Why Total War SUCKS | On the dire state of the Total War Franchise

Over the years, while the Total War franchise became more and more successful I nonetheless lost the interest in it ever more. The question is, why is that and why seems this to be the case for an increasing number of people from the community? Why is it almost impossible to enjoy the Total War games without mods? The answer is rather simple: There is something wrong with the games and the philosophy behind them.
»»» SPONSOR
2Game.com is an authorized online video game retailer procuring its games directly from the publishers! This means great prices, and in addition you can get a 5% discount if you use this link: bit.ly/2GameHGV5OFF
»»» SOCIAL MEDIA
» patreon - www.patreon.co...
» facebook - / historygamingverified
» twitter - / historygame_v
» twitch - / hjalfnar_historygaming
» amazon wishlist - bit.ly/HGVwish
History Gaming Verified provides informational videos about history based video games and how well they depict said history, based on academic literature or sometimes primary sources. This does include military but also economic and social history. The channel is not focused on a specific game genre or historical era, its aim is to provide those who enjoy playing history with information about the historical background they are delving into.
#troy #totalwar #epic

[@freebsdojo3769]

Thank you. Such a salient and cathartic video. You explained what I have been feeling over the years!

[@HistoryGameV]

Glad you liked it! I have been frustrated a lot by the CA releases of the last years since I really WANT to like them...but I just can't. It's a franchise I absolutely adored, Rome and Medieval 2 helped me keep it together when I had to live with my mom again, Empire & Napoleon helped me through the long nights with my first child, and Shogun 2 made me a lot of friends on the internet that I still have contact with, even met a few of them in real life. This series has been literally a part of my life. And now I am at the point I don't care about new titles anymore, and that's a fucking tragedy, pardon my words...

[@graphenetest4142]

@@HistoryGameV Liked and Subscribed!

[@HistoryGameV]

Thank you very much!

[@fuckyougoogle1394]

@@HistoryGameV makes me so sad, I wish Warhammer TW was more like medieval... the battles are such a letdown for me! ruins the game!

[@Flicky669]

@@fuckyougoogle1394 check out The End Times overhaul mod for Warhammer 2, it does a good job of making battles feel alot more realistic and tactical

[@CapitalTeeth]

I don't necessarily hate this new formula of having Generals as 1 man units with superhuman abilities, but I really do miss the days when the General was really just there to boost your units morale. In Shogun 2 for example, you would protect your Generals like an egyptian pharaoh unless the time comes that you're forced to use them as a last stand on horse or a slightly worse Katana unit. Because if the General dies, your units will very quickly rout. Then I played Total War: Three Kingdoms. I thought the superhero Generals concept would work well there, given that it's about a romanticized time in history about warlords and warriors fighting it out against each other. I thought it all worked well, but then I saw they added this thing called "Relations". Yeah, didn't really like it when characters hate each other out of fucking nowhere when they've barely even spoken a word to each other. All in all, I don't really hate the new Total War games, but man I miss the old days.

[@MrChickennugget360]

i like it when the General gave a moral boost while having an elite guard of warriors who could turn the tide of battle. this made it risky to send your general into combat but it could also turn the tide of battle.

[@ms_publisher7143]

No 1 general 1 army is the worst mechanic they've introduced for any of the games

[@jukeboxjey5035]

@@ms_publisher7143 completely that ruined everyf..thing!

[@Bwakcmo69]

I like the 1 man general idea but make it more realistic instead of superheroes. Make it to where like in the movie Troy they would duel while everyone watched. Instead it's a huge mess tittering to micro manage everything.

[@spyro9087]

Yeah the games have been leaning more towards the general being the big boss of the army and carry the army on its back. Playing Warhammer made me realise that in the late game all you needed is a high level lord and a sorcerer to win the battle. Really kind of strips out the element of strategy when you can just really on these overpowered heroes to kill their best units and route the others.

[@vanivanov9571]

In many ways, CA is increasing the complexity while eliminating the depth. There are so many stances and stats and mechanics it's hard to know what's going on... but at the same time you can no longer control TAXES, the most basic and important staple of governance. The UI is meant to be streamlined, but it's just an ugly maze, where I have no clue why they thought it made sense to try and minimize it to one 8th of the screen. The battles were a major leap forward with Medieval 2.... and there hasn't been a step of progress SINCE then. They stopped trying to actually make a game about war, and simulate the interesting intricacies of battle, and instead decided it was fine to have blobs of men duke it out for a billion sequels, so long as they're wearing difference costumes or are painted green for a fantasy game.

[@mscapeh4451]

Dont forget they dumb down maps and battles to last not as more time to cater to peoples whos not even playing the total war genren and have low attention spans..

[@totalwar1793]

Agreed, Total War is becoming more annoying to play rather than complex. Like, it's so annoying how they have supply lines or not allowing you to split armies or stuff like that. It's like, 'Why the hell can't I split an army and why do I have an army limit?' Additionally, the game has a really bad UI as you said. The beautiful thing about Medieval 2 is that you knew exactly how much money you would make and how much public order you would have in the next turns. In the newer games, you have to manually calculate whether or not stuff would be to your liking

[@vanivanov9571]

@@totalwar1793 Indeed, they've taken the wolf of wallstreet approach to gaming. They sell us the same game, but they tried to mix it up to make it seem different, and so it ends up slightly worse with each iteration. Personally, I think supply lines could be a great way to add strategic depth to the game, but they'd need to do it correctly. Some good UI could make it clear when you're going out supply range and the resulting penalties. Divide et Impera had a modded supply system, but they couldn't add in good UI so you mostly had to intuit it or learn to read semi-bloated stats. Still, I think they improved the game a lot despite the limitations, when Total War is failing with Troy Total War many games down the line.

[@MrChickennugget360]

@@vanivanov9571 supply lines should be based on army type, size and status of its "behavior" so you would have a choice to minimize or maximize looting and pillaging- one would cost you nothing to upkeep your army in the field (looting the country side) but this would hurt that areas economy and disrupt public opinion making it harder to occupy. it would also lower that factions disposition making it harder to make peace. further to the point some units would be better suited to rapid raiding types of warfare while others would need dedicated up keep. Light Calvary and light infantry, certain mercenary types could have bonuses for raiding warfare

[@vanivanov9571]

@@MrChickennugget360 Indeed. Have you seen Invicta's videos on the subject? He did a good job of summarizing the logistics of feeding an army, and foraging.

[@SuperCrazf]

The last TW I actually enjoyed was Shogun 2. My boy Legend of Total War constantly called them out on their errors and what does he get in return? He gets blacklisted by CA, so yeah, shameful display on the developers

[@pyry1948]

It's another case of a company just getting too big. They start to treat these games as money making machines, not works of art.

[@Nicator_]

Legend is literally CAs biggest sycophant now.

[@pyry1948]

@@Nicator_ I love him unironically

[@ArilandoArilando]

@@Nicator_ How so?

[@ArilandoArilando]

He's no longer blacklisted.

[@maxgillatt4277]

I feel like those that complain about modern total wars are newer to the complaints community around this game. Those of us that valued economy loved empire total war and medieval because you had to pay serious attension to military infrastructure and income. Since R2 you havent armies are cheap and economy stream lined. TW has been going down for a while. So many people are just starting to get annoyed because their precious battles are being murdered. Campaigns started sucking real hard with R2.

[@theyear750bc]

Pre rt2 it's a strategy game, post rt2 it's an action game

[@dummie90nindy61]

How exactly do the older total wars have a more advanced economy than the newer games? I swear it's always been insanely simple (ive played lots of med 2), taxes usually make the most followed by farming (doesnt matter the settlement). So economically you build farms, mines (whenever present), and settlement upgrades, thats it. In the warhammer games (the new historical games after shogun 2 suck) you have to correctly place military buildings in provinces strategically and create recruitment centers in key areas. You need them placed to keep them close to whatever the frontline is without wasting the economic potential of most regions (and missing out on unique/needed buildings)

[@MrSaintRaptor]

I think a big point for me is the lack of multoiplayer development. Barely anything has changed since Empire. Imagine playing a total war campaign with 4 or 5 people.

[@HistoryGameV]

This! Just a day ago I talked about this with my fellow streamer ThatJamesGuy. We have been running a series of HoI4 ULTRA mod MP games, first against each other and now against the community. It would be awesome if one could do that with the Total War games. There are so many ways to make this work! Turn mode isn't the problem, the Civ games got that working. And for the players that aren't in a battle, let them manage their empires or watch the battle, and we already have the option to hand units over to MP partners. Damn, give them a minigame! I think CA is severely underestimating how big the demand for such features is.

[@alhesiad]

Civil War is not even "worse" graphics, but just a different art style.

[@joshf7321]

We need medieval 3.

[@HistoryGameV]

Let's hope for Knights of Honor 2.

[@lordz00]

Medieval 2 remastered with fixing diplomacy and few added good features from Warhammer 2.

[@corith4535]

@@HistoryGameV Have you tried Total War Attila: 1212 AD Medieval Kingdoms mod? It is honestly amazing, and has fulfilled my 'Medieval Total War' void.

[@HistoryGameV]

@@corith4535 Would love to, sadly can't get the campaign to run.

[@jgpo31]

@@HistoryGameV you need to have the right load order, you can find it where you download it.

[@99IronDuke]

Totally agree with everything you said about Total War, in particular very poor AI, far too few and far too small units in armies and a general dumbing down of the games. In addition CA seems more interested in fantasy that historical these days.

[@mscapeh4451]

And they cater to the wrong audience lately noticed how they make matches last not as long and also maps is smaller then medivial 2 and rome 1 ? plus the ai in rome 2 upgraded engine of etw engine is shit they bug out mostly in siege battles and just stand outside your city doing nothing to attack the walls etc.

[@mscapeh4451]

They cater to wrong audience also by catering to those only intressted in graphics fancy and low attention spans in matches and wars which never total war series were about in past!

[@MrAsh1100]

@@mscapeh4451 TW Warhammer 2 in a nutshell. Things die so fast that whatever strategy you want to do is all lost. Heck, Shogun 2 did a right balance where the huge maps and diverse environment/terrain features allow for crazy maneuvers and positioning is important, even in multiplayer and competitive. It also holds up the spirit of how a battle should go, everything is all about positioning until it comes down to the one swift, deadly blow, and the entire army falls apart. Shogun 2 was the last game that does that and its a shame that Warhammer is much more famous because of the brand name.

[@glendaal67]

@@mscapeh4451 "Wrong audience"? Who are you do decide to what audience they cater? I'm just really amused by that

[@jukeboxjey5035]

@@banger2998 rome 1 will suit you best trust me even though it is a bit older it is fun

[@joeclooney1997]

just played 3 kingdoms for a few hours and i can't agree more with your sentiments, the series is massively dumbing down

[@mootedtols4865]

I'm still in mourning. I saw Troy last year, and decided my time with TW was over. Now we have rome remastered coming, which is nice, but, other than a medieval 2 remaster... I don't really want to play a new game from TW. -Fan since medieval (the first one)

[@HistoryGameV]

Hope I can lift your spirits a bit: Check out the info on Ultimate General: American Revolution. It's from the guy who made the DarthModd.

[@rubixkiller6502]

Fan sense the first shogun i thought I was going nuts not being able to get into these new total wars glad to see im not the only one

[@rubixkiller6502]

I remember when total war so accurate and innovative they actually made a tv show about it to depict actual famous battles

[@tzardnickolasthelitromanov]

Dam, this comment didn't age well, in the RTW:Remaster part.....

[@mootedtols4865]

@@tzardnickolasthelitromanov not really my fault though is it.

[@cliffclark2285]

I'm literally still playing medieval 2 after all these years, and I've revisited Rome and the first Shogun multiple times as well. The only new one I've played is Shogun 2 but that only got a couple of play throughs from me. With all three simplifications done to the newest games I've never felt the desire to mess with them. To me, they'll never equal that first big battle involving multiple factions in Shogun with the dang Oda clan betraying me, or that last stand of my legionarrie cohorts against 4 Egyptian armies that had annihilated the rest of my army, or how Milan always ends up being the best opponent in medieval 2

[@HistoryGameV]

My greatest siege was in Rome 1. A city in modern Turkey, with very high walls. It got chain-sieged over 10 turns, at the end there were too many holes in the walls and my forces had been worn down too much. But it costs the Egyptians like 20k men to take that city, and when they had finally taken it, 2 more of my armies arrived, and another two, freshly recruited in Italy, landed in Egypt. I lost the battle, but I won the war (and a nice Nile delta villa for my emperor xD). My greatest field battle was in Shogun 2 though. Legendary playthrough with Tokugawa (AFTER they patched the game so this was actually possible). Another, minor clan had conquered all of western Japan, I controlled all of eastern Japan. He marched at me with 6 fullstacks, I had 3 defensive stacks holding fortresses and 3 offensive fullstacks. Two of his armies failed to captured a fortress and left the other 4 armies in front of my offensive stacks. The battlefield had a series of hills right in the center, both sides rushed there and I managed to reach the hilltops before the AI, just barely. Then the slaughter began, I lost 4000 men, but no full unit, the AI lost 10k, a lot of full units. Hunted down his stacks to the last man, took Kyoto by storm and went on to conquer everything. Absolutely epic 45 minute battle.

[@cliffclark2285]

My best siege was in Rome as well, I had recently defeated Carthage and had knocked a hole in the wall of their last city. My economy was in shambles so I couldn't repair it and I had a mix of rag tag units to defend it while I was downsizing after the marius reforms. Egypt surprise attacks me with 2 near full stacks and the entire battle was to defend that darn hole in the wall. I lost all but 30 or so principes and they held off a final charge by some mercenary hoplites before both of their armies fled. Nearly 3000 dead in the Egyptian side and over 200 dead for me wth only the one unit of principes left. Best field battle was in medieval 2, it was the most tactically brilliant battle I think I've ever conducted. One full stack Hungarian army versus 2 1/2 stacks from Milan, I drew them in with horse archers till I smashed then on one side with my pavise spearmen and royal banderium on the other, then the Hungarian nobles and magyars closed the circle. I lost 130 men and annihilated their entire force. Best part was that they'd been excommunicated so I conquered the rest of their lands with no more major resistance

[@mscapeh4451]

Same and 2 mods i highly recommend is eras conquest mod for medivial 2 total war and also Eb mod in eras conquest for mtw2 you get like whole world to conquer plus large amount of new units even samurai and more to fight with chinese and natives

[@Ellinon_Vasileus]

Yeah. Europa Barbarorum mod is fixed in place in my pc for Rome one and medieval is full with 6-8 or 10 mods... I will pick them any time over the later total wars... I only open Empire (moded as Hellas Megali Idea) just to to scratch that ich for that time period!!! Who cares about graphics of Rome 2 or Attila when we have the plots of Bullat Steel or Age of pety kings in medieval 2. There is Barbarorum 2 instead of Rome 2. There even is 2 mods about warhammer... Loads of mods about game of thrones. Common no way we are going to sell the depth those games and modes give us just for the graphics of new games...

[@ctrlaltdebug]

A very important factor is game stability. I started multiple ETW campaigns but never finished due to crashes ruining my save file. There was something about armies looping in Sweden or huge stacks of merchantmen. Played hundreds of hours of RTW and M2TW mods EB and EBII, but again never finished a single campaign due to crashes at the end of hour-long battles. HOI3 managed not to crash in singleplayer, but could not get LAN going due to desyncs at start of game constantly.

[@Taskicore]

Have you played Scourge of War: Waterloo? It's probably one of the largest scale total war-style video game. You can literally fight the Battle of Waterloo at 1:1 scale, with the actual numbers of soldiers. The graphics look pretty bad, but it's the closest thing we have at the moment.

[@Heldermaior]

Why RTW and M2TW character development system were better: EB2 campaign as KH. Have slightly corrupt governor managing Crete (knossus) he stole a bit of money but he was actually good so overall he had a positive effect. Apparently his corruption grew to an extent where he was ostracized from his city state losing all his loyalty in the process. Quickly removed him from my city before he rebelled away with it (and huge maluses on his admin skills). Kept him on the country side as a merc recruiter. One turn, I forget to take a decent sized merc army away from him. He rebels with the army, attacks Knossos immediately. Had to send reinforcements from my wars in Asia Minor and sign a peace treaty with Pergamon to deal with him. Just look at the narrative juice surrounding this! All possible thanks to random traits and character actions. Rome 2 system is incapable of producing this kind of narrative because you can chose what traits your general will inherit. Who in their right mind will choose "make my character worse". There aren't even such traits it is all good to excellent and you decide who gets what. This is a single example of things m2tw and rtw do better than modern tw games. I mean, Invasio Barbarorum is way better (and I mean WAY better) than Attila or that horrible DLC for R2TW that should've been an Attilla TW DLC! The battles are better (which is frustrating because R2TW battles can be made better than what is possible in m2TW or RTW), the campaign is much better (Attilla campaign is just bad. Like horrible bad. It does an ass of a job depicting the situation at the time! Oh, and don't forget that you need to feed your library!)

[@Trident121]

Exactly this..

[@jackray1337]

Ultimate General Civil War has a far worse problem. It has severe 'rubber banding' in that the player is robbed of actual sense of accomplishment in building up a strong force as the AI will always be given a force relative to whatever the player fields. I think that is a really bad design that cripples the game far worse than games like Rome 2. I got far more hours of play out of Rome 2 than UG:CW. Other games that do this include Homeworld and various racing games. It's obvious and lazy cheating on the developers' part.

[@guyincognito566]

A few issues overall I see with the series. 1. Yearly releases, its borderline like a sports franchise like FIFA, yes the art style and periods are different but strip that away and the AI is the same if not worse. It doesn't make sense to me as total war has one of the largest continuous player counts of most games on steam. 2. Game engine, this game engine is overdue to be put out the back and retired. CPU limitations are ridiculous when you hit a unit cap and the game borks itself and units started moving like lego blocks on a time lapse. 3. Streamlining. I borderline groan outload with sieges now with ladders popping up out of nowhere, army recruitment in three kingdoms is straight up spam and its the only thing I really disdain in the game. And on that note recruitment fundamentals seem to change from game to game. I don't get why CA just use the medieval two system as it works the best. 4. The line between historical and romanticised history bordering on mythological is becoming apparent. Compare rome, shogun (even their sequels) to post warhammer. Although, I have a soft spot for Atilla, something about that game I just enjoyed greatly. I feel the devs at CA just love fantasy these days and history is a slog for them now, and with yearly releases don't have the time to go in depth with research and putting time into recreation of units, AI behaviour etc.

[@Rokaize]

1. Yeah you’re right. I don’t understand why they bother trying to make these games a yearly thing. These games are complicated and should take some time to make and polish. 2. I only have that issue with a few games. Never played anything beyond warhammer 2 though so I don’t know what kind of issues the new games have. 3. I don’t know what you mean by spam recruiting? All total wars have the “doom stack” problem if mods aren’t used. Shogun 2 was great, but later on in the campaign you can just load up on all the best samurai units. And have multiples armies of just samurai. Which is totally historically inaccurate and completely breaks any semblance of balance. Medieval has the same problem. Just load up on full stacks of knights or pikemen. Since the AI has no understanding of how to defeat pikes. If you play as the Mongols you can steamroll them entire world with mounted archers since again, the AI doesn’t know how to counter that. You have always been able to cheese total war games. So I am not sure why the new games get all this hate. 4. I don’t really see what is wrong with having a balance of fantasy and historical. Warhammer 2 is still the most popular total war game is it not? Huge modding community with an extremely active PvP and PvE community as well. It’s just a solid game. If you don’t like the fantasy element or you don’t like Warhammer then that is fine. But I don’t think anyone can objectively say it’s a bad game or something like that. Stuff like ladders is a complaint I have as well. I had the same issue in Shogun 2 when any unit can scale these incredibly tall walls during a siege. Another issue in Warhammer is units don’t have formations like “shield wall” or anything like that anymore. I like having the depth of controlling my individual units formations.

[@OneMoreDesu]

Shogun 2 was my first introduction to the series, and despite me loving it it's the only one I own. I sort of want it to be a little more like Crusader Kings II to make each play a little more different, as once you have favoured tactic the game is a bit monotonous.

[@ironlogic7837]

My biggest problem with S2 is yari wall. The game is easier when you don't build up or diversify. Farms, markets and yari ashigaru spam make even the hardest difficulties a cakewalk. Yari wall is just gives too much power for an almost negligible downside. Archers aren't very good at shooting over the heads of their allies, so if you just activate it right before contact, your losses from arrows will be negligible. There's a lot of things that feel like they could of used more tuning. Yari ashigaru with yari wall probably should have been a midgame unit like warrior monks. I also wish the ai made and effort to garrison it's border provinces. The ai just goes all in on one enemy letting me take half their territory before I meet any resistance late game.

[@7graywolf7]

I've been playing TW since Rome 1. It's fallen so far. Medieval 2 was the peak I feel; the battles are less about maneuvering your troops and capitalizing on your factions doctrine of war, and more about rock/paper/scissors and heroes. The AI cheats more than it ever has. The worst part is that factions are so horribly unbalanced for no reason. I understand why Rome was broken as fuck, but there's no reason for the Empire in Warhammer to be as powerful as it is. To add insult to injury, most units in newer TW games don't even do anything: If we use Gutter Runners from Skaven in Warhammer again for a consistent example, you will see that their range attack can't even defeat clanrats. Skink javelins can't kill clanrats. There are units and entire factions like this in every Total War game since Attila. Total War is an unplayable mess of bullshit these days. If you want to play TW, just go back to Rome or Medieval 2. Those games had some problems but at least they were playable.

[@dummie90nindy61]

Capitalizing on your factions doctrine of war describes warhammer way more than it ever did med 2 or older. Every faction was the same in med 2 and everyone used the exact same battleplan in every battle, troop maneuvers were rare as well due to the slow speed (now this is not a bad thing but battles were very static in the old games). The Empire is well balanced also? They have a roster that individually can't be carried by any main division, but when they work together (infantry, missiles, cavalry, artillery) they're a formidable faction just like basically all the others (not including chaos) in total war warhammer. Also what's the issue in a single low tier unit not being able to defeat another low tier unit 1v1, gutter runners are light ranged support they're not suppose to do as well as everything else and you can see this in their cheap price.

[@antoniocarlosgomesfernedag1637]

​@@dummie90nindy61its obvius that you dont play the older games (or at least not paiyng attention) how could you say that in med 2 all factions are the same?? Kkkkkk The english bows are the most powerful, the french calvary is the best, the pikes of scots, the bizantine infantry, (and the flame throwers) the mouted archers of mongols, the well balanced units of holy roman empire..... You probably play 5 minutes in campaign and give up, just give time to the game to reach the high era, and you will see the factions become much more uniqe in their troops and fighting methods.... In war hammer theres no high or late period, all units are reskins of the same model, with the same stats, with the dame mechanics (just throw then in the fight and wait)... The new total war players probably have less IQ than the old guard, maybe is because that they dont see the details that old players had seen and love....

[@dummie90nindy61]

you named one strong unit from each faction. They're still all identical, I don't see you're point here. Also each faction playing the same is not a bad thing. That's accurate to history lol. Also I've been playing since medieval 2, I am an old player idiot.@@antoniocarlosgomesfernedag1637

[@Regirs]

Medieval 1 & 2 mashup would be the holy grail of TW. So u take most of 3D base from MTW2 (obv make it modern & all) but take the atmosphere created by art(interface e.g), music and painted historical events descriptions, try combining the two. On a top of that smth VERY important, I would say crucial, smth that I've haven't even heard ANYONE mention, smth I've realised watching some old MTW1 LP's is the intimate relationship with your units. In M1 not only could control every single unit but... every unit had it's own named unit leader that could be set as a competent governor(good point mentioned in this vid) or promoted to a general if proved itself in an many times e.g unexpected defence battle. It was extremely immersive and it was bit downgraded in MTW2 taking away the unit leaders names. There are many other things like factions re-emergences, giving the titles really and clearly affecting the governor/province by having it as a PHYSICAL pawn on the strategic map that you could give to ANY unit, positive negative traits, large in size battlefield maps etc. One more thing btw which M1 lacked and was great in M2 was population, but tbh ideally it would be better to have it as a more involved & immersive system from Rome 1 or the population mod for Warhammer 2. All in all though the main reason we can't have good things anymore is that CA is no longer CA we had at times of Shogun 1 ending with Empire Tim Ansell left in 2005 and Mike Simpson took over everything, plus SEGA acquisition, lead AI programmer left sometime before the Empire release and at this point it's good if 5% of old guys are still working in CA. Remember Prince of Macedon saying he's been asking some CA members in last years about some older games like even as far as MTW2 and they haven't even played much of it so wtf we're taking about lol how ignorant one could be to not to know your sources...ad fontes ffs! Lol

[@deadtako]

We didn't even want this for the Total War games, we just want the simplicity and the little fantasies we can make while playing them

[@howlerofthegrey9368]

I started playing Rome Total War and ended in R2TW. R2TW completely ruined my experience even before the later patches and the Emperor Edition.

[@vanivanov9571]

The Naval combat was utterly atrocious. Even with mods I found it unplayable.

[@roberttrue7219]

Rome 2 is good now I think. Not as good as tome 1 but rome 2 is the most played total war I have...

[@anderu2384]

Off topic: Ahoy!

[@Siegbert85]

Why is it that game devs think that there is such a thing as depth of field in outside areas? In actuality it only occurs when focusing on something very close. But when you're outside you can also very clearly focus on mountains and the horizon. That always bugs me and I have to disable DoF in the settings to get a half-way realistic looking environment.

[@Tom_Quixote]

Probably the developers have never been outside.

[@Japhd92]

I totally understand you. I used to like Total War games because of the micro mangamente you could do with provinces and armies not needing any important commander.

[@HistoryGameV]

Well, they achieved to give Paradox Interactive a new customer following the Rome 2 release. xD

[@Japhd92]

@@HistoryGameV I'm playing some of their games. I need to play Crusader Kings III, although I know there won't be micro war battles.

[@hamidious]

Totally agree. Next total war Rome 3 will have hannibal with 10 abilities one to raise stamina and one to increase troops attack and defense and one spell that sends Elephants from heaven that crush the enemies and does AOE.

[@DrYnroh]

Agree on the basic - forget the damn graphics and focus on AI. I can play on ultra and don't - you dont even get to watch combat anyway since battles go so damn quick. Scale and AI, that's what we want. We need tens of thousands of men, competent AI, and to stop the flashy BS "special abilities" I understand that AI is not going to be human level, and will always be cheesable, but thats the players perrogative. Just basic strategy and tactics, massive numbers, and a focus on strategy, not flashy skills

[@fullmetalhelepolis5254]

Same feeling. You are the first video on youtube that put bad words on title towards total war. Why nobody speak out more? because TW fanboy is like call of duty fanboy. You don''t want to piss them. And CA is less tolerant to negative review than most other companies.

[@CsStoker]

The Warhammer games already dumbed down the playerbase, it's all down from here and there's no going back

[@doomslayer9257]

As a warhammer franchise fan i like total war warhammer but wish it had the complexity of medieval 2

[@gromsword6984]

Doomstacks, Doomstacks everywhere.

[@doomslayer9257]

@Stasis Field I mean campaigns on max dofficulty for battles and strategic map are possible but you have to play in such a specific way since only your melee units are heavily nerfed that you alway recur to missile units monster or magic to win the battle. Also the fact that that ai can't use magic properly and can waste its entire ammo on your signle entity in an attack battle trivialize the entire game. You pretty much just cheese to win. No real deep strategy. Maybe the game it's a little bit better with mods such as sfo (overhaul) and gccm (maps)

[@pancytryna9378]

@Stasis Field On easy tho, after 20 turns the empire is gone...

[@alexshaw4182]

When someone makes the claim that pre Shogun 2 games didn't feature brokenly strong units you have to wonder if they were playing the same game.. - Chariots? Amazons? Milanese crossbows?

[@HistoryGameV]

Do you mean pre-S2 by any chance?

[@CptSlow89]

For me Rome 1 will be the best then Medieval 2. Rest I just play for a while and uninstalled. Got older and I cant stand new engine.

[@breaden4381]

Total War: Distributing great ideas throughout the mass of crap

[@SixCylinderSamurai]

I just wish Crusader Kings 3 had a real time tactical battle aspect like the total war series. That is the only thing it's missing. It just seems like whoever has the biggest army wins, even if it's only marginally bigger.

[@lucasmisael7507]

The most heavy game of 21 century

[@IainGalli]

I just gave up on Troy. Wasn't enjoying it. What a shame, TW used to be my favourite series.

[@mogwaiman6048]

How was the resource mechanic? That was the only thing that got my attention.

[@varkusor6899]

@@mogwaiman6048 it was stupid and ai always made stupid trade deals and agents can kill poison half the army I hate the agents bullshit

[@vazlim]

@@varkusor6899 half the army, hahaha just a hater of the gme

[@vazlim]

@Stasis Field just bought warhammer2 norsca today xd, my only issue with the game is optimization.

[@vazlim]

@Stasis Field Actually you can get all norsca at turn 9, then literally you have to rusb B(ritania), dont spend money on esrly buildings just create basic army and raid

[@cruzmanakajolonar3717]

It really did slip with rome2 and onward. Atilla brought back governors though, with a relatively challenging political system. I just hate the single entity's. It breaks my immersion. Achilles can hold the line alone against 2 full mass units for 10 mins. That's garbage.

[@urbanwarrior3470]

You can complain about teh single entities, but one thing that used to annoy me in Rome one was teh amount of general-less stacks floating around, with average troops

[@faramund9865]

I like how Germans always say: "it MADE fun" rather than "it WAS fun".

[@anthonykilleen604]

Shogun 2 was the last good one; Empire and Napoleon were mediocre.

[@HistoryGameV]

Hm, I don't know. I liked them both, actually liked the general style of Napoleon more than ETW. An ETW with NTW graphics and polish + DarthMod would have been awesome. But TWS2 was superior to both, most certainly.

[@rodrigopaim82]

@@HistoryGameV ". An ETW with NTW graphics and polish + DarthMod would have been awesome." After playing both I was totally thinking the same thing

[@vanivanov9571]

I didn't play much of Shogun. The Katana Samurai and emphasis on rock paper scissors kind of killed it for me. The first TW game I didn't play like crazy.

[@jaywerner8415]

@@vanivanov9571 Laughs in yari wall.

[@jaywerner8415]

Ya i can agree with that.

[@Jdhog152]

Basically games went mainstream and most people don’t want a highly complex and tough game. So as a result games got dumb down and made easier, so in a nutshell your part of dying breed of gamers.

[@HistoryGameV]

Am I? I am not so sure, since apparently this dying breed of gamers is rather becoming older and are now the people with the money. I have helped crowdfund Ultimate General: Civil War and Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts. I think quite a few people across the industry underestimate how many gamers out there are by now above 30 or older and desperately looking for more than kiddie games to spend their now far higher salary on.

[@Jdhog152]

History Gaming Verified While these smaller developers will always exist, as well as their supporters who like complex games, my comment was referring to what happens when games go mainstream. While their are plenty of 30 or older who are from old days gaming there and plenty who are getting into gaming now or got in when COD first became popular.

[@vanivanov9571]

@@Jdhog152 They have made it highly complex. Just that before you only had to understand the basics of economics to run things, but now you have to study tons of tech trees to even begin to strategize effectively, with all the stupid abilities gamey fiat.

[@vanivanov9571]

@Mr BuzzKill Indeed. You can no longer adjust taxation, for crying out loud. It's probably the only game of that kind I can think of with no tax setting.

[@alexy590]

I mostly agree. I think total war would be better off with a campaign similar to ultimate general or something like army general from steel division 2 instead of what we have now. Can you give a list of the books you were reading about chinese warfare?

[@HistoryGameV]

Men-at-Arms series 284 - Imperial Chinese Armies (I): 200BC-589AD by Chris Peers & Michael Perry Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300-900 by David A. Graff Three Kingdoms, all volumes, translated and published by Foreign Languages Press A Military History of China (updated edition), edited by David A. Graff & Robin Higham

[@TheCalcMan]

I was about to ask if you've reviewed Men of War AS2 but then I remembered your Company of Heroes video so that would feel a bit repetitive, still would be cool to see a verified take as to how accurate it is aside from what I already notice off the bat. (Just don't do the Burma mission where you literally get all the Japanese homeland prototype tanks in 1942 lol)

[@jukeboxjey5035]

You are completely right in everything you say. Im a huge fan of rome 1 and very much enjoyed the mechanics where you really could outplay the AI with Armycompositions on the battlefield and on the map in a flexible way. In Rome 2 i was somehow bored and it was just dissapointing. I mean why can't you manouver armys without a general or King anymore?? And the biggest bulls.... was the limited amount of armies😭 It makes the game so boring in a way that it takes all your strategic possibilities concerning Mapcontrol away. Even though i liked the diplomaticsystem of Rome 2 the AI on the battlefield was really no challenge at all. the AI has really no tactical thinking which leads you to a point where you go.. ok well allright just send them all in to the battle make yourself some popcorn and watch an actionmovie where they all jump around like in a chicken coop. and how they all run around and have no clue what their doing not reacting to your commands. I mean good timemanagement makes it fun right? But how can you improve when there is no flow.. there IS no flow in the gamemechanics on the battlefield.. Rome 2: why add all those numbers like crazy where you feel beeing in math at school again counting and counting and counting for every little microstep in the game to get control over your finances while listening to music in constant minor keys. There is so much classical music in major outthere why always that depressing backgroundsound. So ok 2% reduction on that plus 10% on this since i dont know what im actually really researching i think i'll go for the mathchallenge where your getting addicted to get the best mathematical decision like an autist while listening to a violin playing requiem of mozart in the background. Or such a weird thing why should you have to demolish buildings to build others it makes no sense. The problem in Rome 2 is also there is an algorythm where the enemy will never come with more military then you will be able to gather in order to prepare yourself for that attack. I mean i can understand the thoughtprocess so you will have a challenging battle on the field but should it not be tactical on the battlefield AND on the Map too? i mean for you its easy ah ok with my spy i can find out that his army is far away and so i can attack outnumbered armies etc. But to make it challenging it has to be reversed possible and important for the AI too otherwise you cant take your enemy for serious. And it is true even though the graphics on rome 1 weren't that great it made way more fun.. in rome 1 i had several campains where i conquerod 100% of the map.. in rome 2 im getting bored after having 6 regions because i get the algorythm and what to do exactly to carry on and so it gets already like a routine just like at your workplace. And why the hell do those political wimen and wifes have such crazy angry eyes?! What happened to them are they all sick or what??. And there is no explanation of the buildings features and benefits when your researching your technologies. after you rsearched it it will appear tadaaa it was to get cavallry ahaaaaa.. wow great.. can't plan anything with this dumb braindead new system. I mean who the hell thought out this mechanic it makes no logical sense to me. I mean in every game you have a blueprint. AOE2, Rome1, Anno etc. How can you think tacticly if you dont know what your doing??😂 just like programming if you dont know how to programm you shouldnt programm stuff. AOE2 for instant was produced out of love financial benefit wasnt in their interest back in those days.. now? I mean now? Now its just obvious that its for the sake of money.. and it feds me up to a point where i just dont want to play rome anymore.sorry for my english im foreign

[@xLoaded75]

This video aged like wine

[@stevebuscemi5544]

Pretty much summed up how I feel about the series. I think they just went in the wrong direction after medieval 2. In part, the new engine isn’t up to scratch. Although I do like the warhammer series, it doesn’t feel like total war anymore

[@Rokaize]

@Stasis Field You are playing of the most difficult factions. Same with Beastmen and Chaos. Any horde faction is going to be difficult. Maybe you should try the Empire. Warhammer 2 has an incredible variety of play styles. Each faction is completely different. So if you are trying to play all the factions like you would in Medieval 2 then you’re going to struggle

[@HistoryGameV]

Agreed, Warhammer 2 is an unbalanced nightmare on the two highest difficulty settings. Can be fun, but most of the time it is brutally annoying. I recommend the 'Boyz will be Boyz - Closer to Tabletop' mod by Cataph. Great experience.

[@thomashazlewood4658]

CA has a problem with bells and whistles, thinking that those are vital game improvements. Suicide-prone Generals should have been a great concern, yet, after so many iterations, they still throw their lives away, to the detriment of their armies. The disastrous introduction of a new game engine in Rome II and the horrific rollout was just the culmination of many bad decisions by CA. Amazingly, those new project directors thought they were improving the game, despite the evidence of their eyes. The original Shogun, flawed as it was, was an exciting game that pushed players to develop their knowledge and the skills of Sun Tzu. Rome I built on that and developed the system even more, despite the flawed suicidal Generals. Darth Mod was an amazingly dynamic improvement and Europa Barbarorum greatly improved the map and added innumerable tweaks and historical baubles to play with. Medieval kept the pace and once gave me the great enjoyment of a 6-hour battle against the invading Mongol Horde. Thereafter, the new versions were the same as the old versions, just different skins. Until Rome II, the kiss of death!! At least it was for me. Shogun II, yes, a very good game, but Darth Mod again was needed to get the most out of the game. Napoleon, too, needed a good mod to keep it interesting. Darth Mod to the rescue! The Hordes and the Vikings were interesting but without a challenging AI, they were just more of the same. Those were my final attempts to renew my interest in Total War. The latest iterations require so much fantasy that martial understanding is not even relevant anymore. The videos I've seen on them are sad, so cheesy, so gamey.

[@Alareiks1177]

I stopped at attila, right now i'm enjoying chivalry TW for rome 1, the population mechanic in rome 1 is just so great they need to bring stuff like that back. Ans they need to make a clear division between historical TW's and Fantasy

[@InsidiousRat]

I think DEI mod brings population to Rome 2

[@joshf7321]

About the size of the army. It can be very hard to manage more that the standard 20 units. If they had more it would make it very difficult to do complex strategies and micromanage. It would change the gameplay so much that it would be completely different. Some people already find it hard to manage the full 20 units in a single player match.

[@HistoryGameV]

Well, making the maps a bit bigger, increasing the unit size somewhat and probably do something like divisions: Combine multiple stacks to one division stack. Then turn battles between division stacks into multi-battles where you engage in a series of battles between the stacks individually, representing combat on the flanks and center. When one flank or the center wins, you decide if they reinforce other battles. Depending on whose generals and division commanders have the higher skills, the terrain, how well prepared the defender is and some randomness one side decides where the battle begins. Basically a bit like Crusader Kings 2, just that the battles are actually playable.

[@jacksheldon8566]

You can go up to 40 units per player/AI in warhammer. Its fun but quickly becomes a mess.

[@CptSlow89]

I hope that for Medieval 3 we will get new engine.

[@adrienlaurent6203]

There Will be a third one ?

[@kingmortales8257]

@@adrienlaurent6203 Nothing's been announced but considering it's been a decade and a half and everyone keeps asking for it, I think it's inevitable.

[@CptSlow89]

@@adrienlaurent6203 Must be cuz its a crazy potential with a billion dollar sale so...

[@vanivanov9571]

@@CptSlow89 I think they only want to make silly fantasy games, now. I heard that WHTW made many times what their historical games did.

[@HistoryGameV]

Very much looking forward to Knights of Honor 2 for this.

[@jonash3406]

If Manor Lord is half as good as it looks it will either put the nail in the coffin for Total War or force them to go back to the drawing board and actually try to be innovative for once.

[@Pangora2]

Welcome to the Paradox family. I've played Total War from Shogun 1 through 2, but after getting the depth of the better Paradox games...I can't go back.

[@TheDavid2222]

The Divide Impera mod for Rome 2 is a priceless gem. All praise to their names.

[@torch1028]

I'd be a liar if i said i don't play wh2 but i really do wish i had more options the way i did in m2, such as mercs, real city building, regional units, more formations, general/noble breeding. But at the same time "nOoOoO you cant just play warhammer total war its completely inferior!!!" "Haha lizardman go hissssss"

[@HistoryGameV]

In my case its the occasional 'Dwarfen crossbows go twingtwingtwing'

[@jacksheldon8566]

There is a few regional units in warhammer 2. But its not very game changing. I agree with formations. Kinda dumbed down tactics. But the sheer amount of unit variety can make up for it. I wish there were some population management.

[@LanceSpezzate]

all games before "warscape" are great. they require some small modding and balancing(espesially m2tw), but they are great - very good game design, nice and clear UI(!!!!!!), good visual design(m2tw still looks amazing), sound and music are still not beaten. all games after "warscape" - have a lot of problems. almost each game have horrible UI(tiny fonts in empire, all black bullshit in rome 2, even remastered Rome TW have problems, global maps looks absolutely uninformative and confusing etc ). each game have very strange game design decisions (like villages in empire, ridiculous naval battles in rome 2, simplifier economic). and the worst - units and unit groups animations on the tactical map - 100 steps back from what we saw in medieval 2....

[@mark-o-man6603]

In Shogun 2 the AI will often dump 4 or more generals into an army and even on Normal the AI cheats by respawning new generals when one general is killed, so CA basically fixed this by removing the feature entirely. I've come to accept this change as agents since Shogun 2 cover most aspects of behind the lines warfare. The newer TW games also have way more factions and settlements and the AI would have a hard time micro-managing a huge amount of smaller and bigger armies, it already struggled with that in the older games. So I'm actually quite torn about some of the changes. If we're getting a true historical TW game in the future I can see adding a "support agent" who can deliver supplies and troops to armies as a good compromise. Not everything was good in old TW, I don't miss having to micro diplomats. Diplomacy since Empires is better but it should've implemented a passage of time system , which would've made it harder to cheese (offering money for several turns, then declaring war).

[@Rex1987]

As a total war vet since shogun 1, i mostly agree with your sentiment about the state of the total war series. I do think that you could make your video better by giving some examples on how the AI is bad and how it can be made better.

[@highfist6754]

I miss the campaign map mechanics from med 2. The ability to build so many different buildings in each town and change towns to castles and vice versa thus creating different build options. It gave you the chance to shape your empire however you wanted it. The province system was a nice idea to reduce micro managing every single town but it would have worked better with bigger provinces, i.e. take all of France which might contain 12 cities and then you get some balanced bonuses and have one window to manage all of the towns, but each town should still have been individually customizable by the player. What they did in Rome 2 and onward ruined it all for me.

[@northland7885]

Yeah medieval total war 2 was the last great one. Everyone after that was buggy and kinda felt ''Meh'' for me.

[@HistoryGameV]

M2 was and is still pretty great. There is a reason the modding community for it is still massive and very active. I still think that it is possible to improve accessibility while keeping the complexity. They tried it with Three Kingdoms a bit again, but the UI is a mess. Hopefully this does not discourage them. If now the battles would finally receive some love...I miss my 1 hour battles where you had to fight until the very last minute to secure victory.

[@toastedfallenstar584]

Absolutely agree, i have played and sometimes enjoyed games since but never again had the same feeling and desire to keep playing as the games up to Medieval 2. You used to really feel your faction was "yours", you knew all your characters and cities and actually had attachment to them. Not any more, the soul is missing. Not sure exactly what changed that but something has :-(

[@gromsword6984]

@@toastedfallenstar584 Maybe you miss the excommunication.

[@toastedfallenstar584]

@@gromsword6984 Maybe i do, maybe i do.........

[@Mike-ks6qu]

Last total war I enjoyed was shogun 2. I still play the original total war games. Despite the clunky movement, limited graphics, and stiff animations, they are infinitely more immersive. The fact that a general could appear from a battle that was hard fought is an amazing mechanic. The generals gained their traits based on what you did in the battle, I hate the fact that rome 2 you choose their traits, not only does that not make any sense, it breaks the whole leveling up mechanic. The settlement building was far better in the older games, and I liked how the things you built were area specific and not attached to the settlement. The ui of the new games is so horrific I can barely stand it to play them.

[@explainingpolitics]

I literally typed in "total war failed" "total war bad" until I could find a video where someone else agrees. Total war was revolutionary, like. Age of Empires changed RTS strategy, and then total war took it to the next level. Total War had the potential to be better than civilization even. But instead they spent 7+ years making warhammer games for some reason. I think its too early to tell now, but I have this feeling that in the coming 5 years a new series could be crowned king of the real time strategy genre. Its just sad though that in more than 22 years as a series, total war ultimately just produced shogun, medieval, rome, and empire-- and then just remade medieval, shogun, and rome again before giving the franchise away to warhammer. I mean how disappointing is that! I'm just saying I had significantly more hope for where the franchise was going in 2013 when Rome was coming out....

[@uncxrrect3868]

I always wish I had a gaming PC or had a total war games but no I don't have a PC and I get real jealous when I see ppl play these total war games 😔

[@chimpodabananalover4031]

Same man, always wanted to play them but can't afford a gaming pc.. luckily we have cloud gaming and we'll be able to run them on our shitty computers

[@Person0fColor]

I think you’re totally wrong on the army size thing. I don’t not want to control 60 units of 80 thousand guys. Hell even on Rome 2 I play the smallest unit size. It’s way more thematic and easier to maneuver men into position and really adds to the tactics of a battle. Plus when you’re used to the smaller unit sizes an army of 900 men seems like a lot and when you get 2-3k men on the field it seems like a big apocalyptic gang fight 😂. I play total war for the narrative campaigns. I love to role play, I love avenging my dead family members and making rivals with neighboring settlements. To me I don’t need army sizes actually depicted non game my imagination can take me the rest of the way the weight and feel of an engagement for me isn’t hindered by it’s size and scope. Yes fighting with only 3 units is a small engagement but fighting with a full stack on the smallest unit size could easily be a 1k man army and for me like I said my imagination can carry me the rest of the way.

[@alexpeers9863]

Hi HGV, I take your point about Rome 2 and subsequent AI in TW games. However, we have the andedote. H2H. Since Shogun 2 we've had a (mostly) stable multiplayer campaign. So why not play against a buddy or another Tuber? Do you still do this? Playing against AI is never going to be as good as a sneaky pal. What say you?

[@dlavian5400]

Very good review. You points match, what I think about the Total War games. Overall, you notice, when you watch different videos like this or reviews of single video games, that the Total War community agrees on many points, where Total War Games have problems. Creative Assembly just does not seems to care anymore. They seem to have lost any passion about making Total War a great historical experience. There is effectively no improvement overall any more. Just one game after another to make cash and that's it. For someone who really loved Total War and really longs for the historical experience Total War could deliver, it is really depressing.

[@AbdurrahmanZedSaeed]

Is there games beside total wwr series that combine rts and turn base?

[@P-Likan]

not really, there were a few like the one about King Arthur (knights of the roundtable), forgot the name but it was mediocre. That is also one of the reasons TW games got worse over the years : no real competition, they basically have the monopoly of this genre ( which they invented to be fair but those who did initially probably no longer work there) so they could just shamelessly go for the cash grab after Attila TW by copy pasting the concept for the most part, getting away with bad design choices and minimal improvements.

[@dragonscaleshields]

It doesn't even look good. For a strategy game to be considered good looking is when you can enjoy your units even when zoomed out. But when you zoom out its a total mess of graphics, you can't tell what is what and this is where these games break down for me.

[@free_gold4467]

armies like specks of dirt and 100 mile high trees WTF!!

[@gromsword6984]

I can agree with all of your points. Since I've played UGCW I can't enjoy Total War anymore. The immersion in the battles is so lackluster especially in the newer titels. And the graphics doesn't really compensate for that loss. I can't even understand the standpoint that some people want good graphics to watch there men fighting, since CA got rid of the fighting animations in Warhammer 1/2 as well as Three Kingdoms and Troy. And this is especially bad for a historical title. Whenever I think about plying a Total War Game, I always have to think about the cheating and dumb ai or the repetitive, boring/frustrating battles. (They are just so much better in UGCW and the Ai isn't that great either). And it's actually no suprise that you like EUIV HOI or CK2 because why on earth would you want to play a Total War campaign when you don't want to play the battles and when there are games out there with better campaigns. Even Civ5 is more enjoyable than Total War. Well, I actually don't care about Total War anymore and I think CA will not change their way, so there is only on resenable thing to do: Stop wasting your time crying about the faith of Total War and be amazed about the other developers out there, who are doing a better job (Like the UGCW Dev. I can't remember his name).

[@Jaykubed]

What is UGCW?

[@HistoryGameV]

Ultimate General: Civil War, a game somewhat similar to Total War by the guy behind DarthMod. There is a video about it on my channel.

[@gromsword6984]

@@HistoryGameV Shouldn't that be my job, as a good subscriber. ;D

[@gurnihalsingh6252]

I just found your channel through your COD WAW video. Really liked your channel and all other videos,including this one ofc. Keep making such videos!!

[@Rohv]

I have 500+ hours logged for MTW2 in my steam, and I'm still playing it despite having Rome 2 Total War. The battles in RTW2 just feel awkward. Compared to MTW2, units feel less solid. It's annoying that by default if you command your units to move they break their order of battle and just move to an area in one row. The frontline gets broken quickly and battles devolve into fights of individual units.

[@Qladstone]

You can hard lock the units into formation by using Ctrl + G.

[@darkranger116]

226 people WANT CA to make them pay extra for a race pack that was made pre-launch.

[@mattgardiner614]

I was looking at moving on from Total War to something more difficult, like EU4 or Hearts of Iron, but the leap in complexity is HUGE! I've heard that there are no Victory Conditions in EU4(?) which I like - You could play as a very small country and just try to survive, or even grow your territory. But I don't like the way they do combat. I would also prefer that the building system in any future TW game goes back to what it was in Medieval 2. Makes the minor factions more playable for a start. What the poster said about sending single units and spies behind the lines to "Raid", means if you don't have the right agents to counter those of your enemies, you can't really get anywhere in the game. Also, really don't like Capital Cities having only 1 or 2 buildings in them.

[@octaviousdutolan4270]

Did you cover Total War: Warhammer 1 or 2? I didnt see any of it in your video. Yes, the AI can be a bit spotty sometimes. With the different computations it has to do dependent on the terrain types, unit types of both armies, weather types, unique ability types, and difficulty settings as well as attack and defense for all of the variations, its a not so minor miracle the AI functions at all. I understand that you're into History Games, but with that in mind I would highly encourage you to do a review of Warhammer 1 and Warhammer 2 respectively. Just the special abilities alone make the game worth playing, let alone the magic system (unique abilities with a collective resource cap that forces you to have to choose and specialize your tactics or army composition), or the monsters, or the flying units. The diverse strategies as well as (in my opinion) the staggeringly high number of variations and builds for armies you can devise for each faction lead to a much richer strategy game experience. Historical Total War Games have a cookie cutter element to them where there are really only a few viable army build strategies regardless of the faction you play (including the different unit bonuses the factions or faction leaders apply). Regardless, Historical Total War Games all have a fantasy element to them - alternate history. You really should give the Warhammer Total Wars a fair shake and review them on their AI capacity, Army Variety (tactics and art style honestly), and game mechanics. Since you have a bias towards the Historical Games, it'd lend even more weight to a genuine review.

[@HistoryGameV]

Didn't cover them because they don't fit the channel, but I own both and have played them extensively, since I am as I said a huge Warhammer fan. Finished the Imperium and Dwarfs campaign in both 1 & 2, as also almost finished High Elves, Dark Elves and Skaven (lost interest). They are actually excellent examples of what I understand under dumping down: Instead of relying on tactics to win a battle, you can cheese it. Some proper spells or high-level units + heroes and your abilities carry the day. That's...not what I liked about the TW games up to Rome 2 where this became really prevalent. If you defend on a hill with 4 legionary units against over 2000 rebels and the whole enemy army turns tail because you activate a magic "scare" ability, that's just lazy or bad design. I don't care too much about that in the Warhammer or even Troy games. They are fantasy stuff. But in a historical game that sucks.

[@octaviousdutolan4270]

@@HistoryGameV I can understand that. I enjoy the strategy aspects of the Warhammer Games, and to be fair I've played Total War since Rome 1 and Shogun 1. I tend to avoid the overt 'cheese' which is in my opinion abusive to the AI. Some streamers or players play on legendary, but then essentially neuter the AI's reaction by abusing mechanics in game which voids any kudo points for doing it on Legendary. You should check out the Vampire Counts, they dont get ranged units and have a corruption mechanic. I do really enjoy your videos, and best of luck with future growth!

[@laluglu_]

I started with the original shogun and got them all until a break with the whole online registration thing with empire, I was shock many years later how much they had taken away from the total war formular and not added anything of substance. I played some of all the newer titles but alway drawn back to Med2, so much so I stopped buying their dlc and won't pick up WH3 or 3K2 and haven't played Troy.

[@StevenSmith-mk5fg]

I remember how revolutionary the original Shogun was. The last game I played was Empire. It was a broken mess that was never really fixed and instead, replaced with Napoleon. Sine then, I've gotten into the grand strategy genre but I wouldn't go back despite that as this franchise mainly caters for the Chinese consumer. A medieval setting has been long due a revisit but they aren't interested in that market

[@pancytryna9378]

Try Shogun 2

[@gerardotejada2531]

Shogun 2 is a masterpiece, but since Warhammer become the most successful game I doubt Creative Assembly would come back to historic games

[@lastword8783]

9:00 I definitely do not miss the 10000 1 stack AI going everywhere to attack imrpovements. Territory Raiding in Turn based games like that is always shit

[@unknownorigin7433]

the biggest disappointment was no map in Napoleon - you couldnt conquer - Shogun 2 multiplayer was is amazing

[@julianharris8868]

I loved CA... until Warhammer 2 happened I really thought Creative assembly could pull it around

[@philip6019]

@@ivankarizaldy Yeah i could of swore people hailed warhammer 2 with great reviews.

[@HistoryGameV]

Actually I deemed the Warhammer and historical Total Wars completely seperate entities. And I'm a fan of both, Warhammer (owner of a Dwarf army and a 40k Space Marines army) and military history. The problem is CA decided they should merge history and fantasy, a decision I absolutely hate.

[@TheJiggs666]

The worst is the politics, and risk of civil war, loyalty....I just want to raise armies and fight battles. It's not that I don't like diplomacy....CA assembly is just terrible at developing it.

[@fds7476]

No no. Realistic games need realistic politics.

[@TheJiggs666]

@@fds7476 Play a paradox game if you want realistic politics. Creative assembly is simply terrible at it.

[@fds7476]

@@TheJiggs666 _That's why they should improve._ Duh.

[@TheJiggs666]

@@fds7476 And it's not working....

[@urbanwarrior3470]

personally, i liked Attila - although it took me a while to get used to it. Haven't done the Warhammer ones. Shogun 2 was very good

[@rockstar450]

Attila freaking sucks mate. The campaign is a challenge and not enjoyable without mods. City factions just raze everything and you’re the only one trying to build to watch things get burnt down. The game isn’t fun. Total Warhammer is great fun without mods.

[@urbanwarrior3470]

@@rockstar450 i wasn't convinced till i worked out how to play it. It is long winded, and i think it would be handy to speed up the inter turn faction rota thing, or just delete it. But i enjoyed as it wis different.

[@rockstar450]

@@urbanwarrior3470 the issue is long winded careful strategy that gets bogged down by revolt spam and factions that senselessly raze settlements they should be capturing, wasting even more planning. The game simply finds uninspired means of repetition instead of challenge. The hardest part of Attila is the grind.

[@urbanwarrior3470]

@@rockstar450 I hear you - but part of teh grind is the amount of time it takes to go from turn to turn

[@rockstar450]

@@urbanwarrior3470 and then the revolts haha. When you get used to warhammer 2 it is by far the best total war has ever beenx

[@uncxrrect3868]

I always wanted a PC so I can play total war games but because it cost to much money gaming PC I had to go to my friends place to play mediaeval 2 on he's PC but theirs place were so packed my mates dad always was on pc I had to wait I got so jealous wishing I have a PC of my own but no

[@jtasgl88]

They need to make a Napolean 2

[@libletvi9060]

Ive seen the AI hold units in reserve in Troy, and I actually lost a battle because of it. I think they were in reserve anyway, they were hidden so maybe they just got stuck on a rock until I got closer to them

[@captainnyet9855]

The AI in Troy does feel a bit smarter imo; too bad that even after the fix the collision is so fucked it's hard to play that game unmodded.

[@LinusRapTips]

every once and a while i come back to this video and lament that it's only gotten worse since

[@mogwaiman6048]

CA benefits from the TW series being niche, it has a pool of customers that it only needs to rely on. The franchise doesn't gain a lot of new customers/fans it just keeps selling to the existing base. The series needs some direct competition.

[@WeeneyTweeney]

If no one else has pointed it out I believe they removed the ability to detatch regiments from your army and binding them to the general because there was a bug that allowed you to move around the entire map in a aingle turn simply by attaching and detaching regiments. You could literally conquer the world in 2 turns (see Legendoftotalwars Great Britain campaign) and it proved so gamebreaking and unfixable that they simply removed the feature.

[@mintmango2525]

Why not fix the bug instead of removing the entire feature?

[@WeeneyTweeney]

@@mintmango2525 as I said, and while Im not sure, the bug proved unfixable (probably because they couldn't spend too much time on it) so instead of wasting time trying to make it work they just remade it.

[@LordCandyDish]

That's part of it, the main part though was that the AI didn't do a great job of consolidating its units into a big army, and instead of fixing it CA decided to make it so you can only recruit to a general. To be fair that did fix the problem and the AI is more likely to make gigantic Armies now, but it takes a lot of choice and strategy away from the player.

[@miyamotomusashi8423]

Great video! That sounds like new DeI streams! ;)

[@HistoryGameV]

It does! :P

[@miyamotomusashi8423]

@@HistoryGameV Dont make me weak!

[@10Tabris01]

I have long since switched to games like UG: Civil War or the Grand Tactician game, which give me the depth and the feeling of actually being the ranking general of a massive army in the field

[@menshikov2708]

Watching this while playing Empire Total War with Darthmod, my 1,000+ hour into the game.

[@baptic2]

Make medieval 3 with the old engine

[@timonenluca4live]

The upcoming Ultimate General: American Revolution will mark a new era hopefully & show everyone what total war should have been. Ultimate General : Civil War got me playing over 100 hours , more then any total war in the past 5 years. Immersive , Big , Fun. When i play a TW Game it just makes me bored , smaller units .. Sieges get more streamlined , Performance get's worse.

[@Adri9570]

@History Gaming Verified There's a real time strategy game that could be very interesting to analize: Cossacks 1 and it's sequel American Conquest. The latter even has introductions made of descriptive text that appears to have been extracted from real history books.

[@Mila_clowdy]

We all wants the historical total war to return

[@Stu_Cazzo]

I enjoyed Medieval gold edition, and Rome. I would have liked to see Medieval II more like the first and less like Rome. In M2, I do not enjoy that if you play well, anything and everything that can go wrong does simultaneously anything you can't control the outcome starts to happen. Some examples? Inquisitors showing up and kill a general with impunity, Naval attacks by rebels or other fleets out of the blue, Generals conveniently earning poor traits, Merchants being acquired, armies without generals dropping allegiance and going rebel. And there is plenty of things to do to cull these, or work around them either 'by the rules, ' skirting the rules or cheating. And by doing nothing you can still conquer by turn 60, but it doesn't satisfy, the juice is not worth the squeeze. But besides just complaining. What would I like to see, obviously challenging AI, a more challenging siege. A better use of princess for diplomacy, more in depth nuances outside of the battle field. The list goes on and on. I have not played any other titles, but they all seem to be the same with a new coat of paint (different or better graphics).

[@stephenhartley2853]

melee has gotten so shit, i remember in medieval 1 there was a unit for every situation. the turks for example had three different hybrid infantry units, 1 with high armour and stood in looser formation by default which is perfect for trading arrows with enemy archers. 1 which had low armour but good charge perfect for standing at top of hill then charging infantry once arrows are spent. it had another which was generally elite

[@pedrl]

Indeed the Total War games have been loosing their shine over the years. I'm also not a fan of their push of mythology over historic accuracy...

[@HistoryGameV]

It's understandable why it was done, it's great for bringing some change into the franchise. The problem is, instead of basically giving us a "fantasy" part of the franchise with the Warhammer and now Troy games, that is probably less complex but more diverse, they are instead seemingly watering down the historical titles in a similar way.

[@BobRoss1793]

I quite enjoy the NTW 3 mod for Napoleon. In my opinion it brings so much more reality to the game. Just so much more fun to play

[@HistoryGameV]

Might give it a try for the mod series, thank you!

[@christophmahler]

If CREATIVE ASSEMBLY had simply stolen the files of the ROME I modification *'Europa Barbarorum'* , sold it as a DLC and made it the standard of it's further releases - minus technical glitches, of course (sorting legal issues out in a court settlement) - the franchise would have become the gold standard of historical gaming, worldwide - as it is still recognized for it's _genre crossing mechanics_ of turn-based strategy and 'real-time' tactical battles. I recommend to look into the _personal drama_ of the company to grasp how an innovative product had become another case of 'design by committee' - by 'interns' that is (albeit that's my cynical interpretation). The History of Creative Assembly (Total War / Alien Isolation) - Documentary To be fair, apart from debugging, ROME II e.g. was given more thought _many years after it's release_ with a DLC like 'Empire Divided' and a comprehensive rewrite of the faction menu, aka 'family tree' - which is at least worth mentioning. Then again, it takes the historically interested person only a day to figure that e.g. the 'vanilla' faction roosters and models appear 'clicked toegther' without consideration to historical debate of sources, player interests and playability - while 'women in iron age military service' seemed to be crucial enough to be patched in, despite the utter lack in a female customer base - before _or_ after...

[@steretsjaaj2368]

To this title they didn't think to add retreat while facing enemy, staple of a battlefield strategy. Can't pull Hanibal on enemy without it.. or Napoleon, or any good strategist's tactics for that matter

[@mertarican5456]

About AI. They realised if they can pump the graphics enough they can impress the people and by the time they realized AI is awfull most people would buy the game easy money right there. Making AI is Expensive as shit with not that much of a profit. :c

[@notgoddhoward5972]

We live in a period when Total War is less complex than ABC wooden blocks

[@Knobbyboy88]

To be fair, Rome 2 became *A LOT* more playable with age and further patching. The DEI mod also helps a lot. Attila and every game after it have also been pretty decent.

[@Tom_Quixote]

Saying a game "became more playable" is like saying a meal "became more edible". Hardly a glowing recommendation.

[@reybladen3068]

Game play is moving from formation and tactics toward specialized units and rock paper scissor mechanics.

[@jacksheldon8566]

And it is a shame. Understandable with warhammer, but not with historical tw.