Total War: General discussion.

Why can't it be called a main entry? We recognize Shogun 1 and 2 as proper Total Wars despite being less diverse (as far as we can tell) then Pharaoh.

The number of factions is lower then many historical total wars but it's the same number as the Warhammer games and eight is not fundamentally different from Three Kingdom's twelve. Maybe it would've been a Saga game if they still called them that but from where I'm standing it's looking like a full game to me.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on May 23rd 2023 at 4:19:11 AM

Honestly, making a distinction between independent TW and expansion campaign feels kind of silly. If it's a standalone game, it's a game. Attila, for example.

Soooo, do we even know enough about the time period to fill out a Total War unit roster with more than just guesswork?

Well, Egypt was quite an empire with a language that (to my meager knowledge) can still be translated today, so I'd imagine there's still a respectable amount of sources, even in the wake of the Bronze Age collapse, to throw something together for them.

Everyone else? I cannot claim to know enough about them to provide any sort of answer there.

Yeah, there's plenty of sources for Ancient Egypt. Of course, most of them are Greek sources, but even so.

Hmm, fair enough. I suppose with the Egyptians' penchant for tombs there's quite some archaeological evidence as well.

Yeah, even if archeologists still aren't certain about all of the factors of the Bronze Age collapse, Ramesses III at least does seem to certainly have defeated the "Sea Peoples" and kept the Egyptian empire together (though it still waned), so it stands to reason that adequate writing of its military of the time will have survived. There's at least one significant source of one significant coastal battle against the Sea People, for my evidence of my opinion.

It's not fair, the beetle worked hard on that

Btw for those who didn't know, the update for Napoleon that fixed the crash caused by modern Intel drives and killed the chat had also had the unfortunate side effect of making cannons not make sound when firing. Needless to say, that was a bit problematic.

CA's released a hotfix on those, the cannon shots are back.

Also they removed chat entirely from Shogun 2, not just the chat rooms.

Edited by Resileafs on May 24th 2023 at 2:00:05 PM

First they came for the ashigaru sex chat, and I did not speak out because I never went to ashigaru sex chat

They also removed chat from Warhammer 3. CA seems to be generally purging chat from their games, presumably out of concern for legal liability.

It would be nice if they could work on making a replacement instead of just ignoring it, I can understand de-prioritizing older games but when we're taking about a game that was released barely more then a year ago like 3 it becomes increasingly absurd -_-

I don't recall Warhammer 3 ever having chat in the first place.

And yes, they are removing chat from their games for liability reasons. There's a new law in the UK that makes unmoderated chats liable to be sued. The general thought is that they want to develop some kind of global chat, or maybe integrate Discord to their games, or maybe even just have Discord be their main chat.

Edited by Resileafs on May 24th 2023 at 2:26:41 PM

3's Chat was removed very quickly after release, that's probably why you missed it.

But that's interesting, I didn't know that they were considering Discord integration. That would certainly make things more convenient, I already coordinate with friends via Discord. Did they ever mention how seriously they were considering it?

Oh, sorry, that's just speculation I've seen on the Total War Discord. The actual CA statement is what they're saying on the patch notes, that they're looking for some way to add chat in future projects that will be easier to moderate.

Edited by Resileafs on May 24th 2023 at 2:52:36 PM

Pharaoh announcement parody

Numidian campaign completed on turn 129. Fairly long campaign.

The hardest part was the start, without a doubt. Having only extremely poor infantry at the start, with no real frontline to speak of until tier three military building made for a pretty difficult early campaign, especially when fighting the Iberians. Early battles involved a lot of slave infantry sacrifice while my cavalry did the bulk of the work.

Things go relatively easy once I got an alliance with my powerful neighbors. Rome, Egypt and Nabataea were the major targets for alliance, securing half of the territories I needed to win the campaign. I focused my conquests in Gaul, Germania and the Balkans to finish off the campaign once I was able to train Numidian legionaries.

All in all, this was pretty fun. The early campaign was very tricky, but quite entertaining. The roster is fun to use with its focus on ranged cavalry, though the lack of good long-distance range makes them a little tricky to use at times. Still, can't go wrong with Numidian noble cavalry.

Next up are the Roxolani. Honestly, they don't seem to have much going for them when compared to the other nomadic factions. All they have that is unique is that their melee cavalry come in low and mid-tier versions while the other nomads only have high tier melee cavalry. Worse, they only have draco on a single unit, their mid-tier cavalry, and not on their shock cavalry where it's really needed. Sarmatian royal lancers are admitedly pretty beast, being very comparable to the Saka nobles and cataphracts that the Massagetae field, but having to rely on other cavalry to use Draco makes them inferior, imo. They also have very little variety in horse archers, which makes them far inferior to the other nomadic factions.

And much like the other nomads, their objectives requires them to go all the way to Iberia to conquer territory there, so I don't expect this to be a particularly interesting campaign. I'll start by securing my side of the map, naturally, and then make my way west to conquer everything in the way.

I just learned about the newest Total War Pharaoh game recently and can't wait to see the gameplay.

And of course, fans are joking the game is more historically accurate than the recent Netflix Cleopatra documentary which causes controversy by claiming Cleopatra was black and not Greek even though her ancestor was a General of Alexander the Great.

First look of Total War Pharaoh, mostly involving the crew talking about the game. Haven't had the time to watch it, it's a hefty one at 45 minutes. Lots of Youtubers posting video of journalist build battles as well if that's more your fancy.

Noteworthy things as I watch:

• The campaign focuses on becoming the Pharaoh of Egypt or the great king of the Hittite Empire, to take control of their resources to fight off the Bronze Age collapse. The ultimate goal is survival against the collapse itself, and most importantly, the Sea Peoples once they arrive. Each faction will have its own unique objectives to follow and challenges to surmount to aid in this, such as entering the court of the Pharaoh, worshipping specific gods, participating in historical events and such, with the option to develop your faction in the way you prefer. Interestingly, there might be a mechanic where you decide to refuse to follow any of those paths and instead go your own way, much like the Republican realm divide in Fall of the Samurai.

• The Bronze Age Collapse is simulated through campaign map events as various pillars of civilization, several important cities of the time period, are damaged or destroyed by war (and possibly historical events). As the prosperity of the world decreases, the campaign and battle maps change and shift to reflect that, with a prosperous world being bright and sunny, turning brown and foggy as if a sandstorm was approaching, until it reaches a collapse, where things are dark, the sky is cloudy, colors are muted, the sun is blood red and flames are crisper. As prosperity decreases, the roving tribes of the desert and Sea peoples become stronger and natural disasters such as plagues, earthquakes and floods become more frequent. The devs intend for this crisis to be extremely difficult to surpass, especially since you have very little control on what happens to the pillars located far from your empire.

• Becoming pharaoh or Hittite king involves earning legitimacy to make people accept you as the rightful heir to Egypt or Hitti. You do that by owning territory, building monuments, completing quests, possessing sacred lands, etc. Once your legitimacy is high enough, you can declare yourself pharaoh/king and fight other pretenders to the throne. Any faction can become a pretender to become pharaoh or great king if they start taking over enough land from the historical Egyptian and Hittite empires (which is what a Canaanite faction is probably expected to do). Becoming pharaoh or great king gives you access to massive bonuses and resources, which can then be brought to bear to survive the Sea People invasion or reclaim pillars of civilization to make the world prosperous again.

• They show off a bit of the campaign map, going down the Nile River up to the delta. Very pretty.

• Because unit variety is much lesser than in most Total War games, the main strategy will instead come from battle stances, a new system that makes unit take specific actions when in combat. They can forcefully advance through enemy units, pushing them back as they attack, move backwards while still facing forward to make a fighting retreat or lure enemies into flanking positions (like Hannibal did in Cannae), stand their ground to prevent being pushed back or avoid getting drawn out of position, etc. Different units have different stances to balance things out between types of infantries. Very excited for this system, this could lead to a revolution in future Total War titles. Combat is matched again, units will fight each other directly.

• Battle maps will be more varied, with more features to use that can be used dynamically. Furthermore, weather can change dramatically as the battle progresses and weather effects will be a lot more impactful in battle rather than being minor buffs and debuffs, with heavy units generally being very affected by muddy or sandy terrain while light units will be able to have a big impact by avoiding the worst of those effects. Fire will be a more impactful mechanic as well, being able to be used to affect the terrain and environment, especially in sieges. Cities will be possible to destroy with fire, making it easier to capture them with the trade-off that keeping them afterwards will be harder from having to repair them and deal with the unrest caused by setting a city ablaze. Fire spreads on its own, so naturally spreading fire can mean you're going to be affected by that fire later yourself.

• Chariots are pretty unique that although if used well can be very powerful, they are very susceptible to weather conditions and bad terrain. They are intended to work exactly as they did back then, with all the good and the bad that came with them.

• More map showing off, battle maps this time, both sieges and wilderness. Still very pretty.

• Regional diversity was built on very heavily. Every large region will have its own culture, map features and gods worshipped. Aside from the three playable cultures, there will be non-playable ones such as the Sahara tribes or Nubians of Kush that can be both a thorn in an Egyptian side or a source of mercenary troops. Generals from specific cultures will have their own traits specific to that culture to differentiate them from each other as well and make them characters in their own rights, making them valuable to keep and grow.

• Because a lot of history from that period is shrouded in mystery, the team had to extrapolate and make things up a bit for characters of whom all we know are names.

And that's it! Video is doing well to hype me up for the game, the Sofia team is clearly working very hard to make it a truly unique title and I'm absolutely looking forward to it and how it will affect future Total Wars!

Edited by Resileafs on Jun 1st 2023 at 1:29:54 PM

HOLY SHIT THEY SAY ATTACK-MOVING HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED PRAISE KHEPRI, RA AND ATUM FOREST BATTLES MAY NO LONGER BEEN UTTERLY PURE AGONY TO PLAY

Though ironically I don't think there's many forests in Egypt so uh

Attack moving has been a thing since Attila, I believe. It's not on the UI but there's a button you can press while right clicking the enemy army that will make your army separate properly to attack the units in front of them.

I really like the talk of the collapse system. It seems like the perfect combination of sufficient challenge to shake up a playthrough and provide a strong narrative with enough options to maintain player agency.

It's also funny to me that you can partake in the two culture's imperial system even if you aren't part of it. I'm going to become the first Hittite pharaoh

I only got Total Warhammer 2 installed so I booted that up and I still can't find it. Please disseminate your art of war.

Okay, just watched the Zerkovich video again, you have to make a control group of your units, you right-click the middle of the enemy formation, and when your army gets in range they will charge automatically.

It works in Attila, not sure if it works the same in later games, but I would assume so.

Technically you first need to press the lock button and then order the attack.

You can unlock them later but if it's done before they engage in combat they'll IIRC move normally without attacking.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 1st 2023 at 4:36:39 AM