Redesigning the total war battle system from scratch

[ray245]

The rout phase could easily just be a single button; 'release'. Once the enemy is broken you can just release the army to chase them down (or at least a few units like cavalry) without having to micro it to get MAXIMUM ROUTAGE. It would also be mitigated if the enemy lost a proportion of the routed troops to desertion based on quality and morale.

But then this thread is a giant collision between gamers and simulationists, so I doubt either of these would be acceptable.

Where do you stand Stark? You are fairly critical of the total war game series.

[Stark]

I don't 'stand' anywhere because both extremes are wrong. The game should be able to handle both play experiences/styles with a simple option. Sometimes I'd like to play limited-control, limited-information high-level ancient generalship simulator and other times I'd like to play Romans Stab the Gyppos En Masse. The difference is only a matter of a few preferences, once the system is implemented practically. Dumbing down a complex game is actually very easy; the people who make complex games simply make terrible UIs that obfuscate this fact.

I mean, if I said that all the generals should have a diplomacy/politics subroutine that controls who they support, why, how they treat their men, how the men feel about them personally and the state indirectly, economic situations etc that'd be great but totally meaningless because it'd never be practical.

[ray245]

I don't 'stand' anywhere because both extremes are wrong. The game should be able to handle both play experiences/styles with a simple option. Sometimes I'd like to play limited-control, limited-information high-level ancient generalship simulator and other times I'd like to play Romans Stab the Gyppos En Masse. The difference is only a matter of a few preferences, once the system is implemented practically. Dumbing down a complex game is actually very easy; the people who make complex games simply make terrible UIs that obfuscate this fact.

I mean, if I said that all the generals should have a diplomacy/politics subroutine that controls who they support, why, how they treat their men, how the men feel about them personally and the state indirectly, economic situations etc that'd be great but totally meaningless because it'd never be practical.

Then do you have any ideas on where should the battle system of the total war series improve on? Other than the AI.

Problems with the system when you are playing a multiplayer match for instance?

One problem with the battle system is the stupid red line in the game, noobs would love to guard their flanks with the magically red line.

Another point I can think of, is the inability of the units to change their fronts. To turn your units and face the incoming enemy, you have to wheel the entire unit around, which is a huge waste of time. Or, you have to wait until the enemy starts attacking your unit, before those troops guarding the flanks of the unit will bother to turn around.

[Sarevok]

AI is the main problem. Most of the problems you cite, like units turning to face right direction, could easily be solved if units had a decent AI that lets them make the right choices. It sure would beat a bloatified game interface with lots of buttons to accomplish what every unit should be able to do.

[MKSheppard]

The problem is you only really need your general or 1-2 cavalry troops to flank or destroy a fleeing army.

Or to break them!

You simply send forward a line of heavy infantry to fix and hold the people; and you sneak around your general + some elite cavalry around the battleline; then snipe the enemy general and his consorts in a charge, then slam into the rear of the main enemy formation fixed in battle with your heavy infantry. Once they break; your cavalry then hunts the fleeing people down.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Ideally, in a perfect world, there would be at least LIMITED statistics keeping of what types of units get the most kills in a battle; so that the AI can see which units you LOVE to use; and deploy it's own counters against that -- like for example; you fight three battles against whomever, and score decisive victories with scores and SCORES of kills attributed to your general and his cavalry escorts.

The AI checks it's statistics after the third battle, and sees that like 300-400 (35% or more) of it's casualties are coming from a specific type of unit -- heavy cavalry; and then builds it's own cavalry and deploys it as skirmishers to prevent the use of that tactic....

[ray245]

The problem is you only really need your general or 1-2 cavalry troops to flank or destroy a fleeing army.

Or to break them!

You simply send forward a line of heavy infantry to fix and hold the people; and you sneak around your general + some elite cavalry around the battleline; then snipe the enemy general and his consorts in a charge, then slam into the rear of the main enemy formation fixed in battle with your heavy infantry. Once they break; your cavalry then hunts the fleeing people down.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Ideally, in a perfect world, there would be at least LIMITED statistics keeping of what types of units get the most kills in a battle; so that the AI can see which units you LOVE to use; and deploy it's own counters against that -- like for example; you fight three battles against whomever, and score decisive victories with scores and SCORES of kills attributed to your general and his cavalry escorts.

The AI checks it's statistics after the third battle, and sees that like 300-400 (35% or more) of it's casualties are coming from a specific type of unit -- heavy cavalry; and then builds it's own cavalry and deploys it as skirmishers to prevent the use of that tactic....

Which means these problems will not be around if you are playing online right?

In online battle, a flanking attack would fail, as long as one player is a good micro-manger. Just watch some commentary battles, and you can see people exploiting this often. Often a flanking attack can be destroyed because one player is able to deploy one unit of spearman towards the incoming cavalry unit, faster than the cavalry unit.

Another battle system did not address is your ability to give ground to the enemy. I cannot lure the enemy into a trap by giving ground.

[Artemas]

Some of the suggestions made (godview) already exist as an option, and the old MTW had something even better, like the general cam, but limited to the entire army, IE, if you wanted to see what was on the other side of a hill, you could send some light cav to scout. Much better than the general cam in my opinion.

The order delay thing would be great as an option as well.

Covenant makes the point though, that eventually, all these changes result in effectively a different type of game, trying to do something different, and would probably be better just to make an entirely new game. Which I would also play.

I like my idea about having a number of slots in the army for a reserve force, and couple with an option to auto-calc the rout to complement the existing options.

But in the end, most of these are just covering for a marginally retarded AI.


To address some other points brought up.

The Thick Red Line: Whats more annoying than a giant, impassable red line? A giant impassible INVISIBLE red line. The only way around this is to either create much larger battlefields, or reimplement the "continual battlemap travel" that was originally in RTW.

Giving ground: Yeah, kinda annoying, but historically, 9 times out of ten, giving ground to the enemy resulted in giving the battle to the enemy.

Super accurate siege defences: I've never considered this a problem. Whats the point of non-effective arrow and ballistae towers?

Town Square: I agree in theory, but then where do defending units route to? I suppose just a slight morale increase in all defending units (no matter whether in the town square or not) might work as a substitute.

Breastworks, earthworks, palisades: Pretty good idea, but might require a lot of effort to implement. Currently palisade act as walls, no matter that they are only 5 feet tall.

End rambling

[Stark]

To be honest, it's 2009 and streaming a map as the army moves isn't a technical problem. This would raise issues of determining when a battle is 'over' and enable extremely time-consuming strategies to be used; ideally the strategy level wouldn't he separate anymore. However, wargame developers are not atgge cutting edge the was Epic or Rockstar are.

[Artemas]

Yeah, I'm not sure why the streaming battlemap idea was discarded, since they had gotten it to work.

However, having such a ambiguous battle resolution would probably not be terribly popular with the consumers at large.

"Ah ha! Another indecisive battle under my belt! Onwards men, to Rome!"

[Thanas]

Resources have a lot to do with it, presumably. The average Total War gamer is not the type of person who normally plays high end action shooters.

[Sarevok]

Resources have a lot to do with it, presumably. The average Total War gamer is not the type of person who normally plays high end action shooters.

Not sure about it. Total War is to RTS what Crysis is to FPS - a benchmark of pushing computers to the limits.