The Pharaoh has no Clothes - Total War's Endgame

My critiques and exploration of Shogun 2, Rome 2, Warhammer, and more: • Ultimate Total War: Ph...
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#totalwar #totalwarpharaoh #totalwarshogun2

[@Nasmr1]

“Three cheers to the critics! We always believed in you!” - Alfrids of the total war scene

[@zrize101]

The reason behind the HP pools is honestly so stupid. One of the devs/marketing person did a powerpoint talk back when they were developing Rome 2, and in that he brings up Total War Arena and talks about it a lot. They were developing Arena at the same time as Rome 2. The reason was that without health pools, unit damage output was not consistent enough. Units dying was a factor of some randomness, so it would hurt the competitive scene of Arena. That’s why. They wanted unit models to have health pools so they can dish out the same damage more consistently. And that idea and design was then transferred to Rome 2 and thus every game after.

[@cadrian4806]

The idea that a failed MOBA ended up dooming the series to a really wonky and ultimately shitty mechanic is hilarious, the boardroom behind that decision must be having the time of their lives

[@cristianespinal9917]

In my mind it's the #1 worst modern TW game mechanic. Individuals of a unit being subject to some randomness was what made it a better battle simulator than games like the Age of Empires series or even Rise of Nations, which did have mechanics like flanking.

[@kyuzo8872]

Honestly the focus on characters appears to also have started there you didnt have factions you had heroes with special units and abilities kinda like a hero shooter. it was so bad i played like two matches and never touched it again if i remember correctly there was also pay to win/skip grind like get elephants from the start and the typical anti consumer stuff more associated with predatory mobile games.

[@CapitalTeeth]

If you want to see the failure of the HP bars for units, simply set your units to the lowest possible size and see exactly how long it takes for your units to kill a single man in an enemy unit.

[@iwankazlow2268]

​@@CapitalTeeth The health pool is a joke. I played Rome, and I was idiotic enough to order the Steel Box for Rome 2, thinking, wow, Rome was so amazing, I played Medieval 2 to death, how could they possibly do a bad job with the second Rome title!? Oh boy was I wrong. CA is on my blacklist and they would not only get rid of the health bar, they would need a miracle foe me to spend money on them. (After Rome remastered, only title I bought since Rome 2, I'm not even stoked to Medieval 2 Remaster) A studio only gets the chance once in their lifetime. They die as heroes or they live long enough to become the villain.

[@antun88]

I remember when I played Empire and Napoleon as a kid, I was thinking how they can implement realistic army sizes. Maybe they could have multiple battles inside one large battle on like connected maps. One in the center and on two on the wings. Then you have a reinforcement mechanics where, you can request troops to help, but that affects what will be left on the other side. Those were the kind of things I thought TW would be developing. But in the next 10 years, they basically did nothing! They were a giant disappointment looking back.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

I was playing shogun 2 in 2013 and always looking forward to the 10,000 man ikko ikku horde. I was thinking wow i cant imagine what this series will look like in 5 years.

[@theyellowarchitect4504]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 You really couldn't imagine!

[@antun88]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 yeah, the whole point of TW was to get as close as possible to the real war. The cool gameplay mechanics like unit moral weren't there just to be challenging, they were there because that's how real soliders reacted in the battles. And then Warhammer came out, and I thought oh sht I hope this is just a side project. But it's the history that is the side project now XD.

[@etienne8110]

They even dumbed it down. No more naval battles. Sieges are a joke (until wh3 it was just one wall...). And no more combined battles (in rome2 you could attack a costal city by land and sea at the same time...) Having Empire s navy with combined land/sea battles would be so great.

[@orclover2353]

Rome 2 brought vastly improved battle maps, textures, and a really novel province system. With DEI mod it is the deepest settlement system in any TW games. Rome 2 is also very well optimized and provides a much better experience than Med 2, Rome 2, Empire...which is why it is still many times more popular than those games in 2024. If the aforementioned games released in 2023 gamers would exploit them within 12 hours to beat campaigns in just a few turn, they would get drilled for awful AI, broken scripts, an annoying agent system, stack spam, and a relatively feature free experience. Mods also fixed Med 2, Rome 1, Shogun 2 and still haven't fixed empire. Only about 25% of the community still plays those games compared to Rome 2.

[@SuziQ499]

CA gone into damage limitation on steam forums Ca Dev collected 300 jesters in 1 hour a new world jester collecting record , Btw he said after a ban cull its a privilege to post in the forums not an entitlement.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

i have seen that and indeed real life is the best comedian

[@rebidiom2578]

Let it be Known. Range in Pharaoh is calculated in Milimeters.

[@MD-yd8lh]

Wat

[@rebidiom2578]

@@MD-yd8lh Ranged units in Pharaoh feel like they have range calculated in milimeters instead of centimeters. And Pharaoh's life cycle range is calculated in milimeters.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

pharaoh's lifecycle is so incredibly small that it collapses in on itself creating a black hole

[@lolasdm6959]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 I feel the game is just blend, not like other games where the artstyle is distinct.

[@deinemutter8999]

historically most casualties were caused after the battle. routing soldiers were cut down by cavalry. this was even one of the main purposes for cav in napoleonic times. shogun2 had a good balance here imo

[@swedichboy1000]

Also curious as to why cavalry troops are so slow these days.

[@CDProjekt7]

And that they ignore your commands and refuse to break away from combat

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@CDProjekt7 I mean that one is fairly answerable. The problem is when cavalry rams into a unit, inevitably some of the models get stuck in the mass of enemy models. When you tell your unit to leave combat, they start to leave... then the stuck model/s decide they can't and/or register as fighting and so stop moving to fight. So the entire unit decides it is fighting, overriding the order for them to move. It's similar to ranged units refusing to fire because a few models don't have line of sight, amusingly occasionally because the models of the unit obstruct the line of sight for other models in the unit, thus resulting in the awkward shuffle as the unit shifts to clear line of sight of itself.

[@thechugg4372]

It's so funny that it could be easily fixed by having a command that would be "ignore combat", that would make every army control better.

[@Daiciyomon_4594]

Recently CA being "innocent" and Oh boy Nathan Fake book of Grudges here we go again, pretend to stand on neutral side while Nathan still embrace "Mods fix anything in Warhammer 3"😂😂

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

wait for med3 to get announced "this changes everything"

[@Daiciyomon_4594]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 If Med 3 that CA make it exist, it's still same as Pharoah for me but yeah the shill KZbinrs will re-define everything because of in the name of Medieval 3. Nathan Fake book of Grudges way more hoping for having Total War Warhammer 40k I mean why? Could not see how CA brought Warhammer 3 to disaster and rely on "Mods fix everything" style. For my speculation, Warhammer 3 is CA's last project, even the last life of CA company, every chaos that CA bring..... I have no idea how CA going to be fan favourite RTS company again.

[@CDProjekt7]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498yeah people will forgive CA when they announce med3, and when it comes out, William Wallace will be able to single-handedly wipe out an army of English knights. Historical 👍

[@SwordEncarmine]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498in Attila moral also matters, kill the general use whistling shot and rear charge for mass routes Testudo formation increases the mass of your infantry against cav

[@CallMeEzekiel]

I've thought this about Total War for years. You put those thoughts into words.

[@olefredrikskjegstad5972]

Rome 1 has way better chariots than what I can see here.

[@merkbromerkington3215]

I went through stages reading this comment.

[@olefredrikskjegstad5972]

@@merkbromerkington3215 the stages of grief?

[@Shiro.1291]

Lets hope that another company will do a rts & turn based strategy game combination and no attila mod will ever change the fact that total war is dead and driven into a wall of solid concrete.

[@doltBmB]

TW is not an RTS

[@Gdsryrox]

I remember in MED2 where elite troops could be surrounded and killed easily by lower tier troops cus more then one soldier could attack at the time and if an enemy unit was surrounded they fought to the death not bumper car their way out of a sight encirclment.

[@filipzietek5146]

Squares in Empire were retarded, infantry unit could be scattered but they would get square bonus the second it was clicked, what was worse it also tirggered the effect killing charging cavalry.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

yea i know, still miles better than whatever the hell is going on today. When your game compares poorly to ETW you know stuff has gotten weird.

[@SunTzu176]

Lmao I hate to say it but at least Empire had formations like that. I remember when Warhammer 1 came out and people asked why Halbadiers didn't have a spear wall esq ability to brace and the reply was "OH they automatically brace you don't have to do it" Except of course that isn't true.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Empire TW also had firing drills. Something that WH never had even for supposedly gunpowder centric factions like the Empire.

[@Zarastro54]

Napoleon kind of fixed that with cavalry reacting to the square by horses throwing riders and slowing down on the square. I’m pretty sure under certain circumstances you could actually break a square, but it was rarely worth it.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 The only firing drill which was used IRL was the fire and advance. In reality, all three ranks of the line infantry could fire at the same time, occassionally elite units would use platoon fire to prevent wasting ammo by unloading three ranks of shots on the enemy first rank entirely. Fire by rank is used very situationally.

[@crazycar4015]

I'm genuinely confused at 27:00 when they say Shogun 2 had copy paste factions. How? I can't think of a single faction that had any major redundancy. They all either specialized in certain combat units, and/or they had specialization in certain economic, religious, or agent related perks. As far as I remember each major clan had a serious sense of identity behind them and their starting challenges all differed too. Like my friend getting Shogun 2 for the first time and playing the Otomo as his first faction and immediately getting dunked on for being Christian and thus surrounded by enemies. How was it copy paste?

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

it's easy: they're too busy roleplaying, part of why Rome 2 still has a dedicated playerbase is that desire to have more "culturally diverse" factions to satisfy roleplaying desires. They couldn't care less about learning the intricacies of units and factions.

[@crazycar4015]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 That is insane to me. Roleplaying is great, and normal for something like this, but there has to be a fundamental understanding of the thing you criticize before you even say anything lol. But as the replies you picked out show, they don't care about having factions be mechanically diverse so long as they are culturally diverse and thus they have massive maps to conquer. You're right, people are absolutely focusing on the wrong things here.

[@Zarastro54]

“Copy paste” to them simply means that all the units were Japanese and everyone had access to basically the same unit pool. The actually immersive/differentiating factors that you mentioned don’t get considered by shallow players.

[@crazycar4015]

@@Zarastro54 Critiques like that, no wonder Total War has fallen so far from grace. It's trying to cater to people who want a power fantasy and not a simulator.

[@zdogadnytsya]

Hojo, Tokugawa and Mori are completely redundant

[@TiGGowich]

I've always refused to play Total War games at the highest difficulty because it just highlighted CA's laziness and lack of skill in that whole area. I don't know why it's even allowed to call it difficulty when the AI literally just gets absurd buffs to its stats and economy ... it's so cheap... just because they suck at creating a decent AI...

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Shogun 2, only game in the series where they didn't give those obnoxious buffs.

[@TiGGowich]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 Yeah that's also the only game I've continuously played at the highest difficulty... Their best game for sure... but didn't make enough money lul

[@jimmyngo2191]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 No, They had it. I remember playing at the highest diff and wiped out Takeda full stack cav and he spammed another full stack...

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

I am referring to combat bonuses.

[@jimmyngo2191]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 Oh, ok. But it still fun to play. I'm playing it as we speak. Medieval 2, shogun 2 and empire still the best ones in the whole series.

[@defensivejackass4690]

The way the chariot and cavalry that CA design to attack the enemy is like A person when ordered to attack the other person, he uses his head , his shoulder and his knees to bump the enemy all in the ememy's stomach at the same time and just imagine how odd it would be.

[@blight1934]

one of the key reason why i tried to play rome 2 and hated it and went back to shogun 2 is health bar. they just won't die!

[@adamg7984]

It's funny how I didn't realize it was Rome 2 that added health bars. I thought it was Attila that did that or later games. I often wondered why a flanked or surrounded unit takes so much longer to be cut down in Rome 2 and now I understand why. It's amazing, now that I've reached the end of my rope with the series and CA, I am seeing where the issues that persist today really mostly all began in Rome 2. I know Empire began the worse building system but it at least had towns and villages. It just sucks so much, I don't hate Rome 2 game and feel it's actually pretty solid after it got fixed with the 2018 Emperor Edition. But now I wish it had flopped harder than a FIFA player.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

@@adamg7984 not too sure about this but I think in earlier builds of Rome 2 the healthpools weren't even displayed, which if true would go to explain why the change may not have received that much attention

[@ollyclass]

Soldiers would fight to the death when routing but surrounded. It was a little clunky and didn't work with cavalry well, but it did exist. I hope the good idea that's a little clunky will be improved upon since 2004 given its been 2 decades, oh wait.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

DLC

[@YashaDecat]

Spot on. In the good old days you had to give the enemy a way out or else they would fight to the death wich was something you didn't want. CA is going back in time instead of moving forward.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@YashaDecat It's also one of the reasons why any seige was potentially costly, the units at the center do not flee. But now they do run which makes seiges too easy.

[@pira707]

that's actually insane it hasn't been in since rome1.

[@marekkula2510]

When Word of Warships became shit few years back I looked at my steam library into Total War folder and asked myself: "First time?" then uninstalled WoWs for the same reasons I stooped buying shit from CA: Greed, lack of important fixes, bending only to new players to sell them shiny staff. Both games are very different but they one thing in common: no competition on the market.

[@ThomasPetermann.]

when they said in the dev blog they increased the number of chariots in a unit I was oh boy this will be a complete mess.

[@chickenbacon5197]

I'm tired of mods being considered a selling point for why a game is "good".

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

my recent critique of Rome 2 had someone genuinely state that "no review of Rome 2 is complete without DEI" in response to my statement that modding is never an excuse for a bad game. That mod in particular has such a cancerous following who treats it almost like it is an official patch.

[@dawoifee]

Good mod-ability is a selling point for a game, but Mods alone are not.

[@mcsmash4905]

imo games should be compared to one another in a non modded state otherwise you can just install a mod that ˝fixes˝ everything like dei and then compare it to whatever other game you want

[@leeroyjenkins7325]

Pharaoh feels like someone made a parody of Total War games.

[@doltBmB]

Everything in the campaign map needs to have some direct or indirect influence on the battles themselves. By making technologies and building chains centered around units, you accomplish this very well. Having a single currency for both upgrades and unit recruitment creates a classic strategic tradeoff between "more units now" or "better units later" where you will need to balance your spending carefully to not fall behind in either. The taxes create a similar tradeoff by capping growth "more money now" or "more money later", including the risk of rebellion, which is a battle you will have to fight to regain control. These newer games have all these things that don't matter at all like family trees, internal politics, separate resources, legitimacy, etc. that just bog the gameplay down. The recent leaks about CA being worried about paradox as a competitor shows they really have no clue any more and genuinely think these in-depth political systems of paradox games are in any way comparable to TW.

[@AnalyticalReckoner]

Well said.

[@Rifqiethehero]

We makin it out of dead game with this one 🗣️🔥

[@DB4331]

I agree with most of what you said except for the expanded customization. I think it's fantastic. I'd like as much variables in the engine exposed in a user facing API as possible. As for players being able to turn off things that add complexity, it could also be looked at as "turning off gimicks", which is how I percieve it. The Pillars of Civilization, Attila's worsening fertility....in my mind they are just gimicks added on top of shitty foundations to distinguish the game from previous releases. If they release another historical TW that I'm interested in, I might buy it, but hold the gimicks.

[@juggernaut9994]

Total War: Pharaoh is the best total war game because it gives you the most amount of stat bonuses to make your units strong and defeat everything with your one arm behind your back. Shogun 2 is the worst total war game in the series because it requires you to think and punishes you for charging cavalry head on against spears and not letting your guns arc their shots like arrows.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Total Warhammer is the best total war game because I can smash DINOSAWZ into things, and any problems that can't be overcome with DINOSAWZ simply need more DINOSAWZ.

[@40kwarlord79]

CA have been slapped awake with this failure hopefully

[@AlvorReal]

I like Empire/Napoleon's outbuildings a lot. Even more than Shogun 2. In those two games there's actually a bit of thinking required to avoid the downside of building too many industrial buildings XD

[@Kupferdrahtful]

The way you place every unit 10 times on the same spot in battle is freaking me the fuck out

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

tw unit responsiveness is pretty bad in most games, this is no exception.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 I don't think responsiveness is a particularly bad thing, because IRL plans do fall apart because men aren't robots that respond perfectly to commands.

[@pl-AEtheRR]

​@@lolasdm6959 Yes but this is a game. You're going to want to have some units act without/in spite of orders, like those units that charged unprompted in Rome 1 and Medieval 2. Most of the time, though, it's just annoying and unfun.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@pl-AEtheRR it should be linked to a difficulty setting

[@georgethompson913]

Wait chariots dont replace cavalry, but fast infantry does? What do they think infantry was.

[@EvolutionWar]

There is tens of thousands of people who would play total war historical games if they were good games, instead of these new games that implements new systems that is not thought through and is inherently bad for the playability of the game or the core of the game, the most egregious example being egyptian chariots that dominated the neighboring warfare and made them along with egyptian infrastructure/agriculture dominant for hundreds of years. Creative Assembly is extremely ironic in the way that their company name is a fcking meme at this point.

[@johnbono2384]

Ban DIshonorable Daimyo from steam for nonconstructive criticism

[@PerennialSash]

My *onions* is that we can examine this *soup* and get a new look at how Total War 3 Kingdoms tried to break new ground only to double back and go along the path we see Warhammer 3 and Pharaoh venture down.

[@Zarastro54]

I’ve always thought there should be a surrender system where depending of certain factors, men in a surrounded unit would surrender. Likewise, I think if they really wanted to, either through this engine or a new one, they could make damage much more detailed and have a wounding system. The visual models at least are already detailed enough to show where an arrow hits, so why not put values to those areas? If a unit is shot in the arms or legs, it is registered as “wounded,” but if it hits the torso or head, they are killed. Cavalrymen could have a certain chance of surviving if being unhorsed. Visually on the battlefield all these units could still look “dead,” but it would effect after battle results of of replenishment and capture. Perhaps if an army has a high number of wounded it would temporarily have reduced movement range to represent the long ambulance train.

[@orclover2353]

As a modder of old TW gamers your suggestions about morale just cannot be done without more complex AI or buffing AI morale through the roof, which is what Med 2 does. You must have an AI that mimics human player behavior to have features like cav or chariots causing area rout or morale shocks or else the game will become trivial, as the human player will prioritize these units at all cost, and then use them in very specific manner to unbalance the game. I mean we basically have to remove cav bgs in med 2 mods to balance the game because of this problem. Realistic cav play would have them used as units that chase other units down and to be used to weaken other units cav, and push some pressure on the flanks. Charging with cav historically was incredibly risky because you were riding a living, thinking creature, many times your size into a large group of humans with weapons, if this group had morale they would easily kill any cav that wasn't able to cycle through. Ironically, bannerlord has probably the best cav simulation with cavalry being very effective once lines are broken and they can maintain momentum but completely useless being used against formations of any kind. Cycle charging into the backs of formations that can merely turn around and stab is also not anywhere near realism or logical although very fun. I might misunderstand but maybe a formation dispersal feature might work, where as a unit gets more tired it becomes careless and spread out, and this might be able to be coded so that ai prioritizes these units, therefore they could pass through, break morale and rout. Anything done has to be able to be done by AI or the game is trivial.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

i am aware that it would require other changes, sure. Med2 came out in 2006, we should have had games by now that make it look terrible, and that is my point. 15 years or so is more than enough time to develop the systems further, and likewise push the AI forward.

[@orclover2353]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 Rome 2 with one graphical mod makes Med 2 fairly unplayable from a graphics standpoint, DEI makes Rome 2 vastly superior to any other game going right now. So I suppose your point is proven that CA had the ability to create a base framework that could be "next gen" but didn't finish the job in anyway. Gathering a ton of info on CA it seems they take shortcuts constantly and have done so over the last 10 years and now have such a shitty and inefficient code base that they either quit, sell, or start over with a new engine. I am still not sure they could provide a modern TW game that would have the graphic fidelity, immersion and art that people desire, while having an AI that is smart enough to create decent battle systems so the playing doesn't exploit the AI, while have 200 factions that are realistic and true to history, while having unit diversity, and a scripted world that provides immersion but also a chance for the player to try different builds and realities with each faction. Players want bannerlord and paradox in one.

[@adamg7984]

@@orclover2353 AndysTake loves DEI and had the DEI mod creator on a 2 hour long video about Rome 2 10 years later. I don't get why our video creator lumped AndysTake in with actual shills for CA, but yeah. DEI and other mods prove how incredibly good modern historical games could be. That's the saddest thing, it's like how Madden games are worse now than they were in 2005. Except now it's people working for essentially free to make better experiences and games off of the base that CA provides. Bethesda and CA are like long lost twins.

[@orclover2353]

@@adamg7984 DD makes waves off of whining and complaining, he is in the same genre as Volound. They try newer games, point out how they are inferior to shogun 2, then they quit playing and then spend the rest of their time criticizing CA. That is literally their job.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

LMAO I love how i can make just a few videos criticizing CA and their games out of a total of 611 and I get branded as "whining and complaining." If you wanna keep on sucking on Rome 2's and DEI's dongs then I won't judge. At least I'm not wasting my years playing bad video games and hoping people will validate my obsession with them.

[@fonkyman]

BAN ME DADDY !! oh wait im not on a CA forum phewwww

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

go to jail. go straight to jail. do not pass go. do not collect 200.

[@stilgar2007]

Absolutely nobody wanted more chariots.

[@darkfireslide]

Spot on with the gameplay analysis, Pharoah is a joke and only exposes how bad the series has been since Rome 2. Something I can discuss in a more interesting way regarding Total War is the usage of cavalry and how it relates to Total War. You state that cavalry would cause units to flee in terror at the sight of them, but in reality drilled troops in steady positions and prepared positions especially were not especially affected by this factor. Cavalry is much more threatening when it has encircled an army and removed the opportunity for an army to retreat from an engagement, and prior to the late middle ages most cavalry were used to run down fleeing troops and flank than they ever were to frontally charge things. Cavalry were also largely used after an enemy has been softened up, as it is quicker to frontally charge a unit that has been withered away by archer shot; this is something that nu-TW models weirdly well, due to its basis in Empire. Where Total War fails in a large regard with its evolution is that it hasn't expanded its unit size and frontage size to create a better simulation of historical warfare. The battles being depicted are still the size of skirmishes and don't do a good job at depicting just how long and exhausting it would be for a single unit of even mounted troops to move from one side of a battle to another. PC limitations are a part of this, of course, but this is a potential area of innovation or even just doing something new that would make the games more interesting and historical. In fact, in general, we could have more simulation of unit morale and mood. Imagine a Sims-like level of detail on troop mood, where the game evaluates if the unit has been properly fed prior to a fight, if the unit is tired or not, what their level of training is, and so on. It would be vastly more interesting and give meaning to actions like starving enemy armies on the campaign map. But, it's so easy to come up with ways that nu-TW could be better because it's at such a low point in the first place. And honestly it's kind of just a waste of time at this point because we know CA is probably never going to make a good TW game again.

[@absoluteManiac]

To clarify, the the status "Wavering" constitutes a semi-routing state, they are basically routed but still fighting back. The route is their minds are broken.

[@mattthebeast3908]

No, from a gameplay perspective wavering units are close to routing and becoming uncontrollable, not "basically routed but still fighting back". What was brought up in the video was how in new titles fully routed uncontrollable units no longer fight back when they're surrounded and incapable of escaping, they'll just mindlessly run through the entire enemy army if it's in the direction they chose to escape in (and potentially make it out alive thanks to the amount of health each model in a unit has and the way CA seems to make sure units attempting to attack routing enemies they've surrounded turn brain-dead and have each model start running around in the direction the target is trying to go instead of going towards the models they're attacking which in turn gives the routing unit an easier time pushing through the attacking unit and getting away since routing units seem to either get a speed boost or are no longer effected by tiredness).

[@absoluteManiac]

Categorically I disagree, with several examples as refutation. 1. M2TW: units routed may still wound enemies. 2. M2tW units may enter state of broken- "fighting to the death" 3. Wavering in any realistic terms means the unit is essentially routed but still fighting.

[@absoluteManiac]

@@mattthebeast3908 I recognize your point towards the newer games. Yes the new ones suck, and these mechanics aren't sensible

[@mattthebeast3908]

@@absoluteManiacApologies, I didn't mean for my comment to sound as antagonistic/condescending as it may have come across, I meant to put more emphasis on the gameplay aspect & the differences between a fully routed unit & a wavering one, primarily the loss of control (since you can still attempt to move a wavering unit out of their current position though even with backup they can still just route due to damage from initially being chased as they get away). I actually got Medieval 2 on this channel's recommendation and love how much stronger the strategy elements are, and though I don't play these games as much (Monster Hunter games being my go-to) I did notice that if I routed a unit in Medieval 2 and had them surrounded I would still take a few casualties since they'd start fighting back when they couldn't get away instead of just keep trying to run as they got attacked on all sides.

[@Zarastro54]

@@absoluteManiacI don’t understand your disagreement with wavering being a stage just before routing. A rout is a very specific state of a unit where their morale means that they will no longer take orders and are extricating themselves from a fight asap. Wavering is when men are worried and on the verge of that break, but still somewhat willing to fight and will reaffirm themselves if conditions improve. Saying wavering is “basically routed” is oxymoronic.

[@keropnw3425]

Well articulated points about the problems caused by the engine and hit point system.

[@shadowwarriorshockwave3281]

I don’t thing the issues with the numbers is the stats buffs Blacksmith in FOTS could give insane armor or accuracy the issues is the buffs in new total wars are significant because in FOTS up armoring by +2 was a big deal since the base was typically 0-6 where as a +2 in pharaoh or war hammer is jackshit with the base armors being normally 30 60 or 100 somthing

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

sounds like they made the numbers that way so they could just adjust +2 or -2 for each stat and call it a new unit maybe in some cases even selling it as DLC

[@lolasdm6959]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 I think they need to bring back visual changes to demonstrate upgrades, I did really enjoy my peasant archers getting better armor and I can see them in battle. Or when I padded out my levy spearmen in heavy mail. It was so nice, unlike in shogun2 where I can't apply upgrades to units recruited and basically nothing changes besides their stats.

[@Cherrywick76]

While I agree with most of the points in the video, I actually do like the customization options in, say, EU4. It, combined with custom nations, basically allows for completely new scenarios to be developed without any actual modding.

[@lolasdm6959]

they want to prevent this because pretty much all the Mediveal 2 mods outpaced their official DLCs. I mean whose buying their faction packs if the game is very moddable.

[@ComfortingColourlessLight]

I went back to Medieval 2 and seeing routing units being almost immediately wiped out by mine is so satisfying.

[@ivanthehighman177]

11:01 uh... thats rome 1? legit anytime before I charge the flank of any undisciplined unit with cavalry they break sec they hear the charging...

[@edwardfox937]

@Dishonourable_Daimyo have you hear about what CA are doing with the dissuasion’s?

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

nop

[@edwardfox937]

Basically there doing a scorch earth policy on any one how disagree with them.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

oh you mean BANNED EVERYONE BANNED THREAD LOCKED yeah its hilarious

[@edwardfox937]

Yhea 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@richard4888]

I rather play Empire than any of the modern total war games at this point. To Quote Reynold Sanity: ''It's true what they say, an ugly person will look better when compared to rotten afterbith''

[@guayitoC]

All I wanted was customizable characters for Medieval 2 and now we have this.

[@georgethompson1460]

I feel the act of charging causing morale damage to the charged unit for the duration of the charge (before it hits) in return for charging eating way more through a units stamina would be a neat idea.

[@23DDP]

Rome 1 chariots where not perfect but they where better. They have actual strong effect on enemy moral , and when they crash and run through units they do actual damage and there is an impact, units flying etc

[@itsdabees]

Health bars were ok for warhammer, but a historical game shouldnt have them at all. Seeing units with 4 arrows in thier face is not very endearing for a historical setting

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

they were also crap in warhammer.

[@maximum9977]

​​@@dishonorable_daimyo1498no. In warhammer units has different biology. Orc biggun or plague bearer can't die from single arrow like goblin or skaven slave. And without health bars SEMs will be as OPAF as in warhammer mod for med2

[@amp8295]

The first minute and a half sums up modern total war past Attila pretty well I say.

[@benjamincarlson6994]

the HP system I like in Warhammer, specifically because of the shenanigans in lore that CA tries to represent as best it can, and the fact that it never was supposed to be "historical" or "realistic," but I can see why it would be annoying in editions geared around history. the last historical major title I played was Shogun 2, and that one didn't have a hit point system. I've played some Troy, but that one is somewhat fantasy as well, due to the mythology components. so I don't count it as much if you play with those settings enabled

[@anmerpozzo]

You are one of the only people who really understands what really is wrong with current Total War. It boils down to mechanics, it has nothing to do with content or the scope of the new games.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Yup. It's not about the setting. And it never was.

[@blakehenry9030]

I got Rome one remastered im fine yes its flawed but compared to what CA has been pumping out for the past 15 years it shines like diamond's and it slso nice to play a game were calvary actually works

[@lance-corporal]

I need to play more shogun 2

[@demiurgoplatonico7815]

At this point I just would like a base tw game with no units but a lot of variables just to let the modders do their job and create complete new games from that. Modders are better than the actual game developers tbh.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

as bad as the base game TW is currently, I wouldn't trust modders with anything seeing how something like DEI gets an insane amount of praise despite principally bloating up the campaign while doing nothing to address the base game's problems 90% of the shogun 2 mods I have used have only made the game worse in interesting ways, the people cobbling together a bunch of stuff that sounds cool on a Sunday afternoon, turns out, are pretty clueless

[@PipBoy3k]

I haven't played Warhammer or any of the recent games, I gave up on TW with Three Kingdoms, and even then that was the first game I bought since Rome 2. My biggest turn off was that units absolutely melted under arrow fire. My issue at the time was that units died so fast that you barely had time to reinforce or reposition, the way your lines meet the enemy is basically the way the battle pans out. Maybe the HP issue was introduced to keep units from melting?

[@SgtVennamo]

Funnily enough, Dwarf Fortress Steam version has more current players than Pharaoh.

[@lonewanzerpilot]

25:20 Oh you love to see when soldiers get to unload into a crowd like that!

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

and people say "don't care, looks cool" about warhammer, where you need to squint to see any of the smoke or muzzle flash.

[@communisticus191]

I want to add that the health bars work great for single entities especially in the warhammer games, and they can work at least okay (not good, but at least better than in Pharaoh, the warhammer games, and pretty much every other game they have released for the past decade) with other units if you make the stats just ridiculous like in Three Kingdoms, where cav could absolutely decimate units on the charge, arrows actually hit like arrows rather than turning everyone into pincushions, swordsman ripped enemies apart in melee quickly, and spearmen actually felt like anti-cav units. While I would obviously prefer if they went back to the old health system at least for regular units, Three Kingdoms was as close as ive seen the current health bar system get to the satisfaction of the old games... and CA killed it...

[@legatilegions8055]

You can make doomstacks of single entity monsters in warhammer, but you can also counter them with worse cheaper units for the same amount of gold but maybe in two armies instead of one in campaign, and for mulitiplayer, there is a cap on how many elites or strong monsters you can bring, as there should be

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Multiplayer aka not what the vast majority of players will engage with Also needing to bring 2 stacks of cheap units is not a solution, just a proof of the problem

[@legatilegions8055]

yeh but if you are not able to beat AI doomstacks at the time the AI can field them, then you probally should play on easy, my point is that the same Gold/power rating, can beat doomstacks with propper tactics and counter.. no doomstacks are unkillable, they work as they should, all total war games has a snowball effect you know @@dishonorable_daimyo1498

[@sebastianraduschmotz9499]

Nice video. Didnt know the health bars came with Rome 2 as i never played it, but the single HP system was great (elite had 2hp and generals 4 i think). Low tier infantry with some experience was able to punch way above its weight, generals could die to some stray javelin or bullet. I think the modern audiences wouldnt like the RNG. Strategy games need to be calculated beforehand these days and to many it just "wouldnt make sense" that a weaker unit might win against a stronger one. I miss the old cities as in Medieval 2 and Rome. I even miss Medieval 1 ...except the battles and i really miss the unit descriptions and pictures as well as the city building artworks and information. We didnt even know all effects that buildings had. Inns and brothels made your generals alcoholic or..std ridden idiots, a racetrack provided a horse to agents and other wonderful nice (hidden) details. Theres hope CA dies before they destroy more and streamline their next title to a level we cannot even imagine.

[@chuckchalmers4960]

Shogun 2 was the only good warhammer game.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

shogun 2 had an army painter

[@wjzav1971]

I only ever played Empire Total War and still love it despite it being virtually an unfinished game with the AI being stupid and units getting stuck on small obstacles. But I still love it and would love an improved Empire 2 version. Then I watch this video and apparently, there is an entire hidden Eisberg of problems with Creative Assembly that I had no idea about. ^^

[@ivanthehighman177]

10:04 sad that you didn't show footage of chariots from rome 1 and how much force was in them.

[@phantomjoker5]

womp womp

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

womp womp banned womp womp

[@pigspigs76]

so much of this is well established and known issues that have been kicked along by the developers boss .. if we want a game that goes at the real community values it will inevitably be crowed funded over waiting for a developer to get around to it

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

then the crowdfunders take the money and bail lmao

[@pigspigs76]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 I mean that does happen allot 😅 it would obviously require some reputable people putting there character/respect/honour on the line .. perhaps an overseeing board of top influencers that are voted into positions by the contributors that than are able to oversee unifying efforts and funds being dispersed to developers using something like smart contracts

[@0786RICARDO]

That's why melee feels so trash, just in general. And the only difference between meele infantry and cavalry, is the speed

[@rdg665]

Correction : Rome 1 and Medieval 2 didn't have routing soldiers fighting, The " fighting to the death " is just trash the soldiers doing it just die just as fast as routing soldiers and would be lucky if they got a single kill

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

i said shogun 1 and medieval 1.

[@Splashyyy]

You know what's even more fun about the Chariots? It is super unrealistic to have your chariots just ram into the enemies. Chariots were generally used with Archers on them, not for melee combat.

[@90Rush]

The interesting part of Troy vs Pharaoh, is in Troy depending on your faction, you can hit a huge power spike at turns 20-25 between god favor, tech, general skill and maybe building bonuses plus T3 or even T4 units all at around turn 20. This power spike is big enough to feel it completely changes your game, especially since reload skill stack substractively, meaning 50% bonus to reload skill will provide archers with double DPS. It is completely overpowered and can trivialize the game, unfortunately. However, when that is gone in Pharaoh, the Pharaoh campaign just feels so generic and purposeless.

[@wahababdul4529]

I bought into the three kingdoms hype after years of wanting a historical total war and could only enjoy it for a few days. Then the over priced shitty DLC came out which I also bought into and now I don’t touch the game. Your point about “more content” is so right and is the main reason why the older titles are still played. They have the content, mechanics and gameplay

[@ymmiag]

Considering how disgruntled the community is at this point, every future TW is at risk of being a flop, regardless of the setting or its actual quality. Unless CA makes a real effort to regain the trust and respect of its fanbase prior to any announcement of new titles, I really don't see how people will be willing to invest in their products again. Moreover to make an actual good game they would have to spend years restructuring the company, reworking the engine and rethinking their design choices on fundamental level, which is something they most likely can't afford after all these losses. If they don't get it right the next TW may very well be the last, especially taking into account the emerging of competitors like Ultimate General. I loved TW so much as kid and had so many expectations for its future that the whole state of the franchise just makes me sad.

[@liquidsnake6879]

I don't recall Rome 2 being a bad game however, comparing this to Rome 2 almost makes me want to buy it lol and the real cheese in Rome 2 imo was baiting the AI to attack settlements with their 2 stacks that i'd defend successfully (whilst crushing both of their stacks) with a half stack of pikemen and some slingers and archers lol

[@The13thRonin]

Creative Assembly can only take on so much of the blame. The significant number of players who refused, consistently refused to have any standards, any at all are also to blame. We warned you so many times that you needed to hold Creative Assembly accountable and every time you ran corporate defense. Congratulations, you slowly ruined the thing you loved. You played yourself.

[@nopenope750]

I am a monemaking banger for CA - Shogun 2 remaster. No changes, just update graphics. For more free of charge great ideas, stand in front of a mirror and repeate the code word "candyman" 5 times.

[@lolasdm6959]

Also allow me to upgrade units I already recruited.

[@Dekoded]

So glad to see more people frustrated with the minor stat buffs provided by tech trees in these games for the past decade Always felt so fucking pointless and un-rewarding to engage with this mechanic I'd legit love a total war game that just hides most stats and leaves it to you as a player to get a feel for what the best units, buildings or strategy & tactics to go with When did replicating an Excel spreadsheet job become associated with "depth" and "strategy"??

[@ivanthehighman177]

I LOVE SHILLING!

[@tiggytheimpaler5483]

They could have fixed the chariots by making them actually accurate. Chariots had spears just in case the infantry got too close. They never charged into lines unless it was a very desperate last chance attack (I think the Assyrians had an incident where a king rammed his chariots into a block of hittite(?) levy infantry to shield the escape of his son and the sons of other nobility, but the cylander in question was very damaged, so probably not) The only "chariots" that engaged lines like how is in pharaoh was much later during the era of gunpowder by the Hugonauts ramming war wagons into infantry lines and firing out of slits and even then no one knows if they acrually trained for this or if it was a whoopsie doodle because it only happened 2 times against an insanely superior force

[@TheChonaman]

I will say in defense of the decision to produce Pharoah: Playing the Egyptian civ in Rome I was a lot of fun. However, basing an entire multimillion-dollar production on this should result in the termination of a lot of employment contracts.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

nah, it could have been great the same way Medieval 2 kingdoms expanded on the individual theatres of conflict that were present in the base game. People don't really care about the setting if the game is actually good.

[@TheChonaman]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 LoL. My comment was "in defense". It was not intended to be a total justification. Do words still matter?

[@TheChonaman]

I'm sure a million people have said this, but the "Total War" franchise was never exclusively (totally) about war or battles. Like every other great empire type of game, it is all about the economy. It was great branding, but somewhat false advertising.

[@reichspepe1587]

Good morning, I hate health bars!

[@jojoabc100]

Hey hey hey! I've been playing the games going all the way back to Shogun 1 and I feel attacked about the players who play only on normal difficulty call out lol.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

honhonhonhohonhonhon forgiven cuz you played shogun 1

[@mattbaker3157]

People should realise that the REAL Total War series died in 2013 whe Rome 2 came out and set the foundation for the titles we have now. Thats the new standard for these games now, and personally if i see health bar or single entity unit i already know the game overall is gonna suck, because immersion and real time tactic (which is what made everyone fall in love with the series) are not gonna be present

[@BACON-nf2rr]

I like health bars for warhammer but for historical where everyone is human its bad. I wish they took the shogun approach with proper balance, just look at tw3k xd balance is non existent.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

under the old hitpoint system elite units would be given 2 or 3 hitpoints, or more in the case of generals. War elephants, hero units, etc. would get extra points. The new system offers nothing, nothing, nothing at all, not for fantasy or for history.

[@BACON-nf2rr]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 imo no health bars on single entity fantasy units would be offputing, it also allows much more flexibility for spells and effects.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

single entity units have no place in a total war game where formational warfare is at the center of everything. simple as that. Being able to tie down a bunch of units because of a single entity who has 1000hp or 10k HP is a travesty, not even games that use HP systems like AoE (actually good) have this kind of scenario because it is unbalanced and dumb.

[@BACON-nf2rr]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 well for fantasy settings with giants and demon lords i think it would be bland without them,just personal diff i guess. I agree for the human/realistic games tho.

[@austinturner8373]

Hey I don't disagree with many of your points in this video, however your statement about estates in eu4 is just straight up wrong even 2 years ago the estates didn't work like that. Additionally even if your estate is 100% influence that isn't an issue as long as you understand the way the estates work, if you have that understanding the estate coups should never fire.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

I am aware that they revamped the estates mechanic after its initial implementation, doesn't change the fact that the initial implementation was so bad it should not have ever made it into the game in that form. It was a nonsense game of balancing numbers only to have a random event fire that would force you to go back and balance some more numbers.

[@austinturner8373]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 Fair enough I did not try the initial implementation of estates myself.

[@DMM_Fan]

do a video on Manor Lords.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

that is in the plans

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

I don't think having more than 1 hitpoint is the issue with the combat system since Rome 2 per se, it's mostly that they just have kind of crazy values attached/it's not tied to the models. Because 1 hitpoint per model is fine when you're dealing with gunpowder warfare or samurai charges where frankly, armor was semi-useless against the weapons deployed, but if you're dealing with heavily armored or more defensively minded infantry, or you're trying to simulate the infantry slog fests that occurred in antiquity a lot of the time such as with Greek Phalanxes or Roman legions, having multiple hitpoints can be useful to represent that kind of slow, grinding battle. Of course, that said, the issue is that they're using an abstraction of health points representing the whole unit, rather than per model, right? Like, it would probably work fine if it was per model and the values were set fairly low, like 2 hp for your standard infantry soldier in a game without gunpowder weapons, 1 hp for your levies or missile units and maybe only going up to 3 or 4 if you're talking something like a war elephant or a chariot. And something like a cavalry charge bonus should be adding an extra hp of damage to it solely so it's essentially equally effective against any footman. That would allow for some tankiness in appropriate scenarios like the infantry versus infantry slogs, while still making missiles and cavalry effective I would presume. But yeah, generally speaking stuff like bonuses and tech trees and such is better when they're all more decisive and especially so when they produce meaningful options. The Shogun 2 tech tree was almost perfect for this, not just FOTS, because even vanilla, each tech got you *something* like a unit or building or even a new combat option on units, like the Banzai ability for melee infantry or fire arrows for archers. Definitely just agree on that point. More orthogonality, less granularity would definitely be better there. Or heck, don't do tech trees at all. Rome 1 and Medieval 2 didn't have them. Tech did develop in Medieval 2, but it was tied to the year the game was in, and wasn't player driven but world state driven. It meant the only things limiting your unit quality or options were economic development choices. And last I heard, no one really had a problem with this. What does even having a tech tree add to games like these?

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

I didnt like the tech progression in med2 because everyone got access to everything at the same time. There was less room for asymmetrical warfare compared to shogun 2s system where you choose what to get and when weighing all the opportunity costs.

[@Hary_Half-Mast]

So do you want global incrumental bonuses or not?

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

i want 150% poop generation buff to all my cities

[@serjez.]

Banned lol💀

[@SuperMcbonez]

Modern TW games look like those shitty mobile game ads. Rome 2 proved to be a turning point. Reminds me of the downfall of halo.

[@helly7385]

Based critic

[@mariosgaroufalis4639]

But pharao is a beautiful game like troy i love it i swear

[@Daiciyomon_4594]

Nathan Fake book of Grudges :" Hey! respect the game and CA don't be a phenomal jerk" Me:" I like the game but I can't be like you shill and blinded to support Warhammer 3 in every way clearly the bugs that CA still did not fix! Warhammer 3 is truly disaster till now you just can't accept the truth and CA is being lazy and greedy, how do I respect CA for these? " After CA Rob make shit statement, Nathan Fake book of Grudges gather 3 KZbinrs to complain CA Me:" Oi! I thought you suppose to be respect CA, why now? “ Nathan no comment 😂😂

[@Pancakespls]

Old heads bathe in nostalgia about MED2 and Empire, and if either one of those games launched in 2023, they be a disaster and universally canned. MED2 and Empire is only good with mods, so what do you think CA can bring to MED3 that the hundreds of Mods for both those games haven't covered? Graphic updates?

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Yea med2 is a 2006 game, if it launched in 2023 I would be pissed. Well done, you have discovered the idea of rising standards. I don't think Med2 would be as commercially succesful as med3, but it will almost certainly pull in more than any of the recent Saga titles. Either way I still think the shills would be happy to jump back on for a quick buck.

[@pastorofmuppets9346]

I still play vanilla rtw from time to time and its better than 99% of modern games out there lol

[@deinemutter8999]

all my homies hate ca

[@Sersan_]

They really need to make a new engine for any new TW otherwise we'll see the same Rome2 clone until CA go bankrupt

[@Cba409]

Well said

[@JohnWittle]

22:01 "The latter of which linjer to this day" woah! linger is actually pronounced with a hard 'g', 'ling er' but like... now that i am looking at it, i have no idea why... usually in english when we have a 'ge' and we want to make the 'g' hard, we add a 'u' after it to separate it from the 'e', like 'league' or 'tongue' or 'rogue' or 'guess' i think 'linger' might be the only example of a hard 'g' followed by an 'e' that i can think of... it's genuinely kind of shocking, usually english's rules about spelling are absolutely ironclad (but also complicated), it's really weird to notice such a stark exception to the rule no shame at all for mispronouncing it, you're just applying the rule you learned, that 'e' makes a preceding 'g' soft but i figured i'd let you know. definitely a hard 'g' in the word 'linger' edit: also this analysis is great

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

ive heard it used both ways lets not get pedantic

[@JohnWittle]

err... really? I wonder if it's a regional thing then. i was so surprised when i heard it, and then thought about how weird it was, that i googled before posting, and i didn't see any soft 'g's i'm kinda a phonetics and syntactics nerd so i'll be pedantic if i want, dammit! :) you've got me curious now though, what should i be googling to try to find info on this alternate pronunciation? is it an eastern european thing? i really wanna know the history. i hope it's some new english-learner saying "wait, but the rule says that G should be soft! screw this!" because that's suddenly how i feel about it now edit: cambridge dictionary has UK 'linguh' vs US 'linger' but no 'linjer', i'm gonna be upset if my stupid language has no explanation for this :(

[@leoashura8086]

SHOGUN 3 WILL SAVE IT