Total War - Pirates! (of neither the carribean nor burning sea)

[eldaec]

    * Empire: Total War will be the greatest and most awe-inspiring Total War experience ever. This is a total revolution of the Total War series, featuring a brand new graphics engine and technology. The new, advanced graphics engine will include staggering real-time seascapes, new advanced landscape and flora systems, dynamic weather and new battle choreography and occupy-able and destructible battlefield buildings.


    * Empire: Total War will not only be the most visually stunning Total War game, it will also feature a huge array of new features and gameplay. These add rich new layers of grand strategy to the formula and yet, despite this, E: TW will be the most accessible Total War game in the series.

    *
      The game is set in the years 1700 to the early 1800’s, a turbulent age of gunpowder, revolution, discovery and Empire Building. This period has all the ingredients for a great Total War title: fascinating changes in warfare and its technology, a large number of competing factions hungry for power, and gloriously exciting and colourful battles. This is a time when an old world is being swept away at a tremendous rate by the juggernaut of the industrial age. Revolutionary ideas are in the air, and at least one monarch meets a bloody end! 


    *
      Against a backdrop of key historical themes such as the French Revolution and the American War Of Independence, the player’s aim is to create the greatest Republic or Empire the world has known, spanning not just a continent but the world! Can you hold on to lands in the New World, or establish a rich trading empire in the Indies? 

    * Empire: Total War contains a revolutionised Total War campaign spanning 3 continents and featuring new, enhanced systems for Trade, Diplomacy, Missions and Espionage. There will be an all-new fully animated campaign map with all buildings and upgrades visible. The campaign will also feature a huge cast of historical figures including Peter The Great, Malborough and Charles XII of Sweden. The game will include 10 playable factions including Britain, Prussia, France, Spain, America and the massive Ottoman Empire. 


    * New Real-Time 3D Naval Warfare takes Total War’s unparalleled battle action to the high seas with players commanding single ships or vast fleets. These will be the most exciting and realistic sea battles ever seen in a PC game. They will feature a realistic sailing model, cannon and musket fire, boarding actions, fully destructible sails, rigging and hulls and a full range of weather effects to influence battles. These will play out on stunning, ultra-realistic seascapes, as cannons and muskets blaze away, cutting through the smoke and fog to splinter, pierce and shatter hulls, sails and masts, laying waste to crew members and sending them to Davy Jones’ Locker.

    * Empire: Total War’s revolutionised graphics engine will be put to work on land battles that will feature heavy artillery in the form of cannons, mortar and early rocket launchers, with bouncing cannonballs slicing through drifting gunsmoke to tear up lines of infantry. Bagpipes, drummers, flautists and trumpeters will fill the air with play out over the crack of musket fire, the boom of artillery and the thunderous charge of cavalry. Generals will bark out orders to their regiments as the player orchestrates the battle utilizing formations, unit abilities and drills. Weapons will jam and misfire, cannons will seize up and explode as the field of conflict becomes strewn with the bodies of wounded and dying men, lacerated and dismembered by pike, bayonet and shot. 


    * Empire: Total War will be the most accessible Total War game ever. Enhanced auto management, revolutionized UI, improved advice system and tutorials all combine to introduce new players to the concepts of Total War, quickly and easily.

    * Empire: Total War will boast a full re-write of the AI with a wider range of strategies and tactics, providing a formidable opponent on land, sea and on the campaign map. 

 

    * A brand new multiplayer component will include player rankings, leagues and ladders and completely new gameplay modes. 

http://www.totalwar.com/index.html?page=/en/communityandforums/empire.html&nav=/en/6/8/

Ok, not pirates really, more Napoleonic battles etc.


This is probably old news to half of you fuckers, but anything Total War needs a thread because it is Total War, and therefore awesome.


I'm intrigued to see how they convert the battle engine for sea battles.

[Daeven]

I'll take a couple of those, and a chaser of Kingdoms.

[JWIV]

I love the Total War series, but good god the campaign AI needs some work. 

As far as I can tell, the entirety of the AI is controlled by a single line of code =P

If Player_war_fronts < 3, declare_war=yes

[Big Gulp]

I love the Total War series, but good god the campaign AI needs some work. 

As far as I can tell, the entirety of the AI is controlled by a single line of code =P

If Player_war_fronts < 3, declare_war=yes

The last game irked me with the constant papal interference.  I can see the pope forbidding me from aggressive wars, but when some foreign power starts a war with me then all bets should be off.  Even if I'd just take out the enemy units roaming around my territory it'd still get the pope in a tizzy.  Eventually you just say fuck it and sack Rome.  I didn't want to, I mean hell, can't the brother who retook Jerusalem for Christendom catch a break?

Bizarrely, playing as the Holy Roman Empire I had great relations with the Byzantines and Turks.  They never stabbed me in the back, and unlike the Catholic powers they didn't keep sending torrents of crusaders my way.

[Grand Design]

This will be the best Total War yet.  I love it when a developer sticks to the mechanics of a game and improves it with each title*.  Sea battles have been a long time coming, but TW fans knew it would be coming eventually.  But in all of this great news, the one thing that I got excited about was having bagpipes, drummers, flautists and trumpeters.  Oh, hell yeah. 

*Empire Earth II was a hate crime.

[HaemishM]

I think I just shit myself.

The Seven Years War is one of my favorite miniature wargames eras. The Total War treatment on that will be gaming heaven.

[Rasix]

Great.. I hate boats. My least favorite aspect of any RTS/TBS is dealing with navies.

[Merusk]

I'll agree, but not because I hate boats.  I love them, and sailing ships.  However, they're always given the "oh, and here's the obligatory boat so you can move across the sea" treatment.  They've been useless in most games and felt like a huge waste to build more than what you needed to move your army, then you can dispose of them.

[WayAbvPar]

Sounds like a lot of fun. Unfortunately I am sure it will bring my rapidly aging gaming rig to its knees at even minimum settings. No way I can justify a new PC in the next 6 months. Unless I have a good run at the poker tables...

[Sky]

Hey, maybe they'll support 16:9 widescreen this time. I should sell my copy of Medieval 2, I can't play it.

[Azazel]

Seems pretty fast on the heels of Medieval II though...

[Chenghiz]

Is this the era that Soldier Kings is set in? If so... awesome. If not... still awesome.

[Baldrake]

Seems pretty fast on the heels of Medieval II though...

All I see is some concept art and no release date. This could easily be a year or more away.

[Falwell]

The Total War series has yet to do me wrong. +1 to the watch list.

[Azazel]

All I see is some concept art and no release date. This could easily be a year or more away.

Ahh. I thought it was a near-future release.

[Johny Cee]

I'll agree, but not because I hate boats.  I love them, and sailing ships.  However, they're always given the "oh, and here's the obligatory boat so you can move across the sea" treatment.  They've been useless in most games and felt like a huge waste to build more than what you needed to move your army, then you can dispose of them.

In Total War: Rome boats had a pretty good emphasis.  Sea trade was vital to your revenue,  and easy to screw up if someone else kept one or two of your big city ports in blockade.  You needed to have a couple of decent sized fleets to whack any blockading fleets out.

[WayAbvPar]

They just released an expansion for ME II, so I doubt this is going to be released any time soon. Hence my doubt that my PC will be able to run it when it is released.

I just love Age of Sail combat games. I was warped by Sid Meier at an impressionable age.

[Teleku]

Awesome, sounds good.  The TW franchise and Paradox games (EU, Victoria, CK) are really begining to overlap.

[eldaec]

Somewhere on the site it says late 2008.

[Baldrake]

Am I the only one who had problems with MTW2? I loved RTW and played it to death. I've started the MTW2 campaign about three times, and never seem to get very far before I've pissed off the Pope and all my neighbours and am no longer having fun. (Yes, I know, I suck.)

[Grand Design]

I find that keeping a high number of support characters helps immensely.  Have a priest in every city to combat heresy.  Keep a spy in most cities and in nearby rivals cities.  Train a ton of assassins; to me, this is cardinal.  Being able to throw multiple assassins at a rival noble is a quick way to make sure you win a battle before you attack.  In fact, you can decimate a rival just by killing off as many of their nobles as you can find.  Fewer nobles, fewer heirs, fewer generals, easy victories.  When (not if) you anger the Pope, remember that he and his bishops (especially your enemies' bishops) are all valid targets for assassins.  Just because you kill off the current papacy does not mean the next one won't be an ally bishop.

[Johny Cee]

Still haven't picked up MTW2.  Whenever I think about buying it,  I just start playing RTW again.

Did MTW2 have the same system as MTW for rebellions?  MTW was killed for me after hitting a couple of game streaks where I had half my huge empire rebelling for no fucking reason.

[Big Gulp]

Did MTW2 have the same system as MTW for rebellions?  MTW was killed for me after hitting a couple of game streaks where I had half my huge empire rebelling for no fucking reason.

You let your cities grow too large.  Total War's population modelling is fucking stupid.  Essentially, you want to keep your cities as heavily taxed as you possibly can to cut down on birth rates, don't ever improve agriculture (leads to increased birth rate), and try to pump out as many happiness/civic order improvement upgrades as you can (churches especially).  It's still not bulletproof, because large cities will always eventually revolt, especially if they're on the fringe of your empire, but it does delay the inevitable.

[GenVec]

...

The AI is beyond retarded. It attacks when it should defend, it doesn't garrison its cities, it has terrible build orders. Your ally's navies will randomly blockade you for a method of declaring war, then sail off, never to take another offensive action. The game is more or less unplayable without mods.

And as for sieges - I have yet to see the computer competently pull one off. It's impossible to lose a city with more than one ring of walls. The AI will simply refuse to attack the next set. Battering rams get hung up on nothing, siege engines (which are rare enough) don't focus their fire correctly. If two stacks attack the same city, the second stack will march its troops around the base of your walls - taking fire all the way... to get to a breach on the other side, despite having plenty of their own battering rams, etc. Infantry units, after clearing a section of wall, will simply stand there and take until they're decimated and their morale breaks. Shields and two-handed weapons didn't work correctly in MTW2 until what... six months after release?

I was a huge fan of Shogun and MTW but I feel so burned by RTW and MTW2 that I refused to buy Kingdoms, and thank God for that as it was a loving pos. I don't know why they're cranking these games out like mad but they're ruining the franchise.

[Johny Cee]

Did MTW2 have the same system as MTW for rebellions?  MTW was killed for me after hitting a couple of game streaks where I had half my huge empire rebelling for no fucking reason.

You let your cities grow too large.  Total War's population modelling is fucking stupid.  Essentially, you want to keep your cities as heavily taxed as you possibly can to cut down on birth rates, don't ever improve agriculture (leads to increased birth rate), and try to pump out as many happiness/civic order improvement upgrades as you can (churches especially).  It's still not bulletproof, because large cities will always eventually revolt, especially if they're on the fringe of your empire, but it does delay the inevitable.

Yah,  but Rome didn't have that issue.  You could let your "core" (close to capital) cities grow,  and keep expanding your empire.  The trade revenues generated from new cities trading with your giant old cities more than offset increased costs from higher poplulations.

I got burned badly in MTW1 by rebellions while playing as Russia.  My whole Asian periphery kept fucking exploding despite the fact most were tiny provinces,  though this might have been one large province rebelling and taking the nearby small provinces with it.  This was despite the fact I went back to a saved game and bribed the hell out of some governors,  while shipping out the untrustworthy ones.

Never had an issue with rebelllions in Rome,  and I played a population growth/economy strategy.

[JWIV]

Did MTW2 have the same system as MTW for rebellions?  MTW was killed for me after hitting a couple of game streaks where I had half my huge empire rebelling for no fucking reason.

You let your cities grow too large.  Total War's population modelling is fucking stupid.  Essentially, you want to keep your cities as heavily taxed as you possibly can to cut down on birth rates, don't ever improve agriculture (leads to increased birth rate), and try to pump out as many happiness/civic order improvement upgrades as you can (churches especially).  It's still not bulletproof, because large cities will always eventually revolt, especially if they're on the fringe of your empire, but it does delay the inevitable.

Yah,  but Rome didn't have that issue.  You could let your "core" (close to capital) cities grow,  and keep expanding your empire.  The trade revenues generated from new cities trading with your giant old cities more than offset increased costs from higher poplulations.

I got burned badly in MTW1 by rebellions while playing as Russia.  My whole Asian periphery kept fucking exploding despite the fact most were tiny provinces,  though this might have been one large province rebelling and taking the nearby small provinces with it.  This was despite the fact I went back to a saved game and bribed the hell out of some governors,  while shipping out the untrustworthy ones.

Never had an issue with rebelllions in Rome,  and I played a population growth/economy strategy.

There were definitely a few times in RTW where I'd have to march my troops out of the city, let it revolt, and then redecorate the landscape with crucifixes.   

I had less of an issue with it this time around with MTW2, but that may be due to some pre-emptory culling.

[Johny Cee]

Did MTW2 have the same system as MTW for rebellions?  MTW was killed for me after hitting a couple of game streaks where I had half my huge empire rebelling for no fucking reason.

You let your cities grow too large.  Total War's population modelling is fucking stupid.  Essentially, you want to keep your cities as heavily taxed as you possibly can to cut down on birth rates, don't ever improve agriculture (leads to increased birth rate), and try to pump out as many happiness/civic order improvement upgrades as you can (churches especially).  It's still not bulletproof, because large cities will always eventually revolt, especially if they're on the fringe of your empire, but it does delay the inevitable.

Okay, I might have misnamed my problem.

I'm not talking about a city's population rebelling and tossing out your garrison.  I'm talking in MTWI where your generals would rebel and automagically take a chunk of your empire with them.

In Rome, never had generals revolt.  Occasionally cities would,  but not too often.  In almost every situation,  you subjagated the populace and shipped them out as slaves which gave you plenty of time to get civic improvements online.

[Daeven]

This mod is worth the investment:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/medieval2totalwar/mod/11602.html?details=1