Warhammer 3 isn't a Tactics or Strategy game

and even if it were, it would be difficult for me to think of a worse example of one.
Here's the petition to have one of the main cut features (guns) be reinstated:
www.change.org...
Here's a video showcasing all of these aspects:
• Testing all defenses i...
And here is an entire playlist of intense Men of War PvP (I sourced almost entirely from this series for the MoW footage in this video):
• Men Of War (Robz Reali...
And here's my Total Decline series:
• Total Decline: A Total...
#dontcarelookscool #guttedfeatures #spreadshite #totalwar
0:00 boop
0:50 Shunning its genre
7:00 Actual tactics
21:45 and when Total War had them
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[@Volound]

join my discord if you want to pick up men of war and experience *REAL* time tactics: discord.gg/cjWJfgM plenty of people in there that would be happy to take the time to squad up and get games with you. also if you liked the look of the game and want to see more of it, my second channel has endless gritty sweaty matches, there are even hour long 8 vs 8 matches. theyre the source of most of the footage of MoW you saw: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYSbn6V6nJqca9U and lastly, sign the petition to have at least one small aspect of warhammer 3 be fixed: www.change.org/p/we-want-guns-in-warhammer-3

[@metrobiusofsollkhav3143]

Hey, sudden strike is just Blitzkrieg dlc

[@foxunix101]

Looks fun I may try it sometime

[@thinkwithurdipstick]

I just noticed something that you may already be aware of but here’s another glaring difference between the older games and the newer. Towers in medieval 2 target all units in their range, putting more focus and projectiles on units with higher numbers of entities remaining, whereas towers in warhammer only target the closest target within their range, which you can use to cheese by running one hero around in circles while bringing arty up to take out the towers with no risk of being shot. Another feature painfully and pointlessly simplified

[@jakubmozdzen9235]

Maybe you should look for help with promoting your petition, in other total war creators like the legend of total war?

[@Volound]

i distinctly remember him saying he was "happy" with the state of these games, so i doubt he cares. youd have to ask. my petition has been circulated and discussed. if people havent lended their weight to it, they probably just dont care. happy to just do their youtube gig and keep getting their early access.

[@robinmattheussen2395]

As someone who doesn't really like many of the more modern Total War games, I do think "Action Bird's Eye Moving Art Gallery" really isn't that bad of a description. The catch is, I think, that's precisely why the Warhammer series has been so successful, because that's what people like about it and want from it. It really is the first time that the Warhammer Fantasy world has been brought to life in such a grandiose way (and I think I've played the vast majority of Warhammer and 40K games), and it's hard not to be impressed by CA's team of artists. In fact, I have to admit that this is probably why I do kind of like the WH 1/2 quite a bit. I don't like most of the strategy elements on the campaign map, and I don't even like Total War battles all that much, but boy I do love watching my little Warhammer dudes duke it out! So I guess I'm kind of guilty as well. I really don't think that CA's WH games have been successful because people find them riveting strategy games. And that's probably precisely why CA has been shying away from making a purely historical game for the past few years. They know their artists can be worked to the bone to deliver these high quality audiovisual experiences, and it's easy to build these over the top scenes in fantasy (Warhammer) and fantasy-ish (Three Kingdoms, Troy) games rather than in the purely historical games. And that's a shame, as I really would like to see CA produce another high-profile historical game. And also for them to stop releasing a new Total War game or DLC every three seconds.

[@benjaminloyd6056]

Well Said.

[@Volound]

remember that 90% of whats wrong with warhammer are a result of it being a copypaste of rome 2. so the "fantasoy pisstorical" distinction has no explanatory power when it comes to laying blame or finding fault. this is a divide and conquer narrative that CA themselves approve of when it assists so well with obfuscating and confusing. third age for medieval 2 was the best TW experience id ever had for years. in many ways, it remains the best. nobody that cares about gameplay or quality should ever find themselves moaning about "fantasy" or pining for "historical". if you ask for a "historical" game, youll get another rome 2, or worse. no thanks.

[@naimfurkansahin1314]

I agree with your spectacle perspective. I was a warhammer fan before i was a total war fan so seeing warhammer in total war was riveting at first. But playing the games for a while i started cheating or cheesing the game more than i played it for real. it was how i realized the game was look to watch and roleplay but actually a chore to play through for the most part. Just watching other players play was a better experience as im someone who played medieval 2 and attila medieval 1212 mod for the most part. I still play warhammer total war campaing from time to time but i play it as a rpg more than a strategy game.

[@naimfurkansahin1314]

@@Volound I played every total war game i could get my hands on and honestly Nu-tw games feel like rpg games with total war mechanics. My favorite is still medieval 2 but i tend to play mediecal 1212 ad mod for attila more these days because of shiny graphics ( i like graphics as much as i like gameplay) . When i play warhammer total war ( 1-2-3) i roleplay as a hero rather than a being a general/commander/king. The experience im getting is closer to dragon age origins than lets say age of empires. single entity units are your chartacters, you can equip buff heal etc. they have skills and magic and rest of the army is of secondary importance. I cant put it into certain words but i think you can understand what im saying. Three kingdoms was the single biggest let down i had experienced in last years because i went into it expecting at least something like rome 2, a game which is fun to play with friends if you agree to some rules beforehand like no infantry pushing, but what i got was warhammer reskinned. I know they released a historical mod but they lost me at first impressions. New mainstream strategy games are becoming more and more rpgish (probably due to success of the genre in the last decade). And indie platform for strategy games is stagnant compared most others. I played MB warband for years for example and its character progression was flawed but fit for the game, Playing bannerlord on the other hand makes me feel weird about their new perk system. How come my character can increase the charge damage of the cavalry as he gets betters at riding a horse? It feels like magic at some times in a world so grounded in reality.

[@eggmin8967]

​@@VoloundI mean fantasy has tanks done pretty well but does a lot worse in almost everything else that probably would work better in the old system but I do like units slightly longer staying power but that's only warhammer it does it so poorly in the other games

[@reeceshugrue6167]

When Shogun 2 FOTS came out it felt like the series was unstoppable, that CA was just stuck in a golden age... Only a year later and everything crumbled. Rome 2 really was when the franchise adopted a completely alien identity.

[@thetowerproject3122]

On the battlefield engineering, this is done extremely well in Med 2 sieges to this day. Attackers use walls of siege towers to shield their armies from defensive artilery and defenders use the remnants of destroyed trebuchets and even destroyed attacking siege towers to shield streets and key locations from missile fire. Players will even put Great Crosses at breaches in the walls so that attackers cant shoot through the gaps, as all the arrows will hit the cross. I have tried to emulate this in modern games and they just don't work the same way; there is no depth for experimentation in the new games. Like everyone says, just moving art galleries.

[@bezyn2291]

This was done extremely well in Med 2 is an epitath to this whole game.

[@andrewmccoy2547]

Wow it sounds really immersive and realistic to block off an entire unit of archers with a tall thin plank of wood

[@Volound]

very well said. also really appreciated your comments on the vids on r/totalwar on my second channel. i still need to find and respond to some of those. i remember hiding my units behind destroyed siege towers. it was intuitive and emergent. nothing like that any more. no systemic game design. just number interactions on the back end. all that can happen most of the time. completely soulless games.

[@bezyn2291]

@@andrewmccoy2547 Get a bow, try to shoot through wood, or around it.

[@hedottenno]

@@andrewmccoy2547 if you've played the game you know the great cross unit is a wagon with a thin plank on top.

[@MollymaukT]

"Doomstacks suck" *flashback to me using english longbow doomstacks back in 2006*

[@iyankov96]

Total War is a mix of real-time tactics and turn-based strategy. It's not an RTS.

[@Volound]

nailed it.

[@vigil2150]

Yes, I think you are quite on the money actually..

[@lazlo686]

@@Volound are you a big fan of actual RTS’s, Starcraft and all that?

[@THENemesisXX99]

Excuse me for being an ape but can you explain what you mean. I get the gist but I would like to hear an elaboration to get a better understanding.

[@AliothAncalagon]

In other words, the very title of this video is already nothing more than clickbait.

[@TheArmchairHistorian]

The fact that half of the trailers include fart and burp jokes as well as featuring throwup and fecal attacks tells me all I need to know about the Warhammer games and the Warhammer "lore." We went from "legendary lord" Napoleon Bonaparte to "legendary lord" Vomit Pissmonster.

[@g2s88]

And in Medieval III you'll get to play as William 'peepee poopoo' the Conqueror who uses a dragon (there was a dragon-like creature depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry so it's historical) to conquer England

[@Akhabet]

Oh hello, Griffin. You stopped popping in my feed recently, did you make a video on the Chinese communist revolution or something equally heinous?

[@bishopbling4115]

Looks like someone's a prude. 😆

[@HackerArmy03]

Neat to see Armchair Historian in Volound Videos LOL

[@malcolm4737]

Griffin! A surprise, to be sure - but a welcomed one.

[@Hasnotalent]

One thing I think separates the old and new players is just a matter of perspective. For you and I, we might look at Total War and see a Real Time Tactics game with a focus on battles, split second decisions and on the fly thinking, but the game also happens to have a campaign map to string those battles along. For newer fans though, I think what they see is a game like Civilization that also happens to let you actually control the battles instead of it being like a board game. The difference between those two perspectives can change the expectation a player has for the battles by a lot. In the second way, you're not so concerned with the tactics and on the fly thinking, you're more concerned with just having an epic battle to give you a visual and represent the two armies fighting way better than Civilization ever could. You're more open to having it stat based, and you're more willing to have single entities, RPG mechanics, everything that makes nu total war what it is. For what it's worth, I don't really think the second perspective is wrong, and in fact may be the much more accurate way to view Total War, at least any game made since Shogun 2. But it does change expectations, and when old fans have different expectations than what new games can bring, it's hard not to feel bitter.

[@Hasnotalent]

Adding to this, obviously if the battle map was better it'd just straight up be better for everyone. The newer players wouldn't really care either way, they'd still get their epic battles, and the older players would actually get a good game again. It's the old Dishonored situation all over again. I guess developers have to decide whether the effort and money are worth it or not. The devs would probably say yes (maybe not in CA's case though lol), but the publisher will almost certainly say no. Shitty situation. Still though, there's some hope. Perhaps a middle ground. Going back to Dishonored, Deathloop is still firmly in the realm of the Void engine and it suffers from a lot of things we disliked about Dishonored 2, but there's been a ton of improvement there too. Guards always spawn in the same place, the AI is way more predictable, certain trinkets and weapons are always found in the same place, all the trinkets are useful depending on your build, and they added tons of QoL features in the options menu. All that shit is great. It's still not good to make videos with due to the rogue-like nature of the game, but the actual gameplay has been improved a lot and I think it's trending towards a more acceptable middle ground. Hopefully CA is able to do the same, and while I don't expect a miracle, maybe they can start slowly trending in the right direction again.

[@Volound]

absolutely. in the case of warhammer, total war exists to serve warhammer, but for everyone else (most of whom have moved on and dont think about TW any more), total war exists to serve real time tactics and gameplay. the best way to show this is to think about what C&C was. i know you liked red alert just like me, so its a perfect example. with RA1, you had tanks as hitpoint pools that DPS into other hitpoint pools at range. in shogun 1 in 2000, that changed to massive formations of hundreds that break each other with morale penalties. the morale goes before the unit itself does. there isnt necessarily any damage happening, you could win almost entirely with maneouvering alone. then in warhammer? the core gameplay loop revolves around single entities that cant rout and who are centre stage - back to fucking C&C which TW was set to revolutionise and largely replaced. so TW has abdicated in the most fundamental way.. the loss of what TW can bring. we used to have good C&C and good TW. now we have no C&C and shitty TW, a TW-lite that is just morphing into a shitty C&C. it sucks. also what you said about deathloop is interesting. i never paid much attention to it beyond the earliest "gameplay" footage where i spotted movement jank and concluded it was set to be another dishonored 2 (void). on launch i checked steam reviews and watched 1 video from stealth and felt like i had seen everything. but what youre saying is interesting. it shows the developers at the very least aware of the situation, at least in the case of arkane. ive likewise seen my critiques of nu-TW being acknowledged by CA and with their patching reflecting my critiques, and have heard from insiders that even the devs at CA watch and agree with my videos. its a shitty system and an inefficient arrangement (especially when youtuber relations staff go rogue and declare war on youtubers on behalf of their entire studio), but we do what we can. there do indeed exist mechanisms to enable developers to get back on track, as unlikely as it is. if youtubers informing customers and publically scrutinising and analyzing can be one of them (and you have been in the past), then thats something someone should take up the mantle of and do. but i would do it even if there was no hope of ever actually enacting change or influencing improvement. i do it purely out of interest first and foremost. pure ludology.

[@warmak4576]

Yeah but the new fans are many and have money so they will never come back to the old ways

[@MaMastoast]

I don't think it has to be a question of new vs old fan. Been a fan since Rome 1 and Still a fan of Warhammer 2 (not so much 3).. Always viewed Total war as Civ but with interesting battles... Did in Rome 1, still do in Warhammer 2. Do I think the series has lost some of it's depth lately? Absoutely, but I also think diving into fantasy brought some of the dreams I've always had about the series to life... Now, I'm not a warhammer fan, so I'd perfer a more grounded fantasy universe like LOTR or something.

[@WhoAmIHmmm]

@@warmak4576 not always

[@ignacio1171]

Nobody mentioning how you can place barricades and protection anywhere on the map, (open field and siege battles) in Napoleon Total War?? This is possible when you're holding a position on the campaign map with an army for 2 turns straight, and any infantry unit can deploy them...

[@Volound]

also in medieval 2, you could cover the campaign map in forts. you could put stakes all over the battlefield with all your longbowmen. but yep napoleon had lots of field defenses. shows it has already been done over a decade ago.

[@uncletimo6059]

@Kamil S wait wait wait civ 4 with all dlc is a masterpiece civ5 is garbage, civ6 is a sin against humanity

[@the_honma6472]

It´s Heroes of Might and Magic, but the battles are in real time instead of turn-based.

[@user-no5os8yh6q]

Pretty much this

[@rubz1390]

Do you consider HoMM to be a bad?

[@hedottenno]

This is how I felt when playing wh2

[@bigboi5952]

So it's a good game, got it

[@lilc234100]

@@rubz1390 HoMM is a good game, Total War as HoMM is a downgrade in every respect

[@jadekavanah9312]

I think people are just completely missing your point. Total war doesn’t even have to be realistic in order to be good. It just has to have actual depth, which is often found in realistic games because people don’t have to invent that depth - they just copy the depth of real life. But depth in a fantasy setting could just as easily be made if CA put any time into planning before they started making a new game. Imagine the magical barriers that could be put up or terrain that could be moved or other cool uses if magic wasn’t just a gimmicky tool. Imagine sieges where the cities shown on the campaign map can not only be played in but also interacted with and destroyed and not just a set piece. Or all the new, magical settings to be fought in across the diverse world of Warhammer. It’s such a let down when you see other, older games do things that should be possible to do on a much grander scale nowadays :/

[@Volound]

exactly. and they miss the point on purpose, you can see it when i interrogate them about it. they cant help leave comments, and they cant help respond, and they usually respond completely dishonestly, which is exactly what i expected and wanted. warhammer fanboys dishonestly playing dumb and then arguing like weasels to deal with the cognitive dissonance of what they intend to do later and what they see and realise right now. its pathetic, really.

[@claudiochianese9850]

Depth in game design is a continuum. There isn't something like "here you don't have depth, here you start having it". A game like Command: Modern Operations has an enormous amount of depth, more than any Total War game ever. Next to it, even Attila or Napoleon look very simple. Does that make it automatically a better game? Not at all. It's better for a kind of players, it's a successful game because it reaches the design goals it intended to reach... but that's true for Warhammer, also. It was meant to be a relatively mass market, graphically spectacular, somewhat beer-and-pretzels strategy/tactics hybrid with an emphasis on faction diversity and fast-paced fantasy battles, and lo and behold, it's exactly what it is. It has the amount of depth a certain type of players would like. Not the perfect amount, obviously, but in that ballpark. While there is surely some overlapping, TW: Warhammer playerbase isn't the same as Dominions V playerbase: both are fantasy games, conceptually similar in high-level design, but the difference in depth is meant to be, not accidental. Now, you could say a game is bad if it doesn't reach its goals: if a grognard wargame ends up being too simplistic or if a narrative-focused RPG has a shitty story... but that's not the case. It's not like CA wanted to make a game *you* would have loved, and then failed. They wanted to make a game *another customer base*, actually bigger than yours, would have liked. And they succeeded at it.

[@Volound]

"Depth in game design is a continuum. There isn't something like "here you don't have depth, here you start having it"." false. you completely made that up. "depth" in videogames is a term in a context where it has meaning. depth in videogames is the density of the possibility space generated by the rules of the game. that is something that can be objectively defined and measured, and as i already told you on the other comment thread, i have been involved in playtesting because i have a lot of experience of launching games and immediately figuring out the possibility space. what i have done on youtube for the past 10 years is convey the depth afforded by videogames. if what you said was true, i would not be able to have done my past 9 years of youtube, as i would never have been able to assess which games are fodder for what i do on youtube, and would be permanently stuck. watch a god damned GDC talk and stop talking out of your ass.

[@claudiochianese9850]

@@Volound "depth in videogames is the density of the possibility space generated by the rules of the game" and indeed, as a game by definition has some rules and could potentially have an infinite amount of them, there can't be a state of zero-depth or a state of full-depth. It's a continuum. That's what I said.

[@Volound]

@@claudiochianese9850 ​ depth in videogames is defined and discrete and folds out in massive slabs from the rules of the game. it is not a continuum. it is built in giant angular blocks with every little tiny interacting system that affords new possibilities to the player. describing videogame depth as a fuzzy amorphous infinitely divisible continuum is fucking nonsense.

[@yedrellow]

If you read some of the battles Julius Caesar was involved in, some of this battlefield engineering would be really suitable for a Rome 3 Total War. The ancient world really had the manpower to build things purposefully for sieges or occasionally battle, so there's no reason why similar mechanics couldn't be involved in Total War. Even in the medieval period there's examples of battlefield engineering, eg. the battle of the golden spurs.

[@lt3746]

Imagine if you could replicate Alesia and build your own temporary walls when attacking. Would be awesome

[@QUAKERSATTACKS97]

Image building earthen siege ramps over 6 turns so you can just run up to the wall. Or speaking of Caesar, the besieging army actually gets to defend a camp against both besieged and relief force. Or late game ancient trench warfare a la Pompey v Caesar. Building permanent or temporary bridges on map. Instead we’ve regressed to turn one magic ladder spam

[@Dr.eeeeeeeeeeevil]

​@@QUAKERSATTACKS97 we can dream, maybe one day.

[@CharlesDantonio3]

Total War Warhammer isn’t a good Total War game, but it’s totally a good Warhammer game.

[@ddenozor]

This guy wants Skaven to build sandbags and put machine guns behind them.

[@Volound]

this guy wants all his games to be deliberately designed to be as appealing to 14 year old children who have never seen a PC before as possible

[@SmoughTown]

Hey bud - just want to say I only recently discovered your videos. And as someone who has been a massive fan of warhammer total war...you've really changed my perspective with your insightful arguments. I joined total war with the first medieval (playing Rome, Rome 2 and Medieval 2) and for some reason I hadn't picked up on ANY of the issues you have with the games. The monetisation policy, the loss of depth and tactics and the spreadsheeting of later battles. So yeh, cheers for kinda opening my eyes. I'll always enjoy the warhammer games for what they are but I also can't disagree with the damage they've done to the brand, and your work has convinced me to go back to those old games!

[@tyrongkojy]

About the "turning any situation into a siege" thing, let me tell mine. Shogun 2. My damaged army, not full was caught off guard by three, full enemy forces. I was all but guaranteed to lose, but I was determined to at least hurt my opponent so that my second and third armies could come in later. I looked around the battlefield for any advantageous hill I could die on, and found it. A small rise that was topped with a small forest and backed by a sheer cliff I could use as a wall. Perfect. Yari Ashigaru in front, at the base of the little mound, backed by katana samurai, with several archer units behind that just up the hill, all within range of my general, all experienced veterans. The enemy came in and surrounded me on that open part of the hill. I lured their archers closer to get in range of mine by using my general as a lure. Their concentrated fire devastated them. My general's powers helped boost the spearmen and samurai as the fought off advancing unit after unit. They kept charging, but faced with almost a dozen units of spears and swords many of them broke and retreated before even getting there. Almost every one eventually stopped routing and returned, but by then, my tactic of having a massed wall of death, coupled with raining arrow death upon their rear forces, resulted in the single units that then returned from retreat being an easy mark. THREE FULL ARMIES slaughtered. Sure, I didn't actually inflict THAT many casualties to them, only about 6-700, but I didn't lose a SINGLE unit of my already damaged, not full army. Yeah, had to retreat them to reinforce, but I fell in LOVE with the game doing that. My general would not let them retreat, and I was 100% prepared to lose my shogun (Date, I believe) in that battle. Not one full unit fell. The three hundred Spartans aint' got NOTHING on those soldiers!

[@henrik3775]

Lose some weight.

[@nicholasthuya7683]

@@henrik3775 gain some muscle

[@henrik3775]

@@nicholasthuya7683 eat healthy

[@amongdrip8073]

@@henrik3775 What kind of douchebag starts a conversation like that?

[@Lolm3ist3r]

I've been a huge Men of War fan for years and it's great to see someone giving it the spotlight it deserves. It's funny how Total War players that were disappointed and disgruntled after the disaster of Rome 2 are congregating around the same games, not because they are superficial copies that emulate the original Total War, but the simple fact that they are good games that have tactical depth and good gameplay, a feature that every TW game since Rome 2 has sorely lacked. It's sad to see the Total War franchise go the way it did and I think it's safe to classify it as a write off at this point, but new games are being made by people who enjoyed the classic TW and are incorporating it's best features and design principles. Franchises rise and fall, but good ideas last forever.

[@Volound]

its been fascinating to become aware of how a lot of the total war youtubers that were around with me back in 2012-2014 have abandoned total war and now play men of war. its just about the only sanity and sense i can see in the whole clusterfuck shitshow that is nu-TW (TW post-rome 2).

[@awakeandwatching953]

@@Volound gates of hell even gives a go at adding a turn based campaign to the Mow formula plus its a better optimised version of the engine and the 3rd person direct control is a nice addition

[@Jilktube]

Naval battles are so awful I try to autoresolve them whenever possible. And it's only gotten worse. In Attila, things usually devolve in to a massive blob that completely breaks all immersion.

[@jimmybobby4824]

I love naval warfare and always play the battles, but they’ve never put any effort into it

[@spiffygonzales5160]

Empire has great naval battles. The issue is the game doesn't help you with micro managing them so it can be annoying sometimes. Shogun 2 is pretty much the exact reverse. Also great, but they're so easy when you know how to play them it's also annoying to play them.

[@nicholasthuya7683]

@@spiffygonzales5160 Napoleon has the best naval combat

[@amongdrip8073]

@@nicholasthuya7683 Random insta-kills are kind of annoying though.

[@HenriqueRJchiki]

Attila is great youre just bad though

[@benjaminloyd6056]

Just got into Men Of War recently. It has such tactical depth. I used to play COH, bit it feels so simplistic now.

[@Sandstorm11911]

Chess is reeeeally simple too though. Love CoH and it‘s pace even though it‘s less realistic.

[@DreadRising]

Coh is about counterplay and requires immense strategy at high lvls of play.

[@magnuscritikaleak5045]

@@DreadRising Coh2 is equally good with mods in comparison to men of War Assault squad 2

[@johnniedavis9582]

Total war does have the habit of taking good ideas and mechanics out in newer games. Funny enough as bland as 3k is, creating forest fires has real tactical application in the game. It can be used to burn armies out of position because it actually kills units. As far as I know no other total war game has a mechanic like that, it's all for show in other games. They get a good idea and never expand upon it just throw it out. Each game has that one good idea only for it to be never used again.

[@agrippa2012]

Doesn't fire have a strategic use in Atilla during sieges? I never played it but i remember reading about it once.

[@johnniedavis9582]

@@agrippa2012 it's mostly to burn cities down in real time, or starving the defenders out for some time before going into a siege battle in Attila for debuffs on the defending army, it's pretty easy to cheese it as there can be outlying farmhouses that add to the percentage which makes the debuffs progressively worse for the defender. Think they called it siege escalation at the time which they abandoned as it's not in other games.

[@SIX598]

Pretty sure units next to a burning building will catch on fire in Attila fyi

[@Volound]

yep, i would set forests on fire at night and send entire armies fleeing. the feature felt out of place in an otherwise completely untactical and unbalanced game, so it was not appreciated at all. its a bit like rome 2 having line of sight that hid units behind hills (no trees required). the game was terrible, so it was completely unappreciated.

[@johnniedavis9582]

@@SIX598 you are absolutely right, it's a game mechanic tied to burning just buildings down specifically and only thrones inherited that mechanic, forest fires do nothing in those games.

[@SliderFury1]

Personally, I don't care what it is or what it's trying to be, as long as it's fun.

[@ProgPiglet]

thats the thing thats seperating the gaming community at the moment, not just with total war. the casual majority of gamers like you that just want a fast food dopamine hit and will buy into all the marketing bollocks versus the gamers that want to actually interact with said game and it's mechanics. Guess what happens when the scales are tipped too heavily on the casual gamer's side? Battlefield 2042. Cyberpunk. COD. Diablo 3. Forza. Any genre, you name it. What more evidence do you need to see how terrible this line of thinking is. The line between a game just being eh, fun and being absolutely trash is so thin. You people are like a gaming embodiment of those Wall-e jellybabies, but hey good for you.

[@SliderFury1]

@@ProgPiglet 🤣🤣 And the line between a game being enjoyably complex and a clusterfucking time-wasting maze of soulless bullshit is pretty thin too. And so is the line between being disagreeable, and being an asshole. The fact of the matter is, the majority will always want something more simple and straightforward, and you're just annoyed that TW went that way and got more popular because of it.

[@TimmacTR]

Even though hard to pin down precisely, there is research about what the *conditions* are *for emergent gameplay* The answer is basically: 1-*Interactability* of game systems/mechanics: outputs of some become inputs in others. This affects the "game space" in a multiplying fashion, hence the more mechanics interact between each other, the more it can scale in unpredictable ways and results in possible ways to play that were not initially planned out by the designer 2-*Agency* (or: autonomy/freedom/depth): amount of strategies available to the player at any time. The different things you can do, mechanics you can interact with 3-*Consistency* of systems and *intuitiveness* : this has to do with the ability to project, hence plan. This is also where *"realism"* matters, because realism borrows systems from the real world that are intuitive and therefore require no learning (hence why so many "not-a-gamer" types are able to play a super-complex game like FM) So, in short, emergent gameplay comes from: "games with multiple interconnected game systems and mechanics that are consistent and realistic"

[@Volound]

i would say that "realistic" is a bit of a goose chase, because some of the best immersive sims (the pinnacle of emergent gameplay) are anything but realistic, and yet they still achieve a "possibility space" through "depth" because the "rules of the game" are well thought out and clearly motivated by allowing "player agency". the blink of dishonored that ive used as an example before a few times (as it is one of my favourite tools in one of my favourite games) is anything but realistic, and yet it multiplicatively interacts with almost every other aspect of the game in almost every possible context, so there is almost no limit to what can be achieved. it is of course true though that intuitiveness helps and is a shortcut to accessibility. you see this really well with men of war, where a far more casual game like company of heroes primes players with all of the superficial aspects and allows them to get immediately engaged with the systems and its simulation. instead of "realistic", i would say, "easily conceptualised and able to be utilised spontaneously"

[@TimmacTR]

@@Volound Yes, true. It's a shorthand to mean "Consistency" and "Intuitiveness". For example magic use in a fantasy setting: not realistic so to say but can be still be consistent and intuitive. Contrarily: you can imagine a game with huge interconnectivity of systems and a lot of agency but completely abstract: in this case emergence would be more difficult because players wouldn't be able to project strategies creatively. Basically unintuiveness adds complexity too (the bad kind).

[@BobMcBobJr]

@@TimmacTR I think what you need is that anything "unrealistic" needs to be intentional and either self-explanatory or explained. "Fireball" is unrealistic but intentional and self explanatory. The enemy firing all of their ammo futilely trying to hit one dude even after missing the first several volleys is unrealistic and unintentional though self-explanatory. For something intentional but that needed to be explained, I think a good example is the conservation of momentum through portals in Portal. You could see it when you jumped through your first portal. It was explained via the visuals. For emergent gameplay, it must be unintentional. Therefore, it must be a realistic extension of the other intentional gameplay. Say your game has no specific cover mechanic. You can't order a unit to deliberately crouch behind something. However, you can move a unit behind objects and the object will block shots. This is (while unimpressive) good emergent gameplay evolved form the mechanics "unit can move," "terrain stops bullets," and "unit is destroyed when hit by bullets."

[@wisecontragio172]

It's a DLC platform

[@firebird4491]

I don’t mind since most of the expansions are actually pretty damn good.

[@thinkwithurdipstick]

@@firebird4491 well be prepared to buy them into perpetuity because they will never stop milking this last game

[@firebird4491]

@@thinkwithurdipstick Warhammer 2 had a lot of really good expansions so if they keep making good ones for Warhammer 3 I'll buy.

[@Looser_23]

I don't get these premieres. Do you not have the video ready, yet? When why not release it as soon as it's finished?

[@DaveBuikema]

It takes a long time to render and upload large files

[@DaveBuikema]

@Roko Babarovic yeah idk then. 24h is a long time

[@Volound]

maybe there are some people who get to see it earlier than everyone else? god only knows what could be responsible for this injustice.

[@nicholasbruechert5570]

lol I just watched 25 mins of a guy tell me about a game he doesn't like, and why he doesn't like it. Then proceed to tell me about a game he does like and why. And he never figures out he could just not play the game he doesn't like and play the one he does. Something isn't made specifically for my taste whaaaa whaaaaa, adequately sums this up.

[@Volound]

ive never played warhammer and never will (unless you count its clones three kingdoms and troy). empty whinge.

[@nicholasbruechert5570]

@@Volound You haven't even played the game? lol, the internet and it's clowns.

[@Volound]

yeah, i dont play shit games. "it is clowns"

[@nicholasbruechert5570]

@@Volound cool, thanks for an empty and worthless opinion.

[@Volound]

​@@nicholasbruechert5570 "opinyin" weaselling as a coping mechanism to deal with your shit game being acknowledged as shit.

[@Tizi1999]

On the upside, I can play WH3 with 8 of my bros

[@luukwestland7288]

I appear to be quite late to this, but here we go: I feel quite a lot of sympathy for this part of the community because it seems to mostly be comprised of more veteran fans of the series who are unhappy with the new direction the series is taking. People who loved the slow burn of the old battles and delighted in executing a grand plan they prepared to get out of sticky situations. Don’t get me wrong, I love that as well and have many fond memories of that with Shogun 2. I also love the Warhammer games, but for very different reasons. That is where the clash between this part of the community and new fans mostly lies I think. They just offer a different experience now. I love the Warhammer games because I am a ‘’Thematic/lore’’ player. I enjoy making armies that might not necessarily work really well, but are fun to see in action because I like the lore of the universe. I do not look forward to Warhammer 3 because I wish to outsmart my enemies, but because I get to ‘’roleplay’’ my favourite factions. So in that way, you are actually correct. They are not RTT’s but roleplaying games for me. Nevertheless, I do think you tend to ignore the ways in which the games can be fairly tactical if you want them to be. Luring enemy cavalry into your backlines, casting a ‘’freeze’’ spell so they can’t move, charging them in the flank with halberds that you kept in reserve, then quickly surround them so they can’t escape. Warhammer is mostly comprised of these kinds of situations, which are mostly micromanagement. Still tactical, but far quicker and indeed a bit messier. It’s all about reactions and knowing what to do in what situation, while being very quick about it. There is very much a clever way to play these games, but I don’t know how much you are aware of that. I agree that they are more simple than their predecessors, but this has mostly just made them more accessible. I am completely willing to sacrifice a little depth on the altar of accessibility if it means more people can play and support the games I love so much. Furthermore, There is one thing that I think the Warhammer games actually do better than the older games: variety. The WH games are asymmetric to their core and fighting each race feels very different I feel. This is also where most of development money goes to I think. Variety is what keeps me playing , Every race is a unique experience that I am indeed willing to pay for, which is why I don’t mind the DLC’s that much. I hope you got something out of that, if anything.

[@imaloser5689]

Here here

[@sedghammer]

Everything from terrain, morale, to flanking and positioning has either been muddied or so diluted that it might as well not be there. Overall, battles are decided much too quickly. And to top it off, the turn based strategic layer has very little going on. Even the original Homeworld had a ballistics system, but instead we've got good ol' RNG. Doesn't positioning on the strategic map matter for choosing terrain on the battle map? This is largely not the case as there's not enough granularity to actually choose favorable terrain. What about logistics related to army? Hardly there, another missed opportunity. How about irregular troops and fighting, surely irregular warfare is present in a game about Total War? Nope, not even represented, which is tied to lack of logistics system. What about scouting, or forward cavalry units that engage the enemy separately from when the main battle takes place? Nope, not even any true skirmishes. How about rotating out units that are fatigued or begin to break? No way to reliably disengage, because all unit formations behave as if they're one entity. Most battles are over before this would even matter. How about population and training population representing the amount of recruits you have access to, rather than endlessly refilling "Troop Bar"? Nope.

[@bandtown8587]

I have complicated feelings about this whole crusade against modern total war you're on. On one hand I agree with a lot of your points. About units having HP and the difficulty modifiers and the way chain routing isn't possible. Those all ring true. Nevertheless I have 1371 Hours on Warhammer 2 and it is one of my favourite games. I've had huge amounts of fun. And I'm not going to discount that experience of having lots of fun, just because there are compelling arguments against why it is 'good'. I'm playing to have fun, and Warhammer has delivered on that. P.S I played like 50 hours of men of war and had no idea that there were so many entrenching options beyond sandbags lol. Time to get back into that game soon.

[@Volound]

ive had fun playing shit games, they were still shit. i played loads of really mediocre games when i was a kid and wasted loads of time meaninglessly "engaged" with an unstimulating challenge doing weird repetition and pointless tedium and meaningless rote. then i played better games and realised i wasted my time playing shit ones.

[@magmakojote1663]

@@Volound but Warhammer is not shit.

[@Shellslime]

For me it's the opposite; I've done 700 hours between Warhammer 1 and 2 and I just... can't anymore. They're not good games. Sure, I played a lot of them, but how much of that was simply because my mates were bored of Rome 2 or Thrones of Britannia? WH:TW is just... fine. It has many flaws that I'd like to see improved in order to actually make a fantastic Warhammer game, something with actual depth and charm.

[@MasonDixonAutistic]

@@magmakojote1663 Yet no one has been able to point to a single example of gameplay that conflicts with the proposition that Warhammer is shit. Because Warhammer is shit.

[@magmakojote1663]

@@MasonDixonAutistic what

[@arkady896]

Honestly, why didn't they just copy paste guns and arrows from shogun 2 into warhammer? They seemed to have nailed things there. Bows/arrows especially felt like the best they've ever been with their weight, flight and sound design.

[@Volound]

the answer is tragic. CA market analysts determined that warhammer fanboy figurine collector children are too incompetent and too stupid to be able to handle real guns.

[@Paul.M.]

@@Volound I think it's the norm nowadays to streamline, simplify and compensate with aesthetic appeal. It isn't just the warhammer fanboys, it's the society that the fanbase draws from. A good example of this, though not on the same scale of absolute degradation is the elder scrolls series. Skyrim is acclaimed as a world class game, and in some areas it is. But when compared to its predecessors, especially morrowind, it doesn't hold a single candle to those in terms of roleplaying and storybuilding, which is the very genre the games are marketed as. At the very least, as you've said in a previous video, bethesda has improved the games in other aspects but have taken a step back in terms of the features that define the genre. What a shame this is happening. Total war is just gone, there is no point in playing the newer games, if you're looking for actual strategy and tactics. Having more than 3 functioning neuromotor synapses and a basic understanding of algebra is enough to perform well in nu total war. Using actual tactics is superfluous and irrelevant, dissapointing and sometimes evem punishing. The denominators of the genre, strategy, tactics, thought etc. mean nothing. Now I ask you, is this a bad thing? Yes and in a disgusting sense, no. It's obviously bad for the people that have grown up with the older titles and have grown to expect actual gameplay from games, but at the end of the day, they wouldn't have gone this route if they didn't make fat income. So in a twisted sense, the company is doing a good thing. For itself. People consume, buy and pay no mind to what they actually consume. As I've said, it could be due to societal changes, the consumers themselves demanding a dumbed down, simplified and soulless larp experience, or it could be the company itself breeding this type of consumer, since they've had a near monopoly on the genre. Could be a combination of both. At the same time, I am no sociologist and I come from a different culture, society and market from that of the english speaking world so I couldn't know for sure. I am asking for your thoughts on this since you have more experience.

[@arkady896]

@@Volound What's even funnier is that actual tabletop operates on true line of sight and has a rule where only the first rank or two of guns (depending on terrain) can shoot anyway - so it's not like proper guns are a novel concept in warhammer anyway.

[@davidbodor1762]

@@Paul.M. I feel like Fallout would be a better example for that. There's a SHARP dumbing down with Fallout 4 and an even sharper one with 76

[@dredd_3238]

To be honest, I don’t see a problem with it. Yeah it might not be a rts, but not everyone wants to constantly micro for an hour and have to study actual war tactics for a chance of winning.

[@IneligibleOne]

@@demomanchaos you do realize that in Total war warhammer that two cheap units will almost always beat one elite unit of double the cost?

[@Dramn_]

@@demomanchaos wtf does table top game mechanics have to do with video game mechanics and why?

[@thelonecookie3592]

I mean, Total War was supposed to, from the beginning, have to require a decent understanding of war to get far in the game in terms of the world-map and the battles themselves. A level of micro is gonna be necessary in any level of strategy. Current TW is just insane micro with no understanding. - Sit there and spam every hotkey for meta spells/activation abilities as you deal with every unit at once, as your armies lack any cohesion at all, because you can't just form them up and advance as one, for any number of "Wind" spells will just travel down your lines and kill every unit it hits.

[@Dramn_]

@@thelonecookie3592 the tactics change, in line with the setting

[@ventidius9359]

I'm a bit in two minds about this. To me, the Total War series has been about being a pseudo-realistic simulator where the attention to detail sold the experience. I never expected the series to give me a fully accurate and realistic experience, but things like only being able to fight with the army you bring (as opposed to insta-build troops on the battlefield), effective formations, fatique, realisticly animated 3d models, combat making sense etc, was enough to give me the illusion of realism and immersion. These things are still there, but the way combat is being handled in modern tw games, strips off the last vineer of that illusion. Example: Iove the warhammer games becouse Iove the setting and nostalgia for the table top. I love seeing units that I know as plastic models in all their animated glory. But gameplay is putting me off as you instantly see it for what it is: glorified plastic models doing animations. No longer can I zoom in and feel a connection with individual soldiers doing their thing. To me this was one of TW strenghts: It made you interested in what the common dudes where doing. Subtle animations like reloading a musket, or seeing the guy holding the flag go down (or look at a line of regiments, flags flying and drums beating for that matter), helped immensly in this. Nowadays, its three minute battles that very obviously ask you to focus on modifiers and special buttons, rather than rely on the strenght of your men. Its arcady, and its a shame. That said, over the past few years I have been playing the NTW3 mod for Napoleon and its fantastic. To me, its still Total War, but as it should be. Its slow paced, so getting units in position in time matters, the map are huge so you feel like you are actually battling over a region, rather than a sandbox, line of sight is a thing, so you need to scout, etc etc. And naturally, napoleon being a classic at this point, animations are well thought out, make sense and add to immersion: Cannons are drawn by horse teams and need to deploy before fireing, rather than magicly move on their own, men reload their muskets, units have flagbearers, officers and musicians, etc etc. Thinking about that: I would enjoy @volound taking a look at NTW3, I would be curious to see what you think

[@damiuscynthum3136]

This video is not about TW:WH3. I did like the subject matter of this video, but it was not about warhammer 3 at all. I wish I could have enjoyed RTTs before now.

[@jamesradcliffe4351]

I looked into why warhammer 3 doesn't have a army painter and a good chunk of people think its because the toy company from hell is trying to reboot their ip and probably don't want something that has army painter in their ip for 40 bucks when its really expensive to buy a little bit of molded plastic from them.

[@morathi9956]

yeah GW is beyond evil

[@boarfaceswinejaw4516]

Here comes volound once more to tell us about how using magical green pirate ships to blast through more than half the enemy army is about as tactical as shitting on a chess board, or how a single humanoid hero shouldnt be capable of cleaving straight through a solid chokepoint formation just because he has a 4,35% bonus of fuckyou against smart formations. So what if the "backbone" units of the various civilizations are shittier than whatever top tier units are available after 10 turns. that doesnt mean that the game lacks strategic depth. youre just cynical. Just consume.

[@Looser_23]

You know what it does defenitely lack? Guns.

[@cole8834]

Once again I reiterate that not even the tabletop is retarded like this. TWWH is a franchise all its own. Not Total War. Not Warhammer. Appealing to the "modern" gamer.

[@boarfaceswinejaw4516]

@@cole8834 I wholly agree. I am a casual fan of 40k and someone who enjoys warhammer fantasy a fair bit. but Total War warhammer is really a severe dumbing down of both warhammer and total war and its really quite sad. the astra militarum (imperial guard) is my favorite military faction in 40k, and their closest equivalent in warhammer fantasy is the Empire, so i get extra sad when i see empire rosters be filled with nothing but the big overly elaborate troops whilst the infantry usually exists as cannon fodder.

[@HackerArmy03]

"Just consume." Definitely one of the smartest Total War coomsumer, LET'S GOOOOOOOOO

[@Volound]

just consome product and get excited for next product

[@loreabidingcitizen9384]

It was difficult to work out exactly what I don’t like about the more recent total war titles, but you articulate it perfectly across your videos. Great work.

[@SplendidFactor]

Ngl, I've had a better strategy experience in Age of Wonders 3 than in Total War Warhammer.

[@borisguy1986]

Sometimes people forget that games cost money to make and developers will often focus on what players are playing in their games and not other features. In the end games are to have fun. Not critic and demand a game to change cause it’s not what you want. There’s so many other much more strategic games…

[@snakeguy8646]

Tbh I’m more upset that I don’t have many options to REPLACE these games, especially as a historical Total War player who’s gotten shafted since they’re focusing on Warhammer now exclusively.

[@cpp3221]

The problem is a) they have a monopole on the genra b) Obersimplifying is taking away the fun

[@tybaltmarr2158]

Sieges have been the biggest step backwards in the series. I used to play 2v2 sieges both on Shogun 2 and Rome 2. Mandalore gaming summarised it best: towers and rams, towers and rams…

[@tryhardname]

I may be crazy but I'm pretty sure there are guns in Warhammer.

[@Volound]

check again.

[@tryhardname]

@@Volound rattling gunners? Jezzelsnipers? Handgunners? Thunders? Most the vampire coast roster? I don't know what the Cathay and Kislev units are called but they are in there. Ogre pistols?

[@Volound]

not guns. see the petition.

[@cpp3221]

@@tryhardname you mean reskinned bow ?

[@thedukeofdeathpt6262]

Why even bother calling them Creative Assembly at this point? Their games show literally no innovation at this point with each entry and seem to become more and more stale with each sequel. They have the most ironic name in gaming ever. Just call them Mediocre Assembly.

[@vigil2150]

I've personally enjoyed Warhammer 2 for endless hours (Warhammer 1 much less) and don't agree with the sentiment that it's a strategically devoid experience. But I do find wisdom in your words, it does make me realize how hollow the new games can be no matter how much I enjoy them. How much lost potential and lack of effort there is behind the new Warhammer games removing tactics in some instances to instead replace them with just stat increases for enemy units. It's immersion breaking and completely soulless. I've found my own ways to circumvent some of those gripes I have with the Warhammer games. I just wish CA didn't have to make me work for it. What I'm ultimately saying is that I like the Warhammer games, but I agree with your sentiment to a degree.

[@benjaminloyd6056]

Thank you for sharing your perspective.

[@Volound]

well where is the strategy? if you play a game like supreme ruler 2020, that would very obviously be highly strategic. there is a constant trade-off of short term for long term, of military for economic, of a highly educated and technologically capable population with an uneducated and explosively reproducing one. where is the strategy in warhammer? i dont see it. the game is targeted at 14 year old warhammer fanboys that figurine collect, so it wouldnt be sensible to expect any. i dont. ive never heard a warhammer fanboy describe strategic consideration in fucking warhammer total war LMAO. not once. it will never happen. also i really dont care about those kinds of games. i play RTT and not grand strategy. maybe you meant to say "tactical" and not "strategic", but that would be even easier for me to contradict. ive got entire videos showing that, and nothing shows the lack of tacticality of fuckin warhammer total war better than a 2 hour 8 vs 8 match in robz. see my second channel for those.

[@vigil2150]

@@Volound I think the Warhammer games have the most basic level of Strategy and Tactics. In the campaign, maintain public order in your settlements, maintain a good or neutral relation with your neighbors. Very basic level shit. On the battlefield it's all about either overwhelming your enemy with mass produced high power single entity units, basically using magic to do everything for you, or essentially crap stacking with cheap mass produced trash units. The most basic of basic tactics and strategy. So don't misunderstand me I don't think the "Grand Strategy" games CA produces today are either grand or strategic, they are essentially paint the map simulators with pretty figurines walking around the map. That's what I meant when I said the games are not devoid of strategy. They are not devoid but you cannot really sink your teeth into them either unless you just want to abuse mechanics and exploits. Which I personally enjoy but to each their own. On the battlefield, I don't need to speak on the difficulty modifiers, that subject has already been torn to shreds and I fully agree with anyone who wants its complete removal. But even if I do that I cannot ignore how mundane and dull the battlefield experience of the Warhammer games can be, it's incredibly simplistic and removes tactics from the battlefield in order to streamline it for a far, far more simple audience. I cannot speak on tabletop or figurine collecting cause I've never done any nor am I interested in it, I see it as a waste of money and time. In the end I will admit that the biggest drive behind my extensive enjoyment of the Warhammer games is because I found the fantasy world and pretty models far too enjoyable to let go of it. Strategy and tactics in the Warhammer games are as barebones as they can be. I hope I've made my position crystal clear.

[@MasonDixonAutistic]

@@vigil2150 Except Warhammer was 'solved' very quickly by LegendOfTotalWar: there is a small set of objectively superior strategic and tactical decisions, and Legend just basically does all of them. The result is hours-long streams of the most-boring gameplay imaginable, as he grinds noun-resources, noun-constants, XP for characters, ever higher-numbers, then steam-rolls until everyone is bored. Total War always had this problem of most campaigns never being finished but instead abandoned; CA failed to ever address this and now act as if it's never been a problem at all, so it's actually gotten worse. There is no overall systems of tension running through the core design. There is only the spreadsheet.

[@imaloser5689]

@@MasonDixonAutistic But that is a problem in every game. There is no total war game without an objective best way of playing. Perhaps I'm too cynical but the strategy in the older ones is just as much of a lie with a couple bells and whistles.

[@Galymane]

I disagree with most of what you have said, but thank you for the video.

[@Volound]

your comment is the closest ive come to being contested after nearly 3 hours and hundreds of comments. other than that, its just incels from 4chan saying "seethe" (only word they know), and people leaving dislikes without elaboration. so thanks for the comment. you have the biggest balls on the other side.

[@bxzidffbxzidff]

@@Volound I didn't dislike before I saw all your edgy replies to people

[@robrobroblol]

Anyone else absolutely detest the fact that CA removed officers and standard bearers from Warhammer, despite the importance of them in the tabletop game?

[@jaspervanheycop9722]

Yes! They have this whole system of unit upgrades that could easily be made into different officers or flagbearers, but no... instead it just provides an invisible statbuff and only exists in the campaign (where it doesn't matter since the AI is worthless). It's a whole field of pre-battle strategising that they just don't have (anymore, btw, since you could upgrade unit equipment in Rome 1 and it even had a visual effect in Med 2)

[@benjaminloyd6056]

I would even be agreeable to the idea that heroes are attached to units, that way you don't have the problem of little single-model units running all over the place dodging thousands of arrows and being sniped by spells.

[@Laucron]

An actual sin

[@cymoncheng9644]

yeah thankfully theres a mod for that

[@benjaminloyd6056]

@@cymoncheng9644 what is it called?

[@jorgenguyen7641]

I have so much respect for people who are actually good st Men of War. The micro is insane. I still remember more than 10 years ago when I killed someone's Panther with a 2 pounder-armed armored car. It felt so good.

[@chrisjames3272]

Rewatching this, I want to point out how astounding it is that there is no army painter in modern total war. For reference, to change the colors of an army, you just go into the main db and change THREE FIGURES. If I can do it in warscape engine in 4 minutes with no access to tools the devs have, why can't they get some junior coder and an artist to make a menu option modulating it live?

[@Bluemangrup]

People complained a lot about lack of sea battles in Warhammer 1, and I don't think they were justified then with the largely land-based map. But when 2 came out and introduced a very water-heavy map and *two* water designed factions, they had a fair point. The problem with a traditional TW sea battles is the focus on boats and maneuvering your troops from one boat to the next. I can't imagine how they would accomplish something like that in TW:WH3 considering the massive variety of units

[@dmyt58]

Land units should be placed into transport ships of a few different shapes and sizes. Navies should have their own units. Lifestock was usually transported in the cargo holds of ships (like the conquistadors with their horses to America). Giant creatures on the decks of ships wouldn't really make sense. The creatures can panic and potentially even roll over the ship in normal weather, let alone in storms.

[@larrydavid6233]

the hyperbole in this comments section is hilarious. I had to get some popcorn while continuing to read. what a bunch of salty nerds lol

[@praisethesun.praisedeussol6051]

I feel you

[@stormy6029]

Meh, to each their own. I think the Warhammer games are brilliant and by far the best thing they've done so far.

[@wfr1108]

hell no. Warhammer is awful. unanimously agreed by long time total war players as the worst.

[@stormy6029]

@@wfr1108 who cares what "long time total war players" think tho? They're a minority anyway. BTW I'm a long time player and imo warhammer smashes every other total war game.

[@ardentfire3956]

It's interesting how you pointed to Men of War as an example of good RTT since it has an amazing Warhammer 40k mod. Fans like me ended up waiting more than 5 years for the flavorless chalk that was Dawn of War 3 while a fan made mod for another game offers a totally superior Warhammer experience while having no budget and at 0 extra cost to the player. It really goes to show how companies like SEGA and GW have developed ass backwards ways of making their products and developing their brand. Everything official is sabotaged by incompetence and greed while passionate fans have to cobble together what they want for themselves.

[@Volound]

yep ive seen that game. i had people stream it in my discord to me to show me it. it looked way more like warhammer than anything CA has put out in 10 years, despite only being a mod for a completely different franchise.

[@rmbox3234]

How can you say anything about TWH when you have said on multiple occasion's you have never played it?

[@Volound]

easily. just listen to me do it. and read the comments from people saying im right about everything. impressed?

[@Pilps]

Liked, reminded on my phone! Looking forward too it! 😁

[@HackerArmy03]

And here's Pilps too! 😯 Neat to see you here :3

[@Volound]

curious to hear what you think. cheers pilps 💪

[@samt9468]

The premise is well supported. A tactics game should include use of the environment, order of battle, an emphasis on precision timing, and emergent gameplay. Modern total war has regressed so much in these areas in exchange for audio visual appeal to a very specific and niche audience, that a turn based game like Fields of Glory 2 can feel more competent in all these aspects. This includes precision timing, which is particularly sad.

[@Volound]

"vast minority" - black trump supporting warhammer fanboy, 2022

[@claudiochianese9850]

Fields of Glory 2 is a mid-complexity Slitherine wargame. On the tactical side, it's deeper not just than Warhammer, but deeper than the whole TW series since the first Shogun. I really feel you are misremembering stuff out of nostalgia.

[@samt9468]

@@claudiochianese9850 I really am not. Shogun total war as the first and simplest game among the older titles, had more tactical depth than fields of glory 2. High ground advantages are adjusted by how high and steep that uphill advantage was for both ranged and melee. You could adjust the size of each volley you unleashed for ranged units by simply adjusting the depth and width of their formation. As units got fatigued, they moved slower forcing you to adjust to that factor to achieve large scale and daring maneuvers. You even had rainfall that could arrive and disable your firearms, forcing you to adjust your plans. Fields of glory 2 does not have this. Instead it relies on its abstract turn based nature and the large number of units you want to field as reserves to overcome single RNG rolls determining a combat, to simulate a very large scale battle that total war games never focused on.

[@claudiochianese9850]

@@samt9468 Fields of Glory is the PC version of a tabletop wargame. It doesn't "rely" on anything, it's a set of rules made for minis. I think you're confusing realism with complexity. A game can be completely abstract and still very complex. Think Go.

[@samt9468]

@@claudiochianese9850 In other words, you have no evidence to prove your statement that Fields of Glory 2 is, "deeper not just than Warhammer, but deeper than the whole TW series since the first Shogun." Please do not make statements you can not back up with evidence in the future. That is the last thing I will say on this matter.

[@ryanwhitbread6855]

Whilst alot of what you are saying is true I don't think it matters for a game set in the wathammer world. Just realise that most players are there because they want a fantasy experience not realistic strategy experience and that's what CA is giving them.

[@ryanwhitbread6855]

@@demomanchaos why do you assume i thought that? I never said they couldn't have both. You guys complaining don't seem to realise that alot of people can be turned off games when the strategy side of things gets too intense. And when it comes to game sales having a broadly appealing game is always going to take precedent over the wishes of the minority of purists and nostalgia fans that wish everything was like the games they played 20 years ago.

[@ryanwhitbread6855]

@@demomanchaos just admit it's not for you and move on bro, I'm sure you can find your perfect game but stop pissing in the pot and ruining it for everyone that does enjoy it. You would be the sort of person that complains that Bloons TD isn't a "real" strategy game, you actually sound like such a sperg its hilarious.

[@thelonecookie3592]

@@ryanwhitbread6855 I mean, you can't exactly blame people for being pissed off at CA and Total War in general. Rome Total War 1 on release won 6 awards, and was one of the best selling games of the early 21st century. - People don't get turned off by solid strategy if they're fully aware that it's what they're paying for. - It's not Nostalgia Fanboying or Purism to expect a game series to develop, improve, and expand as it carries on into future years. I'd actually go so far as to say many of the Historical Series fans would have absolutely adored Warhammer TW if they hadn't tried so hard to scrub away as many good traces of the older games as possible to make the games easier to pump out. It's already common shady business practice to find ways to simply re-sell a product you already have, rather than try to make new ideas. - So what C.A did moving from Historical to Warhammer is simple: - Gut the game of many of its features, make it more Arcade-y ready to canvas it with whatever brand/franchise you want to milk next. - Partner with/Revitalise a suffering franchise (Warhammer - No secret that its fantasy franchise has been suffering for a while, and lacks any serious representation in the gaming industry.) - Drive off your older/dedicated/wiser audience in exchange for new players who are only there for that one franchise, rather than Total War itself, so won't actually look at the older, historical games beyond the most recent titles. (Three Kingdoms/Troy). - Slowly re-introduce the old features "as new", to justify a £60 price-tag on the successive releases. (Levelled/Layered Sieges, Place able City Defences, etc). They'll do this again in a maximum of 5 years with a new franchise when they're done milking Warhammer, guaranteed, and I'll happily put a bet of £50 on that, because that's exactly what E.A does. Simply put, it's no longer a passion/love project with the aim of bringing epic battles that require strategic thought and tactics, relying on army cohesion and smart gameplay. - It's just blank canvasing with the aim of keeping this style of simplified gameplay, ready to be slapped onto whatever franchise they go for next, to minimise the development effort/cost needed to adapt beyond the art-style.

[@AllpostsFilms]

Just need to check but have you given warhammer 1 and 2 a go? If so what did you think of them?

[@rubz1390]

He refuses to.

[@AllpostsFilms]

Well he is missing out tbf there wonderful.

[@rubz1390]

@@AllpostsFilms Doesn't seem like you have any idea who he is and what he stands for.

[@AllpostsFilms]

What is he allergic to fun?

[@rubz1390]

@@AllpostsFilms Just watch a few of his video and decide for yourself.

[@marcocavaco3150]

Seeing you mentioning Sudden Strike just made me realize that We might be a different kind of players. There's the people that like Men of War and people that like Company of Heroes. Some like Cossacks, others Age of empires, Some Sudden strike and others Command and Conquer. Regarding Total war. Theres the one kind, and the other kind..

[@SIX598]

I like and have played all of those games I don't think the comparison you are trying to do here really work tho

[@darkfireslide]

The continued use of RPG systems outside of games where they are part of the core design is continually dampening the experience of many modern games. RPG systems aren't inherently broken or uninteresting. A fantastic example of this is Final Fantasy V, a game where a player can choose one of many character classes and the combined use of those abilities far exceeds the impact of the arbitrary leveling system, opposing almost all conventional RPG game design and creating a brilliant experience in the process and allowing skilled players to complete the game in 8-10 hours as opposed to 30 or 40 just based on skill of use, completely glitchless. Then there's the Four Job Fiesta for Final Fantasy V, in which a bot selects 4 character classes for you out of the 28 or so for you to use and complete the game and the game is well designed enough that with the right tactics and game knowledge you can win with virtually any composition in about 8-12 hours in a speedrun. So we see that even in RPGs there is room for emergent gameplay and player choices and that Warhammer is just exceptionally pathetic with its constant spreadsheeting "abilities" that seem to always just be a shift of numbers and not changes to the game state itself

[@countmarkula1993]

Warhammer (2016) is still full price on Steam. This is horribly egregious because the devs want you to buy all 3 Warhammer games to unlock all factions to get the full experience. That's $180+ to get the full experience...well almost the full experience, you 'd still have to buy several DLC ranging from $10-$20 bucks each on top of that $180.

[@MollymaukT]

Hey, if you want to get the full Warhammer experience you need to sell a kidney to be able to buy a full army

[@malcolm4737]

Warhammer 2 was the first Total War game I've launched since Medieval 2 and that was something I was hoping to get - Medieval 2 with dragons, goblins and elves. To say the least, I was surprised when I realized: - that one elven hero can btfo two full units of elven spearmen; - that cities are represented by a wall and a patch of land behind it; - that walls are useless; - that cavalry is basically non-existant; - that infantry is a no-go; - and that units can't exist without general; Once you realize, that archer/monster spam is the only effective and satisfying way to play, your army composition becomes a single variant and every battle goes in a same way. CA managed to achieve an impressive feat: imagine making a game, where a half-naked elven lady can shoot fireballs, while riding a dragon - and somehow managing to make such a game boring. And I'm not a hardcore TW player, but if even a pleb like me managed to notice these glaring issues, then, well...

[@andrearottoli6177]

I think it's a lost cause, CA earns more than enough from warhammer and I think it depends on the fact that part of the community that previously revolved around historical games has found a richer dimension here (map size, dynamics such as magic, etc.) and over time they have adapted and in a certain sense converted. With the release of troy I have had confirmation that historical titles are no longer of interest to CA, after all they think from a profit point of view. Having said that, I find that by now what "nostalgics" feels in terms of expectations is growing more and more and is becoming an unbridgeable gap and the next historical title will certainly be a disappointment. All that remains is to wait for someone to realize the market margin that exists and create something new from scratch. Again, we are at the mercy of the economy.

[@Volound]

yep. nothing good will come from CA, period. it is all down to other devs with actual ideas and ambition.

[@Stoeter09]

Manor Lords will Blow Up i Tell you

[@Tallgeese556]

Cry

[@Volound]

in your own time, please.

[@LetsPlayKradnium]

I have to say youve really opened my eyes Volound. I played Warhammer 2 as my first Total War game. Was never interested in strategy games and picked it up because I really liked the character designs. I never really had "fun" in that regard while playing, but put up with it for the art. Then I saw footage of Medieval 2 in your video and it looks so much cooler. It actually feels like each unit is a solid character in the world with weight that reacts to the environment. Meanwhile in WH youre basically just mashing big flag icons together and zooming in occasionally to see a trex. The art direction of WH3 has really gone down the drain with cartoony, flat textures and a "mobile" look, so not even that element can save it for me anymore

[@Volound]

thanks meng. glad i could help clear the haze (thats there for a reason, built over years) so you could see things more clearly. you did it yourself, i just presented it.

[@shush429]

Warhammer and Medieval are liked for those different reasons. Medieval 2 has better strategy within it and is a 'real' total war game. Majority of the players however don't look for that in a total war game anymore. They want to have a feeling of being in command of a nation engaging in war, warhammer does this quite well, several races and a large map to play on. The player feels like they are conquering different nations and spends the battles as a movie of sorts to zoom in and watch the epic fight scenes. It delivers the feeling that players seek when playing the game. Point is that the games although in same series are for different target audience and the franchise will continue to follow the path of what makes CA the most profit. Total war is essentially a campaign map conquering simulator with totally accurate battle simulator as a side mini game.

[@mootedtols4865]

@@shush429 maybe, but total war is (or should be) about the battles. Look at the original shogun and medieval total war. The campaign map is as simplistic as it gets. The depth is in the battles. I haven't touched warhammer or troy or any of that. There are so many menus and sub-menus of numbers, it's all about the campaign, and as you say the battles are like a video, but it doesn't even do that well. It's just a mess of numbers. Look at something like Battle Isle from the '90s, that's a turn-based game with a video for battles. Warhammer is stuck with bad battles and inherently unstrategic campaigns. It's a bloated mess that has more in common with a card trading game.

[@DAoCShadowblade]

If twwh3 has less ways to influence stats, an army painter, single units able to deploy a multitude of barricade/trap style items, counters to said barricades available to some units, corpses that blocked line of sight, and competent 8 player multiplayer... then it would be good? If you want to recreate saving private ryan, you could use a skaven weapons team army. Matches your end scene perfectly!

[@Volound]

it would be getting things right that it previously had wrong. ive seen those. green piss streak laser shooters with completely fucked targeting and completely fucked projectile physics.

[@MasonDixonAutistic]

How to make TW good Step 1: CA opens up dialogue about their game design choices and why they made radical changes in 2013 Step 2: They start applying minimal ethical standards to their approach to community management and stop encouraging harassment and defamation campaigns in spaces they control Step 3: The rest will now happen automatically

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

@@Volound They're green because the bullets are warpstone-infused. But yes, the physics are fucked.

[@eGregiousGames]

The irony about you talking about people being "neophobic" and unwilling to listen to new ideas is that you seem to be willingly ignoring the tradeoffs CA are making with these new games, the kind of experience they're moving towards (a more accessible, RPG-style game. Not everyone WANTS 8-hour battles) and ... overall just making a lot of bad-faith arguments with invalid comparisons. Yeah, game developers sometimes drop features in order to put new ones in. It's disingenuous to pretend that Total War Warhammer is just as easy of a product to make as previous games that didn't have flying units, monsters or such a massive unit variety. It's a shame because you do make some good points about how things could be improved or options that could be added, but your own bad-faith arguments and toxicity towards "casuls" completely overshadows that.

[@rgddydshevchenko2448]

Lol, 8 hour battles? His favorite game is shogun 2 and those have battles that barely last for 15 minutes. Also, the older games are plenty accesible. Ui and camera controls are the hardest thing really. I admit hes definitely a hardline traditionalist, but thats just unfair

[@MasonDixonAutistic]

We have the words of Ian Roxburgh, the game director, on what CA are attempting with some of their designs. Specifically, the 'survival battles' that are the big 'innovation'(which CA thought were so great they made them the first gameplay showcase) are meant to be the kind of battles which Total War used to achieve by itself, with it's basic game mechanics and design. Now, survival battles require loads of gimmicks, tower defence mechanics, are artificially lengthened by the use of waves spawning in and enemies that are stat-weakened to give the player unearned victories. CA keep trying to do what the old games did, using their new design philosophy, but it doesn't work without tortured stat-fiddling and even then, often fails. You see it in all the new games, not just Warhammer.

[@trippingtonproductionsco.7641]

Spoilers: It’s a gatcha game

[@wtfronsson]

Foxholes and sandbags and trenches are nice with a more modern war theme. Maybe CA could go for something like that too, if they really wanted to make a completely new kind of game. But it's just that Total War has always been about formations. Those stopped existing pretty much after WW1. And WW1 itself was very static and rigid. You basically had your fortified lines and sometimes you sent out waves of men, and that's about it. If you make a game where you micro all of the minute detail of a WW1 battlefield, it is kind of flying in the face of how it really went down. There's a reason why there aren't many games about the combat of WW1, but there are many both before and after. You would lose a core part of Total War switching to a more modern set of tactics. Also to point something out about Men of War, the scale is miniscule compared to a Total War battle. Thousands vs. a few hundred. MoW is a great game series for sure, but there isn't seriously that much to compare with TW. Even if you did find some kind of obstacle and fortification building mechanic fitting, then you'd be dealing with the same issues of pathing and moving formations that already mess up sieges. This is not to say TW shouldn't return to their roots, and build on that instead of the nu-TW direction. I'm mostly on board with Volound on that whole thing. This is me mostly saying the video was kinda pointless this time.

[@Volound]

pretty spergy interpretation of the video. everyone else realised i was giving an example of a solid RTT and how it plays, and contrasting.

[@wtfronsson]

@@Volound MoW plays nice but it's completely different from TW. A TW game should never try to do the same things MoW does. Nothing spergy about pointing that out. Glad you enjoyed the game though.

[@Volound]

@@wtfronsson banal.

[@indianpotatofarmer6508]

Now hear me out, and all the shogun 2 and warhammer fan bois can just leave, but Attila is a pretty good game to be honest

[@jakoplieger7454]

Yes i think too

[@Volound]

runs at sub 30fps when battles start, i wouldnt know.

[@Ioannis_Moraitis]

I agree too and mods makes it even better

[@timokaaarp7779]

​@@Ioannis_Moraitis I don't think a single hour of my 1000+ hours in Attila has been in vanilla. Mods make it, for me - I wouldn't touch an un-modded recent TW title with someone else's 10 foot bargepole (nevermind mine)

[@SwordCunt]

You mean the Rome 2 Expansion that's the exact same game just with shifted stats for better "balance" while it retains the same shited unit interactions and utter lack of any real physical unit attributes? Not to mention the fucking HP system of course.

[@ForgottenNoble]

This is like critiquing red alert as a real-time war simulation. I enjoyed your video though. I think a person shouldn’t compare a game trying to emulate real warfare to games that are and always have been Arcade war games more focused on flashy battles, set pieces, and Rock Paper Scissor combat. Comparing Call of Duty to something like Arma or squad isn’t really a comparison they are in their own lane. In close I agree total war needs to really add and polish up features found in past total war games such as naval combat and perhaps more customizable factions. It does seem they are adding more multiplayer options and a start to more customizable options. Again I appreciate this video it was well made and I enjoyed the gameplay showcased.

[@Volound]

man, this comment really says it all. it really does. if you were around when total war first came around, then you would know how groundbreaking shogun 1 was. going from red alert 2/tiberian sun to shogun 1 was like going from watching stoke city to watching barcelona. one is a small time casual RTS experience, and the other is full battlefields with thousands. as ive said time and time again, the BBC used the engine of RTW for time commanders. total war and its scope brought real time tactics games to the mainstream. the fact that you can say the opposite of total war 22 years on makes my point perfectly - that the concept of total war has been completely misappropriated. i cant tell if you missed my point or just missed the context. you definitely missed something, and your comment makes my case better than any comparison ever could by itself.

[@ForgottenNoble]

I came in with Rome total war. I don’t see how I improve your argument. I know that game wasn’t very strategic it feels more Arcady than most of them. I feel that Napoleon total war or perhaps Attila were the closest to being a simulation that total war got and probably ever will. I would like them to go all in on realism I just don’t think that is what the series has ever been about. If it is then they have failed spectacularly 😅. Thanks for the response I gave a sub I’m interested in your point of view.

[@reybladen3068]

Armies had been building defensive positions every time they can since ancient times. Would love to see this in a TW game but the number of structures you can build should be limited by your available supplies. And this supplies could be determined by proximity to an. available settlement or supply lines/roads.

[@redcoat6184]

Most of the points regarding Men of War are from the mod RobZ realism or Valour (If you are going to criticize Warhammer with mods, most of it's issues can be fixed like GCCM etc). Whilst you can build sandbags in base game Men of War AS 2 (and the previous MoW games) you can't build foxholes. I think you do have some good points about Warhammer but as of yet, you don't appear to have bought Warhammer 2 or played it so It comes across as a hatred of Warhammer Total War. It has a lot of issues but it's a lot of fun especially when you have mods to fix it's pet peeves.

[@Volound]

men of war is robz in 2022. if youre playing MoW, youre on robz. and the foxholes work because of pure geometry and physics. the game has geometry and physics. warhammer doesnt, and that cant be fixed with mods. men of war mods bring out the best of a good engine. warhammer mods would be triage. ive seen people showing off the mods that "fix" warhammer. theyre valiant attempts at peening a turd into a more familiar shape. also i despise all shit games proportional with their shittiness. your thought terminating cliche about warhammer doesnt work when i shit on troy and 3k for the exact same reasons. you could pretend i havent played those in order to minimise what i say about them (and everything thats wrong with warhammer is also wrong with them, because theyre exactly the same game), but that would be about as worthwhile as pretending my arguments are at all contingent on what ive played or have not played.

[@redcoat6184]

@@Volound As I have said in another video, you are making an assumption based on the other games in the series. You could be entirely correct with your critique but I think you would have a different opinion if you played Warhammer 2 or even Warhammer 3. I know it hasn't got a lot of the things that it had in Rome or Medieval 2 for example but it's a different game with different focuses (Not always for better and I think the fact they cater more to the multiplayer community has been a net negative with the mass changes to make foot lords more viable). In conclusion I think your critique could be expanded and improved by playing the Warhammer games. It's up to you at the end of the day but don't pretend your criticisms couldn't be better by playing the game.

[@MD-yd8lh]

@@redcoat6184 Volund talk about fundamental flaws. I think you just cant get it.

[@redcoat6184]

@@MD-yd8lh Read what I said. I never said he was wrong or that it wasn't about fundamental flaws. I said that by not playing the game (any of the Warhammer Trilogy if I am correct) his critique is not as precise as it could be as it relies on assumptions and other peoples assessments which could be incorrect, meaning his criticisms are built upon a poor foundation. If he played the game it would improve his criticisms and make better content.

[@Volound]

instead of actually observing an inaccuracy, you speculate about a possible means by which they could arrive, and you do this after 18 months of critiquing these shitty games and having all of my observations be repeatedly confirmed, and all of my predictions be consistently confirmed.. seems really passive-aggressive and effete to go about like this. just get on with explaining where i said a single thing that was incorrect. otherwise this seems like absolute fuckin gobshite. P.S. not interested in playing shite games. wouldnt play them even if i was paid to (and ive been offered money to play bad games and review them).

[@jacobdouglas2812]

The older Campaign Coop had horrible desync issues. Now eight players with consecutive turns, they better get it right or its not gonna work past turn 10.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

CA has increasingly neglected MP for years now, culminating in Troy releasing without one. I doubt they've suddenly had a change of heart; this is almost certainly nothing but a hollow marketing ploy and an attempt to increase hype for the title in the final weeks before release, after a very lackluster promotional campaign. This is similar to BF2042 having larger player numbers in a match as a marketing point, but when the game released (and not counting its myriad of other issues), the maps were so barren and uninspired that the game ended up feeling less crowded in spite of having more players on a given map. It screamed "let's throw this in at the last minute for hype and think about the implementation later" (later meaning never).

[@firebird4491]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 I very strongly disagree to both your points. Firstly that the implementation of an 8 player campaign is nothing but smoke and mirrors. CA is well aware just how commonly requested it is to expand the player count for the multiplayer campaign option. The idea that it was thrown in last minute because their marketing campaign sucked is really far fetched and is honestly based on no information whatsoever other than assumptions. Implementing this kind of feature last minute just isn’t possible when they’ve told us about how they have created two additional multiplayer specific campaigns within the game on top of synchronous turns. Secondly the comparison to BF2042 also simply doesn’t work as a comparison. BF2042s new larger player counts simply didn’t work because of the horrible map design. The maps were too big (largely because it was initially designed to be a battle royale game) and there was too much open space. With warhammer 3 expanding the campaign player count it’s simply having additional factions under player control rather than the AI.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

@@firebird4491 CA may be well-aware that it was widely requested, but that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about their track-record of consistently neglecting multiplayer ever since Rome 2, and that is based on verifiable evidence in released games that you can buy right now. How many times must CA mislead and outright lie to you before you understand that their marketing is hollow? Did you forget how they so quickly abandoned ToB, cancelled support and promised DLC's for 3K, and introduced fantastical elements to Troy after previously saying they would keep it more grounded? There is nothing out there to make me believe they will implement this 8-player co-op successfully. Marketing and promising are easy; delivering not so much.

[@thehelixgroup]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 Imagine trying to get 7 people to play even if it did work. I can barely get one person to play Warhammer 2 coop I'm just lucky a good friend of mine now owns the game and is willing to play with me. Just look at how difficult it is to get raids together in an MMORPG herding nerds is like herding cats.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

@@thehelixgroup Yes even if CA did implement a robust 8-player co-op option, the demand for it just isn't there. It's a loss either way; whether it's a zero-budget feature tacked on for marketing, or an expensive, efforted endeavor that few would be able to appreciate anyway.

[@paxonheiny5589]

I have to disagree with saying Warhammer 3 isn't a tactics or strategy game. I've played basically every total war game, as well as Men of War, and I have to say that Warhammer 3 is as much a tactics/strategy game as any of the other games you mentioned. Your argument feels disingenuous saying that Men of War has actual tactics compared to a game like Warhammer 3 because you can manipulate terrain, place traps, and because battles take longer. Sure those features are good for added tactics and can play into your overall strategy, but that doesn't make Men of War more of a tactical game, it just makes it different. Army comp, positioning, knowledge of factions you are playing/fighting against, etc. all play into a warhammer battle, and just throwing units at the enemy is a good way to lose in many cases. Also, everything you mention about positioning ranged troops for better firing arcs, taking the high ground for favorable melee, and even mass routing an army with perfectly timed charges from multiple angles are things you can do in Total War: Warhammer. For example, some units cause fear and terror which can cause enemy units to temporarily start to flee. This is useful because it can lead to mass routes or cause certain units on the enemy team to be forced out of position because they are fleeing. A game being more bombastic and fantastical with more streamlined mechanics doesn't make it any less of a tactical or strategic game, and this video seems like it's in bad faith. I'm not saying you can't hate Total War: Warhammer, but if you're going to criticize it, at least be accurate in your criticism.

[@TotalWarCAT]

Hero build, positioning, knowledge of race you are playing/fighting against, etc... All these are tactical elements of, for example, the famous Multiplayer Online Battle Arena DOTA 2. This did not make the game strategic or tactical. When we define the genre of a game, we must consider the main features, and not small insignificant elements. Warhammer is an RPG with elements of tactics and even less elements of strategy. Also, the existence of Warhammer Total War affected other games in the series. Now all new Total War games are the same castrated. There would be no criticism if other СA games remained strategies.

[@paxonheiny5589]

@@TotalWarCAT What do you define as strategy then? In my experience, all games that have been considered as part of the RTS/grand strategy genre had these element; top down/overview camera, economy, buildings/stations, units to produce and command, territories to capture, enemies to destroy. These are the basics of what make an RTS to me, whether that be the more traditional RTS games like Warcraft and Dawn of War, or more grand strategy/conquest games like Total War and to some extent Sins of a Solar Empire. While Total War: Warhammer is more "dumbed" down compared to older Total Wars and other RTS games, and unfortunately has had a hand in making newer total war games less unique and deep, it still is part of the RTS/grand strategy genre. It has the top down camera, a campaign map with settlements to capture and manage, units to produce and command, an economy, diplomacy (supposedly much improved in the upcoming third game), and enemies to destroy.

[@cole8834]

Oh, late comment; HOWEVER, There is no other possible setting more suited to avatar conquest than Warhammer. Warhammer: Dawn of War had an army painter. Shogun 2 Total War had an army painter. Total War... Warhammer... doesn't??? And of course Avatar Conquest is more than an army painter; but my point stands

[@Volound]

and it is a good point. this is one of the most absolutely embarrassing aspects of nu-TW

[@AMasondude]

If you want a real challenge on Total War Warhammer, try the ranked multiplayer :)

[@L2Xenta]

I never really thought about this... but now that I think about it I guess I never really perceived Warhammer 2 as some kind of pure blood RTS ... I wouldnt get triggered if someone called it an RTS ... I can see how that can be an impression. Dont know actually, it has lots of RPG elements too... Wait, what was Heroes of Might and Magic series as a genre ? I guess its a Mix of that and RTS and maybe something else...But of course its a Real Time game not Turn Based. The RPG elements at least in my opinion are also quite strong. P.s. going into the points of the video, Sieges yea... most complain they now in Warhammer 3 just take in some Tower Defense mechanics added rather than being actual tactically challenging strategy sieges, I have to say I dont play the series for sieges because its a really weak part, and could have used a good improvement , In my opinion these sieges are almost as simplistic as a Mobile Game on top of the Campaign game. They didnt invest a ton of resources into developing this and so avoided a lot of programming and engine related breakthroughs , a bit lazy and cheap but hey we are still buying the upcoming title.

[@Volound]

yep, they didnt need to do anything, so they didnt.

[@L2Xenta]

@@Volound Yea, I actually very passively avoided even using "Tactical" in my comment there, as game description. Because I really dont think it has a lot of focus on it. But to be fair to myself ... heh, I actually am New to the series , Warhammer 2 being my first title. So I never really played Total War games for the great tactical aspect of it. P.s. I dig your accent :D

[@Raptorsified]

Man i did not know what i had as a kid downloading men of war and shogun 2 in one summer. MoW has stayed true to itself. I just wish they would let you draw trnches like roads in city builders. That would be the pinnacle of defensive tactics. I appreciate the love given to a little known title. Graviteam tactics however is the pinnacle of ww2 strategic simulation. From the laying of radio cables to correct shot for your artillery, to enemies becoming more fortified the more days the battle progresses. I simply don't have the skill however to play it.

[@mcsmash4905]

graviteam games are one of the few franchises that can proudly wear the simulator title

[@randomguyblank1616]

You know for the longest time I wondered, as a warhammer fan AND a fan of the older Total War games (napoleon was my first TW), why I just couldn't get into Total War Warhammer. As a fan of both ips I should naturally be into their combination, but no. Even with my friend touting Total War Warhammer as really good, using that good old adage of unit diversity too, I still couldn't get into it. Honestly, I don't think I've ever gotten into a Total War game where they had armies tied to generals, not that its the whole reason just some correlation. I think your videos are really helping me figure out why I never got into the newer games.

[@Odjivak]

I don’t agree on a big part of your video but it’s really interesting and I think we can agree on the tactics part. I’m a big fan of total war and i’m very disapoint with the lack of historic and more realistic battle. I’m Also a big fan of warhammer so of course i love the last games (they are so much problems with wh3) but i feel that sega is taking a more merchandise path that make me fear for The future. But finally somebody that critisize the franchise and especially the warhammer side that is often too much idealize. (Hope my comment is clear, english isn’t my main langage)

[@canibaltyranid]

Very glad to see MOW make an appearance on the main channel in depth. Keep touting bob the builder, he needs some shine

[@Volound]

plenty more to come from MoW hopefully. _holeh fucken shit_

[@canibaltyranid]

@@Volound O....mi......gawwwwwwd

[@AnalyticalReckoner]

CA drools over those mobile and games as a service bux. Next games will have NFT units and skins and an afk mode.

[@raw1175]

5:25 from what I heard from mandolore the 8 player coop worked well and I would hardly call him a CA simp

[@Volound]

game isnt out yet so who cares what anyone says.

[@raw1175]

@@Volound True but he talked hard shit on many parts of the game

[@Volound]

@@raw1175 i dont care about game reviews and i dont care about other youtubers, but i clicked through it and there was nothing being said about gameplay, he was usually talking about visuals and aesthetics.

[@stevewalsh3001]

Now I want to buy Men of War AS2. Thanks Volound!

[@DreadRising]

Volound I understand you do not like the direction CA has gone with Total War, but unfortunately its where the money is. They will continue to cater to that audience as long as it bring money for further developments.

[@Volound]

i know. total war sold out to the toy company from hell: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZa1aJWcmbV5d5Y

[@hundun5604]

Ah Men of War. One of my favourite rts games. You can repair vehicles and tow artillery pieces with a jeep or so (from your enemy). It's really a fun game to play. But I thought this video was about a Total War game.

[@yugatrasclart4439]

Dinner ready, volound video ready. Let's go

[@paradoxington]

I love Total War: Warhammer III, but not as a Total War game. I never even refer to it as Total War, just Warhammer III. I think trying to have more traditional total war elements in it wouldn't work very well with demons, beast men, monsters, ogres, dragons, elves, and all the other crazy stuff the game has to offer. I think the stats, abilities, single entities, talent/skill trees, quests and overall gameplay work amazingly for Warhammer III. However I think the wrong lessons were learned by the company while making these games. This game didn't succeed as a Total War game, it succeeded as a Warhammer Fantasy RTS with Total War elements. Attempting to translate that into historical Total War was a massive blunder and led to games that don't feel like Total War and aren't even in the same league of quality as Warhammer III. The Warhammer games were an amazing experiment and should have become their own thing, historical needed to stick to traditional Total War

[@paradoxington]

Impressive like/dislike ratio btw, it's damn near 50/50

[@saber2802]

what was the game around 4:33?

[@Volound]

4:27, title of the game is shown.

[@vladimirvovk8284]

i dont think there's any point in expecting a good total war game from CA at this point. It seems that warhammer will be succeful regardless of how shallow the tactical aspects are, so it would be logical for developers to take the game further into this direction. Next total war games are probably going to continue to "evolve" into these strange MOBA-esque games, where the main selling point would be hero customizaton. After all, didnt Prince of Macedon say that nobody at CA even played older titles? They probably dont even know hot to make a good RTT at this point, so there's no sense to even expect it. This is all they know how to do now. What we really need is a spiritual successor, after all, there IS a niche on the market, now that total war has voluntarily turned itself into MOBA. The only problem is, in the world we live in the dumbing down of Total War will not be seen as a cautionary tale, but rather a success story, considering sales of warhammer, so i wouldnt expect any efforts from big studios.

[@JarlFrank]

Nice comparison of MoW with CoH at the end there. I used to like Company of Heroes, but once I played Men of War I could never go back. CoH just feels too arcadey, proper real-life tactics often don't work the way you'd expect them to because the level of simulation is very low. Tanks getting their hitpoints whittled down by small arms fire, infantry not getting hit because their hitpoints are still too high, etc. Meanwhile in MoW all that counts is projectile impact and armor strength. Tanks have different armor values front back and sides, infantry even take more damage from headshots! Every projectile is simulated, which means tactics work as they would in real life. Infantry in buildings are almost invulnerable until you pull out the HE shells. Tanks don't have abstract hitpoints but take mechanical damage on their different parts and can even have their crew killed. The higher the degree of simulation, the more tactical a game becomes. And the best part about simulationism is: you can make the game as complex as you want, it's still easy to learn and understand because everything works as you'd expect it to. No need to learn an abstract ruleset.

[@Dramn_]

I'm unsure as to how Warhammer has almost anything to do with actual simulation in any historical or sensical manner. There are flying demi-gods on dragons, giant comets falling from the sky, mortars shooting over hills and... peasants with pitch forks fighting giant fungus men. I do very much enjoy the video, but I also love warhammer♡ Though the time I had in Shogun 2 was incredible, up until the game would crash every 2 minutes and became unplayable on steam ;( Medieval 2 as well

[@WhoAmIHmmm]

that's a problem of your system, ask the community for solution lmao

[@Dramn_]

@@WhoAmIHmmm You're right, it is a problem with my system, because my system does not support the optimization of Shogun 2, because Shogun 2 runs shit on new systems.

[@WhoAmIHmmm]

@@Dramn_ I don't really think so, I don't even have a gpu, most of my specs are relatively new and yet it runs pretty good lol

[@WhoAmIHmmm]

@@Dramn_ and there's gotta be a way to fix that but i gtg to sleep so bye

[@Dramn_]

@@WhoAmIHmmm the minor update made it unplayable

[@victorhand1679]

Back in the good ol days u didnt saw numbers on screen u didnt saw healthbars on screen. The games were not a simple stat chekcs of "higher stat unit wins" u had many factors that are just gone now like stamina, terrain or even formations no pike walls no shieldwalls İN A GAME THAT MARKETS İTSELF AS RTT. And before anyones says that the focus of these games is not the infantry tactics on the battlefield then whats the point of having them? Are they just simple spell fodder for your magic users? And the ai in battles gets so many cheets that makes melee infantry/cav useless. Even the idea of a doomstack is just bad. İn the older games u cant just spam the same unit and win everybattle even with horse archers u would run out of ammo when facing more then 1 stack with enough numbers u would loose. Warhammer is not a Total war game its a Warhammer game with Shity Total war Rome 2 mechanics.

[@MasonDixonAutistic]

@Wiegraf I didn't play the first one, but most health-bar RTS games have an option to turn them on or off, and some of them have them off by default. This is because in such games, it's not necessary to have that information on-screen most of the time. Once I knew how many hits, to which units, from what units would be lethal, everything fell into 'cognitive shorthand' and health-bar info was redundant. That was the case in Tiberian Sun, Warcraft III, Starcraft 2 and so on. Only game where I have to pay attention to health-bars is modern TW and the far-better Sins of a Solar Empire.

[@johnwest5957]

I downloaded the faction unlocker to play as Empire in the Beastman campaign. I lost every battle, no matter my tactics. Until I just pumped out the right units to counter... battles looked like a Hollywood mess, no tactics, and I won regardless. I knew the series went in a direction that wasn't trying to stimulate medieval warfare anymore. Its just a game with large unit groups. It's aesthetics. And because of that, it has much easier accessibility, therefore more sales. Im sticking with Shogun 2 and Napoleon.

[@Raz-iw6fj]

I’m confused about those comparisons. It’s like saying Rome 2 sucks cause in Star Craft you can call in battleships to bombard your foe making a much more fun experience. They mentioned a movie to describe a feeling of landing battles. Not Ceaser getting mowed down by MG42 wielding Carthaginians while shelling them with howitzers. Come on.

[@buttersstotch172]

At 4:12 i was really bamboozled for a second, wondering how my gameplay footage of one random enemy ship bugging out landed in your video... until i realized that this must be a common occurence XD

[@nairamy8181]

The fact that it's a "fantasy setting" seems to give them the excuse of turning the game into a MOBA moshpit, but then how do you excuse Rome 2 and 3K? shit is shit no matter the setting

[@dieterschleske2633]

First of all, sorry for the mistakes ( English is not My first language) i found your video while looking for a Warhammer 3 vídeo and something got My attention, You talking about men of war. When i first started playing this kind of games, men of war was kind of a niche Game, i have more than 600 hours in men of war and looking for something similar i went to the total war series. The thing is, i bought shogun 2 first ( when it was free in steam for a while) and i fell in love with total war so much that i ended having more than 200 hours in shogun 2, the problem comes when i spend My money on a full price Warhammer 2 and i dont get the same feelings i got in shogun 2. Basically i understand what You are saying and now You have a new fan all the way from México. P.D all this coming from a men of war and pre- Rome 2 total war fan thanks for speaking up about the shit hole that total war is now.

[@dontbetrippin4575]

Do you know why Men of War is a great game? because it's a war game that uses realisitc aspects of WW2 and implements them into the game. realism impelmented in a game makes it complex just image in Rome 2 was done as such with an advanced medieval 2 engine

[@Sk0lzky]

What fans said: I wish TW games added some nuanced strategic map gameplay influencing the battlefield like controlling terrain, large scale maneuvers, splitting armies to defeat in detail, various siege activities etc. What CA heard: I wish strategic map gameplay influenced battlefield What CA did: strategic map "gameplay" gives random modificators have fun

[@hundun5604]

Must be something wrong with me. The reason I didn't buy 'Fall of the Samurai' was (gatling) guns.

[@M16Joe]

I started playing total war through empire. And I fell in love with the line battles. Since shogun 2, I haven't had a gunpowder era game, and even though I've played the more melee based games, I just wish I had another globe spanning gunpowder game like empire.