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I got a couple questions:

First: The Total War games. I know from past threats that a lot of people here have played some of the Total War titles. Out of the collection, which games are worth buying/playing? Are there any significant software issues, compatibility problems, etc with any of the titles?

Second: Europa Universalis, namely Europa Universalis III and Europa Universalis Rome. Has anyone here played them and are they any good? And how do they compare to the Total War franchise? Better, worse, different? Worth buying/playing?

Thanks

Temujin wrote:I got a couple questions:

First: The Total War games. I know from past threats that a lot of people here have played some of the Total War titles. Out of the collection, which games are worth buying/playing? Are there any significant software issues, compatibility problems, etc with any of the titles?

Second: Europa Universalis, namely Europa Universalis III and Europa Universalis Rome. Has anyone here played them and are they any good? And how do they compare to the Total War franchise? Better, worse, different? Worth buying/playing?

Thanks

The only Total war games I would get is RTW Gold and M2TW. Both games has a number of decent mods that improves the gameplay, something that is lacking in ETW and NTW.

I haven't played EUIII, but I own EU:R and have played it.

I wanted to like Rome so very much, but, unfortunately it is lacking something. Hell, I'm even one of those masochists who likes most Paradox games (though, I haven't tried HoI II or III, and am likely to never try III based on what I've heard), but Rome is just plain damned boring after a while. If you play a superpower (Rome, Carthage, Egypt, Seleucids), then the game is a cakewalk. If you play someone else (Macedonia, Parthia), it's a fucking slog. And if you want to play an uncivilized tribe (Picts, Dacians, etc.), well, I suppose you might eventually stop being a one-province shithole, but I never had the patience to get myself there. It lacks the palace 'intrigue' of Crusader Kings, while simultaneously lacking the greater control that other Paradox titles give you. In short, Rome tries to do everything and fails at all of it. It is boring and I always end up giving up after about an hour of play, no matter how much I want it to be good. I've also only seen a few people on the Paradox Forums who like the game. Now, that's pretty telling when even the Paradox fans aren't particularly fond of the game.

I've played both EU3 and EU2; and they are very different games. EU3 is more sandboxish, and I think it lacks a lot of the great historical feel of it's predecessor. You can pretty much do anything you want, if you are skilled enough and spend enough time at it. Make Ethiopia a major Westernized colonial power? Sure! Austria as a mostly Turkish mediterranean Empire? Why not! Muslim Spain? Knock your socks off. The very flexibility of the game works against it, imho. If I play as Austria, I want to deal with the problems Austria did historically. Which brings me to EU2, which has fewer features and more primitive graphics. The event system is much more deterministic; you can still engage in the gross rewriting of history, but it's more constrained. Pretty much every game you'll see a Balkanized Italy and Germany, Austria, France, and Spain as major continental powers, the Netherlands, the UK, and Portugal colonizing along with Spain, etc. I prefer the slightly simpler gameplay; it feels less cluttered, and there's still plenty to do. Also, there's a new version of EU2 out called For The Glory, which has a lot of interface improvements, and is dirt cheap online. I recommend it highly.

Rome: TW is widely considered to be the series' crown jewel. It's a little older now, and probably the oldest TW I'd bother with -- Shogun and Medieval 1 are just too primitive to get much enjoyment out of today, I think. Rome also benefits from a number of excellent, large historical/realism mods if the vanilla game doesn't suit your fancy. You can usually get it with the gold bundle with Barbarian Invasion, which is also good.

Medieval 2 is pretty good. I never liked it as much as Rome, but it's in a pretty solid state now and benefits from a number of technological improvements over Rome, which uses the same engine. Unlike Rome, it doesn't have that 'old game' feel yet and looks reasonably modern. The Kingdoms expansion isn't really necessary.

Empire is a mixed bag. If you like the time period or think you might be interested in it, see if you can get Empire for a reasonable price (it is currently $30 USD on Steam). Most of the bugs and issues which plagued its release have been fixed, though be aware that Empire requires a fairly beefy system to run well. The real gem here is the naval battles IMO, though it requires a certain nerd-like fascination with Age of Sail naval combat. The typical armchair generalship most strategy gamers have does not translate to armchair admiralty, so be prepared to get your ass kicked if naval combat concepts are foreign to you.

Haven't bother with Napoleon so can't comment on that.

Thirdfain wrote:I've played both EU3 and EU2; and they are very different games. EU3 is more sandboxish, and I think it lacks a lot of the great historical feel of it's predecessor. You can pretty much do anything you want, if you are skilled enough and spend enough time at it. Make Ethiopia a major Westernized colonial power? Sure! Austria as a mostly Turkish mediterranean Empire? Why not! Muslim Spain? Knock your socks off. The very flexibility of the game works against it, imho. If I play as Austria, I want to deal with the problems Austria did historically.

It's complaints like this which led to the development of some of the more popular modifications. A poll of the Paradox forums prior to the release of the latest expansion found that more people played the Magna Mundi mod than who played the game without mods, or with any other mod.

I highly recommend Rome, Medieval 2, and Empire. I haven't played Napoleon (I own it but haven't installed it) but its supposed to be a big improvement on Empire, so yeah.

They're all quite good - Empire originally was broken, but they've patched it extensively (the most recent was 1.6, which came out like a month ago) - which is pretty good support considering the game is over one year old. You can get it for a decent price too so there really shouldn't be anything stopping you. Empire is what I'm playing at the moment, having finally gotten back to it after a bunch of other games.

Of the selection, Medieval 2 is the most fun playing experience, but they're all great so don't take that as a knock against the others. Empire did introduce some much needed improvements to the interface and new features that Rome 2 and Medieval 3 will definitely need - and now we can assume naval combat will be a fixture of future TW games.

Vympel wrote:and now we can assume naval combat will be a fixture of future TW games.

I'm not so certain of that. The capability exists in the engine, so I'm sure any future TW will get at least token naval combat, but a "fixture"? Not unless the game takes place AD 1600+. I'll never understand why people wailed and gnashed so many teeth over the lack of tactical naval combat in Rome and Medieval 2; it just isn't... relevant or interesting to the time period.

Boat 1 crashes into Boat 2. Resolve marine hand-to-hand combat. Maybe an archer shoots from the forecastle.

Then again, I've always been one of the assholes people who's optimistic about a 20th century (or late 19th) TW game.

I don't see why you wouldn't want a Total War game set in a period where total war was still used (first half of the 20th century for example).

Although really, I'd like to see a Shogun 2 or something set in China.

Watching CA do hilariously worse than the neverending KOEI Three Kingdoms games would be hilarious; I'm not sure if the awful unit art or the braindead diplomacy AI would be the highlight there.

Is there a reason why TW battlemaps remain so small? Given the mechanical nature of the combat, you should be able to zoom out a ludicrously large distance.

Stofsk wrote:I don't see why you wouldn't want a Total War game set in a period where total war was still used (first half of the 20th century for example).

A lot of folks' argument is that TW's tactical gameplay won't translate to 20th century combined arms, loose-formation warfare. I never bought that excuse, because the answer is "well, duh". Obviously the tactical gameplay would have to be built differently.

The strategic level would have to be very different as well; in short, it would be a TW game only in name.

In some sense, yeah. They would need to adopt a more HoI-style strategic game. I don't see how that makes it not-TW, though.

Yeah you're right, if they change all the fundamental game mechanics and then brand it with a successful franchise there's no dissonance at all. World in Conflict - Total War!

Stark wrote:The strategic level would have to be very different as well; in short, it would be a TW game only in name.

Not absolutely, you probably need to start doing things like limiting unit builds based on industrial buildings possessed, shorten up the overall time scope and lengthen out the turns (They did both in the leap from Medieval 2 on to Empire) and sim out infrastructure improvements better but the 19th Century on until the emergence of mass conscription reservist armies should be doable. They could probably sim Crimea or the US Civil War without all that many fundamental changes to the core gameplay (certainly no greater than the gameplay leap from centralized buildings in M2TW to the distributed towns system in Empire).

After the 1870s then you have scale problems but yeah.

I'm not so certain of that. The capability exists in the engine, so I'm sure any future TW will get at least token naval combat, but a "fixture"? Not unless the game takes place AD 1600+. I'll never understand why people wailed and gnashed so many teeth over the lack of tactical naval combat in Rome and Medieval 2; it just isn't... relevant or interesting to the time period.

Medieval, probably not, but I think that's more that people really know that much about naval combat in the time period, as opposed to it not being relevant or interesting. But Rome? No way, the fate of the entire Empire was decided in a naval battle (Actium).

And having sea battles with ramming and boarding is something that TW could do well.