Creative Assembly's Total War Series

[Humphrey Bogart]

Does anyone on here play? 

I have been playing these games since the first Shogun Total War was released in 2000 and own every game in the series with the exception of Warhammer I & II (not in to fantasy games unfortunately).

My personal favorites are Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai (have around 400+ hours of gameplay in this game and have completed campaigns with almost every faction) and Napoleon Total War (plays better than Empire and I love studying the Napoleonic Era of Warfare). 

If anyone is interested in completing a multiplayer campaign sometime in either of these titles or Rome II Total War, PM me or post here.  I would love to do a multiplayer play through. 

 

[brihard]

These games are great. I haven’t played Shogun. Empire was alright but didn’t grab me so much after I’d played it through a few times. My favourite is still Medieval 2, running The Long Road mod to really extend and slow down the strategic game play- much bigger map, slower production, more incremental technological progress, etc.

I’m playing through a similarly stretched game of Civilization 4 right now, but I’ve been thinking of firing M:TW back up again.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

These games are great. I haven’t played Shogun. Empire was alright but didn’t grab me so much after I’d played it through a few times. My favourite is still Medieval 2, running The Long Road mod to really extend and slow down the strategic game play- much bigger map, slower production, more incremental technological progress, etc.

I’m playing through a similarly stretched game of Civilization 4 right now, but I’ve been thinking of firing M:TW back up again.

Medieval 2 is also very good!  I actually just did a Campaign not too long ago on M2TW Vanilla with Venice.  Ended up basically recreating the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean and fighting massive battles against Mongols and Timurids in the Middle East.

I then decided to try and conquer the New World and had some massive battles against the Aztecs.  Nothing like a bit of Pike & Shot to quell dissent in the Colonies  ;D

The Pope also excommunicated me!  No matter, sacked Rome and installed a puppet regime there.  Bloody Catholics  ;D

Empire was way too ambitious for its time and is seen as a failure by CA but it helped them go on to make way better games.

I would like to see them give Empire another go with todays tech and all the improvements they have made to the games.  I don't know if we would get a game like that in today's political climate though.

Don't think it would have a great look politically for the company with red coats mowing down hordes of native americans.

 

[Infanteer]

I have them all, and have been playing since the start.  The Warhammer ones are quite good; well developed role playing within the campaigns.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I have them all, and have been playing since the start.  The Warhammer ones are quite good; well developed role playing within the campaigns.

I might give them a crack when I upgrade the PC at XMas.  I have Three Kingdoms but haven't gotten the most out of it as my graphics card is no longer cutting the mustard.

 

[tomahawk6]

I have the games through STEAM. I like Shogun 2.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I have them all, and have been playing since the start.  The Warhammer ones are quite good; well developed role playing within the campaigns.

Huge fan of the whole series, but the Warhammer 2 is probably my favourite of the bunch. Each faction plays quite differently with unique mechanics, and there is a much wider variety of units then you would normally find with any of the other series.  The warhammer universe has a huge amount of backstory that they've done a good job incorporating, and an individual playthrough can take weeks (if you don't get wiped out).

There's a lot of great mods out for it as well; my favourite so far is the SFO 2: Grimhammer set.  There's also a lot of submods so you can tweak it to how you like it, and really adds a lot of depth and replayability to a game that already has that in spades.

It can be really unforgiving, but typically there is a mod that lets you turn off one of game mechanics if you don't like it, so it's a pretty flexible experience.

The diplomacy options are pretty basic, but makes more sense in the context of the end game goal of basically taking out everyone else. You can get some mods to add a few options to the diplomacy, but it's that's probably the weak bit for the whole series.

Haven't tried Three Kingdoms, but would put this ahead of both Shogun and Rome.

My only complaint is they have a terrible model for all the DLC and never put out a game of the year edition, and a lot of it is overpriced. Some I bypass all together, but actively avoided picking it up for a while until it was all on sale because of that. The base game is about $70, but all the DLC is something like another $100+

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Huge fan of the whole series, but the Warhammer 2 is probably my favourite of the bunch. Each faction plays quite differently with unique mechanics, and there is a much wider variety of units then you would normally find with any of the other series.  The warhammer universe has a huge amount of backstory that they've done a good job incorporating, and an individual playthrough can take weeks (if you don't get wiped out).

There's a lot of great mods out for it as well; my favourite so far is the SFO 2: Grimhammer set.  There's also a lot of submods so you can tweak it to how you like it, and really adds a lot of depth and replayability to a game that already has that in spades.

It can be really unforgiving, but typically there is a mod that lets you turn off one of game mechanics if you don't like it, so it's a pretty flexible experience.

The diplomacy options are pretty basic, but makes more sense in the context of the end game goal of basically taking out everyone else. You can get some mods to add a few options to the diplomacy, but it's that's probably the weak bit for the whole series.

Haven't tried Three Kingdoms, but would put this ahead of both Shogun and Rome.

My only complaint is they have a terrible model for all the DLC and never put out a game of the year edition, and a lot of it is overpriced. Some I bypass all together, but actively avoided picking it up for a while until it was all on sale because of that. The base game is about $70, but all the DLC is something like another $100+

I'll probably give Warhammer a shot at Christmas once I upgrade my PC. 

One of the reasons I like Shogun 2 so much is actually how streamlined everything is.  Well Fleshed Out Character and Agent Skill Trees, Logical Tech Tree that isn't too big. 

I actually think it's lack of unit diversity is one of it's strengths as it allows for better AI programming and really good battle mechanics. 

Everything in Shogun 2 just works well together and the differences in strategy come from the subtle advantages & traits each clan has.

I also like Rome II and it does have some excellent faction variety because of the different cultures. Rome II never really challenged me though like Shogun did. I've completed three long campaigns playing as Rome, Baktria and Sparta. 

Surprisingly my Baktria campaign was the easiest. I employed a Blitzkrieg Strategy and teched up my Cavalry right away. I think I took out Parthia on turn 3 or 4 and from there it was fairly smooth sailing. 

I ended up building 5 or 6 pure cavalry Armies with a composition of 8 Cataphracts, 8 Baktrian Horse Archers, 3 War Elephants and a General on Horseback. I focused my upgrades on campaign map movement increases and usually embedded a spy with each Army with a focus again on campaign map movement increases. 

Once their stats were fully maxed out, my Cav Armies could move through 2 or 3 provinces in a single turn and I basically steamrolled the map.

 

[tomahawk6]

I have played warhammer but its not a favorite. I enjoyed total wars Napolean. I enjoy playing Britain.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I have played warhammer but its not a favorite. I enjoyed total wars Napolean. I enjoy playing Britain.

Britain is usually very fun to play as in NTW.  If you manage to destroy the French Fleet in the Atlantic on the first couple of turns, you can block off access between the Mediterranean and Atlantic at Gibraltar and gain absolute dominance of the seas. 

I usually then focus on pumping out merchant ships and occupying trade nodes while continuing to reinforce my naval power and I also blockade the Baltic between Denmark and Sweden.

Just keep building up the economy and then launch a massive Army in to Europe through Spain and victory is yours.  Napoleon is usually too busy smashing Austria and Prussia by this point to stop you

 

[Navy_Pete]

I'll probably give Warhammer a shot at Christmas once I upgrade my PC. 

One of the reasons I like Shogun 2 so much is actually how streamlined everything is.  Well Fleshed Out Character and Agent Skill Trees, Logical Tech Tree that isn't too big. 

I actually think it's lack of unit diversity is one of it's strengths as it allows for better AI programming and really good battle mechanics. 

Everything in Shogun 2 just works well together and the differences in strategy come from the subtle advantages & traits each clan has.

I also like Rome II and it does have some excellent faction variety because of the different cultures. Rome II never really challenged me though like Shogun did. I've completed three long campaigns playing as Rome, Baktria and Sparta. 

Surprisingly my Baktria campaign was the easiest. I employed a Blitzkrieg Strategy and teched up my Cavalry right away. I think I took out Parthia on turn 3 or 4 and from there it was fairly smooth sailing. 

I ended up building 5 or 6 pure cavalry Armies with a composition of 8 Cataphracts, 8 Baktrian Horse Archers, 3 War Elephants and a General on Horseback. I focused my upgrades on campaign map movement increases and usually embedded a spy with each Army with a focus again on campaign map movement increases. 

Once their stats were fully maxed out, my Cav Armies could move through 2 or 3 provinces in a single turn and I basically steamrolled the map.

All good points, enjoyed both games for the same reasons. Think I'll give Shogun 2 another go; initially had put it aside because the loading times were insane, but that was on an old potato of a computer. It was bad enough that I would tend to autoresolve battles (rather then wait 5-10 minutes for it to load) so that killed a lot of the fun. Personally preferred the original Rome to Rome 2, but Rome 2 got a massive improvement in one of it's later patches, so both are pretty good.  Both were a lot of fun to play as alternate histories, and had fun trying to stop the Romans as one of the Celtic tribes. Started a lot more games then I ever ran to the conclusion. Think I'll reinstall Shogun and Rome to play through them and compare directly, but think they are all great but different experiences.

I think part of the personal appeal of the WH versions is that it's more of an escapist reality to play, and aren't reminded of some real genocides throughout history if I'm playing as say, vampires or something and wiping out the dwarves.  Enjoyed the subtlety of Shogun, and how you really had to maximise small things, so it was a pretty even playing field, but being able to spawn rat hordes from the underground, drop a comet on someone, or attack them with dragons has it's own appeal. There is also an interesting mix with different tech trees, building progression and other unique faction mechanics, so they were able to take some of the best pieces from different preceding games and think it really works well. One of the strengths though is you really need to use suitable tactics, match up the units and use ambushes, spells and other abilities properly. Can be a bit tricky, but it's entirely possible to be completely overmatched and win a battle.  Getting old though, so tend to pause a lot or go in slow motion when it gets down to the nitty gritty like that.

For some reason they got rid of the unit formations in the grouping, so bit more micromanaging to get the different types moving to where you want. They also (for the most part) got rid of the individual unit formations (like tetsudo, wedge, etc) which was one of the mechanics that could really make a difference, and was also fun. Charging, flanking though now seem to make a much bigger difference, and the heroes can easily take on several units on their own, so I tend to spend less time managing the formations and more time maneuvering around. Once they get leveled up, the legendary lords can be an army onto themselves, so glad they make good use of a lot of easy to reach hotkeys.  So, like I said, it's a very different experience (in some ways), but it is a lot of fun.  Would love to see a WH 40k version (maybe with a galaxy map instead of a simple world map), but that doesn't seem to be in the cards at this point.

 

[Underway]

Love the series.  My first was Rome TW.  M2:TW was really good until I figured out the AI and how broken cavalry were.  Shogun 2 was amazing, and the expansion that moved the timeline later was very good.

I think I played Empire and Napoleon TW the most.  Until Warhammer TW.  I'm a huge GW fanboy and absolutely love this game.  I would recommend strongly if you are new to W:TW get both of the games together in a bundle.  There were many improvements for the second game that made it more balanced and interesting.  And also gives you a new campaign mode.  It's the first campaign in TW history where paint the map doesn't necessarily equal win conditions (Battle for the Vortex campaign).

As I've sunk all my money into that game I haven't gotten 3 Kingdoms which I hear is amazing and making Sega a mint.  Just waiting out for Warhammer 3 (deamons, dhawi zhar, ogre kingdoms, kislev, ... so many new races!).

 

[Navy_Pete]

Love the series.  My first was Rome TW.  M2:TW was really good until I figured out the AI and how broken cavalry were.  Shogun 2 was amazing, and the expansion that moved the timeline later was very good.

I think I played Empire and Napoleon TW the most.  Until Warhammer TW.  I'm a huge GW fanboy and absolutely love this game.  I would recommend strongly if you are new to W:TW get both of the games together in a bundle.  There were many improvements for the second game that made it more balanced and interesting.  And also gives you a new campaign mode.  It's the first campaign in TW history where paint the map doesn't necessarily equal win conditions (Battle for the Vortex campaign).

As I've sunk all my money into that game I haven't gotten 3 Kingdoms which I hear is amazing and making Sega a mint.  Just waiting out for Warhammer 3 (deamons, dhawi zhar, ogre kingdoms, kislev, ... so many new races!).

There are a few unlocker mods that let you play as Kislev; the one I use is called 'Mixu's Unlocker' and lets you play as anyone (on both the Vortex and Mortal Empires campaigns). So you can use the factions that were normally only AI controlled, which is pretty fun.

Kislev is okay to play, but were you are on the map you start to get steamrolled by the constant chaos/beastman invasion (on top of the orc, skaven and empire threats). I use the SFO mod, so you get an option to turn off the beastmen spawning, which makes it more playing those factions in the NE less of a nightmare. It's definitely a challenge, and I think there are also some mods that add additional kislev units so might want to give it a go. They are on the steam workshop, so pretty easy to find them and subscribe.

 

[Underway]

There are a few unlocker mods that let you play as Kislev; the one I use is called 'Mixu's Unlocker' and lets you play as anyone (on both the Vortex and Mortal Empires campaigns). So you can use the factions that were normally only AI controlled, which is pretty fun.

Kislev is okay to play, but were you are on the map you start to get steamrolled by the constant chaos/beastman invasion (on top of the orc, skaven and empire threats). I use the SFO mod, so you get an option to turn off the beastmen spawning, which makes it more playing those factions in the NE less of a nightmare. It's definitely a challenge, and I think there are also some mods that add additional kislev units so might want to give it a go. They are on the steam workshop, so pretty easy to find them and subscribe.

Not a big mod player that much right now as I'm more online recently. I expect W3 to have Kislev as they were in table top.  Winged Lancers, Horse Archers, Gryphon Legion, Kossars, Streltsi and Bear Cavalry all backed with Ice Magic.  And yes that steamroll is a pain in the arse with those mods, but I expect that Chaos start positions for W3 is going to be different.  Easter eggs from W2 indicate that N'Kari (slannesh greater deamon) was behind the vortex campaign and is poised to return to Ulthuan/Lustria.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Fair enough; normally only play for an hour or less at a go, so have avoided the multiplayer. That does leave me free to use the mods to add in a lot of replayability, and also tweak the things that I prefer for QOL.

W3 would definitely get my money as well; the game mechanics are solid, but they do a great job with the story writing/rpg bits, and would be great to have different factions as the focus. The vortex campaign is really well done, and the enormous mortal empires campaign is also fun (but not sure I've finished a full campaign on it yet because of it's size).

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Fair enough; normally only play for an hour or less at a go, so have avoided the multiplayer. That does leave me free to use the mods to add in a lot of replayability, and also tweak the things that I prefer for QOL.

W3 would definitely get my money as well; the game mechanics are solid, but they do a great job with the story writing/rpg bits, and would be great to have different factions as the focus. The vortex campaign is really well done, and the enormous mortal empires campaign is also fun (but not sure I've finished a full campaign on it yet because of it's size).

An hour or less a go?  How do you do it man! 

I usually binge Total War.  I give the wife notice that "today is a total war day" and go on a solid binge and then put it away for a month or so. 

I'm going to have to try Warhammer out.  I am doing a Russia Campaign on Napoleon TW right now. 

 

[Navy_Pete]

lol, requires an alarm and some willpower.  Otherwise you blink and half a day has gone by.  Usually set out with a specific, short term goal in mind and try and kick that out, and do a battle or two. Once the game really gets rolling, tend to either auto the battles if I'm strong enough, which speeds things along.  I'm really not very good at it, so don't get too upset if I get wiped out.  Maybe when my daughter is older I'll invest more time, but typically it's near the end of the day after she's gone to bed, and something to reset before winding down to get some sleep. 

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

So I finally dropped some coin and bought a new computer.

Been playing TW Three Kingdoms and I just can't get in to the setting. The game is sleek but the setting is terribly uninteresting IMO.

I also picked up Total War Warhammer on sale though and I gotta say I'm pleasantly surprised.  I'm doing an Empire Campaign right now and having a blast.

 

[Infanteer]

This thread got me back into WH.  I played through Chaos and the Wood Elves.  Really like the extremely different play styles for the different factions.

Haven't got Three Kingdom's yet.  I grew up playing Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms for my nintendo, so I'm all about Cao Cao and the Warring States period.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

This thread got me back into WH.  I played through Chaos and the Wood Elves.  Really like the extremely different play styles for the different factions.

Haven't got Three Kingdom's yet.  I grew up playing Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms for my nintendo, so I'm all about Cao Cao and the Warring States period.

I think the unit variety is what I like so much about TW Warhammer.  I also like the games character development and think the games are very well done.

Three Kingdoms is incredibly polished and it takes some of the things from Warhammer and uses them i.e. heroes, but there is little unit variety and every faction feels like it plays the same. 

In a lot of ways, with the way the tech tree works as well as the building chains, etc. Three Kingdoms feels more like a Paradox Game than something in the TW series.

I'll probably give it a break and come back to it again when I have more time to study the mechanics.  I may also have to read about the Warring States period to get a sense of what's going on.