Thread 2128841

Always found their existence quite a bit weird and somewhat deceiving, as someone who enjoys games like Stronghold, Populous 3 and BfME. They take cool historical periods and instead of dedicating themselves truly to the spectacle of war, instead force you to look upon some stupid map. Jesus.
I'm playing right now the Shogun Total War game, and I'm enjoying the following: unit sounds, authenticity and immersion, the music, primitive graphics and "difficult" controls.
Unfortunately, I am not really enjoying anything else about the game.
The combat in Total War games is also weird, the armies are fighting each other too slowly, you visually don't witness much dying and tragedy, you judge the situation by numbers, which is gay and retarded. Why does it never happen in these games that units can get slaughtered quickly? Archers barely do shit, ever. I mean, they obviously do something, but the audiovisual impact is so fkn poor.
Why do you retards like these games? You really don't feel the war going on in these games, because you don't even feel like a leader of men, just some soulless geometric shapes going into each other and slowly chipping away.
The Warhammer games on the PS1 are much better than these aesthetically trannified and castrated malformations that have gained immense popularity among zoomers. I had to butcher my friends list because my internet acquintences have betrayed their old-school ways by engaging with this genuinely repulsive garbage.

>>2128841 (OP)
just not your cup of tea man

>Anon realizes war is more dictated by the 'boring' stuff than super-duper epic battles
yeah

>>2128841 (OP)
>Games are too slow and not flashy enough for me
>Also they are for zoomers
These two statements can't exist together. Either that or you are saying zoomers lile slow abstract games and you are even more ADHD tiktok brain rot than they are.

>Hates looking at maps
You could also just be a woman I guess.

>>2128841 (OP)
In Rome and Shogun 2 your soldiers can die extremely quickly, especially in Fall of the Samurai. Set up a phalanx and walk it at the AI if you want to watch barbarians get melted.

>>2129053
my wife loves shogun 2 and warhammer tw so hes not that

>>2128841 (OP)
>Archers barely do shit, ever. I mean, they obviously do something, but the audiovisual impact is so fkn poor
this is true for every game except shogun 2
in warhamms they're very effective too, but using them looks and feels like complete ass. don't remember them being particularly satisfying in attilla and three chinkdoms either. haven't played the others.
and muskets feel a bit unsatisfying in empire too, while they feel devastating in napoopan

>>2129275
someone hasn't played r/m2

>>2128841 (OP)
Who the fuck even plays shogun1 and why do you feel qualified to talk about the series based on that. Zoomerfied? The game is older than zoomers.
Are you that fag trying to make first gen tw games through some reverse psychology.

>>2128841 (OP)
>Unfortunately, I am not really enjoying anything else about the game.
You got meme'd. Skip the historical crap and play the Warhammer games. They're basically realtime Heroes 3. There is a faction for literally any playstyle.

>>2128841 (OP)
You're supposed to play modded multiplayer battles only (NtW3)

>>2128841 (OP)
there are more bad total war games than good ones that is clear but still the games are decent and their own niche
that said I dont know who has to hear it but three kingdoms is the best total war game since fall of the samurai and its heartbreaking they not only just abandoned it but also all the improvements it did to the franchise

>>2128841 (OP)
Just more proof that Warhammer 3 is actually the best TW of all time despite what historycucks are willing to admit.

>>2129946
kek this

>>2134513
The best TWs are Rome 1, Med 2, Shogun 2, and Attila. Warhammer 3 is wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle.

>>2134525
keep telling yourself that rome 1 med 2 shogun 2 and attilla had any depth lmao

>>2134773
>rome 1 med 2
They had sovl. That means that we played them as teenagers.

>>2129288
no, i've played them. if you zoom in the audio and animations really are good but if you're zoomed out it doesn't have the same visceral impact archers in shogun 2 and muskets in napoopan have, which are extremely noticeable even if you're zoomed out

it's amazing that they've been making essentially the same game for over 20 years and units still forget their orders after 5 seconds if they even begin to follow them in the first place, run into each other or in circles instead of attacking, etc

>>2134953
Combine units getting stuck on shit because of bad pathfinding and forgetting orders with the fact that you can't give them auto attack stances and the like so unless you babysit them until they finally do what you want they will just stand still and happily take enemy damage until they die
Playing other RTS games really shows how fucking bad the controls in TW really are

What dying and tragedy do you witness in Stronghold? The hordes of nameless dudes walk in a line, get meaninglessly slaughtered by archers and nearly instantly replaced by a dude who walks out of a barracks. The bodies don't even stay around. Also, at least the last time I played it, it was still easier to judge how things are going by the numbers, especially when the sprites blob up in one spot

>>2128841 (OP)
I genuinely don't know what you mean by some of these points like
>The combat in Total War games is also weird, the armies are fighting each other too slowly, you visually don't witness much dying and tragedy, you judge the situation by numbers, which is gay and retarded
>You really don't feel the war going on in these games, because you don't even feel like a leader of men, just some soulless geometric shapes going into each other and slowly chipping away
Are you basically trying to say that the 'time to kill' is too long when armies are engaged? I guess different strokes for different folks, but I cannot say that I agree. At least in the Warhammer series there are lots of units which can annihilate enemy formations and rack up lots of kills very quickly as you move up the tech trees.

>>2134513
Not gonna lie the Warhammer series clears any the other Total War games. I am not a superfan of the franchise. But the addition of heroes and magic and superunits like Dragons and Steam Tanks, plus a more varied setting, was really what the series needed to be fully realized.
I genuinely did not understand how the fans of the Historical entries could continuously just play the same game with the four unit archetypes (Spearman, Swordsman, Archer, Cavalry) over and over and over and over.

>>2135197
>I genuinely did not understand how the fans of the Historical entries could continuously just play the same game with the four unit archetypes (Spearman, Swordsman, Archer, Cavalry) over and over and over and over.
You should play fall of the samurai. A unit of of a hundred guys getting instantly obliterated by artillery isn't matched by anything in warhammer. A lot of the most impressive magic abilities/spells will leave a lot of models alive with the way they're currently implemented, like a biuna leaving every model alive at 30% HP.

>>2128841 (OP)
When I first discovered empire total war in a magazine as a kid it seemed like my ultimate dream game.
I loved the fuck out of it but once the spectacle wore off I got kind of tired of the series.
Your objections are absolutely braindead.

>>2134953
They literally don't do this though, you've either got clumsy hands or your units are stuck in melee.

>>2135197
I was really excited for warhammer but it feels like a shallow boardgame. There's no immersion or RP there. You don't feel like you're building an empire, you feel like you're interacting with video game mechanics. Heroes are also just annoying.

>>2128841 (OP)
>Why does it never happen in these games that units can get slaughtered quickly?
t. never played Shogun 2

>>2128841 (OP)
The games are made for children. The Ai is absolutely brain-dead and I assume everyone just watches the battles instead of interacting with the gameplay. The only enjoyment I got was playing multiplayer.

>>2141160
>The games are made for children
>Blood and gore are a separate (paid) download
Yeah, checks out.

>>2134525
Attila is just a standalone Rome 2 DLC with a better campaign with well-done theming but the same awful combat.

>>2141160
>The Ai is absolutely brain-dead and I assume everyone just watches the battles instead of interacting with the gameplay. The only enjoyment I got was playing multiplayer.
This applies to every single strategy video game.

>>2128841 (OP)
historical titles suck like Attila
TWW would be kino if it was actually finished and didn't cost 400 bucks

>>2141352
Attila has actual useable formations that aren't just phalanx

>>2128841 (OP)
It's a grand strategy game for beginners since you will auto resolve all battles after turn 20-30 unless needing to cheese a fight.

>>2134513
you are wrong, wh3 isn't even best wh game

>>2135197
the artillery, charges or spells lack impact
like in some older titles well placed shell, volley of charge would be very visible - dozens of dead, units wavering or breaking and running away
you just don't get this sort of thing in warhammer due to big pools of hp even for humanoid troops and inflated stats(leadership included)
like in some older titles leading charge in enemy back would be instant battle change with unit cleaving enemy and killing them left and right when in warhammer full unit charge would most likely just give them some HP damage and throw them on the ground(then they get up)
same for musket fire - in shogun you could actually break charging troops with a volley to the face = in wh they would just shrug it off(especially if they are at full HP) and you need dozen bullets to actually kill one guy
older Wh titles that were more of tabletop like Dark Omen also have these moments
>>2135197
hero units first appeared in Shogun 1, so they are in the franchise from the start, they were disliked and for a good reason
anyway I don't mind the big units or monster in wh as they offer big target, but hero units are absolute cancer to fight against and thus take out fun from the game for me
>>2140714
not him but last time when I played wh3 that was what was happening - unit needed to be constantly babysit to attack, shoot or move and forgetting orders, there was a mod for that but it bring another problems

>>2128841 (OP)
>The combat in Total War games is also weird, the armies are fighting each other too slowly, you visually don't witness much dying and tragedy, you judge the situation by numbers, which is gay and retarded. Why does it never happen in these games that units can get slaughtered quickly?
You obviously know very little about history. Battles in total war are much, much shorter than they were historically. Most battles are over in 10-15m. Real ones lasted hours, or even days sometimes.

>>2141871
>Using the historical argument
Hokay buddy, guess it's time for CA to add a rotational system and and make all melee units disengage from combat every 5-15 minutes of real time clashes followed by a 2h break like at Hastings.

>>2128841 (OP)
>The combat in Total War games is also weird, the armies are fighting each other too slowly, you visually don't witness much dying and tragedy, you judge the situation by numbers, which is gay and retarded. Why does it never happen in these games that units can get slaughtered quickly? Archers barely do shit, ever. I mean, they obviously do something, but the audiovisual impact is so fkn poor.
>1 hour battle maximum when even real ancient battles could take literally all day.
Baiters aren't sending their best I see.

Hello, I have absolutely no experience in this type of game, the closest I have to "command people to kill for you" is 1000 hours in battle brothers, history aside, what do you consider the best and most enjoyable entries of the franchise (as well as the weakest)?

>>2147141
It depends on who you ask and what your historical autism is.
Personally, Shogun 2 and Attila are the ones I keep coming back to even after a decade.

>>2128993
total war is the epic battle game,OP is legit retarded

>>2128841 (OP)
>Why are medieval slugfests not like my Marvel movies
This may be one of the worst threads ever.

So Empire got new DLC in 2025 but only for some mobile version I never heard of

>>2141871
>>2146842
How could you even portray realistic time spans and distances using the RTS controls TW has?

>>2147141
personal but
>Shogun 1, simple but best as wargame, pretty outdated
>Rome 1, most fun, old
>Shogun 2, decent, first good modern TW
>Three Kingdoms, best modern history TW(didn't play Pharaoh), pretty good with mods in record mode
>Medieval 2, most over rated TW,
>Empire, great ideas, terribly done, plenty of bugs
>Warhammer(especially 3), play more like RPG than TW, plenty of busywork, AI can't engage game systems

>>2147141
Rome1, medieval 2, shogun 2 are the three I still go back to from time to time.

>>2128841 (OP)
>Total War - a shitty franchise?
as a whole? yeah. lots of buggy, poorly thought-through garbage. the hits seem to be more by happenstance than anything else.

didn't read anything but the subject wwww

>>2129946
>Warhammer games
But those suck ass.

>>2134513
>>2135197
Do we have proper guns yet in the "best" TW game?

>>2128841 (OP)
I just bought Napoleon. I've never played a Total War game and I don't play many strategy games apart from Civ and HOI4. I'm having a bit of fun and if any of the games from the Total War franchise go on sale I might bite the bullet and buy them. I played through the tutorial of Napoleon and it's kind of fun. I'm either thinking of getting Rome or Medieval 2 or Shogun 2 next.

>>2147170
This. If anything TW games always bend over backwards to make the battles as action packed as possible. If Napoleon TW was realistic, even a minor battle would be 15 hours long and you would spend most of that time maneuvering your units into better positions. And Med II.? Have fun with realistic siege warfare as you watch both the castle defenders and your own army slowly die of disease and hunger for 9 turns. OP might just be and actual ADHD child

>>2154252
People are still malding about that one? Only like 2 TW games have guns at all a d one of those is shit.
Pretty sure this is a deliberate design choice based on tabletop and so gun based factions aren't disadvantaged. Not that shooting volleys at a high arc with bows is actually all that realistic, much less crossbows which also should really be direct fire only.

>series got so bad that even legend gave up on youtube because of it
sad

>>2157381
4 games and 2 are shit
Also it's not deliberate, they might just have lost the technology, as bizarre as that sounds. It has happened before.

>>2157364
Not him, but I love TW because it's a good mix between action and turn based strategy. Too bad CA hates this franchise.

>Trusting CA
>In Anno Domini 2025
Honestly, if you do this, it serves you right.

>>2147141
Top 3
1. Shogun 2 & Fall of the Samurai
2. Three Kingdoms
3. Medieval 2 (with SSHIP)

Bottom 3
1. Empire Total War
2. Thrones of Britannia
3. Troy

>>2147141
Rome 1, Medieval 2 and Shogun 2 are the best ones. Three Kingdoms is an honourable mention and might be easier to get into as a new player. Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 are quite fun, but very dated. Atilla has a cult following but it is very unstable.
The worst ones are Empire, Rome 2, and ToB. Troy and Pharaoh are widely hated, but they're not as bad imo.

>>2164501
>replace Empire with Warhammer
>replace Three Kingdoms with Rome
fixed it

>>2164853
>replace straight with gay

>>2164853
I may not personally like Gayhammer, nor the fact that CA has ignored historical games in favour of making dlc for fantasy consoomers, but no Total War game is worse than the bug ridden & badly designed overambitious mess that is Empire; which for starters has the worst total war sieges and AI understanding of "formations" ever to be conceived by Creative Assembly.

On the other hand, you could indeed reasonably pick Rome or Napoleon (both with historical mods) instead of Three Kingdoms or Medieval 2 SSHIP depending on your preferences.

>>2157272
>I just bought Napoleon
dude, why?

>>2147141
best
Shogun 1
most fun
Rome 1

Shogun 2 was really good.
The rest are kind of ass.

>>2164501
patrician taste and flawless list

>>2164960
I really don't get why people try to rehabilitate empire. It's the worst game in the series, say what you will about modern TW games but they are all better. Rome2 was also hated on release for it's technical issue but that one you can at least say it got better to some extent, empire doesn't even have that going for it.

>>2128841 (OP)
bruh 1000s of men die in minutes wtf is your definition of quickly

>>2135197
if you seriously think playing rome, gaul, and, carthage is anything alike in r1 then you have brain damage
not to even mention egypt, parthia, and greece

>>2166137
desperation for a sequel leading to a mass case of gaslighting in the community. i mean, you have to be deluded to an extent to not just want a sequel to objectively the worst game in the franchise, but to also expect modern CA to make a good gunpowder game when they can't even code proper ballistics anymore.

I've only played Atilla, which I liked for the setting, and Rome 2. Rome 2 only with DEI, for like 200 hours.
Is Rome 1 worth checking out? I guess what I'm asking is what makes everyone rate it so highly?

Is it just rose tinted glasses? Because I tried medieval 2 before but I got filtered by the horrible controls and UI; people always say it's the best TW but I just can't deal with the above issue.

>>2166473
It's mostly nostalgia. The R1/M2 era just doesn't hold up very well. The games aren't as deep as people make them out to be and buggy on top of it.
Some people still hate on the "new" engine 15 years later, but empire was just a terrible game in general and doesn't really reflect much on later games while overlooking that R1 just feels janky and unresponsive now.
M2 has a few of admittedly cool features like units having different models depending on upgrades and a good recruitment system but that can't carry the whole game when it's so outdated otherwise.
If you didn't play them originally you most likely won't get anything out of it that would make it worth it getting into it now.

>>2166473
>people always say it's the best TW but I just can't deal with the above issue.
No one has said that since Shogun 2, which is the game that you should buy and play.

>>2166513
Appreciate the write up. I guess I'll check out the crusades mod for Atilla instead.

>If you didn't play them originally you most likely won't get anything out

I had that feeling after realizing a few of my old favorite games, like STALKER or the older CNCs, would be cock ball torture for anyone who didn't play it during the era. You didn't have anything better so you can put up with it, or like it already knowing the flaws.

Since there appears to be no /twg/, I just bought Three Kingdoms on Steam, just before the 2 hour mark for refunds. Is it worth carrying on? What do I need to know to get the best out of it?

>>2166617
3K has the best diplomacy in the series and rather than shitty agents has actual spying system where characters in enemy factions can work for you and do stuff like spread discontent in enemy court, turncoat before a battle or if administrator even surrender a whole province to you.

>>2166528
I re-played OG C&C a while back just before the remaster happened
>un- un- -unable to comply building in progress
simulator because the first game hasn't invented build queues yet and you can build infantry only one at a time. Also game has a few design decisions like absurdly short TTK and crap vision range on units meaning you will run into enemy defences and die. AI in campaign missions (since there is no skirmish anyway) is only very rudimentary and blatantly cheats while you run out of resources fairly quickly because see previous point so clearing it is kinda a slog.
I like the games for what they are, but now I lean towards that C&C style RTS is just an outdated concept in general.

>>2166655
>C&C style RTS is just an outdated concept in general.

Maybe. It does feel very formulaic in a not good way, the gameplay is way too one dimensional for a lot of C&Cs.

OpenRA for example feels better, but the meta just seems to devolve into spam infantry and rocket soldiers as meat shields to overwhelm your opponent, with a few special big units.

My other gripe is the economy feels very slow, there's always a lull in the early game where you're just sitting there waiting to expand your eco. Wasting units at that point feels like death for the long game.

>>2166473
I think R1 is worth playing, especially if you play the remaster so you don't have to deal with the original's controls. It's a smaller game, but it has a lot of attention to detail and is much more immersive in some aspects compared to Rome 2. Mod support is also much better.
>I tried medieval 2 before but I got filtered by the horrible controls and UI
There's a lot people in the community who are overly nostalgic, especially when it concerns Medieval 2, but even then, the games released before Empire do a lot of interesting things that the newer games lack entirely and are sorely missed for a very good reason.

>>2166625
I haven't *not* enjoyed it, but I've just come off a long campaign victory as Rome in 2, and there's so much on screen in comparison that my brain's kinda struggling with all the stuff going on

>>2166991
every campaign can be finished in under 100 turns with the short victory
as soon as you declare yourself emperor, two other factions do the same and create the three kingdoms
to win you have to just sack the capitol of the other 2 kingdoms and control over 90 or something provinces, doesnt matter if direct control or vasals

overall this is personally my favorite total war game since shogun 2 and I think you can easily enjoy it even if you dont know much about the romance
just collect some generals and fight shit
there are also lots of great mods like TROM, TUP and MTU which add over 200 unique portraits for generals, new units, new mechanics, new skills, new buildings etc.
I wouldnt reccomend the mods for first few playthroughs though

>>2128841 (OP)
Forgot Shogun Total War GOLD Edition, which has the Kensai unit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Xx-kL0rcw

>>2128841 (OP)
I like warhammers hehehehe

>>2166473
Med2 is so janky, it really needs remadter

>>2170967
If they fixed the bugs and improved the camera and pathfinding I'd never play another Total War ever again.

>>2128841 (OP)
Total War is the movie games of the strategy genre.
It's focus is visual immersion, not gameplay.

>>2171298
Besides Warhammer it can't even get that right these days

>>2128841 (OP)
>ToT delayed to 4th december
>Dev enter holiday
>Patch only on march
>1 Year for a DLC with hardly any content
Yo bros, can`t wait for warhammer 40k total war, CA wont blunder it at all.

>>2171363
warhammer isnt fun to watch

>>2128841 (OP)
>The combat in Total War games is also weird, the armies are fighting each other too slowly, you visually don't witness much dying and tragedy, you judge the situation by numbers, which is gay and retarded. Why does it never happen in these games that units can get slaughtered quickly? Archers barely do shit, ever. I mean, they obviously do something, but the audiovisual impact is so fkn poor.
This might be the first time I've ever seen someone criticize Total War for battles being too slow.

>>2157272
Medieval 2 has a lot of value due to its mod scene
Rome is...rough. Classic that it is its age shows pretty bad. Even worse than Shogun 1 or Medieval 1 imo despite those games being much older they were also more functional
Shogun 2 is a classic and probably the best made TW game in terms of (almost) everything working as intended, likely because every faction is mostly the same.

I'd personally also recommend Rome 2 (if only for Divide et Impera) and Pharaoh

>>2164501
I agree with the list but I don't think Troy is that horrible.
Biggest flaw with it is that Pharaoh Dynasties largely replaces it.

>>2128841 (OP)
They're good fun for set piece battles and multiplayer skirmishes, but the campaign systems in them are always somewhat iffy and a bit dull. Seems to be more there to provide make-work to stop the payer blobbing up to fast more than anything else. Their town and building system is pretty uninspired for 2025, it was pretty standard for late 90s/early 2000s, but not now a quarter of a century later. It needs a massive overhaul before id find it interesting.

Unrelated, but does anyone know why total war Rome remastered is so buggy? Game crashed, freezes, mouse/keyboard don't work unless you set the computer's date to 2020 for some odd fucking reason, and the games screen turns into picrel at odd moments unless I set the game's resolution to borderless window instead of fullscreen.

Also, I'm pretty new and barely know how to make a good formation. I just wanna see badass Romans kill Gaul trash

>>2183400
Forgot to mention that I pirated the game

Always has been. But it was revolutionary for its time. Labors of love in the genre are rare. Rome TW was actually really well produced with a lot of really unique features, but past M2 it became increasingly sanitized for mass market, which, past shogun 2 kind of lost me. I think TW peaked with Shogun 2.

>>2128841 (OP)
>a shitty franchise
Yes.

>>2128841 (OP)
Oh and old gen Warhammer games were peak, I had mark of chaos on the xbox. That was actually really cool to watch.

Another one that was peak was halo wars. My mind was blown as a kid.

>>2183400
>>2183402
Must be something with your crack, then

>>2183656
i tried other cracks and still faced the same issue. I also checked steam/YouTube and it seems people have experienced what I went through. It's so odd

>>2183667
>>2183400
known issue for pirated copies

>>2183667
>>2183400
just started playing and in the same boat, when i first started playing my mouse etc didnt work. someone suggested https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/run_as_date.html and thats what i ran the game with and idk if its that or if the issue just sorted as i "broke in" the game or something. though everything works seemingly now i still cant use the ingame wiki but ive been learning as i go, havent rly felt the need to check up any mechanics or w/e

>>2178424
Dou you still play Rome 2 with DeI? I usually played R2 just with reskins and qol mods because I thought that big overhauls are always too bloated. But today I saw a new mod that makes the campaign map amazing, and for now it only works with DeI.

>>2178424
Dou you still play Rome 2 with DeI? I usually played R2 just with reskins and qol mods because I thought that big overhauls are too bloated. But today I saw a new mod that makes the campaign map amazing, and for now it only works with DeI.

>>2128841 (OP)
what's the best one to start with if you've never played a TW game or are getting back into it having played WH2

>>2186421
Objectively the best games are Shogun 2 and Fall of the Samurai, but it depends on what you liked about Warhammer 2.

>>2128841 (OP)
>The combat in Total War games is also weird, the armies are fighting each other too slowly, you visually don't witness much dying and tragedy, you judge the situation by numbers, which is gay and retarded. Why does it never happen in these games that units can get slaughtered quickly? Archers barely do shit, ever. I mean, they obviously do something, but the audiovisual impact is so fkn poor.
...are you actually mad about Total War games being too historically accurate?

>>2183400
feral released bugged cracked version themselves

>>2128841 (OP)
Posted here a year ago, thread is still up, do ya'll even play games? Just got off my daily session for dominions. Feel like ya'll beat the horse so dead it's glue.

>>2187811
They're not accurate, but stylized. They can make it faster or slower, but practically, realism is not doable unless you have a time skip or it's an autism game, and last I checked, they made battles take like 10 mins. Fine for a campaign game, but it loses the spectacle of games like napoleon. Also I don't know why anyone thinks battles taking approx. 45 minutes to complete is remotely accurate. I think turn based games are better for accurate portrayals, just because realistically, the game isn't going to be running for 3 days straight while you do your orders for the 7 days battles.

>>2190724
>thread is only two months old
>Posted here a year ago, thread is still up
>ya'll
surprised they haven't laid you off let after hyenas

>>2154250
desu they all kinda suck ass. they're all unbalanced, and ugly, and uninteresting, and the design is arbitrary and messy. what the series does have is fun and spectacle, which the warhammer games focus on at the expense of mechanical depth (and good sense).

the good, proper tw game never existed. we like to think it did, because that would be an awesome game and it's sad to recognize how far from the ideal the actual entries in the franchise are, but they're all fundamentally garbage. every tw game is actually in the same vein as wh3.