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There's obviously the three retinue system, which is just way better than one general per army especially for the fantasy element games, but just how units control and move feels way better. 3K cav are just incredible and not even the most juiced up Bretonnian charge can match that.
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Jun 3, 2023 06:16
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I assume we'll see 3K's engine again with Medieval 3, whenever that's official
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Jun 4, 2023 02:13
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Nephthys posted:Reddit has a thread linking to a gamewatcher article with all of the different faction playstyle overviews but given that CA hasn't officially revealed anyone but Ramesses' I'm not sure about its authenticity: https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/total-war-pharaoh-factions-list Finally, a game where you can play as the Hittites that isn't Age of Empires or Civilization
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Jun 4, 2023 05:10
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Eimi posted:There's obviously the three retinue system, which is just way better than one general per army especially for the fantasy element games, but just how units control and move feels way better. 3K cav are just incredible and not even the most juiced up Bretonnian charge can match that. I’m really mixed on the three retinues honestly. Unit selection and army redeployment and so on with it is great, but on the other hand it means 3 of your and your enemy’s 20 unit slots are taken up with some kind of super elite cavalry every single battle. I guess my complaint is part of a broader “bring back the 3 ashigaru vs 3 ashigaru battles” thing in how the battles with crap units are actually some of the best and it’s a shame you only get them in the very early game now, but 3 kingdoms is imo the worst in the series for that. E: just reflecting on this a bit more, I think it’s legit one of the reasons I always return to Shogun 2. You get an incredible mix of battles in terms of both size and quality for the entire game; you have your 5000 to a size mega shows with your stack of specced out warrior monks, and then get to cool off defending podunk castle with 3 ashigaru and a samurai retainer afterwards. The unit variety is the lowest but the battle variety is the highest. In every game since, after you get your doomstacks rolling in 20-50 turns, you never look back. Koramei fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Jun 4, 2023 |
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Jun 4, 2023 09:04
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I've thought this for the longest time but Shogun's setting is basically the pike and shot era game I've been wanting: few to no shields so ranged shooting is very potent, handguns so gunpowder is a thing and heavy armor is readily countered, good cavalry, etc. The rock papers scissors aspect is extremely strong in that game and it leads to a lot of emphasis on good, smart tactical play.
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Jun 4, 2023 10:01
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Fuligin posted:I assume we'll see 3K's engine again with Medieval 3, whenever that's official I'm not sure we will. Obviously I'd like that though. But I suspect a lot more CA devs are familiar with the warhammer branch. I have a sinking feeling we ain't seeing that engine again outside of 3k2 if that ever appears, which I suspect it will coz I think it did pretty well right?
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Jun 4, 2023 10:04
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They very abruptly cut the support cycle for 3k, so either it got dropped completely or CA didn't want to go through all the ideas they had.
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Jun 4, 2023 10:31
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I remember some complaints that they never released a DLC set during the actual Three Kingdoms era. Wasn't the whole point of that era though that everyone was essentially deadlocked and nothing really happened? I could see that being pretty tough to get right, or even functional.
Tirranek fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Jun 4, 2023 |
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Jun 4, 2023 10:47
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Tbf being functional or not didn't stop them from doing that weird earlier start date with the emperor still being around that tends to gently caress the whole game up unless you're playing yellow turbans I think a 3k start woulda been fine, just a start with 3 big power blocks and their vassals but they'd have had to change the victory conditions
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Jun 4, 2023 11:26
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Fuligin posted:I assume we'll see 3K's engine again with Medieval 3, whenever that's official I think there's evidence (e.g. recruiting calls they put out a bit back) that it's gonna be a totally new engine.
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Jun 4, 2023 11:53
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Communist Thoughts posted:Tbf being functional or not didn't stop them from doing that weird earlier start date with the emperor still being around that tends to gently caress the whole game up unless you're playing yellow turbans Yeah definitely, maybe to focusing on defeating key figures so everything crumbles, kind of like the reverse of the Emperor start. I could see a start like that just very quickly becoming a map painter with doomstacks, though.
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Jun 4, 2023 12:14
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All they needed was a start date just after red cliffs. Then you'd still have some small powers alongside big mac Wu and Wei, with Liu Bei poised to actually found Shu-Han in the right gd place for once
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Jun 4, 2023 12:21
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Koramei posted:I’m really mixed on the three retinues honestly. Unit selection and army redeployment and so on with it is great, but on the other hand it means 3 of your and your enemy’s 20 unit slots are taken up with some kind of super elite cavalry every single battle. I feel like it'd work for Medieval where a bunch of crap levies and a couple uber elite cavalry units is basically how battles went tbf
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Jun 4, 2023 13:23
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I still think you could make a good strategy game out of the actual three kingdoms part, but it's definitely not easy (none of the actual romance of the three kingdoms games have really done it, although they usually include post-red cliffs start dates just to have em). Historically a badly planned campaign could set someone back for years and when two sides worked together they were never certain they could actually rely on the other partner. The supply and reinforcement systems in TW3K don't really punish you like that, and there's no reason you even need to concentrate your armies for one "campaign" instead of just spreading them out along the border and pressing everywhere at the same time.
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Jun 4, 2023 23:47
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I don’t think TW will ever have the AI necessary for the diplomacy required for that kind of game to be interesting
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Jun 4, 2023 23:49
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the base shogun 2 experience is spamming yari ashigaru and bow ashigaru for 80 turns or whatever until you can build up your economy since yari wall is busted
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Jun 4, 2023 23:54
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After years of durdling around the edges of the map, training as many samurai as I could afford and being poor, the best Shogun 2 campaign I ever had was doing that as the Oda, starting right in the middle, hemmed in on all sides and totally reliant on unique buildings for the stat buffs to my peasants. I literally never trained a unit with "samurai" in the name. I trained a lot of cav, and I'm pretty sure they're all meant to be sams, but whatever. Man it ruled. I haven't replayed it since then and I don't know how that mindset affects the long-term fun of that game.
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Jun 5, 2023 00:15
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I just liked how katana samurai actually were completely dominant ashigaru troops, especially on the charge. You got a lot of mileage out of peppering the enemy with arrows and then breaking them on the charge. With horses actually being strong enough to kill off routing units in a decent amount of time, its the last total war that felt like the battles had about the right level of longevity to it. I actually remember having to teach myself that horses weren't all poo poo despite the enemy having the units to really gently caress up cav en masse. gently caress i'm about to install it again aren't i
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Jun 5, 2023 12:35
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Randallteal posted:I still think you could make a good strategy game out of the actual three kingdoms part, but it's definitely not easy (none of the actual romance of the three kingdoms games have really done it, although they usually include post-red cliffs start dates just to have em). Historically a badly planned campaign could set someone back for years and when two sides worked together they were never certain they could actually rely on the other partner. The supply and reinforcement systems in TW3K don't really punish you like that, and there's no reason you even need to concentrate your armies for one "campaign" instead of just spreading them out along the border and pressing everywhere at the same time. To make an actual three kingdoms start interesting the basic 'unit' of interaction needs to be character to character, not independent faction to independent faction. So basically like Crusader Kings or the ROTK games where you play as a character (not a ruler). ROTK 13 and 8 do that reasonablely well. That shift towards the player being an actual character (instead of an omnipresent entity that controls a faction) is what I think they are going to really go for in TW:3k 2 the sequel.
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Jun 5, 2023 16:54
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Captain Beans posted:To make an actual three kingdoms start interesting the basic 'unit' of interaction needs to be character to character, not independent faction to independent faction. So basically like Crusader Kings or the ROTK games where you play as a character (not a ruler). ROTK 13 and 8 do that reasonablely well. That shift towards the player being an actual character (instead of an omnipresent entity that controls a faction) is what I think they are going to really go for in TW:3k 2 the sequel.
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Jun 5, 2023 17:08
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Lance of Llanwyln posted:To actually do the Three Kingdoms era proper justice, you would need to model the incessant factionalism and political power struggles (and violent coups, in the case of Wu and especially Wei) that existed in all three kingdoms and effectively paralyzed Wei for long stretches of time until the Sima clan finally consolidated its hold on power. Oh, so in TW style, a field battle or two and a settlement to take over 
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Jun 5, 2023 17:22
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to some degree that gets tedious imo. i dont think people want to play a game where things are going to always tend to play out the way they did historically. i think most people want a game where they can potentially win starting as any faction/character.
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Jun 5, 2023 17:31
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zetamind2000 posted:Finally, a game where you can play as the Hittites that isn't Age of Empires or Civilization Old World has them, and you have to interact with their culture on a slightly more than a cursory level like the above because they had to model factions/families.
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Jun 5, 2023 18:46
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you're not trying to make a game authentic to the Cambridge History of Ancient China version of the three kingdoms, you're trying to make a game authentic to the folklore/pop culture version of the three kingdoms with the dueling generals and the baby-throwing and the three visits and the taoist weather magic
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Jun 5, 2023 18:53
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Imagine making a game called the three kingdoms and not having a three kingdoms start. I get there are challenges but it’s a massive major oversight.
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Jun 5, 2023 19:35
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The actual three kingdoms part is the most boring by far. I don't get why people are so hung up on that poo poo
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Jun 5, 2023 19:36
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The three kingdoms can be interesting but it’s almost all internal politics before it just kind of ends
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Jun 5, 2023 19:42
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If it’s so boring, why center a game around it? Like, I get it could be historical boring, but they could have spruced it up. Instead, we get a start period after the three kingdoms, like come on.
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Jun 5, 2023 20:20
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Personally, the idea that the actual three kingdoms period is boring is the draw of it. The fact that it's supposed to be a stalemate is what makes me want to pick one of the factions and try to claw my way into winning. Give me three complete dumpster fires of factions with crappy faction effects, over-extended territories and huge corruption and let me spin gold out of them. Kind of like how in the original Rome you could play as the full roman empire just before its collapse in one of the expansions and the idea is trying to save it from the brink. Nephthys fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jun 5, 2023 |
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Jun 5, 2023 20:21
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Lord Packinham posted:If it’s so boring, why center a game around it? I mean the period its centered around is extremely well known as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It's not literally based on only the portion of that period where there were three kingdoms. "Total War: End of the Han Dynasty" doesn't have the same instant recognition. I tend to agree with others that having a start with the three kingdoms would be really boring. Even the Yuan Shao vs Cao Cao start was a drag unless you wanted to play a smaller faction trying to overthrow them IMO. The fun of the game is starting small and growing into something big. Starting as a huge, nearly unassailable, empire just isn't as appealing.
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Jun 5, 2023 20:41
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Lord Packinham posted:If it’s so boring, why center a game around it? It's centered around the best bits of it though, I reckon; it doesn't need to be beholden exactly to its title.
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Jun 5, 2023 20:45
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Lord Packinham posted:If it’s so boring, why center a game around it? the sanguo yanyi is basically like the illiad in china if everyone still knew the story, it made up approximately 50% of all popular media, and you can't walk into a restaurant without seeing a statue or a painting of one of the main characters so not like the illiad at all, come to think of it. the story is also popular pretty much everywhere else in the sinosphere, though not to that extent
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Jun 5, 2023 20:47
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Jamwad Hilder posted:Starting as a huge, nearly unassailable, empire just isn't as appealing.
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Jun 5, 2023 20:54
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I mean the WRE stuff works because a lot of its threats are tiny but mobile. Like the ERE is more similar to the three kingdoms and no one really cares
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Jun 5, 2023 20:57
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Lord Packinham posted:If it’s so boring, why center a game around it? The good news is CA didn't center a game around it. I have absolutely nothing good to say about the 8 princes dlc though
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Jun 5, 2023 21:16
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yeah it's the Romance of the Three Kingdoms game, not the Three Kingdoms period game, the Three Kingdoms period being the endgame
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Jun 5, 2023 21:19
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About 2/3rds of Romance of the Three Kingdoms happens before the Three Kingdoms come into being.
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Jun 5, 2023 21:46
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:To me they didnt feel unassailable because they had horrible city design, enemies on most fronts, a bunch of poorly filled out armies with lovely generals, and funny shaped territory that was a pain to manage. Similar to how Nephthys said that playing as West Rome when it was on the verge of total collapse was fun in its own way. That's all true but even considering those factors, its basically impossible to lose when you're in a very strong position to begin with. I tend to play on VH or Legendary and did both Cao Cao and Yuan Shao for the sake of it, and it just never felt like a challenge. There was the occasional minor setback but that's it.
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Jun 5, 2023 23:12
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there's like 40 loving chapters or something of it after zhuge liang, the last character that anyone cares about, bites it, and i swear to god i could not tell you a single thing that happened in any of them unless they were covered by a dynasty warriors game.
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Jun 6, 2023 00:04
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It's not an inaccurate term. The "romance" of the Three Kingdoms is that all the cool poo poo happens before the actual thing, where it bogs down to stagnancy and the known characters dying of sickness or age.
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Jun 6, 2023 00:24
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