Total War's Sieges Were Better 20 Years Ago

The first time they were ever tried, they were better than what we have today. A team of about 20 people managed better results than a studio of over 500, which isn't a surprise when indie games regularly have more depth and are more inspired than AAA efforts in general nowadays.
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[@Volound]

if you want to see what medieval 1 was like more thoroughly, heres my introduction to it from a couple of months ago. it had a rich tutorial that laid out the intent of the developers with regards to how to play. it also showed how to assault castles - it was important enough to include in the tutorial itself: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d5nNhIOho92We7M

[@grimaldus1523]

According to Legend of total war you are actively punished for having walled settlements in warhammer 3, and there is no point to having walls because unwalled settlements are easier to defend......its ridiculous and destroys the entire point of sieges in the first place.

[@Volound]

i commented 30m ago a little bit further down to a guy saying the exact same thing about three kingdoms. walls get effortless grappling hooked. well done legend for piping up. lets see if the rest of the brown-noser youtubers give a shit and complain until it gets fixed, or if they just continue to shout phony superlative-laden praise like american football commentators for their grift, leaving him standing.

[@yedrellow]

Probably has something to do with the fact that ranged units in modern total war are psychic and can shoot full damage plunging fire and spells on to the other side of LOS blocking walls. Try to find a historical depiction of an archer using plunging fire. It is just woefully ineffective because the terminal velocity of an arrow due to air resistance is far slower than the velocity of the arrow at its release. I wouldn't be surprised if plunging arrows failed to penetrate clothes let alone armour. This is when even gambeson is fully capable of stopping without harm to the wearer arrows of certain warbows. Just look at accounts of crusaders in the 13th century where they were turned in to pincushions by Saracen archers, and were basically uninjured. If that is possible, what do you think a plunging arrow would do to someone in armour? Nothing.

[@jakubandrej7109]

The reason is that you are taking attrition from turn one, when AI attacks your walled settlement. While without walls it attacks you right away.

[@davidelfving5138]

@@jakubandrej7109 that's just incorrect, you only start to take attrition after turn 6 or something

[@jakubandrej7109]

@@davidelfving5138 No? That is in total war warhammer 2. In total war warhammer 3 you are taking attrition immediately.

[@CrustyButticus]

Total war casual here. One thing that always stood out to me from playing Medieval 2 Sieges were that the keeps in Castles were ALWAYS the last place the enemy could get to, and where your forces could always make their last stand. With upgraded castles, you had to clear through multiple gates and upgraded as an attacker, forcing you to wait more turns to build ladders/siege towers or more rams or invest in artillery. Why did they remove this design choice? Why are all the new total war cities/castles so shit in comparison to these older games? Even Shogun 2 had better siege layout, for fucks sake, and I wasn't even a fan of it since they didn't implement proper city battles save Kyoto(which still wasn't great) in the base campaign. Fucking Empire had better city battles sometimes(and sea combat. Fuck you CE for refusing to reinvest in this feature properly) I'll never understand people willing to shill for a developer that continues to remove features to sell them later on as "new" or "improved" when theyre just fucking lazy and know that loads of people will throw money at these games simple because they're Total War or Warhammer.

[@gabeteso6968]

It is indeed a strange phenomenon. I greatly appreciate this channel for spreading awareness of this though. I still try to give the newer games an honest shot but I always find myself going back to m2 and shogun2 despite all their flaws. This channel does a great job explaining why and hopefully some devs out there are paying attention.

[@redbaronflyer8392]

It's especially painful the larger the map gets. The army routs and scatters when a small city is taken? Sure I guess, but it gets worse on maps like Constantinople or Rome (in Attila) where there's tons of barriers and stuff, that NEVER get used unless you're defending. The AI will fight and die on the walls. I dunno why they didn't keep the old system for that.

[@filipegolineli9909]

@@Aethelhald i really dont understand people that use auto-resolve alot, as a grand strategy game total war sucks, there is plenty of good paradox games for that. the fun of total war is the battles and the strategy part is only for give context for the battles, given them more weight

[@redbaronflyer8392]

@@filipegolineli9909 That's honestly what made me start playing EU4 and later CK2. I started autoresolving battles because I would get frustrated about certain mechanics. Eventually I went "Why not just play Paradox stuff instead?"

[@steretsjaaj2368]

You can't expect unification for greater good or boycotting mentality from gamers - they are the most gullible people on planet today, take for condideration that games are some times compared to addictive drugs and a junkie will just wants a hit, no matter the quality. They don't have attention span to search for older games and try them out - try enjoying good gameplay, forget the bad graphics..

[@slinkerdeer]

What I hate about modern games is the usr of good graphics and new technology without hardly any of the magic that made games from 10+ years back. My theory is the unfettered greed for money is what has destroyed many franchises quality.

[@thomasvertommen9526]

That's not a theory; that's a proven scientific fact

[@BinaryShad0]

the source of these problems is the choices of mindless consumers

[@steretsjaaj2368]

It would (guessing here) take CA prob 6 months of dev. time more and some 25% investment in additional software engineers (most game devs are cg artist) - all this for games to have that magic.. CA thinks it isn't worth the wait/additional funds.. they rather have next gen graphics

[@GameCritics]

Thats why you dont trust anyone hadnt proved to be successul. Or unless you show me 500M budget and 500 Employes then i will allocated my expectations according to that aspect.

[@berserker4940]

Capitalism has a tendency to do that

[@boarfaceswinejaw4516]

It makes me eternally fucking disappointed that, with a setting like warhammer that should have a ton of options and opportunities, they somehow defaulted to just removing siege complexities (and complexities in general). Imagine if different factions in warhammer had different ways of building siege weaponry and the like, imagine if skeletons could form up into makeshift ladders, or if Beastmen carried large carved trees that they stacked up against the walls to allow them to climb, or if demons could just straight up climb over the wall, or if skaven could dig underneath, maybe even sap, the walls. At first i felt like a bit of a bitter bitch when being so anti-total warhammer, but honestly, who does the games even appeal to? Warhammer and Original TW fans should both feel cheated.

[@MagnusVictor2015]

Agreed. I had bought Total Warhammer 1 in large part *because* I was so excited to fight siege battles of Dwarven cities. (I hadn't played any TW title since Shogun 2, so I was a bit optimistic as to what sort of games they were making). You can imagine my disappointment to see "Oh. They're just villages...on the surface...with at best a single wall and that's rather late-game. Also, the wall doesn't actually do anything."

[@boarfaceswinejaw4516]

@@MagnusVictor2015 Which is doubly disappointing when you realize that previous total war games not only had wall mounted cannons but even cannon towers

[@dac314]

Hi, TW:Warhammer fan here, sieges are shit in all Total War games. They're dull, they're time consuming, and they're not particularly rewarding. As for historical vs fantasy, I'd rather play with dragons and magic than 20 factions worth of "reskinned middle ages dude in armor", and considering the 3rd Age Mod for Medieval, I guess so would everyone else too. I enjoyed Shogun 2, I enjoyed Attila, but TW Warhammer brought new life to a series that would otherwise be a circlejerk of historical fans playing decade old titles and complaining anyways.

[@MrBerten1]

@@dac314 off course sieges are time consuming you are attacking a fortified position you can't just charge willy nilly at the enemy unless you want your men slaughtered. IMO I've been doing a lot more micro in sieges that in normal field battles and that's why siege battles are rather popular when watching looking at multiplayer videos. Also it feels super satisfying if you are able to defend a settlement when you were massively outnumbered simply by utilizing the layout of the settlement and tactics. In none of the TW are you forced to actually assault the city/castle you can wait a couple of turns for the defenders to surrender the settlement. TW Warhammer would still be be playable (and arguably a better game) if they still had the sieges of the older games. TW regressed in that area. While you are correct in that TW Warhammer brought 'new life' and most definitely a perhaps new audience, they did so by getting rid of tons of details and dumbed things down and made it way more arcady than what it used to be. I'm not saying the recent TW titles are bad games, but they are bad TW games if you were to compare them to their predecessors (and even mods on those predecessors).

[@MonteKristof]

@@dac314 You guessed fuckin wrong here. I'd rather play the same faction for 20 years in a historical game than lose time with a fantasy setting in a TW game.

[@koldonn1111]

And even better 10 years ago lmao

[@ShadowGaro]

I too enjoy waiting 1 hour to win a siege defence because the AI bugged out lol

[@koldonn1111]

@@ShadowGaro What, Rome or smt???

[@ShadowGaro]

@@koldonn1111 Rome was decent aside from units getting stuck in walls n shit, but they didn't have multi-layer walls. Medieval 2 tho... Dear lord...

[@koldonn1111]

@@ShadowGaro M2 was less than 10 years after M1.

[@ShadowGaro]

@@koldonn1111 M2 released in 2006, 16 years ago 👴

[@witcher348]

CA in 2022: "It's impossible to make it look good/do it right/do better than this." * Volound shows a 20 year old game of the same dev where they nailed it

[@shellshockedgerman3947]

i mean he did have an opponent with more troops.

[@Pangora2]

@@shellshockedgerman3947 I think the issue was this was the first siege system they tried (Shogun 1's system was an unbreakable wall with 1 open gate), so the AI was bad at it, and the numbers make up for that. Still we see how many options and variation there was, despite this being CA's first real attempt.

[@Marcoz588]

One quibble with your comment. The problem sadly, is that they AREN’T the same developers ANYMORE. The folks who made Shogun 1, MTW 1, Rome 1 and M2TW, are probably few and far between. I dread to think how many now remain at the company, or that the ones who are there, have been made to churn out grossly inferior products..

[@Albukhshi]

@@Marcoz588 That's not a quibble: that is, in fact, a key issue: there's likely little to no continuity between the CA of 1999-2007 and that of the present.

[@tomm9963]

It's laughable how they're pushing what was the bare minimum 20 years ago as a huge overhaul which is a game changer. Really shows the mediocrity is excellence attitude that's infected the Total War games

[@MrCyrus55]

People going nuts as if CA created a whole new experience - the sieges f.e. got worse the longer the series existed and now they earn applause for WH3..? makes me sad somehow Thank you for your precious work!

[@thomasvertommen9526]

I remember that one of the bigger upgrades in the unit roster for England in medieval 2 total war used to be that you'd go from Longbowmen to Yeomen Longbowmen or Retinue Longbowmen. Their ranged attack only increased a little bit, but those archers could in fact hold their own in a melee, and do decently against men at arms or knights. They'd lose in a protracted fight, but they were multi-purpose in siege battles when holding walls. Sicily's Muslim Archers, Byzantine Guard Archers, the Venetian Heavy Archers... they also had this multi-purpose utility where they'd wreak havoc on an enemy entering your fortress, and could hold a wall against ladders, because they had local superiority. If the enemy came with siege towers and could unload 40-50 heavy infantry on your wall at once; they'd quickly be overrun. You had to take all of that into account when you were holding a fortress against superior numbers. It wasn't just a matter of "they kill X-amount before their ammo runs dry". Something that also worked well, was a point blank salvo from your archers on the wall, on an enemy infantry unit also on the wall, coming towards your archers. Just flat trajectory point blank salvo taking out tens of soldiers per salvo.

[@thetowerproject3122]

About halfway through the video and have some good takeaway lessons. First the soundtrack on Med 1, I forgot how good it was. 2nd this video highlights how with Old-TW new additions to the franchise were there to improve upon the successes of the old games, rather then just reskins and cutting features. For example with the amazing med 1 soundtrack 1 of the big flaws is that the soundtrack is not tied directly to gameplay, IE in med 2 when you go from deployment to telling units to march, immediately marching music begins to play; I am also not sure if that feature was cut in future games and the soundtrack just plays randomly. Another take away, there were lots of times that your crossbows and other missile units were not fireing, because they were obscured by your walls and had no direct shot of the enemy, this shows that there was inherent geometry in the game as well as line of sight. In NuTW your missile units would have shot over the wall and the missiles would come down with perfect accuracy despite the fact that they cannot see what they are shooting, in Med 2 you can make units fire over walls, but accuracy is greatly reduced. Overal it looks like Rome 1 and Med 2 improved upon the quality of life of this same siege system, but for some reason sieges like this with multiple levels, gates and towers have never appeared again in the franchise, having to break through multiple gates adds so much depth to games, but NuTW wants all battles to be over in a few minutes and so removes all depth from the experience. There is just something about having a 3 hour prolonged siege and fighting for every inch that made med 2 sieges the high point of the franchise IMHO

[@Volound]

still blows my mind that archers in this game have more punishing geometry considerations than any guns in warhammer. if you told me this would happen 10 years ago, i would have thought that TW would have stopped and only mobile games were being made instead. not far off, anyway. arcade games. and i had those 3 hour sieges in medieval 2. third age gondor east osgiliath on third age 3.0. god damn. some of the best RTT ive ever played against AI.

[@AnalyticalReckoner]

Archers in the earlier TW titles fired in volleys while the newer games have each archer target a specific enemy. As much as I like Shogun 2, it makes me laugh when I see an entire regiment target a single remaining soldier.

[@thetowerproject3122]

@@AnalyticalReckoner It actually really affects gameplay, as archers firing in volleys that match their formation gives players different pros and cons for the formation of their units both firing and taking fire.

[@tenchimuyo69]

Those multi layer defenses were killer against the AI in MTW2 I recall. If you had a Citadel with 3 lines of walls, the AI would struggle to capture it even if you only had 2 or 3 defending units. With a group of 5 or 6 you could wipe out entire stacks or two. Though it was more likely the AI would just lose their siege equipment.

[@ChocoboBlitzer]

I took a peek at a random total war youtuber, just to see how war 3 was coming along with all this preview coverage. They were showing off one of the new factions, one that hasn't had it's roster fully realized before this game. So with that and the siege battles there was potentially loads to show off, right? I'm then treated to a siege battle of them micromanaging a single hero unit, apparently leveled so early on it rendered the game trivial. It was accompanied by one other unit, I think to help capture points. This was on very hard/very hard. I've never pre-ordered so fast in my life! If only there was a battle pass. We can't always get what we want I suppose.

[@reorseX]

One man single handedly destroys all of the nu-total war shills every single time.

[@Volound]

lmao

[@CatnamedMittens]

Thanos snaps their dreams.

[@WilliamSanderson-zh9dq]

People forget how cool this game was. This was a remarkable game, and you needed a good computer (for the time) to run it.

[@MsSirAndy]

Very impressive for a 2002 strategy game

[@ariyune7007]

From what I saw on Mandalore they basically "fixed" sieges... by adding needless blockades that breaks AI pathing and bugs them out worse than before

[@beetheimmortal]

Don't forget that, as muvh as I like some of Mandalore's reviews, he's a huge Warhammer shill and fanboy, so multiply every negative he mentions by at least 3 or even more to get the truth.

[@makiiavely]

uuuuhhhhhh i don't know why you are saying that mandalore claimed sieges were fixed but he didn't. He doesn't get into technicals very much but he was crystal clear about the new mechanics completely breaking down under AI control

[@xtron1234]

Might be a hot take but this video got me thinking, and in terms of siege map design, I really liked what Thrones of Britannia was kind of going for where there was a clear difference in the design of the defenses between the different cultures. London had a very different layout in defenses than a Celtic city or what have you. It was probably the only thing I liked about it to be honest, and in my opinion was probably the last true innovation in siege gameplay that was made in Total War. Not that I think they were flawlessly designed maps, but having that kind of variety and cultural flair and distinction in city layout is something I wish we had back in Medieval 2 and Rome 1, which did have it to an extent but it was more of a coat of paint rather than a true different layout in the city and fortification. But that was probably due to the technology of the time more than anything. It just makes me sad to think about what the people who made old (good) TW could've done if they had been given the capabilities of today's technology. EDIT: I should really reinstall Medieval 2 to make sure but I remember the Teutonic campaign in Medieval 2 had a little bit of what I'm talking about, but don't quote me on that I don't remember.

[@diegomedina2359]

6:19 "how do you say that?" ji-ne-tes: HE as in "HE is great". NE as in "NE-ver". TES as in "TES-tosterone" hope it helps!

[@Volound]

now i know. perfect. thanks. knew it had to be something close.

[@MadisonRamanamabangbang]

Empire's city sieges are interesting, because they're sort of just battles that are threaded through buildings and fields

[@raleigh9019]

This concept is fun in theory but AI in city battles was even worse than in the normal ones. And these nearly undestructible buildings were a real pain.

[@yedrellow]

Whoa infantry actually have a use in this game, and archers melt as soon as they reach melee combat. It's amazing, it's almost as if there's an actual use for infantry in old total war.

[@TimmacTR]

The atmospheric music and presentation of gen1 TW is unsurpassed in the series in my opinion

[@MsSirAndy]

STW and MTW are still the best in the series, followed by TWS2 (and its stand alone Fall of the Samurai expansion), Attila and M2TW

[@Frozenmenss1]

Nowadays the Sieges in Total War Attila/Thrones of Britannia are the best compromise for gameplay and realism with mechanics like siege escalation vs the 2000s tw games. I hate the rome 2 bugfest and Warhammer being too arcady for my taste.

[@bart_ender6116]

Attila's sieges are so good. I've had 3 hour multiplayer matches that went down to like 30 units total. Some of the best gaming I've enjoyed.

[@knuckle1493]

Rome 2 with DEI is p legit

[@jakespier1969]

I've said it before and I'll say it again... creative assembly is creatively bankrupt.

[@Warmaker01]

Not always. The guys that made Shogun in 2000, Medieval in 2002, Rome in 2004, and Medieval 2 in 2006, those guys were damn good. Things went downhill with Empire, but picked up again in Shogun 2, and then it's been downhill since. All this has gone over many years, so personnel changes and all probably did a number on CA. But the old school CA devs that did Shogun thru Medieval 2 were fantastic.

[@hashbrownz1999]

I bought Attila just for the constantinople map. It is "sort of" a tiered siege, but it's fun just because those damn walls are insane

[@Oryon25]

One year too late to this video, but i have NEVER had sieges feel as good as they did in Medieval, even without the ability to mount troops on walls. To this day a siege defense in this game remains my most memorable moment in the entire series (along with destroying armies in Shogun 1 with one kensai and a single unit of battlefield ninjas). Excuse me if i get some details mildly off, it's been 20 years, but i am absolutely not exaggerating in the overall account: I had a battered crusading army that had taken massive casualties taking some fortress in the holy lands i forget the name of. A handful of units remained, totaling about 300 men of assorted units and riff raff. A few men at arms, some random nonsense, a handful of camels, etc from what i can remember. The only full sized unit left was a 60 man squad of mercenary javelinmen with big square shields and 2 shots of ammo to their name. The enemy army that moved to re-take the very next turn was 3000 strong. Perhaps 40-50% of it were peasants, but that still left a throng of real units to contend with, and i didn't think i had a chance in hell. But i don't autoresolve battles. I formed up on the outer gate. The castle had two lines of walls. I placed what men i had that were more or less reliable to either side of and opposite the gate, forming a U shape to box them in as they came and hit them from all sides. Anything else was held close by in reserve to attempt to fill the inevitable gaps. The enemy started moving in. My towers started firing. I couldn't believe my eyes, but the enemy was leading the attack with their heavily armored general unit on camelback. In my mind, this felt like a general so self assured and smug in superiority that they felt they could just lead with their heaviest and roll over me. I replaced whatever i had opposite the gate with a plug of javelinmen and clenched my ass. They moved through, and i ordered javelins to fire. One volley flew, and the enemy general went down. It was crazy. A second volley sent them running back through the gate, and an hour-long slog began that was the best fight i've ever had. Time after time they sent in a massive amount of men through the gates. First the peasants, then the rest. Each time they would move in under tower fire, land in the middle of my 'basket' of a couple hundred men, break morale and run out. The tower kept mincing them. Over and over they came in, clashed swords, and were pushed back by men that had had no chance. Each wave we'd lose a few men, but they'd lose dozens. The peasants broke easy, but other better men clashed swords and tried before they too ran. Not a single man was allowed past the heroes holding the gate, but soon enough both men and stamina ran low. With maybe a hundred exhausted men left, a third of the javelins left (no ammo) and perhaps 6 men on camels which had moved in for some critical charges in only barely fending off the last push, i abandoned the first gate and pulled back behind the second row of walls, just under the shadow of the keep. I knew i was spent. Once they were through these gates the odds of holding off more pushes were grim. We'd killed an incredible amount for what we had to hold with, but i knew at best i was just buying a little breathing time. I reformed a much thinner basket, and gritted my teeth. The push was savage and there was no holding it, not with the meager force i had. My short lines were pried apart and the defense devolved into a chaotic melee with no structure. Some of the enemy routed, others pushed through. My cavalry remnant threw themselves everywhere, pulled back, charged in again, pushing into the flank of groups threatening to envelop the few men that were still standing. Everyone was exhausted. Men scattered, fought in the fields around the keep, chased and were chased in a mad dash of trying to maneouver and gain some semblance of an option. My camels would charge the backs of chasing enemies as they ran after units grouping together to make maybe two dozen men, then withdraw when they would turn, so the men kiting could charge back, in turn. I could not last, i don't know if i was minutes or seconds away, but it couldn't keep going, there were simply no more men. And then suddenly, the enemy broke, and broke completely. Under the keep, with 3 men on camels still trying to run around after stragglers and maybe 80 of my men left total, their spirits finally gave under the mass of thousands of bodies, and they ran. And i had beaten 3000 men with 300 brave crusaders and i couldn't believe it. Never has anything felt so good in a TW game before or since. I still have that battle replay saved somewhere on an old hard drive. Maybe i'll dig it out, i hope it still works.

[@slobodanj91]

Wow man, does Bernard Cornwell watch Volound videos? In all seriousness, you should definitely take up writing (if you haven't already), this was an awesome read.

[@aaronvogel6951]

This was also the last total war game were individual units had personality. Each unit had a captain that could receive traits on the campaign map that carried over to the battle map, if applicable. Now they are literal perfect clones of each other. That don't suffer or benefit from the leader of the unit.

[@tiziocaio8657]

True, if they continue to follow the med 1 path but with 3d units and maybe also 3d maps, it would be much better

[@ajaxtelamonian5134]

Yeah I loved that and that leader could eventually become a general sometimes couldn't they?

[@kaptenlemper]

It was also the last total war game where you could appoint captains to nobility and public offices, which helped sell the feeling that you were a real monarch.

[@thecoolbyzantine24]

isnt it funny how people talk so much about the downfall of total war when it argueably started to go downhill by the 3rd/4th game in the series?

[@felipeignacioavilapizarro3698]

I remember once playing as england the dinasty was a disaster of poor generals, and a civil war got triggered, I WAS ASKED if I wanted to control the loyalists or the rebels, I won as the rebela and a new much better dinasty got to the throne, that is something that has never been replicated even in rome 1 and med 2

[@garrow12225]

I had some epic sieges with MTW back in 2002-03. Towards the late period, it’s better to just starve them out then to assault a citadel or fortress. A big feature I missed was boiling oil, it took almost 15 years to get oil animation back.

[@aulus3792]

Imo rome and m2tw sieges were better than in med1 but sieges in warhammer are joke

[@Kapita_Lismus]

Medieval 2 sieges are pretty hellish considering all the bugs and awful pathfinding. And you are stuck in that hell for a long time each siege. It's funny, because the reason sieges in Shogun 2 are good is because they are actually barely sieges. And they are fast paced.

[@aulus3792]

@@Kapita_Lismus to me shogun 2 have one of the worst sieges

[@thecoolbyzantine24]

@@Kapita_Lismustrue but ive been completely ignoring most modern total war games and you just kinda get used to the bugs, the multiple walls are amazing in medieval 2 and would have been awesome in rome with smth like the imperial palace being actually useful in defence

[@wawaweewa9159]

The music instantly makes you go back in time.

[@Gary40K]

Ah there is another "NEW" feature we can look forward to CA advertising in the future. NOW SIEGES CAN HAVE DIFFERENT TYPES OF TOWERS INSTEAD OF THE SAME TOWER COPY PASTED AROUND THE MAP!

[@flaviuschristophoros980]

Thanks for SHOWING why this game has better siege battles. I love medieval 1, and there isnt much content on youtube, it definitely deserves more attention.

[@JoTheVeteran]

Hey, man. This is a great analysis of the loss of quality in Total war games. It was Kyle Kibs from the Archcast that suggested your video. Both hosts of Arch cast, Arch, and Kibs are pretty passionate about Total War games, especially the medieval series. Maybe send some dms, and pay them a visit. They started introducing guests a while back, and I bet you'd have a great talk with them, and in turn we'd enjoy a great podcast. Thank you for all the work you put in this video.

[@jackwei22]

I did like Rome I with the invincible morale on the City Square as your units would fight to the death in sieges while the later games your units would flee their cities completely give up in moments at times.

[@juggernaut9994]

Something interesting to note is that it's actually possible to mod sieges in Warhammer to be like those of Medieval 1. When disabling "butt" ladders for a certain unit in the game files, you also disable its ability to climb walls and siege towers, meaning that CA has made it impossible to use siege towers without also having the ladders for every unit at the same time. If you were to disable all units from having ladders, you would have essentially removed the feature of having units on the walls entirely, just like in Medieval 1. I was having doubts about whether this would be a good idea to do, but having seen how sieges play out in Medieval 1 now, I'm starting to think Medieval 1-style siege battles would be much preferable to the vanilla ones. At the very least they would not only be far more tactical, given that walls can finally act as an actual barrier, it would also be a nostalgic nod to an old classic in the series.

[@deathdealer3333]

You could also go Deeper with this idea, like only allowing Ranged units to climb or stand on walls. You do need SOMETHING on the walls though, otherwise the towers do literally nothing.

[@thecoolbyzantine24]

cant you also make this go the opposite way and have units like cav and artilery go on the walls (preferably without crashing the game)

[@2BachShakur]

It’s extraordinary how much this franchise has regressed. Going from historical, grounded games with realistic mechanics to selling out to the stupid Warhammer IP.

[@leudast1215]

the warhammer IP is not stupid. The developers are inflating the costs of their own video games by their own choices, therefore they're watering down the experience to bring in additional younger & new customers. Love or hate it.

[@phlegios]

One historical element that's missing in (iirc) all of TW games is the ability to create ditches right in front of your castles and fortifications. Otherwise the games would be skewed in favor of the defenders, or you'd have to rely on bridges and whatnot to be able to get inside the defenser's territory. Just imagine Shogun 2 or Medieval 2 where you have a ditch right outside of your fort and the enemy has no real means of getting inside it. In such a case, long-range units would be OP'd as hell.

[@hopedream11]

You can sort of try this with stakes. And then have archers leave. Or set them up in front of the gates as a way to stop cav coming through

[@dathremo.]

Ah yes the superior sieges where the AI despite overwhelming numbers the AI attacks through one gate, then gets stuck on - their own units and just sits there and lets you hit them with ranged while the walls which don't need to be manned all shoot at them with infinite ammo from all sides

[@visceral.history]

Just finding your stuff. This is fucking on point and absolutely well put together. Nice work dude.

[@Volound]

thanks man. spent time across many years getting to the bottom of all this.

[@visceral.history]

@@Volound What's your opinion on Manor Lords? I appreciate it's a different style of game but there are some Total War elements.

[@jackriley5960]

appreciate the commentary regarding what you like about total war but watching you manage this defense was a physically painful experience

[@cynfaelalek-walker7003]

Medieval Makes me feel more like I'm in helms deep than any of the Warhammer titles.

[@iceshenanigans17]

I'd love to see someone do a re-cut of one of those fucking cringe *OFFICIAL GAMEPLAY PREVIEW* videos CA put out for everything these days with the narration by Epic Voice Man, except it's overlaid to Medieval 1 footage and introduces such "exciting 'new additions' to the The Total War Franchise" as 'working sieges,' 'meaningful terrain,' 'tiered fortifications,' and 'engaging combat sounds'. Great video as always, dude. Love a good, long, Classical Total War siege.

[@TheBonzobonzo]

Man, just shows how atrocious the situation is that this poor man has to keep coming out with hours worth of content about what they’ve done to us!

[@jorgedasilva7665]

I always felt like sieges after wall tops were added, should have still focused around gate houses. The gate was the weakest link in the castle's defense which is why they were so heavily fortified. From my understanding, so I could be wrong here, but most wall assaults were about clearing the wall so that you could take the gate house from the wall or clear defenders from the walls to give the gate house attackers some breathing room. The walls were never a way in, the gate was. This dynamic was lost the moment ladders and towers were added.

[@biohita]

You are right in that regard. The problem comes from being able to have 300 guys in a single wall. That gameplay aspect makes the gatehouse useless since you now have tens of mini gatehouses in every single tower stair. Or worse in warhammer they literally spawn out of thin air at the base of the wall, you are not even able to defend a choke point like the entrance to the tower.

[@biohita]

And to further add info. Yes, the point wasn't to pour soldiers on the walls but to eliminate the defenders on them. Siege towers were usually used as, siege towers... They provided clear line of sight to pepper the defenders archers and anything on the walls. The troop carrier aspect was a secondary role.

[@youvebeengreeked]

It’s gotten to the point where I am starting to actively preemptively hate good/modern video game graphics, and just prefer and have more faith in jarring looking old games.

[@arsray7285]

same lol.

[@hohenheim1403]

had a siege in medieval II, was attacked in a citadell by 1400 men, had 550 by myself, was able to hold because AI is dumb but also because I used the walls and fired nonstop at the enemy he breached the first wall but didnt made it pas the second btw:what do you think would 3400 heavy armored knights do to 10000 peasants with bows? would they get to full stop after 3 lines or would they trample over them? of course I am talking about warhammer, so no, there is no special formation for the peasants

[@spiffygonzales5899]

Had a similar situation. Around 1200 men (all prussian life guard and an elite general... with some rockets cuz why the heck not) facing off against four armies. I forget the number but I'd guestimate them at around 10,000 - 14,000. Now, I'm not gonna get your hopes up, obviously I lost a battle THAT one sided. But I killed a solid EIGHT THOUSAND of them. Heck I might've won via time limit if they didn't bring up the friggin canons and start shoving grapeshot in my butt. Anywho it was epic. They brought down FOUR friggin walls during the battle and ALL of my units ran out of ammo. By the way, little side note, you get all these people claiming how platoon fire sucks, but the people who say that clearly don't know how to use it. Anywho, yeah. This was during a losing legendary campaign where Austria, Poland, and Sweden ganged up against me and Britain (the cuckoman Empire decided to abandon the alliance) and they basically brought down my prussian capital. But because I beat their armies so bad in that fight, I essentially steamrolled Poland, made peace with Austria, and took back both Brandenburg as well as the rest of Sweden. :) ended up winning the campaign too. And I did it all without min maxing numbers, exploiting the game, cheesing my army, or cheating out the b.s auto resolve system. I DID THAT. And that's a feeling modern TW fans will never be able to get from modern CA.

[@ian2372]

Played the original shogun and med 1 probably thousands of hours as a teenager. I keep coming back to them from time to time because their mechanics are just better. In this castle specifically, I would never defend the outer ring, especially if the enemy had artillery pieces. The high walls of the second ring provided much more protection. But I remember back then, why total war started getting dumbed down was because it wasn't "accessible". You spent a good while thinking about your defense and arranging your troops in positions. You don't really do that much in warhammer and look how popular it is. As gamers have become younger and younger, instant gratification and flashy graphics sell copies of games. Us old folks that like playing chess over checkers got phased out. Thanks for this great video. Cheers.

[@bobmanton_fh9hv]

What do you think of the idea of a MTW1 remastered in 3D with no changes? I would really like it,better units for a start compared with MTW2

[@MsSirAndy]

I think there is a distinct possibility of that happening at some point. Not anytime soon, tho. In the short term no, but probably someday IMHO. But I don't think they will make it in 3D, just give it an enhanced facelift by leaving it in 2D, but better.

[@pat2157]

I still play rome 2 and attila kinda regularly. The mods add so much more to the games. I also own warhammer 1 and 2. I haven't clicked those for years.

[@Tom_Quixote]

Back in MTW1, you were not supposed to assault castles unless you absolutely had to. You were supposed to do the historical thing and starve the defenders out. But then CA decided that this was "too boring" for the average player demanding instant gratification, so they changed the gameplay so nearly all battles now were siege battles. And they were boring and repetitive and didn't really punish the attacker much.

[@alcibiades4716]

What is the root of all this? We can point fingers at idleness, unimaginative game design, money incentivised CEOs, but what is it really? Top heavy Regime change? People at the bottom crucial to the game leaving? An influx of bad faith or inexperienced employees? Or was the business, because that’s what it is, forced its hand by way of stock investors?

[@leudast1215]

never underestimate a CEO ruining a good thing, or of technically competent... yet stupid employees who don't care about the product. The former is par for the course. The latter is a company culture issue; Caused by the former.

[@timeenoughatlast3368]

Siege battles suck so hard in Total War Warhammer 3. It's insane how a game which has dozens of unique and interesting monsters and units has basically three ways of interacting with every map.

[@Axis_._]

It is an interesting complaint that you mention the grapples in 3k. Do you have an issue with this in Shogun2? I personally thought it ruined sieges in shogun 2 than any infantry unit could just climb into the "castles" at any place. for me it is one of the biggest issues in that game.

[@Volound]

shogun 2 is immensely crutched by its combat being generally unsurpassed. even during the sieges that are streamlined and gutted compared to what was in previous games, the fundamentals of the combat and how it plays carries the experience. its naval battles arent saved though. theyre just broken. meanwhile in 3k it was easier to assault walls than it was to defend them, so the fight is just perverted outright. if you upgrade kyoto to be a "star fort" in FOTS and have "gun batteries" installed, all you have is a kyoto with gatling guns and cannon towers where the arrow towers used to be. says it all. nobody praises shogun 2 sieges. if they do, theyre full of shit.

[@Axis_._]

Yea, i remember my first shogun2 seige. was baffled by the lack of ladders and how the enemy jsut marched straight up to my walls and started raining laser guided arrow airstrikes onto my soldiers xD also - credit to you for how responsive you are in the comments!

[@ethantaylor9613]

Lore wise, a pink horror would literally just stick and slide up a wall without slowing down. These are demons we’re talking about

[@darkranger116]

Damn, if only they focused more on siege content rather than, oh i dont know, touching their employees. Making video games must be hard for them. Its just too complicated I guess.

[@tigdamch.6321]

Yeah there's plenty to go backto in the older Total War titles, Medieval 2 and Shogun 2 had the best sieged in my opinion. The modern Total Wars really have lost the magic in a lot of ways: Town management and Sieges being two of them. Such a shame. Hopefully a new developer will make a title that recaptures some of the old enjoyment with a new game sometime.

[@TrojanHell]

Everytime I see that thumbnail I think this is about Stronghold 2, which incidentally is one of the better siege games

[@MBP1918]

In my opinion medieval ii total war or shogun 2 had the best siege battles of the series. After all only Medieval II allows you to take siege equipment off the walls and use it on a second or third layer of walls.

[@blaisevillaume9051]

I don't think shooting people in the face as they come through a doorway counts as "enfilade"

[@Volound]

why would i care about random inconsequential misconceptions of complete strangers?

[@blaisevillaume9051]

@@Volound Why would you care about the fact that you use words you don't understand? No reason you should care, be as stupid as you want to be. Also, your video is boring as shit.

[@Korvinian4601]

@@blaisevillaume9051 sounds like someone is mad

[@raleigh9019]

This MTW siege is definitely more complex then in modern TWs, but is it really better? I honestly don't think that it would be appealing to the modern players who wouldn't be excited of an hour long attrition warfare slogfest ;)

[@Volound]

of course not. they are going for 14 year old kids who have never played a TW game before. described it at one point in regards to the UI.

[@raleigh9019]

@@Volound Yes, their goal was to build a new casual fanbase to fit in the gaming mainstream, they managed to do this with Warhammer series. There is no any financial incentive for CA to develop a game with complex tactical battles.

[@mitchellpolinop7650]

And that's why the Warhammer games are trash and get boring after awhile

[@Tonystarkes888]

Graphics aside these are what sieges should be like, imagine medieval 1 but with warhammer 3 graphics but keeping all the little things that me1 has. Maybe campaign map to be like Attila and medieval 2

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

The Spanish IPA pronunciation of jinete is xiˈnete. -X is pronounced like Scottish lo*ch* -I is pronounced like English s*ee* -n is pronounced like English *n*eed - e is pronounced like English b*eerry - the ' indicates the next xonstonent-vowle combo is emphasised -t is pounced like English s*t*and So its chee*ne*te, with ch as Scottish lo*ch*. Making hinete closer I suppose, but still incorrect.

[@ciruelo5921]

I miss Med2 sieges, if they only were less painfully buggy. Med1 sieges aren't such, you can't stand your troops on walls

[@egillskallagrimson5879]

I cannot even fathom wtf were they thinking for not improving sieges in every iteration of TW games. Seriously sieges need to be multi stage battles where you should have an initial engagement to blockade the fortification where the enemy make sorties to disrupt you thus increasing the numbers of turns they can hold the settlement. Then the phase of deploying siege works, like catapults, ballistas etc as well as trenches, pallisades and early mineworks and sappers so you can have a phase where the besieger is tje one to defend his assets against the besieged. Then the third stage would be assaulting the walls where you have to advance the towers, ladders and rams as well as to wait for the sappers to breach the walls and here is where your battle would look like a classic siege in medieval and rome. So disappointing the lack of boldness .

[@ProgPiglet]

there's just so much understated elegance throughout this game's design. even the campaign map is lovely jubbly. it's like a provincial chessboard of europe and therefore fits the theme of the game well, unlike something like Empire Total War which is a blanched cartoonish sea of shit stretched out to the wrong aspect ratio. And nothing compares to this era of TW music. Adds so much to the game's atmosphere. If nu-TW had these kinds of soundtracks and sound design, it'd go a long way into making the battles enjoyable again

[@theramblingexile2498]

Well if you’re wondering about CA’s confidence in Warhammer 3 period and not just sieges alone they’re advertising it on Microsoft’s game pass already when the game’s not out yet. So frankly it seems like they feel it’s mediocre too.

[@HO1ySh33t]

So siege is better if there's no building. I remember Siege in Rome 1 was horrible because units keep getting stuck into building

[@e.a.forrest1388]

Lmao, love how you refer to the Order Foot Knights as the "Orange Order" (especially given they'd be Catholic crusaders...) ;P

[@darienbragg4826]

Volound plays Empire sounds like a great idea. A lot of received wisdom on the (un)playability begging to be tested

[@ferencfekete5730]

This video got me hyped to play medieval 1 more than any of the warhammer 3 videos got me hyped to play that game... I played this game a lot but never made it to the stage where castles are this big. I always thought that sieges in this game are 'meh'. Not anymore.

[@ajaxtelamonian5134]

Real

[@spearPYN]

The best TW are still the first Shogun and Medieval: better Risk style 2d map, better AI, better battles, etc.

[@krisparent7061]

see the thing is with warhammer stuff you when you buy a new one starting from 1 moving on up to 2 and then to 3 they all have the base game but you are just paying $60 for a massive dlc and then you gotta pay more for all the dlc they add into the game so pretty soon we will be what 400 deep into one game? didnt do the math but that might be correct lol

[@steretsjaaj2368]

I'm also exploring these old games now that I'm temporarily without computer (have old comp atm) and I'm having a blast actually. Though I wish they took couple of months of developement more and add siege towers/ladders too, but for 2002 this game was already pushing limits way up

[@steretsjaaj2368]

My theory is they prob had them in-game before release but took them out because they were too buggy/hard to implement for those days.. devs were much more ballsy and wiling to implement all kinds of stuff back then..

[@Sparticulous]

I used to love the battles on MOTW. I never got the campaign to work. Always crashed to desktop so rome 1 was the first one that would play the campaign for me.

[@neutralfellow9736]

expecting full wh sieges are just silly by this point

[@Dolfy]

For multilayer castles I like to use a tactic of using light infantry that are very capable in melee like vikings, halberdiers or ghazi infantry (any fanatics work as well) on the outer layer, when the heavier infantry and missiles are deployed in the inner layer. As the AI is sending missile units and cavalry to break into the inner layer, they get shot and picked apart by lighter infantry. Usually is enough to chainrout most armies on hard difficulty. Not quite a fan of cavalry in defensive sieges as they take double the defensive capacity of a garrison in a campaign but you can still technically deploy outside the walls with cavalry to deal with artillery crews. imo med1's sieges are sadly a result of a pretty rushed game and an engine that doesn't handle complex settlements all that well but at least the effort seemed to be there, I choose to mostly skip them if possible since the towers do most of the work and it isn't really that interesting as opposed to field battles. Also try catapult towers holy shit

[@agagqbq]

in med2 cavalry are super strong in siege defense. wait for the enemy to storm a broken gate or wall, hold that section with some infantry then flank the whole army from behind to encircle them. this will cause a chain rout very quickly where you can win 1v4 odds with minimal casualties

[@spectacleemporium218]

Jinetes is pronounced Hi-ne-tes, but originated from the Arabic/Berber Ze-na-ta.

[@Alesayr]

I've played at least 300hrs of medieval1 and a lot of warhammer, and medieval 1s sieges were a total pain that just wasn't that fun to play either as attacker or defender. I'd usually choose to starve folks out rather than play the siege battle, at least for higher tiers than just a fort. Pathfinding was awful, LOS issues were aplenty, and there was very little tactical flexibility. Warhammer sieges are not the best in the series, but they're a vast improvement over medieval 1s. I do agree med1 sieges were a big improvement over the pretty meh shogun 1 sieges.

[@carlosoramasramos8911]

I doubt you will see this but at 6:32 you pronounced "jinetes" surpringly well!

[@gandalf1379]

20 years ago the gaming industry had a great deal more creative and passionate people working within it. Like everything, once gaming increased in popularity, the suits and sharks moved in more and more to take a cut and now the gaming industry sucks. Just like film, music etc. As for total war, Empire seemed to be the beginning of the end. Empire was so shockingly bad and broken on so many levels. Still, even that had naval battles. I tried Napoleon and it was a little better but I figured TW was dead. I really like Warhammer lore, so came back to TW and have clocked about 2k hours combined in 1 and 2, but honestly they are a shadow of games like Med2 or Rome1. There are numerous reasons and I don't want to write an essay here, so I'll just mention some of the things that bugged me most on coming back to TW; -The siege battles are awful and are by far the most numerous battles you have to fight. I know the ai has never been good and is easy to cheese even on the older games but still... make an effort. In the "New" game, the way the ai can pull barricades and towers out of it's backside mid battle seems a little odd and probably frustrating to me. I don't have high hopes but we'll see... -Not even bothering to put in naval battles is just lazy. Particularly for Warhammer when you can do crazy things and try to make them more diverse and interesting. -Map variety. It's terrible. No matter where your army stands in a province you'll have to deploy on exactly the same battlefield over and over again, even if this map sucks for your army. I noticed the same map, and variations of it, are also used for multiple provinces during a recent campaign I played. In Med2 in particular, I used to camp my armies on hills and as far up mountains as I could so in the battle map my guys would have a massive elevation advantage. Picking your own battlefield had masses of variety and is vital for certain army builds/situations. Modern TW campaign maps are irrelevant bar the position of armies and cities, it's all just eyecandy with a standard repetitive battle map based on which tile you occupy. Still, I will buy Warhammer 3 after a while. When they inevitably do TW 40k/30k etc I'll certainly buy them too. But I'll never buy a historical TW title again. The people that made the old games have moved on and the ethos has changed. TW died with Empire, subsequent games have been TW-like.

[@gandalf1379]

@Wiegraf Yeah I know mate, I'm a hypocrite and in a way I'm part of the problem. But there are things I like about the TW Warhammer series (heros, magic, monsters...) and I'm not quite so cynical or salty about the degeneration of these games that I can't derive any enjoyment out of them at all. Once W3 has been out for a while and Mortal Empires/mods are released I'm very likely to buy it. In a way I'm a TW AND Warhammer junky, but I can't keep playing Med2/Rome or Dark Omen to scratch my itches. Also, I have a strong suspicion that features get removed from these games not to cut corners but simply because the staff working on them are no longer capable of implementing these features in an interesting or bug-free way in the newer engines. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but I do feel like me not buying a game that I will likely get enjoyment out of just because it is a shadow of what it should be isn't going to change anything.

[@gandalf1379]

@Wiegraf hehe yes it is, and TW used to be such fine dining

[@kaptenlemper]

Honestly, I'd go further and say that RTW1 and CA going under Sega was the beginning of the decline in quality despite the obviously increased budget.

[@scl9671]

Damn brings back loads of memories seeing Medieval 1!

[@kikijiki7745]

my best pvp match ever was a 7 v me on "Castle 5-5-2 hilly winter" as the swiss. (Swiss Armoured Pikemen FTW!) I place 2 units of CAV outside to kill the 2 siege monalogs at the rear of the Keep at the start of the battle. and it worked as the player there didn't expect me to place any units outside the walls. with those 2 gone they could not breach the final keeps walls. I left 3 units of SAP in the keep at the gate but it only took 1 to grind down the enemy. my favourite memory of MTW PVP ^^

[@jackabsolute5525]

This was my first total war. Learned to mod games too because of this game.

[@malice9830]

The creepiest out of all is this damn theme

[@Sombre____]

Siege in Thrones of Britannia were pretty good.

[@clintonclay3158]

I remember when i first played MTW amd the sheer size of some of these battles blew my 14 year old mind then later the little forts set on the map in the mtw2 britannia campaign and the AI broke my army and vice versa the sieges made for really brutal fights but its been awhile since ive had a computer that could play these new games.😢 so i cant really attest to the quality of them.

[@redjacc7581]

This is my fav tw game. The battle AI is way better than any other game.

[@roguewasbanned4746]

Double layered walls? Sounds like a dlc for a 2030 title

[@jimbones5484]

Castle land defends a castle.

[@kaanalpkaratas6091]

Sieges in Total War are useless because the first game of the series (Shogun 1) uses the Art of War as it's basis and that book pretty much encourages to avoid sieges and starve the defenders out.

[@baker7647]

I'm shocked you're able to actually play the game! everytime I play this game I get brilliant fps on the map, but in battle I only get 14

[@Dolfy]

Ye it's usually best to stick with 800x600 on battles and if that still doesn't work you can try pressing F6 to hide the ability icons. Works for me but idk if it works for others

[@1südtiroltechnik]

38:48 a useful feature would be to limit the firing arc so the ballista doesnt turn around foolishy.

[@foxunix101]

I won’t lie I love TWWH. I won’t lie I love fantasy and dragons hahaha. That said I wish they would have made sieges like this. I can love TWWH and want it to improve. Here is to hoping

[@paradiseisland69]

Shogun 2 has multiple walls.

[@GurniHallek]

24:20 That cannonball impact made me jusp a little. Serpentine is one of the smaller guns, but damn, that was juicy.

[@MercenaryZack]

I wanna see this again with more Organ guns, consider this a challenge! Was a awesome fight.

[@Kaiser282]

I feel like my enjoyment of Total War didn't die because I just stopped liking the genre. I think my enjoyment died because the games are nothing like this or like they were. Just goes to show why corporations should just take their earnings instead of trying to meddle for higher profits.

[@jerrellallen6271]

ALL of my friends growing up/total war buddies always said "GIN-ettes" or "Gin-Et-eys" but if it's Spanish it is almost certainly "Hen-Ettes" right?

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

The Spanish IPA pronunciation is xiˈnete. -X is pronounced like Scottish lo*ch* -I is pronounced like English s*ee* -n is pronounced like English *n*eed - e is pronounced like English b*eerry - the ' indicates the next xonstonent-vowle combo is emphasised -t is pounced like English s*t*and So its chee*ne*te, with ch as Scottish lo*ch*. Making hinete closer I suppose, but still incorrect.

[@jerrellallen6271]

@@matthiuskoenig3378 wow the "ch" from the x sounds really strange but thanks! Today I learned.

[@sashacontu]

i agree, but i have to say that thrones of britannia have probably the sickest sieges of the whole series

[@huanquocmanh416]

At this point TW siege is worse than Dominions

[@johngojcevic8731]

How?

[@Freakyfish42]

Hey, Dominions 5 has fun sieges.

[@spiffygonzales5899]

I legit thought you put domino's and was gonna put "yea cuz you can't put pizza the hut!"