xkcd

by **Idhan** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 3:21 am UTC

I fought the Byzantines a bit more, and I've concluded that, in theory, Vardariotai are hella scary, but in practice, the AI has no idea how to use them. I parked a schiltron of Italian spear militia at a gate of a fortress I was taking (Nicosea). The Romaioi had a single spear militia unit or something in the garrison, but more (including vardariotai) were coming in from outside the fortress as reinforcements. The Vardariotai, rather than picking off my helpless spear militia with archery, charged the schiltron and died.

P.S., does the AI get better when you set the difficulty higher than "normal," and understand things like "missile cavalry can destroy melee infantry at their leisure" and "if the enemy is bombarding you with catapults, you should either get out of range or charge rather than standing there and taking it?" Or does the AI continue to be stupid but just have stronger abilities like more florins, high unit stats, better generals, etc?

Currently, my great fear is the French. A huge French army, primarily of ex-crusader mercenaries, arrives at Milan, kills the defenders (a few spear and pavise crossbow militia), and then exterminates the population of the city. Wow.

by **IcedT** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 4:00 am UTC

It's been a really long time since I've played vanilla Medieval 2 for exactly that reason, so I really can't say whether they get much smarter as difficulty goes up. But you're rightly afeard of that French stack. Crusader mercs are scary and it probably has a strong general and lots of foot knights (who are absolute death to Italian militia armies). I'd definitely try and get some Foot Knights or Venetian Heavies of your own over to Venice ASAP in case they make a move.

by **Will** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:55 pm UTC

Anyone else playing Fall of the Samurai? I am enjoying it quite thoroughly. Samurai vs. Guns!

by **Nylonathatep** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 1:51 am UTC

Total war: Shogun 2. Pretty hardware intensive game, even for my new computer. However It's fun in that it's different. Realm Divide (where everyone turns against you) and a Time Limit really forces you to think strategically instead of just building an invincible army and roll everyone over. It's definitely different then Total War: Rome.

Idhan wrote: Currently, my great fear is the French. A huge French army, primarily of ex-crusader mercenaries, arrives at Milan, kills the defenders (a few spear and pavise crossbow militia), and then exterminates the population of the city. Wow.

Lol... fearing the French! You shouldn't have to fear them given their sorry military reputation.

by **MisterCheif** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 11:49 pm UTC

On the topic of Shogun 2, has anybody played Fall of the Samurai yet? From what I am seeing, it brings the best of Napoleon, along with more improvements. Being able to bring two armies into a battle? It's about time. I just wish there was a demo, so I could see if my computer can handle it.

by **SHISHKABOB** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:12 am UTC

Idhan wrote:I fought the Byzantines a bit more, and I've concluded that, in theory, Vardariotai are hella scary, but in practice, the AI has no idea how to use them. I parked a schiltron of Italian spear militia at a gate of a fortress I was taking (Nicosea). The Romaioi had a single spear militia unit or something in the garrison, but more (including vardariotai) were coming in from outside the fortress as reinforcements. The Vardariotai, rather than picking off my helpless spear militia with archery, charged the schiltron and died.

P.S., does the AI get better when you set the difficulty higher than "normal," and understand things like "missile cavalry can destroy melee infantry at their leisure" and "if the enemy is bombarding you with catapults, you should either get out of range or charge rather than standing there and taking it?" Or does the AI continue to be stupid but just have stronger abilities like more florins, high unit stats, better generals, etc?

Currently, my great fear is the French. A huge French army, primarily of ex-crusader mercenaries, arrives at Milan, kills the defenders (a few spear and pavise crossbow militia), and then exterminates the population of the city. Wow.

nope, higher difficulty just makes the AI cheat more

get a good mod like DarthMod if you want good AI

by **MisterCheif** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 4:39 pm UTC

Well, I caved in and bought Fall of the Samurai instead of waiting for Steam to have a sale. It was so worth it, even though I can only run on a low-medium hybrid (with large unit sizes of course).
The naval bombardment's are awesome. I haven't had a chance to make use of the railway's yet, as I am still pushing south in my Satsuma game, and I am close to making a beachhead on the north of the main island as one of the two remaining imperial clans (the other being my vassal).
I also like the look of the new castle tower upgrades. I am waiting for somebody to attack one of the cities I have an artillery emplacement in, so I can see how powerful the towers are.
I'm also finding the naval battles more fun than in any previous total war game, though the Kotetsu class ironclads seem overpowered (they have long range, high accuracy, and a forward facing cannon, as well as the ability to reverse) and mine oneshot enemy corvettes far to often, hitting them right through engine and causing them to explode.

by **emceng** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:59 pm UTC

IcedT wrote:It's been a really long time since I've played vanilla Medieval 2 for exactly that reason, so I really can't say whether they get much smarter as difficulty goes up. But you're rightly afeard of that French stack. Crusader mercs are scary and it probably has a strong general and lots of foot knights (who are absolute death to Italian militia armies). I'd definitely try and get some Foot Knights or Venetian Heavies of your own over to Venice ASAP in case they make a move.

What do you mean by vanilla? I got Med2 installed last night finally, and patched up to 1.3. Or should I have gotten Kingdoms instead?

Either way, so far it is interesting. No idea what I should be doing strategically yet, but that will come in time. Tactical battles are ok so far - seems like my guys aren't very responsive to some commands though.

One thing I thought of - how do units recover? Do you have to do something to get them back to full strength? If not, does that mean eventually I'll have dozens of units with 10 guys left in them?

by **Idhan** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 6:26 pm UTC

Two things:

1. If you have two units of the same type -- e.g., two units of peasant archers -- you can merge them if they're both below strength. To do this, drag the "donor" unit card of one and drop it onto the unit card of the "recipient." If the two units together are equal to or less than a full-strength unit, the units merge into one. If the two units combined are still more than a full-strength unit, the "recipient" is brought to full strength, and the "donor" retains a few men. This affects the experience of both units, but in a somewhat wonky way. It's supposed to average out the experience chevrons of the units, and it seems to for the "recipient," but oddly, the "donor" unit, if it still has men left, sometimes gains experience. Naval units cannot be merged.

2. You can retrain units at settlements capable of producing them. Incidentally, this will also upgrade their armor if the settlement's leather tanner/blacksmith/armourer supports better armor than they have at the time, and the unit is capable of wearing that armor. Retraining tends to reduce your units' experience chevrons, though, thanks to the fact that, say, your unit of 20 hardened, veteran armored sergeants has now become a unit of 20 hardened, veteran soldiers and 55 green recruits.

You can combine this two methods, of course. First merge them, then take the "donor" units which still have a few men in them and send them in for retraining. Given the limited number of recruitment slots, it often makes more sense to retrain a single unit that is dramatically below strength than to retrain two units that are somewhat below strength: retraining two units of mailed knights that both have 25/40 knights remaining in them takes two slots. Retraining a single unit of mailed knights that has 10/40 knights remaining just takes one.

by **emceng** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 6:13 pm UTC

OK, one other question. I don't understand how to use merchants. I choose mine, and right click on a resource. Then he stands around. Should there be some indication what is going on, that he's doing something?

by **Idhan** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 6:19 pm UTC

Does the merchant do anything like say anything like "opening trade lanes, my lord" or anything? If you zoom in, do you see little carts moving from the merchant to your city? Also, does the merchant character sheet say anything like "currently trading x for y florins per turn," (e.g., currently trading wool for 22 florins per turn)?

If that's the case, that's all the merchant normally does. Barring takeovers of other merchants, that's how they function.

If not, then I don't know. It's possible that the merchant ended slightly off of the resource somehow. Otherwise, I don't know.

by **emceng** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 1:26 pm UTC

Yeah, I had the volume down, but he says something. Don't think there's anything on the character sheet.

Other question though - my empire is blowing up. Does unrest increase with increased population? I've got a bunch of cities with near full garrisons, 95+% Catholic, and they're still unhappy.
I haven't been building anything in these cities except troops.

That's my other issue. No one wants to fucking make peace. I've been at war with the Byzantines for 100 turns or so now. Ok, I'd prefer not to make peace with them in particular, but I have also been at war with the HRE and Hungary for about 50 turns each as well. Then get a fucking crusade called against me. Then make peace with Egypt, who turns around and attacks me again 2 turns later.

by **Coin** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:22 pm UTC

Welcome to the world of un-modded Total War.
What difficulty level are you playing on? Have you built the Governors Palace type buildings in the rioting cities or other things that improve Law and Order?

by **eSOANEM** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:56 pm UTC

The main problem I've run into in rome and medieval when it comes to public order is squalor. This is a major problem because you can't really do much to stop it increasing and, as your population gets bigger, it's pretty much inevitable. Because of this, as soon as a sewer or aqueduct or whatever becomes available to be built, you should build it straight away (or at least queue it straight away, and don't push it back in the queue), because if you don't, it's going to come back and bite you in the arse.

Also with regards to squalor, upgrading governor's-palace-type-buildings/walls (in medieval IIRC)/castles (to upgrade the city type/castle type e.g. from minor town to large town or large town to minor city etc.) promptly is also very important because otherwise your settlement will get too big for the walls and squalor will shoot up.

by **emceng** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 6:39 pm UTC

I do need to build more town halls, etc. but I still seem to have high unrest that is a pain to deal with. It seems ridiculous that I have the #1 or 2 military, but can't do anything with it because 90% of my troops are tied up as garrisons.

by **wam** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:16 pm UTC

Im currently playing empire (a couple of hours in) and am just not getting into it like I did with shogun and rome. Which is odd given I like the period historically.

Anyone else found this or is it just me?

by **eSOANEM** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:27 am UTC

emceng wrote:I do need to build more town halls, etc. but I still seem to have high unrest that is a pain to deal with. It seems ridiculous that I have the #1 or 2 military, but can't do anything with it because 90% of my troops are tied up as garrisons.

It's very difficult to get squalor down once it's got high. If you really can't keep order well, you can always try letting them rebel and then reconquering them and exterminating the populace; that'll decrease the population significantly which will help bring squalor down and, IIRC, it increases public order in and of itself.

by **IcedT** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 5:51 am UTC

eSOANEM wrote:
emceng wrote:I do need to build more town halls, etc. but I still seem to have high unrest that is a pain to deal with. It seems ridiculous that I have the #1 or 2 military, but can't do anything with it because 90% of my troops are tied up as garrisons.

It's very difficult to get squalor down once it's got high. If you really can't keep order well, you can always try letting them rebel and then reconquering them and exterminating the populace; that'll decrease the population significantly which will help bring squalor down and, IIRC, it increases public order in and of itself.

Squalor was almost gamebreaking in Rome, and it was still a pretty major problem in Medieval II. I really wasn't a fan of it- I mean, if conditions in the city are so unbearably crowded that people are willing to rebel over it, why don't they just... start a new city close by? Or move to a more sparsely-populated province? It was basically just a sink to tie up more of your resources as your economy grew.

I can't speak for Empire and Napoleon, but in Shogun 2 the public order (repression, in S2 terms) from the castle is enough to keep most cities peaceful unless there's a specific reason for unrest (like having recently been conquered, having a different religion, or being incited by enemy agents). So a relatively small portion of your army is tied up doing nothing and more of it is used for actually fighting.

by **eSOANEM** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 7:12 am UTC

IcedT wrote:I can't speak for Empire and Napoleon, but in Shogun 2 the public order (repression, in S2 terms) from the castle is enough to keep most cities peaceful unless there's a specific reason for unrest (like having recently been conquered, having a different religion, or being incited by enemy agents). So a relatively small portion of your army is tied up doing nothing and more of it is used for actually fighting.

This is generally the case in Empire too. In my Dutch campaign, I recently conquered Russia and Austria and the only ones which needed significant garrisons after a couple of turns repairing public order boosting buildings were Vienna and Warsaw (Moscow and Saint Petersburg both calmed down very quickly) but then using dragoons generally helps there.

Edit: whilst we're on the subject of empire, I recently reinstalled it and just went to install the "all factions playable" startpos but the link on the twcenter thread's dead. If anyone's got a copy of the startpos/has a hex editor and is willing to edit it themselves, I'd be really grateful if they could post it to me/push me towards a working link.

by **emceng** » Tue May 08, 2012 3:55 am UTC

Ok, what the bleeding crap. I attack a solo prince who has 9 guys in his guard. I attack with 79 cavalry. I almost freaking lost. I killed 8 guys and lost 57. WTF?

by **Coin** » Tue May 08, 2012 8:16 am UTC

emceng wrote:Ok, what the bleeding crap. I attack a solo prince who has 9 guys in his guard. I attack with 79 cavalry. I almost freaking lost. I killed 8 guys and lost 57. WTF?

Which game? If you in Rome play as the Greeks and attack an armoured prince I'm not surprised. Greece has terrible cavalry.
Edit: Saw that it's Medieval. Light cavalry types are very weak and only really good for harassment, so that might be a reason too.

by **IcedT** » Tue May 08, 2012 5:43 pm UTC

emceng wrote:Ok, what the bleeding crap. I attack a solo prince who has 9 guys in his guard. I attack with 79 cavalry. I almost freaking lost. I killed 8 guys and lost 57. WTF?

That's pretty unusual for Medieval 2, but I guess some Jedi generals still exist. What kind of cavalry were you using?

by **emceng** » Tue May 08, 2012 6:03 pm UTC

IcedT wrote:
emceng wrote:Ok, what the bleeding crap. I attack a solo prince who has 9 guys in his guard. I attack with 79 cavalry. I almost freaking lost. I killed 8 guys and lost 57. WTF?

That's pretty unusual for Medieval 2, but I guess some Jedi generals still exist. What kind of cavalry were you using?

Broken Lances I think

by **IcedT** » Tue May 08, 2012 8:48 pm UTC

emceng wrote:
IcedT wrote:
emceng wrote:Ok, what the bleeding crap. I attack a solo prince who has 9 guys in his guard. I attack with 79 cavalry. I almost freaking lost. I killed 8 guys and lost 57. WTF?

That's pretty unusual for Medieval 2, but I guess some Jedi generals still exist. What kind of cavalry were you using?

Broken Lances I think

That's very strange then. That general must've been pretty tough.

by **emceng** » Wed May 09, 2012 1:30 pm UTC

I'm about to give up on this game. Partly due to the freaking Pope. I have a dislike of religion in games like this. Part of my problem is having the freaking Pope be unbeatable. Hey, I took Rome and all your cities - get lost! Or, I'm powerful enough I should be able to elect my own Pope. Not kowtow to some a-hole from another country.

But I am very frustrated. At war with 9 factions. Killed 3-4k worth of troops from the HRE, and they just keep coming, despite them only being a mid-level power(4-5 cities maybe).

Also find crusades stupid. Ok, Pope calls a crusade to take one of my cities. Fine. So why should I get a reputation hit with everyone when I attack a crusading army? That makes no sense.

by **IcedT** » Wed May 09, 2012 6:34 pm UTC

emceng wrote:I'm about to give up on this game. Partly due to the freaking Pope. I have a dislike of religion in games like this. Part of my problem is having the freaking Pope be unbeatable. Hey, I took Rome and all your cities - get lost! Or, I'm powerful enough I should be able to elect my own Pope. Not kowtow to some a-hole from another country.

But I am very frustrated. At war with 9 factions. Killed 3-4k worth of troops from the HRE, and they just keep coming, despite them only being a mid-level power(4-5 cities maybe).

Also find crusades stupid. Ok, Pope calls a crusade to take one of my cities. Fine. So why should I get a reputation hit with everyone when I attack a crusading army? That makes no sense.

I recommend mods then. Unmodded M2 has so many problems I can't stand to play it, but there's a huge variety of really great mods out there that kept me playing the game for years. Even if you want something close to vanilla, there's a huge range of AI improvements and bug fixes out there to make the game less frustrating.

by **Grishnakh** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 10:48 am UTC

So Total War: Rome II has been announced, to be released Late 2013.

Some info, a live-action trailer and an interview with the developers can be found on that finest source of unbiased pc-gaming journalism: Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

After spending a lot of time with Crusader kings II and Mount and Blade, I want a game with the diplomacy and intrigue of Crusader Kings and the battle system of Total war, but also the ability to possess a unit and fight in first/third person like Mount and Blade.

Rome II could possibly offer something like that.

Some quote sniping:

James Russell (Total War series lead designer) wrote:In terms of core gameplay effects, I think one key thing to emphasise is the unit level camera where you go down and lock the camera to that unit, we don’t just want that to be an aesthetic thing, the player’s going to need some incentive to do that. We don’t just want the player using that in order to go in and watch something, it’s got to have an effect.

This comes close to my idea of possessing a unit, although I doubt you will be able to control an individual unit directly (like M&B), at least it will place you in the thick of the hacking and slashing.

James Russell (Total War series lead designer) wrote:I think one of the amazing things about the era is that it was a time when individuals made history, through their personal decisions, you’ve got all these legendary figures and we really want to bring out some of those personal choices and actually have branch sequences of storylines where you get to make personal decisions and see that play out in the game world, and see the effects that that has. So it’s about humanising elements of the campaign game, because the geopolitics of the time was intimately bound up with individual’s own choices. We want the player to be thinking ‘do I save the Republic or do I make a play to become emperor?’ We want that to be a proper dilemma that the player has.

This could indicate a CK II level of intriguing and whatnot. A focus on individuals and how their decisions affect history is what makes CK II great, and I would love to see something similar in a Total War game.

by **IcedT** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 6:43 pm UTC

Grishnakh wrote:After spending a lot of time with Crusader kings II and Mount and Blade, I want a game with the diplomacy and intrigue of Crusader Kings and the battle system of Total war, but also the ability to possess a unit and fight in first/third person like Mount and Blade.

You, sir, have fine taste in video games. But I think you're expecting a little too much. Crusader Kings II's focus is intrigue and diplomacy. For Total War, it's a consideration but it's always been secondary to battles and grand strategy. Same goes for Mount and Blade. It's totally focused in on relatively small battles between individual warriors. A large battle in M&B is about 150 men on the field at once, but playing Shogun 2 I have 150 men in just one unit of Ikko-Ikki spearmen. In the late game I'll routinely see 10,000-man armies. The only way that controlling an individual soldier could be useful in the context of a battle that large is if the player gets some serious Dynasty Warriors-style immersion-shattering super powers. So, realistically, I think you'll get a Total War game that's influenced by indie strategy games like CK and M&B, but it's still gonna fundamentally be a Total War game.

I am pretty excited about a lot of the things they're doing with this one though: the Legion system sounds great as long as the implementation is decent. Expanding the dilemmas is also a great idea, and I'm glad they're less focused specifically on Rome this time around. The faction balance was just awful in the original RTW. I am interested to see whether they'll keep the multi-faction Rome setup from the original or if they'll do it more like in RTR, with a smaller but unified Roman state (possibly using the new intrigue mechanics to create the civil wars). And here's hoping they don't bring back that god-awful squalor system.

by **Grishnakh** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 8:58 am UTC

Yes, I know, it is wishful thinking on my part. A man must dream.

It is great that they are going back to the Roman period again. Historical strategy games tend to have its first installment in ancient times, then somewhere in the middle-ages, then guns and cannons and then they sort of fizzle out. With each iteration of the game graphics and features improve, but the time-frame moves out of the periods I like, which is ancient and early medieval. I always want them to stick to the same period but just improve things a bit. While shooting the enemy general in the face with a cannon is all sorts of awesome, doing the same with a catapult is even better!
An improved Rome game makes me happy. Let's hope after that we get Medieval 3!

by **CorruptUser** » Sat Jul 07, 2012 12:56 am UTC

What about "Persia: Total War", where you try and conquer all the way from Afghanistan to Greece? I'd play that, but for your elephants vs infantry, they had better have that *splut* sound from C&C. You know which sound I'm talking about.

by **eSOANEM** » Sat Jul 07, 2012 7:43 am UTC

So like Alexander II but coming from the other side?

It's possible. With Medieval they did a different expansion (they did Kingdoms instead of Viking Invasion) so they'll probably do the same with Rome, but it'd be nice to see Alexander stuff.

by **hiro68** » Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:03 am UTC

Will wrote:Anyone else playing Fall of the Samurai? I am enjoying it quite thoroughly. Samurai vs. Guns!

i just played it now and i started loving it..

by **IcedT** » Mon Jul 09, 2012 6:55 am UTC

hiro68 wrote:
Will wrote:Anyone else playing Fall of the Samurai? I am enjoying it quite thoroughly. Samurai vs. Guns!

i just played it now and i started loving it..

You know, the Last Samurai-style depictions of kachi fighting with spears and medieval armor against modern Western armies is really a pretty ahistorical and patronizing treatment of the Shogunate forces that totally fails to do justice to the warfare of the time.

/buzzkill

by **CorruptUser** » Mon Jul 09, 2012 1:43 pm UTC

The irony of how Japan is remembered is somewhat amusing. Prior to the 18th century, Japan used guns more extensively than the European nations. The "Nanban" didn't introduce guns into Japan, just the flintlock. Keep in mind that China and Japan both had guns for 400 years prior to that. Europe still used a heavy amount of pikes, swords, and lances until the end of the 18th century. The Three Musketeers were more known for swashbuckling than musket-shooting, after all.

by **Sheikh al-Majaneen** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:37 am UTC

CorruptUser wrote:What about "Persia: Total War", where you try and conquer all the way from Afghanistan to Greece? I'd play that, but for your elephants vs infantry, they had better have that *splut* sound from C&C. You know which sound I'm talking about.

Needs a catchy name, though, which you won't get from Persia or anything associated with the ancient empire. Babylon: Total War could fly though. Everyone knows what Babylon is, and we aren't on the verge of dealing with a surge of anti-Babylon patriotism.

by **CorruptUser** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:20 am UTC

Didn't seem to hurt the Prince of Persia series. But if you insist, Darius: Total War or Cyrus: Total War. I wonder, would anyone want to play Saladin: Total War or Ottoman: Total War?

Also, no need for it to be set in the Old World; Maya: Total War might be fun, though you won't get cavalry until late in the game when the Spanish come in, but they come with plagues and other stuff...

by **IcedT** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:30 am UTC

CorruptUser wrote:Didn't seem to hurt the Prince of Persia series. But if you insist, Darius: Total War or Cyrus: Total War. I wonder, would anyone want to play Saladin: Total War or Ottoman: Total War?

Also, no need for it to be set in the Old World; Maya: Total War might be fun, though you won't get cavalry until late in the game when the Spanish come in, but they come with plagues and other stuff...

Those are all a lot narrower than the normal Total War focus- Darius would have to be rolled into a more general pre-Hellenic Near East/Europe campaign, the Ottomans would fall into that awkwardly-named gap between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment that we call "the early Modern period," and Saladin falls very neatly into Medieval and Medieval II. The New World got a campaign in Medieval 2: Kingdoms.

That said, a Total War focused on Mycenaean Greece, Assyria, Pharoanic Egypt and the Achaemenids would be pretty awesome.

by **An Enraged Platypus** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:19 pm UTC

IcedT wrote:
hiro68 wrote:
Will wrote:Anyone else playing Fall of the Samurai? I am enjoying it quite thoroughly. Samurai vs. Guns!

i just played it now and i started loving it..

You know, the Last Samurai-style depictions of kachi fighting with spears and medieval armor against modern Western armies is really a pretty ahistorical and patronizing treatment of the Shogunate forces that totally fails to do justice to the warfare of the time.

/buzzkill

Yeah, that's pretty much why I don't want to touch FotS; not everything was Kamikaze League's attack on Kumamoto castle. In the vanilla game getting bulk ashigaru armies before samurai was also a kick in the head.

by **Idhan** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 8:01 pm UTC

IcedT wrote:The Ottomans would fall into that awkwardly-named gap between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment that we call "the early Modern period,"

For what it's worth, I think that the "early Modern period" would be a great setting for a TW game (although don't call it "Total War: Early Modern Period." Maybe "Total War: Renaissance?"). It was the age of probably the most intense religious violence ever (Thirty Years War; probably bloodier than the Crusades). The Dutch were fighting the Habsburgs for independence. The Safavids and the Ottomans are clashing over Mesopotamia. The Koreans are developing friggin' rapid fire rocket launchers and ironclads to take on Japanese invasions. Then it also coincides with the Sengoku era in Japan -- but that's already addressed by some other series of TW games, I think. The Holy Roman Empire is fragmenting from a feudal monarchy into a all-but-fictitious titular state. Fans of old school phalanxes can use pike formations (and pike-and-shot). Medieval-style heavy cavalry can still play a role. Rodeleros fighting like legionary-ish infantry. Arquebusiers and musketeers fighting like Empire line infantry. Jesuits could be your agents as you struggle with Protestants -- but are they really your agents or do they have an agenda of their own?

(Although I don't think putting the Ottomans exclusively in the early Modern period seems right to me. That may have been their golden age, but surely a state that survived until the end of WW1 isn't just "between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment?")

I think that in Medieval 2, there's a hint that the Turks may have Ottoman influence. Generally the game holds its cards close to its chest about whether the Turks are ruled by Seljuks or Ottomans or some entirely new dynasty that only happened in your game when most of your royal family dies and some adopted son unexpectedly becomes Sultan. (Thus, it's the Turks not the Seljuks/Ottomans, the Byzantines not the Komnenoi/Angeloi/Palaiologoi, the French not the Capets/Valois/Bourbons.) However, one exception is that there is a Turkish unit named "Ottoman infantry."

by **IcedT** » Fri Jul 13, 2012 3:53 am UTC

Idhan wrote:
IcedT wrote:The Ottomans would fall into that awkwardly-named gap between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment that we call "the early Modern period,"

For what it's worth, I think that the "early Modern period" would be a great setting for a TW game (although don't call it "Total War: Early Modern Period." Maybe "Total War: Renaissance?"). It was the age of probably the most intense religious violence ever (Thirty Years War; probably bloodier than the Crusades). The Dutch were fighting the Habsburgs for independence. The Safavids and the Ottomans are clashing over Mesopotamia. The Koreans are developing friggin' rapid fire rocket launchers and ironclads to take on Japanese invasions. Then it also coincides with the Sengoku era in Japan -- but that's already addressed by some other series of TW games, I think. The Holy Roman Empire is fragmenting from a feudal monarchy into a all-but-fictitious titular state. Fans of old school phalanxes can use pike formations (and pike-and-shot). Medieval-style heavy cavalry can still play a role. Rodeleros fighting like legionary-ish infantry. Arquebusiers and musketeers fighting like Empire line infantry. Jesuits could be your agents as you struggle with Protestants -- but are they really your agents or do they have an agenda of their own?

(Although I don't think putting the Ottomans exclusively in the early Modern period seems right to me. That may have been their golden age, but surely a state that survived until the end of WW1 isn't just "between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment?")

I didn't mean to imply the Ottomans don't have a place in later periods, just that any game focused on their greatest exploits would be focused on the 15th through 17th centuries. But yeah, that was an amazing time in all world history, not even just in Europe or the Near East. I've always wanted a mod for Medieval II that extended the map at least to India and covered 1450-1650.

Idhan wrote:I think that in Medieval 2, there's a hint that the Turks may have Ottoman influence. Generally the game holds its cards close to its chest about whether the Turks are ruled by Seljuks or Ottomans or some entirely new dynasty that only happened in your game when most of your royal family dies and some adopted son unexpectedly becomes Sultan. (Thus, it's the Turks not the Seljuks/Ottomans, the Byzantines not the Komnenoi/Angeloi/Palaiologoi, the French not the Capets/Valois/Bourbons.) However, one exception is that there is a Turkish unit named "Ottoman infantry."

Total War tends to keep national identity pretty flexible, for pretty obvious workload-related reasons. So far the only game I've found that does a good job of keeping track of changing dynasties and titles is Crusader Kings (Europa Universalis to a lesser extent).

Who is online