I'll still play the hell out of Dragon Age Total War once we're released :) old TW titles are still 10/10 💖Support my Channel💖via czcams.com/channels/bBednupiT5DXrzZWjjnKtQ.htmljoin or donate to the cause (flip CZcams the finger & support the channel) via paypal.me/SoulDonation 🍺 + you can join my Discord via discord.com/invite/XBuK6tCAB7 for updates & random pics of my pets.
Great Video and as a pass tinkering mod guy I cannot agree more about the engine, however I hear a lot of hate to the programmers front line guys/girls etc but its the Brand management team who are the problem and in control off wants going on legend and Voland have more information on this then I can give here. make sure we direct the problem at the right people not the ones who are losing there jobs front line staff.
@@Foul-TemperedRodent It's only ever sensible to direct fault at those calling the shots, obviously; it's hardly the average ground-floor worker that's to fault - almost always the big-shot corpos who only speak the language of "money" and haven't played a video game in their lives yet alone know (or care) what the fans want - that's just the sad state of AAA gaming these days :(
@SoulGamesInc you may have said this somewhere and I can't remember was sitting here smoking and remembered you guys are working on dragon age is it gonna be on moddb
@@trickyfoxx6941 DATW's Moddn can be found in the discription of this video :) as well as our Discord link; that's where most of ghe progress is shown atm
Personally, I still have Rome 2 installed because of the modding community, I also play TWW2 heavily modded because it's the only way I find it palatable.
ive talked to ex-CA and they admitted to me that the whole point of "saga" games is that they are performing a branding exercise to get people used to buying *extremely cheap* to produce total war games at full-game-price (and with pharaoh, they went from the 30-40 dollars straight up to full AAA 60 dollar point). thrones of britannia was the first one where they deliberately did this and that game was jack lusteds vision (jack lusted as in the mid 00s modder behind "Terrae Expugnandae", who became a full employee at CA. thrones of britannia was him calling all of the shots and that was a tiny game, 20 people working on it AT MOST. you can see now what happened. they brought in a modder that was making mods for people to play for free, and had him make in-house mods which they would then brand (Ias saga games) and sell them. the public-facing reason for "saga" games is that they are a "focused and precise point in geography and time", but the internal reason clearly that they are just so fucking cheap and its another shiny new thing for people to buy, and with troy and pharaoh you see them tapping into the troy movie and the mummy movies etc. slash and burn approach to settings. DLC pipeline approach to games.
Mhmm, I believe it, like I say in the video the Saga titles are the most egregious examples of them selling paid mods that real modders would've made for free (and better) had they the freedom we once had to mod the game(s). CA has crippled modders so that they themselves can release quick easy cheap content as DLC or full releases, that otherwise would've been free Mods; I've been saying this for Yeeears haha
yep im just commenting to give you credit for ostensibly being so on the ball and apparently having been for so long. welcome to the club lol. its a rarity somehow. so much of this stuff should be obvious but youtube is just packed to the rafters with shills that are either stockholm syndromed into being blinkered, or else are just outright grifting and pretending otherwise (latter for most of them). its the mapping of CAs internal decisionmaking and thought-processes to what we see on the outside thats so interesting to me. i think you are totally right btw about why they arent doing a medieval 3 and instead fuck about with all of this fantasy shite (40k is next) and egypt/troy crap. with warhammer, you have a NEW fanbase and a NEW setting. if they make a medieval 3 then then have the OLD audience with expectations and they have the OLD games where you unlock factions by beating them on the campaign map. the juxtapositions this would result in for CA would be absolutely lethal. people uploading "MEDIEVAL 3 SOON???" videos are, unfortunately, actually just that naive. @@SoulGamesInc
Total War has always had its shills, back when I used to do TW 24/7 on this channel I'd spoken to a lot of big names, much larger CZcamsrs than Me, one or two Ex-Staff of CA via TWC back when they frequented the site plus the guys who used to run TWC - I've a hundred stories of CA/SEGA blacklisting anyone who dared to speak out or disagree with them etc. I can't really say how it is These days as I stopped paying attention ha, but back in the day, many CZcamsrs agreed with me but where far too afraid to do so openly for fear of repercussions.
And to think.. I would never have found out if CA hadn't sold me Total Warhammer for $12... Only for me to keep asking "where's the depth, richness, and fun that kept me glued to the Crusader Kings III tutorial..?"
Big up the 1212AD Medieval Kingdoms Mod for Atilla, who battle against the engine on a daily basis to make the Medieval 3 we've been begging for over the last few years.
@DillsyYourDaddy67 Modders are ever the lifeblood of TotalWar (and most games tbh) even in these trying times; hence why CA was dead to me the second they went for Mods with a hammer, that's a line I don't tolerate crossing - greedy corpo scum :(
Just played Medieval Kingdoms 1212ad and it got me hooked! I never thought I would open that damn game again (atilla) since it was launched 8 years ago but, I was bored last weekend and was randomly checking totalwar youtube channels coz of the latest CA fiasco and found out about the mod. And man it rocks! Edit: I also added some other mods like Performance Maker for massive battles, Pikes ready in your hands, and the Realistic Battle Pack(a combination of a few mods)...and man it feels like a new TW game...like a real medieval 3
@@RD-kq3ml All this TW chatter has got me in the mood to return to some mods too, won't lie; thankfully the dumpster fire aside we can always return to older gems - now all I need is the free time to add something to my pile of tasks heh
Pharao is so DOA that is has already dropped below 1000 players for a little bit today (monday 23th of October) TWO WEEKS after launch! It's both hilarious and sad at the same time....
And that doesn't count all of us still using the Disk copies of Med2 🤣 It's still popular because of the mods and CA wanted that whole pie for themselves :) I've been saying it for years; they've been scummy for a loooong time
Yep, still plugging away at Medieval 2. Have completed it every which way possible, and still come back over and over again to try something new and stupid (like invading the Papacy as Portugal's first gambit 😅)
@@stephenschenider4007they funnelled 100mil to a game that never saw the light of day, voluntarily killed their most successful launch to date and fucked up their cash cow dlc for warhammer Meanwhile historical fans just watch on the sidelines 10/10
@@LiewLmaothe people that Volound talked to suggested otherwise - CA is apparently very profitable... i sincerely hope that they will feel the heat and are forced to change but it seems hopeless tbh
I never hold out hope for any AAA company to learn from mistakes, they usually just double-down and further monetization, more cookie-cutter DLC, more cut content resold, more bla bla etc etc same old story we've seen a thousand times before. We can always hope, but I always recommend nobody hold their breath ha
@@SoulGamesInc Your absolutely right of course.. nothing short of bankruptcy will change their course, if even that lol. i've given up on TW a long time ago anyway but this pharao controversy seemed entertaining at first
As someone who followed the modding scene since the first medieval, you are spot on! Remember when they told us that they couldn't release modding tools because they didn't own the proprietary rights to the engine? What a load of crap. It was all about the money.
Yep, it's no coincidence - anyone that has been paying attention can see the reality; thankfully people seem to be waking up to that. I used to have my finger very much on the pulse back in the day (I'm ooooold school Tw CZcamsr heh) and I knew a lot of bigger CZcamsrs than myself back then that had their issues with CA but were too afraid of getting blacklisted to speak up. I'm glad to see that curtain is finally lifting :) just sad it's probably not going to change a damn thing for CA ha
It's about time! I saw the writing on the wall at Rome 2 and had a mod called maffs playable factions that unlocked quite a few factions that CA ended up releasing as dlc and the harassment and threats that dude got from them to take his mod down made him quit all his mods which I had heavily enjoyed as he had the most realistic Persian immortals when everyone else was copying that movie 300. They want full control of everything even if it ruins their game and thanks to crap like that and the same behavior in Attila made Atilla the last game I ever bought from CA.
@@kapitankapital6580 good dlc would be expansions, not some faction or legendary lord that should have been in the game from the start. Stop saying we, you can only speak for yourself.
I likely won't stick around, but I want to tell you to keep up the work on the Dragon Age mod. Looks awesome, I just wish that the CA that made a game that allows that creation still existed.
Also, prior to the launch of Rtw2 they declared there will be no modding. The backlash was very intense. Great and very noteworthy insights about Medieval 3 and ahh how blind most are or have been. Great vid!
How you say the Creative Assembly we knew and loved is dead makes me think about how us Jak and Daxter player feel about Naughty Dogs. Half of us expect that if they make a new Jak game, we'd get a disappointing game
The last TW I bought was Atilla, and only because I wanted 1212 AD; and only because it was on sale for $20. God bless the modders. God bless MTW2. God bless...you get the point.
just discovered your channel with this video and I am in some deep fucking love. I hope one day we see the revival of the games we loved in a technologically advanced way but corporations has to buy their owners an extra car and some skittles I guess
Extremely depressing but even as a massive TW Warhammer fan, the sheer souless existence of Hyenas and lackluster sagas, I have to agree with you, having also played TW since Rome 1.. especially seeing how Hyenas took so many resources and revenue that should have been invested in TW but was blown away.. I feel disgusted having so much money I've spent probably been spent there instead of TW.
I remember exactly when CA started its anti consumer practices, there was a dev interview about emire, right before it launched. And one of the devs said that they have made modding the game purpuously harder because they didn't want people to modify the game.
Everything you said is 100% true. I played most of the games and stoped after warhammer 2. I was a hardcore fan but it was too much. Everytime I see Blood and gore DLC I want to kill myself
SEGA's predatory grin first appeared in the Alexander addon for Rome 1. It was a failure that forced corporate bosses to abandon their plans, but only for a while. The second time they tried it was at the peak of popularity in Shogun 2 with the help of faction packs. And this time it worked. Since then, CA began to go downhill, replacing quality with quantity, abandoning mechanics and introducing a lot of paid DLC.
Truly hit the nail on the head for me... I started with the original Total War all the way through to Rome 2 ...The thing that shocked me I LOVED FOS likely my favourite TW of all time and to go from that to Rome 2... although in hindsight a game that isn't mentioned much is TW Warpath that really was a glimpse into the future of TW. As for Medieval 3 I think there is more chance of me setting up a crowdfunding site with zero game developing experience than there is of CA releasing anything approaching it... Maybe something like Total War Crusades, but a full M3 not a chance in hell.
I am afraid this is the current ecosystem of the gaming industry nowadays. Even though this felt as a rant than anything else, is evident you are (were?) passionate about this series like many of us, spot on. In regards to TW being subjectively dead, I think the vacuum they left on the historical side could be filled by indie or perhaps open source projects. There is an opportunity to revamp this side of GS genre, but we have to wait and see who will kick off things. Been watching you for a quite a while, prolly 2017, keep up the work. All the best.
Oh it's certainly fair to consider this a rant, I just try to rant with an amusing flare :) ultimately I've kept fairly quiet on the state of CA/SEGA/Total War for many years but since everyone else is "suddenly" taking issue; I was just "hold up, I've known this for years" and decided to do this very spur of the moment. You're right also it's the current state of the industry, we could apply the same complaints about corpo greed to a Lot of companies these days sadly...
@@SoulGamesInc The vid content is justified enough. I think for us - historical vets, we've seen the CA circus with the clown car heading for other "unchartered" subgenres and knew how f*cked things were. Now the fantasy playerbase is slowly realising what we've seen since Rome 2 release flop in 2013. At this point, I think it's best for us to either move on or shift our frustration into a more lighter avenue and potentially fund a project with features etc, we'd want to see. A sort off a project of the community, by the community, for the community (had a bit of inspiration if this last part looks similar 🤣). But yeah, f*ck the corpo greed.
I moved on personally hence we've not seen TW on the channel in years. There have been some alternatives creeping out of the shadows in recent years; but they've not gotten traction - lower budgets and no brand recognition. CK has similar issues with its monopoly on the genre with no real competition. Knights of Honor 2 Sovereign is worth a look, but otherwise... we've very few competing options that haven't flopped... and most Indie devs don't have the budget/are too afraid to take on a titan like CA/SEGA... bloody corpo scum lol...
@@SoulGamesIncSpeaking as a "senior citizen", we've known since 2013. After the glory that were Shogun 2 battles, it only took loading the first Rome 2 battle and we knew in an instant. As for the videogame ecosystem, both Larian and FromSoftware went through that like napalm. I believe that Baldur's Gate 3 being the same price as a shitty Warhammer 3 DLC was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I feel like a damn senior citizen talking about this stuff it's very "back in my day" feeling ha I dropped TotalWar as a lost cause after Attila but Rome2 was where it really hit me - because I was SO hyped for that game since Rome1 was my intro into the franchise :( haven't been that hyped about any game since... except maybe BG3... but that wasn't blind hype so much as I Knew it was going to be excellent since I'd played 100's of hours in early access already.
Should have done, Total War: Pike and Shot. Set during the 30 years war. Much more potential for religious mechanics. Also an interesting tech tree conisdering how combat developed especially firearms.
@@bobmanton_fh9hv Totally having something like first the matchlock and then researching the flintlock, inbetween could be the wheellock. @ignaciolopecastillo Going to check it out
@@etienne8110 Yeah we're talking a complete stripping down and redoing of what has been the entire culture of CA for years now if you want real change - that's no small undertaking and would require CA actually learning a lesson. They literally never learn.
Great vid! It's good to get this off your chest. CA is certainly frustrating. I always wondered why they keep stalling to release Medieval 3... I understand that CA are no longer using the term "saga' to describe games. Pharoah is no doubt Troy with a new coat of paint. I wish they would just do the right thing for once and give the fans what we want!
I hadn't thought about that being the reason for no Medieval III, but it makes perfect sense. They could still do Mongol, Ottoman and Crusades expansions, but not the slow drip of overpriced heroes and factions.
Now with that attitude. If you abandon your morals there’s plenty of money to milk out of this franchise. Just cut the game in half and sell it as dlc. Add in dozens of new heroes into Medieval 3 as day 1 paid dlc. Etc etc etc evil business practices
I've never played total war games. Not that they didn't interested me, but at that point in my life i was too busy working myself to undeath. So when i've first saw the Total War Warhammer 2 review from Mandalore i though "huh, that's a neat game, i wonder if i..." And then i've saw the pricing and the amount of DLCs (and their nature). My first reaction was "Why in the ever-living hell would ANY playerbase let devs ride themselves like that?". I guess now i know.
I think a lot of people (including me) just weren't all in on Total War until Warhammer. The trajectory is a lot less obvious when your only exposure is just playing Total War: Warhammer. And their Warhammer fans are legion, they basically tapped into a whole new playerbase. So when you ask "Have you not been paying attention?", the answer is no, they haven't. They weren't even here.
100% tw is tw warhammer thats what this franchise is for Mr and a lot of others. Already had an rts in age if empires. Not to say I haven't goe back and tried some of the older stuff but warhammer is the setting I care to play. I could seeing lord of the rings being huge though.
Medieval 2 TW already has massive Lord of the Rings mods. If CA weren't so anti-modder you'd have Lotr mods for Warhammer already finished and freely available too :P
I'm going to be playing the living daylights out of that ! I already play TA/DAC Call of Warhammer, Warcraft TW, Elder Scrolls, Thera and Faerun TW . @@SoulGamesInc
bring back the modding community and the players will return. Modding solves many of the complaints that players have and allows so much more content. Also WW2 total war will introduce a massive new influx of players to the genre.
I start the series with the original Shogun. My 13 year old me loved this game so much and had a blast with Medieval,Rome,Medival 2 and Empire. Still loved Shogun 2 but for me that was the last game i was really hyped about. Had still a lot of fun with Rome 2 but that was the last total war game, i really was a fan of. I moved on but still play the old games from time to time. I
Okay, I'll be honest, this is the first time I see your channel and this is the first time I learn that THERE IS A DRAGON AGE MOD FOR TOTAL WAR! I grew up with both franchises and I am infinitely grateful to you for your work, pls continue and do not let these idiots who currently run TW franchise discorage you
I am totally not using this CA drama to plug our project to the masses :) Links in the video description if you're interested; we're still working on it but aren't "too far" off a release now. It's basically just Me and Octavious but we've put a lot of time into it - especially Him of late ha
I've been made aware, is good news, but early days and no less outrageous to me it has taken YEARS to make any ground against CA's blocking; it never should've been an issue in the first place and doesn't change what they're intentions.
I dunno man, the idea that they can't get away with France and Germany being DLC for a theoretical Medieval 3, or a lack of mod support will in any way affect their decisions, seems optimistic. They're pretty nakedly open to trying anything for money. The question is, how much longer it will continue to yield a profit.
eh it wouldn't surprise me too much but that's Bethesda levels of fan zealously ignoring exploitation 🤣 TW doesn't have the same level of blindless amongst its fanbase; they could Try but it would spell the end of a lot of peoples tolerance I feel - clearly Pharaoh has already opened a lot of eyes
I haven't bought a total war game since 2018. Sad to see the franchise die. Hopefully they can create something good in the next few years, or hopefully someone else will.
I havent been paying attention because I only bought newer total war games recently. I was stucked with shogun 2 below games and enjoyed it. Away from the drama.
eh I've seen the mess since 2013 and kept out of the drama, took me until Now to bother having a laugh about the situation - by all means - smartest thing imo is to do exactly that; enjoy the older titles and don't concern yourself with the sorry state of things you can't change haha
Gotta draw a line somewhere - doesn't matter where, so long as its drawn - or these companies will walk over us forever :) they only ever get bolder the longer people ignore the issues
Something very similar is going on at paradox, with the latest victoria 3 release. They released an unfinished game for a full price, and now are truing to sell the rest of the game in dlc. Most irritating are the shills, and the corporate greed defenders.
Paradox normally get a bit of a pass from me due to their frequent sales and Modder freedom; but holy hell have you seen that Star Trek game they've released that's just a copy&paste of Stellaris? No excusing that. It's just a mod.
I havent bought a new total war since I saw how the "all factions unlocked mod" which I used all the time, got deleted from the rome 2 workshop and replaced by dlc.
I always wondered why no one is using wwarhammer games to create a historical mod with the new pretty maps and stuff. So that's the reason. I've heard the Dawnless Days team have cracked the code to map edit. Would that be a big change for future of modding?
The news around having "cracked the code" is unfortunately very hyped up and largely exaggerated, to my knowledge (I don't pay total attention as I'm beyond done with CA) some modders have managed more freedom to edit Existing maps; but create Whole New maps from scratch is still impossible - the freedom of earlier titles is still beyond us :(
@@zackzebedi561 I could be out of date, so I always encourage doing your own research :) but last I saw, there's a lot of hype and false assumptions for what is still leagues from the creative freedom we modders once had etc
@@SoulGamesInc I'm still waiting for the dawnless team release their tool for map edit to see what others think about it cause I don't know anything about these stuff
Holy crap I had no clue the modding scene for medieval 2 was so expansive. I only started playing total war with warhammer. I love the idea of modding and when there are total conversion mods ( Prohphecy of Pendor and alot of mount and blade mods). But it was always in my head as too why total war warhammer didn't have more mods that completely change the game. Holy crap.
That is a project I worked on briefly called Westeros Total War :) Here's the link: www.moddb.com/mods/westeros-total-war we never did "finish" the project, because most of the team quit and one fellow blackmailed the leader to release it unfinished and that kinda killed our spirit to continue... but its mostly finished :D Enjoy
@@SoulGamesInc omg, thanks for answering, i love all you're let's plays and content in general and honesty ahaha I thought it had been finished, I saw your videos about that mod, and editing the map a long time ago, to bad it never got finished it looked awesome trully, specially the map ahaha Sorry for the English, I'm Portuguese.
It was "declared" finished at gunpoint, but privately it never was and just got released half-baked and abandoned. I might do a video telling the story of its development sometime :)
@@SoulGamesInc ohh too bad, it looked very nice, the rosters looked awsome, I don't like when the mods about westeros use the show units style, I prefer the books armor styles. And the map looked awsome, with the big rivers. A video about that would be great, it's cool to see how moding is done, and the interaction between moders. Keep up the good stuff, I always enjoy watching your content, i've seen almost all your let's plays on westeros total war and co-op, i meen the whole play list not just the first episodes ahaha Again thanks for answering, and for your honest opinions and keep it real atitude ahaha I'll keep an eye out for dragon age total war looks awsome too. All the best :)
I didn't have much interest in TW until Warhammer (2), but I grew up with my brother playing them since Shogun. Even with an ADHD-impaired attention span I know I would've enjoyed a lot of the mechanics from what little I've seen of the older games - Rome and Medieval 2 in particular. Being able to make an army without a general/lord, being able to purchase garrison units and scale them as you please (within soft limits), instead of the prescribed, weak ones you get with the settlement and defense buildings; each settlement being its own fully-fledged city and territory instead of the province system, unit formations, the fact that two units fighting one another wasn't just a series of 80 1v1s taking place in the same spot. Probably a lot more I'm not aware of.
Imagine a studio that would only focus on creating a solid base for modders to do the rest, and only focus on improving the foundation and mod tools when updating the game
That's the dream, tbh however I'd be thrilled if we could just manage to crack Med2's hardcoded limits... then the wonders I could craft without the caps... oh the damn wonders...
you are talking basically for Bethesda. They make a crappy game that requires 2-3 years from modders to make the game actually playable and challenging. Skyrim perhaps is the most modded game on the market currently.
@@Edge50199 Talking "for" Bethesda? I don't grasp your point - I've been highly critical of Bethesda in the past multiple times; their situation is entirely separate from CAs and isn't all that relevant here. Bethesda rely on Modders while CA cripple them. These approaches are both wrong. Bethesda releases crap and waits for others to fix and improve it while CA releases crap, lets others fix it, but doesn't let them Improve it.
Um, you mean the Julli one at the start? It was.... mmmm... steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2285136146&searchtext=rome+1 This? Maybe? It was many Many years ago so I'm not certain, but check the Steam Workshop :)
I love ToB. The setting, sound design, UN it design, and mechanics are very fun to me. I give it a week of playtime a year since I’ve gotten it. I’ll never buy WH3 or pharaoh. Even if they were 95% off with the “full edition”. DAC is my all time favorite overhaul for Med2, Elder Scrolls after that. It is a shame really, a disgusting gut wrenching shame to say that I agree that the TW we needs fell in love with in our early childhood is dead. 4th grade with Rome 1 for me
Thank you for shinning the light over creative assembly and how they have been corrupted by Sega. I have known for years now since Warhammer 2 got released and that it was just a prettier and shinnier warhammer 1 with mechanics that should have been in Warhammer 1. The team is to small for the amount of money they make and the content doesn't match the price tag. Many Total War fans have been so loyal to them and put up for to many years with Sega's bull just because we still had hope that they would come back to us and update the engine and make it mod friendly for the public because that is what draws people in to buy the game because some geek somewhere saw a video of a mod of his favourite fantasy world be it warcraft or lord of the rings and just buaght the game to play that mod. The player count today shows exactly that. I also know that Creative assembly has lots so so many fans the last Warhammer DLC and now even more after Pharaoh dropped because ultimately people are not collectively stupid Sega especially us geeks, nerds, historians, modders and henti lovers(jk) and we will stop buying your games because there are so many other game companies that are doing a better job with their IP's and we could always just start buying and supporting other companies that make games similar to Total war. The only way Creative will ever see me buy any content from them again is if they change their business practices, build a new engene from the ground up, focus on one game that will bring balance to the force such as medieval 3 or shogun 3, make it more real, dark and gory like war is, have mechanics that are general to all factions that isn't complex and not annoying like Pharaoh's where there are to many, stop working on dumb fudging ideas like Hyenas my god that was so shiet trying to appeal to woke idiots. You have history freaks playing your games that want a mix between history because its cool and arcade because its fun. Fantacy does bring in the money but if they mess up the campaign like in Warhammer 3 then people think twice before preordering or buying it in the first place, then maybe if they lucky they will buy it on sale at 60% off because that's what its worth. Total war left a sour taste in my mouth and they going to have to take us out fine dinning if they don't want to go bankrupt and lose their special Total war IP.
As a diehard Total War fan who got started with Rome as well, I must say, I kind of dropped out after Empire, even though I liked the concept a lot... saw the atrocity that was Rome II at launch and afterwards, never touched it or anything afterwards except when Shogun II got given away on Steam. Found it surprisingly ok, but still a far cry from Medieval II, which even in vanilla is simply the best the series has ever been, even if it comes across somewhat aged. Especially the Third Age and Europa Barbarorum II mods are so mind-boggingly ambitious that they just shame CA.
@@SoulGamesInc I will certainly stay updated. I must confess I know next to nothing about the Dragon Age lore, but seeing the work you put in to the map, the custom settlements and unit models, I really want to try it out at release!
Pharoah is actually quite good once you get deeper into the story on my 100th turn and enjoying it. However the mechanics haven’t changed it’s just a reskin of Troy
The main complaint is just that, it's a full priced reskin of Troy and Troy was at its core a reskin in of itself but was at least cheaper. Pharoah is just another "Saga" title but they've ditched the Saga part and released it for full price in light of their recent massive financial blunders. My fundamental issue is with CA itself and stems from them crippling modders, then releasing content we'd have gotten for free (and of higher quality) had they not screwed over modders.
I was so hyped for Rome 2 as well at the time, probably one of the last AAA titles I recall getting properly "hyped" about; ended up going back to playing the Roma Surrectum mod for Rome1 :D
TWW was the last great TW for me, as it basically made possible a true version of Call of Warhammer possible. not a coincidence I stopped buying historical once TWW finally came out. It was far more functional than I thought it would be. Now that TWW has all avenues of modding now available to it (apart from fundamental AI aspects, yet...), honestly I'm going to find it pretty hard to care about what CA makes anymore. It helped to always have a calm yet detached view that CA execs hate their customers and would drop TW in an instant if it meant a promotion for them.
I still enjoy the older titles and often come back to games like medieval 2, shogun 2, Napoleon or Rome 2, but nothing newer than that. I hope CA will one day return to making good and interesting games...
Yeah. I too dropped off and stopped caring in 2013. I was mildly interested in Three Kingdoms though and actually got it as a gift from someone. So that was nice:) But I played the game for 26 hours and was done with it despite it having some very good aspects to it, which I want to se expanded and refined. But the game as a whole was just lacking something and I went back to Rome, Medieval 2 and Shogun 2.
Well actually there are great LOTR mod projects for Attila & Shogun 2 for example (including the campaign map). I agree about the points made in the video though
I'm aware yeah, people are managing to blunt-force their way into the code; but it's still pathetic that its as difficult and tedious as it is - by design - otherwise you'd have those mods finished and done years ago; fact is the way Warscape is designed it Cripples modders out of the gate :( those projects? They're crawling, because CA won't let them run.
@@SoulGamesInc absolutely. It's worth mentioning though that modders have cracked the campaign map and such mods are possible. I'm a modder myself (both warscape and OG TW)
@@georgimihalkov9678 I'm out of the loop (I've stuck to making my map of Thedas for years with little interest for anything else) so I don't know the extent - only that people are working on it - so if you can make whole brand new maps from scratch with the same Med2 freedom that's great to hear and its gone better than I hoped :) last I heard it was only Existing land/maps. Regardless, it's still ludicrous that its taken this long to do something that should've never been such a massive hurdle.
@@SoulGamesInc You can change the map in Attila, although there is a hardcoded settlement limit of 256. Check the 1212AD mod and the Dawnless days LOTR mod
@@georgimihalkov9678 Yeah the cap is unfortunate but still better than the 199 region cap I'm stuck with in Med2 heh - still nice to see people are finally brute-forcing their way past Warscapes nonsense
Westeros Total War, a project I worked on eons ago. Here you go: www.moddb.com/mods/westeros-total-war It was never entirely finished due to drama amongst the team but it's playable :)
@@jeck988 Heh heh, funny story, we "released" it because one fellow put a gun to the lead's head and released the mod without permission while threatening to demand all his work removed - so it was "released" as 1.0 but it was never actually finished. What is called 1.0 is basically an unfinished Beta :D after the blackmail drama the team just gave up lol
@@SoulGamesInc ouch that makes since was super hyped for 1.0 too back in the day playing rivers and hills and the other sub mods keeping an eye on the previews, that’s disappointing ah well thanks man!
Well said my friend as Modder for Total War Warhammer Series I don't scared by " Smoll indie kompanie" since I do their Stuff for them and they don't respect us
For me the worst was when I buyed the warhammer 3 game but I only had available 4 factions to play, because in order to have the full game unlocked I had to own the previos Warhammer 1 and 2 games. I promise that was the last time I payed money for a total war game.
Been here since Shogun2001. Played Medieval and then medieval Viking invasion to death. I remember playing those games on the crappy family dell computer. That’s right CA was making games for people who only had intel and dells and we still got to play total war. For years though my computer couldn’t handle Medieval 2 🤣 I know right! My computer was too weak to handle medieval 2 now that shit can run on iPads lolz 😂. I remember being able to execute prisoners after a battle in medieval just the whole aesthetic the entire experience was peak of my childhood
I am gonna be honest its not the DLC that bothers me so much, its the quality of the releases. If its good content I don’t mind. The last one was bullshit, but others were very good. You can certainly see the company is on it’s last legs though. Pharoah never should have been announced, Hyena was probably one of the dumbest choices a company could have made. They obviously hired some absolute clowns and fired the good ones.
See, there's mods out there I'd pay money to play - being a mod doesn't make something bad - it's indeed the QUALITY of the thing that's the root cause of disgust; and CA's made a lot of poor quality decisions for a long time now unfortunately. The little things aren't too egregious on their own, it's simply when added together they become of note imo - if a machine isn't working you have to look at all the gears, so to speak :)
I fell, absolutely rotten to the core for the money spent on Total Warhammer, main game and DLC. Didn't know CAs history at the time, if I had... Maybe that could have saved meca lot of anger, annoyance and sadness over the lost potential that just KEPT being squandered with every fucking patch... It really becameca feeling of "Oh yea! This patch will fix the game!" To obviously not fix it... To even go on to say "we fixed something" which clearly wasn't fixed at all... My only comfort is that I bought none of them, except Warhammer III base game at heavy discounts. And I WILL NOT touch the Shadows of Change until CA clears up their fucking act or die trying, and it is on a minimum 80% discount. I can only imagine the sad state of historical total wars as last decade or more, and be met with this shit... I for one, have no interest in the historical, I love my fantasy setting. But I feel the pain of the original fans who have been shit on since forever...
Remember Grand campaign mod when they just asked CA if they could port kingdoms features to the main campaign and they were cool with it? What happened to those days?
Company changed, I vaguely recall around the end of Med2 they did a total reshuffle; it's honestly not the same people as it was back in the day - might as well just call them SEGA ha
They ( CA ) were even banning modders on steam last week which apparently prevents them from being able to update their own mods. Some of the bans have been lifted.
I understand your entire point. I don't enjoy the nickel & diming of the their modern approach, but the BIGGEST problem for me isn't that I have to buy factions, or buy small form TW games, it's that those games don't fix any of the issues that are present in the engine. They're not making the engine handle melee combat lines any better, or fixing pull-through bugs, or AI army structure, they're not adding depth, complexity and intrigue to the turn-based map, they're not deep diving into factions to give me varied unit rosters (both in ability, and visuals) between cultures, and delving into how to make different factions fight differently. All the combat and unit design is barrelling down the path of min/max, simple 'this unit beats that unit because of a set of combat modifiers', which only ever benefits doomstacking. Using Thrones of Britannia as an example, the art for the overmap, and the map overlay was great, interesting style, cool icons, really good, but then the actual map of the game looked like any other TW title. They didn't really lean into it well. The variety of units, wasn't amazing, but there were some cool designs and limited rosters (which is a good thing for culture differentiation)... but then there was nearly no difference to how any faction played, melee combat was still buggy. I didn't mind the smaller focus, and I was happy to pay for a GOOD update to a Viking era British Isles game... except... it really wasn't. You essentially were railroaded into playing exactly the same way, whether you were a welsh kingdom, anglo saxon, or viking, you had no impact on the map except in which colour you wanted to paint it. You couldn't create a heathen Viking kingdom at all, you couldn't destroy churches, or change the nature of certain settlements, which means... it all just felt pointless. It'd be like playing Suebi in Rome 2 and just... staying in the forests of Germany the entire period... because y'know, history. Compare that to Viking invasion, and it's just... a shitshow.
Oh the limitations Gameplay wise and not Modding wise are indeed a whole other video's worth of issues in of itself - those weren't the subject of the video - that would require its own separate thing to cover :) but you're right it's certainly another standard of quality they've dropped the ball on and is a large issue. Thrones of Britannia tho, the issues you have with it are because it's ultimately a mod of Atilla... and a barebones one at that... sure new UI/2D art, but as a 2D artist I confidently tell you I could do all of that for free via Modding :) the reason Thrones doesn't stray from the norm is first and foremost just because its Attila with extra steps. It IS the norm. It's an unimpressive mod with a pricetag.
I'll still play the hell out of Dragon Age Total War once we're released :) old TW titles are still 10/10
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Great Video and as a pass tinkering mod guy I cannot agree more about the engine, however I hear a lot of hate to the programmers front line guys/girls etc but its the Brand management team who are the problem and in control off wants going on legend and Voland have more information on this then I can give here. make sure we direct the problem at the right people not the ones who are losing there jobs front line staff.
@@Foul-TemperedRodent It's only ever sensible to direct fault at those calling the shots, obviously; it's hardly the average ground-floor worker that's to fault - almost always the big-shot corpos who only speak the language of "money" and haven't played a video game in their lives yet alone know (or care) what the fans want - that's just the sad state of AAA gaming these days :(
@SoulGamesInc you may have said this somewhere and I can't remember was sitting here smoking and remembered you guys are working on dragon age is it gonna be on moddb
@@trickyfoxx6941 DATW's Moddn can be found in the discription of this video :) as well as our Discord link; that's where most of ghe progress is shown atm
@@SoulGamesInc cool thank you I'm stoned lol so thanks for replying I was having trouble lmao
Modders literally are the only thing that makes total war games playable these days, thanks to you all!
Personally, I still have Rome 2 installed because of the modding community, I also play TWW2 heavily modded because it's the only way I find it palatable.
@MalakianM2S same right now I'm playing Atilla with the 1212 mods really enjoying it
here here
ive talked to ex-CA and they admitted to me that the whole point of "saga" games is that they are performing a branding exercise to get people used to buying *extremely cheap* to produce total war games at full-game-price (and with pharaoh, they went from the 30-40 dollars straight up to full AAA 60 dollar point). thrones of britannia was the first one where they deliberately did this and that game was jack lusteds vision (jack lusted as in the mid 00s modder behind "Terrae Expugnandae", who became a full employee at CA. thrones of britannia was him calling all of the shots and that was a tiny game, 20 people working on it AT MOST. you can see now what happened. they brought in a modder that was making mods for people to play for free, and had him make in-house mods which they would then brand (Ias saga games) and sell them.
the public-facing reason for "saga" games is that they are a "focused and precise point in geography and time", but the internal reason clearly that they are just so fucking cheap and its another shiny new thing for people to buy, and with troy and pharaoh you see them tapping into the troy movie and the mummy movies etc.
slash and burn approach to settings. DLC pipeline approach to games.
Mhmm, I believe it, like I say in the video the Saga titles are the most egregious examples of them selling paid mods that real modders would've made for free (and better) had they the freedom we once had to mod the game(s). CA has crippled modders so that they themselves can release quick easy cheap content as DLC or full releases, that otherwise would've been free Mods; I've been saying this for Yeeears haha
yep im just commenting to give you credit for ostensibly being so on the ball and apparently having been for so long. welcome to the club lol. its a rarity somehow. so much of this stuff should be obvious but youtube is just packed to the rafters with shills that are either stockholm syndromed into being blinkered, or else are just outright grifting and pretending otherwise (latter for most of them).
its the mapping of CAs internal decisionmaking and thought-processes to what we see on the outside thats so interesting to me. i think you are totally right btw about why they arent doing a medieval 3 and instead fuck about with all of this fantasy shite (40k is next) and egypt/troy crap.
with warhammer, you have a NEW fanbase and a NEW setting. if they make a medieval 3 then then have the OLD audience with expectations and they have the OLD games where you unlock factions by beating them on the campaign map. the juxtapositions this would result in for CA would be absolutely lethal. people uploading "MEDIEVAL 3 SOON???" videos are, unfortunately, actually just that naive. @@SoulGamesInc
Total War has always had its shills, back when I used to do TW 24/7 on this channel I'd spoken to a lot of big names, much larger CZcamsrs than Me, one or two Ex-Staff of CA via TWC back when they frequented the site plus the guys who used to run TWC - I've a hundred stories of CA/SEGA blacklisting anyone who dared to speak out or disagree with them etc.
I can't really say how it is These days as I stopped paying attention ha, but back in the day, many CZcamsrs agreed with me but where far too afraid to do so openly for fear of repercussions.
And to think.. I would never have found out if CA hadn't sold me Total Warhammer for $12... Only for me to keep asking "where's the depth, richness, and fun that kept me glued to the Crusader Kings III tutorial..?"
This sounds like the most trust me bro shit ever loool.
Big up the 1212AD Medieval Kingdoms Mod for Atilla, who battle against the engine on a daily basis to make the Medieval 3 we've been begging for over the last few years.
There are some brave souls out there brute-forcing the engine and all the power to them, its a up-hill battle thanks to CA
@DillsyYourDaddy67 Modders are ever the lifeblood of TotalWar (and most games tbh) even in these trying times; hence why CA was dead to me the second they went for Mods with a hammer, that's a line I don't tolerate crossing - greedy corpo scum :(
They deliberately made the game harder to mod to lessen mods, so people buy their next game 😂😆
Scum
Just played Medieval Kingdoms 1212ad and it got me hooked! I never thought I would open that damn game again (atilla) since it was launched 8 years ago but, I was bored last weekend and was randomly checking totalwar youtube channels coz of the latest CA fiasco and found out about the mod. And man it rocks! Edit: I also added some other mods like Performance Maker for massive battles, Pikes ready in your hands, and the Realistic Battle Pack(a combination of a few mods)...and man it feels like a new TW game...like a real medieval 3
@@RD-kq3ml All this TW chatter has got me in the mood to return to some mods too, won't lie; thankfully the dumpster fire aside we can always return to older gems - now all I need is the free time to add something to my pile of tasks heh
Pharao is so DOA that is has already dropped below 1000 players for a little bit today (monday 23th of October) TWO WEEKS after launch! It's both hilarious and sad at the same time....
Pharaoh is like someone knocking on my door saying "grass is green!" and I just stare blankly at them and reply "duh?"
75% sale for the whole "definitive collection" lesgoooo
@@SoulGamesInc It's been dropping into the 800s so yea I don't see how they make there money back on this game.
There's more people playing Medieval 2 on steam atm hahaha
By steamcharts data, it hasn't even sold 50k copies! If that's not a box office catastrophe, I don't know what is.
medieval 2 has more players than pharaoh....we don t talk enough about how CA shafted the modding scene, even all the way back with darth
And that doesn't count all of us still using the Disk copies of Med2 🤣 It's still popular because of the mods and CA wanted that whole pie for themselves :) I've been saying it for years; they've been scummy for a loooong time
@@SoulGamesInclol I'm a medieval 2 disk user as well 😂
LOL Darths mods were subbar shit haha
@@trickyfoxx6941 It's the only true way to play :D
Yep, still plugging away at Medieval 2. Have completed it every which way possible, and still come back over and over again to try something new and stupid (like invading the Papacy as Portugal's first gambit 😅)
I saw on 4chan that theyre financially bankrupt as well. They earned something like £300 this year.
Damn they are losing money?
@@stephenschenider4007they funnelled 100mil to a game that never saw the light of day, voluntarily killed their most successful launch to date and fucked up their cash cow dlc for warhammer
Meanwhile historical fans just watch on the sidelines
10/10
@@LiewLmaothe people that Volound talked to suggested otherwise - CA is apparently very profitable... i sincerely hope that they will feel the heat and are forced to change but it seems hopeless tbh
I never hold out hope for any AAA company to learn from mistakes, they usually just double-down and further monetization, more cookie-cutter DLC, more cut content resold, more bla bla etc etc same old story we've seen a thousand times before. We can always hope, but I always recommend nobody hold their breath ha
@@SoulGamesInc Your absolutely right of course.. nothing short of bankruptcy will change their course, if even that lol. i've given up on TW a long time ago anyway but this pharao controversy seemed entertaining at first
As someone who followed the modding scene since the first medieval, you are spot on! Remember when they told us that they couldn't release modding tools because they didn't own the proprietary rights to the engine? What a load of crap. It was all about the money.
Yep, it's no coincidence - anyone that has been paying attention can see the reality; thankfully people seem to be waking up to that. I used to have my finger very much on the pulse back in the day (I'm ooooold school Tw CZcamsr heh) and I knew a lot of bigger CZcamsrs than myself back then that had their issues with CA but were too afraid of getting blacklisted to speak up. I'm glad to see that curtain is finally lifting :) just sad it's probably not going to change a damn thing for CA ha
Finally, people are waking up to the egregious and anti-consumer DLC scams that they praised initially.
It's about time! I saw the writing on the wall at Rome 2 and had a mod called maffs playable factions that unlocked quite a few factions that CA ended up releasing as dlc and the harassment and threats that dude got from them to take his mod down made him quit all his mods which I had heavily enjoyed as he had the most realistic Persian immortals when everyone else was copying that movie 300. They want full control of everything even if it ruins their game and thanks to crap like that and the same behavior in Attila made Atilla the last game I ever bought from CA.
Not really. We're fine with paying for good DLC. What we don't want is overpriced garbage like Pharaoh or Shadows of Change.
@@kapitankapital6580instead you want overpriced garbage like warhammer 2 and three kingdoms
@@kapitankapital6580 good dlc would be expansions, not some faction or legendary lord that should have been in the game from the start. Stop saying we, you can only speak for yourself.
@@boynextdoor1951 I speak for the thousands of people who buy these DLCs. Most people don't agree with your standards.
The biggest shock in this video is its been six years since our hotseat 😱
I know right? I fear we've gotten old mate 🤣
I likely won't stick around, but I want to tell you to keep up the work on the Dragon Age mod. Looks awesome, I just wish that the CA that made a game that allows that creation still existed.
Also, prior to the launch of Rtw2 they declared there will be no modding. The backlash was very intense. Great and very noteworthy insights about Medieval 3 and ahh how blind most are or have been. Great vid!
How you say the Creative Assembly we knew and loved is dead makes me think about how us Jak and Daxter player feel about Naughty Dogs. Half of us expect that if they make a new Jak game, we'd get a disappointing game
It's a tale as old as time, the same woes can be applied to many companies/games these days...
Don't know why, they moved on after Crash Bandicoot and Uncharted as well. Though at least those games were good, only the first Jak game was good.
The last TW I bought was Atilla, and only because I wanted 1212 AD; and only because it was on sale for $20.
God bless the modders.
God bless MTW2.
God bless...you get the point.
So no God Bless CA... 🤔 😬😬😬😬😬😬
Mod makers are the glue of the total war community and pretty much all that's left holding it all together right now
I feel for you and all the older Total War veterans. Breaks my fucking heart.
we are hoping for Empire 2 in shogun fots. with the map modding
They’ll probably be bought up or sell off the TW brand
they are owned by Sega already they'll just step in and tighten the leash for a bit
@@derrickmonster95 yes im saying sega will sell it. Microsoft was already interested in buying CA in the past
just discovered your channel with this video and I am in some deep fucking love. I hope one day we see the revival of the games we loved in a technologically advanced way but corporations has to buy their owners an extra car and some skittles I guess
They should give Us skittles with every purchase, that way we'd actually get some value for our money haha
Extremely depressing but even as a massive TW Warhammer fan, the sheer souless existence of Hyenas and lackluster sagas, I have to agree with you, having also played TW since Rome 1.. especially seeing how Hyenas took so many resources and revenue that should have been invested in TW but was blown away.. I feel disgusted having so much money I've spent probably been spent there instead of TW.
Brutally truthful! Thank you Volound for reccomending me this guys channel, subbed.
I remember exactly when CA started its anti consumer practices, there was a dev interview about emire, right before it launched. And one of the devs said that they have made modding the game purpuously harder because they didn't want people to modify the game.
Everything you said is 100% true. I played most of the games and stoped after warhammer 2. I was a hardcore fan but it was too much. Everytime I see Blood and gore DLC I want to kill myself
You can't kill yourself, there's a DLC for that :P
Is Rob Bartholomew fault, fire Rob
Came here from Volound's video.
SEGA's predatory grin first appeared in the Alexander addon for Rome 1. It was a failure that forced corporate bosses to abandon their plans, but only for a while. The second time they tried it was at the peak of popularity in Shogun 2 with the help of faction packs. And this time it worked. Since then, CA began to go downhill, replacing quality with quantity, abandoning mechanics and introducing a lot of paid DLC.
Electonic ARTS and CREATIVE assemble... Their names mean not for what it once stood.
Truly hit the nail on the head for me... I started with the original Total War all the way through to Rome 2 ...The thing that shocked me I LOVED FOS likely my favourite TW of all time and to go from that to Rome 2... although in hindsight a game that isn't mentioned much is TW Warpath that really was a glimpse into the future of TW. As for Medieval 3 I think there is more chance of me setting up a crowdfunding site with zero game developing experience than there is of CA releasing anything approaching it... Maybe something like Total War Crusades, but a full M3 not a chance in hell.
Thank you , seems I was a sleep awhile. So had a good rest. So eager to see what else I can learn enjoy here.
Plenty more to come, I'm nothing short of exceedingly busy with the channel of late :)
I am afraid this is the current ecosystem of the gaming industry nowadays. Even though this felt as a rant than anything else, is evident you are (were?) passionate about this series like many of us, spot on.
In regards to TW being subjectively dead, I think the vacuum they left on the historical side could be filled by indie or perhaps open source projects. There is an opportunity to revamp this side of GS genre, but we have to wait and see who will kick off things.
Been watching you for a quite a while, prolly 2017, keep up the work. All the best.
Oh it's certainly fair to consider this a rant, I just try to rant with an amusing flare :) ultimately I've kept fairly quiet on the state of CA/SEGA/Total War for many years but since everyone else is "suddenly" taking issue; I was just "hold up, I've known this for years" and decided to do this very spur of the moment. You're right also it's the current state of the industry, we could apply the same complaints about corpo greed to a Lot of companies these days sadly...
@@SoulGamesInc The vid content is justified enough. I think for us - historical vets, we've seen the CA circus with the clown car heading for other "unchartered" subgenres and knew how f*cked things were. Now the fantasy playerbase is slowly realising what we've seen since Rome 2 release flop in 2013.
At this point, I think it's best for us to either move on or shift our frustration into a more lighter avenue and potentially fund a project with features etc, we'd want to see. A sort off a project of the community, by the community, for the community (had a bit of inspiration if this last part looks similar 🤣). But yeah, f*ck the corpo greed.
I moved on personally hence we've not seen TW on the channel in years. There have been some alternatives creeping out of the shadows in recent years; but they've not gotten traction - lower budgets and no brand recognition. CK has similar issues with its monopoly on the genre with no real competition. Knights of Honor 2 Sovereign is worth a look, but otherwise... we've very few competing options that haven't flopped... and most Indie devs don't have the budget/are too afraid to take on a titan like CA/SEGA... bloody corpo scum lol...
@@SoulGamesIncSpeaking as a "senior citizen", we've known since 2013. After the glory that were Shogun 2 battles, it only took loading the first Rome 2 battle and we knew in an instant.
As for the videogame ecosystem, both Larian and FromSoftware went through that like napalm. I believe that Baldur's Gate 3 being the same price as a shitty Warhammer 3 DLC was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I feel like a damn senior citizen talking about this stuff it's very "back in my day" feeling ha I dropped TotalWar as a lost cause after Attila but Rome2 was where it really hit me - because I was SO hyped for that game since Rome1 was my intro into the franchise :( haven't been that hyped about any game since... except maybe BG3... but that wasn't blind hype so much as I Knew it was going to be excellent since I'd played 100's of hours in early access already.
The warhammer mod for medieval 2 was great
Broken cresent and stainless Steel are my go to mods. Still play them today.
Man, this was such a good video. Right on the money. Subbed
Thank you for your work and for your opinion! I wish you success and good health!
You know you're doing something right when Volound starts sending his viewers your way.
Should have done, Total War: Pike and Shot. Set during the 30 years war.
Much more potential for religious mechanics. Also an interesting tech tree conisdering how combat developed especially firearms.
Sounds fun to me, but alas; the stuff of dreams heh
Yes starting in 1530 and ending with the invention of the plug bayonet on a map stretching to India to include the three Muslim ‘gunpowder’ empires.
Take a look to "Tercios honor and glory". They are working on it.
@@bobmanton_fh9hv Totally having something like first the matchlock and then researching the flintlock, inbetween could be the wheellock.
@ignaciolopecastillo
Going to check it out
Imagine if they’d put the man hours they spent on Pharoah into Medieval 3
They'd butcher Medieval 3 is my concern, I simply don't even remotely trust the studio to do it justice
Probably would be shyte.
The issue isn t the manpower, it s the management and game design head.
@@etienne8110 Yeah we're talking a complete stripping down and redoing of what has been the entire culture of CA for years now if you want real change - that's no small undertaking and would require CA actually learning a lesson. They literally never learn.
@@SoulGamesInc suits earn money, they aren t here for learning ^^
@@etienne8110 They don't get My money :D
Great vid! It's good to get this off your chest. CA is certainly frustrating. I always wondered why they keep stalling to release Medieval 3... I understand that CA are no longer using the term "saga' to describe games. Pharoah is no doubt Troy with a new coat of paint. I wish they would just do the right thing for once and give the fans what we want!
And yet all this time we've just been waiting for Empire 2 :(
I hadn't thought about that being the reason for no Medieval III, but it makes perfect sense. They could still do Mongol, Ottoman and Crusades expansions, but not the slow drip of overpriced heroes and factions.
Now with that attitude. If you abandon your morals there’s plenty of money to milk out of this franchise. Just cut the game in half and sell it as dlc. Add in dozens of new heroes into Medieval 3 as day 1 paid dlc. Etc etc etc evil business practices
I've never played total war games. Not that they didn't interested me, but at that point in my life i was too busy working myself to undeath.
So when i've first saw the Total War Warhammer 2 review from Mandalore i though "huh, that's a neat game, i wonder if i..."
And then i've saw the pricing and the amount of DLCs (and their nature). My first reaction was "Why in the ever-living hell would ANY playerbase let devs ride themselves like that?".
I guess now i know.
I think a lot of people (including me) just weren't all in on Total War until Warhammer. The trajectory is a lot less obvious when your only exposure is just playing Total War: Warhammer. And their Warhammer fans are legion, they basically tapped into a whole new playerbase. So when you ask "Have you not been paying attention?", the answer is no, they haven't. They weren't even here.
100% tw is tw warhammer thats what this franchise is for Mr and a lot of others. Already had an rts in age if empires. Not to say I haven't goe back and tried some of the older stuff but warhammer is the setting I care to play.
I could seeing lord of the rings being huge though.
Medieval 2 TW already has massive Lord of the Rings mods. If CA weren't so anti-modder you'd have Lotr mods for Warhammer already finished and freely available too :P
That dragon age mod looks good, will try it out and you really articulated how I feel about the TW series since rome 2
DragonAge:TW isn't quite finished yet, we're still working; not far off tho - links in the description if you're interested in previews/news etc :)
@@SoulGamesInc yea just saw after checking mod db. hope to see it soon
@@johnryan3940 We're not too far off; best bet is to join the Discord as we don't update the Moddb too often
I'm going to be playing the living daylights out of that ! I already play TA/DAC Call of Warhammer, Warcraft TW, Elder Scrolls, Thera and Faerun TW . @@SoulGamesInc
bring back the modding community and the players will return. Modding solves many of the complaints that players have and allows so much more content.
Also WW2 total war will introduce a massive new influx of players to the genre.
CA were banning even modders on Steam forums last week, which was preventing them apparently from even updating their mods.
I start the series with the original Shogun. My 13 year old me loved this game so much and had a blast with Medieval,Rome,Medival 2 and Empire. Still loved Shogun 2 but for me that was the last game i was really hyped about. Had still a lot of fun with Rome 2 but that was the last total war game, i really was a fan of. I moved on but still play the old games from time to time. I
Okay, I'll be honest, this is the first time I see your channel and this is the first time I learn that THERE IS A DRAGON AGE MOD FOR TOTAL WAR! I grew up with both franchises and I am infinitely grateful to you for your work, pls continue and do not let these idiots who currently run TW franchise discorage you
I am totally not using this CA drama to plug our project to the masses :) Links in the video description if you're interested; we're still working on it but aren't "too far" off a release now. It's basically just Me and Octavious but we've put a lot of time into it - especially Him of late ha
@@SoulGamesInc oh, I didn't imply that, maybe I worded it poorly due to not being native speaker. I will definitely try this mod out :)
I was being sarcastic ha no worries :D
Actually, modders are breaking through the warscape engine. Somebody figured out how to mod the map.
I've been made aware, is good news, but early days and no less outrageous to me it has taken YEARS to make any ground against CA's blocking; it never should've been an issue in the first place and doesn't change what they're intentions.
@@SoulGamesInc Oh I agree, CA is a joke nowadays. Literal scum.
But even literal scum cannot hold back the creativity of the fans.
I dunno man, the idea that they can't get away with France and Germany being DLC for a theoretical Medieval 3, or a lack of mod support will in any way affect their decisions, seems optimistic. They're pretty nakedly open to trying anything for money. The question is, how much longer it will continue to yield a profit.
eh it wouldn't surprise me too much but that's Bethesda levels of fan zealously ignoring exploitation 🤣 TW doesn't have the same level of blindless amongst its fanbase; they could Try but it would spell the end of a lot of peoples tolerance I feel - clearly Pharaoh has already opened a lot of eyes
@@SoulGamesInc Well, I'm so thick I wrote "Warhammer 3" instead of "Medieval 3", so I guess I'm not one to talk anyway.
@@borat656I understood what you meant so no worries it happens to the best of us, and I'm a damn writer hahaha
The foods that show up to the total war series in 2022 like
“What’s an expansion pack?” 😂
I haven't bought a total war game since 2018. Sad to see the franchise die. Hopefully they can create something good in the next few years, or hopefully someone else will.
If you drop that into r/totalwar - the entire audience there is going to have a collective stroke. "WHAT, THEY WERE BAD EVEN BEFORE PHARAOH?!"
I imagine I'd get wacked/banned immediately ha
I havent been paying attention because I only bought newer total war games recently. I was stucked with shogun 2 below games and enjoyed it. Away from the drama.
eh I've seen the mess since 2013 and kept out of the drama, took me until Now to bother having a laugh about the situation - by all means - smartest thing imo is to do exactly that; enjoy the older titles and don't concern yourself with the sorry state of things you can't change haha
for the me i could not cross the line for buying a blood pack for warhammer total war that was dumb and i lost all interest
Gotta draw a line somewhere - doesn't matter where, so long as its drawn - or these companies will walk over us forever :) they only ever get bolder the longer people ignore the issues
Something very similar is going on at paradox, with the latest victoria 3 release.
They released an unfinished game for a full price, and now are truing to sell the rest of the game in dlc.
Most irritating are the shills, and the corporate greed defenders.
Paradox normally get a bit of a pass from me due to their frequent sales and Modder freedom; but holy hell have you seen that Star Trek game they've released that's just a copy&paste of Stellaris? No excusing that. It's just a mod.
I havent bought a new total war since I saw how the "all factions unlocked mod" which I used all the time, got deleted from the rome 2 workshop and replaced by dlc.
Your mod looks awesome!
It's basically just Me and Octavius but we're close to a release now :) closed Beta testing soon-ish
I always wondered why no one is using wwarhammer games to create a historical mod with the new pretty maps and stuff. So that's the reason. I've heard the Dawnless Days team have cracked the code to map edit. Would that be a big change for future of modding?
The news around having "cracked the code" is unfortunately very hyped up and largely exaggerated, to my knowledge (I don't pay total attention as I'm beyond done with CA) some modders have managed more freedom to edit Existing maps; but create Whole New maps from scratch is still impossible - the freedom of earlier titles is still beyond us :(
@@SoulGamesInc damn that's sad to hear.
@@zackzebedi561 I could be out of date, so I always encourage doing your own research :) but last I saw, there's a lot of hype and false assumptions for what is still leagues from the creative freedom we modders once had etc
@@SoulGamesInc I'm still waiting for the dawnless team release their tool for map edit to see what others think about it cause I don't know anything about these stuff
@@zackzebedi561 We can always hope I'm out of the loop :) would love to be wrong ofc buuut I fear I am not haha - we shall see
Holy crap I had no clue the modding scene for medieval 2 was so expansive. I only started playing total war with warhammer. I love the idea of modding and when there are total conversion mods ( Prohphecy of Pendor and alot of mount and blade mods). But it was always in my head as too why total war warhammer didn't have more mods that completely change the game. Holy crap.
I may do a Top10 recommendations for Med2 mods; some newer TW players do seem to be unaware 🤣 there's so many outstanding mods to try :)
Worthy of at least 2 lists historical/fantasy mods .@@SoulGamesInc
Came here from Volound's channel to watch the full video.
+1
How do I download this dragon age mod?
You don't, we're not finished yet - can check the discord for updates
So depressing, man. And I thought they'd be on a roll after the Warhammer games.
All the Warhammer IP did was make them even greedier unfortunately
Does anyone know the name of the westeros mod at 5:15 thanks.
That is a project I worked on briefly called Westeros Total War :) Here's the link: www.moddb.com/mods/westeros-total-war we never did "finish" the project, because most of the team quit and one fellow blackmailed the leader to release it unfinished and that kinda killed our spirit to continue... but its mostly finished :D Enjoy
@@SoulGamesInc omg, thanks for answering, i love all you're let's plays and content in general and honesty ahaha I thought it had been finished, I saw your videos about that mod, and editing the map a long time ago, to bad it never got finished it looked awesome trully, specially the map ahaha
Sorry for the English, I'm Portuguese.
It was "declared" finished at gunpoint, but privately it never was and just got released half-baked and abandoned. I might do a video telling the story of its development sometime :)
@@SoulGamesInc ohh too bad, it looked very nice, the rosters looked awsome, I don't like when the mods about westeros use the show units style, I prefer the books armor styles.
And the map looked awsome, with the big rivers.
A video about that would be great, it's cool to see how moding is done, and the interaction between moders.
Keep up the good stuff, I always enjoy watching your content, i've seen almost all your let's plays on westeros total war and co-op, i meen the whole play list not just the first episodes ahaha
Again thanks for answering, and for your honest opinions and keep it real atitude ahaha I'll keep an eye out for dragon age total war looks awsome too. All the best :)
@@danielbelo7344 It's still at that link to download and play :) just isn't perfect and there's a lot of unfinished bits here and there sadly
Long live the modders!
I didn't have much interest in TW until Warhammer (2), but I grew up with my brother playing them since Shogun. Even with an ADHD-impaired attention span I know I would've enjoyed a lot of the mechanics from what little I've seen of the older games - Rome and Medieval 2 in particular. Being able to make an army without a general/lord, being able to purchase garrison units and scale them as you please (within soft limits), instead of the prescribed, weak ones you get with the settlement and defense buildings; each settlement being its own fully-fledged city and territory instead of the province system, unit formations, the fact that two units fighting one another wasn't just a series of 80 1v1s taking place in the same spot. Probably a lot more I'm not aware of.
Imagine a studio that would only focus on creating a solid base for modders to do the rest, and only focus on improving the foundation and mod tools when updating the game
That's the dream, tbh however I'd be thrilled if we could just manage to crack Med2's hardcoded limits... then the wonders I could craft without the caps... oh the damn wonders...
you are talking basically for Bethesda. They make a crappy game that requires 2-3 years from modders to make the game actually playable and challenging. Skyrim perhaps is the most modded game on the market currently.
@@Edge50199 Talking "for" Bethesda? I don't grasp your point - I've been highly critical of Bethesda in the past multiple times; their situation is entirely separate from CAs and isn't all that relevant here. Bethesda rely on Modders while CA cripple them. These approaches are both wrong. Bethesda releases crap and waits for others to fix and improve it while CA releases crap, lets others fix it, but doesn't let them Improve it.
This video is a perfect representation of how most of us feel about the series now
So brutally honest it hurts... and thats good. Thank you.
I only have the Classic Total War Games thank God I haven't bought any of the new ones 😅.
I am an old fan like you. I tuned out awhile ago with Warhammer 1. Which TW is Pharoah a DLC of?
Troy apparently, that is in of itself also a DLC of another title; I think Warhammer - but I stopped paying attention after Atilla ha
@@SoulGamesInc cheers man, have fun modding in the meantime. great vid
pls say what that rome 2 mod was it looks interesting !
Um, you mean the Julli one at the start? It was.... mmmm...
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2285136146&searchtext=rome+1
This? Maybe? It was many Many years ago so I'm not certain, but check the Steam Workshop :)
Shogun 2 is the Apex predator of the series and the game i replay over and over and over and over 😂
I love ToB. The setting, sound design, UN it design, and mechanics are very fun to me. I give it a week of playtime a year since I’ve gotten it. I’ll never buy WH3 or pharaoh. Even if they were 95% off with the “full edition”. DAC is my all time favorite overhaul for Med2, Elder Scrolls after that.
It is a shame really, a disgusting gut wrenching shame to say that I agree that the TW we needs fell in love with in our early childhood is dead. 4th grade with Rome 1 for me
Thank you for shinning the light over creative assembly and how they have been corrupted by Sega. I have known for years now since Warhammer 2 got released and that it was just a prettier and shinnier warhammer 1 with mechanics that should have been in Warhammer 1. The team is to small for the amount of money they make and the content doesn't match the price tag. Many Total War fans have been so loyal to them and put up for to many years with Sega's bull just because we still had hope that they would come back to us and update the engine and make it mod friendly for the public because that is what draws people in to buy the game because some geek somewhere saw a video of a mod of his favourite fantasy world be it warcraft or lord of the rings and just buaght the game to play that mod. The player count today shows exactly that. I also know that Creative assembly has lots so so many fans the last Warhammer DLC and now even more after Pharaoh dropped because ultimately people are not collectively stupid Sega especially us geeks, nerds, historians, modders and henti lovers(jk) and we will stop buying your games because there are so many other game companies that are doing a better job with their IP's and we could always just start buying and supporting other companies that make games similar to Total war. The only way Creative will ever see me buy any content from them again is if they change their business practices, build a new engene from the ground up, focus on one game that will bring balance to the force such as medieval 3 or shogun 3, make it more real, dark and gory like war is, have mechanics that are general to all factions that isn't complex and not annoying like Pharaoh's where there are to many, stop working on dumb fudging ideas like Hyenas my god that was so shiet trying to appeal to woke idiots. You have history freaks playing your games that want a mix between history because its cool and arcade because its fun. Fantacy does bring in the money but if they mess up the campaign like in Warhammer 3 then people think twice before preordering or buying it in the first place, then maybe if they lucky they will buy it on sale at 60% off because that's what its worth. Total war left a sour taste in my mouth and they going to have to take us out fine dinning if they don't want to go bankrupt and lose their special Total war IP.
Truer words have never been spoken.
As a diehard Total War fan who got started with Rome as well, I must say, I kind of dropped out after Empire, even though I liked the concept a lot... saw the atrocity that was Rome II at launch and afterwards, never touched it or anything afterwards except when Shogun II got given away on Steam. Found it surprisingly ok, but still a far cry from Medieval II, which even in vanilla is simply the best the series has ever been, even if it comes across somewhat aged. Especially the Third Age and Europa Barbarorum II mods are so mind-boggingly ambitious that they just shame CA.
That Dragon Age mod looks pretty sick!
Links in the description, we're still working on it but aren't "too far" off release now :)
@@SoulGamesInc I will certainly stay updated. I must confess I know next to nothing about the Dragon Age lore, but seeing the work you put in to the map, the custom settlements and unit models, I really want to try it out at release!
blizzard activision going after the mod community which mad wc3 sell like mad. really worked out for them.
0:35 THANK YOU!
This is 100% the correct take.
People have LET THEM DO IT.
The only thing worse than CA are the players.
Pharoah is actually quite good once you get deeper into the story on my 100th turn and enjoying it. However the mechanics haven’t changed it’s just a reskin of Troy
The main complaint is just that, it's a full priced reskin of Troy and Troy was at its core a reskin in of itself but was at least cheaper. Pharoah is just another "Saga" title but they've ditched the Saga part and released it for full price in light of their recent massive financial blunders. My fundamental issue is with CA itself and stems from them crippling modders, then releasing content we'd have gotten for free (and of higher quality) had they not screwed over modders.
You are part of the problem.
I am super happy that my last total war I bought was shogun 2 and s2 fots. My friend bought rome 2 and man what disappointment it was.
I was so hyped for Rome 2 as well at the time, probably one of the last AAA titles I recall getting properly "hyped" about; ended up going back to playing the Roma Surrectum mod for Rome1 :D
TWW was the last great TW for me, as it basically made possible a true version of Call of Warhammer possible. not a coincidence I stopped buying historical once TWW finally came out. It was far more functional than I thought it would be. Now that TWW has all avenues of modding now available to it (apart from fundamental AI aspects, yet...), honestly I'm going to find it pretty hard to care about what CA makes anymore.
It helped to always have a calm yet detached view that CA execs hate their customers and would drop TW in an instant if it meant a promotion for them.
Please keep talking about this, we need a total warevolution
I still enjoy the older titles and often come back to games like medieval 2, shogun 2, Napoleon or Rome 2, but nothing newer than that. I hope CA will one day return to making good and interesting games...
Yeah. I too dropped off and stopped caring in 2013. I was mildly interested in Three Kingdoms though and actually got it as a gift from someone. So that was nice:) But I played the game for 26 hours and was done with it despite it having some very good aspects to it, which I want to se expanded and refined. But the game as a whole was just lacking something and I went back to Rome, Medieval 2 and Shogun 2.
It is kind of sad how rent free this company/IP lives in some peoples head...
Commenting to boost the algorithm because I enjoyed this video.
Keep it up we've almost beat my Starfield video :D I'm sitting here sipping tea watching the numbers haha :D
They should have stuck to making historical total war games with jeff van dyke's music.
Well actually there are great LOTR mod projects for Attila & Shogun 2 for example (including the campaign map).
I agree about the points made in the video though
I'm aware yeah, people are managing to blunt-force their way into the code; but it's still pathetic that its as difficult and tedious as it is - by design - otherwise you'd have those mods finished and done years ago; fact is the way Warscape is designed it Cripples modders out of the gate :( those projects? They're crawling, because CA won't let them run.
@@SoulGamesInc absolutely. It's worth mentioning though that modders have cracked the campaign map and such mods are possible. I'm a modder myself (both warscape and OG TW)
@@georgimihalkov9678 I'm out of the loop (I've stuck to making my map of Thedas for years with little interest for anything else) so I don't know the extent - only that people are working on it - so if you can make whole brand new maps from scratch with the same Med2 freedom that's great to hear and its gone better than I hoped :) last I heard it was only Existing land/maps. Regardless, it's still ludicrous that its taken this long to do something that should've never been such a massive hurdle.
@@SoulGamesInc You can change the map in Attila, although there is a hardcoded settlement limit of 256. Check the 1212AD mod and the Dawnless days LOTR mod
@@georgimihalkov9678 Yeah the cap is unfortunate but still better than the 199 region cap I'm stuck with in Med2 heh - still nice to see people are finally brute-forcing their way past Warscapes nonsense
5:25 what game of thrones mod is this sorry but it looks pretty good
Westeros Total War, a project I worked on eons ago. Here you go: www.moddb.com/mods/westeros-total-war It was never entirely finished due to drama amongst the team but it's playable :)
@@SoulGamesIncthanks Soul! Though honestly thought it was a submod at first forgot they even released a “1.0”
@@jeck988 Heh heh, funny story, we "released" it because one fellow put a gun to the lead's head and released the mod without permission while threatening to demand all his work removed - so it was "released" as 1.0 but it was never actually finished. What is called 1.0 is basically an unfinished Beta :D after the blackmail drama the team just gave up lol
@@SoulGamesInc ouch that makes since was super hyped for 1.0 too back in the day playing rivers and hills and the other sub mods keeping an eye on the previews, that’s disappointing ah well thanks man!
I might do a video telling the story at some stage it's full of action and drama ha :)
Well said my friend as Modder for Total War Warhammer Series I don't scared by " Smoll indie kompanie" since I do their Stuff for them and they don't respect us
For me the worst was when I buyed the warhammer 3 game but I only had available 4 factions to play, because in order to have the full game unlocked I had to own the previos Warhammer 1 and 2 games. I promise that was the last time I payed money for a total war game.
TOB is my jam. I really think it gets a bad wrap.
Been here since Shogun2001. Played Medieval and then medieval Viking invasion to death. I remember playing those games on the crappy family dell computer.
That’s right CA was making games for people who only had intel and dells and we still got to play total war. For years though my computer couldn’t handle Medieval 2 🤣 I know right! My computer was too weak to handle medieval 2 now that shit can run on iPads lolz 😂.
I remember being able to execute prisoners after a battle in medieval just the whole aesthetic the entire experience was peak of my childhood
that is what happens when you treat your customers like mugs
My approach is simple, if any company treats me like shit; they're not getting my money :)
I am gonna be honest its not the DLC that bothers me so much, its the quality of the releases. If its good content I don’t mind. The last one was bullshit, but others were very good. You can certainly see the company is on it’s last legs though. Pharoah never should have been announced, Hyena was probably one of the dumbest choices a company could have made. They obviously hired some absolute clowns and fired the good ones.
See, there's mods out there I'd pay money to play - being a mod doesn't make something bad - it's indeed the QUALITY of the thing that's the root cause of disgust; and CA's made a lot of poor quality decisions for a long time now unfortunately. The little things aren't too egregious on their own, it's simply when added together they become of note imo - if a machine isn't working you have to look at all the gears, so to speak :)
I fell, absolutely rotten to the core for the money spent on Total Warhammer, main game and DLC.
Didn't know CAs history at the time, if I had... Maybe that could have saved meca lot of anger, annoyance and sadness over the lost potential that just KEPT being squandered with every fucking patch...
It really becameca feeling of "Oh yea! This patch will fix the game!" To obviously not fix it... To even go on to say "we fixed something" which clearly wasn't fixed at all...
My only comfort is that I bought none of them, except Warhammer III base game at heavy discounts.
And I WILL NOT touch the Shadows of Change until CA clears up their fucking act or die trying, and it is on a minimum 80% discount.
I can only imagine the sad state of historical total wars as last decade or more, and be met with this shit...
I for one, have no interest in the historical, I love my fantasy setting. But I feel the pain of the original fans who have been shit on since forever...
Remember Grand campaign mod when they just asked CA if they could port kingdoms features to the main campaign and they were cool with it? What happened to those days?
Company changed, I vaguely recall around the end of Med2 they did a total reshuffle; it's honestly not the same people as it was back in the day - might as well just call them SEGA ha
Also very happy you mention how anti modder CA became.
They ( CA ) were even banning modders on steam last week which apparently prevents them from being able to update their own mods. Some of the bans have been lifted.
@@IceniTotalWar disgusting
I’ve subscribed 👍
Well said
I understand your entire point. I don't enjoy the nickel & diming of the their modern approach, but the BIGGEST problem for me isn't that I have to buy factions, or buy small form TW games, it's that those games don't fix any of the issues that are present in the engine. They're not making the engine handle melee combat lines any better, or fixing pull-through bugs, or AI army structure, they're not adding depth, complexity and intrigue to the turn-based map, they're not deep diving into factions to give me varied unit rosters (both in ability, and visuals) between cultures, and delving into how to make different factions fight differently. All the combat and unit design is barrelling down the path of min/max, simple 'this unit beats that unit because of a set of combat modifiers', which only ever benefits doomstacking.
Using Thrones of Britannia as an example, the art for the overmap, and the map overlay was great, interesting style, cool icons, really good, but then the actual map of the game looked like any other TW title. They didn't really lean into it well. The variety of units, wasn't amazing, but there were some cool designs and limited rosters (which is a good thing for culture differentiation)... but then there was nearly no difference to how any faction played, melee combat was still buggy. I didn't mind the smaller focus, and I was happy to pay for a GOOD update to a Viking era British Isles game... except... it really wasn't. You essentially were railroaded into playing exactly the same way, whether you were a welsh kingdom, anglo saxon, or viking, you had no impact on the map except in which colour you wanted to paint it. You couldn't create a heathen Viking kingdom at all, you couldn't destroy churches, or change the nature of certain settlements, which means... it all just felt pointless. It'd be like playing Suebi in Rome 2 and just... staying in the forests of Germany the entire period... because y'know, history. Compare that to Viking invasion, and it's just... a shitshow.
Oh the limitations Gameplay wise and not Modding wise are indeed a whole other video's worth of issues in of itself - those weren't the subject of the video - that would require its own separate thing to cover :) but you're right it's certainly another standard of quality they've dropped the ball on and is a large issue.
Thrones of Britannia tho, the issues you have with it are because it's ultimately a mod of Atilla... and a barebones one at that... sure new UI/2D art, but as a 2D artist I confidently tell you I could do all of that for free via Modding :) the reason Thrones doesn't stray from the norm is first and foremost just because its Attila with extra steps. It IS the norm. It's an unimpressive mod with a pricetag.