Thanks again to @Lionheartx10 for joining me for this interview! If you guys have any questions you wished I would have asked feel free to leave them here in the comments. And don't forget the algorithm demands sacrifices if you enjoyed the video!
The comment about fewer active abilities lowering the skill ceiling highlights one of my biggest gripes about "modern" total war. Sure, it takes more APM skills to efficiently use active unit abilities but it also undermines what I thought was the most important aspect of the battles as a whole. You are the general of the army. You plan the overall deployment and strategy but your subordinates manage their own units. (For example, Napoleon wasn't riding along the line at Austerlitz telling every single regiment to fix bayonets before they charged. He ordered an attack and the regimental commanders handled the minutia.) I agree with the sentiment that active abilities should be rather uncommon and most abilities should be passive.
It would be cool to people able to encamp an army at a strategic position early in the campaign, then over time it gets built up to a fort... then a castle... and finally ends up a full on town with its own economy and need for defense. Really giving the player a connection to the kingdom they are building and a desire to see it prosper.
Although it would be fun, it is not realistic at all, while this could happen if minor scale it isn't enough to make a town out of it. In fact this type of thing I could only see it happening in the modern age, an example is the town built outside of Candia in the 100 year old siege of it by the Ottomans, however it would definetly be cool and more realistic, a mechanic like building castles anywhere that boost production, natality and security, this would make up for things like the Norman massive constructions of castles across England after the conquest of William in 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. This could be managed by a system of baronies and lords, which could make up for the little impression of decentralization that happened during the Middle Ages in Medieval Total War.
@@arched3954 On the contrary many Roman forts and Medieval castles went on to become towns and cities. The construction of more long term battlements often necessitated a larger local work force and would draw people to settle the area. Were most castles built near pre existing population centers? Of course they were but that doesn't mean a village wouldn't grow into a town due in part to the castles presence.
@@enoughrope1638 Depebnds largely on what castle you are talking about, normally the castles which towns were built around were built by local nobles, not the player in this case, also castles rarely turned into relevant cities, although they were save places were population could easily prosper unless you build them with the objective of protecting a trade route, it would be super rare for it to turn a relevant urban center. Also I understand roman ruins turned into cities, as examples we have Avila or Dubrovnik, but this isn't the point.
@@enoughrope1638 Maybe because the Romans directly built them with that idea in mind? If you want to talk about Leon we can, but Roman forts for the legions were built for cultural assimilation, that was one of the functions of it, they were built in hospitable lands, near trade routes and in good terrain. Even with that not many got to become a city.
For me not really, a huge deal in the Middle Ages are levies, as most armies were almost completly made out of them, a better thing to take into account for the medieval period would definetly be training, men at arms like longbow men would always be better than any veteral levie.
@@arched3954 A levied unit technically shouldn't become veterans. As those tend to be raised for a fight/campaign but disbanded once it was over. Very much different from standing professional armies.
@@arched3954 I didn't necessarily said you could (thought treating them like garrison units that can be moved (in the sense that garrison units are only there for a battle. Thought for mobile units something more like being up for a few turns and limited to that probably makes more sense) or having a peasant population system like Rome or Bretonnia in Warhammer is a possible way to address it). It was mostly just a reaction to your comment on me. At arms always being better than any veteran levy.
One thing I really liked about the original Shogun that I wished the later games would have is that you were able to right-click on the region , get a nice summary with it's strengths and weaknesses .
One thing i really liked in Three Kingoms were banners carried by soldiers. Is it possible to do here? Like in the movie, Kingdom of Heaven, when armies march and their banners fly... Units created in provinces could have smaller banners of their home province carried alongside banner of your faction. Heraldry was very important back then:D And i love it.
Heraldry was important but three kingdoms overstates it, chinese ''history'' is heavily romatizaded. Doesn't help is governed by communists obssesed with social order.
Well, if that system would work, number of banners could grow with experience. Fresh unit would carry 1. Rank 4 unit would carry 4. Something similar was in medieval 2. Most decorated units of elite were easy to spot.@@BR_Interactive
People making bg3, manor lords and this game are our only hope for high quality games now. Big companies like sega/ ca ruining total war so badly they now going backwards with less quality than 10 to 15 year old games. Total war is dead nowadays with trash like troy..pharoah and 3k killing off serise. Manor lords..and this game in development are the two lm waiting for now. I will pay full price for both.
Would love to see a proper retreating mechanic where you can control which way on the campaign map you can retreat to. So many times my main army runs into 2 stacks and it retreats farther into their territory or right to another enemy army/city
I wish battles were more decisive against armies. I always hate that in total war you defeat a nations army (2/3 stacks for example) yet by the time you defeat all that they've recruited another 2-3 stacks of the same quality etc.... and it just repeats.
Really wish I could help this project out in some way. I don't have much game making experience, although I just started making a game in TypeScript. But, I guess I'm more of a web dev guy. If you guys need a showcase website I'd be happy to help.
For the experience/elite units. How about instead of being able to just recruit elite units straight from a barracks or whatever you can only recruit base tier units and then as they gain XP you are able to upgrade them to the elite tier units? Seems more realistic.
@@BR_Interactive completely agree, you wouldn't take peasants though to being knights. But you could take peasants though to men at arms or something. Different time period I know but triari had to be hastati and principes first. Would help late game spam of elite tier units, you couldn't just use your money to spam full stacks of elite top tier units.
There is lots of talks about features that would be nice to have. But so far no word about the most important question: How are you going to make the AI smarter? All the features are not going to help of the AI cannot make basic decisions. Let’s just say the Ai were to take a fight on a completely flat map and the only thing that mattered to win would be the angling of your troops (which all have the same stats). Would the AI be able to beat you there? Probably not. If there is no plan on how to make AI smarter in even the simplest setting, then the long wishlist (feature creep) feels kind of pointless.
I think it would be realy nice if supply lines were visible on the campaign map that can be raided to starve the enemy, like trade routes in empire or shogun.
Does anyone remember the nemesis system in that lords of ring game? I've slways wanted generals to be more real in other words u kill a general and his brothers ..friends ir father come after you in vendetta... you fight a general and he remembers you.....generals that favour certain formations...generals that are famous for certain tactics....certain strategy...example a famous defensive mastermind...a berserker type who charges like crazy... imagine scenario where you get a message that a general is hunting you or is coming after you as doesn't like you... l know CA brought in shallow general/ hero vrs duels etc...but l want it realistic..so generals become important...so that you feel like right lm going to crush that annoying bloke...or run away from him! Also a final stand battle...so u conquer sll a factions territory then that leads to a huge set piece battle where that faction makes a huge last stand and if they beat player rebellions erupt all over captured land if player wins...then a satisfying crushing of enemies last stand...so its like u fel u have accomplished something and won a great victory. The real massive problem for me with total war is tge steam rolling boredom ..yes l want to cap entire map..but l don't want it boring. So..the reward is every faction has a last stand cinematic battle..andcwhen u win your made to feel rewarded. U could accept ruler as a general or execute with plus snd minus points to your choices.
I don't know how it could be done gameplay wise, but I think it would be interesting if there was a way to represent the different stages of a siege and the effects on both sides supplies. Rather than the defenders automatically taking attrition and being starved out, it would depend on various factors like whether the castle/settlement is located on a river and if the defenders can bring in resources behind the walls before the besiegers raid them. Also, it'd be cool if the besiegers had an actual camp and the defenders could make sorties to steal supplies or destroy siege equipment. Though as turns progress, the besieger camp gets more fortified.
Personally, I do believe diplomacy could have a bit more depth. In almost all of my campaigns, I simply never use them for any beneficial reason. I feel like adding resources like iron, wood ect. Could give me a reason to trade with a specific faction(s) to expand my empire. As the name implies, you have to offer something in exchange. I would also love the idea of you influencing the world behind the scenes if you catch my drift. Thank you for doing this project btw. Always wanted something like this.
honestly in regards to ai it just needs to be harder. I have played total war constantly for well over a decade and honestly I have never lost a campaign without doing it on purpose. I always play on hardest difficulty aswell
The Tzeentch ambush ability was a terrible example of good mechanics. It's one of the worst aspects of WH3 and just represents lazy design which tries to introduce depth but only makes the game frustrating, and not in a good way.
At about 6:50 talking about population and troops I greatly wish you utilize Med 2 'charge' system for troops and not use population like Rome 1, I hated Rome 1 systems
The current plan is to try and merge the two systems so that the recruitment pool system recharges faster based on population. I'm hoping it will be the best of what makes those systems interesting.
I see what you are trying to do there, I think it could work well, an easier way (that I just thought of) to try and balance that would be to increase recruitment times and how many charges there are and have troop variety with some recruitment bonuses (like additional charges) tied to buildings, E.G. Barracks Tier 2 gives Fancy Spearman + Reg Spearman and then population decrease turn time to recruit.@@BR_Interactive
Third Age TW should be an inspiration if you're thinking about how to do city progression, unit replenishment/progression and general progression - a modernization of those mechanics would hands down equal one of the best campaign map experiences in TW. Completely agree with everything else said here, terrain/height modifiers, randomly generated maps and building maps (especially seige) that are friendly to the AI are the way to go, the community doesn't really even understand what they want from sieges, you have to strictly think about seiges in terms of gameplay only and go up from there, that means I think making cities a lot simpler and smaller - the reason why I think shogun two seiges are the best in the franchise is because the AI can't fuck them up if it tried. And IMO total war arena was the best total war game in the last ten years, those were the best TW battles I've ever experienced, there was so much there that total war abandoned, it should be studied
oh and what if the campaign map was real time like hoi4? you could see battles happening in real time and have your armies march in an join them, or have allies travel with you - there's no reason to stick with a 20 year old turn based system
Third age and Tsardoms are two of the main mods that have inspired this project! And sadly I have never actually tried TW Arena but I will certainly look into it for inspiration!
@@BR_Interactive The good from arena came from preset maps that allowed the few units people got to be impactful. Even basic melee units outs front felt helpful because of the small scale. Occupying one more enemy unit meant a win instead of a loss on a flank. Also, the multiple players thing. If you can get WH3 multiplayer campaign features (simul turn, 8 players etc)m that would be awesome. 4 v 4 with 20 v 20 or 23 v 24 or whatever unit cap you put would make every unit in a battle feel more useful.
Thanks again to @Lionheartx10 for joining me for this interview! If you guys have any questions you wished I would have asked feel free to leave them here in the comments.
And don't forget the algorithm demands sacrifices if you enjoyed the video!
Thanks for having me it was great to discuss the project and total war in general
The comment about fewer active abilities lowering the skill ceiling highlights one of my biggest gripes about "modern" total war. Sure, it takes more APM skills to efficiently use active unit abilities but it also undermines what I thought was the most important aspect of the battles as a whole. You are the general of the army. You plan the overall deployment and strategy but your subordinates manage their own units. (For example, Napoleon wasn't riding along the line at Austerlitz telling every single regiment to fix bayonets before they charged. He ordered an attack and the regimental commanders handled the minutia.)
I agree with the sentiment that active abilities should be rather uncommon and most abilities should be passive.
It would be cool to people able to encamp an army at a strategic position early in the campaign, then over time it gets built up to a fort... then a castle... and finally ends up a full on town with its own economy and need for defense. Really giving the player a connection to the kingdom they are building and a desire to see it prosper.
Although it would be fun, it is not realistic at all, while this could happen if minor scale it isn't enough to make a town out of it. In fact this type of thing I could only see it happening in the modern age, an example is the town built outside of Candia in the 100 year old siege of it by the Ottomans, however it would definetly be cool and more realistic, a mechanic like building castles anywhere that boost production, natality and security, this would make up for things like the Norman massive constructions of castles across England after the conquest of William in 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. This could be managed by a system of baronies and lords, which could make up for the little impression of decentralization that happened during the Middle Ages in Medieval Total War.
@@arched3954 On the contrary many Roman forts and Medieval castles went on to become towns and cities. The construction of more long term battlements often necessitated a larger local work force and would draw people to settle the area. Were most castles built near pre existing population centers? Of course they were but that doesn't mean a village wouldn't grow into a town due in part to the castles presence.
@@enoughrope1638 Depebnds largely on what castle you are talking about, normally the castles which towns were built around were built by local nobles, not the player in this case, also castles rarely turned into relevant cities, although they were save places were population could easily prosper unless you build them with the objective of protecting a trade route, it would be super rare for it to turn a relevant urban center. Also I understand roman ruins turned into cities, as examples we have Avila or Dubrovnik, but this isn't the point.
@@arched3954 Not ruins, forts. I.E. The Roman legion built a fort and a town built up there and continued to prosper for over a thousand years.
@@enoughrope1638 Maybe because the Romans directly built them with that idea in mind? If you want to talk about Leon we can, but Roman forts for the legions were built for cultural assimilation, that was one of the functions of it, they were built in hospitable lands, near trade routes and in good terrain. Even with that not many got to become a city.
Unit experience should make a massive difference, so much that you would rather keep a veteran half strength unity than replenish it.
For me not really, a huge deal in the Middle Ages are levies, as most armies were almost completly made out of them, a better thing to take into account for the medieval period would definetly be training, men at arms like longbow men would always be better than any veteral levie.
@@arched3954 A levied unit technically shouldn't become veterans. As those tend to be raised for a fight/campaign but disbanded once it was over. Very much different from standing professional armies.
@@gokbay3057 how would you add that mechanic to a total war style game
@@arched3954 I didn't necessarily said you could (thought treating them like garrison units that can be moved (in the sense that garrison units are only there for a battle. Thought for mobile units something more like being up for a few turns and limited to that probably makes more sense) or having a peasant population system like Rome or Bretonnia in Warhammer is a possible way to address it). It was mostly just a reaction to your comment on me. At arms always being better than any veteran levy.
Lionheartx is a great speaker, absolutely love his idea about forts
I would also like to say thank you, not only for doing this but also for inspiring me to start my own unrelated project.
One thing I really liked about the original Shogun that I wished the later games would have is that you were able to right-click on the region , get a nice summary with it's strengths and weaknesses .
Thank you for all your hard work, passion and dedication!
One thing i really liked in Three Kingoms were banners carried by soldiers. Is it possible to do here? Like in the movie, Kingdom of Heaven, when armies march and their banners fly... Units created in provinces could have smaller banners of their home province carried alongside banner of your faction.
Heraldry was very important back then:D And i love it.
Heraldry was important but three kingdoms overstates it, chinese ''history'' is heavily romatizaded. Doesn't help is governed by communists obssesed with social order.
We actually have been playing around with how many banners/officers there will be in each unit!
Well, if that system would work, number of banners could grow with experience. Fresh unit would carry 1. Rank 4 unit would carry 4. Something similar was in medieval 2. Most decorated units of elite were easy to spot.@@BR_Interactive
@@BR_Interactive What about drummers? At least in more professional units
Drummers would be so cool! Don’t know how historically accurate they’d be in medieval armies. Did they have drummers back then?
Still very intrigued and I’m following the progress you guys are making with great interest. Keep up the good work!
People making bg3, manor lords and this game are our only hope for high quality games now. Big companies like sega/ ca ruining total war so badly they now going backwards with less quality than 10 to 15 year old games. Total war is dead nowadays with trash like troy..pharoah and 3k killing off serise. Manor lords..and this game in development are the two lm waiting for now. I will pay full price for both.
I agree, except that Larian is HUGE.
Also FromSoftware!
Would love to see a proper retreating mechanic where you can control which way on the campaign map you can retreat to. So many times my main army runs into 2 stacks and it retreats farther into their territory or right to another enemy army/city
I've lost all confidence with CA to do anything good again. I'm happy with Bannerlord.
I wish battles were more decisive against armies. I always hate that in total war you defeat a nations army (2/3 stacks for example) yet by the time you defeat all that they've recruited another 2-3 stacks of the same quality etc.... and it just repeats.
Yeah, some kind of manpower system could remedy that.
Really wish I could help this project out in some way. I don't have much game making experience, although I just started making a game in TypeScript. But, I guess I'm more of a web dev guy. If you guys need a showcase website I'd be happy to help.
For the experience/elite units. How about instead of being able to just recruit elite units straight from a barracks or whatever you can only recruit base tier units and then as they gain XP you are able to upgrade them to the elite tier units? Seems more realistic.
I think this makes sense for units within their own social class. But I don't expect that you'd be able to upgrade a peasant to a noble.
@@BR_Interactive completely agree, you wouldn't take peasants though to being knights. But you could take peasants though to men at arms or something. Different time period I know but triari had to be hastati and principes first. Would help late game spam of elite tier units, you couldn't just use your money to spam full stacks of elite top tier units.
@@HanSolo1 Defintetly, idk how they expect to have troops such as longbow men without a men at arms mechanic
There is lots of talks about features that would be nice to have. But so far no word about the most important question: How are you going to make the AI smarter? All the features are not going to help of the AI cannot make basic decisions. Let’s just say the Ai were to take a fight on a completely flat map and the only thing that mattered to win would be the angling of your troops (which all have the same stats). Would the AI be able to beat you there? Probably not. If there is no plan on how to make AI smarter in even the simplest setting, then the long wishlist (feature creep) feels kind of pointless.
I think it would be realy nice if supply lines were visible on the campaign map that can be raided to starve the enemy, like trade routes in empire or shogun.
Does anyone remember the nemesis system in that lords of ring game? I've slways wanted generals to be more real in other words u kill a general and his brothers ..friends ir father come after you in vendetta... you fight a general and he remembers you.....generals that favour certain formations...generals that are famous for certain tactics....certain strategy...example a famous defensive mastermind...a berserker type who charges like crazy... imagine scenario where you get a message that a general is hunting you or is coming after you as doesn't like you... l know CA brought in shallow general/ hero vrs duels etc...but l want it realistic..so generals become important...so that you feel like right lm going to crush that annoying bloke...or run away from him! Also a final stand battle...so u conquer sll a factions territory then that leads to a huge set piece battle where that faction makes a huge last stand and if they beat player rebellions erupt all over captured land if player wins...then a satisfying crushing of enemies last stand...so its like u fel u have accomplished something and won a great victory. The real massive problem for me with total war is tge steam rolling boredom ..yes l want to cap entire map..but l don't want it boring. So..the reward is every faction has a last stand cinematic battle..andcwhen u win your made to feel rewarded. U could accept ruler as a general or execute with plus snd minus points to your choices.
I love this comment.
I don't know how it could be done gameplay wise, but I think it would be interesting if there was a way to represent the different stages of a siege and the effects on both sides supplies. Rather than the defenders automatically taking attrition and being starved out, it would depend on various factors like whether the castle/settlement is located on a river and if the defenders can bring in resources behind the walls before the besiegers raid them. Also, it'd be cool if the besiegers had an actual camp and the defenders could make sorties to steal supplies or destroy siege equipment. Though as turns progress, the besieger camp gets more fortified.
Personally, I do believe diplomacy could have a bit more depth. In almost all of my campaigns, I simply never use them for any beneficial reason. I feel like adding resources like iron, wood ect. Could give me a reason to trade with a specific faction(s) to expand my empire. As the name implies, you have to offer something in exchange. I would also love the idea of you influencing the world behind the scenes if you catch my drift.
Thank you for doing this project btw. Always wanted something like this.
Which mod is being played around 21:50 in med2? It reminds me of Bulat Steel and an italian mod whose name now escapes me *thinking face*
That actually is bulat steel!
@@BR_Interactive Haha :D thought I recognized it :D
honestly in regards to ai it just needs to be harder. I have played total war constantly for well over a decade and honestly I have never lost a campaign without doing it on purpose. I always play on hardest difficulty aswell
The Tzeentch ambush ability was a terrible example of good mechanics. It's one of the worst aspects of WH3 and just represents lazy design which tries to introduce depth but only makes the game frustrating, and not in a good way.
At about 6:50 talking about population and troops I greatly wish you utilize Med 2 'charge' system for troops and not use population like Rome 1, I hated Rome 1 systems
The current plan is to try and merge the two systems so that the recruitment pool system recharges faster based on population. I'm hoping it will be the best of what makes those systems interesting.
I see what you are trying to do there, I think it could work well, an easier way (that I just thought of) to try and balance that would be to increase recruitment times and how many charges there are and have troop variety with some recruitment bonuses (like additional charges) tied to buildings, E.G. Barracks Tier 2 gives Fancy Spearman + Reg Spearman and then population decrease turn time to recruit.@@BR_Interactive
I hope you have the texts translated into Spanish
Promo sm
You guys talk a lot about CK3 here, as a veteran Paradox player, its not the game you think it is.
Third Age TW should be an inspiration if you're thinking about how to do city progression, unit replenishment/progression and general progression - a modernization of those mechanics would hands down equal one of the best campaign map experiences in TW. Completely agree with everything else said here, terrain/height modifiers, randomly generated maps and building maps (especially seige) that are friendly to the AI are the way to go, the community doesn't really even understand what they want from sieges, you have to strictly think about seiges in terms of gameplay only and go up from there, that means I think making cities a lot simpler and smaller - the reason why I think shogun two seiges are the best in the franchise is because the AI can't fuck them up if it tried.
And IMO total war arena was the best total war game in the last ten years, those were the best TW battles I've ever experienced, there was so much there that total war abandoned, it should be studied
oh and what if the campaign map was real time like hoi4? you could see battles happening in real time and have your armies march in an join them, or have allies travel with you - there's no reason to stick with a 20 year old turn based system
Third age and Tsardoms are two of the main mods that have inspired this project!
And sadly I have never actually tried TW Arena but I will certainly look into it for inspiration!
@@BR_Interactive The good from arena came from preset maps that allowed the few units people got to be impactful. Even basic melee units outs front felt helpful because of the small scale. Occupying one more enemy unit meant a win instead of a loss on a flank. Also, the multiple players thing. If you can get WH3 multiplayer campaign features (simul turn, 8 players etc)m that would be awesome. 4 v 4 with 20 v 20 or 23 v 24 or whatever unit cap you put would make every unit in a battle feel more useful.