Thanks again to @LegendofTotalWar 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!
something I never hear talked about that is the biggest difference between WH1+WH2+WH3+ME2+ROME1 vs all the others is the ui scale and visibility When I play any of the other games I struggle to give a damn about a lot of things because telling what something is at a glance is just imposssible and I actually need to lean forward and squint if I need to read something. Also unit card should be as distinct as possible from on another
I always thought total war could benefit from crusader kings style wars where you actually have an objective and you can force the enemy into a piece treaty by defeating them enough times. In total war it feels like the ai refuses to make peace until they have literally no hope of winning the war and their kingdom is totally ruined
The Total War series was always about fast, non-stop expansion, so diplomacy has always reflected that. There is often little point in making peace with any given faction unless you find yourself spread too thin and need to relieve the pressure a little.
I believe this is a consequence of the “total war” culture, where (as was discussed in the video) it’s all out war or peace. There is no in between, no nuanced war/peace-like stances, etc. When you’re at war its absolute aggression and expansion with immediate annexation. Contrast that with paradox games where beating an enemy state does not necessarily result in swallowing their territories whole. I suspect part of this also has to do with how wars were waged in different times as well. In an era like Rome or medieval, conquering territories and absorbing them right away might be the norm. But in a period like empire, taking over Paris and defeating France did not suddenly mean you’ve annexed the whole country. Rather you’d just enforce some other demands which can include taking over a reasonable border region or colony.
@@miot22 Historicly is not really realistic either, like if two christian country fought each other like France and the Holy Roman Empire, even if the Holy Roman Empire won the war doesn't meant they annexed France, mybe the Empire gained some settlemnt on the border but most of the times it was more vassalisasing then outright absorbation. Even in antiquity Rome liked to make client state first and they annected it later. I think the Total War series would benefit very much from a more gradual expansion with economical and diplomatic warfare and not just we kill each other to the last man style warfare.
Would be cool if knights recruited from a specific city could have that cities coat of arms along side the national coat of arms. The stats could be the same just a visual difference. Could add role play value when you see knights from all your cities in the same army.
Ooh. I would love to have a system like this, but I know I'll probably have to have this on the backburner of cool ideas that might be implemented later.
I also like the idea of a units captain being a named person who's name and a little photo show up when you hover over the unit card, as well as the captains accolades, each giving small bonuses to the unit a bit like how med 2 general traits worked. When the captain dies, he's replaced by someone else in the unit who has to build up his accolades over again. Gives you incentives to look after your men and distinguished units, whilst also making them powerful. I just think after a long war it would be cool if you had 2 or 3 battle hardened captains in charge of grizzled units with much improved stats, maybe nearly unbreakable morale, better Melee defense or something. If the captain dies in battle the unit loses those bonuses.
There is also an argument for: #1 generaless armies #2 ancilarry transfers, since generals are not immortal #3 replenishment of units, i.e. auto replenish like in newer titles or retraining #4 visual armor upgrades #5 resources as in metal for enabling of fielding knights etc. #6 trade system or merchants that are not present in newer titles #7 actual diplomats that even help you bribe setlements or generals #8 inclusion of naval battles #9 artilyry being low acuracy in older titles and act as snipers in newer ones #10 variation of siege battle maps, with player customisation if posssible #11 being able to marry a princess or prince to another faction heir and inherit the kingdom #12 religion and culture of settlements playing a part or corruption etc. #13 allies maybe being able to attach their army to yours like in eu4 #14 historical or lore related scripts for events are a good way to spice things up #15 gunpowder and bullet logic on the battlefield There are possibly more things that can be covered a part from these as well bit they were on the top of my minf during the discussion
I've been playing Medival2TW with every mod for the past 12+ years as well. As I'm working as a product manager for a software company/ and a product launch manager for a nother I'd like to hep out were possible. though to be honest the beta testing would be the most pleasurable for anything.
These are all really good points! Some of which I realized I should have tried to ask after the interview. At least for my own personal thoughts on these questions for this project they would be as such *#1 generaless armies* - I very much intend to bring this back as I miss the man of the hour system so much. *#2 ancilarry transfers, since generals are not immortal* - Definitely on the list of things to include as well *#3 replenishment of units, i.e. auto replenish like in newer titles or retraining* - Currently leaning towards a retraining system as the auto replenishment system while convenient does take away from the risk of battles. Far too often in more recent titles I'll gladly abuse the autoresolve because I know I will replenish most of my men before it matters. *#4 visual armor upgrades* - This is a huge priority for sure! Gotta have that immersion. *#5 resources as in metal for enabling of fielding knights etc.* - There is definitely something to be said about using resources to get certain units. I am currently unsure how exactly I want to do this. I could do what Shogun 2 did and need a resource to build higher level buildings but I am not sure how exciting that would be. *#6 trade system or merchants that are not present in newer titles* - I definitely want a trade system like medieval 2 were it feels far more organic and not as static as more recent total wars. *#7 actual diplomats that even help you bribe setlements or generals* - While I do think it is convenient to have no diplomats in newer titles, I think there is something to be said about having a physical diplomat. If anything at all bribery of armies and lords is a really fun thing to do at times. *#8 inclusion of naval battles* - Definitely want to try and do this *#9 artilyry being low acuracy in older titles and act as snipers in newer ones* - This will definitely be a balancing act as you wan them to hit often enough to be effective, but not miss every shot. I do lean more towards how medieval 2 artillery works as the setup before firing is more important and feels very satisfying. *#10 variation of siege battle maps, with player customisation if possible* - I definitely want it to feel like you're not defending the same three settlements over and over. Player customization would be really interesting but to keep things in scope I will probably have to keep this on the backburner. *#11 being able to marry a princess or prince to another faction heir and inherit the kingdom* - This is a must for me given all my princess escapades on my gaming channel with Tsardoms. It feels so good to steal generals from other factions. *#12 religion and culture of settlements playing a part or corruption etc.* - I've always personally liked how DaC feels with culture and I think the Tsardoms mod does corruption best. *#13 allies maybe being able to attach their army to yours like in eu4* - Honestly this would be an amazing way to make allies feel useful and definitely something I want to keep in mind. *#14 historical or lore related scripts for events are a good way to spice things up* - I am definitely taking inspiration from Tsardoms in how they handle historical scripts because they can be quite fun. *#15 gunpowder and bullet logic on the battlefield* - I know I want to include early gunpowder but it will be a long time until that is the primary focus. All really good questions that I will definitely be keeping in mind for future interviews!
@@gulabot If you want to reach out to me on the email I have attached to this youtube channel I can certainly discuss this further with you. I know it will be a long time before I am able to beta test, but I fully intend to try and have that be a very open process!
@@BR_Interactive, i think a neat edition might be that guns will wear down after extensive use for example making the guns inaccurate despite unit experiance once it is used long enough Footwear wear down after long enough march in terrible terrain, slows units down and a little bit moral penality Possibilities to upgrade cannon units just by giving a cannon unit a stronger workhorse from recently occupied area Giving them more endurance or and speed +/- terrain Giving an army a small sight of view without a unit of scout in the army or near enough on the campaign, but with creates a bigger view Id also love to see a way for the player to artificially change the ammo units have with them, potentially by giving the player a dilemma between more ammo or swords or more ammo or units armor As in siege battle it would be cool if a town fire had an effect on the battlefield beyond the visual Tho i dont expect any of these, but i think these would handle helpful with the fatique problem Anyways Best of luck, mate👍
Men in Units actually being individual men again, shields actually blocking projectiles not just a flat decrease in damage. Real-time battles actually feel like battles again, not just a bunch of "fights" strung together.
In the med2 Britannia campaign there were small castles that acted like forts all over the map, I would love to see those make a return. As well as free upkeep for some garrisoned units inside. Would be cool if you could construct those at strategic points. Or to help subjugate a rebellious province. More akin to the real life uses of castles
I miss building forts so much! That is definitely a feature I want to bring back. Placing a fort at a choke point just always hit differently and really gave the campaign map more strategic things you could do.
@@BR_Interactivea cool, ( but understandably difficult) would be to let fort grow into small town over a long time peroid. Like how old roman forts develouped into towns
Agree with bringing your own garrisions back. Having units that specialized in policing and not war was also a great thing. On a front you would want real soldiers. In safe territorium you would want the police units.
@@divout6688 yes, i always disliked the auto garrison mechanic and prefered it when you built your own with a certain amount and type of free upkeep slots depending on the buildings in that settlement. This is better IMO because it allows you to have a more flexible defense allowing you to sally out to defend a neighbouring settlement under siege or rally to defeat some rebels or a encroaching army. Pretty sure garrisons didn't always just sit in their settlements and watch as their neighbours get starved to death one by one.
@@xXBisquitsXx I think having auto garrisons of some kind of low tier militia is fine(basically the police/ fire department like the town watch in Rome 1), but the actual soldiers should be chosen by the player with some acting as better garrison troopers than others.
I always loved cutscenes in medieval 2! It was always great to see that the traits you had on generals would be reflected in how they delivered their speeches.
I would love a Ressource and Campaingsystem like in Three Kingdoms Total War. Food matters, and you even have supply lines for your armies. Food was also a mighty instruments in Diplomacy
For generals: I like the idea of making unnotable captains nobles, but rather than adoption it would be nice to have them create their own noble bloodlines. I think getting adopted into the Royal family should have more specialized parameters that accentuate the event and make it feel more important. On another note, if the captain's unit is knights (like teutonic knights, only for example) an option to allow that captain to start their own knightly order rather than a noble family. With limits, of course. Having 60 different knightly orders over a long term several hundred turn playthrough would be ridiculous. On cities: a system similar to Empire/Napoleon wouldn't be bad. They already showed you what not to do. For example, making the entire French mainland have a "Oops, all Paris" moment. Also, making it to where taking those smaller settlements feels like a good decision and not just a waste of move points. I wish you the best of luck on your endeavors.
One thing I think Shogun and Med2 got right were their simple stat system. Soldier amount, Morale, Armour, Defense, Attack, Speed. In 3K or warhammer, a 2 handed unit will have slightly better attack than defense. In Shogun 2, a Nodachi unit has trash stats but insane charge bonus, making them a guided missile of a unit, with unique playstyle. Having simple stats can make it a lot easier to design genuinely unique units.
I definitely think there is nothing wrong with trying to keep the design principles simple for units. Trying to over design their stats can just make them more of a terror to balance and get right.
Re: settlements, have 'internal' buildings which represent what's in the walled city itself, and then provincial/outpost building slots. Pharoah does something like this but it's all shrines and waystations. I mean your farming or resource buildings should be in these outpost slots. Raiding armies could attack these Provincial improvements and say get lots of food for raiding a farming community or money for hitting a trading outpost.
Yes! The City is your Center of Government and Commerce. While it could have farming etc outside the walls, majority of it would/should be spread around the province. Maybe Guard/Recruitment Posts for military capacity beyond town militia? I imagine trying to govern a Castle or other basic level "military type settlement" should actually rely entirely on those provincial nodes for raw resources, food and people. But to counterbalance that, you'd ofc would have your heavy/specialized military production and training there.
What made Med 2 and Rome 1 so good: Armies without generals (not all armies are meant to be full-scale armies, some are detachments and reinforcements) Unit pools for recruitment (as legend said, it's realistic, immersive and adds a layer of strategy and meaningfulness to losing high tier troops) No automatic replenishment (made casualties in battles matter more because replenishing your troops was more difficult, especially with the unit pools) Organic and immersive traits and personalities for characters that made them feel unique and alive Family trees and mortality Population system Income was not a fixed amount gain for a building but an organic amount based on multiple factors like population. (In warhammer, you build a building and get +500 gold per turn). Images for buildings you build and units you train that shows you what the unit or building look like (instead of icons, adds immersion) Unlimited amount of buildings in settlements instead of arbitrary 4 Free upkeep units system like in med 2 for garrisons that allows you to station troops somewhere without having to pay Garrisons where the units you chose to station there, not automatically generated, streamlined garrisons Good morale system for battles and longer battles (allows for smaller armies to defeat larger ones with good tactics due to chain routs, which are also realistic, armies would rout and create panic) Spectacular battle and campaign music (like Rome 1 especially and med 2) Good modding community (because base game was so good people wanted to make their own mods and kept the game alive) Most of these elements have one thing in common: immersion!!! Make the player feel immersed and he won't move from your game for hours every day. Hope it helps, but I'm pretty sure you already knew all of these things.
6:56. I really agree about the generals. The first time I played Rome 1 as the Brutii I spammed temples to Mars because I wanted the veteran soldiers. Result: Almost every single general was 'Name the Deranged'. You had to think carefully about which buildings you put in a city and how long you would leave a general governing one of them. It made the game more interesting, but also gave you lots of scope for playing the same campaign but in a different way.
In my opinion, yes, the dumbing down of certain gameplay aspects did and still does hurt the series, but the worst thing of all is how... let's say basic the AI is, be it on the campaign or battle map. If CA or anyone else that wants to be successful in making a new Total War game, they should invest in developing an AI that understands and correctly uses all the mechanics used on the Campaign map, and recognizes all the units on the Battle map and the best way to use/counter them while maintaining battle order and formations. It is a monumental task, but in this age of AI advancements, an AI that can only create an illusion of intelligence because it is given outrages cheats is a crime against the players.
In game with so many possibilities (just army placement on tactical maps...) It would cost a lot to développ an AI and have it be able to run on most customers' machines... So not only a lot of money and Time, but also a reduced potential customers base. I get why they go with simpler algorithms and free stuff for AI. Cheaper option would be to focus on stable and easier multiplayer. Making it easier to find human players, schedule turns etc.. Just look at the ressources needed to develop an AI able to play StarCraft. It took years and google s involvment. And starcraft is way less complex than a total war mixing grand strategy with tactical battles.
@@etienne8110 , listen, I get your point, and as I said "it's a monumental task". But considering most of CA's games use the same engine, types of units and stats it would need to be developed once and it can be used, let's say, for the next like 5 entries in the series. I am not saying multiplayer is not important, hell there are people out there that do only that in Total War games, but let's be honest - focusing on that would eventually lead to the abandonment of the single player component of the series as whole and it's the lazy way out. And say what you like, but not a single Total War game has ever become a multiplayer hit big enough to survive only on it's online player base. In fact the single online only Total War game, Arena, died so quickly that it's not even funny. Say what you will, but in my opinion, every entry in the series since Empire (also included) has been a broken, boring reskin of the same game that has been progressively more braindead and better looking at the same time. Unfortunately flashy graphics can only take you so far before people just abandon the series as a whole.
@@Reaf121286 i m not contesting that recent games are just mods of rome2... Just that believing you can make a better AI with learning AIs is a common mistake among people with no knowledge of what AI is. The cost/benefits is way out to even consider it.
I would like it if general traits/ personalities would influence ai strategy more. Inexperienced and reckless generals will charge you head on and try to overwhelm you, while experienced and cunning generals will try to overload a flank or will attempt to ambush you using forests.
The AI in recent Total Wars are so so shit that if they just made their AI halfway decent in the next game it would be a huge upgrade. I’ve seen mods actually make the AI better FOR CA. It’s harder to develop good AI, but that doesn’t mean CA DOESN’T half ass it like they do with many aspects of Total War now.
thank you for doing what CA won't. A lot of people have been fantasizing and coming up with ideas on a sequel for YEARS man. It takes balls to actually undergo this project.
Love hearing Legend's thoughts! Thanks for the great discussion! The idea of immortal/mortal lords at the beginning of the interview really resonated with me.
I really really love the idea of combining the building system of medieval 2 with empire/shogun 2 Having smaller towns or villages or resources outside of the main city that you can develop individually, however still having *most* of your building still done in the city (unlike empire) would be such an awesome mix. Empires mechanic of having little towns pop up as you went through the game was so cool, but it was so held back by the fact that buildings in the actual city were so limited
Lots of "economical buildings" could, and IMO should, be tied to those provincial villages/towns/nodes - and would be even more important if you're controlling Castle or Stronghold! You can't have a city/Castle and economy without farmers, herders, loggers, miners, fishers etc. People that generally can't do their job inside the walls or immediately outside. You could even tie some of the "maintenance", "religion" and "safety" of province to those if we were to implement Guard Stations, Monasteries or communities specialized in building stuff. Those that are not necessary needed in the Main City/Castle. The City/Castle should be your "refinery", the place where you reap the benefits of the province. It should be your Center of Production, Recruitment and Government. Can't control and manage your province and it's communities without proper bureaucracy after all!
Just some general comments, ideas, and questions you might consider 1. Unique named heroes and Lords could provide incentive to marry them in and pass down their traits. Some could be introduced later in the campaign and require side-quests to acquire. 2. Different battle AI depending on faction strengths? 3. Unique campaign mechanics; Possibilities: Venice having the ability to ferry nearby armies or set up trading posts in settlements, Huns gain additional supply line for razing, Rome can set up forts or gain defensive battle buffs 4. Will there be research, settlement based progression or both? 5. Conversion from defensive castles to production-based cities and vice-versa? 6. Multi-layered castle sieges like medieval 2? 7. Will campaign movement speed be dependent on army composition like in medieval 2? It just makes sense that a siege army would be run down by cavalry on the campaign map. I think this would have a huge impact if brought back. Awesome idea!
About War and Diplomacy: I believe that 3k diplomacy was good but I'd like to see casus belli. And you can already take military non-war action against another faction. Just raid their lands (R2, Attila and the modern games) with the raid stance. It is bare bones. But you can do it.
I do think 3K has the best diplomacy we've gotten in a total war game. And while I know technically raiding stance is a non war action you can take it feels very disconnected when you just switch stances and walk around to do it. It's not nearly as engaging as physically attacking a smaller city in my mind.
@@BR_Interactive I agree. But I think for that you'd need many small villages spread out throughout the campaign. Maybe with small or no garrisons. I did enjoy how Empire did it but I also agree that at times it was annoying having to chase 1 or 2 unit armies that would completely wreck your country-side. On the other hand this is somewhat accurate. Allowing some or all towns to fight back would certainly help curb the issue. OR, keep the general locked armies and give action points to armies that they can use to send selected units to raid\forage\attack nearby spots. You could also use this to build bridges or roads for example if you want that depth. Perhaps burn the enemy camp, alter the course of a river, and other such stratagems. That could be a fun system that'd give the player a lot more options and control over their military campaigns.
This is such an exciting announcement and I hope that this gets so much more attention! I'm am looking forward to seeing developments on this project, and I wish you the very best of luck with this! 🔥
@@BR_Interactive idk what its like in imperium surrectum but pretty much when you click on the family tree section you could choose to look at main family tree or at those of the other great families in your kingdom
@@dr_etior6162 Ah okay, that is pretty similar to what Imperium Surrectum does on a ridiculous scale. I definitely want to bring back more of a focus on family trees again.
@@BR_Interactivejust make it like Crusader kings. also the captain thing apparently already existed in med 1 where a captain could rank up and become lords
One idea that was floated by CA during development of empire was national reformation; where if enough land was taken by a certain nation, they could transform into a superior state.
You could also try talking to Andy's Take or Terminator, they have some great insights into how some of the seemingly minor thing made the older total wars like shogun or med2 feel like what they did, especially that one video where they talked about asymmetry in starting positions made every faction's campaign feel unique because you had to deal with very different situations. For example in attila you could start as large but crumbling empires dealing with fronts or as the gothic invaders which started small but unified. This is in contrast to new total wars where every playable faction has the same starting scenario of one city and an easy enemy to unify starting province then go ahead from that. The streamline starting position makes the campaigns flow kinda similar regardless of which faction you play as compared to very different starting positions leading to unique campaigns. Another thing is difficulty balance where in warhammer at any battle difficulty above hard, the enemy gets so many melee buffs that most factions regardless of their unique units have to come down to the same strategy of making AI units blob and then shooting them or endless kiting.
Brooo, thanks for reaching out Legend, he's no doubt a great reference to talk about AI, campaing map and battle design. I would love to see how his opinions can make it to the actual game. following this project with love
A huge feature these games all lack is the ability to upgrade weapon and armour smiths that allow you too bring ur army back to that city and upgrade the equipment of all troops at cost shogun kinda had it but you had to mod in the upgrade feature otherwise you had to recruit fresh units to get the upgrade
But in Medieval 2 you can auto-manage settlements. If a player ever gets to the point where he feels that he is getting fatigued then he can just put some of the settlement into auto-manage.
I think another big reason for the new building system is also to promote specialization for each settlement. Instead of being able to build everything everywhere depending on the population and your gold, it forces the player to make some choices. I have a settlement with access to a rare resource, but it's on the furthest fringe of my kingdom and borders a potential enemy. Do I invest in trade and resource gathering buildings, or should I beef up the defenses and make some garrisons? Also a cool system for territory disputes could be zones of influence that spread out from a city. They could be represented kind of like the unit marching distance highlighted area for armies. This zone would give you bonuses to troop movement, economy, development, etc but would cause negative relations with other kingdoms if it overlapped with their zones of control. Certain buildings could have in it that they will expand the zone of control by however much percent, making it a potential tradeoff for whether the additional benefits are worth angering your neighbors. And even within that system you could have different ways to solve the border dispute. Maybe you can offer to purchase the plot of land to have them relinquish their claim to it. Maybe you could strong arm them out of it, or offer to aid them against an enemy or something. Maybe even have a champion fight over it.
That should be done with population. You should be able to build any number of buildings you want, but if there aren't enough pops to man and maintain them they will fall into deriliction. Hell be like victoria 2 and have different types of pops, you have the popilation number for anotjef building but not the right type? It will fall into deriliction untill enough pops convert to the right profession-type. Then have a migration system (and the ability to force migrate pops) so the player can choose where and to what extent they want to centralise/decentralise, to specialise and to diversify, etc.
I would also have a region tradition, the more they do something the longer the greater the bonuses, which would encourage specialisation (but plagues and wars would discourage it due to all eggs in 1 basket)
Concerning armies running away and replenishment and small armies wrecking havoc I have the following to add: 1. Having an army-wide morale stat which if it falls below a certain threshold (which can be affected by losses, presence/absence of general, supply situation, plunder, etc) causes the army to disband if defeated simply because the men in the army desert, short of physically destroying an entire unit. Some of the manpower might be recouped but the army doesn't exist as such and would need to be re-constituted. 2. Allowing small armies (and fleets) to "snipe" or raid a non-walled mini-settlements (or port) on the map can be prevented through a combination of: - Restricting most standard armies to travel along a road network (which is historically accurate) - Allowing a cavalry detachment to enter a special guarding stance that gives it a very large zone of control but restricts it's movement and attacking capabilities, it allows the cavalry unit to intercept in battle any army which attempts to raid within the cavalry army's enlarged zone of control [during that raiding army's turn]. This would not be effective at stopping an army attacking in force but it prevents 1-3 unit armies from trolling the crap out of the player. - These same cavalry forces can cause attrition to units that retreat within their zone of control during a particular turn to represent a 'pursuit' phase which could occur over several days. 3. Most standard armies, especially infantry armies with baggage trains, whether moving or retreating should be confined to travel along road systems that connect towns/ports/castles/cities etc. rather than anywhere short of mountain ranges and water. Special unorthodox routes can be made available for certain types of special armies. 4. If an army is so damaged that the AI detects it is no longer able to overpower local enemy armies, the priority of the AI should not be to mindlessly hunt for something else to attack but to retreat to a secure location such as the border of it's own country or a fort or something. A supply system and AI logic around this can help.
One crucial thing that is also different about Medieval 2 compared to modern TW games is that you had to care at least a little bit about logistics: even your best melee troops would, inevitably, be worn down over the course of a campaign, and getting reinforcements to the frontline to replenish or replace those troops wasn't a simple act of waiting in a friendly settlement for a turn until every regiment had had its share of presumably teleported-in reinforcements. Instead, it really did matter whether you had a connection back to your recruitment centers in your homeland, or whether you had to rely on ad-hoc recruitment of mercenaries, which of course were a limited resource in the short term. Also, your troops marching in small groups from their home town to the frontline could be intercepted or harried by enemy garrisons sallying out of their castle or town, again incentivizing sieging down settlements and keeping fronts narrow rather than produce deep salients, not because the enemy would just get free stacks spawned in on even the most useless of settlements, but because reasonable frontlines were actively encouraged by a system which worked the same for you and the enemy. If one wants to find some inspiration from games outside the Total War series, I think in terms of logistics the Hegemony series of games does it best, even if at a much smaller scale than TW. It tracks food available to you in every city and for every unit, and transporting said food or reinforcements for your units across roads is not perfectly efficient. You lose some % of transported goods, and higher distance makes reinforcement slow down to a crawl. I really think either of the systems used across the Hegemony series would greatly complement the systems already in place in Medieval 2 to produce something truly greater and more enjoyable than either game on its own is able to be, even with mods.
About buildings: I agree with the fatiguing over lots of settlements. What I would suggest is allowing the player to create provinces and assigning cities and a governor to them. You would be able to then set the province to automanagement and specify the focus, as well as ordering specific builds\tax settings. If the AI is decent it will take this burden off the player, it works well in Stellaris. (You can then add depth, if the governor is not loyal he can rebel taking your province away, for example Or having penalties for having different cultures on your province, or adding policies into certain provinces, etc.)
This is where the title system is implemented, with autonomy being the risk of govenors raising their own armies to backstab you. Stainless does this well. Similar ro how Persians utilized Satrapies and recieved tribute, troops and resources.
i never found the settlement management tedious in med2. even in mods where you have huge maps with lots of settlements. because it actually matters for every town what buildings you get. if you have a settlement thats a long way off from a settlement level upgrade and there is lots of trade in the area, you might want to focus on trade buildings. in other settlements you might want to focus on population growth, or on public order, or culture conversion, and you need to look at the culture stats and geographic location of your settlements to decide where to build military buildings. maybe you want to build a blacksmith in one specific central location so you can send recruited units there to upgrade their weapons and armor before sending them to the front. from rome 2 onward with the limited build slots, simplified growth and culture mechanics, its just doing the same thing over and over again. first build growth building, then money building, and then public order or a barracks depending on whether you want to recruit in that province or not. no need to think about anything.
Personally I think the class system in DEI for Rome II is the best recruitment/population mechanic in all of Total War. The Medieval II system is a good second and the only one that's even close (even if some games like Napoleon get a pass because it doesn't make as much sense for the time period). If the DEI system is too difficult for the AI to handle, making the AI use the Medieval II system regardless of what the player sees could be an easy way to force more army variety. There's just something so immersive about having drained all the nobility in your main recruitment provinces, so you have to go to a different settlement if you want some more cavalry in your army
A suggestion i have is to make experience matter more. In all games experience does increase morale and that's good, that should be kept, but in rome 1 experience was a bit too op (+1 attack and defense for every chevron, for a max of +9). Then in medieval 2 experience was nerfed to only +1 attack for every chevron tier (+1 for bronze, +2 for silver, +3 for gold which is the max). Something in between would be perfect. Or if the way you do stats are changed to have bigger numbers like rome 2, then a percentage increase would work very well, so archers would benefit less in melee (but get benefits to their ranged attack) from experience than knights or swordsmen for example
At the moment I am personally leaning more towards a medieval 2 veterancy system but possibly a hybrid. As I think having more simplified stats is a bad thing, but it is important to make units with experience feel worth getting. Especially since I won't be having auto-replenishment.
@@BR_InteractiveI'm glad you're deciding against replenishment. It's a convenient feature, but it makes you lazy and careless with your troops since you know they'll just be back to full strength in 2-3 turns no matter how battered they are. I love how important it is to minimize casualties in ME2 to maintain your momentum and also not to lose your rarest and most professional units. I like having a reason to care about my men.
I like the idea of units that I care about. Could do something with unit progression. When a unit gets to max chevrons, maybe they can be upgraded to elite tier and get special weapons or armor or something. Their moral becomes locked and get bounus damage or something. Basically have a big reward for looking after your units and maxing their experience. Then when they are maxed you care even more about them because they are a beast unit.
One thing that would be cool is if a unit does something really awesome, like kill a hundred knights in one battle, they become a regiment of renown with a specialty against heavily armored cav.
@@JakeBaldwin1 That would be sweet. I would like to see artillery become more accurate as their experience increases. As it stands a maxed chevron unit isn't much different from a baseline one. How cool (and realistic) would it be if their reload time decreased and accuracy increased as artillery units gained experience.
you already get a big reward in med2 for having gold chevrons on your units. their stats get a lot better. it would be nice to have visual representation for that like more ornate and better fitting armor
@@TheSuperappelflap Its +3 attack and defense for maxed out chevrons so I wouldn't say a lot better. I would like a little more especially for an already elite unit. A percentage increase in attack would be good then it scales better for the elite units. If they get maxed out chevrons they could become a "legacy regiment" with battle history/kill count and customisable moniker.
@@gamble9437 yeah in vanilla it is 3. but i would argue thats still pretty impactful for something that is free and doesnt cost more upkeep. especially on lower tier units with low base stats. in most mods the effects of chevrons and armor and weapon upgrades are also increased.
If you are interested in new suggestions: Characters and Nobles should not take up unit slots in an army, nor should each Character or General on the map be represented by an “Army.” They should be treated like Agents that can travel throughout the country, and they should be able to attach to any army, where they appear on the battle map like a Hero in Warhammer but without taking up a unit slot in the army. You should also be able to attach these Characters to specific units in the pre-battle set up to act as the Character’s retinue. Multiple Characters should be able to be attached to a single unit (thereby allowing you to represent a King and his cousins, brothers making up his retinue, or splitting them up and letting the King and his brothers command different wings of the army).
About Factions - Civilization with Kingdoms as sub faction (from Attila) + Gens or royal families (from Rome 2). This would be a great combination as you have to worry about faction within and without. About Recruitment - Units should not be spawned but rather built. So get raw recruit then equipment them with spear sword javelins or bows. Elite units should be with better equipment and received training. Don't get more complicated than this. Their is lot of diversification possible here. About Technology and Research - Make it hidden and change as per player style and choices. We need something to kick TW ass as they are bringing their best.
Personally, aiming for full Medieval Total War -experience at once is a bit high hurdle, so I'd personally divide it into several polished products. F.ex. start with a high quality tactical game with army battles -> release it at Indie price -> get funds/feedback -> integrate it to a simple settlement game (f.ex. no diplomacy, just basic resources) -> release it at slightly higher indie price -> get funds/feedback -> add diplomacy with all previous included and polished further -> release as before -> ... ad infinitum Also with cities, I don't think cities are the key thing with cities, but it's what cities can do for the player and the "life journey" of the nation player is playing and "scarring" with his actions... f.ex. cities vs. points on trade routes vs. locations for military recruitment vs. extracting vital resources from specific parts of nature etc. But I'm off to other stuff now, hope it gave ideas. :)
I liked the discussion but it didn't feel very fruitful. I think what you need to do is literally make a list of all the features that should be in a good Total War game, and then break them down and define exactly what each of these components consists of and what is required for them... then you can map interdependencies and all of that stuff... Because let's be honest, any new Total War game will need a complete overhaul of all its core mechanics: - AI - settlement management - province management - territory expansion - army management - general management - siege battles - diplomacy - unit rosters and stats - agents - events - campaign motivation and so many more. I have a bazillion ideas if input is required - always happy to help out in any way possible
concerning provinces, do take a good look into knights of honor 2 settelment design quick points: 1. provinces have town and resourse villages (you can raise villages to get quick resource boost also hurt enemy economy) 2. every town has its own buildings, but building upgrades are shared (at first this sounds odd, but this helps with micro managing) 3. less developed areas like steppes have bigger provinces, but bigger provinces have more resource villages. (it kinda balances having more provinces or having few more worthy big ones)
also it has best aliance system i have ever played with, instead of making nation your ally to fight in every wars, you make allies targeting specific nation, it is so nice since you are not forced into fighting stupid wars.
Please make sure that the general as a person and the general's bodyguard as an in-battle unit are separatable entities. It's very silly in my mind that disbanding a general's bodyguard would kill the general or that the death of the general would mean that the bodyguard unit is completely destroyed on the campaign. A character with general characteristics can be assigned into or out of an army and can also be given direct command of a particular unit (in most cases a unit of the most elite cavalry but not necessarily e.g. how Alfred was not commanding on horseback) and that unit becomes the general's unit. Atilla came closest to this IMO, where many of general's bodyguards were based on other pre-existing units that also had a general attached.
To the city management I personally would do a system like total war 2 but with the option that you can micro manage it way deeper (maybe even design your Owen city's) but make it as complex as possible but give an easy way too that's just a little bit less effective so both sites win
first video I've seen of this and it sounds very interesting. I like simplified resources and global bonusses, but also a more tactical approach. So my suggestion is to have the main resource be gold and have food, metal, wood and stone as balances (like food in warhammer) that will affect many things. And then luxuries/specialties for global bonusses. For example: Food would make your cities grow faster or slower depending on surplus/deficit. Metal would make recruitment and upkeep of soldiers cheaper or more expensive, lets say you get X iron, Y goes to maintenance of equipment, that would leave you with Z to spend unburdened before really expensive imports or maybe global debuffs as equipment is failing because you're trying to recruit stacks of knights for several turns in a row. Wood for navies and city growth and upkeep of siege. Stone for city growth and fortifications (tactical walls and gates to prevent enemies from penetrating the core of your kingdom) All a balancing act to keep costs for goods from skyrocketing in your kingdom and keep running efficiently. And yes I snuck population in my example. I think there should be some automatic replenishment but nowhere near as crazy as the current games, probably 1 or 2% of the total army size, so it's a impactful decision to retrain in 'safe' lands and get your army filled out again, at the risk of being caught with your pants down training recruits. I think it would also be a good idea to instead of warning raiders to get off your lands to threaten them with an army would be a great idea. And prevent raiding on territory where you made a recent peace. (so they don't have to dump their reliability to get rid of raiders *glares at total war* or initiate a full on war) just a 'get of my property' battle, not war. Choice of a couple maps where to fight given to defender, unless already ran away from a battle or ambushed.
My take on generals. During the hundred years war it would often be a Baron or a Duke or a brother of the king who is the best general in the land. Mercenaries and foreigners could have sway over an army. I would like distinction between barons, lowborn, priests and nobility who can all be generals.
Before generals were immortal I used to be attached to units. Like a troop of maxed out infantry, archers and small amount of cavalry can win any battles and doesn't matter, almost, who leads them.
On the system of promoting randoms from the army up to a general. I think a system similar to 3K army composition could work, but instead of having 3 generals in an army it'd be a standard one general + 2 or 3 retainers that have their own retinues and through action could gain additional traits just like generals and eventually even become generals themselves. Retainers could move on the campaign map with their retinue just like we can move units in the older games, but couldn't form large armies without a general or perhaps they could for a battle, but the army might lack cohesion. So like lower tier generals, something of the sorts. Thinking of it, sounds a bit like armies forming in Bannerlord. Or they could just be attached to a general permanently like those Shogun 2 retainers which just provided some bonuses, but be actually present on the battlefield kinda like WH heroes.
I just want to say, "Yes, please!!" to a spiritual successor to Medieval 2. This subgenre of strategy games dearly needs some competition and innovation. And for the love of all that is holy; please make formations and positioning really important. The whole reason I fell in love with the Total War franchise was mainly because Medieval 2 had such an amazing beginning foundation for a deep and tactical formation based warfare system. That system got a bit expanded and explored in mods but never to the point where it felt like a really fleshed out and well designed system. The ideal successor to Medieval 2 to me was always a game where your soldiers didn't slaughter each other to a man, but a game where the most dangerous situation for your army was a route. Where a lot of the army would still survive on both sides but victory meant that the enemy army could turn around the war if you attacked them in an advantageous position even though their morale was low and most of their army on the verge of breaking at the beginning of the second battle. Being able to see two armies hold a formation and battleline until one army had a breakthrough in one part of their line and subsequently begin to be outflanked, their formations begin to break down and a route to begin to form feels so much more rewarding than watching my units duel each other in one on one combat until both units are mostly dead and constantly hammering right click so that my blob can grab another ranged unit into melee so they don't shoot at me and do 'max damage'. I think that is one of the reasons why the Ultimate Generals series is so fun and why Darth ended up expanding on those more realistic tactical and strategic aspects that had a foundation in earlier Total War titles. I would love to see an interview with that person if you get chance. Do you have a release date, title or Steam storepage listing for your game yet? Thanks, I wish you and your team all the best!
i wish we had a 4x total war cities like civ4, build them freely on any tile with tiles being like the rome1/medieval2 2x2km squares have tile improvements like farms on the actual campaign map so there are reasons to have non seige battles. civ4 culture so you can control individual tiles instead of static borders
My thoughts for it could include that for your faction, have the multiple resources similar to the newer total wars, but with a few key differences. One being that instead of having bronze or iron, you have ores, which if you control regions and production hubs for the right combinations, it gave you reductions in cost for units, upgrades, and buildings utilising those ore and alloy combinations. Wood is used for buildings, ship buildings, and most siege engines. Stone for fortifications, building impovements, and monuments to bolster prestige. Also, have gold be the main unit of trade, but you convert a portion of resources like food, wood, ores, and stone into gold. Added in also could be interesting option for handling bankruptcy scenarios for the kingdom. For example, taking out a loan, selling off personal posessions, making agreements with your nobles and the church for power shifting into their hands, directly plundering or attacking your own institutions to reclaim cash, and watering down your own coinage(guaranteeing that things will be more expensive down the road) are all elements to this. Your bankruptcy produces interesting story moments as you try to get out of the red while you feel those growing layers of consequences mounting with every deal you make. Combine with systems to influence internal situations through espionage and you can have angles to make stories where you sent a spy to help win you a war by fermenting treason and infighting among your enemies so you could snag a little bit of territory while they were busy trying to beat each other to death. At the same time, goose and gander. In the midst of a war with naples, your second best general decides to commit treason because nepalies spies shoved a fat pouch of gold into his hands to switch sides before a big siege, potentially costing you the war. Espionage, politics, religion, martial might, and civil management. All are pillars you must learn to wield if you wish to thrive in this era.
It would be great if the player could *customize the experience*. I for one strongly dislike non-immortal chars. I very much like what CA did in the last titles (option-wise) like decoupling AI cheats and battle cheats from AI economic cheats. Furthermore, *the AI has to play the same game as the player*. You can see the negative example in TW Pharaoh where the AI will build units that need resources it can not possibly have or sustain going so far that you can trade with them for resources, but they do not even have the extractor built to actually accumulate said resource. Thank you for the interview and best of luck and success with your project!
Just thinking about "Medieval 3" gets me excited. I wish you success with your project! As a veteran medieval 2 player and an amateur modder, I have some suggestions that I hope will be useful: 1. There's a lot to gain from Shogun 2. It has many improvements over medieval 2. Just to mention some: -Trade is much, much better. Still a bit awkward because the AI refuses good trade offers, while sometimes paying you tens of thousands just to get some horses... But all around, trade makes more sense. In medieval 2 most of your trade income is received by your towns trading with each other, which is quite bad. It doesn't incentivize you to cooperate with other factions for mutual benefit, and it doesn't make you search for factions that have resources you want. Historically for example, Norway and Denmark were good trade partners (Norway had metals and fish, Denmark had grains which were hard for Norway to produce due to cold climate). I want to see that in the game! With shogun 2's trade, this could be possible. -Resources are also much better in Shogun 2. I like that in medieval you can build mines on resources, and each region has a different mine income depending on what there is there. But other than that, resources don't feel unique. Timber is bad, gold is great, but that's really not how it should be. Resources should have some effect, to incentivize trade with foreign factions. You want to trade with people who don't have what you have; that should be the main principle of trade. Timber should be good for ships (reduce costs or allow superior ships), grain for population growth, horses for cavalry, stone for castles, iron for swords... Gold/silver make you rich. Salt and honey should give happiness or something. Same for silk and spices. These resources have no military use, but Europeans lusted over them in the middle ages. Why? It made them happy! Venice and Genoa basically fought wars over salt, as did Portugal for eastern spices. By making these resources useful, you have an incentive to "buy" them from the factions that control them. Also, it's good that in shogun 2 you can upgrade buildings such as lumberyards to export more timber. It gives each region more personality. Overall, Shogun 2's economy has many good aspects worth implementing. 2. On the contrary, there are some things that should be kept the way medieval 2 did them (and not Shogun 2 for example). -Towns and sieges felt more lively in Medieval 2. Shogun 2 castles feel barren, like a bunch of palisades surrounding a mountain. -Retraining is better than replenishing. You said this in a comment yourself and I agree 100%. Replenishment incentivizes autoresolve or reckless actions in the battlefield. In Medieval 2 every man counts. -Units should be upgradeable by retraining. In Shogun 2 you have to disband a unit and recruit a new (same) unit in order to give it better armor. That's both impractical and unrealistic. -Agents should have upkeep (like in vanilla medieval 2) to discourage spamming them. -Siege weapons should be useful for breaking through walls. And they should be the only thing that allows you to immediately assault a city (without building rams etc.). In shogun 2 you can instantly take any city without siege weapons, which makes them pointless. 3. Regarding unit balance and armies, I would like to see the following: -Give units a bit more "personality". For example, in total war we always have "sword beats spear". Sure, that's good from a gameplay perspective... but why not also reflect the fact that spears are a good defensive weapon? Make spears resistant to frontal charges, when they are stationary (even against infantry). Spears should hold the line better than swords, instead of only being "anti-cav". In M2TW, swords are always better than spears if no cav is around and that really shouldn't be the case. -Peasants/militia etc. should exist in every army, and not get thrown away once you get knights. Elite units and peasant units should exist in balance with each other. Make knights and other elite units limited and harder to recruit. Both elite warriors and peasants should have their place within an army; you just have to choose which part of your army you leave "weaker". A strong economy should not guarantee you a doomstack of knights, dismounted knights and elite archers! -Also, make elite units more "elite". Yes, spears are anti-cav but a single spear militia should not wreck a knight unit like it does in M2TW (or like yari ashigaru do in S2TW). Similarly, in stainless steel cavalry is overpowered to the point that hobilars can wreck a varangian guard... No, that should not be the case. Yes, the varangian guard are not spearmen, but they are elite and should hold their ground even against knights, like they historically did against the Norman knights! -Pay attention to not making a bunch of units pointless like in vanilla medieval 2. Pikemen should be great when they can hold their formations, but not a nuclear weapon like they are in stainless steel. Two-handers should be the best melee balanced unit, useful both against cavalry and infantry. But, they lack shields and are more vulnerable to missiles. Swordsmen beating polearms in vanilla M2TW renders the entirety of polearm units completely useless. Similarly, in stainless steel swordsmen resist a cavalry charge better than polearms do, because they have more defence from their shield! That's clearly an error and completely illogical. Sword units should be decent in melee and great on tight spaces such as walls (and also resistant to arrows since they have a shield) but they should not be the "best" infantry like they tend to be in TW. -If you include guns in the game, make them worthwhile. Guns should have good range and power but terrible accuracy. In medieval 2, arquebusiers lose to peasant archers, and that is just so sad... Similarly, matchlock ashigaru lose to bow ashigaru, which is even sadder. It's acceptable for gunmen to lose to elite archers, but not peasant archers... I don't ever want to see this dumb thing in a game again. Guns already have the huge disadvantages of being slow, expensive, late-game, can't fire above your troops and can't fire over a hill. Don't give them more negatives! Make them worthwhile, like they were historically. And try to make fire by rank finally work! 4. Regarding autoresolve: All TW games suffer from terrible autoresolve. Usually, infantry spam armies win autoresolve and it's easy to see why: melee infantry mostly have the bulkiest raw stats and highest number of men per unit. How to counter this? Make autoresolve care about unit diversity. Different units should work well with each other and boost each other's capabilities. An army full of spearmen is worse than an army of slightly less spearmen backed up by some archers. It's not about raw stats; Missiles are trash when unsupported. Cavalry solo lacks numbers. Infantry solo is vulnerable to missiles and easy to surround. Diversity and balance is key! Make autoresolve reflect this and discourage spammed copy-paste armies. For example, an army with a long range siege weapon should be able to "lure" the other army towards them and fight defensively. An army with only heavy infantry will instead be forced to break position and charge when faced with missiles, thus losing their defensive advantage. Just some ideas! I don't want to see a stack of dismounted feudal knights (or yari ashigaru) wreck autoresolves, even though we all know that such armies are terrible. 5. Try to make the game "longer", so that the player gets to see more events and technological developments. It's a bad idea to have the game encourage "blitzkrieg". Building up your empire is fun and should be encouraged. A characteristic example: In vanilla medieval 2, factions such as the Turks or Russia are actually better off rushing everything so that they win before the Mongols appear; it objectively makes gameplay much easier. But it takes away all the fun! And it makes no sense historically. Similarly, as Byzantium, you can easily destroy the Turks in just 20 or so turns. What's the point in that? You're left with a campaign that feels barren and pointless, with your archrival destroyed before they could even do anything. In order to make the campaign longer, it might be worth it to add more minor factions, more minor settlements (such as villages, forts etc.). Take the teutonic campaign for example. Isn't it fun that the map is full of villages? Or in the britannia campaign, the map feels more lively because of the stone forts! Much better than in vanilla, where you can cheaply destroy Scotland by autoresolving Edinburgh siege with a ballista and some spear militia! I'm sorry for posting a wall of text, it's just that I had a lot to say about this topic. I hope that at least some things I said give you some good ideas! I wish you luck in your project!
Here is a question for you: Do you like the idea of maps (that you fight on) leaning more towards defender vs attacker style, where the defending army usually has some kind of high ground with like a river below it and some trees around it in strategic places too. All in all giving the defender an advantage even when out in the open (kind of like the wood elves siege battles). Shouldn't this become the default battle mode/map just differing in its original setup and context a little, like maybe its by the coast or in a barren sandy landscape with shrubs and stuff. Occasionally you can have big siege battles.
historically armies when not marching would build a camp with some small defenses like low walls of wooden stakes, ditches and earth walls. preferably in a defensible positon like a hill or near a riverbank. if they have more time, it was common to mine the field in front of the camp with traps and stakes and other stuff to slow down attacking men and horses. so every field battle should have the defender start in or in front of their camp and have some time to set up before the attacker moves in, unless it is an ambush. the amount of defenses the defender gets should depend on how long they spent in that position. so instead of building a fort instantly by clicking 1 button and paying a few hundred gold, an army would need to spend a few turns in a position to turn a basic camp into a fortification. raiding camps/forts with small forces at night to steal weapons, horses, or try to kill enemy officers would also be a nice to have feature. more focus on harassing enemy armies instead of just big pitched battles.
The part with the raiding, actually makes sense if you read about the hundred years wars, you have the English price Edward that did Chevauchée, what is basically raiding of south France
My background is in engineering, specifically biomedical engineering. So I have coding knowledge just for a very different application. I do currently have a private discord to discuss the project with people that are volunteering for the project. I intend to try and make that public once there is more to show for the project.
I think an Open Source approach to Med2 is the best move. Simply recreate Med2 in an engine where the restrictions of having such an old and unwieldy engine get lifted. You apply features from more modern Total Wars specifically concerning Quality of Life Improvements for the player and better AI allong with slight revamps to the Royal Family and Kings/Heirs system and boom. Modders can remodel the map and add as many settlements, units and factions as they want because of the lifted restrictions and you have yourself the perfect Open Source Medieval 2.
@@BR_Interactive which after having watched all your videos on your project I'm quite happy to say I'll look forward towards all your progress. Most people would simply settle for just making Med2 in a new engine but i think its critical to add features introduced in games like Rome 2 and Attila to make the game far more player intuitive and wieldy. Thank you for all your hard work so far.
I would like a system similar to ck3 where you can influence the upbringing of your dynasties children via their education. Even something as simple as deciding their early education, middle education, and finishing to influence their starting stats and traits.
From the historic side of combat i'd love to see it be very heavy and losses be devastating, as much as i enjoy turning my brain off an auto resolving a campaign it never keeps me entertained knowing i can just recover quick and keep on throwing bodies at things. As mentioned the Med 2 system did well at guiding your unit comps and the population mechanic was nice for punishing throwing away units but id love to see the combat itself have a very well flushed out morale system. On top of sieges, the art of sieging feels thrown away in a lot of total war games and like legend has said in many videos about how in warhammer titles it isn't worth defending the walls and can ruin what could be a beautiful battle because the optimal strat is cramming my army in a choke point and giving up the walls especially when you think about how critical walls were in sieges and all of the crazy and creative ways people tried to get passed them.
Armies need some kind of supply mechanism. That may be one way to get offensive army that smaller and effective so it takes less supplies and move faster than big and cohesive and defensive that sits in castle or near by so it can be more demanding for supply But range is not great without attrition etc. Also surrounding and cut off supply is then one more strategy and armies need of rest time to time could be done. Some units could also be added to hold supplies. Also unpassable terrain could then be passable but only with very high cost. There is many way to do that but it makes strategy game over all less arcadish and more serious when units have to taken care.
I would love they Idea of being able to recruit a few elite units wich you can upgrade with special weapons and armor and individualize them to your needs. with movement I think one of the best ways would be, that you have Movementpoints per turn and when you go into forcemarch you kind of use some of your next turns movement.
no. remove force march mechanic. it just enables the AI to run away from the player and stay 1 tile out of reach while raiding your territory and forcing you to keep an army around irrelevant minor settlements. just do it like in med2 where an army can get more or less move points from traits on general and different units have different movement speeds that can slow down an army.
It would be cool to have the old fort system and to be able to change the borders of provinces by taking small settlements or founding cities/ building forts and castles
It seems like your thoughts are similar to what a lot of the community is thinking. All most people want, from my impression, is medieval 2 with a better looking UI and unit models (a lot of mods for med2 already have detailed character models that look good to this day and that level of detail is good enough imo) and some more in depth mechanics on the campaign map for collecting resources and army recruitment and raiding and stuff like that. For example in med2 standing in enemy territory causes devastation for the other faction but you dont actually get anything for it like reduced unit upkeep or resources.
I have a few elements that I wish to be in new TW iterations. Battles slower and relying on morale shocks and mass rout rather than slaughtering enemy. (Discussed in the material) Second is the recruitment system (fit for later than medieval periods and kinda touched in the convo). Ability to create in each region a pool of reserve troops with reduced upkeep, limited by population number and maybe influencing economy (and/or public order) and raisable like RoR in WH3 or maybe recruitable within one turn while regulars would take 2+ (depending on how much time each turn was). The reliance on resources like sulphur, steel, saltpeter, water and food to raise and maintain troops wouldn't go amiss too. Other than that, bulding, economy, trade, diplomacy would be nice if reverted to those from Rome 1/Med 2 but obviously polished and maybe expanded with features inspired on Paradox games. That way we could get game about creating and maintaing Empires rather than just paint the map grind
Liked how there were different settlement types in Med II, cities and castles, and so you couldn't just make every settlement the same and recruit the same kind of troops everywhere. So doing something like that maybe even with soft restrictions, like build these kind of buildings here to get X but also get penalties to Y could be cool. + Find out where is Jeff van Dyke, the music maker for Rome I and Med II and get him onboard!
I definitely want there to be differences in what you're able to recruit from cities! And man that would be the dream if I could convince him to compose the music.
I think to do a mercenary lord faction you would need to make them a mix of horde faction mechanics and maybe using the skaven under empire mechanics to build mercenary outposts in allied/enemy cities for like unit recruitment possibly mercenary version of unique faction units like english longbow men
Have they made a total war where you can absorb a defeated army? Or you siege a castle out and offer them to join with you, or ransom important characters stuck in the settlement instead of just killing them?
8:04 "One way to care about your units more..." as we are currently watching a mortar fire 4 shells directly into the player's infantry wall that their cav is walking backwards through.
First and foremost, thank you for picking up where CA fails, and that is opening a discussion with the community. I miss those forums. Forgive me for this wordily post, hopefully the passion of the fanbase doesnt get to overbearing as there are so many variables to creating a total war game. Ill begin with a few points, but once again, it all depends on availability of tools. First, understanding the era of which you desire to cover throughout the game. Each region of the world respectively had their own management systems, governements, tradition and they should be translated into building effects, ancillary traits, government policy, public and civic capabilities. Context should always be supported by historic evidence. Population is imperative and creating systems to mitigate populations into approiate duties is the key to gameplay progession. Now for something more specific to mechanics. I know theres a unit tier system. What about an additional unit class system? Providing variations for factions that might have a disadvantage to tech, but produce hardy warriors which they can also sell as mercenaries. Each class offers unit behavior which translates to combat effectiveness. This is where animations and tools are key, becuase professional units should have not just better stats, but better fighting. Two units could be similar, but in a different class, resulting in their behavior in the field of battle to determine that balance. Class 1- peasant, surf, townsfolk Class 2 - levy, laborers, local patrol Class 3 - warrior, raider, brawler, guerilla, horde Class 4 - militia, city watch, provincial regiment, fiefdom fighters Class 5 - professional, upgraded/promoted captains, hired sergeants, mercenaries Class 6 - royal class, nobles, decorated knights, household troops Class 7- elites, veterans, special forces, palace guard, men of the court Class 8 - hero, exotic beast Class doesnt necessarily mean better stats, its also a parameter for unit behavior and skills. Hope this makes sense. I dont mind elaborating any details as i love designing blueprints. Total War is inspirational as history is seldom a topic of interest. Thanks again for being considerate to us small guys.
I always enjoyed the culture mechanic from medieval 2, but would like to see it being used in conjunction with a war support feature so for example war between France vs England would happen more often due to the historical rivalry, but Scotland vs France would require some propaganda or a third party causing friction. Could be used to lessen the player vs all ai mentality that happens.
I think i would like to have something in between Empire and Rome/Mediaval 2 regarding to building. Don't look me in with limited building slots for the city instead let me think about what order to build in. Having Rome and Cartage maxed out in Rome was a great feeling. For resources I liked the Empire way of actually building them on the map giving you and extra way to specialise/improve the region. Religion from Medieval 2 was great. I always spent much energy in recruiting priests and moving them both through my regions to improve happiness and going to muslim and other countries where they would improve faster and as such reach a higher rank in the church so and thus getting sway over the Pope. What you say about characters being at risk and dying is essential to a historical game. Actually feeling loss when a great general die of old age or in a battle make you actually connect to them. Recruitment is hard. I like to standardize my armies but I also agree with Legends comment of that the recruitment system of Medieval making for more diverse armies. I would probably combine Medieval with Rome again so that any recruited soldiers is taken from the population. (Also the ability to move populations by recruiting them and disbanding them in other regions.) Also make fleets matter. Give them a carrying max to eliminate the one boat carries 1000men thing. The seas are both potential pathways and barriers which we should need to invest in using.
One of my biggest gripes with TW games is that the AI has to cheat in the campaign map just to keep up with the player. I know the typical excuse from CA is it would too taxing on the computer/simulation to have each AI managing an economy properly and that very well might have been true at one point but after the success of games like Stellaris we know this is very feasible these days. In Stellaris, every AI empire has a functioning and balanced economy for its playstyle and when in the rare case the AI specializes a planet (city in TW terms) on one resource you can take it and deny them that key resource until they rebalance the rest of their economy. Economic warfare is a thing in that game. Also the entire simulation is done in real time. TW style games overall have less factions and cities compared to Stellaris and are turn based so it should be able to handle proper economics for the AI factions. My guess is CA refuses to support this kind of idea because it would require a drastic rewrite of the already barely working campaign AI. Just look at how derp it is in Warhammers 1-3 and how it seems like certain factions are almost always predetermined to overcome their neighbors as the game progresses. I'm not sure how Stellaris manages its AI system but for a TW style game I could see it being there is actually one real AI managing the other faction's turns but each faction's information and turn history are siloed from the rest. As the AI end its turn for one faction, it loads the silo for the next and takes control until it runs out of options. Rinse and repeat until it is the players turn. This way you save some processing power and memory overhead. As long as the AI only makes decisions based on the siloed info, it should create the illusion of multiple separate opponents that are competing with each other. Obviously, when two AI factions fight, assuming you even need to do a full battle simulation, two separate battle AIs could handle each side. Since TW style games are split between campaign maps and battle maps this becomes easy to implement from a coding view point but I'm no AI expert.
A medieval 2 spiritual successor should also have an ai that doesn’t cheat, meaning that raiding the economy and winning major battles actually has an impact on diplomatic negotiations and on the finances of your ennemies No more spamming stacks Diplomacy especially in terms of war would be very interesting if you could only wage wars if you have a casus belli +much like in paradox games the provinces shouldn’t have fixed borders Population count and classes (similar to DeI) would also be really cool
Original settlement building system! If you want provinces to ease management late and middle game then have huge provincial management tabs containing 12+ settlements and automanage it like you could without a general in there as per the old games. If i want to make a little town into a mega city/fortress that should be my choice not the devs.
Agents. We all love spies. We all love diplomats. Assassins have funny cutscenes but probably caused more harm than good. Merchants are... optional. Priests are probably too strong at what they do. Their flavour text is fun though.
I'm sure you've seen some of the ways mods like SS (M2TW) or IS (Rome/Rome Remastered) integrate bloodlines into things like loyalty or additional traits to deepen the marriage/adoption aspects of the game. I had a run last week where I had a family tree with lots of princesses that meant I had a core group of highly loyal generals with buffs from different faction's family trees - and then eventually the main line of the family died and I had a regency! It pushes more of that ludo-narrative stuff that you brought up about 7-9 min in, but also had gameplay effects, so there's more ways to get players to be motivation to engage with the mechanics, not just the roleplayers. Had issues, like not being able to designate heirs, and choosing heirs in really weird ways which would kill bloodlines (extra painful when you had all these features around them!), but I understand they did what they could with the limits of the engine (I remember trying to get more than 5 kids from one character would crash the game no matter what I tried...) Tangent, but my favourite feature of any TW game comes from Stainless Steel, where generals who spend a turn in a province get an ancillary title (eg. "Baron of Inverness-shire" for Inverness) that gives a little tax boost plus a thematic effect based on the settlement. Each character gets only one, but as an ancillary you can give it to another character. Some places like Jerusalem give a lot of bonuses to piety and command, but also severely impact loyalty. Adds onto the role of characters as governers in a great way that makes you engage with it more. I've always liked the idea of building on other mods. Also why I liked the way warhammer seemed to build off previous total war mechanics for different race mechanics.
One thing I feel that Total War has always missed is differential AI behaviour depending on the kind of general you are facing, and their skill. Some enemy generals should be aggressive, some defensive, some awesome, some bad.
I would personally love to implement something like this! Probably would link decisions the AI would make to traits they have. So a general with a confident attacker would be more likely to go on the offensive and a confident defender would try and find a good place to defend against a nearby army.
@@BR_Interactive Additional thoughts regarding that would be: Actually having a skill-variance in AI, not just style. Perhaps even a few with negative general traits, who might be incredibly thoughtlessly aggressive or incredibly passive (though these ones should probably be relatively rare). Then also having it on the opposite side of the spectrum, with at its extremes having a rare few military geniuses who are very adept (admitedly programming high-skill AI in a strategy game is way harder than low skill, so I am not saying that would be easy to programme). The distribution of skill can be tied to difficulty, which would make the widely despised stat-based difficulty-system way less relevant to include, if not completely irrelevant. So, if you play on Easy you might have a fair share of passive and thoughtlessly aggressive enemy generals to give you breaks, but on Very Hard, you would have to contend with more than a few military geniuses. But no matter the difficulty, maintaining variety is always important for AI in my opinion: even on Very Hard you should have a moment or two where you catch a break from. Another interesting aspect would be to have the traits hidden until you fight them for the first time (or you do some kind of agent action with spies perhaps), so at the beginning of a battle you would actually have to feel out how your enemy will actually behave, which is of course how many commanders have had to throghout history, and is quite engaging. Sort of related to that, I think that it is important to make the AI non-perfect with its APM. It should feel possibly to get inside the enemy's OODA-loop, and that just isn't that plausible in most Total War games. The speed of the enemy's OODA-loop could be tied with their skill in general, too. So, a military genius might be able to respond to an ambush extremely quickly, a low-skill general might have a delay of a few seconds or so. If there is one thing I have noticed with enemy AI in general: the less AI-ish it feels, and the more realistically random and "sloppy", the more fun players will have, generally. That is part of the reason why the chaotic Halo AI is prized so high, while the CoD aimbot AI really isn't as much.
Those are going to be some big shoes to fill. Try to moderate everything you plan to put into the game. A lot of indies and AAA studios I've seen tend to want to do 'MOAR' and then the game never finishes.
This will very much depend on the exact direction you would want your medieval setting to go, but nobility based politics/civil wars would be neat. I don't mean the god-awful system in Rome II or Attila, hell no gimmiky mechanic is really needed at all. Here is an example, or at least the way I picture it: I'm playing Byzantium (because of course I am), and see that the lord holding the very rich, very important city of Thessaloniki is utterly corrupt, costing me bunch in taxes+extra building/upgrade costs. Ok, so I move to appoint a new lord/governor. After all, I do kinda need those taxes to fund any of the 2 dozen active wars/proxy wars/border disputes going on right now. The population of the city and the surrounding countriside is ecstatic with my rule, they are not getting raided or too heavily taxed, no major heresy or plague, so the old lord can either take the L and just peace out, or even if he would try something it would 95% fail, because the town guard and the local elite (regional landowners, important merchants or clergy) refuses to side with him in opposing me. Same situation, but the population despises me, so would you look at that, the guy revolted against me and successfully raised a small provincial army in defiance. Same situation, BUT now it is an important castle, that is ruled by a disloyal noble. I try to revoke it, guess what? It is a castle, under a lord, so no such luck as with a city. All the men and officers serving there are more than likely employed by him, not me (the Emperor), so most would side with him = rebellion. Final variation, you could probably guess disloyal noble + angry castle. Would you look at that, the soldiers are kinda also pissed t their lord, maybe his incompetence lead to a bunch of their families getting raided y the enemy, or theofficers serving under him are not so keen to sell out their country when he is a known heretic, so the moment I apply any kind of force, they break, lord loses support and rebellion no more. Obviously this is just my personal vision, but the important points are, that: 1. Organic flow of decisions and events are more important than arbitrary mechanics, even if they do not involve a new pop-up window and 10 different buttons to do various little chores. 2. Regional effects take precedence. The same interaction or decision can have vastly different consequences depending on the people it impacts and their relation to you.
talk to volound too, the man may be hated but he got the fact. I reckon the best way to have diploma systems with vessel contract or improve the system like for examples I always use ally not to bolstering my power but more like my rear protection. AI can should able to do this, and capable to scheme an thought diploma or AI can have it own plan like long time and short team not just response to player by keep attacking player. It could be bribe to set a trap etc. It would good that you can role play none important historical figures too but again this is similar to CK3 but I again do want CK3 system with real time battles. Also yes more management for the army too like supplies route
Implement grand tactician civil War. You should try that game. I like the idea with delayed orders... Which is more in line with tactics instead of mouse clicking as well as immersive
Unit replacement should be balanced, just base it on how many working training building you have giveing you X men per turn each, divided up for each demanding army then based on far away they are from the buildings and what the transport system is like lowers that by a percentage. That's a fair limit's to it, closer to home you get faster replacement and better building mean faster replacement of better units.
no. no auto replenishment. it makes the game too easy and its a mechanic you literally dont interact with as the player. if you have damaged units, merge them, or if they are experienced, send them back to a settlement with the appropriate military buildings to retrain them. there is literally no reason to have auto replenishment except making the game easier and simpler for noobs.
@@TheSuperappelflap I just hate multi turn marchs back to retrain units. Its a waste of my time an money to have two dozen units in micro armys move back an forth, just to keep a static army that's sat in a camp ready to face the Germans. Hearts of Iron has no problem with auto replenishment.
@@SuperFunkmachine you can transfer experience between units if you know what youre doing and then send a little squad back for retraining. if your faction leader has good authority they wont defect. if you have low authority you need to use one general to shepherd them or put them on a boat. i dont really see it as annoying, it adds some roleplaying to the game. if you have a cavalry unit that you started the game with that has 9 chevrons you can really take good care of them. it would be even better if they could get ancillaries or a banner like roman legions. valeria victrix!
Ambitous, very ambitious. You have one guaranteed customer here at least, imagine having a non-pozzed game that haven´t been dumbed-down to this level.
![CALL THE BANNERS - Third Age: Total War [DAC EUR] - DUNLAND #1](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jp05xtsf8yM/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks again to @LegendofTotalWar 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!
If your really making a medieval III, then god has truly blessed us.
something I never hear talked about that is the biggest difference between WH1+WH2+WH3+ME2+ROME1 vs all the others is the ui scale and visibility
When I play any of the other games I struggle to give a damn about a lot of things because telling what something is at a glance is just imposssible and I actually need to lean forward and squint if I need to read something.
Also unit card should be as distinct as possible from on another
did you know legend made a mod for med2 like 4 years ago? he streamed it a couple times and it has some interesting ideas. it was called legend mod.
Dude where can I throw Money at you for this project?
Not really an interview when u talk the whole time bud....just sayin
I always thought total war could benefit from crusader kings style wars where you actually have an objective and you can force the enemy into a piece treaty by defeating them enough times. In total war it feels like the ai refuses to make peace until they have literally no hope of winning the war and their kingdom is totally ruined
Yes! Total war diplomacy is a bit too focused on tunnelling in on trying to kill the player at times.
The Total War series was always about fast, non-stop expansion, so diplomacy has always reflected that. There is often little point in making peace with any given faction unless you find yourself spread too thin and need to relieve the pressure a little.
Actually a war in present time represents that mindset.
I believe this is a consequence of the “total war” culture, where (as was discussed in the video) it’s all out war or peace. There is no in between, no nuanced war/peace-like stances, etc. When you’re at war its absolute aggression and expansion with immediate annexation. Contrast that with paradox games where beating an enemy state does not necessarily result in swallowing their territories whole.
I suspect part of this also has to do with how wars were waged in different times as well. In an era like Rome or medieval, conquering territories and absorbing them right away might be the norm. But in a period like empire, taking over Paris and defeating France did not suddenly mean you’ve annexed the whole country. Rather you’d just enforce some other demands which can include taking over a reasonable border region or colony.
@@miot22 Historicly is not really realistic either, like if two christian country fought each other like France and the Holy Roman Empire, even if the Holy Roman Empire won the war doesn't meant they annexed France, mybe the Empire gained some settlemnt on the border but most of the times it was more vassalisasing then outright absorbation. Even in antiquity Rome liked to make client state first and they annected it later. I think the Total War series would benefit very much from a more gradual expansion with economical and diplomatic warfare and not just we kill each other to the last man style warfare.
Would be cool if knights recruited from a specific city could have that cities coat of arms along side the national coat of arms. The stats could be the same just a visual difference.
Could add role play value when you see knights from all your cities in the same army.
Ooh. I would love to have a system like this, but I know I'll probably have to have this on the backburner of cool ideas that might be implemented later.
Well, that would be cool, mostly because if one of them got ascended into a general, it could take the toponimic (name of birthplace as a surname)
And it could be cheap from art perspective. Just give 2-3 color mask and decal slot for coat of arms like it's already done for faction colors.
I also like the idea of a units captain being a named person who's name and a little photo show up when you hover over the unit card, as well as the captains accolades, each giving small bonuses to the unit a bit like how med 2 general traits worked. When the captain dies, he's replaced by someone else in the unit who has to build up his accolades over again. Gives you incentives to look after your men and distinguished units, whilst also making them powerful. I just think after a long war it would be cool if you had 2 or 3 battle hardened captains in charge of grizzled units with much improved stats, maybe nearly unbreakable morale, better Melee defense or something. If the captain dies in battle the unit loses those bonuses.
There is also an argument for:
#1 generaless armies
#2 ancilarry transfers, since generals are not immortal
#3 replenishment of units, i.e. auto replenish like in newer titles or retraining
#4 visual armor upgrades
#5 resources as in metal for enabling of fielding knights etc.
#6 trade system or merchants that are not present in newer titles
#7 actual diplomats that even help you bribe setlements or generals
#8 inclusion of naval battles
#9 artilyry being low acuracy in older titles and act as snipers in newer ones
#10 variation of siege battle maps, with player customisation if posssible
#11 being able to marry a princess or prince to another faction heir and inherit the kingdom
#12 religion and culture of settlements playing a part or corruption etc.
#13 allies maybe being able to attach their army to yours like in eu4
#14 historical or lore related scripts for events are a good way to spice things up
#15 gunpowder and bullet logic on the battlefield
There are possibly more things that can be covered a part from these as well bit they were on the top of my minf during the discussion
I've been playing Medival2TW with every mod for the past 12+ years as well. As I'm working as a product manager for a software company/ and a product launch manager for a nother I'd like to hep out were possible. though to be honest the beta testing would be the most pleasurable for anything.
These are all really good points! Some of which I realized I should have tried to ask after the interview. At least for my own personal thoughts on these questions for this project they would be as such
*#1 generaless armies*
- I very much intend to bring this back as I miss the man of the hour system so much.
*#2 ancilarry transfers, since generals are not immortal*
- Definitely on the list of things to include as well
*#3 replenishment of units, i.e. auto replenish like in newer titles or retraining*
- Currently leaning towards a retraining system as the auto replenishment system while convenient does take away from the risk of battles. Far too often in more recent titles I'll gladly abuse the autoresolve because I know I will replenish most of my men before it matters.
*#4 visual armor upgrades*
- This is a huge priority for sure! Gotta have that immersion.
*#5 resources as in metal for enabling of fielding knights etc.*
- There is definitely something to be said about using resources to get certain units. I am currently unsure how exactly I want to do this. I could do what Shogun 2 did and need a resource to build higher level buildings but I am not sure how exciting that would be.
*#6 trade system or merchants that are not present in newer titles*
- I definitely want a trade system like medieval 2 were it feels far more organic and not as static as more recent total wars.
*#7 actual diplomats that even help you bribe setlements or generals*
- While I do think it is convenient to have no diplomats in newer titles, I think there is something to be said about having a physical diplomat. If anything at all bribery of armies and lords is a really fun thing to do at times.
*#8 inclusion of naval battles*
- Definitely want to try and do this
*#9 artilyry being low acuracy in older titles and act as snipers in newer ones*
- This will definitely be a balancing act as you wan them to hit often enough to be effective, but not miss every shot. I do lean more towards how medieval 2 artillery works as the setup before firing is more important and feels very satisfying.
*#10 variation of siege battle maps, with player customisation if possible*
- I definitely want it to feel like you're not defending the same three settlements over and over. Player customization would be really interesting but to keep things in scope I will probably have to keep this on the backburner.
*#11 being able to marry a princess or prince to another faction heir and inherit the kingdom*
- This is a must for me given all my princess escapades on my gaming channel with Tsardoms. It feels so good to steal generals from other factions.
*#12 religion and culture of settlements playing a part or corruption etc.*
- I've always personally liked how DaC feels with culture and I think the Tsardoms mod does corruption best.
*#13 allies maybe being able to attach their army to yours like in eu4*
- Honestly this would be an amazing way to make allies feel useful and definitely something I want to keep in mind.
*#14 historical or lore related scripts for events are a good way to spice things up*
- I am definitely taking inspiration from Tsardoms in how they handle historical scripts because they can be quite fun.
*#15 gunpowder and bullet logic on the battlefield*
- I know I want to include early gunpowder but it will be a long time until that is the primary focus.
All really good questions that I will definitely be keeping in mind for future interviews!
@@gulabot If you want to reach out to me on the email I have attached to this youtube channel I can certainly discuss this further with you. I know it will be a long time before I am able to beta test, but I fully intend to try and have that be a very open process!
@@BR_Interactive, i think a neat edition might be that guns will wear down after extensive use for example making the guns inaccurate despite unit experiance once it is used long enough
Footwear wear down after long enough march in terrible terrain, slows units down and a little bit moral penality
Possibilities to upgrade cannon units just by giving a cannon unit a stronger workhorse from recently occupied area
Giving them more endurance or and speed +/- terrain
Giving an army a small sight of view without a unit of scout in the army or near enough on the campaign, but with creates a bigger view
Id also love to see a way for the player to artificially change the ammo units have with them, potentially by giving the player a dilemma between more ammo or swords or more ammo or units armor
As in siege battle it would be cool if a town fire had an effect on the battlefield beyond the visual
Tho i dont expect any of these, but i think these would handle helpful with the fatique problem
Anyways Best of luck, mate👍
Men in Units actually being individual men again, shields actually blocking projectiles not just a flat decrease in damage. Real-time battles actually feel like battles again, not just a bunch of "fights" strung together.
In the med2 Britannia campaign there were small castles that acted like forts all over the map, I would love to see those make a return. As well as free upkeep for some garrisoned units inside.
Would be cool if you could construct those at strategic points. Or to help subjugate a rebellious province. More akin to the real life uses of castles
I miss building forts so much! That is definitely a feature I want to bring back. Placing a fort at a choke point just always hit differently and really gave the campaign map more strategic things you could do.
@@BR_Interactivea cool, ( but understandably difficult) would be to let fort grow into small town over a long time peroid. Like how old roman forts develouped into towns
Agree with bringing your own garrisions back. Having units that specialized in policing and not war was also a great thing. On a front you would want real soldiers. In safe territorium you would want the police units.
@@divout6688 yes, i always disliked the auto garrison mechanic and prefered it when you built your own with a certain amount and type of free upkeep slots depending on the buildings in that settlement. This is better IMO because it allows you to have a more flexible defense allowing you to sally out to defend a neighbouring settlement under siege or rally to defeat some rebels or a encroaching army. Pretty sure garrisons didn't always just sit in their settlements and watch as their neighbours get starved to death one by one.
@@xXBisquitsXx I think having auto garrisons of some kind of low tier militia is fine(basically the police/ fire department like the town watch in Rome 1), but the actual soldiers should be chosen by the player with some acting as better garrison troopers than others.
Please make this game because we need other gaming studios making total war style games, if only to hold CA more accountable
Yeah, good luck making a huge expensive strategy game in 2023 without brand recognition
@@shmekelfreckles8157 lets go indie
One of my fav things in M2TW are the cutscenes for spies etc also general speeches were always great in early TW.
I always loved cutscenes in medieval 2! It was always great to see that the traits you had on generals would be reflected in how they delivered their speeches.
The general speeches really set the stage and mood before the battle which was great.
I miss agent cutscenes. It annoy but it was cool when you first watch it
I would love a Ressource and Campaingsystem like in Three Kingdoms Total War. Food matters, and you even have supply lines for your armies. Food was also a mighty instruments in Diplomacy
would be good if you can raid the supplies lines or sacking create negative opinion and force vassal to submit to the raider.
For generals: I like the idea of making unnotable captains nobles, but rather than adoption it would be nice to have them create their own noble bloodlines. I think getting adopted into the Royal family should have more specialized parameters that accentuate the event and make it feel more important. On another note, if the captain's unit is knights (like teutonic knights, only for example) an option to allow that captain to start their own knightly order rather than a noble family. With limits, of course. Having 60 different knightly orders over a long term several hundred turn playthrough would be ridiculous.
On cities: a system similar to Empire/Napoleon wouldn't be bad. They already showed you what not to do. For example, making the entire French mainland have a "Oops, all Paris" moment. Also, making it to where taking those smaller settlements feels like a good decision and not just a waste of move points.
I wish you the best of luck on your endeavors.
One thing I think Shogun and Med2 got right were their simple stat system.
Soldier amount, Morale, Armour, Defense, Attack, Speed.
In 3K or warhammer, a 2 handed unit will have slightly better attack than defense.
In Shogun 2, a Nodachi unit has trash stats but insane charge bonus, making them a guided missile of a unit, with unique playstyle.
Having simple stats can make it a lot easier to design genuinely unique units.
I definitely think there is nothing wrong with trying to keep the design principles simple for units. Trying to over design their stats can just make them more of a terror to balance and get right.
Re: settlements, have 'internal' buildings which represent what's in the walled city itself, and then provincial/outpost building slots. Pharoah does something like this but it's all shrines and waystations. I mean your farming or resource buildings should be in these outpost slots. Raiding armies could attack these Provincial improvements and say get lots of food for raiding a farming community or money for hitting a trading outpost.
Yes! The City is your Center of Government and Commerce. While it could have farming etc outside the walls, majority of it would/should be spread around the province. Maybe Guard/Recruitment Posts for military capacity beyond town militia?
I imagine trying to govern a Castle or other basic level "military type settlement" should actually rely entirely on those provincial nodes for raw resources, food and people. But to counterbalance that, you'd ofc would have your heavy/specialized military production and training there.
What made Med 2 and Rome 1 so good:
Armies without generals (not all armies are meant to be full-scale armies, some are detachments and reinforcements)
Unit pools for recruitment (as legend said, it's realistic, immersive and adds a layer of strategy and meaningfulness to losing high tier troops)
No automatic replenishment (made casualties in battles matter more because replenishing your troops was more difficult, especially with the unit pools)
Organic and immersive traits and personalities for characters that made them feel unique and alive
Family trees and mortality
Population system
Income was not a fixed amount gain for a building but an organic amount based on multiple factors like population. (In warhammer, you build a building and get +500 gold per turn).
Images for buildings you build and units you train that shows you what the unit or building look like (instead of icons, adds immersion)
Unlimited amount of buildings in settlements instead of arbitrary 4
Free upkeep units system like in med 2 for garrisons that allows you to station troops somewhere without having to pay
Garrisons where the units you chose to station there, not automatically generated, streamlined garrisons
Good morale system for battles and longer battles (allows for smaller armies to defeat larger ones with good tactics due to chain routs, which are also realistic, armies would rout and create panic)
Spectacular battle and campaign music (like Rome 1 especially and med 2)
Good modding community (because base game was so good people wanted to make their own mods and kept the game alive)
Most of these elements have one thing in common: immersion!!! Make the player feel immersed and he won't move from your game for hours every day.
Hope it helps, but I'm pretty sure you already knew all of these things.
These are all great points! And definitely things I think you help immerse the player into the game.
Someone make new total war? And its not ca? And he ask advice from legend?
Its too good to be true
6:56. I really agree about the generals. The first time I played Rome 1 as the Brutii I spammed temples to Mars because I wanted the veteran soldiers. Result: Almost every single general was 'Name the Deranged'. You had to think carefully about which buildings you put in a city and how long you would leave a general governing one of them. It made the game more interesting, but also gave you lots of scope for playing the same campaign but in a different way.
In my opinion, yes, the dumbing down of certain gameplay aspects did and still does hurt the series, but the worst thing of all is how... let's say basic the AI is, be it on the campaign or battle map. If CA or anyone else that wants to be successful in making a new Total War game, they should invest in developing an AI that understands and correctly uses all the mechanics used on the Campaign map, and recognizes all the units on the Battle map and the best way to use/counter them while maintaining battle order and formations. It is a monumental task, but in this age of AI advancements, an AI that can only create an illusion of intelligence because it is given outrages cheats is a crime against the players.
In game with so many possibilities (just army placement on tactical maps...) It would cost a lot to développ an AI and have it be able to run on most customers' machines...
So not only a lot of money and Time, but also a reduced potential customers base.
I get why they go with simpler algorithms and free stuff for AI.
Cheaper option would be to focus on stable and easier multiplayer. Making it easier to find human players, schedule turns etc..
Just look at the ressources needed to develop an AI able to play StarCraft. It took years and google s involvment. And starcraft is way less complex than a total war mixing grand strategy with tactical battles.
@@etienne8110 , listen, I get your point, and as I said "it's a monumental task". But considering most of CA's games use the same engine, types of units and stats it would need to be developed once and it can be used, let's say, for the next like 5 entries in the series. I am not saying multiplayer is not important, hell there are people out there that do only that in Total War games, but let's be honest - focusing on that would eventually lead to the abandonment of the single player component of the series as whole and it's the lazy way out. And say what you like, but not a single Total War game has ever become a multiplayer hit big enough to survive only on it's online player base. In fact the single online only Total War game, Arena, died so quickly that it's not even funny. Say what you will, but in my opinion, every entry in the series since Empire (also included) has been a broken, boring reskin of the same game that has been progressively more braindead and better looking at the same time. Unfortunately flashy graphics can only take you so far before people just abandon the series as a whole.
@@Reaf121286 i m not contesting that recent games are just mods of rome2...
Just that believing you can make a better AI with learning AIs is a common mistake among people with no knowledge of what AI is.
The cost/benefits is way out to even consider it.
I would like it if general traits/ personalities would influence ai strategy more.
Inexperienced and reckless generals will charge you head on and try to overwhelm you, while experienced and cunning generals will try to overload a flank or will attempt to ambush you using forests.
The AI in recent Total Wars are so so shit that if they just made their AI halfway decent in the next game it would be a huge upgrade. I’ve seen mods actually make the AI better FOR CA. It’s harder to develop good AI, but that doesn’t mean CA DOESN’T half ass it like they do with many aspects of Total War now.
thank you for doing what CA won't. A lot of people have been fantasizing and coming up with ideas on a sequel for YEARS man. It takes balls to actually undergo this project.
Love hearing Legend's thoughts! Thanks for the great discussion! The idea of immortal/mortal lords at the beginning of the interview really resonated with me.
I really really love the idea of combining the building system of medieval 2 with empire/shogun 2
Having smaller towns or villages or resources outside of the main city that you can develop individually, however still having *most* of your building still done in the city (unlike empire) would be such an awesome mix. Empires mechanic of having little towns pop up as you went through the game was so cool, but it was so held back by the fact that buildings in the actual city were so limited
Lots of "economical buildings" could, and IMO should, be tied to those provincial villages/towns/nodes - and would be even more important if you're controlling Castle or Stronghold! You can't have a city/Castle and economy without farmers, herders, loggers, miners, fishers etc. People that generally can't do their job inside the walls or immediately outside. You could even tie some of the "maintenance", "religion" and "safety" of province to those if we were to implement Guard Stations, Monasteries or communities specialized in building stuff. Those that are not necessary needed in the Main City/Castle. The City/Castle should be your "refinery", the place where you reap the benefits of the province. It should be your Center of Production, Recruitment and Government. Can't control and manage your province and it's communities without proper bureaucracy after all!
Just some general comments, ideas, and questions you might consider
1. Unique named heroes and Lords could provide incentive to marry them in and pass down their traits. Some could be introduced later in the campaign and require side-quests to acquire.
2. Different battle AI depending on faction strengths?
3. Unique campaign mechanics; Possibilities: Venice having the ability to ferry nearby armies or set up trading posts in settlements, Huns gain additional supply line for razing, Rome can set up forts or gain defensive battle buffs
4. Will there be research, settlement based progression or both?
5. Conversion from defensive castles to production-based cities and vice-versa?
6. Multi-layered castle sieges like medieval 2?
7. Will campaign movement speed be dependent on army composition like in medieval 2? It just makes sense that a siege army would be run down by cavalry on the campaign map. I think this would have a huge impact if brought back.
Awesome idea!
About War and Diplomacy: I believe that 3k diplomacy was good but I'd like to see casus belli. And you can already take military non-war action against another faction. Just raid their lands (R2, Attila and the modern games) with the raid stance. It is bare bones. But you can do it.
I do think 3K has the best diplomacy we've gotten in a total war game. And while I know technically raiding stance is a non war action you can take it feels very disconnected when you just switch stances and walk around to do it. It's not nearly as engaging as physically attacking a smaller city in my mind.
@@BR_Interactive I agree. But I think for that you'd need many small villages spread out throughout the campaign. Maybe with small or no garrisons. I did enjoy how Empire did it but I also agree that at times it was annoying having to chase 1 or 2 unit armies that would completely wreck your country-side. On the other hand this is somewhat accurate. Allowing some or all towns to fight back would certainly help curb the issue. OR, keep the general locked armies and give action points to armies that they can use to send selected units to raid\forage\attack nearby spots. You could also use this to build bridges or roads for example if you want that depth. Perhaps burn the enemy camp, alter the course of a river, and other such stratagems. That could be a fun system that'd give the player a lot more options and control over their military campaigns.
This is such an exciting announcement and I hope that this gets so much more attention! I'm am looking forward to seeing developments on this project, and I wish you the very best of luck with this! 🔥
About having dynasties it would be cool if you could see dynasties other then just your kings dynasty in med2
Kind of like Imperium surrectum with its massive family tree? Or more about being able to see another faction's family tree?
@@BR_Interactive idk what its like in imperium surrectum but pretty much when you click on the family tree section you could choose to look at main family tree or at those of the other great families in your kingdom
@@dr_etior6162 Ah okay, that is pretty similar to what Imperium Surrectum does on a ridiculous scale. I definitely want to bring back more of a focus on family trees again.
@@BR_Interactivejust make it like Crusader kings. also the captain thing apparently already existed in med 1 where a captain could rank up and become lords
One idea that was floated by CA during development of empire was national reformation; where if enough land was taken by a certain nation, they could transform into a superior state.
Honestly I would love for something like this to exist like it does in paradox games!
@@BR_Interactive so much was cut out of empire...
You could also try talking to Andy's Take or Terminator, they have some great insights into how some of the seemingly minor thing made the older total wars like shogun or med2 feel like what they did, especially that one video where they talked about asymmetry in starting positions made every faction's campaign feel unique because you had to deal with very different situations.
For example in attila you could start as large but crumbling empires dealing with fronts or as the gothic invaders which started small but unified. This is in contrast to new total wars where every playable faction has the same starting scenario of one city and an easy enemy to unify starting province then go ahead from that.
The streamline starting position makes the campaigns flow kinda similar regardless of which faction you play as compared to very different starting positions leading to unique campaigns.
Another thing is difficulty balance where in warhammer at any battle difficulty above hard, the enemy gets so many melee buffs that most factions regardless of their unique units have to come down to the same strategy of making AI units blob and then shooting them or endless kiting.
Brooo, thanks for reaching out Legend, he's no doubt a great reference to talk about AI, campaing map and battle design. I would love to see how his opinions can make it to the actual game. following this project with love
A huge feature these games all lack is the ability to upgrade weapon and armour smiths that allow you too bring ur army back to that city and upgrade the equipment of all troops at cost shogun kinda had it but you had to mod in the upgrade feature otherwise you had to recruit fresh units to get the upgrade
Rome 2 has it. Does not influence the unit visuals but at least it is something
But in Medieval 2 you can auto-manage settlements. If a player ever gets to the point where he feels that he is getting fatigued then he can just put some of the settlement into auto-manage.
I think another big reason for the new building system is also to promote specialization for each settlement. Instead of being able to build everything everywhere depending on the population and your gold, it forces the player to make some choices. I have a settlement with access to a rare resource, but it's on the furthest fringe of my kingdom and borders a potential enemy. Do I invest in trade and resource gathering buildings, or should I beef up the defenses and make some garrisons?
Also a cool system for territory disputes could be zones of influence that spread out from a city. They could be represented kind of like the unit marching distance highlighted area for armies. This zone would give you bonuses to troop movement, economy, development, etc but would cause negative relations with other kingdoms if it overlapped with their zones of control. Certain buildings could have in it that they will expand the zone of control by however much percent, making it a potential tradeoff for whether the additional benefits are worth angering your neighbors. And even within that system you could have different ways to solve the border dispute. Maybe you can offer to purchase the plot of land to have them relinquish their claim to it. Maybe you could strong arm them out of it, or offer to aid them against an enemy or something. Maybe even have a champion fight over it.
That should be done with population. You should be able to build any number of buildings you want, but if there aren't enough pops to man and maintain them they will fall into deriliction. Hell be like victoria 2 and have different types of pops, you have the popilation number for anotjef building but not the right type? It will fall into deriliction untill enough pops convert to the right profession-type.
Then have a migration system (and the ability to force migrate pops) so the player can choose where and to what extent they want to centralise/decentralise, to specialise and to diversify, etc.
I would also have a region tradition, the more they do something the longer the greater the bonuses, which would encourage specialisation (but plagues and wars would discourage it due to all eggs in 1 basket)
Concerning armies running away and replenishment and small armies wrecking havoc I have the following to add:
1. Having an army-wide morale stat which if it falls below a certain threshold (which can be affected by losses, presence/absence of general, supply situation, plunder, etc) causes the army to disband if defeated simply because the men in the army desert, short of physically destroying an entire unit. Some of the manpower might be recouped but the army doesn't exist as such and would need to be re-constituted.
2. Allowing small armies (and fleets) to "snipe" or raid a non-walled mini-settlements (or port) on the map can be prevented through a combination of:
- Restricting most standard armies to travel along a road network (which is historically accurate)
- Allowing a cavalry detachment to enter a special guarding stance that gives it a very large zone of control but restricts it's movement and attacking capabilities, it allows the cavalry unit to intercept in battle any army which attempts to raid within the cavalry army's enlarged zone of control [during that raiding army's turn]. This would not be effective at stopping an army attacking in force but it prevents 1-3 unit armies from trolling the crap out of the player.
- These same cavalry forces can cause attrition to units that retreat within their zone of control during a particular turn to represent a 'pursuit' phase which could occur over several days.
3. Most standard armies, especially infantry armies with baggage trains, whether moving or retreating should be confined to travel along road systems that connect towns/ports/castles/cities etc. rather than anywhere short of mountain ranges and water. Special unorthodox routes can be made available for certain types of special armies.
4. If an army is so damaged that the AI detects it is no longer able to overpower local enemy armies, the priority of the AI should not be to mindlessly hunt for something else to attack but to retreat to a secure location such as the border of it's own country or a fort or something. A supply system and AI logic around this can help.
I hope others have already mentioned but units need to be able to push off of each other and not blob like everything from Empire onward .
One crucial thing that is also different about Medieval 2 compared to modern TW games is that you had to care at least a little bit about logistics: even your best melee troops would, inevitably, be worn down over the course of a campaign, and getting reinforcements to the frontline to replenish or replace those troops wasn't a simple act of waiting in a friendly settlement for a turn until every regiment had had its share of presumably teleported-in reinforcements. Instead, it really did matter whether you had a connection back to your recruitment centers in your homeland, or whether you had to rely on ad-hoc recruitment of mercenaries, which of course were a limited resource in the short term.
Also, your troops marching in small groups from their home town to the frontline could be intercepted or harried by enemy garrisons sallying out of their castle or town, again incentivizing sieging down settlements and keeping fronts narrow rather than produce deep salients, not because the enemy would just get free stacks spawned in on even the most useless of settlements, but because reasonable frontlines were actively encouraged by a system which worked the same for you and the enemy.
If one wants to find some inspiration from games outside the Total War series, I think in terms of logistics the Hegemony series of games does it best, even if at a much smaller scale than TW. It tracks food available to you in every city and for every unit, and transporting said food or reinforcements for your units across roads is not perfectly efficient. You lose some % of transported goods, and higher distance makes reinforcement slow down to a crawl. I really think either of the systems used across the Hegemony series would greatly complement the systems already in place in Medieval 2 to produce something truly greater and more enjoyable than either game on its own is able to be, even with mods.
Awesome video and idea! I hope this project works! Good luck. Looking forward to seeing things developed
Thanks man!
I wish CA would watch this and listen. Great ideas!
Nice. This was smart to go to Legend for some tips. I’ll keep look for updates man
About buildings: I agree with the fatiguing over lots of settlements. What I would suggest is allowing the player to create provinces and assigning cities and a governor to them. You would be able to then set the province to automanagement and specify the focus, as well as ordering specific builds\tax settings. If the AI is decent it will take this burden off the player, it works well in Stellaris. (You can then add depth, if the governor is not loyal he can rebel taking your province away, for example Or having penalties for having different cultures on your province, or adding policies into certain provinces, etc.)
I definitely think having a good automanage system helps a lot!
This is where the title system is implemented, with autonomy being the risk of govenors raising their own armies to backstab you. Stainless does this well. Similar ro how Persians utilized Satrapies and recieved tribute, troops and resources.
i never found the settlement management tedious in med2. even in mods where you have huge maps with lots of settlements. because it actually matters for every town what buildings you get. if you have a settlement thats a long way off from a settlement level upgrade and there is lots of trade in the area, you might want to focus on trade buildings. in other settlements you might want to focus on population growth, or on public order, or culture conversion, and you need to look at the culture stats and geographic location of your settlements to decide where to build military buildings. maybe you want to build a blacksmith in one specific central location so you can send recruited units there to upgrade their weapons and armor before sending them to the front.
from rome 2 onward with the limited build slots, simplified growth and culture mechanics, its just doing the same thing over and over again. first build growth building, then money building, and then public order or a barracks depending on whether you want to recruit in that province or not. no need to think about anything.
Personally I think the class system in DEI for Rome II is the best recruitment/population mechanic in all of Total War. The Medieval II system is a good second and the only one that's even close (even if some games like Napoleon get a pass because it doesn't make as much sense for the time period). If the DEI system is too difficult for the AI to handle, making the AI use the Medieval II system regardless of what the player sees could be an easy way to force more army variety.
There's just something so immersive about having drained all the nobility in your main recruitment provinces, so you have to go to a different settlement if you want some more cavalry in your army
Agreed with you on almost all points, would love to see your project released. Good luck sir!
A suggestion i have is to make experience matter more. In all games experience does increase morale and that's good, that should be kept, but in rome 1 experience was a bit too op (+1 attack and defense for every chevron, for a max of +9). Then in medieval 2 experience was nerfed to only +1 attack for every chevron tier (+1 for bronze, +2 for silver, +3 for gold which is the max). Something in between would be perfect. Or if the way you do stats are changed to have bigger numbers like rome 2, then a percentage increase would work very well, so archers would benefit less in melee (but get benefits to their ranged attack) from experience than knights or swordsmen for example
At the moment I am personally leaning more towards a medieval 2 veterancy system but possibly a hybrid. As I think having more simplified stats is a bad thing, but it is important to make units with experience feel worth getting. Especially since I won't be having auto-replenishment.
@@BR_InteractiveI'm glad you're deciding against replenishment. It's a convenient feature, but it makes you lazy and careless with your troops since you know they'll just be back to full strength in 2-3 turns no matter how battered they are.
I love how important it is to minimize casualties in ME2 to maintain your momentum and also not to lose your rarest and most professional units. I like having a reason to care about my men.
I like the idea of units that I care about. Could do something with unit progression. When a unit gets to max chevrons, maybe they can be upgraded to elite tier and get special weapons or armor or something. Their moral becomes locked and get bounus damage or something.
Basically have a big reward for looking after your units and maxing their experience. Then when they are maxed you care even more about them because they are a beast unit.
One thing that would be cool is if a unit does something really awesome, like kill a hundred knights in one battle, they become a regiment of renown with a specialty against heavily armored cav.
@@JakeBaldwin1 That would be sweet. I would like to see artillery become more accurate as their experience increases. As it stands a maxed chevron unit isn't much different from a baseline one. How cool (and realistic) would it be if their reload time decreased and accuracy increased as artillery units gained experience.
you already get a big reward in med2 for having gold chevrons on your units. their stats get a lot better. it would be nice to have visual representation for that like more ornate and better fitting armor
@@TheSuperappelflap Its +3 attack and defense for maxed out chevrons so I wouldn't say a lot better. I would like a little more especially for an already elite unit. A percentage increase in attack would be good then it scales better for the elite units. If they get maxed out chevrons they could become a "legacy regiment" with battle history/kill count and customisable moniker.
@@gamble9437 yeah in vanilla it is 3. but i would argue thats still pretty impactful for something that is free and doesnt cost more upkeep. especially on lower tier units with low base stats.
in most mods the effects of chevrons and armor and weapon upgrades are also increased.
If you are interested in new suggestions: Characters and Nobles should not take up unit slots in an army, nor should each Character or General on the map be represented by an “Army.” They should be treated like Agents that can travel throughout the country, and they should be able to attach to any army, where they appear on the battle map like a Hero in Warhammer but without taking up a unit slot in the army. You should also be able to attach these Characters to specific units in the pre-battle set up to act as the Character’s retinue. Multiple Characters should be able to be attached to a single unit (thereby allowing you to represent a King and his cousins, brothers making up his retinue, or splitting them up and letting the King and his brothers command different wings of the army).
About Factions - Civilization with Kingdoms as sub faction (from Attila) + Gens or royal families (from Rome 2). This would be a great combination as you have to worry about faction within and without.
About Recruitment - Units should not be spawned but rather built. So get raw recruit then equipment them with spear sword javelins or bows. Elite units should be with better equipment and received training. Don't get more complicated than this. Their is lot of diversification possible here.
About Technology and Research - Make it hidden and change as per player style and choices. We need something to kick TW ass as they are bringing their best.
Personally, aiming for full Medieval Total War -experience at once is a bit high hurdle, so I'd personally divide it into several polished products.
F.ex. start with a high quality tactical game with army battles
-> release it at Indie price
-> get funds/feedback
-> integrate it to a simple settlement game (f.ex. no diplomacy, just basic resources)
-> release it at slightly higher indie price
-> get funds/feedback
-> add diplomacy with all previous included and polished further
-> release as before
-> ... ad infinitum
Also with cities, I don't think cities are the key thing with cities, but it's what cities can do for the player and the "life journey" of the nation player is playing and "scarring" with his actions... f.ex. cities vs. points on trade routes vs. locations for military recruitment vs. extracting vital resources from specific parts of nature etc.
But I'm off to other stuff now, hope it gave ideas. :)
I liked the discussion but it didn't feel very fruitful. I think what you need to do is literally make a list of all the features that should be in a good Total War game, and then break them down and define exactly what each of these components consists of and what is required for them... then you can map interdependencies and all of that stuff...
Because let's be honest, any new Total War game will need a complete overhaul of all its core mechanics:
- AI
- settlement management
- province management
- territory expansion
- army management
- general management
- siege battles
- diplomacy
- unit rosters and stats
- agents
- events
- campaign motivation
and so many more.
I have a bazillion ideas if input is required - always happy to help out in any way possible
concerning provinces, do take a good look into knights of honor 2 settelment design quick points:
1. provinces have town and resourse villages (you can raise villages to get quick resource boost also hurt enemy economy)
2. every town has its own buildings, but building upgrades are shared (at first this sounds odd, but this helps with micro managing)
3. less developed areas like steppes have bigger provinces, but bigger provinces have more resource villages. (it kinda balances having more provinces or having few more worthy big ones)
also it has best aliance system i have ever played with, instead of making nation your ally to fight in every wars, you make allies targeting specific nation, it is so nice since you are not forced into fighting stupid wars.
Please make sure that the general as a person and the general's bodyguard as an in-battle unit are separatable entities. It's very silly in my mind that disbanding a general's bodyguard would kill the general or that the death of the general would mean that the bodyguard unit is completely destroyed on the campaign.
A character with general characteristics can be assigned into or out of an army and can also be given direct command of a particular unit (in most cases a unit of the most elite cavalry but not necessarily e.g. how Alfred was not commanding on horseback) and that unit becomes the general's unit.
Atilla came closest to this IMO, where many of general's bodyguards were based on other pre-existing units that also had a general attached.
To the city management I personally would do a system like total war 2 but with the option that you can micro manage it way deeper (maybe even design your Owen city's) but make it as complex as possible but give an easy way too that's just a little bit less effective so both sites win
first video I've seen of this and it sounds very interesting.
I like simplified resources and global bonusses, but also a more tactical approach.
So my suggestion is to have the main resource be gold and have food, metal, wood and stone as balances (like food in warhammer) that will affect many things. And then luxuries/specialties for global bonusses. For example:
Food would make your cities grow faster or slower depending on surplus/deficit.
Metal would make recruitment and upkeep of soldiers cheaper or more expensive, lets say you get X iron, Y goes to maintenance of equipment, that would leave you with Z to spend unburdened before really expensive imports or maybe global debuffs as equipment is failing because you're trying to recruit stacks of knights for several turns in a row.
Wood for navies and city growth and upkeep of siege.
Stone for city growth and fortifications (tactical walls and gates to prevent enemies from penetrating the core of your kingdom)
All a balancing act to keep costs for goods from skyrocketing in your kingdom and keep running efficiently. And yes I snuck population in my example.
I think there should be some automatic replenishment but nowhere near as crazy as the current games, probably 1 or 2% of the total army size, so it's a impactful decision to retrain in 'safe' lands and get your army filled out again, at the risk of being caught with your pants down training recruits.
I think it would also be a good idea to instead of warning raiders to get off your lands to threaten them with an army would be a great idea. And prevent raiding on territory where you made a recent peace. (so they don't have to dump their reliability to get rid of raiders *glares at total war* or initiate a full on war) just a 'get of my property' battle, not war.
Choice of a couple maps where to fight given to defender, unless already ran away from a battle or ambushed.
A mix between total war, crusader kings and mount and blade is a dream game :)
My take on generals.
During the hundred years war it would often be a Baron or a Duke or a brother of the king who is the best general in the land.
Mercenaries and foreigners could have sway over an army.
I would like distinction between barons, lowborn, priests and nobility who can all be generals.
Before generals were immortal I used to be attached to units. Like a troop of maxed out infantry, archers and small amount of cavalry can win any battles and doesn't matter, almost, who leads them.
I know I've had a lot of little stories around my units when they used to be completely mortal. It's just a lot easier to become attached to them!
On the system of promoting randoms from the army up to a general. I think a system similar to 3K army composition could work, but instead of having 3 generals in an army it'd be a standard one general + 2 or 3 retainers that have their own retinues and through action could gain additional traits just like generals and eventually even become generals themselves. Retainers could move on the campaign map with their retinue just like we can move units in the older games, but couldn't form large armies without a general or perhaps they could for a battle, but the army might lack cohesion. So like lower tier generals, something of the sorts. Thinking of it, sounds a bit like armies forming in Bannerlord. Or they could just be attached to a general permanently like those Shogun 2 retainers which just provided some bonuses, but be actually present on the battlefield kinda like WH heroes.
I just want to say, "Yes, please!!" to a spiritual successor to Medieval 2. This subgenre of strategy games dearly needs some competition and innovation. And for the love of all that is holy; please make formations and positioning really important. The whole reason I fell in love with the Total War franchise was mainly because Medieval 2 had such an amazing beginning foundation for a deep and tactical formation based warfare system. That system got a bit expanded and explored in mods but never to the point where it felt like a really fleshed out and well designed system.
The ideal successor to Medieval 2 to me was always a game where your soldiers didn't slaughter each other to a man, but a game where the most dangerous situation for your army was a route. Where a lot of the army would still survive on both sides but victory meant that the enemy army could turn around the war if you attacked them in an advantageous position even though their morale was low and most of their army on the verge of breaking at the beginning of the second battle. Being able to see two armies hold a formation and battleline until one army had a breakthrough in one part of their line and subsequently begin to be outflanked, their formations begin to break down and a route to begin to form feels so much more rewarding than watching my units duel each other in one on one combat until both units are mostly dead and constantly hammering right click so that my blob can grab another ranged unit into melee so they don't shoot at me and do 'max damage'.
I think that is one of the reasons why the Ultimate Generals series is so fun and why Darth ended up expanding on those more realistic tactical and strategic aspects that had a foundation in earlier Total War titles. I would love to see an interview with that person if you get chance.
Do you have a release date, title or Steam storepage listing for your game yet?
Thanks, I wish you and your team all the best!
i wish we had a 4x total war
cities like civ4, build them freely on any tile with tiles being like the rome1/medieval2 2x2km squares have tile improvements like farms on the actual campaign map so there are reasons to have non seige battles.
civ4 culture so you can control individual tiles instead of static borders
My thoughts for it could include that for your faction, have the multiple resources similar to the newer total wars, but with a few key differences. One being that instead of having bronze or iron, you have ores, which if you control regions and production hubs for the right combinations, it gave you reductions in cost for units, upgrades, and buildings utilising those ore and alloy combinations. Wood is used for buildings, ship buildings, and most siege engines. Stone for fortifications, building impovements, and monuments to bolster prestige. Also, have gold be the main unit of trade, but you convert a portion of resources like food, wood, ores, and stone into gold.
Added in also could be interesting option for handling bankruptcy scenarios for the kingdom. For example, taking out a loan, selling off personal posessions, making agreements with your nobles and the church for power shifting into their hands, directly plundering or attacking your own institutions to reclaim cash, and watering down your own coinage(guaranteeing that things will be more expensive down the road) are all elements to this. Your bankruptcy produces interesting story moments as you try to get out of the red while you feel those growing layers of consequences mounting with every deal you make. Combine with systems to influence internal situations through espionage and you can have angles to make stories where you sent a spy to help win you a war by fermenting treason and infighting among your enemies so you could snag a little bit of territory while they were busy trying to beat each other to death. At the same time, goose and gander. In the midst of a war with naples, your second best general decides to commit treason because nepalies spies shoved a fat pouch of gold into his hands to switch sides before a big siege, potentially costing you the war. Espionage, politics, religion, martial might, and civil management. All are pillars you must learn to wield if you wish to thrive in this era.
The province concept is quite good, I like it very much.
Rampaned, if you need ANY dev help at all, feel free to broadcast it! I'd be honored to help with any grunt work on the ground level
It would be great if the player could *customize the experience*. I for one strongly dislike non-immortal chars. I very much like what CA did in the last titles (option-wise) like decoupling AI cheats and battle cheats from AI economic cheats.
Furthermore, *the AI has to play the same game as the player*. You can see the negative example in TW Pharaoh where the AI will build units that need resources it can not possibly have or sustain going so far that you can trade with them for resources, but they do not even have the extractor built to actually accumulate said resource.
Thank you for the interview and best of luck and success with your project!
Just thinking about "Medieval 3" gets me excited. I wish you success with your project!
As a veteran medieval 2 player and an amateur modder, I have some suggestions that I hope will be useful:
1. There's a lot to gain from Shogun 2. It has many improvements over medieval 2. Just to mention some:
-Trade is much, much better. Still a bit awkward because the AI refuses good trade offers, while sometimes paying you tens of thousands just to get some horses... But all around, trade makes more sense. In medieval 2 most of your trade income is received by your towns trading with each other, which is quite bad. It doesn't incentivize you to cooperate with other factions for mutual benefit, and it doesn't make you search for factions that have resources you want. Historically for example, Norway and Denmark were good trade partners (Norway had metals and fish, Denmark had grains which were hard for Norway to produce due to cold climate). I want to see that in the game! With shogun 2's trade, this could be possible.
-Resources are also much better in Shogun 2. I like that in medieval you can build mines on resources, and each region has a different mine income depending on what there is there. But other than that, resources don't feel unique. Timber is bad, gold is great, but that's really not how it should be. Resources should have some effect, to incentivize trade with foreign factions. You want to trade with people who don't have what you have; that should be the main principle of trade. Timber should be good for ships (reduce costs or allow superior ships), grain for population growth, horses for cavalry, stone for castles, iron for swords... Gold/silver make you rich. Salt and honey should give happiness or something. Same for silk and spices. These resources have no military use, but Europeans lusted over them in the middle ages. Why? It made them happy! Venice and Genoa basically fought wars over salt, as did Portugal for eastern spices. By making these resources useful, you have an incentive to "buy" them from the factions that control them. Also, it's good that in shogun 2 you can upgrade buildings such as lumberyards to export more timber. It gives each region more personality. Overall, Shogun 2's economy has many good aspects worth implementing.
2. On the contrary, there are some things that should be kept the way medieval 2 did them (and not Shogun 2 for example).
-Towns and sieges felt more lively in Medieval 2. Shogun 2 castles feel barren, like a bunch of palisades surrounding a mountain.
-Retraining is better than replenishing. You said this in a comment yourself and I agree 100%. Replenishment incentivizes autoresolve or reckless actions in the battlefield. In Medieval 2 every man counts.
-Units should be upgradeable by retraining. In Shogun 2 you have to disband a unit and recruit a new (same) unit in order to give it better armor. That's both impractical and unrealistic.
-Agents should have upkeep (like in vanilla medieval 2) to discourage spamming them.
-Siege weapons should be useful for breaking through walls. And they should be the only thing that allows you to immediately assault a city (without building rams etc.). In shogun 2 you can instantly take any city without siege weapons, which makes them pointless.
3. Regarding unit balance and armies, I would like to see the following:
-Give units a bit more "personality". For example, in total war we always have "sword beats spear". Sure, that's good from a gameplay perspective... but why not also reflect the fact that spears are a good defensive weapon? Make spears resistant to frontal charges, when they are stationary (even against infantry). Spears should hold the line better than swords, instead of only being "anti-cav". In M2TW, swords are always better than spears if no cav is around and that really shouldn't be the case.
-Peasants/militia etc. should exist in every army, and not get thrown away once you get knights. Elite units and peasant units should exist in balance with each other. Make knights and other elite units limited and harder to recruit. Both elite warriors and peasants should have their place within an army; you just have to choose which part of your army you leave "weaker". A strong economy should not guarantee you a doomstack of knights, dismounted knights and elite archers!
-Also, make elite units more "elite". Yes, spears are anti-cav but a single spear militia should not wreck a knight unit like it does in M2TW (or like yari ashigaru do in S2TW). Similarly, in stainless steel cavalry is overpowered to the point that hobilars can wreck a varangian guard... No, that should not be the case. Yes, the varangian guard are not spearmen, but they are elite and should hold their ground even against knights, like they historically did against the Norman knights!
-Pay attention to not making a bunch of units pointless like in vanilla medieval 2. Pikemen should be great when they can hold their formations, but not a nuclear weapon like they are in stainless steel. Two-handers should be the best melee balanced unit, useful both against cavalry and infantry. But, they lack shields and are more vulnerable to missiles. Swordsmen beating polearms in vanilla M2TW renders the entirety of polearm units completely useless. Similarly, in stainless steel swordsmen resist a cavalry charge better than polearms do, because they have more defence from their shield! That's clearly an error and completely illogical. Sword units should be decent in melee and great on tight spaces such as walls (and also resistant to arrows since they have a shield) but they should not be the "best" infantry like they tend to be in TW.
-If you include guns in the game, make them worthwhile. Guns should have good range and power but terrible accuracy. In medieval 2, arquebusiers lose to peasant archers, and that is just so sad... Similarly, matchlock ashigaru lose to bow ashigaru, which is even sadder. It's acceptable for gunmen to lose to elite archers, but not peasant archers... I don't ever want to see this dumb thing in a game again. Guns already have the huge disadvantages of being slow, expensive, late-game, can't fire above your troops and can't fire over a hill. Don't give them more negatives! Make them worthwhile, like they were historically. And try to make fire by rank finally work!
4. Regarding autoresolve: All TW games suffer from terrible autoresolve. Usually, infantry spam armies win autoresolve and it's easy to see why: melee infantry mostly have the bulkiest raw stats and highest number of men per unit. How to counter this? Make autoresolve care about unit diversity. Different units should work well with each other and boost each other's capabilities. An army full of spearmen is worse than an army of slightly less spearmen backed up by some archers. It's not about raw stats; Missiles are trash when unsupported. Cavalry solo lacks numbers. Infantry solo is vulnerable to missiles and easy to surround. Diversity and balance is key! Make autoresolve reflect this and discourage spammed copy-paste armies. For example, an army with a long range siege weapon should be able to "lure" the other army towards them and fight defensively. An army with only heavy infantry will instead be forced to break position and charge when faced with missiles, thus losing their defensive advantage. Just some ideas! I don't want to see a stack of dismounted feudal knights (or yari ashigaru) wreck autoresolves, even though we all know that such armies are terrible.
5. Try to make the game "longer", so that the player gets to see more events and technological developments. It's a bad idea to have the game encourage "blitzkrieg". Building up your empire is fun and should be encouraged. A characteristic example: In vanilla medieval 2, factions such as the Turks or Russia are actually better off rushing everything so that they win before the Mongols appear; it objectively makes gameplay much easier. But it takes away all the fun! And it makes no sense historically. Similarly, as Byzantium, you can easily destroy the Turks in just 20 or so turns. What's the point in that? You're left with a campaign that feels barren and pointless, with your archrival destroyed before they could even do anything.
In order to make the campaign longer, it might be worth it to add more minor factions, more minor settlements (such as villages, forts etc.). Take the teutonic campaign for example. Isn't it fun that the map is full of villages? Or in the britannia campaign, the map feels more lively because of the stone forts! Much better than in vanilla, where you can cheaply destroy Scotland by autoresolving Edinburgh siege with a ballista and some spear militia!
I'm sorry for posting a wall of text, it's just that I had a lot to say about this topic. I hope that at least some things I said give you some good ideas! I wish you luck in your project!
Here is a question for you: Do you like the idea of maps (that you fight on) leaning more towards defender vs attacker style, where the defending army usually has some kind of high ground with like a river below it and some trees around it in strategic places too. All in all giving the defender an advantage even when out in the open (kind of like the wood elves siege battles).
Shouldn't this become the default battle mode/map just differing in its original setup and context a little, like maybe its by the coast or in a barren sandy landscape with shrubs and stuff. Occasionally you can have big siege battles.
historically armies when not marching would build a camp with some small defenses like low walls of wooden stakes, ditches and earth walls. preferably in a defensible positon like a hill or near a riverbank. if they have more time, it was common to mine the field in front of the camp with traps and stakes and other stuff to slow down attacking men and horses.
so every field battle should have the defender start in or in front of their camp and have some time to set up before the attacker moves in, unless it is an ambush. the amount of defenses the defender gets should depend on how long they spent in that position. so instead of building a fort instantly by clicking 1 button and paying a few hundred gold, an army would need to spend a few turns in a position to turn a basic camp into a fortification.
raiding camps/forts with small forces at night to steal weapons, horses, or try to kill enemy officers would also be a nice to have feature. more focus on harassing enemy armies instead of just big pitched battles.
The part with the raiding, actually makes sense if you read about the hundred years wars, you have the English price Edward that did Chevauchée, what is basically raiding of south France
What's your background? Are you in gamedev at all? You got a discord to talk about this project?
My background is in engineering, specifically biomedical engineering. So I have coding knowledge just for a very different application.
I do currently have a private discord to discuss the project with people that are volunteering for the project. I intend to try and make that public once there is more to show for the project.
I think an Open Source approach to Med2 is the best move.
Simply recreate Med2 in an engine where the restrictions of having such an old and unwieldy engine get lifted.
You apply features from more modern Total Wars specifically concerning Quality of Life Improvements for the player and better AI allong with slight revamps to the Royal Family and Kings/Heirs system and boom.
Modders can remodel the map and add as many settlements, units and factions as they want because of the lifted restrictions and you have yourself the perfect Open Source Medieval 2.
That's the current plan. Build a solid foundation and make sure it is moddable for any changes in preference!
@@BR_Interactive which after having watched all your videos on your project I'm quite happy to say I'll look forward towards all your progress.
Most people would simply settle for just making Med2 in a new engine but i think its critical to add features introduced in games like Rome 2 and Attila to make the game far more player intuitive and wieldy.
Thank you for all your hard work so far.
Amaaaaaazing. Keep up the good work man!
I would like a system similar to ck3 where you can influence the upbringing of your dynasties children via their education. Even something as simple as deciding their early education, middle education, and finishing to influence their starting stats and traits.
From the historic side of combat i'd love to see it be very heavy and losses be devastating, as much as i enjoy turning my brain off an auto resolving a campaign it never keeps me entertained knowing i can just recover quick and keep on throwing bodies at things. As mentioned the Med 2 system did well at guiding your unit comps and the population mechanic was nice for punishing throwing away units but id love to see the combat itself have a very well flushed out morale system. On top of sieges, the art of sieging feels thrown away in a lot of total war games and like legend has said in many videos about how in warhammer titles it isn't worth defending the walls and can ruin what could be a beautiful battle because the optimal strat is cramming my army in a choke point and giving up the walls especially when you think about how critical walls were in sieges and all of the crazy and creative ways people tried to get passed them.
Armies need some kind of supply mechanism. That may be one way to get offensive army that smaller and effective so it takes less supplies and move faster than big and cohesive and defensive that sits in castle or near by so it can be more demanding for supply But range is not great without attrition etc. Also surrounding and cut off supply is then one more strategy and armies need of rest time to time could be done. Some units could also be added to hold supplies. Also unpassable terrain could then be passable but only with very high cost.
There is many way to do that but it makes strategy game over all less arcadish and more serious when units have to taken care.
I would love they Idea of being able to recruit a few elite units wich you can upgrade with special weapons and armor and individualize them to your needs.
with movement I think one of the best ways would be, that you have Movementpoints per turn and when you go into forcemarch you kind of use some of your next turns movement.
no. remove force march mechanic. it just enables the AI to run away from the player and stay 1 tile out of reach while raiding your territory and forcing you to keep an army around irrelevant minor settlements.
just do it like in med2 where an army can get more or less move points from traits on general and different units have different movement speeds that can slow down an army.
I hope this happens. We need an alternative to CA!
I think units should Level up through loot and experience in battle so that a levy troop becomes a men at arms for example
It would be cool to have the old fort system and to be able to change the borders of provinces by taking small settlements or founding cities/ building forts and castles
Not sure whether this video is meant to be seen already, but it isn't visible on the channel, only via the Playlist
Oops, yeah no I meant to release it on Wednesday, but I guess you get an early viewing xD
It seems like your thoughts are similar to what a lot of the community is thinking. All most people want, from my impression, is medieval 2 with a better looking UI and unit models (a lot of mods for med2 already have detailed character models that look good to this day and that level of detail is good enough imo) and some more in depth mechanics on the campaign map for collecting resources and army recruitment and raiding and stuff like that.
For example in med2 standing in enemy territory causes devastation for the other faction but you dont actually get anything for it like reduced unit upkeep or resources.
Being able to have hit and run battles would be fun.
I have a few elements that I wish to be in new TW iterations.
Battles slower and relying on morale shocks and mass rout rather than slaughtering enemy. (Discussed in the material)
Second is the recruitment system (fit for later than medieval periods and kinda touched in the convo). Ability to create in each region a pool of reserve troops with reduced upkeep, limited by population number and maybe influencing economy (and/or public order) and raisable like RoR in WH3 or maybe recruitable within one turn while regulars would take 2+ (depending on how much time each turn was). The reliance on resources like sulphur, steel, saltpeter, water and food to raise and maintain troops wouldn't go amiss too. Other than that, bulding, economy, trade, diplomacy would be nice if reverted to those from Rome 1/Med 2 but obviously polished and maybe expanded with features inspired on Paradox games. That way we could get game about creating and maintaing Empires rather than just paint the map grind
Liked how there were different settlement types in Med II, cities and castles, and so you couldn't just make every settlement the same and recruit the same kind of troops everywhere.
So doing something like that maybe even with soft restrictions, like build these kind of buildings here to get X but also get penalties to Y could be cool.
+ Find out where is Jeff van Dyke, the music maker for Rome I and Med II and get him onboard!
I definitely want there to be differences in what you're able to recruit from cities!
And man that would be the dream if I could convince him to compose the music.
I think to do a mercenary lord faction you would need to make them a mix of horde faction mechanics and maybe using the skaven under empire mechanics to build mercenary outposts in allied/enemy cities for like unit recruitment possibly mercenary version of unique faction units like english longbow men
Is this... HOPE that I'm feeling? Woah :0 Great chat with legend, and all the best to you and the project, deffo subbed o7
Have they made a total war where you can absorb a defeated army? Or you siege a castle out and offer them to join with you, or ransom important characters stuck in the settlement instead of just killing them?
8:04 "One way to care about your units more..." as we are currently watching a mortar fire 4 shells directly into the player's infantry wall that their cav is walking backwards through.
Friendly fire? No just pumping the k/d Numbers xD
First and foremost, thank you for picking up where CA fails, and that is opening a discussion with the community. I miss those forums.
Forgive me for this wordily post, hopefully the passion of the fanbase doesnt get to overbearing as there are so many variables to creating a total war game.
Ill begin with a few points, but once again, it all depends on availability of tools. First, understanding the era of which you desire to cover throughout the game. Each region of the world respectively had their own management systems, governements, tradition and they should be translated into building effects, ancillary traits, government policy, public and civic capabilities. Context should always be supported by historic evidence.
Population is imperative and creating systems to mitigate populations into approiate duties is the key to gameplay progession.
Now for something more specific to mechanics. I know theres a unit tier system. What about an additional unit class system? Providing variations for factions that might have a disadvantage to tech, but produce hardy warriors which they can also sell as mercenaries. Each class offers unit behavior which translates to combat effectiveness. This is where animations and tools are key, becuase professional units should have not just better stats, but better fighting. Two units could be similar, but in a different class, resulting in their behavior in the field of battle to determine that balance.
Class 1- peasant, surf, townsfolk
Class 2 - levy, laborers, local patrol
Class 3 - warrior, raider, brawler, guerilla, horde
Class 4 - militia, city watch, provincial regiment, fiefdom fighters
Class 5 - professional, upgraded/promoted captains, hired sergeants, mercenaries
Class 6 - royal class, nobles, decorated knights, household troops
Class 7- elites, veterans, special forces, palace guard, men of the court
Class 8 - hero, exotic beast
Class doesnt necessarily mean better stats, its also a parameter for unit behavior and skills.
Hope this makes sense. I dont mind elaborating any details as i love designing blueprints. Total War is inspirational as history is seldom a topic of interest. Thanks again for being considerate to us small guys.
I always enjoyed the culture mechanic from medieval 2, but would like to see it being used in conjunction with a war support feature so for example war between France vs England would happen more often due to the historical rivalry, but Scotland vs France would require some propaganda or a third party causing friction.
Could be used to lessen the player vs all ai mentality that happens.
I think i would like to have something in between Empire and Rome/Mediaval 2 regarding to building. Don't look me in with limited building slots for the city instead let me think about what order to build in. Having Rome and Cartage maxed out in Rome was a great feeling. For resources I liked the Empire way of actually building them on the map giving you and extra way to specialise/improve the region.
Religion from Medieval 2 was great. I always spent much energy in recruiting priests and moving them both through my regions to improve happiness and going to muslim and other countries where they would improve faster and as such reach a higher rank in the church so and thus getting sway over the Pope.
What you say about characters being at risk and dying is essential to a historical game. Actually feeling loss when a great general die of old age or in a battle make you actually connect to them.
Recruitment is hard. I like to standardize my armies but I also agree with Legends comment of that the recruitment system of Medieval making for more diverse armies. I would probably combine Medieval with Rome again so that any recruited soldiers is taken from the population. (Also the ability to move populations by recruiting them and disbanding them in other regions.)
Also make fleets matter. Give them a carrying max to eliminate the one boat carries 1000men thing. The seas are both potential pathways and barriers which we should need to invest in using.
One of my biggest gripes with TW games is that the AI has to cheat in the campaign map just to keep up with the player. I know the typical excuse from CA is it would too taxing on the computer/simulation to have each AI managing an economy properly and that very well might have been true at one point but after the success of games like Stellaris we know this is very feasible these days. In Stellaris, every AI empire has a functioning and balanced economy for its playstyle and when in the rare case the AI specializes a planet (city in TW terms) on one resource you can take it and deny them that key resource until they rebalance the rest of their economy. Economic warfare is a thing in that game. Also the entire simulation is done in real time. TW style games overall have less factions and cities compared to Stellaris and are turn based so it should be able to handle proper economics for the AI factions.
My guess is CA refuses to support this kind of idea because it would require a drastic rewrite of the already barely working campaign AI. Just look at how derp it is in Warhammers 1-3 and how it seems like certain factions are almost always predetermined to overcome their neighbors as the game progresses.
I'm not sure how Stellaris manages its AI system but for a TW style game I could see it being there is actually one real AI managing the other faction's turns but each faction's information and turn history are siloed from the rest. As the AI end its turn for one faction, it loads the silo for the next and takes control until it runs out of options. Rinse and repeat until it is the players turn. This way you save some processing power and memory overhead. As long as the AI only makes decisions based on the siloed info, it should create the illusion of multiple separate opponents that are competing with each other. Obviously, when two AI factions fight, assuming you even need to do a full battle simulation, two separate battle AIs could handle each side. Since TW style games are split between campaign maps and battle maps this becomes easy to implement from a coding view point but I'm no AI expert.
A medieval 2 spiritual successor should also have an ai that doesn’t cheat, meaning that raiding the economy and winning major battles actually has an impact on diplomatic negotiations and on the finances of your ennemies
No more spamming stacks
Diplomacy especially in terms of war would be very interesting if you could only wage wars if you have a casus belli
+much like in paradox games the provinces shouldn’t have fixed borders
Population count and classes (similar to DeI) would also be really cool
Original settlement building system! If you want provinces to ease management late and middle game then have huge provincial management tabs containing 12+ settlements and automanage it like you could without a general in there as per the old games.
If i want to make a little town into a mega city/fortress that should be my choice not the devs.
8:50 this could also factor into "drawing historical characters", i.e. certain units can produce via RNG certain named characters from history
Agents.
We all love spies.
We all love diplomats.
Assassins have funny cutscenes but probably caused more harm than good.
Merchants are... optional.
Priests are probably too strong at what they do. Their flavour text is fun though.
I'm sure you've seen some of the ways mods like SS (M2TW) or IS (Rome/Rome Remastered) integrate bloodlines into things like loyalty or additional traits to deepen the marriage/adoption aspects of the game. I had a run last week where I had a family tree with lots of princesses that meant I had a core group of highly loyal generals with buffs from different faction's family trees - and then eventually the main line of the family died and I had a regency! It pushes more of that ludo-narrative stuff that you brought up about 7-9 min in, but also had gameplay effects, so there's more ways to get players to be motivation to engage with the mechanics, not just the roleplayers. Had issues, like not being able to designate heirs, and choosing heirs in really weird ways which would kill bloodlines (extra painful when you had all these features around them!), but I understand they did what they could with the limits of the engine (I remember trying to get more than 5 kids from one character would crash the game no matter what I tried...)
Tangent, but my favourite feature of any TW game comes from Stainless Steel, where generals who spend a turn in a province get an ancillary title (eg. "Baron of Inverness-shire" for Inverness) that gives a little tax boost plus a thematic effect based on the settlement. Each character gets only one, but as an ancillary you can give it to another character. Some places like Jerusalem give a lot of bonuses to piety and command, but also severely impact loyalty. Adds onto the role of characters as governers in a great way that makes you engage with it more.
I've always liked the idea of building on other mods. Also why I liked the way warhammer seemed to build off previous total war mechanics for different race mechanics.
Tsardoms does this as well and I started a gotta collect them all mentality when I conquered the entire map as the Roman Empire!
One thing I feel that Total War has always missed is differential AI behaviour depending on the kind of general you are facing, and their skill. Some enemy generals should be aggressive, some defensive, some awesome, some bad.
I would personally love to implement something like this! Probably would link decisions the AI would make to traits they have. So a general with a confident attacker would be more likely to go on the offensive and a confident defender would try and find a good place to defend against a nearby army.
@@BR_Interactive Additional thoughts regarding that would be:
Actually having a skill-variance in AI, not just style. Perhaps even a few with negative general traits, who might be incredibly thoughtlessly aggressive or incredibly passive (though these ones should probably be relatively rare). Then also having it on the opposite side of the spectrum, with at its extremes having a rare few military geniuses who are very adept (admitedly programming high-skill AI in a strategy game is way harder than low skill, so I am not saying that would be easy to programme). The distribution of skill can be tied to difficulty, which would make the widely despised stat-based difficulty-system way less relevant to include, if not completely irrelevant. So, if you play on Easy you might have a fair share of passive and thoughtlessly aggressive enemy generals to give you breaks, but on Very Hard, you would have to contend with more than a few military geniuses. But no matter the difficulty, maintaining variety is always important for AI in my opinion: even on Very Hard you should have a moment or two where you catch a break from.
Another interesting aspect would be to have the traits hidden until you fight them for the first time (or you do some kind of agent action with spies perhaps), so at the beginning of a battle you would actually have to feel out how your enemy will actually behave, which is of course how many commanders have had to throghout history, and is quite engaging.
Sort of related to that, I think that it is important to make the AI non-perfect with its APM. It should feel possibly to get inside the enemy's OODA-loop, and that just isn't that plausible in most Total War games. The speed of the enemy's OODA-loop could be tied with their skill in general, too. So, a military genius might be able to respond to an ambush extremely quickly, a low-skill general might have a delay of a few seconds or so. If there is one thing I have noticed with enemy AI in general: the less AI-ish it feels, and the more realistically random and "sloppy", the more fun players will have, generally. That is part of the reason why the chaotic Halo AI is prized so high, while the CoD aimbot AI really isn't as much.
Those are going to be some big shoes to fill. Try to moderate everything you plan to put into the game. A lot of indies and AAA studios I've seen tend to want to do 'MOAR' and then the game never finishes.
This will very much depend on the exact direction you would want your medieval setting to go, but nobility based politics/civil wars would be neat. I don't mean the god-awful system in Rome II or Attila, hell no gimmiky mechanic is really needed at all. Here is an example, or at least the way I picture it:
I'm playing Byzantium (because of course I am), and see that the lord holding the very rich, very important city of Thessaloniki is utterly corrupt, costing me bunch in taxes+extra building/upgrade costs. Ok, so I move to appoint a new lord/governor. After all, I do kinda need those taxes to fund any of the 2 dozen active wars/proxy wars/border disputes going on right now. The population of the city and the surrounding countriside is ecstatic with my rule, they are not getting raided or too heavily taxed, no major heresy or plague, so the old lord can either take the L and just peace out, or even if he would try something it would 95% fail, because the town guard and the local elite (regional landowners, important merchants or clergy) refuses to side with him in opposing me.
Same situation, but the population despises me, so would you look at that, the guy revolted against me and successfully raised a small provincial army in defiance.
Same situation, BUT now it is an important castle, that is ruled by a disloyal noble. I try to revoke it, guess what? It is a castle, under a lord, so no such luck as with a city. All the men and officers serving there are more than likely employed by him, not me (the Emperor), so most would side with him = rebellion.
Final variation, you could probably guess disloyal noble + angry castle. Would you look at that, the soldiers are kinda also pissed t their lord, maybe his incompetence lead to a bunch of their families getting raided y the enemy, or theofficers serving under him are not so keen to sell out their country when he is a known heretic, so the moment I apply any kind of force, they break, lord loses support and rebellion no more.
Obviously this is just my personal vision, but the important points are, that: 1. Organic flow of decisions and events are more important than arbitrary mechanics, even if they do not involve a new pop-up window and 10 different buttons to do various little chores. 2. Regional effects take precedence. The same interaction or decision can have vastly different consequences depending on the people it impacts and their relation to you.
talk to volound too, the man may be hated but he got the fact. I reckon the best way to have diploma systems with vessel contract or improve the system like for examples I always use ally not to bolstering my power but more like my rear protection. AI can should able to do this, and capable to scheme an thought diploma or AI can have it own plan like long time and short team not just response to player by keep attacking player. It could be bribe to set a trap etc. It would good that you can role play none important historical figures too but again this is similar to CK3 but I again do want CK3 system with real time battles. Also yes more management for the army too like supplies route
Implement grand tactician civil War. You should try that game. I like the idea with delayed orders... Which is more in line with tactics instead of mouse clicking as well as immersive
I like the MTW2 city building.
it sounds very promising. I would really love to play that spiritual successor!!
you made Medieval 2 successor? you SOB, I'm in!
that us civil war mod looks crazy lmao
There is a reason I want to try it on my gaming channel XD
Let us create our own custom Lord that is awesome.
Unit replacement should be balanced, just base it on how many working training building you have giveing you X men per turn each, divided up for each demanding army then based on far away they are from the buildings and what the transport system is like lowers that by a percentage.
That's a fair limit's to it, closer to home you get faster replacement and better building mean faster replacement of better units.
no. no auto replenishment. it makes the game too easy and its a mechanic you literally dont interact with as the player.
if you have damaged units, merge them, or if they are experienced, send them back to a settlement with the appropriate military buildings to retrain them.
there is literally no reason to have auto replenishment except making the game easier and simpler for noobs.
@@TheSuperappelflap I just hate multi turn marchs back to retrain units.
Its a waste of my time an money to have two dozen units in micro armys move back an forth, just to keep a static army that's sat in a camp ready to face the Germans.
Hearts of Iron has no problem with auto replenishment.
@@SuperFunkmachine you can transfer experience between units if you know what youre doing and then send a little squad back for retraining. if your faction leader has good authority they wont defect. if you have low authority you need to use one general to shepherd them or put them on a boat.
i dont really see it as annoying, it adds some roleplaying to the game. if you have a cavalry unit that you started the game with that has 9 chevrons you can really take good care of them.
it would be even better if they could get ancillaries or a banner like roman legions. valeria victrix!
Ambitous, very ambitious.
You have one guaranteed customer here at least, imagine having a non-pozzed game that haven´t been dumbed-down to this level.