Rant/discussion about Total War +Warhammer + TW: Warhammer
Jul 20, 2016 13:33:26 GMT -5
Post by deathevokation on Jul 20, 2016 13:33:26 GMT -5
Total War Franchise
I'm not the biggest fan of strategy games, but I have a soft spot for the Total War franchise, especially TW: Rome which I played and loved as a kid, it introduced me to the series. I'm not sure how it's aged graphically, but everything was done right, the RTS gameplay and scale the battle maps had, there was a lot of depth to keeping your empire alive in the world map, and diplomacy etc... it was so ambitious and amazing, and was full of content and was absolutely a labour of love and pride...
Then there's TW: Medieval II which is a total masterpiece, CA were at their peak with this one IMO, it improved on almost everything Rome had and graphically it's still really attractive, the soundtrack is beautiful and varied, very striking at times and hits all the right emotional chords at other times... my only problem with it is that allies always backstabbed you at some point, even if they had one settlement and you had 30+... I guess the new Warhammer patch is guilty of AI quirks to an extent as well though, but I'll get to that. I still play this today!
I left the series for a while and skipped Rome II since it became more linear in terms of the things you can do in the grand strategy map (apparently), rejoined for Empire Total War, Shogun II, and Napoleon... all decent, I recommend them, they often go on sale at heavily discounted prices, they mostly achieve recreating the warfare for the specific time period they were designed for, and have 100+ hours on each one, I think 200+ for Empire... they're good, even if the soundtracks aren't as good, they achieve what they set out to do, but don't really surpass them, and many units seem like reskins of others... so I'd start at Medieval Total War II or Warhammer! The reviews for Attila revealed way too many deal breakers so I can sleep at night knowing I skipped it.
WARHAMMER 40k!! Because it's 2016 (current year)!!!
I love the lore that the Warhammer universe offers, the grim, evil, desperate and dark atmosphere and scale that WARHAMMER has the potential to reach!!! Seriously, the Warhammer franchise is even more death metal than DOOM if it can get done right (ehem.. Bolt Thrower vs mediocre thrash metal bands, eheh).
I personally hate Dawn of War series, especially vannila DoW II... I feel like this series is massively overrated, and doesn't capture the universe properly, (IMO)... many of the protaganist male characters were extremely generic, I have nothing against an all male cast, I mean it's part of the 40k lore... but this was like the sterotypical generic 2000+ type of male protaganist right down to the hairstyle which you'd see in a shitty Modern War game which is set in the Middle East... so IMO story telling + character portrayals are a product of their time.. and now with the third, Relic jumped on the moba art style, with overly clean visuals, units that look almost plastic, as if they were rendered in the Team Fortress 2 Engine.. all I get from the art direction is that they're gunning for something in the vein of another soulless competetive electronic sports game, and it plays like Starcraft.
Another game based on the 40K universe: Battlefleet Gothic Armada hit the nail on the head in terms of the 40k art direction, the chaos faction gave you a sense of dread in your quest to fight them, they spread like a plague, they are overwhelming, you get the feeling of being stretched thin, and it's impossible to save every planet from them, and have to choose which ones to save (often meaning you might lose a perk, etc), there was a sense of "End times" (something severely lacking in Dawn of War, where a marine squad and a tank presses forward and mows everything down)... and the characters are portrayed and narrated to perfection as well in BFGA.
Just look at Battlefleet Gothic Armada's art direction. <3
Total War: Warhammer
Just amazing... the reason I started this thread... if you're a fan of the TW series, and/or Warhammer... this game is perfect!
Since I love both TW and the Warhammer universe, and Creative Assembly managed to combine the best of both worlds, and do it properly, in a way that does both justice and more... for me this was a dream come true. Needless to say I've been playing a lot of Total War: Warhammer, and because this game is so addictive, I'm somewhere around the 250 hour mark.
The scale, cinematic visuals and depth, and BATTLES are just amazing! Soooo many special details, and special touches in terms of visuals... the universe reeks of Warhammer, all the factions have their own play style, and aren't reskins... dwarves with their superior artillery can destroy and route sometimes half of the enemy army before they manage to get into melee range, vampire counts can raise entire disposable armies from scratch very quickly by raising the dead and deploying them in battle on the same turn, these are often good for cannon fodder for soaking arrows and to throw against the enemy's front lines... keeping them busy, and use your high tier units where they can wreak havoc and demoralize their armies and terrifying them, shattering their morale, so in a long grueling battle, you can start gaining the upper hand, even if you are evenly matched... then there's the Empire, who are decent in every field, not being able to outgun dwarven artillery with their own, melee infantry not being as effective as Undead... but making up for it in different ways, using cavalry to flank dwarven artillery, having archers and basic artillery to fight against the undead, etc. If these factions are any indication, then future factions that are added are going to make the game have even more variety... can't wait to see the Beastmen dlc!
The AI fumbles a lot less in this title than a lot of the previous TWs, especially on the tactical RTS styled battle maps, and on the world map they're very cunning, will actively make an effort to avoid engaging in battles they can't win... and can totally blindside you, finding a weakness that you never knew you had... on the worldmap you have to try balance expanding, maintaining a strong army, and trying not to piss off too many neighboring factions off at once, so that you can withstand the "End times" in which the hordelike chaos faction starts pouring through the grand strategy map, obliterating every faction in their path, and eventually working their way to you... so if all the factions are waging war with eachother, or you destabilize too many regions, conquer too many factions, everyone gets overrun very quickly and you find yourself pretty much done for, since you can't defeat them on your own
, which I think is quite awesome, since there's always this feeling of impending doom, unless you handle your alliances properly, try expand without destabilizing too many territories, you'll end up watching your units getting smashed by chaos giants, mauled by undead hounds, and deformed behemoths.
During the third phase, if everyone manages to defeat the armies of chaos, the banner in which alliances and peace treaties were formed and under to defeat chaos ends up getting thrown away, and the AI becomes batshit insane and starts backstabbing like crazy.... even the Emperor, Karl Franz, who is supposed to be a military tactition and the Old World's best statesman of the Old World, declared war on every faction on the map at once at once, including his allies haha... it is tied to a specific period of the campaign where all the races had already defeated Chaos, though... so I can see from a gameplay perspective that they didn't want the game to stagnate afterwards. The AI in this is improved a bit over previous campaigns in that they only declare war on factions beneath them in terms of power so I can see the logic in this... just funny when they declare war on EVERY faction beneath them, hehe.
Anyway, the two cons to this is definitely the limited diplomacy, most of the basics and things are still there, but there's some things I missed from the early games, like trading with control over settlements, and the second is the dlc prices... I mean, the team will still work full time for the next 2 or so years post release, and a triple A company still has bills to pay, the base game already has a huge amount of content and I've got a lot of playtime out it, and I don't mind paying for the dlc because I'm hopelessly addicted and the new factions look and play great (and aren't reskins!)... each planned dlc has a lot of content, each warrenting another playthrough (for me), but I suggest to non fanboys on the outside to wait a bit for a sale, since there is still a lot more races and content to add... they're going to try add every faction from the boardgame (16?), so while I empathize that they need the resources for such a big undertaking, I can imagine it burning a massive hole in your pocket.... CA is known for eventually doing heavy price skimming, this company always do this, and the prices end up going right down during sales for 75% off or something.
Verdict:
If you enjoy Total War, and Warhammer Fantasy I totally recommend this game... if you're patient, I suggest waiting for a sale.. although with the content already here is totally worth the cost, down the line you could probably end up paying a lot less for a more fleshed out game, since there's a lot more content to be made... I think they're adding every race on the board to try create something that has the entire Warhammer Fantasy world on a single map.
I'm not the biggest fan of strategy games, but I have a soft spot for the Total War franchise, especially TW: Rome which I played and loved as a kid, it introduced me to the series. I'm not sure how it's aged graphically, but everything was done right, the RTS gameplay and scale the battle maps had, there was a lot of depth to keeping your empire alive in the world map, and diplomacy etc... it was so ambitious and amazing, and was full of content and was absolutely a labour of love and pride...
Then there's TW: Medieval II which is a total masterpiece, CA were at their peak with this one IMO, it improved on almost everything Rome had and graphically it's still really attractive, the soundtrack is beautiful and varied, very striking at times and hits all the right emotional chords at other times... my only problem with it is that allies always backstabbed you at some point, even if they had one settlement and you had 30+... I guess the new Warhammer patch is guilty of AI quirks to an extent as well though, but I'll get to that. I still play this today!
I left the series for a while and skipped Rome II since it became more linear in terms of the things you can do in the grand strategy map (apparently), rejoined for Empire Total War, Shogun II, and Napoleon... all decent, I recommend them, they often go on sale at heavily discounted prices, they mostly achieve recreating the warfare for the specific time period they were designed for, and have 100+ hours on each one, I think 200+ for Empire... they're good, even if the soundtracks aren't as good, they achieve what they set out to do, but don't really surpass them, and many units seem like reskins of others... so I'd start at Medieval Total War II or Warhammer! The reviews for Attila revealed way too many deal breakers so I can sleep at night knowing I skipped it.
WARHAMMER 40k!! Because it's 2016 (current year)!!!
I love the lore that the Warhammer universe offers, the grim, evil, desperate and dark atmosphere and scale that WARHAMMER has the potential to reach!!! Seriously, the Warhammer franchise is even more death metal than DOOM if it can get done right (ehem.. Bolt Thrower vs mediocre thrash metal bands, eheh).
I personally hate Dawn of War series, especially vannila DoW II... I feel like this series is massively overrated, and doesn't capture the universe properly, (IMO)... many of the protaganist male characters were extremely generic, I have nothing against an all male cast, I mean it's part of the 40k lore... but this was like the sterotypical generic 2000+ type of male protaganist right down to the hairstyle which you'd see in a shitty Modern War game which is set in the Middle East... so IMO story telling + character portrayals are a product of their time.. and now with the third, Relic jumped on the moba art style, with overly clean visuals, units that look almost plastic, as if they were rendered in the Team Fortress 2 Engine.. all I get from the art direction is that they're gunning for something in the vein of another soulless competetive electronic sports game, and it plays like Starcraft.
Another game based on the 40K universe: Battlefleet Gothic Armada hit the nail on the head in terms of the 40k art direction, the chaos faction gave you a sense of dread in your quest to fight them, they spread like a plague, they are overwhelming, you get the feeling of being stretched thin, and it's impossible to save every planet from them, and have to choose which ones to save (often meaning you might lose a perk, etc), there was a sense of "End times" (something severely lacking in Dawn of War, where a marine squad and a tank presses forward and mows everything down)... and the characters are portrayed and narrated to perfection as well in BFGA.
Just look at Battlefleet Gothic Armada's art direction. <3
Total War: Warhammer
Just amazing... the reason I started this thread... if you're a fan of the TW series, and/or Warhammer... this game is perfect!
Since I love both TW and the Warhammer universe, and Creative Assembly managed to combine the best of both worlds, and do it properly, in a way that does both justice and more... for me this was a dream come true. Needless to say I've been playing a lot of Total War: Warhammer, and because this game is so addictive, I'm somewhere around the 250 hour mark.
The scale, cinematic visuals and depth, and BATTLES are just amazing! Soooo many special details, and special touches in terms of visuals... the universe reeks of Warhammer, all the factions have their own play style, and aren't reskins... dwarves with their superior artillery can destroy and route sometimes half of the enemy army before they manage to get into melee range, vampire counts can raise entire disposable armies from scratch very quickly by raising the dead and deploying them in battle on the same turn, these are often good for cannon fodder for soaking arrows and to throw against the enemy's front lines... keeping them busy, and use your high tier units where they can wreak havoc and demoralize their armies and terrifying them, shattering their morale, so in a long grueling battle, you can start gaining the upper hand, even if you are evenly matched... then there's the Empire, who are decent in every field, not being able to outgun dwarven artillery with their own, melee infantry not being as effective as Undead... but making up for it in different ways, using cavalry to flank dwarven artillery, having archers and basic artillery to fight against the undead, etc. If these factions are any indication, then future factions that are added are going to make the game have even more variety... can't wait to see the Beastmen dlc!
The AI fumbles a lot less in this title than a lot of the previous TWs, especially on the tactical RTS styled battle maps, and on the world map they're very cunning, will actively make an effort to avoid engaging in battles they can't win... and can totally blindside you, finding a weakness that you never knew you had... on the worldmap you have to try balance expanding, maintaining a strong army, and trying not to piss off too many neighboring factions off at once, so that you can withstand the "End times" in which the hordelike chaos faction starts pouring through the grand strategy map, obliterating every faction in their path, and eventually working their way to you... so if all the factions are waging war with eachother, or you destabilize too many regions, conquer too many factions, everyone gets overrun very quickly and you find yourself pretty much done for, since you can't defeat them on your own
, which I think is quite awesome, since there's always this feeling of impending doom, unless you handle your alliances properly, try expand without destabilizing too many territories, you'll end up watching your units getting smashed by chaos giants, mauled by undead hounds, and deformed behemoths. During the third phase, if everyone manages to defeat the armies of chaos, the banner in which alliances and peace treaties were formed and under to defeat chaos ends up getting thrown away, and the AI becomes batshit insane and starts backstabbing like crazy.... even the Emperor, Karl Franz, who is supposed to be a military tactition and the Old World's best statesman of the Old World, declared war on every faction on the map at once at once, including his allies haha... it is tied to a specific period of the campaign where all the races had already defeated Chaos, though... so I can see from a gameplay perspective that they didn't want the game to stagnate afterwards. The AI in this is improved a bit over previous campaigns in that they only declare war on factions beneath them in terms of power so I can see the logic in this... just funny when they declare war on EVERY faction beneath them, hehe.
Anyway, the two cons to this is definitely the limited diplomacy, most of the basics and things are still there, but there's some things I missed from the early games, like trading with control over settlements, and the second is the dlc prices... I mean, the team will still work full time for the next 2 or so years post release, and a triple A company still has bills to pay, the base game already has a huge amount of content and I've got a lot of playtime out it, and I don't mind paying for the dlc because I'm hopelessly addicted and the new factions look and play great (and aren't reskins!)... each planned dlc has a lot of content, each warrenting another playthrough (for me), but I suggest to non fanboys on the outside to wait a bit for a sale, since there is still a lot more races and content to add... they're going to try add every faction from the boardgame (16?), so while I empathize that they need the resources for such a big undertaking, I can imagine it burning a massive hole in your pocket.... CA is known for eventually doing heavy price skimming, this company always do this, and the prices end up going right down during sales for 75% off or something.
Verdict:
If you enjoy Total War, and Warhammer Fantasy I totally recommend this game... if you're patient, I suggest waiting for a sale.. although with the content already here is totally worth the cost, down the line you could probably end up paying a lot less for a more fleshed out game, since there's a lot more content to be made... I think they're adding every race on the board to try create something that has the entire Warhammer Fantasy world on a single map.
