GameBanshee Forums

Shogun: Total War
Medieval: Total War
Rome: Total War (this game came out around two weeks ago)

These are the three games in the series, and I think they are the best strategy games ever made.

The game is divided into two parts:

Part one, where you move your troops around on the map, construct buildings, train new armies, and make alliances. Sort of like the boardgame Risk, if any of you guys have played that.

Part two, take place on the battlefield, giving you total control over the units in your army, deciding where to go, how to attack, and when to flank. You have direct control over your armies, but you have to think of things like: morale, stamina, landscape and ammunition.

I have played all the games in the series, and my favourites are Medieval and Rome, but Shogun is great aswell.

What I'm trying to say, is that I think we should have a seperate forum for these games. and if not, then this thread can be used for discussions, hints and tricks about the game.

I just hope I'm not the only one who likes these games here.

If you want to ask for a separate forum, the logical place would be to start a thread up in GameBanshee Discussion, rather than here. But I have to tell you, Buck, the site owner, really wants to keep the focus on RPG. The Total War series is great, but they're strategy titles.

The TW series is great! ...With the exception of RTW until patch (stupid squalor and traitorous egyptians). Yeh, and isn't this an RPG site?

I just got the latest in the series, myself. It (finally!) incorporates some of the diplomatic/economic stuff I really like, and which the developers seem to have been moving towards since the Japanese setting was originally released.

I thought that the diplomacy stuff was rubbish. It's almost impossible to get map information, alliances last about 2 turns (at the end of the game I had made about 20 alliances and 50 ceasefires with the Egyptians) and the ability to bribes armies away is far too strong.

Economics is also really annoying because of a flaw in the game design, meaning that to exterminate the population is way too profitable (with almost no bad sideaffects). Many people exploit this by deliberately making their cities go roit as not only does it help control the population (squalor being VERY annoying), but it can get you tens of thousands of denarii.

Well, that's just like how things happened in real life, wouldn't you agree ? Killing off the entire population and claim their riches for your own happens to be more profitable than simply occupying the newly captured city and babysit a bunch of disgruntled citizens.

I don't think that repeatedly exterminating you capital city with absolutely no detrimental effect on your populaty with the people is exactly that realistic. Killing 75% of the people in a city should not really reduce squalor either, not to mention the fact that my income jumped about 50000% afterwards.

Diplomacy isn't "rubbish," simply because tweaking is necessary. The controls are quite good, but a patch is needed for balance purposes.

Well, yes it may not potentially be rubbish, but right now I almost is. As much as I enjoy the game, having armies that cost you 100000's of denarii bribed away for 30K (and vice versa) can become quite annoying. Basically the single strongest unit in the game is the rich diplomat. Never being able to maintain a proper alliance or ceasefire of any sort can also be frustrating.

What you're saying is that the game stands in drastic need of a patch--not that a particular element of the game is rubbish, though. If you say the latter, you're giving people the imrpession that diplomacy is unnecssary and stinks in TW:R. That's not the case. It's simply not well-balanced. Which level of difficulty are you playing on, by the way?

Downloaded the demo.
Went to buy the game 30minutes later.
Was unfamiliar with the Totalwar series, but this is what i was hoping for in an RTS game.
Can write a whole revieuw of what i think so far, but i think i'm going to spend that time into playing some more

This should keep me busy untill bloodlines comes out!

[QUOTE=fable]What you're saying is that the game stands in drastic need of a patch--not that a particular element of the game is rubbish, though. If you say the latter, you're giving people the imrpession that diplomacy is unnecssary and stinks in TW:R. That's not the case. It's simply not well-balanced. Which level of difficulty are you playing on, by the way?[/QUOTE]

Perhaps calling it 'rubbish' is rather an oversight, certainly it only adds some novelty features since everybody betrays you anyway (or would this once again be considered a balance issue?).

And in regards to the difficulty level: I've finished both VH/VH and E/E.

Well if you're one of the Roman factions chances are that the Senate will declare war on all your allies anyway. I've played as the Egyptions and I had a couple of lasting alliances. Lasting until I invated their provinces that is.

I've also had alliances that held, but not on the highest difficulty level. It stands to reason that all your allies will betray you when you're playing on that plateau.

Has anyone of you has comleted this game? If so how much time did it take?

It's not possible to "complete" Rome: Total War.

[Quote=Fable]I've also had alliances that held, but not on the highest difficulty level. It stands to reason that all your allies will betray you when you're playing on that plateau.[/Quote]

Nope, even on easy they never last.

[Quote=arno_v]Has anyone of you has comleted this game? If so how much time did it take?[/Quote]

Long campaign? About a fortnight on easy (though I had experience in MTW & STW). VH/VH I'm still playing, trying to conquer the whole world before I take Rome .

Have you checked out the mod, Rome: Total Realism? It looks pretty intensive, but I'm holding off until the first thorough official patch appears.

A fortnight :|, I am not gonna do it that fast I gues. Maybe because I play on medium

[QUOTE=fable]Have you checked out the mod, Rome: Total Realism? It looks pretty intensive, but I'm holding off until the first thorough official patch appears.[/QUOTE]

I got that installed right now, but can't tell much of a difference (except my elephants are useless ), but then again I'm auto-resolving everything. Right now I'm waiting for the LOTR mod to finish, but that's going to take a LOOOONG time.

[QUOTE=arno_v]A fortnight :|, I am not gonna do it that fast I gues. Maybe because I play on medium [/QUOTE]

I don't think it will take much longer (and I played through most of the battles), It's almost impossible to loose even on medium.