I'm not sure I'd trust modern CA to do Med3 justice. The new style of Total War is just a different beast from the sublime RTW/Med2 era.
Lots of little things changed, and it just 'hits different'. Probably the biggest difference is just that every single fight after the first 20 turns will be a 20 stack vs a 20 stack, and every single battle is life or death for that army. It makes the campaign much faster paced - declare war, wipe stack, capture cities for 3 turns until the AI magics up another 20 stack.
In the original Med2, since there wasn't automatic replenishment, there were often battles between smaller stacks, even in late game, as they were sent from the backline to reinforce the large armies on the front. Led to some of my greatest memories trying to keep some random crossbowmen and cavalry alive against some ambushing enemy infantry they wandered into. The need for manual reinforcement led to natural pauses in wars and gave the losing side a chance to regroup without relying on the insane AI bonuses of the modern TW games - and I do mean insane; they'll have multiple full stacks supplied from a single settlement.
The change that I always notice whenever I jump between earlier and later TW is the addition of hit points and how it really feels line it blunts a lot of impacts.
I mean, compare a heavy cavalry charge in Medieval 2 to one in Total Warhammer. A properly formed unit of Teutonic Knights is a devastating hammer blow that can shatter an enemy army since the charge bonus massively increases the chance to kill. Meanwhile, Empire Knights can get a proper rear charge against basic infantry and despite how far those rats get flung, they’ll all get back up because all the charge does is make the line go down faster.
The other big impact I find with this change is it makes the rout really annoying to deal with. In early total war, you always want some cavalry to pursue fleeing enemies since once they’re broken it won’t take much to capture or kill them and preventing those armies from regrouping really matters. Meanwhile, in modern total war, pursuing fleeing enemies never seems to result in significant damage because instead of capturing fleeing enemies you’re just making the line go down again.
Pasting the first section of the article because of the stupid anti-adblocker on Mobile:
Shinobi Warfare’s developer is rewarding players for positive reviews, violating Steam’s terms of service agreement.
The controversial practice was revealed by a Reddit user, leading to concerns about inauthentic reviews flooding the game.
Despite reports to Steam support, Shinobi Warfare continues to face backlash for questionable tactics and content appropriation.
Shinobi Warfare, a 2D turn-based RPG multiplayer game, is being called out by Steam users after it was discovered that the developer has been rewarding players with in-game currency for leaving a positive review. The lucrative reward has led to the game receiving an ‘overwhelmingly positive’ review badge, but goes against the platform’s terms of service agreement.
The discovery was made by Reddit user Glavurdan, who took to the Steam subreddit yesterday to reveal their findings. The post has multiple images of the questionable practice, with the most notable being on the Shinobi Warfare Discord server, where an admin on the server offered players 1,000 in-game gems to leave a positive review.
I mostly agree. Games of all types can co-exist and knowing this doesn't ruin enjoyment of the games that I do play.
Like Skyrim modding for example, there's so many mods that display fanservice, nudity and even intercourse. Does that ruin the game for me? Not at all. In fact, I still play it despite that knowledge. I simply choose not to use mods that I don't want to use.
Or a certain magicky wizarding game, that game can exist too without wishing death on people who want to play it. Doesn't mean I have to play it, nor does it ruin gaming for me.
Instead, the logical thing to do would be to pass on this game and find another. I fully understand that BG3 is one of the games of our lifetime, but it's not the game for me. (Of which there are many)
As someone who grew up watching my father crawl through dungeons (I think he enjoyed IWD more than BG), it's great to see Baldur's Gate at the forefront. Hopefully more of my childhood favourite RPGs will come back. I'd love to see Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights brought back.
The wizarding game upsets me. I grew up with that series and it is literally a game I would have loved to play as a kid, but I don't want to support the TERF. Low-key hoping it comes to ps+ so I can get it without giving them money.
I'm old enough to remember these terms developing. I can remember when the first Diablo came out and called itself an 'ARPG'. There was some controversy over this term and simply the use of the term RPG. As video games developed, there was some prestige around the 'RPG' label. By the late 90s, you were looking at a lot of well loved and top games using the term. Gold Box Games, Bard's Tale, Ultima, JRPGs like Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, etc.
Diablo is the first game that I can recall that really prominently advertised itself as an ARPG. They did this of course because it wasn't really as deep as the rest of them. There weren't a lot of 'choices' to be made in this game. You set up your character and ran through the dungeon. They wanted to use the 'RPG' label because it was well regarded at the time and helped move units. It was a lot like calling an RV a sports car because sports cars have wheels, doors, can drive on the road. ARPGs had RPG mechanics, in that there were things like stats and you could choose abilities/spells on level up. But they really weren't RPGs.
Around that time in PC Gamer there was a great column about what made an RPG an RPG and it was clear that games like Diablo weren't it, the key from that was an RPG had players making meaningful choices that had a lasting impact on the game world. Whether you threw fireballs or lightning bolts wasn't exactly a meaningful choice that had impact on the game world.
When it came to JPRGs vs RPGs, the difference was always fairly clear. RPGs were of the D&D variety. While they featured magic, the system itself was somewhat grounded in reality. JRPGs had a distinct style. Big numbers, wild combos, certain aesthetics, etc. To me the JRPG label makes sense, because it is a different style of game. I would note that JRPGs though really didn't fit the definition of RPG for the most part, a lot of 'RPGs' didn't because there was very little decision making. They were quest style games where you had a party that levelled up, but you weren't making many decisions in the game that had much an impact.
I think the labels are absolutely important for distinguishing the type of game it is. People want to know what they're getting into when they play it. If I'm expecting Baldur's gate and get Diablo, I'm probably going to be a bit disappointed.
The developer then detailed how the game’s prologue is about “becoming a legend,” while the remainder of the game is about dealing with terminal illness. “It’s incredibly difficult to figure out a way where New Game Plus could be done in a way that doesn’t completely break the way the game is constructed,” Sasko told DualShockers.
“By design, it would require major changes to the construction of the game to really do it well.”
That Cyberpunk allows you to resume from the last open world save before committing to the ending(s) is good enough for me. Often I abandon New Game+ saves but I’ve continued playing my play through of Cyberpunk because I can jump into the different endings at any time.
How would star wars even work in a total war game?
I can see the hero characters like jedi and such fit with how they work in the WarHammer games. Things like tanks and walkers filling the space of single and low unit count monster troops.
But would regular troopers be standing in lines of 50? I suppose it’s not a stretch of the imagination to think they could make smaller infantry units, but I have always associated the total war games with dragging out the lines of my spears and flanking cavalry rather than flicking small teams of shooters into cover positions
The Battles of Naboo and Geonosis basically play out as line battles with massive groups marching in formations at each other, not to mention most of the Tartakovsky clone wars, so I could see CA approaching it like Empire Total War with hover tanks.
Honestly, I doubt whether CA are even willing to adapt their formula enough to actually have small teams of shooters flicking into cover positions.
That also means in countries and areas where PSN accounts can’t be created/used people can’t play the game they purchased. And since it launched 4 months ago (without requiring a PSN login), they can’t refund it on Steam either. What a shit show…
I’m slightly distracted by the Dragonball GT avatar… like… it looks like Baby Vegeta, but a ripped twink version or something? I’m so confused, and not in a sexual way. Is Twink Baby Vegeta in the game or something?
Edit: I guess he must be in the game considering the last part of the article saying they don’t seem to care about copyright. Now I can’t tell if the shady practices make me not want to play the game or the prospect of playing with Twink Baby Vegeta makes me want to try it…
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