, it had been Hellenised by the timescape of the game, but nope! Rome 1 wanted Bronze Age Egypt.

[@Intranetusa]

RomeTW 2 is far more accurate than RomeTW 1, but RTW1 is still more fun than RTW2 in a lot of aspects.

[@theholyinquisition389]

Remember when Hannibal ran into the Roman front line at Cannae, so the enemy all blobbed on him and the Carthaginians surrounded and killed them

[@SolarMonolith206]

Roughly 2000 years later, historians who specialize in the time period would remark that Hannibal was "Fucking broken." and had "Way too much physical resistance." It is the common opinion that the only reason Hannibal lost the war overall is because of substantial nerfs.

[@mohamedAshraf-ln9hu]

The subject of this video is a symptom not the disease, what's causing all this is CA cant make a proper AI, so they resort to imbalanced buffs.

[@cactus7198]

mohamed Ashraf so how come these issues weren’t part of the old games? Even Atilla was a lot better. No way is this a symptom of bad ai. I think everything he discussed in the video is the real culprit. Bad ai has nothing to do with why Hero Units are In The game. Bad ai has nothing to do with inconsistent unit fights. Bad ai has nothing to do with a frontline dissolving into a bunch of clusters. Personally, for that last example, not even I agree with. I think that the flow of battle is relatively the same. Just an over reliance on Morale and how it effects certain units. If a hero unit kills another in a duel, and you’re attacking in a night battle, literally half of the enemy army will run on the spot. In all honesty I think the AI in the modern TW games aren’t bad at all. (At least in 3K) In fact, I would go so far as to say it has improved. The ai knows how to handle cavalry a lot better than the old games. The ai has a lot better sense of what is going on with their army. Like in shogun 2, I would just send a unit of light calv near the enemy lines, and they would send like 3 units of yari ashigaru to hunt it down. And they never stopped chasing. The ai would just forget about them. The ai knows exactly how to use its strengths, using hills, forests, archer range differences, siege engines when to use certain ammunition types, how to use different formations, etc. I just didn’t see this competence (to a degree) in shogun, Napoleon, shogun2 or rome2. Maybe it’s the difficulty you’re playing on? I always play on max.

[@mohamedAshraf-ln9hu]

@@cactus7198 I can talk about warhammer 2 but not about 3K. In the video he discussed how infantry are not very reliable and he said specifically that in higher difficulties the player's high teir infantry can lose to low teir infantry of the AI. In TWW it is a common knowledge that you should not have alot of infantry units when playing in higher difficulties and you should have alot of ranged units, thats because the buffs for the AI applies more to infantry, which in turn weakens yours. The cause of buffs in the first place is to make the AI lines hold, as the player is better than the AI in flanking, hammer and anvil and spellcasting. In TWW, the addition of dragons, mobile monsters, mages and archers that can hold their own in melee came all in the favor of the player because we can make use of the versatility better than the AI. The AI is not necessarily (worse) in the newer games, its just the players have more weapons. That said, the AI can still be cheesed and tricked (wasting ammos, provoke it to attack, make plops, etc..). Again, i am not experienced about 3K, but i play warhammer at very hard and iam not the best player, far from it and i only played at hard difficulty in older titles, and if that was due to more experience nowdays, that can be said about other players too. Sooo, long story short, AI is not (worse), but it can be easily exploited, and also, higher fan base means more videos and guides for the newer titles, which weren't alot in the old days. If you watch legand of total war videos, you will hear alot of what iam saying, and he might be the best compain player ever. Online multiplayer however is a different story and this video does not apply, and he did not mention online anyway.

[@gavins9846]

Yup. The AI is literally mental. Battles quickly devolve into full on banzai bottle-necks. Difficulties are only stat-modifiers here and there, infinite army stacks that pop out of thin air, nothing innovative or dynamic. For a "grand-strategy" game, this kind of performance is unacceptable.

[@dabo5078]

@@cactus7198 Attila was alot better... hmm not true. The only thing that made the huge ai buffs in attila not as big of a deal is the slow ttk and insane flanking bonuses. But then again, watch a unit of tier 1 germanic warband axemen melt thorugh your eatern armoued legio/numeroi like butter.

[@ntluck1592]

My biggest disappointed with Total war games is siege battles. Throughout history, sieges were the worst kind of battle for an attacking army. How many times have you read about a heroic defense by a hundred or so defenders holding the walls against an army of thousands? Its common knowledge that an attacker will need at least 3 to 5 times the number of men than the defender in order to siege a castle. Not to mention the supplies and the weather and most importantly...Siege equipment. That's right even Shogun 2 is not innocent of this shit. Who needs ladders to scale the walls when you can just climb them? whether its by hand or with grappling hooks anyone can climb a wall. Instead of an insurmountable barrier, walls are now nothing more than a hinderance. In 3K you can take any castle by cheesing the AI and sneaking a unit from the unguarded area of the castle to take the victory point...which are the most retarded ways to win a siege. Siege weapons are also a huge disappointment in 3K. Trebuchets and Ballistae were built on site during sieges and required lots of materials as well as valuable engineers. They were almost never used as modern artillery in open field battles. This is something Shogun 2 did great were Siege Weapons worked wonderfully on castles but were terrible on the open field. Especially since you can't move them after deploying them. Lastly, another aspect with sieges is how ranged units on the walls have the same amount of ammo as attacking ranged troops. They are defending a settlement, they should at least have a bonus to ammo capacity. Let's not even mention how archers can use fire arrows on the field, without any braziers, and IN RAIN!!! the Weather doesn't matter anymore. Hell basic common sense and physics don't matter anymore.

[@jorgedasilva7665]

I remember holding cities in RTW with 5 units against full stacks of enemies.

[@ntluck1592]

@@jorgedasilva7665 Those were the glory days my friend. Remember them always because CA wants the new generation of players to only know the completely dumbed down games they are making now

[@jorgedasilva7665]

​@@ntluck1592 I remember a game of MTW (the first one) as Hungary where I used a ragtag medieval army of a mix of low rank infantry units to rout an army 4 times my size on the field of battle due to the correct positioning of infantry to hold the line. I ended up with some obscene number of prisoners (well into the 1000s) and killed them mid battle because it looked like I might lose because half my army mass routed. I was able to retrieve them with my general just before going off map. Those battles were intense, yet required quick tactical senses that didn't have a single ability button that needed to be pressed. TW has fallen far.

[@hrotha]

CA has never made any real attempt to represent sieges properly. There's basically no way for a siege to fail (I mean the siege itself, not the assault), whereas historically having to lift a siege after taking too many losses (due to enemy sallies or disease), running out of supplies or simply being unable to breach the defenses at all was extremely common. The timid introduction of a logistics system might help make sieges more interesting in future games but we'll see.

[@jorgedasilva7665]

@@hrotha This is something that even Paradox games can't get right because attrition is too timid in 99% of all games.

[@steedless]

Medieval 2 is my favorite because it feels like each unit has weight and actual presence on the battlefield. Orders to maneuver, retreat, engage, etc. all feel more impactful because of that.

[@Koelebig]

@Zachary Brinson IMO that's what should be included again in the Total War series. The game should move away from click-spamming and microing and return to tactics and planning ahead. A simple solution for this would be to actively punish micro and click-spam by adding a delay to orders and making it even worse if you click spam anything. How would a unit react in reality if it gets 10-20 orders in a matter of seconds? I'd imagine the unit commanders and soldiers would be confused and look at the general asking him what hell he actually wants them to do. Another thing that could be explored would be if units closer to the general follow orders quicker than units that are further away from the general.

[@fabienherry6690]

@@Koelebig Oh dude you don't remember the spam right clic to push forward tactic in rome and medieval 2 xD .

[@hoonshiming99]

@@Koelebig Just remember that realism does not equate to fun. It may feel realistic to delay orders but to players, they will feel frustrated that their units are not responding to their commands sooner. Total war is becoming less of a historical simulator and more of an arcade game. Their is a fine balance between making a game realistic and fun. CA is aware of that and I can respect that as long as their product is polished and not filled with Rome 2’s level of bugs.

[@Koelebig]

​@@fabienherry6690 Do you mean to push through units or to make sure your orders were getting through? Because both are irrelevant to the point I'm making.

[@Koelebig]

@@hoonshiming99 Well, if you think the game feels arcady and is all about click-spamming and not about tactics anymore, then this is where you should look at as well. It's not that perception of realism is the same as not fun. There's always a simplifation of realism going on in games. Also, instantly responding units not only stimulates click-spamming, but also makes it easier to exploit the AI.

[@ms_publisher7143]

Noone gonna talk about how shit arrows feel and look in the modern total war games compared to medieval 2 and in some regard shogun 2. For example the arrows feel as if they have no weight to them and as such when impacting infantry they seem to do much more damage than expected. Also the addition on those glaring arrow trails makes the game and arrows feel far more arcadey and quite silly. Compare this to medieval 2 where you can feel the force as arrows are loosed by archers and the devastating impact as they crash into a blob of infantry.

[@Volound]

ooooooh boi. just wait.

[@thrandompug2254]

I remember I almost quit total war after playing shogun 2 for a while and then moving on to three kingdoms, nothing felt as good, I still like three kingdoms now, but the arrows and the melee feel WAAAY worse than Shogun 2

[@derektai3758]

I recently played both Med 2 and Shogun 2 and I see exactly what you mean there. With Shogun 2 I watched volley after volley down only a handful of men each time (with my archers positioned from multiple angles) and it was a chore to watch as it took forever to bring down even the weakest of units. For Medieval 2, I specifically went missile heavy bc I was confident that I could decimate an enemy army from range before they even got to my battle line.

[@yobi_aoe]

The 3 Kingdoms fight shown here looks more like Star Wars than medieval China with the laser beam arrows

[@lordblenkinsopp1537]

MS_Publisher yeah dude, arrows are satisfying in the older titles

[@benedictjajo]

Even after literally seeing a single "Hero" destroy a Gate on his own, people still cry for more Single entity units.

[@madensmith7014]

The single entity units aren't really for the tactical and strategy players. They're for rpg and fiction gamers where there is always that "hero" that will defeat hundreds or thousands of enemies by themselves. Its not strategy, its fiction. Its rpg. Its a completely different niche so whoever wants hero units aren't really the players who played Total war for the tactics and strategy anymore.

[@thesqartenprogram]

This is why I only play warhammer rn and haven't touch any of the historical tittles, single entity works in fantasy (could be better but that's besides the point), but for historical yea no just no

[@SmilingGator96]

That's because they're so op that they don't need to use actual tactics to win.

[@benedictjajo]

@@SmilingGator96 and if they were balanced out, they'd just be regular units. 😆

[@SonicSidewinder]

Felt like I was watching Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth. Hahaha

[@MasonDixonAutistic]

Go look at CA staff playing the games, even the older titles: they play them exactly the same. They have therefore designed the modern Total War games around how they themselves play them, which is awfully.

[@LuanMower55]

I can micro cav, sure, but what the fuck i am to do without infantry tying(?) the enemy down? Or archers forcing them into the defensive animation where those fucking pikemen in RTW1 put their pikes up a little so my cav can run them down?! I don't understand how anyone can play a game so horridly(?). I read it somewhere that later roman soldiers where trained to throw their plumbatas up into the sky to the charging would have to raise their shields and therefore give up their own defensive position against the roman swords or spears. In short, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THEM?! How can you make a game about pre-flight/pre-modern-armor without infantry playing a key role?

[@MasonDixonAutistic]

@@LuanMower55 The way I've been interpreting things is that most units are designed according to 'X beats Y', which is NOT the same as rock-paper-scissors. A rock wins against scissors because it is hard, scissors against paper because they're sharp and paper against rock because it is flexible. Under 'X beats Y' design philosophy: X beats Y because a designer says so, Y beats Z because a designer says so and then it circles back round to A because this tricks people into thinking the design has more depth, because a designer reckons so. No, they won't ever explain their rationale for it.

[@shaunjohns5987]

its actually crazy how bad they are at their own game

[@shaunjohns5987]

@David Shaw have you ever watched their stream? It's really bad, it's like they don't even understand basic concepts about tactics or anything. I agree with OP that this is the number one failing of there's,.

[@MasonDixonAutistic]

@David Shaw In all the games up to Shogun 2, you could win battles by role-playinng: doing what battlefield commanders really did, using tactics described in history books, and it worked. It wasn't super-realistic; CA always took creative license just as war films do, but they shared the same source of inspiration: history. This becomes less possible with Rome 2 and gets worse with every new game since; you have to play it like any other RTS game. The current crop of people doing gameplay demonstrations played a few pre-2012 games(now deleted from their KZbin and Twitch channels), where it is possible to use historical tactics, and they don't. They don't know any, except for hammer + anvil. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like an anvil, hence CA have been making Total War how they themselves play for almost a decade now.

[@silvercomic]

I miss the tactical map conforming to the strategic map. In Rome Total War the positioning of your army on the strategy map mattered. If you'd get attacked while you're on a mountainside on the campaign map, your army would be positioned on a mountainside in the tactical map. It made the grand maneuvering of your armies matter more. In modern TW games armies and settlements have large areas of influence, effectively lowering the resolution of the strategic map. It used to be much more interesting to position your armies so reinforcements could, or could not, make it. In modern games everyone just has to be in the same general area. I'm not even sure if ambushing an army on the march is still a thing? Buildings inside cities in RTW would be reflected in the city map. Relating the city and battlefield layouts between strategic and tactical maps tied both game modes together. It even tied battles together. If I defended a pass from an enemy attack in one turn, and the same turn another army would attack, my army would be defending the same tactical battlefield. It gave the battle a sense of history. If you'd won an epic battle, it would even get marked on the strategic map. Seeing those a century later would also give a sense of history. I'm not sure if MTW2 did any of that, pretty sure Shogun 2 didn't. 3K maybe, only watched streams of that. Reinforcing units was harder; you'd need to be in a city with the proper facilities, and enough population. Hell, even spies and assassins cost one population. Again, a mechanic which tied the strategic and tactical games together. The improvements in the cities, and the general conditions there, would influence your named characters traits, which would sometimes show up on the battlefield. It even influenced their pre-battle speeches. Previous battles, and the general state of the world, would also influence the speeches. I don't know if my soldiers morale would actually be higher if the general said that they were not favored by the gods due to their low number of allies, but it certainly raised my morale. There were only a limited number of city layouts, which was unfortunate. But I don't believe any subsequent games have improved on that. It was probably technologically prohibitive to achieve more variation in city layout in RTW, but I don't think that should be an issue now. The games should be able to do way more, even. Also I don't like that movement speed is set to run by default. It adds to the chaos.

[@freaki0734]

Yes you still get the same map when fighting on the same place in new total wars and yes you still get an epic victory marker and yes there are more layouts now you don't really seem informed on new titles and just making assumptions which is fine they are expensive and you are a couple years older now but don't just make shit up

[@jaydenshepard7928]

Most of the newer total wars have these features you are just full of shit and being nostalgic and ignorant.

[@Rynewulf]

Shogun 2 did actually: you got map markers for different battles, and if you fought in a distinct location further battles would be there too. You wouldn't see settlement buildings inside a siege anymore, they seemed to start doing away with that in Empire

[@JakeBaldwin1]

@@freaki0734 I've been playing Warhammer 2 for a while now and what really irks me is the lack of strategic placement that he mentioned above. There are only few maps per region that I have seen generated. Similar to the mountain example he gave in M2TW you could easily get a mountain battle by siting on a mountain slope and then use the heights to your advantage. It made army placement on the world map extremely important. I imagine the reason for the lack of map variety came to cost, since the maps are extremely detailed. But as far as I have seen it makes very little difference where you place your army unless its on some kind of river crossing or something.

[@dylankersten3383]

​@@Rynewulfmed 2 also did it

[@rellek4053]

Never play a difficulty harder than normal. Hidden combat modifiers ruin the fun of the game far more than any easy fight ever will.

[@derek96720]

Agreed. I'd rather play on normal and handicap myself in some enjoyable but challenging way rather than play hard mode and let the computer do it in a way that isn't fun.

[@0larue0]

Same. I don't understand why people do Legendary to themselves. It just isn't fun. That's what turns it into a 2d timing puzzle. Granted it still kind of is in Normal, but you can at least have some semblance of reliability in tactics, even if the same basic problems apply.

[@harackmw]

I have often suspected this as well.

[@corvodraken3049]

Alex Reindl probably cause they’re the kind of people who like being able to say they play on Legendary

[@ZacharyPackard0976]

@@0larue0 Idk I play on legendary because I enjoy the optimization part of the game also I dont really like being ahead in games I prefer being behind which is a guarantee on legendary considering the Ai will have to full stacks of units on turn 10. Just my opinion I understand why people play on normal I play on normal all the time too. Edit: in warhammer II I have never played three kingdoms and i uninstalled troy I loved shogun 2 and medieval 2

[@MonCrDeVlog]

Every single point you make is spot on. I have never felt sadder than after making my battleline 3 deep, with archers in the back and seeing f-ing random chinese general # 579 just walks through to the archers as if my entire army was just old spider webs in a corridor... Last time I had the feeling of being a general was in rome 2 with the DeI mod (I don’t even remember what vanilla look’s like). And its mostly because of the mod....

[@darknachos3435]

Well vanilla rome 2 was so broken for so much time

[@ViktoriousDead]

Did you never play the old TW games?

[@pelinalwhitestrake8289]

Just play the fucking records mode

[@greentuga691]

@@pelinalwhitestrake8289 Whats that mode?

[@pelinalwhitestrake8289]

@@greentuga691 in Three kingdoms there is "Romance" mode where generals are hero units and record mode, where generals have bodyguards and arent hero units anymore (so like in the old total wars)

[@Psydork64]

Imagine if Achilles could just kick open the doors of Troy like that....the Iliad would be just be a poem then.... (Edit) [I know it's an epic poem, I meant like a doctor Seuss book. lol my bad. Also sorry I'm more familiar with the Odyssey, I understand now that the Illiad is only a fraction of what took place in Troy. Still....if Achilles could just kick the doors down.... I mean I'm an Odysseus fanboy, and Total War Achilles taking down those doors is stealing clout from my boi. ]

[@migkillerphantom]

It is a poem lol

[@Psydork64]

migkillerphantom a short poem.

[@DawningAge1]

There once was a hero from Greece Who wasn't one to make peace He walked to the wall And kicked down the door And everyone said what a beast

[@Szpareq]

@@DawningAge1 i used to be an adventurer like you but then I took arrow to my heel

[@gabagool4608]

To be fair, achilles does just that when he dies in the poem

[@nukesploder]

There's something else that I find, which is namely that the Total War games, in their unit composition, their design, their balancing, just feels very silly and fantasized. As if, instead of playing a real time Tactics game, we're playing a game that pretends to play like a real time tactics game, sort of like how a child would imagine what wars were by imitating drama and movie. The hero system being fundamentally cartoony, the comment of units never being in formation (as battles, I agree to your video, seem moreso like pub brawls than tactics), as well as the lack of clarity of what units ought to function, make experiencing the modern games feel very shaky and unstable.

[@ViktoriousDead]

Did you never play the older games?

[@rcmunro22]

To be fair the Modern titles are based in more Fantasy Rich Settings, Warhammer is obviously Fantasy outright. 3K which is Ancient China has always had a Fantasy Element to it, even in the recorded Texts we do have covering the period. The "Historians" for the period recorded the happenings as Mystical & Mythical most of the time, even right down to not just the Leaders but the Troops always had over-emphasized Weapons & Armor. The problem will be is if this trend carries over to a Title like Medieval II. If we get single Entity Units & Fantasy Troop designs in Medieval II now we have a serious issue, the period & the Histories do not warrant such things.

[@cocolade93]

You made me realise what in particular i dont like about these new Total war installments, always had a feeling something was off. Though i liked TW: Warhammer 1 at the time because it was fresh, i liked the lore and the aesthetics it became boring after i went for my 3rd domination campaign. Shogun 2 and Fall of the Samurai had these intense campaign moments where one bad decision could fk u up badly on legendary. A sense of impending doom was always around the corner. Siege defense against and overwhelming enemy force were the best moments i had in a TW game especially in Fall of the Samurai. It made u feel like a real commander, i even bonded with some army rosters where i refused taking out old units for newer better ones. TW games nowadays are *A shamfur dispray*

[@colinsanders9397]

Personally, I think Total War started going downhill after they changed up the engine for Empire. They removed object collision. The result was units skating around the battlefield and entire armies blobbing up in the space of half a unit. Shogun 2 cleaned that up with distancing coded in but it still lost the feel of older games. They also replaced the simple combat system with a super complicated one that prioritized drawn-out, cinematic exchanges. I loved Shogun 2. I played it competitively for years. But it didn't give me that same feeling I got from older titles. It felt like an arcade game. I haven't touched any of their games since then, even though I love warhammer. CW left their players behind. They make games that an accountant would think gamers want. There's no reason to waste time on them anymore.

[@Koelebig]

I agree. Empire was also where the series went downhill for me, although I did enjoy the naval battles of Empire Total War. The campaign was quite the disappointment. But technically the warscape engine just didn't feel right for me. Unit movement and overall control behaved and felt awkward. Units didn't blend in that well with the surroundings on the battlemap. And seemingly the series moved more and more towards microing your units and click-spamming. I for one look in disgust how units behave instantly to orders nowadays and gamers are clicking and ordering units around like crazies. It's not even fun to watch IMO.

[@derrickbonsell]

If you hate the newer games but like the Warhammer setting, Beginning of the End Times for Med2 might be what you want.

[@LordVader1094]

Yeah all these issues began with the Warscape engine, and that's really the root of the problem.

[@Historyfan476AD]

Indeed the engine is the biggest flaw, it is what is limiting them.

[@hawkkunxd6014]

"CA left their players behind" yes, but they got a lot more new players because of it. Total War Warhammer have consistently been the Total War game with the most players on Steam even 4 years after its release the Total War player base is possibly the most divided player base in the gaming industry, on one hand you have people that praised some of the newer games but on the other hand you have people that says "There's no reason to waste time on them anymore.". its so fascinating to me, i guess that's what happens when you change the game's direction so much

[@baronmunro1494]

You've helped me understand what is so wrong with 3 Kingdoms. I tried to make Liu Bei work many times making conventional armies until I finally decided to do something ridiculous: giant checkerboard formations of archer militia. My attempts to come up with an army composition and formation which can reliably win battles ended in cutting infantry from the composition entirely, using my generals to control the AI, and putting my archers in that checkerboard so that they do cover each other in cases that cavalry or infantry manage to connect. It's incredibly boring, the only tactics involved besides fucking with the AI is to be on a hill. That's all.

[@shadestarlight3626]

You need to talk about the routing mechanics and how they've been impacted in the new total war games. Routing in general is dependent on army values in comparison with one another. The balance of power bar in previous games was just a suggestion of how the battle will go based on unit stats in both armies, in modern games (mostly WH) the balance of power is a real and very pressing concern as if your balance is skewed too far in the favor of the enemy the 'you lose' button is clicked and your entire army routs immediately. This makes it so unit stats trump everything. There are no longer situations where a weak center of peasant or trash units can sustain the center while elite units run the flanks. The enemy army will simply shrug at your flanks if their army value is higher they aren't routing., basically a hard nerf to shock tactics as seen in Shogun and Rome where you attempt to inflict mass routs on the enemy. As long as the enemy army has a higher number value than yours, they will not decisively rout. Often times instead you will see individual units rout, only to come back 30 or so seconds later which further causes clusterfuck battles of individual units fighting all over the map. In WH2 I wonder even if there are morale penalties for seeing friendly units rout, as often units will rout individually on their own, causing big battle line issues where every battle descends into enemies chasing routers all across the map. It doesn't help that in WH2 and Rome 2 routing units are very hard to decisively kill off, even units surrounded will still trickle out some survivors which will inevitably come back to charge you in the rear. Worse yet is when they rout through your line and then smack your archers in the backline. Routing in general has been hard nerfed in terms of effectiveness, and it is more valuable to simply hard damage the 'valuable' units in terms of how they're weighted by the magic balance bar instead of trying to defeat their army in detail. This is something I hope gets talked about/investigated in as I have seen little to nothing about this topic.

[@kachnadomaci3557]

at least in WH2 units get penalty for seeing other units rout but based on how legendary difficulty works its offset by the +leadership for the difficulty level and it doesnt even matter for the AI then u get these riddiculous fights when u play as an empire and your late melee infantry greatswords which are penalized by melee attack and defense(due to difficulty) cannot sustain high dps and because of that they are going to rout sooner than bretonia peasants. shock combat essentially doesnt work in WH2 for melee and mouted units. only effective tool u have left is ranged

[@shadestarlight3626]

@@kachnadomaci3557 Which of course that leads to the strat that everyone does, 6 spears, the rest archers or artillery and just sit and hold while the ranged units dish damage and the melee and heroes sit and just absorb charges.

[@TheManofthecross]

@@kachnadomaci3557 and how well you can manage the ammo stocks. which does not work in multiplayer at all.

[@kachnadomaci3557]

@Hey Boss! why not play on other difficulty truly the most dumb argument ever :D. even between Very hard and legendary theres pretty big gap which most player do not even consider. for example the 10% extra upkeep on legendary which usually makes u field only 3 armies instead of 4. other question is why should we dumb ourselves to play the game makes no sense to me. The game should be balanced the way so u can enjoy actually building an army instead of just spamming one unit all over the place like its in WH2 right now which is the most effiencent way of doing things sadly.

[@kachnadomaci3557]

@Hey Boss! most efficient thats just I like to play Im not rly hating on WH2 I like the game Im just stating the wrongs with modern total war that needs to be fixed so we can return to glorious eras of Med2 and shogun2.

[@aerfwefd7334]

This series of videos rather clearly lays out why, I, as a Total War modder, always remove all difficulty related combat modifiers *before* attempting anything resembling balancing, whether in R2, Atilla, or Warhammer. They further illustrate - indirectly - why I was able to push out a full combat and AI overhaul for Shogun 2 and FoTS in 10 hours, as opposed to spending around 300 hours working on Warhammer 2 and still not being all that happy with the resulting mechanics. It's become clear that CA has - in the past decade - lost (or removed) the talent required to build a halfway decent AI for either the strategic or tactical layers, balance units at large and small scales - up to and including army vs army balance - , and simultaneously focused solely on adding ever more "moving parts" to the underlying strategic and battle mechanics just for the sake of complexity. Part of the underlying issue is, as you mention, the internal desire to make Total War a high profile competitive multiplayer game, which it will never be. That ship has long sailed for many of the reasons you have detailed. Another component is, the simple fact that the CA teams responsible for making these newer titles are, for lack of a better description bad at video games, bad at strategy, bad at history, and in severe need of feeling bad. I still vividly remember the old 3K promos wherein some developer (or marketing weasel, or whatever) was all enthusiastic about charging cavalry into spears from the front and winning easily. Yet another component of the issue, or perhaps part of the previous one, is the fact that CA has had a huge "fantasy as history" boner lately, what with 3K and Troy being supposedly historical titles derived from blatantly mythological accounts. It seems as though the titles have no concrete mechanical base simply because the source material is a bunch of hooey, thereby providing a flimsy justification for "we'll just do whatever the hell we want with this". That's not to say I hate 3K and Troy simply based on their fantastical nature. That would be hypocritical of me, as I have some 3000 hours logged in Warhammer and almost another thousand hours modding Warhammer. Despite all of the underlying mechanical flaws Warhammer has, which are further compounded by the most severe (and least sensible) player-only penalties in the series - not to mention the power creep from trying to market new factions and DLCs to both the single- and multiplayer communities - , Warhammer has an excellent gameplay experience because it is (mostly) consistent, both internally, and in regards to the source material (to varying degrees, if you also count the tabletop rulesets). Okay, that's enough ranting from me.

[@MrMintMouse]

You think the AI a decade ago (up to Napoleon) was better than it is now? Do you remember those games lol. Your speculation on the reasons CA has done stuff is merely that.

[@aerfwefd7334]

@@MrMintMouse The campaign level AI was and remains halfway decent, thanks to the reduced complexity of the campaign systems in the very old titles (up to S2). The battle AI is and always has been awful, and is furthermore obfuscated in all titles and thus not fixable (beyond minor changes) with mods. As for attempts to dismiss me on the grounds of "speculation", you try spending a thousand hours of your life looking at CA's tables and code, noticing the visible decline in quality over the years, and then get back to me with a better explanation. I'll wait.

[@MrMintMouse]

@@aerfwefd7334 there's about 100 different claims about why CA have done shit in these comments. Wear your table-reading nerd badge in there with them. Let's see these mods you've spent all your time on.

[@aerfwefd7334]

@@MrMintMouse Sure thing, oh brave and mighty skeptic. steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198039493969/myworkshopfiles/ You can be derisive and dismissive all you want, but with no qualifications and no alternative provided, whether official or unofficial, based on observation or fee-fees, or any other such quality, you're just some nobody on the internet and I'll happily treat you as such. Meanwhile, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a.) CA has been pandering evermoreso to the multiplayer audience for almost a decade and b.) CA's talent focus has moved away from those who are responsible for mechanical consistency (and consistency in general), quality, and balance towards adding complexity for complexity's sake. This, again, mostly to try and improve enthusiasm for multiplayer (See above: pandering).

[@MrMintMouse]

@@aerfwefd7334 mate, your whole argument is that they should be pandering to you and your little band of moaners. The notion that they're pandering to multiplayer is literally fantastic. Multiplayer is a tiny part of their game. The multiplayer community knows it, the single player community knows it, and they've even acknowledged it. CA/Saga are companies that exist to make money. They're doing what sells the game. And that is the single player. The things they're focussing on are those that sell the game. Only one person here is talking with their "fee-fees", incel fuck.

[@maou8253]

Something I would like to see CA tackle in the future: Take the concept of Romance and Records mode and take it a step further, introducing "Records" as a mode with battle wide rebalancements that makes battles more tactical and less button mashy; less unit vs unit, skill vs skill and stat vs stat. Instead focusing more on combined arms, momentum and positioning. Pipe dream maybe but I'd like to hope CA listens to the people who aren't entirely happy with their newest games with not just contempt. Some people aren't there to shit on them.

[@lordblenkinsopp1537]

So like how older total war's were

[@maou8253]

@@lordblenkinsopp1537 Yes, they're already trying to appease both crowds with what they did in 3K, so why not take it further, you know?

[@lordblenkinsopp1537]

Maou yes I think that if they want to make this hybrid game, then they should take it further. Well said

[@firstnamelastname489]

Honestly? Too much extra work for a profit driven company to do in a game. They'd have to balsnce 2 different mode, which means twice the work for no profit. I doubt that the company that sells Blood as DLC would do that.

[@RJALEXANDER777]

@@firstnamelastname489 Yes, but if they get it right once they can just copy/paste the system thereafter only needing to refine the occasional blemish if and when it appears.

[@jessemacaspac443]

I was laughing so hard when he poked the door open.

[@shorewall]

"Let me in, Let me in!!!" :D

[@benjamindover2601]

You don't have to be a military historian to know horses charging onto spears isn't smart, that's my primary problem with the later TW games. lack of logic.

[@jamesca1232142]

One thing along these lines that has really ruined my experience with Total war is how they deal with the AI not only on the tactical map, but also the strategic map. The way I see it CA gave up on actual AI design after Shogun 2 on the campaign map. Instead of making an AI that has all the same strategic tools and difficulties that you do, they made one that tries to present the greatest material challenge possible. This is borne out by the fact that in for example Rome 2, the strategic AI ignores food, public order, and largest of all internal politics. In warhammer it ignores even more, even recruitment limits. I suspect this is because it was too difficult to make a truly challenging AI that manages all these aspects. The result is that rather than the world feeling alive and things playing out logically as they would for you the player, the game turns into essentially a rubics cube that once you have found the necessary exploits and strategies to solve, all sense of accomplishment is gone. I can play MTW2 and SHOGUN 2 campaign over and over because I know, if not entirely, that for the most part the AI is playing the same game with the same concerns as me, meaning a host of outcomes can occur, and non military strategies can be used. It isn't just some puzzle box that once you have found the best ways to jump over the AI bullshit there isn't much else to do. Some may say that the alternative would be worse, if they set out with the design philosophy that the AI on the strategic map would have to deal with all the same mechanics as you, it would fall apart and be broken. To that I only have to point to eu4, a strategically far more complicated game where the AI receives no cheats at all on normal (other than lucky nation) and manages every single mechanic that you do. And yes, the AI in that game isnt perfect (especially rn with some bankruptcy issues) but it still can present a challenge for most players and it at least feels like we are all playing the same game. Not so in newer total war, where it feels like I am playing one game, and the AI is playing something completely different and once I have solved the puzzle box, there is little more to experience. Strategy games should give you a tool box of mechanics that everyone gets, and you should be rewarded for deploying them in unconventional creative ways. This can only work in a living world with clear rules that every player, AI or Human abides by. Otherwise It will always devolve into optimal routes. as far as suggestions for a future video, perhaps one about how the massively inflated movement speed of just about every unit, along with downplaying fatigue has made tactical positioning require less commitment, and empowered micromanagement.

[@vicenteasaro1823]

One of the most nostalgic aspect of the older total war games was the immersion from us fighting the same challenges as the ai in build composition, unit positioning, strategic maneuvers, and tech building. We played with the AI. We enjoyed fighting new nations as the reality of us fighting an AI was blurred by the history we got to experience with each new engagement. I loved facing new elite units that I could scroll through their description and immerse myself in the stories of who these people were. I was excited to win a battle over the enemies capital to see what buildings and culture was constructed in honor of their real life counterparts. I wasnt playing a game, I was learning a fun caricature of civilizations past. Now all I see is how can we game the system, how can I learn each exploit to circumvent the ai, how can I remove myself as much as possible from the immersion to game it?

[@Walkingfenix]

It is not just as easy as making "good AI". MTW2, a game I love, has awful, broken AI. They play the same game as you, but that game is also one of the easiest Total War games I've played. And, as for Shogun 2, that game had good AI because it was so streamlined. There was a decent variety of units and types, but the overall unit diversity was very low. When you have limited tools, you can program the AI to use those tools more easily.

[@fabienherry6690]

Optimal route is not a mechanic problem but a attitude problem . Even with a tool box that everybody get you CAN still find the most broken combo and only rely on that. The thing is previous total war where NOT as hard by far . You could if you cheesed literally win with only hero in rome or roll over max difficulty without even trying in medieval you could if you didn't like to fight an army just send a one unit card at the edge of ennemy movement to delay it forever and just lose some unit then run away. So you COULD win without cheesing and it being a game you wouldn't cheese so hard because it's not fun. Now in new total war they choose to balance the enemy so as to give him unfair advantage and a tendency to fuck you over . They choose to restrict movement and especially flavorfull and less than optimal mechanic : you are pushed to have elite 20 stack pretty heavily in warhammer for exemple like what the point of having a recruiting basic swordmen when you could use the same recruitment slot and army to recruit greatsword. With you having WAY less tool to enjoy and the ennemy pressing you harder and harder you feel FORCED to cheese (and in legendary you litterally are) so you do but at the same time if you win the battle you lose in enjoyement. Also physic being more fluid and entity surviving huge force and flying everywhere rather than just dying destroy formation. Man i remember the promise CA made about new game changing AI that would decide to let unit in reserve and have group dedicated to protect artilerry and perform task ect ect ... and we got full rush front line cavalery ALWAYS flank and range and artillery left alone. As an advice if you want to enjoy those game DON'T play max difficulty EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER. Or be prepare for the full box of cheese that will be required.

[@fabienherry6690]

@@Walkingfenix Yeah Shogun 2 unit variety was awefull and the difference between elite and yashigaru was pretty much non existent.

[@cosmoline_aesthetic]

in M2TW the AI would spamstacks of 5 ballistas and two units of spear militia, and I had battles where the AI would just stand around while my missile units just unloaded all their ammo on them. in 10 years of playing m2 I dont think I ever lost one battle or had to deal with a stack that outnumbered and outclassed mine

[@kobayashimaru1]

Glad to see my comment inspired this. :) Another two big problems in the modern Total War games for me are the addition of health bars/multiple hitpoints and free magical replenishment of units. In the old Total War titles you could only see the number of men in a unit and it's morale/stamina. Most of the units had 1 hit point per entity which allowed for a certain "illusion" of unpredictability in the fight. A lucky shot could fell an entity immediately, while some other time that whole unit could take 10 such shots and leave with no casualties. Now, when all units have health bars and many hitpoints, cou can precisely tell what shape your unit is in and you can precisely predict when your unit will be destroyed, especially because the whole system is off and entities start dying slowly but when the hit points of a unit drop below some 30% entities start dropping like flies. Hit points like this have no place in a game like Total War. In older titles, even when you had units with multiple hitpoints, like elephants, there were no health bars, you could not tell how many hitpoints your elephants have left and how much longer they can stay commited to the fight before dying. That made possible interesting and enjoyable situations where you could be left with only one entity in a unit and that entity would do wonders, kill many enemies and survive the whole battle even though the other entities in a unit fell long time ago. That is not possible in newer Total Wars. When a unit's health bar comes low it's entities will die off very, very quickly in a very predictable manner. Another big problem for me is "magical", free replenishment of units. You are no longer incentivised to minimise your casualties. Why would you, when your whole army is back to 100% men in few turns, for free, with no interaction from you at all?! It's just plainly stupid. You no longer have a sense that those are real people who you should take care of. It's just magical soldiers who just materialize from thin air and replenish their number no matter what. In older titles you had to take care of casualties, especially in longer campaigns further from your territory. It was a nightmare to recuperate from higher casualties , which usually meant your campaign is over and you had to send your army (or rather what's left of it) home, which was quite realistic and immersive. Even if you conquered a city, you still needed to develop the right infrastructure to be able to replenish your more valued units, which could take years, not to mention the costs. You could use that against your enemies too, leading wars of attrition and slowly chipping at a superior army, battle by battle until you manage to defeat it. It's no longer possible. Enemy army attacks you in your territory, you lose, but manage to inflict heavy casualties... You'd think that's good news for you, because they are now in a bad condition and this is your home territory so you'll be able to muster a second army and defeat what's left of them, right? Wrong! They'll replenish in your territory more quickly than you'll be able to muster a new army. LOL. Now you can go to the other side of map, lose half of your army and all you need to do is switch to camp stance and voila, your back in business in no time. Or conquer a city or subjugate a nation and immediately even your most elite units start replenishing magically while you're in their territory. It's just so bad.

[@AleksiMizaro]

I think it's even simpler. Unit collision is a joke compared to the older games and units have almost instant acceleration and response times.

[@ingold1470]

At least it's not Rome 2 where cavalry would stop dead charging and then walk into melee once the first entity collides with the enemy.

[@ms_publisher7143]

Yeah there was something real about the movement delay in medieval 2, your units didn't act like robots as they do in the modern games.

[@ingold1470]

@Mid ary Warhammer 2 cav is terrible for the opposite reason. Every horseman pushes as far into the blob as he can, so when you order them to retreat some guys are still stuck in there, causing the whole unit to slowly close back into melee to help their beleaguered comrade unless you spam orders until the stuck guys die. So they mainly exist to shut down OP missile units, unless you're playing as Bretonnia in which case you're stuck with them.

[@aztekenen1]

everything is becoming more oriented towards casual gameplay basically. lost a flank? don't worry, they'll be back in 20 seconds. enemy cavalry charged the rear? no problem. your unit will instantly turn and brace. your elite units got countered? you still got your hero and his one man army strength. and for those who want 'difficulty' playing offline, they can watch how the ai recruits at double your rates, while having 0 issues with order or finances. oh, and don't forget that you get a 25% overall nerf to your troops while the opponent gets a 25% buff. i remember playing rome 2 on legend, and spamming my strongest elites when my roman empire owned half the map. iberia's tribes were invincible i tell you. what a joke. fake gameplay, and fake difficulty. whoever they think they're catering to, its not the decade old fans.

[@adas3497]

Papa Aleks with the dub

[@idontknow970]

Ah yes, the famed legionaries of Rome. Best known for their mosh pit battle formation. All jokes aside, the game desperately needs army cohesion (a concept that has been waning with each new release). The ramifications it has on the gameplay are apparent and already spoken for so no need to do so on my part. I just dont get how anyone in their right mind saw this shit and thought it was good. All gameplay related notes aside, it just looks ridiculous; seeing all of these units breaking formation and blobbing together. It's like I'm a scientist peering through a microscope at a fucking amoeba. Cant stand that every single engagement devolves into a complete clusterfuck. Anyways keep the videos coming. Love unearthing why I have barely touched any of the new releases. All of this bullshit was so offputting my brain rejected it without ever having to analyze it actively.

[@ignaciotaborda6538]

That's because making formations and thinking of macro managing the armies is too hard when compared to giants and demigryphs and heroes, rules of cool will always win over deeper thinking and strategical fighting.

[@NWA744]

If you always wind up with mosh pit blobs, then you simply aren't playing right. If you actually know how to manage unit formations, then defined battle lines are really not that hard. Whether I'm fighting with a Macedonian Phalanx or a 40 stack Roman Legion, I never have problems keeping a solid battle line in Rome II.

[@justinokraski3796]

maybe if there was a morale penalty for not remaining in formation that would help with it

[@NWA744]

@@justinokraski3796 There is, its called your dudes getting flanked.

[@gartwebb7864]

I wanted to give you some words of encouragement and some insight of my own. Total War: Troy was my first Total War franchise experience; and unfortunately it will likely be my last. I never had played a total war title before because I grew up poor, and I was limited to new games on birthdays or Christmas. This economic situation forced me to develop an understanding of the value of a purchase vs. the time spent enjoying that purchase. If I requested a game as a gift growing up, it was because I had researched the game and had established with confidence that I would be entertained for months to years to come (because since I received 1-2 games a year these games had to last that long). One of my first strategy games was Supreme Commander. I would log on to that game and play with my friends and the AI incessantly. And the game was always fair; engaging at all difficulties, and at all levels of play; and always left room for improvement. Supreme Commander has lasted longer than those friendships did. It and other “older” strategy games like it still entertain, and challenge me to this day. And essentially: I got my money’s worth, memories, and ages of entertainment and fun. I purchased Troy, and subsequently got bored of the game in one week. Within one week of playtime during Quarantine I had taught myself every facet of the game’s economic/diplomatic overworld and the battles...and was left disappointed and unsatisfied for all of the reasons that you have listed in your videos. Fighting the Legendary AI (in Troy at least) is like trying to fight a 7 foot tall man who is wielding a 4 foot long club...as an average sized human with a short sword. And then discovering that the absolute unit of a man is deaf, lacks object permanence, and has an IQ of 67 and barely has the brain power to even operate his brain stem let alone fight properly. The situation stops being about an engaging fair fight; and more about exploiting the massive cognitive flaws that the Behemoth has so that you can avoid him shouting “SMAAAaaaAAAaashhhhhfpppppp” and crushing your feeble body/tools into paste.👀 Older computer strategy games were challenging because the difficulty modifier enhanced the planning and predictive ability of the AI. Troy Total War handicaps the player and instead of increasing challenge it increases tedium-and any mechanic that is pro-tedium is anti-fun, anti-immersion, and (above all) anti-consumer. Troy restricts the ability of the player to discover fresh solutions, and differing playstyles and instead pigeon holes the player into a game of “pin the tail on the retard.” Although I am now an adult with the resources to purchase most things that I want-I still approach my entertainment as time invested vs money spent And Troy is just not worth the money to anyone who is looking for a game that will challenge them. Keep making the content. 🙂

[@rudamachoo]

A wonderful observation. I can relate to the fact of being handicapped by money in order to play whatever I want(ed) and therefore had to resort to investigation, reviews, etc in order to make sure I was buying something worthwile. I've been playing TW since Rome 1 and I've sunk so many hours into those games. The game automatically hit me, from the very beginning, with just the music from the intro and the menu. And when I entered the campaign and fought the battles, I simply couldn't believe what I was playing at the time, a dream come true (or as close to it as I would've imagined). Now, I got Troy the very day it was released only because it was free, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. As Volound, I stopped paying attention to TW games after Rome 2 and never got another title until Troy (he went back on 3K) and I experienced the same thing you describe: boredom and unfairness. I had been seeing that in other youtuber's channels (like Mr. Smartdonkey) who loves 3K but was mostly a Shogun 2 specialist. I experienced through him (and others) the ridiculousness of the player being handicapped by what he (the Donkey) refers to "artificial difficulty" which is basically what you and Volound have described. The Donkey is a bit more forgiving to the single entities disaster and he shows a way to actually enjoy them. But still, the points raised by Volound and you here, remain. And will continue to do so apparently since this seems to be the direction the franchse has been heading for a while now. So, thank you for your words =)

[@doellison]

Play Rome 2!

[@dubiousdevil9572]

Troy is a pretty shitty introduction to TW and also a pretty shitty way to judge the other TW games.

[@GD-ym9ff]

DubiousDevil not sure I’d agree tbh. Of course it’s not as fleshed out a game as WH2 or 3K, but it has the exact same absurd approach to difficulty scaling (only now, the highest campaign difficulty locks the highest battle difficulty so you can’t even scale down the AI battle bonuses if you want to play on Legendary campaign) and the same love-in with OP single entities that completely unbalance gameplay. If you didn’t like it in Troy I doubt you’d like it in Warhammer or 3K, since it encourages the same tedious gameplay.

[@gartwebb7864]

DubiousDevil You are objectively correct. It IS a tad bit unfair to say “Troy is bad ergo all contemporary TW games.” However, that is not my point. 🙂 My thinking is less that “all Total War games are bad” and more along the lines of: “As a consumer I vote with my wallet, and as such I refuse to contribute to the economic support of a company that thinks that this disingenuous approach to difficulty is a good idea.” I don’t want to purchase any other Total War game because the only way that I can truly, and maturely communicate my displeasure as a consumer is to not buy what I dislike. Reviews, Dialogue, and discourse are an excellent method of ideological communication, but in the end the only truly relevant way to communicate with a company is by denying them income. As an informed consumer It is my job to educate myself on the franchise and determine if the direction of the content is something worth promoting. And via extensive researching on the tedious difficulty/hidden modifiers and lack of challenge I have deduced that TW games are less about strategy and more about a glorification of ancient warfare. Which is admittedly entertaining... for a short time; but is also one dimensional and shallow. And one dimensional and shallow gameplay are not things (in my opinion) which are worth casting my ballot of “yeah this is great keep it coming” by purchasing future and past TW titles.

[@vicenteasaro1823]

One of the most nostalgic aspect of the older total war games was the immersion from us fighting the same challenges as the ai in build composition, unit positioning, strategic maneuvers, and tech building. We played with the AI. We enjoyed fighting new nations as the reality of us fighting an AI was blurred by the history we got to experience with each new engagement. I loved facing new elite units that I could scroll through their description and immerse myself in the stories of who these people were. I was excited to win a battle over the enemies capital to see what buildings and culture was constructed in honor of their real life counterparts. I wasnt playing a game, I was learning a fun caricature of civilizations past. Now all I see is how can we game the system, how can I learn each exploit to circumvent the ai, how can I remove myself as much as possible from the immersion to game it.

[@gavins9846]

Sums up my experience now, even though I just began a year ago, starting from Napoleon to FOTS. This kind of min-max, exploitative gameplay is mind-numbingly bland. If I want stat-modifiers, i go to paradox games. No need for me to deal with units moving as fast as cavalry or "buildings" that are really just a buncha + values part in my uber-economy and skill-tree FORMULA.

[@freaki0734]

Thats you people growing up and not the fucking games getting worse

[@alexmag342]

@@freaki0734 Cope Harder, braindead consoomer

[@samus2205]

That problem is with you not the gsmes

[@vicenteasaro1823]

@@samus2205 "Nuh uh! Your the problem!" Riveting reply, really learned something.

[@triggerhappy124421]

This hits the nail on the head for what always felt off in warhammer to me. I always have been into ranged units and infantry than calvalry, but when i tried to play warhammer, my melee units would have a negative kd ratio of like 20 kills to 150 losses. My shock calvalry and ranged units would have hundreds of kills to negligible losses. I turned to goofy baiting strategies and massive range and calvalry formations to deal with large units, small units, every kind of units. My infantry became purely a sit and dont die unit. I miss playing shogun 2

[@alexfrost2799]

I feel like this is directly based on what type of melee units from specific factions you are talking about. Typically for standard melee infantry the strengths of units goes, from lowest to highest: Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings, Skaven, Bretonnians, Empire, Orcs, Norscans, Dark and High Elves, Dwarves and Lizardmen, and Warriors of Chaos. So if you are playing Skaven or Empire and facing Chaos or Lizardmen, those loses are to be expected. If it was the other way around, I would understand your complaints. It's been like that well before Warhammer became a Total War game. As both a Total War and Warhammer tabletop player, I feel like the complaints specifically aimed for TWW or TWW2 are unwarranted. Those same complaints are completely logical for other Total War games btw, but not Warhammer. It plays out the way tabletop has usually played out, which for many people coming from tabletop to Total War is completely fine. All of these complaints and concerns are very logical against the more historical total war games, which Volound is almost exclusively using as examples. These complaints do not work against Warhammer

[@Krakaet]

Takeda Shingen's moustache is displeased: bristling with terror.

[@Aiden-dp7mj]

It's dreadful. Utterly dreadful. Of course there are variations depending on army comp/specific situations, but essentially any battle pre-gunpowder era would boil down to a skirmishing phase, main battle lines engaging and trying to retain cohesion, while flanking units/cav duke it out to force a flanking whenever to disrupt the cohesion of the enemy. Or, force the enemy main line to buckle in place(s), through which you would then have the opportunity to flank units resulting in a win. Essentially, historical battles were based around keeping your army cohesive while trying to disrupt the enemy cohesion. Now, army cohesion matters for nought, and it's just a clusterf*** of individual skirmishes and button-bashing abilities, with no real "battle objective" of trying to achieve a breakthrough somewhere on the battlefield. It's absolutely mental and I can't bring myself to play totalwar anymore. The "skill" is now more about reaction-time and game exploits rather than making sound tactical choices based on what would have worked in the real world ie. treating an army as an army, as opposed to a group of individual drunkards brawling in your local at 3am while the landlord desperately tries to throw kebabs into the mix to raise morale.

[@Aiden-dp7mj]

An amusing thought I have just had - Did anyone ever watch Time Commanders back in the day? Imagine them trying to make that show with TW in its current state...Mother of God.

[@mannyfresh7065]

Do you think it has anything to do with you tubers putting out vids showing these exploits vs sending directly to CA? I honestly don’t know the answer but seems a lot of other games are going down this path

[@TheGouliat]

@@mannyfresh7065 Its about fast Paced, action oriented Gameplay and stealing Elements of other Popular games. They want to increase their sales Numbers and that Means going for the mystical "Wider Audience". People who like ( and even know ) how Historical battles work are a real minority. The majority wants flashy effects, direct reactions, always something to do to keep them occupied. Even 1 Minute of "Empty Time", not giving any commands, is to be avoided. Dont think about it or watch something happen. Most Players consume Games that are "Sit down, get directly into the Action, have your direct gratification and repeat"

[@TheManofthecross]

that's why i play single player only in those games to get that feel and to do it etc. but even then it is hard as fuck to pull that off etc.

[@Koelebig]

I agree. It's more about micro and (hidden) stats than it's about tactics these days. A simple solution for this would be to actively punish micro and click-spam by adding a delay to orders and making it even worse if you click spam anything. How would a unit react in reality if it gets 10-20 orders in a matter of seconds? I'd imagine the unit commanders and soldiers would be confused and look at the general asking him what hell he actually wants them to do.

[@capitalcrusader5200]

GUARDS! OIL UP THE RACK! There's a few Total War ligaments and bones Volound hasn't snapped yet.

[@blackknight4152]

Tbh the only problem is that CA doesnt know how to make inteligent AI so they just give them insane bonuses, and thus defensive tactics of old no longer work, single entities are a problem but if you want to play high dificulties now you are pretty much forced to cheese with some overpowered stuff/ranged spam+ lord getting sorrounded and thats about it. Older games allowed for more diversity in gameplay because AI might be bad but the units they use are consistent, and we had epic 3 v1 stack battles that were won with tactics and hammer and anvil. Now instead of hammer and anvil dumb ai, we have to snipe dumb ai or use the most powerfull stuff in our reach to achieve victory in supposedly even conditions.

[@CCraft-if7fw]

dumb in battles but who cares when in warhammer 2 they can field 12 stacks and 5 factions declare war on u for no reason, when ur reputation is gd

[@samus2205]

The problem is legendary difficulty. You don’t have to play it

[@expendable1015]

As a rather new Total War player (literally first total war I got was Warhammer II. Then shortly after Shogun 2 and just got 3 Kingdoms I have to say how absolutely satisfying it is when your Yari Ashigaru are holding the line and your able to position your matchlocks or No Dachi samurai into a flanking position and absolutely devestate the enemy flank through concentrated ranked fire or No Dachi absolutely cut through enemy troops like a hot knife through butter. And also seeing their morale absolutely fall apart and their losses rapidly rising. Once I get one of their flanks to shatter I end up being able to attack them from multiple angles which causes a full shattering of their army. Warhammer while I do get similar moments it's not as great as I can just get Karl Franz to snipe the enemy Lord (I made Franz to be an absolute god in melee) and have a super powerful wizard just rain fire spells on the enemy Lord or army. And with that it in a way defeats the purpose of the Greatsword infantry (they're similar to No Dachi, except they're heavily armored and in game they're armor piercing and anti infantry. They're perfect against low tier infantry I find with 2-3 units easily cutting through with small casualties)

[@mohamedAshraf-ln9hu]

At least warhammer is far better than Troy or 3K, the problem with it is that magic is very strong, which is in accordance to the lore of the games.

[@lofty9999]

we play on legendary mate. go do that then come back

[@chikn6814]

@@lofty9999 nice elitism, let the man do what he wishes

[@johndane9754]

@@mohamedAshraf-ln9hu And far too reliable.

[@scholaepalatinae4988]

Warhammer still does infantry better than 3K and cav in Warhammer couldn't just run through everything killing hundreds in 2 sec.

[@davidmclaughlin7544]

When you play on lower difficulties, the rock-paper-scissor effect is still in play. I play Warhammer and watching this video was a lot like my own progression as I moved from Easy to Normal to Hard to Very Hard to Legendary. Listening to your points made me realize how much I miss the days of having an infantry based front line and trying to time charges and movement to get the right units meeting in the trenches, so that I could flank and hammer and anvil and all that good stuff. The last campaign I played I don't think I recruited a single melee unit - it was just a lord, and multiple heroes who could summon ephemeral infantry to delay the enemy while my ranged units did work. The fact that the summoned units were completely useless and lost handily in melee was not a big deal as they only cost me "magic". I didn't have to worry about them taking up a slot or how long they would take to replenish. One of the nice things they did in Warhammer at least was separate campaign difficult from battle difficulty. So I could lower the battle difficulty back down to normal to get that original experience, but it's literally just too easy - the AI is so stupid on multiple fronts. You can be on turn 100 up against an AI with almost unlimited funds and they will still send some badly composed army that will then send their best units ahead in complete isolation against your firing squad. This should hardly require a rewrite of the engine to fix, so many of these issues are low-hanging fruits.. but instead we're forced to choose between feeling like a bully against a hapless child or spamming ranged units to bypass the cheats, causing suspension of belief and a far more monotonous gameplay style. Indeed, at this point - at least with Warhammer - the only thing that matters to me once I have a stack of *any* ranged units is the terrain. Whatever army the enemy has, they will lose unless they overwhelm me with numbers.

[@Samuraid77]

This is the single most important total war video in existence right now.

[@honestlordcommissarbrighte7921]

The footage makes me feel sick. Where's my orderly advance.

[@jorgejustin461]

all I have to say is... oof. This really hit the nail on the head

[@Volound]

turn on bell notifications for future vids, my comrades. and im taking suggestions on my reddit for future video topics for this series. ill be checking this thread, going forward: www.reddit.com/r/Volound/comments/is77kf/ideas_for_future_total_war_critique_subjects/

[@alaric12]

What do you think of Crusader King III ?

[@alaric12]

What is your opinion about historical mods on Total War ? ( Medieval Kingdoms TOTAL WAR 1212 AD ,Attila total war )

[@alaric12]

@Tattle Boad I didn't asked for your opinion .

[@totalwar1793]

How tactics don’t matter as much anymore bc of unit stats. Like, even general sniping + flank charges won’t kill armies anymore

[@thisishuhwow]

Timeline of rear heavy cavalry charges into trash light infantry :--)

[@ilaughatfunnyshit3482]

Great insight. Made me realize why i dont enjoy battles as much as i used to I have to say. One of the best vids ive ever seen. Thanks mate

[@nemamiah7832]

I don't know who you are. I've never heard of you. KZbin just decided to guide me to you. But you, good sir, managed to put into words all of my confusion and frustration with the Total War series past Shogun 2, that I've struggled to properly formulate myself. Brilliantly done. Now to smash that subscribe button and recommend you to literally everyone I know.

[@DeusExDraconian]

Those Three Kingdoms clips are vomit inducing. Classic warfare relies upon formations for both discipline and morale. Any force that much of a blob would shatter and break upon contact with the enemy. And I suppose if you wanted some real non arcade content you could do what the old Cossack games did. The further your troops are from your HQ, the longer they take to respond to new orders. Imagine trying to use cheese tactics with that.

[@wilhelmrk]

Wait, that was a feature in cossacks?

[@Osvath97]

The problem with a system like that in Total War is that it would not make any sense. It can mean that one very far away unit might get rear-charged by a very obvious incoming enemy, while in real life the local officer commanding unit would easily be able to give an order to turn around to avoid getting rear-charged.

[@Cekkaaaaaaaa]

The moment armies clash everything turns into a blob in reality. Total blob will be the case until PCs can handle super huge battles where reserves are a thing.

[@Intranetusa]

I believe blobbing started with Shogun 2 and Rome 2. There are comparison videos of MTW2 vs Attila or RTW2 where it shows the earlier games have better unit cohesion, better unit-pushing, etc. So it must have something to do with the engine change after MTW2.

[@uncletimo6059]

@@Cekkaaaaaaaa "The moment armies clash everything turns into a blob in reality" We welcome the time traveller onto this forum.

[@GD-ym9ff]

Thank you for talking about this stuff. Hidden combat modifiers are my single-biggest hate in modern TW titles. They completely go against the entire spirit of what these games should be trying to achieve. A game that is trying to be more difficult should, as much as possible, encourage you to use as many of the tools available to you as it can. Instead, their artificial difficulty forces you to adapt 1 or 2 'cheese' tactics based around tiresome army comps because these are the only effective ways to deal with enemy melee buffs. I also hate that by extension they have made the decision to turn even basic ranged units in historical titles like 3K into heat-seeking snipers that can mow down infantry, whereas elite infantry units get tooled by farmers with pitchforks on anything above Hard. Its even more egregious in a game like WH which is lauded for its faction and unit variety, but where on L/VH you are bottlenecked into using like 3 or 4 units for the entire campaign because everything else is just a waste of time. People hate on Shogun 2 for its lack of unit diversity but conveniently ignore that every single unit had a defined purpose within the games meta, and that even if certain units tended to perform better more often (looking at you, Yari Ashigaru), a skilled player could use all of the assets at their disposal to beat the enemy, even on the highest difficulty. For a series like TW to take this direction is absolutely mind-boggling to me. And it is not even that if exclusively effects extremely elite players - even from the perspective of someone like myself who is more casual, being encouraged by a game to use as limited a set of tactics as possible is just terrible. Its anti-fun.

[@reecelongden3500]

It sounds to me like you're actually complaining about VH/L difficulty. There's a simple solution. Play on Hard or Normal. It's what the games were balanced for. Hence 'Normal'.

[@GD-ym9ff]

​@@reecelongden3500 Nah, let me be clear. I know how difficult it is to program a competent AI for a strategy game. Therefore, I have no issue with the AI getting buffs, be they increased income, more armies, or indeed units getting certain stat buffs in combat. An AI which is buffed to high heaven is pretty much the only way to make a TW game challenging. My issue isn't with the difficulty itself but with CA's particular difficulty scaling mechanic. Prioritising melee stat buffs makes classes of unit become largely useless. In 3K, melee infantry become completely obsolete on higher difficulties, as your single entity heroes and (seemingly laser guided) archers win the day. Similarly in WH, on VH melee infantry and cavalry perform incredibly poorly and almost never justify their cost, bottlenecking you to one or two effective unit types. This especially sucks if you play a faction with these as its core strengths. I don't understand why buffs can't be applied across all unit types fairly, so that a core of strong melee units can at least be viable for some factions on Legendary difficulty. For example, in Med 2 cavalry was obviously very overpowered, but I could still handle the highest difficulty with melee-based armies. Similairly Shogun 2 could be an extremely challenging game on VH or Legendary but without reducing melee units to meat shields for your ranged units. It's just an oversimplification of the order of battle which isn't more challenging, but just more boring. I want to caveat by saying that I play on Legendary and have done for years. I want to be challenged and I enjoy the feeling of having your back against the wall for most of your campaign. What I don't understand the logic in constructing difficulty by transferring difficulty onto single classes of unit. As anyone who has completed a campaign as, say, the High Elves or Vampire Coast on L/VH will know, it really isn't much harder at all to win a battle because your ranged units will still absolutely shred anything in front of you at the same rate they would on Normal. The problem isn't difficulty, its the way it scales to certain kinds of unit. I feel like I'm rambling but I hope this makes sense.

[@reecelongden3500]

@@GD-ym9ff Ah, my apologies, I misunderstood your point. I absolutely agree with you.

[@GD-ym9ff]

@@reecelongden3500 Nah its good dude don't worry. I don't think I explained my original point very well haha.

[@corrivalnumber]

I've been following your content, from let's plays to commentaries to the podcast you had with Cosmic for several years and not a single time have I felt a decline on quality on any video, every single time I see an upload from you I can rest assured it will be quality content, as always keep up the GREAT work! By far one of my favorite youtubers.

[@Volound]

i remember you, one of the OGs gyazo.com/77e048a663d72582380ecfa5556df033 and thanks for the nice words. always learning and always improving. eudaimonic imperative. 💪

[@iratespartan13]

You encapsulate so thoroughly what I have seen with my eyes, but could not put into words. Well done, sir!

[@_jwp_7311]

Kobayashimaru1's comment is very acute, there should be a difference between a battle and unit-value skirmish gameplay. First is a contest between generals or commanders, the latter of players. I can relate how the newer TW game's "battles" seem to resemble RTS gameplay wherein individual unit value as an investment needs to be justified even before it is created, and if it has no justification it is not created at all, which on TW battle terms means some units are not fit for an active role (resulting in that avoidant gameplay). This categorization is further characterized towards unit value by unit abilities not being specific commands/orders, but buffs or even debuffs, which imo should not exist for more immersive gameplay. Even S2 had some, but the likes of Yari Wall or various Charge/rapid advance abilities directly directly resulted in battlefield functions, not directly stats, ergo they were units following commands. One aspect that makes battles devolve into unit vs unit combat is lack of Friction in the gameplay (as Clausewitz terms it in On War, book 1 Chapter 7). Signals are so easily controllable by player, single unit commands (S2 had a limit of 2units per group) enable a higher level of gameplay with advent of 'micro' which reaches the highest level of Sun Tzu's Energy-consideration regarding fighting with a large force, not really battle-like at all.

[@awazruk1]

I find Sun Jian faction as extremely easy just because at the start of the campaign you get semi-useful infantry unit 'axe mercenaries' their usefulness though comes only from the fact they can use shieldwall so you can just use them as sponges for enemy fire wait till they run out and then kill them with your own archers. The infantry in this game at best serves only as glorified mobile missile sponges

[@princedhan100]

South China Area is basically free estate for Sun Jian faction, lmao.

[@awazruk1]

@@princedhan100 Thats also true, but the mercenary units just make it trivial. Instant recruit with full force. Not to mention mercenary archers those guys are far to OP ranged is too OP and so is cav

[@princedhan100]

@@awazruk1 Agreed.

[@CecilXIX]

@@princedhan100 They've addressed this by adding a lot of factions down south since launch, and now there's the Nanman.

[@DJMacPhail]

As a fellow Scot I spent far too much time trying to play Scotland in medieval 2 and I get where your coming from. But since playing the third age mod where it’s explicitly said that you need to have guard mode turned on for pike units to work, I’m wondering if it might be worth going back and seeing if pikes perform better when guard mode is kept on. I saw during your video that none of your pike units had guard mode on and was wondering if you knew this but kept it off to prove a point.

[@Alex_Fahey]

I was honestly surprised when he said pikes were bad in med 2 until I saw the lack of guard mode. Pikes in protracted combat are an amazing defensive line due to their pike animation's speed and stun locking potential. However, if the units switch to their swords when a soldier gets too close (which they are blocked from doing in Third Age and other mods), then you're screwed. When that happens, they are no better than highland rabble. That's why I overlap them with a slightly foward, stretched-out line of regular infantry to provide a buffer to stop the pikemen from entering close combat and active guard mode so they don't advance past the buffer into sword range.

[@earvindinoso7689]

I removed their secondaries altogether, and they are OP af. Without editing their stats, think of them as Yari Ashigaru on steroids, and likewise on Noble Pikemen but with plate armour.

[@JD83000]

Pikes shred in MTW2. He just doesn't know how to use them, which is odd given how knowledgeable he is about these games

[@Volound]

absolutely not. they are broken. this is not up for debate.

[@allenantonioheyllatorre5720]

Thats my experience with pikes guard mode makes em work. I loved the scottish campaign because i could go siege/archer with pikes as the main body shredded everything. Soemtimes they bugged out but i wiuld just disactivate/reactivate and sometimes just stop order would make the pikes but their swords away and pull out their pikes. It is dissapointing that only works reliably with guard mode and no attack orders. But they shred armies in my experience and the siege means you dont gotta go chasing anyways

[@ManorLords]

Very interesting video and even better discussion in the comments. I feel that Total War has a difficult task - it's fanbase is huge and diverse, people expect a lot of different experiences that often contradict each other. I guess by making it more 'dynamic' and competitive they make it less appealing for those who would like to focus on army composition and positioning. "The truth behind the myth" approach of Troy is perhaps the very effect of this dichotomy. To me it's like adding skills with timers to chess. I know that a lot of people like that fast paced gameplay, and I learned not to yuck anybody else's yum. It's just the gameplay of the new titles does feel, in my opinion, streched, "like a butter scraped over too much bread", probably because it has to please both the old fans and newcomers... and, just maybe, it has an identity crisis.

[@praisekek181]

I think everyone is right, CA needs to put up or shut up, this is just lazy, regardless of who you are as a fan.

[@reecelongden3500]

@@praisekek181 And you wonder why CA stops replying to emails from fans who only want to complain because nothing they put out will ever be good enough by at least someone's standard?

[@praisekek181]

@@reecelongden3500 make an actual argument, you can't shine shite and that's what CA has don't to it's own franchise, fuck at this point I hope they crash and burn, maybe that will let the new blood in

[@reecelongden3500]

@@praisekek181 Way to necro this. But you want an actual argument? Okay. TW3K on Records Mode is the most historically accurate Total War game to date. It is also the Total War game with the best balance between the playable factions. It really does have an answer to every problem people have with it. Don't like SEUs? Play on Records. Don't like the arrow trails? Turn them off in the options menu. Think certain units lack punch? Put them under the correct general and they won't. Don't like how something looks? There's mods for that. Don't like the balance between units? There's mods for that too. Your move.

[@joukopentikainen2360]

I cannot agree that pikes are bad in medieval 2. In my experience they are ideal for holding the line. However I haven't actually used pikes that much in vanilla M2TW. In Third Age Total War DaC they work fantastically.

[@100thdragoon]

That's because they're heavily modified in Third Age. They are genuinely garbage in Vanilla, since they drop their pikes almost immediately on contact and draw swords, but their stats are balanced with Rome I style pike infantry in mind - so they just get obliterated.

[@j.o.2618]

They are just really really impossible to use effectively, sans a few of the Swiss piles/Venetian pikes who chop the fuck out of everything. The only good situations I’ve had with pikes is keeping them static, perfectly positioned, and with guard mode. Guard mode helps them not lose cohesion in melees/brace against charges better. You can’t really march forward with them like you could in Rome 1, or in Shogun because they lose pathetically against similar cost units. They are less mobile, require more babysitting, and can completely get wrecked in one bad fight. Regular spearman levies will at least put up a fight, and I can just click and move them. But if I click and move pikes, they’ll be stabbing forever and not be killing anything. Main problem is that the engine treats any two handed weapon differently, and it causes them to be super underpowered. Any two handed weapon unit gets absolutely slaughtered in ME2 by any 1h + shield unit, or destroyed by ranged, or destroyed by a Calvary charge. There’s no berserkers that fucking fist your army if they get to your lines, like in Rome 1, they just engage and always get bad fights.

[@JordanR]

Yeah as the others mentioned they only work well because modders removed their secondary weapons so they don’t drop their pikes

[@Mr.0B]

Love me a pike wall on DaC, enemy cav charges then loses like 15 horsemen per unit lol

[@midshipman8654]

J O agreed, but they are great for defensive seiges and ok for ai open battled where you just need to hold the line. you can often bait ai cavalry to run into them.

[@PoLaNd4life96]

I love your work, deserves more spotlight than it does!

[@MegaTang1234]

I have never played total war but listening to you talk is quite comforting and soothing.

[@noneofyourbusiness3288]

Things I want from TW in the future: 1) remove the combat modifiers bullshit, its dumb and if thats how you do difficulty, then dont even bother 2) make army sizes more dynamic, I dont want to always see multiples of 20 running around. Soft caps, making army splitting possible again and a supply/infrastructure system, that also impacts campaign map speed are possible ways to achieve that 3) improve diplomacy. The game is called "total war" but I would very much like to fight some wars that are not to the death. Adding a war goal and casus belli mechanic similar to what is present in paradox grand strategy games would be welcome changes for me. also: wtf is the cav / infantry balancing in 3 kingdoms ?

[@rrenkrieg7988]

dynamic army sizes should be a thing that scales with the commander's capability to command, i had an idea in R2TW to have commanders with high authority can field a large army of cheap units, commanders with high cunning have medium sized but more flexible armies, and commanders with high zeal have smaller elite armies, something that also makes you choose between having more unit cap but gives your units lower morale justified by having your commanders' attention being stretched and split, or giving up unit slots to give your current units bonuses to their stats like giving them activatable skills. also the capability to attach auxiliary units to your armies that don't count towards army cap, like having 1 slot that can only be filled by skirmisher/light cav or 3 slots of auxiliary infantry to a legion.

[@jerrybroderick2858]

A cassus belli system like in paradox games would never work. People do not play total war for the political system, they play it for the war. So if players had to wait 20 turns to get a war goal that allowed them to take one province, no one, including me, would play. At that point, the campaign would be reduced to clicking end turn and watching as you do not reach the victory conditions because it takes years to capture one province.

[@alejandrop.s.3942]

I absolutly agree. Supply lines must be implemented one way or another, it'd add a great strategic context. For instance, you cannot simply advance into enemy territory without taking care of your rear guard. It'd be possible to defeat an enemy due to attrition if you manage to trap them in a position where they cannot receive supplies (Caesar was a master on this). I remember playing Imperivm III where your soldiers would starve if you didn't manage to maintain a supply line of carts, lay up food in forts... Yeah, diplomacy has always sucked in TW, it isn't anything new.

[@freaki0734]

@@alejandrop.s.3942 It has gotten better though AI does now make sensible peace offers when its loosing before it asked for all of their regions back and reparations even when they are at their last region

[@alejandrop.s.3942]

@@freaki0734 Well, I bought Rome II a few weeks ago and, even though it's far from perfect, diplomatic AI is better than I expected. They seek for peace when they are losing, although anyone accepts become a client state till they're subjugated. I don't understand well the rules, since I've got some penalties which I don't know where do they come from. For instance, I've got a -3 with Sparta due to agent actions against them, and I haven't performed these actions. When a country becomes your client state, relationships should improve through the time. Epirus is my client since 40 turns ago, and relationships are still red. Galatia declared war on me after 3 turns from their subjugation. It doesn't make any sense. Edit: actually, some accept becoming a client state before subjugation.

[@alekssavic1154]

So I agree with most of what you said, but I'll add this: I, for one, don't miss the days of my single line of dudes butting heads with the enemy's single line of dudes for half an hour. I like that you can now split up your battle line into multiple groups and the ai (usually) won't just advance in a single, straight line towards your general (or attempt to circle their entire army around onto your flank for no actual reason) until they run into something. This is especially true of smaller battles where you don't necessarily have the manpower to maintain a solid line, although sadly we don't see those much anymore with the changes to how armies work.

[@Tomezilla514]

You really make so many good points in this video. There was a lot about 3 Kingdoms that I didn't realize but you totally nail now that I think about it. I might as well just go back to Shogun 2.

[@mynameisfatmike6742]

really well done video, you articulated my thoughts on the franchise to a tee. Even mirrored my exact experiences with Gondor in third age mod, and with scotland in medieval 2.

[@victord4662]

In Medieval 2 if you stack a few units of pikemen one atop the other they become really good. I had a few tests against an unit of Armoured Swordsmen on normal difficulty, huge scale, even terrain and those are the results: 2 units of Highland Pikemen - 96 94 K/D 3 units of Highland Pikemen - 76 52 K/D 2 units of Heavy Pike Militia 98/36 K/D 3 units of Heavy Pike Militia 63/19 K/D This is what they can do if you want them to kill anything in front of them. Alternatively you can put them on guard mode and they will hold the enemy in place for literally 30 minutes with barely any losses!

[@j.o.2618]

It’s not “really good”, it’s just not bad. They still require a lot of micromanagement for very little gain. I would take basic knights all day over pikes because they are just 100 times easier to use and way more effective in 9/10 situations

[@victord4662]

@@j.o.2618 If you use them right you don't really need to micromanage them. Just use 4 or 6 pikemen at the center with support from more mobile infantry on the flanks, missile units and cav. They become especially effective in the late period when used in conjunction with gunpowder units. I leave this video as an example kzbin.info/www/bejne/r5WtfmmAj5eLb7s

[@UndrState]

@@victord4662 - I agree , the www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=316825 guide is an excellent resource also . Pikemen , well used , are nearly OP

[@darkfireslide]

Pikemen were always meant to hold the line, not get lots of kills. They're the most "anvil" of all units, even more than elite spears.

[@UndrState]

@@darkfireslide - Ironically that's sort of a-historical - Swiss pikemen in particular got so good and aggressive they'd charge the enemy lines in a column , bulldozing enemy infantry and breaking their lines .

[@MD-yd8lh]

In some mods based on med2 engine pike-units actualy realy beasts.

[@mr.foxtrot1381]

Yeah, pikes are extremely effective in the submods based on Third Age, as the modders just removed the secondary weapon from pikemen altogether so that the pikemen don't drop their pikes.

[@joevenespineli6389]

Plus I hear their base damage is actually tripled.

[@Fanatik456]

@@joevenespineli6389 Yes it is , but its broken because of stun lock , units which are immune to that effect are killing them by mass, for example trolls , dont know how that ability is called...

[@joevenespineli6389]

@@Fanatik456 would really like trolls to be classified as cavalry so they wouldnt dominate the pikes

[@RJALEXANDER777]

In the Divide and Conquer mod I actually knocked the attack stat down a point or few for each pike unit (depending on how elite they were). I like the idea of them being used as a holding force. Realistically against well-armoured units or simply ones carrying large shields pikes really wouldn't cause any meaningful casualties and would only really cause significant hurt to other pikemen or poorly protected mobs. Meanwhile their bonus against cavalry causes a significant amount of deaths.

[@michaelcastellano588]

You brought up a lot of stuff I didn't know I have subconsciously been doing for years. Like testing how well my units would do in whatever situation I put them in. Familiarity is a rather important thing, eh?

[@davio7031]

Total war : help me volound you’re our only hope

[@dustysdisciple]

This video couldn’t be more true. Simple.

[@LuanMower55]

Why the fuck's this comment only got 10 likes as of yet?

[@TheIpwnkyle]

I understand where you're coming from, but I still love Warhammer 2. It's so action packed and dynamic. No other Total War has come close.

[@shorewall]

I like Warhammer 2, but I give it a pass because it has dinosaurs! :D Seriously, I think of Warhammer 2 as a different game altogether. It has magic, guns, and monsters. I don't give 3 Kingdoms or Troy the same pass, because it doesn't work.

[@afriendlycadian9857]

@@shorewall warhammer will always get a pass seeming that its based on a fantasy game whereas the others arent

[@TheIpwnkyle]

@@afriendlycadian9857 Are you saying the Iliad is historically accurate?

[@afriendlycadian9857]

@@TheIpwnkyle i didnt mention that did i, i generally meant seeming that warhammer is based off a fantasy world where you have heroes etc who do great deeds or are demi gods and what not its fine that heroes are over powered in the game is warhammer 3 if they add like stormcasts or something then expect many single entity units or something similar

[@TheIpwnkyle]

@@afriendlycadian9857 I'm just saying that Troy should be held to the same ideals as Warhammer. Being that you have literal Greek heroes being one man armies and dealing with receiving blessings from the Greek gods as well.

[@dylanjordan6593]

Pikes are basically useless in Medieval 2 unless you put them on defensive mode. That puts them in an actual proper pike wall formation that can actually hold its own, but if you move them towards the enemy at all and use them offensively they become useless again. The only good tactic with them is to mix gunners in the ranks so they’re standing in between the pikes and defended by the wall while shooting. With crossbowmen and artillery in the back it’s super effective.

[@dylanjordan6593]

Also early game hordes of highlanders are more effective than anything else

[@olivermckinley6455]

You sum up all the problems I've had with Total War for years. Thanks so much!

[@TransportSupremo]

This video hits hard. This is the reason no matter how i try, i keep going back amd playing europa barbarorum 2, i just dont feel it the same way from modern titles

[@Intranetusa]

I'm still on Europa Barbarorum 1 because earlier versions of EB2 kept crashing for me. Does EB2 have significant improvements over EB1?

[@thisishuhwow]

Volound dont stop bashing total war, your videos are on point. And dont mind reddit drones.

[@amogusimpostor7961]

@Tattle Boad for redditors its not. He is Nazi for them.

[@Intranetusa]

Reddit is full of similar complaints about Total War AI and the engine. Also, the most recent Reddit controversy about Volound didn't even have anything to do with the TW game or Volound's legitimate criticisms of the game, but rather Volound making some personal insults about some guy on the internet and mocking the guy's disability.

[@thisishuhwow]

@@Intranetusa so? Words on internet hurt so much. Gotta snitch that guy to CA so he loses his partnership! idc

[@Intranetusa]

@@thisishuhwow Freedom works both ways here. You have the right to insult someone on the internet, and CA has a right to decide to stop partnering up with people they feel is acting inappropriately. Also, he was banned on Reddit by Reddit mods because that type of language is against the rules. You gonna tell them Reddit mods don't have the right to make rules for their own subreddits? Like I said before, freedom works both ways here. Private individuals have the freedom to make private decisions - and private businesses and forum moderators have that same right to make decisions.

[@Intranetusa]

@@emprahsfinest7092 Not in this case. The Total War Subreddit doesn't ban people for criticizing or complaining about the game. The mods ban people for completely different stuff like repeated insults, flaming, personal attacks, etc.

[@NobleHunter]

You still uploading after 13 years? What a legend. I've just watched your RDR video about how to complete Sharpshooter - Rank 10, which was uploaded 10 years ago. Idk if you still remember it, but you saved me hours in that challenge and I thank you for it.

[@crownedpleb9747]

Dat sweet, sweet outfit was so worth it

[@lordtritus2261]

When I see Pikemen do absolutely nothing to the cavalry I just get reminded of the Lord of the Rings movies.

[@equis616]

I also miss effective infantry

[@Canthary]

I'm really trying to like TW Troy (a bronze age tw game is like a dream come true, i'm specially liking the concept behind mythical units in this game) but after a few hours i don't know if i'm still feeling overwhelmed by the somehow new mechanics or if i'm just down right confused about the flow of battle.

[@attila2246]

From someone that plays and enjoys a lot of total war games: Troy battles are absolute shit. The campaign is pretty fun but the battles are so bad I uninstalled. Good value for the price of free but never worth buying. Don't judge the franchise based on it.

[@brunolins3859]

just play bronze age total war,it has troy and the acheans(their faction is thebes on the mod tough) by the way,(along with,egypt,babylonia,sea people and other factions)or play aristeia total war wich is focused on the trojan war.

[@Canthary]

@@brunolins3859 I will keep those in mind, thanks. I played Europa Barbarorum some time ago but ran into compatibility issues, it disheartened me so i didn't try to look for other old TW mods after that.

[@brunolins3859]

@@Canthary you re welcome,dont worry about it,so long as you have a complete edition of rome 1 up to date,mods should run fine,i have windows 10 64 bits and both those mods i mentioned run,fine.

[@backugai007]

I honestly have no idea what this video is about, I'm currently playing WH2 and it feels great. In Shogun 2 battle lines and flanks were of astronomical importance because a cavalry charge at a flank would almost instantly make a unit flee, unless that unit is monks or high tier samurai. The literal only problem Shogun 2 has is age, Shogun 3, with all of the new QoL would be amazing to play. In WH2 I still experience this order of battle with lines and flanks, but with a possibility of playing an entirely different skirmish-based style and still having a chance at winning. Infantry in WH2 is important, and is the reason why factions like the vampires get units that allow them to circumvent their weak infantry who are primarily made up for zombies and skeletons. The "single entity generals" aren't a problem in WH2 because these figures are actually *that* strong in the Warhammer lore. It would be insanely disappointing to watch Balthazar Gelt lose to some lowsy high tier infantry unit. What I primarily got out of this video is that Troy and Three Kingdoms is bad, and you've used that discontent to throw all of modern TW games under the same bus of criticism.

[@BL1zZ4Rth]

I've played everything up until Attila and I'm still waiting to see two entities, be it soldiers or projectiles feel like they have momentum like in Rome and M2. Charges are a big one, being able to use heavy shock cav to wipe out unguarded missiles or artillery crew in a few seconds ,with the charge alone, is so important. Instead the results on the "new" engine are very reliant on whether or not the enemy is running away from you: if they are you will probably end up in a melee after a weakened charge and sit there like ducks for the rest of the missiles to pepper you. Best case scenario is if you've managed to pincer the missiles with two units of cav, and even then there will be a melee of a few seconds even if both the cav charges were perfect, all thanks to that beautiful sliding of the entities. And then the melee is wrong. The fact is that surrounding someone does no longer mean you can have multiple soldiers engaging one of theirs, but at best having everyone of their soldiers on the perimeter engaging one of yours because combat animations strictly one-on-one. Oh yeah, and although the firearms are kinda cool, the fact that telling to shoot at anything that's more than 10 degrees off of their orientation means that the whole unit needs to start doing pirouettes to turn and messes with the battle line makes it shit. Once again M2 had it right, the unit would shoot without turning except for extreme angles. Same problem with archers but they aren't front line units usually so the only bad thing is the time they could be firing is spent turning.

[@LordDarkhelm]

Case and point: One of my favorite things that I've done in Medieval 2 Total War, was winning a siege against twelve hundred some odd men with my two hundred, where they had the better units overall. And then winning the next siege with my fifty five or so remaining men against the enemy's next three hundred. I could never imagine pulling something like that off in newer Total Wars without a single entity unit. On the topic of the Scottish pikes, that might be a high difficulty issue? Because my pikes tend to actually perform pretty damn well if I remember correctly.

[@danieltchernov7745]

ik its been 2 years but The pike issue Its a bug since pikes have a secondary weapon the ai opts to switch. They could still do ok on medium difficulties with their secondary weapons but its not as effective.

[@matthewosterman9030]

Preach the truth. I love how passionate you are to formulate your opinion and criticisms about our beloved franchise...reminds me of me keep it up hopefully CA will take notice!

[@melanclock]

This is really thoughtful analysis I honestly hope the devs see this video

[@chikntendie]

I love your quote "consistency is the beginning of success in anything". Seriously it can be applied to anything, not just Total War.

[@majorearl12]

Just saw this in my recommended. I havent even watched the whole video, but just by reading comments. I 100% agree. I started with Total War unexpectedly with Empire Total War, while its not the best game in the series, it became my favorite and still is today. I love the way you have to strategize to win the battles. Even in Empire, Napoleon, Shogun 2, they require you to still think to win. There arent many cheese strats in these games as in the newer ones. And you can have loads of fun just playing the game as you want. Wanna go peasant militia only? Sure go ahead, artillery or cavalry only? Yeup. Wanna do generals only? Well yea. There is no real meta to those games. Each nation plays and feels different. Regardless if the unit roster is the same. The main issues I have noticed, is that it goes from making the AI more aggressive from games Shogun 2 and before, to just giving the AI more and more buffs. Ive been a fan of Total War for around a decade, played hundreds of hours in Empire, Napoleon, Shogun 2 (currently loving this again), and played Rome 2, Attila, and Warhammer 1. Shogun 2 and before are playable and are just as fun in vanilla as they are with mods. The AI while not as good as Medieval 2 or before, are still challenging and random enough that each game is different. Rome 2 and after? Predictable, weak, and overall just trash. After Warhammer 1 had dlc after dlc, i stopped with new Total Wars, was hoping they would have a good new hisotorical game coming out set in the Victorian age. What do we get? The same recycled trash. I installed Troy, since it was free. And it is just not good. I go in and all the factions feel the same, it has this single-unit crap that gets old and boring since they can carry the battle. Units that rout individually, then come back, then repeat. The game becomes about how you can cheese the AI to win, instead of thinking on how to beat the AI. I have Troy, but doubt i'll even go in to play it. Doesnt look fun, doesnt feel fun. Just complete trash.

[@alejandrop.s.3942]

As you say, Rome II onwards, the games are quite dissapointing. Nevertheless, their MP is quite enjoyable for me. The Punic Wars time is my favourite era, and I get motivated using Makedonian phalanx, Galatian swordsmen, etc. In regard of Troy, I'll only play it since I'm an Illiad freak and a Prince Hector fanboy, but it seems pretty much as you say.

[@aude-y8571]

Thank you

[@ArvidHagelberg]

Great video. You actually inspired me to try Shogun 2 for the first time a few weeks back, and I had fun. I see what you mean. Other than that, I've played a lot of Warhammer 2 and have usually done a lot of avoidant gameplay to try and find perfect victories (stalling siege battles to drain every drop of magic and fire every arrow before commiting infantry, distracting with single entities and so on). However, I just started a Grimgor campaign, and I'm having the time of my life! Just absolutely smashing Black Orks into the enemy line and trusting that exploitable situations (gaps, routs) will open up for the few faster moving units I bring is really fun. I also very much enjoy perfect but avoidant victories as the Elves or Lizardmen, but dang it if it ain't fun to just play stupid for a while. Also, I have taken Legend's words to heart, that the difficulty setting is actually a "fun" setting, and I always set it to fun. Added bonuses without added challenge (or "fake" difficulty) is just not legitimate difficulty to me, and so I ignore it. And boy is it fun. Here's my point: I agree that infantry is generally underpowered in a lot of the newer games, and that straight modifiers make infantry useless in most higher difficulties. However, I feel that a lot of infantry do a great job on normal, and using them on that setting still makes the game very fun.

[@Pilps]

Is that comment about Shogun 2 challenging my European cannons?! But for real, i have to agree, after around 2011 after Shogun 2, Total War kinda lost its appeal to me. Anything after it i haven't touched! I liked this in depth analysis style, was nice to watch! :)

[@jrl4346]

I enjoyed this video and I agree with most of its parts. I agree that single entity units have totally turned core mechanics around, that the rock-paper-scissors mechanic does not work anymore. but I don't think that the whole TW series started to decline after Shogun 2. I've been around since 2004 and the release of RTW1, and I've been around guys that played MTW1 competitive (the scene was very small back then, but they had the game figured out). these MTW1 guys were constantly complaining that RTW was totally devoid of the TW soul. MTW1 battles were slow-paced, very tactical, RTW battles were dynamic and more arcade. sure, the RPS mechanic was present, but it's not like RTW battles were not a clusterfuck. same with MTW2 - I've played both of these games on a competitive level and these were the most demanding in terms of APM. what I'm saying is that CA has been, and will be, always experimenting with some mechanics. sometimes they turn out great, sometimes don't. a lot of people didn't like S/MTW1 because these games were not that approachable, so CA decided to go arcade and boom, RTW was a great success. MTW2 was even better commercially (btw. Scotland was considered one of the better factions in multiplayer because of having a really cheap infantry that could hold enemy infantry for a long time). anyway, as I said before, I agree with most of your points, especially the ones about predictability of unit behavior, but I wouldn't go as far as saying that CA has obliterated the mechanics. every TW game has its flaws

[@jodofe4879]

I agree with most of the points in your video, but I do want to point out that the AI in Total War always has had trouble with maintaining unit cohesion. It was easy to split up AI armies in Rome 1, Medieval 2, Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2 as well by using your cavalry to distract them. Single entity units make the problem much, much worse though.

[@samdumaquis2033]

You are so right, when single entities just are more important than an whole regiment, nothing makes sense

[@ReachODST118]

You know, i always knew something was just missing from the new games, but could never put my finger on it... but you explained it perfectly that now i get why I constantly go back even to rome 2 just to build massive massive pike armies.

[@TheSunderingSea]

The main problem that prevents proper Order of battle and large scale tactical maneuvers, because battles are so fast. You can't afford to do any fancy maneuvers or have a weak center but strong flanks to overrun the enemies flank and pincer them because your weaker units in the center not really even rout but just drop like flies against anything better than them. Its not a question of the enemies quality, because a slightly better unit fighting a slightly inferior unit will still take losses, but now your flanking maneuver is null and void and you are now outnumbered. The games in Multiplayer especially become less about ambushes, large flanks, or careful and patient skirmishing but what units will win against what unit, and lining them up accordingly so each unit will win each of their little 1v1 unit duels. The only thing that frustrates this boring puzzle matching gameplay is playing as say, Parthia in Rome 2 and skirmishing the brainlets to death while they cry in chat. Note that slowing combat, nerfing cavalry and making factions more distinct (Age of Charlemagne) led to multiplayer battles that played out like real battles, or at least as close as we've gotten to realistic battles since Shogun 2.

[@freaki0734]

You suggesting nerfing cav and mentioning rome 2 doesnt sit right with me lol

[@axel0_02]

Pure truth, Attila may be considered the last to hold true in some kind of shape to the total war tradition. But for sure shogun is the last good total war game

[@TexasWarbird]

I'm impressed with this review. I used to spend alot of time with Total war and couldn't bring myself to play any more. Medieval 2 remains my top game to this day - I enjoy the stainless steel mod quite a bit. I have to say the you mentioned the armor upgrades at the end of your video and I couldn't tell you how much I appreciated receiving those stat improvements - but also seeing your units march into battle with appropriately rendered visual changes from those upgrades.

[@alaskanmoose8522]

“It’s fruitless to try and harness them. no real or satisfying gameplay exists” damn bruh, coming straight for my childhood.

[@ericmarley7060]

Modded Attila and Rome II (specifically Ancient Empires and Divide et Empera), units at least have weight, cohesion, and require some level of tactics in battles. The problem is the new total war games can't be modded in this fashion, with "hero units" and hitpoints/unit health mattering more than anything else (even defense or blocking chance!) Arrows do basically nothing until a unit's hp goes down far enough. Once it does, archers suddenly become fucking machine-gunners and mow down your troops.

[@mollyscullyscully80]

Rome 2 with Divide et Impera is still the best Total War experience Ive ever had. I dont play any other TW games now. The unit cohesion, fatigue system, morale system (which is brilliantly done), pikes that are pikes, phalanxes, missiles that hit hard in the sides and back, charges that work, etc. The campaign mode map and its features such as population and supplies are both logical and solidly implemented. I highly recommend to any TW fan to play a coop Rome 2 : Divide et Impera campaign with the alternative economy mini-mod. That and the 24 turns per years mod that helps make the seasons more important! You'll have a hard time playing vanilla TW after that..

[@freaki0734]

Thats not archers doing nothing then is it

[@greentuga691]

@@mollyscullyscully80 I installed divide et impera and absolutly loved the Battles and units. It is a brilliant mod. My only problem is the campaign. I reckon the campaign adds a lot of incredibly cool features but i just felt a bit overwhelmed, and tbh, i loved stacking armies with the most op elite units of the faction (and managing to recruit them anywhere, even tho i know it was historically innacurate) and not having to wait 10+ turns until they were fully replenished again. If only there was a way to add that DeI battle system to the vannila Rome 2 campaign :c

[@tomm9963]

Thank you for being able to articulate what I've been feeling for years. Total War is a shadow of what it was, its been a steady decline since Empire. Its not nostalgia glasses, the older games are objectively superior to the ones we're getting now. I've no idea how long they can last pumping out bad game after bad game before the company and game series dies

[@freaki0734]

Surely no nostalgia... " objectively better" why do the new games have more players again?

[@tomm9963]

@@freaki0734 They've been made to appeal to a more broad audience

[@freaki0734]

@@tomm9963 and the broader audience likes objectively worse stuff? I mean I'm with you on fighting the guy that says that pop is objectively the best style of music because the most people like that but I disagree even more with the guy who claims that his very nieche thing is objectively better because reasons because quality and popularity are usually at least loosely correlated

[@tomm9963]

@@freaki0734 I don't blame the broader audience for the poor state of the games. That's on the developer

[@freaki0734]

@@tomm9963 the point is that the broader audience disagree with you

[@ok9_5788]

I just watched a 30 minute video about games, in which most of, I didn't played. Very good video.

[@LuigianoMariano]

The beginning of any campaign is where the real fun and challenge is: You're trying to secure and expand your borders and build up your infrastructure, technology, and economy. All of this while you have to depend on a few armies composed of early-tier units and hope that you don't get destroyed very badly with one mistake. And once you reach the threshold of snowballing which is usually the point where you have a huge empire, several fully-built settlements, and at least more than one doomstack brimming with high-end units, the fun and challenge is gone and you're now just "painting the map" by farming curb-stomp after curb-stomp on any would-be challenger that would dare to even think about crossing you. A higher difficulty doesn't address this problem but instead pushes back the threshold point to a farther time and distance than usual and makes every battle into an even more tedious slogfest. Since the very beginning of humans and warfare, infantry has been the first and eternal backbone of any army. If infantry is going to have any hope in remaining a relevant factor in total war, then there has to be some strict hard caps on cavalry, artillery, and high-end units. And without those hard caps, army compositions and tactics will eventually become bland and predictable, leading to stale gameplay and (possibly) a steady decline in the franchise.

[@arcanus9725]

Why not have natural limits, where resources limit what units you can build?

[@faramund9865]

Why the dislikes? This is on the money.

[@Volound]

brigading from /r/totalwar

[@csmolik1983]

I couldn't put my finger on it...but after Shogun 2 I haven't found a total war game that I've really latched on to. I tried Three Kingdoms but after a just a bit of time moved on...I think you nailed what I was subconsciously picking up on...the battle seemed different and couldn't point to it.

[@BigBroKuma]

As a fellow heavy infantry lover this video resonates with my soul

[@ultimoguerreiro82]

Extremely thoughtful video. Thank you so much for expression how we, old time players of Total War feel towards all the new ones. Shogun 2 was the last game that felt Total War.