Why Nobody Dares Compete with Total War
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- čas přidán 15. 12. 2023
- Ultimate General: American Revolution and arguably parts of Manor Lords, these are daring titles from small indie studios, but why have no AAA strategy game studio ever managed or even come close to deliver a true Total War competitor? Does Total War and Creative Assembly possess some secret recipe? I think I know the answer, and I think production value and presentation have a lot to say.
I mean, I have to be honest - whenever I think of Total War, my mind doesn't go to the latest titles in the series like Warhammer, Troy, Three Kingdoms, or even Pharaoh - they go to games that by now are for the vast majority of cases, well over 10 years old. That is a weird position to be in as a long time fan of this series and what it offered. But despite these games being legitimately old by now, they still feel relatively new to me, and there are a bunch of reasons for this fact - the amazing mods that keep on coming, their great mechanics and gameplay design, but the thing that still lends them so much unabashed fun, is the production value, the enormous effort that went into these older titles, and the graphics engine backing them all up.
To me, this is what makes Total War stand out even today, what makes even games like Warhammer 3 and Three Kingdoms - titles that weren't exactly my favorites - still be the pinnacle of AAA strategy gaming in terms of presentation. Now this has little to do with gameplay design or choices, I'm simply talking about how Total War has managed to stay at the forefront of gradual modernization and, at least on the surface, retained the series staple focus on visuals, sounds, and scope. This is in my opinion what makes it so difficult for others to break in, and why even the older titles still feel so modern-looking. Do you feel the same way? Let me know in the comments, and don't forget to leave a like and subscribe to the channel! :)
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#totalwar #napoleontotalwar #creativeassembly #totalwarmods - Hry
Best thing about Empire naval battles: ship goes BOOM
Indubitably, good sir!
Yes yes…
Yes, just recently my brig went boom of one shot from a xebeck
@@AndysTake More impressively, Micro Details. Like the side of the ships are made of small sections of wood which will start getting blasted away after a couple broadsides. And in Napoleon where they introduced ship repairs, the crew will bring planks of wood to patch up the holes with.
WHY CAN'T WE HAVE THIS MORE RECENT GAMES?! WHY CA WHY!!!!!!!!
@@skysamurai4649 what country were you playing as?
I wish they would create mechanics so you could re-create battle tactics by for example Alexander the great or Hannibal
Yeah, they should do a remaster every 10 years. That would be nice and fresh way to go back and play games. It also opens up for more moding and playability of the total war games.
If Bethesda can do it every 5 years with Skyrim why not CA total war?!
They did those, it was called Medieval 2, Rome 2, and Shogun 2.
But lately they've been very averse to doing that for some reason.
As long as they dont to a total war: woke remaster... everything is fine!
7:50 That was so satisfying!! Unless you have been in that position, you can't understand.
IT WAS INSANE DUDE hahaha
I'm an unapologetic Napoleon fanboy. Love it with Darthmod and I'm going to try NTW3 soon.
4k hours and counting played.
Napoleonic combat is just awesome
Napoleon is such a gem, man, truly! Heard of FCN? If you're into multiplayer that's going to be major with its next update!
@AndysTake oooh no I haven't, il definitely take a look into it.
I think it's great you are revisiting these older titles, these games still hold up even today like you said.
For me Napoleon had a very unique quality where i would care about the units in battle. I wouldn't just throw a unit to its death if it had fought hard and well in previous battles.
I really enjoyed that you could edit in game the names of units, it added to the immersion of the game.
With the 40 unit games of Darthmod you could find yourself in a real meat grinder but have a reserve of 6 or so units of French Imperial guard to push into battle at the crucial moment. Ah moments like this were just awesome!
Napoleon is pure tactic and strategy. The campaign could be improved but battle wise there is none.
Like the many said himself ' MY ENEMIES ARE MANY MY EQUALS ARE NONE"
Napoleon Total War is my favorite too man. I always come back to it, doing NTW3 now it's hard as hell but great. There is such a romance around the era with the weapons and bravado and character. If they had made the NTW map bigger like Empire it would have been the GOAT.
Main issue with Napoleon is the same as with Empire.
After playing Eu IV for hours, I really hate that the maps dont have the full world.
Would just love some kind of sequel to Empire or game with rifles/cannon etc i still play both Empire & Napoleon including with mods, for me its the battles nothing else has come close to this that i can find. You can build an empire (thats not too heavy) but then also play those important battles with all your troops, am a little surprised no one has really put serious effect to re-create this element. Most of the other games i have seen, appear to have more of a focus on the campaign map and world building rather than the actual battles and controlling lots of troops on the ground, still love firing off cannons into advancing troops!
WH focuses on the tactical aspects, however the setting is certainly not for everyone.
Not 100% sure its for me always been on the historical side might give it a go one day@@Lucpol1986
check out ultimate general American revolution its honestly better an has a great ai nothing like the shit box TW ai
Darthmod and crew have really done well with the Ultimate General and Ultimate Admiral series.@@goodgammer3978
I never thought I'd see a skibidi toilet version of Andy, but ig there's a first time for everything lol
I’m here to constantly surprise and throw curve balls into your life mate
i can't play TW anymore because of how limited the AI is. Still got fond memories dating all the way back to Medieval 1.
Dude, no way you’re comparing 1999 A.I. to today. Just relax.
@@JayKahns1999 had an excuse for its AI.
@@JayKahnsis modern TW AI better than 1999 TW AI? Sure, maybe, I don't really remember. Is modern TW AI good? No.
@@BittermanAndy I never played any total war before Rome 2. Before my time.
Just play multiplayer
at the beginning I thought you were gonna say you had over 4000 hours on Rome 2 alone then you said total war games in total and then I am just sat here with 4,300 hours on Rome 2 alone haha XD
damn bro, that's some dedication! Top 5 favorite factions in Rome 2?
@@AndysTake Rome, Macedon, Egypt, Sparta and Carthage 💪how about yourself
I wish Napoleon and Empire just had a little bit more of FOTS in them, I’m so sick of my troops having zero trigger discipline and slaughtering my own guys because they accidentally overlapped a tiny bit. Or murdering my own cav as it charges into the side of another unit but some overflow around l… FOTS fixes this and it’s fucking awesome
Yeah that trigger discipline… if they didn’t have to wait until every single foot was in the right place before they shot that 100-man cavalry charge about to absolute wreck their lives, that’d be great
@@AndysTake oh shit I totally forgot about that stupid shit too lol… won’t fire if anyone is not set… uhhhhhh…. Why
It would be so cool if we had customisable castles with different resources and morale that actually matters.
Its the most mismanaged and missed opportunity franchise I've ever played and it's sad more developers don't try to bury them
Looks like people didnt shill enough, the creators program by CA just closed
I have to figure out which one my old computer will run. Any version will do hahaha
Im relatively new to the series, i sayerted with 3k amd went down the rabbit hole and have played all of them now and without a doubt it is the best series out there for history nerds and grand strategy games without a doubt. I still think the older titles are far superior in mechanics but the fact we can play general is amazing!!!
Empire 2 would be great! The time period is so good
I know, I'd love that!
The world map in Empire was epic...@@AndysTake
I play Empire more or less on a regular basis since its release to this day. Without any mods.
It's my absolute favorite game!
And while I say that, I see tons of lost potential, this game could even be so so much better. It's a shame it didn't even get the Napoleon fixes.
We need Empire Two like yesterday!
I litterally played Napoleon last night and was thinking to myself "Dang, this game is freaking amazing and its an acient game! Lol". But yeah, we need an Atila refresh or Atila 2
Right?! It's crazy how good it still looks!
Lol, you know you're a grumpy old TW vet when you consider everything past med2 as a new TW game, some people just never could stomach the Warscape engine :P
Dude last years I was more hyped for new mods or new mod versions for Med 2 than TW releases :D
The last product i bought from CA was 10 years ago! Its people like you Andy, which always buy they're latest shit. Which is why CA is still alive, People with a understanding of what quality is would never buy they're crap again.
…to each their own pal 👍🏾
SKIBIDI SKIBIDI FORTNITE - 9 year olds
Could've been me man, only the good grace put me on earth a few years to soon
@@AndysTake Literally same here lol
That three kingdoms campaign map soundtrack is so damn good
Honestly, if the core gameplay is solid and the graphics are nearly perfect but not quite the modders will make it perfect because they know the game isn't broken and there is joy in playing the game more and more. That's why newer games don't receive love because even those with low spec who cannot bother with graphics would not play with them. And those people are more influenced by reviews which happen to be (rightfully) more negative than older titles.
This isn't just Total War but games like Syrim, Assetto Corsa or even Need for Speed Most Wanted from 2005 are exceptionally good looking because of mods since the core gameplay is unbelievably sound.
The thing they started doing wrong in battles was after Napoleon. They started putting the Unit's information up on screen when you select them, whereas in Napoleon you just right click the unit. It's just an eye sore constantly seeing it when I'm trying to take in the views
Hi Andy, totally agree. The 18th-19th century could be so well covered. Being a Scot would have loved a Bonnie Prince Charlie/Jacobean saga option. The German states as well a Russo-Swedish war option could have broadened peoples play. Just got Pharaoh on discount. OMG it's a click fest of a thousand screens of which I not sure how they influence the game or how I can change this up. The battles are all speed up (no one can run that fast on sand!!) and cartoonish , will abandon and go back to Grand Tactician:The Civil War.
i am ready with my norwegian caviar
Thanks for this video.
I have often wonder why not other studio have been able to challenge CA.
I wonder if they have some kind of patent to be able to make Big Scale Total Warfare?
No other company has dared to make something comparable.
It's the cost, it costs so much money create something that looks and feels this good, even though Total War itself lacks a lot of polish and innovation these days. But yeah, cost, expertise, engine, that's all why
@@AndysTake Thanks for your reply and I'm happy to hear it's not a legal thing like patents because if there is one thing i learned.
There's no bigger corporate motivation then possible competition
Love your videos dude!
Thank you so much! :D
@@AndysTake No need to thank me, I should be thanking you for all the hours you have kept me entertained on this channel and on your new paradox channel!
@@legionofrome2967 That warms my heart, thanks for coming back and staying with me!
@@AndysTake No problem dude!
You could really feel the passion of Andy in this video.
If you wouldn't know him, you would think he was inspiring the troops to cross Lodi or Arcole
Napoleon is unplayable to me, main reason being how they got rid of fire by rank. Without that basically every infantry unit is militia.
Hey Andy. Why don't you mention Shogun 2? You need to get into it man it's great!
7:18 FACT
What was the last time that a studio went up against Creative Assembly? I remember Imperial Glory from 2005 from Pyro Studios (Publ. Eidos). Sadly, that game was a huge disappointment.
The Scourge of War series was really good. I remember having played alot of Waterloo back in the day. The game got removed from Steam though, and a remaster has been in development for ages now.
@@maxwillems368 Thanks
The Ultimate General and Ultimate Admiral series by Darthmod and crew are very good. They are modern competitors.
A total war game is long lasting because each has something that others don't, until CA can bring everything together in a single title, and even then, that doesn't account for the mods, so proper maintenance updates to make the older games run better will keep them going
currently i only play RTR mod for rome remastered and so far i found it to be enjoyable the minimal looking UI is also nice it kinda remind me of Shogun 2. i tried to play Empire but the save corruption and constant crashing in the later stages of the game is turning me off from the game and playing napoleon is similar to being teased with something less after looking at how awesome Empire in terms of its scope and ambition. the only total war that i didnt conquer the whole map is WH 2 and 3 in their huge campaign i got bored after 200 turns or so, the closest is probably Cathay where all i had to conquer is just the lizardmen and Morathi but i got burnout and never touch the game yet.
I think once RTR is more stable in the coming years and all is generally fine in the world i can try to go for a full map completion where it would probably take me a year or so to complete with their what 800+ settlement or something and if they are planning to add more cultures and such it could go up i remember the settlement limit for the remastered is around few thousand or something just as long as the game does not perform too badly
Use Enable Large Address Aware. It eliminates the crashing just about entirely.
I still play the original Medieval Total War from time to time. The game that I spend the most time on though, by far, is Medieval 2 Total War. But I only play mods now as they are light years better than the original games. So are they long-lasting? Most definitely yes!
Don't support CA guys. Start respecting yourself. You already own the older titles, play them and if CA wants money they must produce something good. Dignity guys, dignity.
That's why I'm praising the older titles here specifically, bro :)
@@AndysTake 🙂
@@AndysTakedidn’t you call out pixilated Apollo for that? Since CA isn’t so trendy you stopped simping for them?
@@reppinthaturf2012 I can’t keep track of what I’m being accused of anymore, man
@@AndysTake’what total war CZcamsrs get wrong about Total War Pharoah, a response’
How did you make the empire look so good ?
imagine Skibidi total war
oh no
Please god no...
would sell so well with the skibidi kids 0: (DON'T LET CA SEE THIS)
i just cant get into the old games anymore, but its nice that others can :)
Empire is hard for me to go back to because of the terrible AI. I find it easier to suspend my disbelief about units blobbing up all over the place in, say, Rome 2. I can pretend I'm winning _because_ of my superior organization and tactics. But having a game all about line infantry where the AI can't manage to form a basic battle line is just really frustrating.
Yep - that, and also alt-drag for moving multiple units at once. A game entirely about formations where your troops can't manoeuvre in formation... I just can't play it. I'd kill for Empire 2 though.
True, but it’s balanced by the tendency of the AI to declare war on me for no advantage to themselves.
I am a Mac gamer, I got into Total War with Rome 1 because it was available on the Mac, one of the few at that time. I still play Empire without mods , there are no Empire mods available on the Mac. Still a great game as is Rome remastered. All I want for Xmas is Empire 2.
respect bro!
Paid actor by the CA to silence negative critic?
Basically yes.
Yes. He a shill. They have to pay him to support their operation to regain rep. Total War executives said sorry but that's all corpo speak. They will soon 180 to squeezing every dollar out of their fans to line their own personal pockets as the franchise slips into its death.
CA focuses too much on visual quality in modern titles. Gameplay is THE most important aspect of a game to be played by humans.
CA does need more praise but they also need to listen to their community and respect our criticisms and adapt to make a game we and they can be happy with
Absolutely!
4000 hours? Barely finished the tutorial for an EU4 player 😅
'Hegemony!' You should get hired to write CA marketing materials, man. You almost make me forget my 'meh' feelings about the franchise since Attila. Will the magic ever return?
I just love what Total War used to be man, there’s magic in those games!
@@AndysTake Agreed, I have been a CA fanboi since Shogun. At the very least I am curious to see where the franchise goes post-Pharaoh. Who knows?
I wish a Napoleon total war game with grand campaign map like empire 😢😢
no matter how good the otherTW games look, i have a feeling i'll be going back to M2 and playing stainless steel for as long as i'm playing videro games
I know same, but perhaps not if there's a Medieval 2 remaster ;)
Agreed with a lot of the points you made. But I just can’t get Stainless Steel 6.4 to be stable for the life of me haha
Ever played it on steam deck? I just got it for my deck
I have, actually! It's really fun that it's possible, but I think I'd like to have a slightly more powerful Steam Deck 2 for it to be a better experience :) plus none of the controls are really satisfying just yet, at least when I tried it about a year ago
@@AndysTake thanks for the reply I’ll subscribe
My personal fav is Attila
might just be mine as well, but it's tough man
Well said bro! 😎
💯 % agree!!!
I haven't played total war yet, which one should be my first?
Which time period are you the most interested in?
total war rome 2 with DEI, or warhammer 3 if you like fantasy.
@@AndysTake I would say I am interested in antiquity and the late middle ages, If it were more in the future of projectile weapons then I would say Napoleonic.
Medieval 2@@CharlesIsMyName
I was going to say rome1 or medieval 2, but start with medieval 2. there is a steam sale right around the corner and it will be about seven dollars. play a med campaign, not an easy, easy is the enemy routing because you looked in their general direction easy. if you want more historical accuracy and a more interesting campaign get the stainless steal mod. for branching into other areas I can advise rome 1 and empire. but other than that just mod medieval 2 (it's easy I promise you) want a more interesting empire and willing to trade that for a world wide map, get lucuim. want a very historically accurate game in antiquity, europa barbarorum 2.
I don't use mods since 2015 I think, and I wish CA would patch their games so we won't need any. Don't get me wrong mods can be absolutely great, but I want the developer to "mod" their games first and foremost. Mods for me are the titles potential left in the dust by CA. And outside of TW, games like No man's sky or Cyberpunk who were memes, but developers stuck with them, are now well respected titles.
remember imperial glory, king auther 1 or 2, others ahve tried but not suceeded
I still play vanilla mod Medieval 2🫠🫠🫠
Disclaimer: I started playing TW games in 2018, so I don't have relevant experience of the early titles on launch.
Tl;DR: Prices of games have not risen enough to match increase in costs, leading to less profit and more risk: a recipe for lack of investment. CA recycles decades of existing engines that give such an enormous advantage over competitors that any entry into the market would need a 10 year period of losses before an investment makes returns. CA should sell historical licenses and focus on fantasy.
I love TW, and there is certainly no other franchise that can come close to the historical TW games. Warhammer is a great game, with tons of really cool stuff, but at the end of the day it is far easier to replicate than historical games. That being said, there are some companies that are trying to dethrone CA's monopoly (Ultimate General, Knights of Honor 2: Sovereign, etc) and are actually on a pretty good trajectory. Comparing these new games from newer studios to a studio that has decades of iteration is not quite comparable, and I think it is more fair to compare these new games against games like Rome 2 on launch.
The biggest reason that I think it will be difficult to compete with CA in the short term (i.e. with normal investing options) is that the environment for game making is so wildly different than when CA was building their engines. Engines are crazy complex to build, and in 2023 it is far more costly to create great engines than in the 2000's because devs can demand far higher wages, and the price of games has not kept up with inflation, let alone other costs rising. With our modern tools, it is obviously far easier to create the same of higher level of quality games, but it will probably take at least 10 years to be able to start competing with CA (if they stay on their current path of no improvement no regression). It takes a special type of investor to make such a risky and long term investment, but I think that some of the games we see coming out will create enough hype to hit the tipping point and send more money towards the genre.
The reason I said that Warhammer is easier than Historical, is that Warhammer is fundamentally unbalanced (which makes creating the actual game a lot easier), and also fantastical (which means that there are more options to create a unique game, and doesn't require researchers). To be clear, it is easier to make a basic historical game, and easier to make a complex fantasy game that could compete with CA. I would like to see CA split into two companies (by selling their historical licenses to Paradox), because I think the people at a company make a huge difference in what products can be created for games like these. Current CA is entirely fantasy, with the past 7 years (except ToB) being High Fantasy games, and that experience means that they will be able to make better fantasy games than historical in the future.
My advice to the people that played TW games 10 or more years ago is: you (probably) have more money now than you did then, and should seriously consider investing a significant amount of money to bring your favorite games back to life. A coordinated movement in the community could generate significant capital (either for CA, if you are very optimistic, or a new company) and would arguably be the best money you could spend. If you play a game for 1000 hours, investing $1000 into development of that game means that you are paying a dollar an hour to potentially increase the quality of the game significantly. My favorite (for its potential) game is Empire, which generated $66 million est. in revenue and currently has 4,189 players with 340.1 avg hours played. If only the current players invested a dollar per hour, that would be over $1.4 million (probably more because these players are outliers to the average), which is enough to make a difference. Empire sold 4.4m units, so this is 0.087% of the player base. If a leader in the community got 1% of the player base to invest 1% of their income from 1 year in a lump sum group investment, this could easily amount to several million, or tens of millions of dollars of investment that could give the players a tiny amount of shares in the company and allow for up to double the development resources for a game. This is incredibly unlikely to happen, but something along these lines is probably necessary to get back to the same level of quality as the past.
Yup, not even Ultimate General series can match Total Wars series, at least on the battle side of thing, and even more so when the myriad of awesome TW mods are taking into considerations.
I would not mind them updating older titles. If they make the modding easier and approachable.
I am not going into a debate over historical accuracy of female warriors in ancient times. I'll just say that if it was there from the beginning I might have not bought Rome II at all and stay in modded MEII. In such cases, modding is needed.
Manor lord although will be very different, it will make something similar yet fresh with muuuch much less resources. So it's defenetly not impossible It is just time consuming. Manor lords will do some things even better than Total war and it's focus will be something what is missing from Total War with the small city management and building, and individual soldier customisation. So until a new medieval TW I'm mostly excited about manor lords.
What a joke.
Manor Lords looks like an ok game overall, but I bet that it'll be like 90% management simulator and only like 10% battles.
@@chubbyninja89 Yes. So it's not instead TW but more interesting than anything TW talked about recently.
@@bendeguzvarga816
Except not really.
Like I said, it's going to be like 90% building everything up and the battles probably won't be any better than the recent TW games.
Also.
People like you need to get off their high horses and stop blinding yourselves with nostalgia and accept that the more "modern" TW games have added a lot.
@@chubbyninja89 So if the animations are not realistoc and it doesn't stick to history or doesn't make a fantasy life like I'm not playing it. I don't want to see a bunch of over exposured soldiers eith oversized weapons do some slashing dashing. I want realistic animations, longer battles where strategy matters. Not like Troy or Pharaoh.
@@bendeguzvarga816
Oh do shut up with this stupid whining and nit picking.
You're pretty much trying to complain about something like Warhammer for being a fantasy setting, which is incredibly stupid in and of itself. You might as well complain about the Romans having powerful infantry units.
You're just being a whiny moron at that point.
The animations you whine over are such a small meaningless thing at the end of the day.
Yeah, I would like battles to be longer and such, but what fools like you want is for things to just get slowed down and end up going at a snail's pace.
But the biggest problem with people like you is that you've blinded yourself with nostalgia and blind hate for the people who made these games, which doesn't help anything in the end.
I don't ever play games with mods to be honest. I cycle between m2, Atilla and 3k mostly as those are my favourites.
Recently picked up Empire and Napoleon on sale, haven't played yet! Rome > 2100 hrs., Rome 2 > 9000 hrs., Medieval 2 > 3700 hrs. Attila > 1200 hrs. Enough said !!
Does bro even have a social life?💀
no, its overrated lol@@lollius88
As if my thoughts made a youtube video.
Empire TW atrocious turn times
Not unless there's something wrong with your system, or you have the Ottoman end turn bug for example.
THEY STILL ON TOP XD but this TOP IS NOT REAL WIN this time.
Talking about Napoleon and the older games for the most part here :)
To be honest, I fucking hate CA and total war, not the games but the franchise as an enterprise. I don't care who it is, but if anyone were to present a competitor to Total War, I would blindly and immediately jump on the opportunity to stick it to the creative assembly.
For me, a competitor doesn't need to beat or even match TW, it merely needs to exist, being an alternative is the only selling point it needs. This single-IP genre NEEDS competition, and it falls on us consumers to support or at least spread the word on any alternative if it were to appear.
There are attempts.
Few people jump ship.
It'd be fun if you could stop shilling for Creative Assembly.
It'd be fun if you could make a coherent argument that's not based on mindless hate and childishness, and if you'd not froth at the mouth at people talking about the games they love for 5 damn seconds.
More like Andy's SHILL
Shill = enjoying games apparently
I've tried, but I'm just not interested much in gunpowder warfare. Still waiting for medieval 3.
And I'm almost certainly in the minority, but I prefer the vibrancy of medieval 2 to more modern games. The more gritty look (Atilla is the worst offender) makes it hard for me to see. Everything looks like a jumbled mess and once melee begins it's hard to distinguish t the units from one another. Blame my aging eyes, but I prefer things brighter.
Anyhoo, just my 2¢
Total war battles are ugly as hell and the engine is clearly ancient and creaky. This creator has such low standards. Literally play anything else.
Total War sucks. Graphics/initial spectacle are good, that's about it.
Medieval 2 is always in my top 5... and i play it weelly for sure.
Warhammer 3 is the only warhammer i one i own.... and i find it to be trash and worth only a few minutes of time