Why Napoleon? – By Mike Simpson
When we were making Empire: Total War we wanted the flow of the game to broadly match the flow of history. The idea was that the European powers start off in a relatively stable situation where major warfare in continental Europe is very expensive, very unpopular, and for the major powers generally a bad thing. There is much more fertile ground abroad, and so the major powers export their rivalry and conflict to the new world and India. As the century continues the major powers grow richer and more powerful, and they divide the world up between them. By the end of the century there is nowhere left to go, and the focus return to Europe for a grand denouement. In real life, this began the Napoleonic Wars.
Empire: Total War does try to steer things in this direction with variable success. Even when it all works out perfectly, what we would really like to have happen – something that is recognizably the Napoleonic wars – is just not feasible.
Firstly the timescale is not ideal – the Napoleonic wars were fought over a relatively few years. We could probably have coped with that though.
Secondly, by the time the player has played a couple of hundred turns and got to the starting line for the denouement wars, his game world will have diverged from history so much that anything remotely resembling the Napoleonic wars is very unlikely. But we could probably have worked out a way round that too, maybe even without putting the game in to such a tight straightjacket that it would cease to be a game.
But thirdly and most importantly, the level of detail required to successfully depict the Napoleonic wars is an order of magnitude greater than we were working to with Empire: Total War. The period was documented in great detail, and that detail is readily available and widely consumed. Fans of the period would be disappointed if we failed to delve in to that detail. And I am one of those fans. I started Napoleonic table top war gaming when I was a teenager in the 70’s. I also had the great pleasure of working on Peter Turcan’s “Waterloo” series of games at Mirrorsoft in the late 80’s. It’s taken another 20 years to get back to this era, and I wanted to do it properly.
So that’s what we’re doing. There is more than enough material in the Napoleonic wars to sustain a TW game, and Empire: Total War provides the perfect platform to build it on. With a tight feature set and all the tech working before we start we can focus on making the game as close to perfect as we possibly can on day one.
So what exactly is Napoleon? A full Total War release? An expansion pack?
You don’t need to have Empire to play Napoleon. In comparison, we’ve put about 4 times as much effort in to it as we did for BI. The vast majority of the content is completely new. Some of the battlefield buildings and textures are the same as is some text – no reason to change them – but all the other graphics and data is new.
Code wise all areas of the game have advanced from Empire, there are a fair number of new or changed features, and the game has the same kind of twists to the gameplay that we’ve done to make it play quite differently. The character focus also gives it quite a different feel. And of course by keeping the historical scope reasonably limited we’ve made sure we deliver better quality code on day 1.
Overall, to seasoned Empire players it’s a huge new experience and step up in quality. It should be fresh and different and interesting enough to hold their attention for many, many hours. To anyone who hasn’t played its predecessors, Napoleon is the best TW we’ve made, and a great way to get in to the series. Everyone wins.
Dear Mike,
and where is the battle AI blog?
I was under impression that your more demanding customers are tired of this withdrawal attitude.
You throw them a bone or two, and say – if you don’t like it, well, don’t buy it.
Right.
Seems someone has forgotten that strategy gaming is serious and unforgiving business.
We are yet (we as Empire owners) to be apologised for undelivered promises widely advertised to launch of Empire as well as beta-testing your game basically for free.
We are yet to be apologised for being thrown a broken skeleton of the game and then told first: “Hey, look! DLC is on the horizon, you can’t not pay for what you should’ve gotten in the original game!” and shortly after “Hey, it looks like we won’t be updating Empire anymore ; it was cool while it lasted, but we have kids to feed and our boss has Ferrari to drive!”.
Go back to making casual games, that’s where you belong, Mr Simpson.
Posted by Socrates on January 14th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Why did you abandoned the complete Worldmap from ETW? Everygame is a fiction one so in this case why not letting Napoleon invading the USA or India? Playing only on a smal size European Map is nothing special, that existet many years before this game as well. For me playing only on European ground is a step backwards a complete Worldmap including Africa would be a step forward!!!
Posted by Dragonfire on January 14th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
How about the MP Campaign in NTW??? No word until now about it from official side
Posted by Dragonfire on January 14th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
I never posted on the subject before, but I have to tell you:
I think I’ll win when
– the Marathas won’t have superpowers
– the CAI will (be capable of starting/start) invasions overseas even if the target is not the player
– hitting the square formation button won’t instantly raise a magical barrier around troops
– siege won’t be a synonym for massacred AI army
– the melee bug will be fixed
– the BAI won’t send all it’s cavalry to be butchered
– I’ll be able to repair damaged walls
– territorial expansion bonuses will be handled correctly
– enemy troops won’t sense what type of ammunition I load or how far I can shoot
– the BAI will be able to actually withdraw
– I’ll be able to take screenshots
– the naval arrow will be fixed
– I’ll be able to sort army stacks
in ETW. That would be a glorious victory.
Posted by kutyaevo on January 14th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Of corse NTW have to make part of TW series,but dont you think you should wait another year to release it ? I talk for myself ,i only have TW series to play i dont need to buy any other kind of game, and after i new that NTW is coming so soon i started to loose interess in ETW .
I hope you can respond me , probably someone already asked you ,but are you gonna update the mighty Shogun,Rome and Medieval ? I really hope the respons will be yes and will be any other step foward on time for TW series ?
Posted by oOIYvYIOo on January 14th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Just another comment .Socrates, if you know so much why dont you siwtch place with Mr. Simpson ?
(BIG LETTERS FOR EVERYONE SEE IT)
WHAT A BUNCH OF KIDS ! STOP WRITE TRASH ! WEND I WERE YOURE AGE I ONLY HAD MINIATURES TO PLAY WITH AND USE IMAGINATION FOR THE REST,NO ONE EVER MADE WHAT TW DID AND KEEP DOING , TW GAMES BEATS ANY OTHER TYPE OF GAME AND IT STHE NUMBER 1 IN STRATEGY AND ALL I SEE IS PEOPLE TALKING TRASH TRASH TRASH , WHAT DO YOU WHANT PURE REALITY ? GROW UP.THEY MAKE GAMES AND YES THEY MAKE MYSTAKES YOU MAKE HOMEWORKS FROM SCHOOL AND YOU CANT GET A PERFECT JOB!
Mr. Simpson and company thanks for you guys exist and make my kid dreams come true .
Posted by oOIYvYIOo on January 14th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Good day,
While I DO NOT trust what you say, I will see what MANY external sites say about NTW before and IF I buy it.
ETW S.F. edition cost a LOT of money and it IS a broken game for me.
The BAI is atrocious and the CAI is on World Domination mode most of the time.
Not to mention the other missing material from ETW (i.e. Sieges anyone?)
Before NTW is released, I expect to hear some news about ETW BAI & other fixes.
Remember, CA the old adage “You lose 1 customer you lose 10″
well now it’s more like “You lose 1 customer and because of the ‘Net, you loose 100″
Good day,
hellas1
Posted by Stefos on January 14th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
O dear, doesn’t look like a very positive response does it Mr Simpson. I hope you take note, of this reaction. The mess that was Empire total war would have been a lot better if you simply removed steam and the stupid market gimmicks,(special units and DLC) from the equation. They get peoples backs up from the word go, and really set the tone for Empire. Just look at the amount of installation problems there were, and the patching problems. It makes for poor customer service, and damages your image! I would have been perfectly happy with Empire if it wasn’t for these things. I excepted that the Battle AI was new and therefore wasn’t going to be perfect, I was quite happy with the game play.
Unfortunately, you have done it again with Napoleon Total war, I wont be buy it until this madness is sorted out. It tells me all i need to know about the priorities of the team developing NTW. (i.e. take the consumer for every penny!)
Posted by Cold on January 14th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Here’s some food for thought: “It costs the average retailer five times as much money to get a new customer into its store as it does to retain a current customer who may be unhappy.” — Retailing by Dunne and Lusch, 2008.
Nothing but unhappy comments so far on this blog that I’ve read. I’m not buying ETW, NTW, or any more releases from this company until they fix their products and support their customer base with patches. No multiplayer means it’s up to the AI to deliver a good game, and the AI is horrible. Leave it to the modders to fix everything, right? Got kids to feed? A Ferrari to drive? A happy customer is a paying customer. An unhappy customer will complain and drive away many potential new customers. How long do you think your company will survive in this modern age where consumers demand to be satisfied with their purchases if you just sell them a broken product, do a half-way job of fixing it, and then abandon it? We’ll see, won’t we? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing.
Posted by Shard Obsidia on January 14th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Lot of comments made so far on this.
I would interject a few things to the company bean counters
One just becuse redos of old games traditionaly don’t work MTW2 sold well. and was basicly the same as MTW1.
That being said. Go threw with napoleon then to bring it some needed cash do a few basic things. New updated version of the company’s flag game Shogun. Have more DLC for the game. Even larger things such as you want Africa? I would pay 25USD for africa. And or China. Or the rest of the americas. OR one each time released.
Next bean counters. Count these bean so we keep this company alive. Players buy content. If you want to keep a steady flow you can do one of the following easly.
A.) prive a monthly survace member ship 5USD a month with monthly updates for players. And charge for special content expansions ((A.I. Asian, Mid atlantic, Austraila))
B.) Do monthly content with special expansions ((Using ETW with shogun expantion. You play the new shogun then lead int othe first part of etw. As example.))
Both would generate reguler income. and players will be willing to support that. With out doing a completly new engine. You can provied tones of comapin updates as well as unique troops for both ETW and NTW. Give you time to plan the next highly detailed game.
And yes. we all know. Civil war is next. Take tiem with that one. and include the rest of the world. A lot happens during that time. very exciting for a campian game. the stat of PaxBritanica.
I am sure napoleon will be a hug success. And I hope some of the game contant will filter down to ETW as well.
Posted by Thomas on January 14th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
“Seems someone has forgotten that strategy gaming is serious and unforgiving business.”
Not to pick on the first guy, but this text is as quote worthy as it is laughable. It’s gaming — none of this is serious business! It’s a game! By definition, gaming and “serious business” are mutually exclusive.
That being said, I share the first poster’s sentimentality. E:TW was a disaster at launch and, despite this, garnered extremely favorable reviews. I went through Metacritic and contacted the authors behind the top reviews. Several responded and it became apparent that if they had it to do over again, they would have lowered the score, but essentially in their rush to have reviews to print in anticipation for launch, they simply did not put enough hours into the game to witness everything that was broken. But that’s neither here nor there, it’s no fault of CA’s that gaming journalism failed us.
The part of E:TW that truly miffs most of us is how the game was allowed to release in such a sham state. I’m sure Sega was pushing the deadline, and I guess CA didn’t have enough clout to disagree, but some official words on what went wrong would be nice. There’s no way you guys sat down, played the game, and felt good about launching it.
Your patches did a lot to address the problems, but not enough to make the game enjoyable. There’s a sense of a real lack of content. All the factions feel identical and field identical units, with very few exceptions. There’s not much in the way of historical scenarios either. E:TW just feels very hollow.
I’ve been buying TW games since Shogun, but these last few releases have been getting more and more disappointing. The biggest culprit remains AI. While E:TW finally added some common sense to the diplomacy AI, battle AI remains broken. This is the single biggest flaw and the main reason E:TW is just not fun to play. This was mitigated in previous games by the simpler battle mechanics.
I read an interview with your PR guy (Kieran) and he made the point to explicitly state that Napolean AI would, at the very least, be equal to E:TW’s latest patch and then some. He made some claims about the battle AI finally being able to multitask and divide its army to meet changing situations around the battlefield, instead of responding to every change with a complete shuffle of its entire army. I hope this proves to be true. No offense, but the same guy made lots of claims about how great Empire was prior to release and this hype culminated in even more launch disappointment.
There’s a great deal of animosity in the TW community since the release of Empire. I know you guys have felt it, and I remember a few posts on the official forums from your forum ambassador about how all the negativity wasn’t helping anything. It’s true to a point, lashing out against the developer isn’t going to make a better game and does demoralize your staff, but surely you guys could understand where the community was coming from. It did, afterall, take what, 4 patches before some semblance of playability was introduced?
Many of us were jaded by the Empire release and are very skeptical about a successor so close on its heels. Especially when we consider E:TW to still be a “work in progress.”
I urge you guys to adopt more transparency with the community. I’d say we are owed that much.
Posted by Dominick Mastri on January 14th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
For some reason I get concerned when you state that “Napoleon is the best TW we’ve made” if I’m not mistaken you’ve said that about every iteration for TW, certainely with ETW. ETW has become more of a TW game as we know and love it, but this certainely wasn’t the case for several months after release. The best TW ever made was Rome without a doubt, and I know that many out there agrees with me. PLease let it be the best ever in the same way Rome was, rather than ETW…
Posted by DudeDK on January 14th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
i don’t know why everybody is bitching about this. Empire total war was one of the most enjoyable games in the total war series to date, and hearing about a more modern empire total war makes me even more excited. but honestly, if you need to remeber it’s just a game, and stop complaining about small insignificant details that don’t really effect the game. I find these games to be better and better as each one is released, and the only quary i have is when they changed to 3d map moving.
Posted by chris on January 14th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Hi
Im posting this in Lisbon, Portugal. Im a great fan of TW and I’ve every game since the beginning. I just hope you made this game right since like yourself, Im a great fan of this period and Napoleon is one of my Idols. One last thing, since Im portuguese, is portugal to be included in the playerble faction or is it going to be like Empirial Glory (England,Russia,Austria,France and Prussia)? Please respond. I sent you guys a mail but you never answered. b
Posted by Pedro Dinis on January 14th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
“To anyone who hasn’t played its predecessors, Napoleon is the best TW we’ve made, and a great way to get in to the series.”
Yeah, because if you played the predecessors, you will know that it isn’t.
Posted by WeLoveMike on January 14th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
What about the BAI ?
What about ETW integration ?
Im sorry, but this blog addresses nothing new, and is simply more sales propaganda for NTW. Some of it is almost word-for-word from ETW marketing.
I would like to continue playing the TW series, but it has become harder since the games havent matched the promises.
Please come good on your past words. Buying NTW will not happen until some respect for the fans is shown. No more excuses !
Posted by Mr. Clayton Gold on January 14th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Hang on, this sounds very familiar. Didn’t you lot say this before Empire was released? Give us one reason why anyone should believe anything CA says any more. We were told a multiplayer campaign would be released soon after Empire was released. You even claimed that was what the delay was from. Months down the line we get a bug ridden beta and are told that is it! We were told diplomacy has been revolutionised and yet no one has experienced any diplomacy from the BAI or CAI that is even remotely sane. We were told plain LIES before Empire. I have a strong feeling that the same is happening before Napoleon.
Posted by Ragerancher on January 14th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Napoleon is a good choice for a TW game. I too would have prefered a World map but on the other hand this may have diluted the fact that Napoleon was totaly engrosed in the affairs of Europe.
I do like ETW when it works, but sort of feel like others that we were handed a beta to fix. I hope for some fixes and improvements in many of the areas mentioned above for ETW. I also hope that there are none needed for Napoleon.
Posted by Kevin E. Duguay on January 14th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Most people now, after suffering from ETW’s bugs’AI stupidity and other flaws, most interested in performance, rather than historical correctness. You left ETW unpatched for so long that people ask, “Will CA act the same way with NTW?”
Posted by Lockhard on January 14th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Hi Mike;
I’ve been a devoted fan of TW since Rome TW rolled out and admire the work your team does. ETW got old quickly because the the similiar terrains and unit appearances but I
m very much looking forward to NTW. I agree with Dragonfire that the entire world map should be made available and I and many others would love to see your current level of grahics applied to Rome/Alexander, etc.
Posted by Shane on January 14th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
I really like the Total War series of computer wargames and I am glad you are moving forward. That said Empire Total War was one of the most frustrating computer games I have ever played. Too many fatal errors, really stupid battle and campaine AI, grapics problem, etc. etc. I am hesitant to buy Napolean Total War because these problems have not been addressed for Empire Total war. I know that it may not seem like a good idea to acknowledge past flaws when trying to sell something new but I need some reassurance before I will be willing to buy again. I will list a few of my pet pevis:
If I lose a battle my army or navy seems to run clulessly from the battle field and will not return to a defensible possition it came from.
The computer AI generates armies comprised of all or mostly artillery which is unrealistic to begin with but then they attack with this rediculous army and if I use the automatic battle sim funtion they will defeat a reasonable army of combined arms.
Coordination with your allies in the overall campiegn mode is none existant but the computer AI allies seem to have a common goal to eliminate you.
Computer AI Artillery seems to be able to pickoff opposing commanders at full gallop running at across the battle field almost every time. ussually on the first shot.
Sorry I have many more but I am tired now.
Posted by Robert on January 15th, 2010 at 12:10 am
Dear Mike
Seems your getting alot of hate mail on here so im gonna change it up for abit but I have to agree with what they are all saying here. I’m a big fan of just about all the TW games (Rome most of all) At 1st I was happy about NTW, thinking that it would be abig step up from ETW. I’m sure in many ways it will be but the biggest thing for me in the game was being able to rewrite history also. I love being home to use whatever nation I want and take over parts of the world. Mostly Canada cuz thats where im from. Or using France and remaking the Roman Empire. This is what made me love the TW games. More then likely im still going to buy NTW but I feel it is a step back in someways.
My biggest worry with it tho is that i’m sure it will come half broke and need alot of fixes that will only solve some problems but with it make more. ETW still has alot of problems and could still use fixing and the DLC units just don’t cut it. I don’t like spending my money on half done products. I hope all this doesn’t land on deaf ears but I do understand you can’t please everyone.
Cheers
Posted by Graham on January 15th, 2010 at 12:31 am
Three Questions,
1. Is there going to be a campaign map and time frame that equals the Empire Total War Grand Campaign?
2. When will the Empire Multiplayer Campaign be coming out and why won’t a new patch to update empire and add some of the Napolean features (Trade embargos, troop marching attrition) be added to Empire Total War?
3. I do not understand why the company was so quick to come up with these new updates for Napolean and why they could not have been implemeted in Empire Total war.
Posted by Roman on January 15th, 2010 at 12:34 am
I’ve been waiting for over 15 yrs for somebody to create a NTW and I’m glad it’s finally happening! It would be nice if the issues that Comment #4 made could be dealt with down the road but if not I will still play ETW. The 18th/19th century are my favorite time frames to play in. It would be awesome if you could do an expansion pack including the Zulu Wars, and the American Civil War especially since the graphics are so good now. I hope you guys never retire! Keep making great TW games.
Posted by fred on January 15th, 2010 at 1:19 am
The descriptions for Napoleon sound nice and everything and i am sure your team has been putting in a lot of effort into polishing it, but after the debacle with ETW, many people will not want to fall into the same trap twice.
I think if you want to earn respect of the fans, you should fix the outstanding ETW issues that Kutyaevo so eloquently listed or (if you really dont want to touch ETW code) provide at least 75% discount on NTW for the existing ETW owners.
Until either of those two things is done, it will be hard to take any of the future promises seriously.
Best of luck!
Posted by Alex on January 15th, 2010 at 2:33 am
I would like to support MC in his decision to make a successful game from business plan point of view. Napoleonic wars are well known in Russia. Russians will be happy to meet such a historical period. I can say, that it was a war between Napoleon and his alliance with Russian people. I am not a fan of fantasy in historical strategies, i.e. required a sensible balance between history and game. In the latest version of Empire in AI 1.5 the balance was broken. As a result, while playing the game England was attacked by Indian troops on elephants. It is difficult to imagine such a game democracy. Hope that one map in Europe will protect Russia from coming of Red Indians.
The conclusion: if to save the balance between the gameplay and historical truth, then Napoleon TW can become a first strategy, which is based on historical events known by more than 50% of the Northern hemisphere.
Good luck.
Posted by Sargon-1 on January 15th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Let’s hope that the upcoming NapoleonTW will be more stable and playble than Empire without serious bugs! Let’s hope that the MC will be standard and not in beta version! (MC have some serious bugs don’t ignore it!!!) Let’s hope that WE WILL BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE IN LOBBY LIKE MEDIEVAL2 !!!!!!! Let’s hope that the after sales support of the CA will be greater (it isn’t now). Let’s hope that they will stay to their words and to continue support and fix Empire!
Something else now :
Let’s compare Medieval2TW with EmpireTW. The second one of course has better graphics and much more added things… BUT when i was in the lobby of Med2 there were so many people! When i am in Empire there are’nt so many… I suppose the marketing campaign of Empire was bigger! So… Why that happens??? I think everybody of us reading these comments already know the answer… and the creators know it… 😉
We are in your side CA! You guys have the monopoly of real time strategy games! You are well known in this kind of games fans, and everybody knows your games! We have loved your games since shogun! Please don’t dissapoint us again like Empire…
Sorry for my english…
HADES of the greek clan {LEONTES}
Posted by HADES on January 15th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
I just wanted to say that you do a great job.
Yeah, the ETW AI sucked, I’m probably not in the market for NTW’s new direction and lots of other niggles.
But they’re still some of the best games and I appreciate the level of honesty in your blog posts here.
Thx.
Posted by bleh on January 15th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Can you tell me what system is required to run this sim Xp and what else please?
Posted by Pete Doré on January 15th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Dear CA,
in case you have not realized yet there are many people who wonder whether you are going on to support empire – total war or not. You just need to read through the threads in your forums. Please give us some clear information on this topic. To be true the lack of communication on this topic is very annoying.
Best regards,
Falcon
Posted by Falcon on January 15th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
As a BIG TW-fan since Rome TW, I must express my bad feeling.
One thing is, as mentioned above, CA and SEGAs clearly lefthanded work with Empire, both with regards to CAI, BAI, game features, uniforms and flags etc etc. I see that you mention all the reference material available for the Napoleonic Wars. Well, almost the same level of (quality) reference is available for the 1700s, and you didn’t appear to use 1/10th of it, which is clearly apparent when you see the uniforms and flags of the different powers, even the few you cared enough about to not just give the same stuff a different main colour. Another thing is removing stuff like family trees, which actually is a huge step backwars.
And when the screenshots (and unit features, see the “artillerie a pied” on here) are released, it is instantly obvious to anyone who has ever read a single Osprey book that you didn’t do your homework this time either, at least with regards to uniforms. Based on that, I have big problems with believing any of your PR-spin regarding other qualities/improvements.
So, where is the uniform-editor for Empire? Or the official unlock making all factions playable? And how about a little more support for the huge (and extremely talented) modding community that gave (and keeps giving) your previous titles a life waaaay beyond their shelf lives and full-price sales period?
Posted by Sceptic on January 15th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
No game series will ever update games they made 5 years ago while finishing a new game. Get used to it. And with regard to the ‘step backwards’ with the campaign map, its not just Europe! There’ll be Egypt and surrounding Africa and an enlarged portion of France/Italy. So calm down. Personally I think it was a good move as long as there is sufficient enlargement of Europe and Egypt. Remember, there will be an expansion pack that has a good chance of covering America. Not that I think there werent parts of Empire that were completely unfinished(like the mentioned suicide cav charges and bad melee) but some things that were criticized were unfair. I actually think square form. should be more effective because the infantry are usually slaughtered even when using it, and not being able to repair walls is an uncommon bug. Almost everyone can repair them.
Posted by John on January 15th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
This is the first time I’ve commented so far as I can remember. Now, for the most part I think that people have given you guys a lot of unwarranted fuss about ETW. That being said my computer has had difficulty (not on a performance level) with Empire, and I was wondering if there would be an increased compatibility for Napoleon. Personally I have been waiting for this era to come out since I was a 5th grader playing Shogun, so from screen shots and the posts I have been beside myself in anticipation.
So far everything in the game has sounded brilliant and I look forward to hearing/seeing more in the coming weeks — Anthony S.
Posted by Anthony on January 16th, 2010 at 5:35 am
Dont you dare guys not to give us MP Campaign in NTW at once the game is released .
When you announced the MP Campaign Beta for ETW i purchased Elite Units of America,Elite Units of the West and Special Forces Units + Bonus Content despite the fact of bugs,crashes etc and all the bad critics you were recieving.I wanted to support your effort about making this game at least interested to play.
i couldnt agree more with dragonfire:
”Why did you abandoned the complete Worldmap from ETW? Everygame is a fiction one so in this case why not letting Napoleon invading the USA or India? Playing only on a smal size European Map is nothing special, that existet many years before this game as well. For me playing only on European ground is a step backwards a complete Worldmap including Africa would be a step forward!!!”
But i can wait for that if u need more time to do it properly.
Thank you for your time.We fully support you.Please dont let us down again!
Posted by Domesticos on January 16th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
I know we were all disopointed in ETW, all of us, but let’s give CA a chance to redeem themselves. I say, we can’t know until we play the game, but I do think a more free campaign like in ETW would be nice, like giving you the power to have NAP invade America. ^_^
Posted by Erik on January 16th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
I am heavily skeptical of anything coming out of CA. I might pick this up in the bargain bin but after my experience with ETW I am jaded and weary of being taken down another fools path of “really this game is great, the best we ever made” only to be left with a poorly finished abandoned game at the end. Napoleon Total War – No thanks.
Posted by lo_ammi on January 16th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
I am getting the game, and it does sound good, but, have your forgoten about “The new World”? Yes I know at this time period, the new world is completley colonized and some already have independence like America, BUT, Napoleon took over Haiti as a military base so he could conquer the countries in the new world, until haiti revolted and won. In the game, if you put that in, maybe we could change it. Maybe a player as napoleon would have put down the haitian revolt and continued moving toward the new world. Maybe we would have not sold the louisiana purchase territory to America. Maybe America would be part of the french empire. You must thinnk of these things!
Posted by Crossline on January 16th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Yeh its all good slagging off TW but u cant just miss out the Naoleonic Era and having the whole world during a war fought mainly in Europe isnt necessary.
Posted by CharlieIII on January 16th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Dear Mike,
As a consumer of all Previous TW products and hardcore strategy gamer I have many concerns about Napolean Total War. Many of them stem from my experience of ETW.
I have the feeling that in Napolean, walls will not be repairable, armies will not retreat, AI will kill itself & stand around looking lost and all the promised features will be just hype.
I pre-ordered ETW paying £30 pounds for it and not only was I disapointed at the lack of quality of the BAI & Siege warfare but I started to become very angry with a feeling that I’d been cheated..£30 quid is alot of money were I’m from, but maybe not to you…
I just watched, for nostalgia, the original trailers for ETW pre release where it showed naval battles, actual gameplay footage where you could see the landscape & shoreline in the background instead of that boring pointless big blue square.
Tell me, If the trailers & images of your own website showed that it was possible to see land during ship battles why wasn’t it left in for the finished product?
will Napolean have shorelines and land seen from the oceans when fighting at sea? or will it been sold as DLC?
I’m stuck on ETW and its only because of Darthmods great work that I haven’t resold it as second hand scrap, and until ETW game is fixed I will feel like I spent alot of money for an unfinished hyped product, so I will not be buying Napolean Total War. I will not waste another £30 quid only to feel cheated and dissapointed,
The good thing is i’m not alone,
Good day
Posted by Gareth-Ciaran Tipton on January 16th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Dear Creative Assembly,
I´m a big fan of the serie totalwar.
I have all the games since Shogun Total War to Impire Total War.
Can you say me If the game Napoleon Total War will go to had a collector´s edition?
Portugal, Teodoro
Posted by Teodoro on January 17th, 2010 at 12:05 am
There seems to be alot of criticism here…
I understand there are a few problems with Empire, but as a game it’s fun and works…
I’m looking forward to NTW
The deeper the detail and more personal the management the better!
I’m also keeping my fingers crossed for Sharpe DLC XD
Posted by Alex on January 17th, 2010 at 2:05 am
@ Dragonfire
Fully agree with you. Total war games are historical games but you should make your own decision. Napoleon never invaded india, but he wanted to. Its sad that you cant make another egypt expedition to Egypt or America. If you play as British you should be extra rich from colonies but how do you want to implement that ?
In Napoleonic Era hundred thousands troops fight against each other yet in total war you can use only two thousands of troops. Im not saying that you should make it hundred of thousands but you should atleast try to improve number slightly from Empire. And i have s small idea for you: In my opinion artilerry is bit lacking if you can use only 20 regiments then most players will rather choose another infantry or cavaltry unit. So what if Artilery doesnt need unit spot ? This way every player could use 20 regiments and lets say 5 Artilery(i know there is limit of 20 unit cards on battle map but you could create another 5 special/only for artilery). Thanks for considering my idea.
Posted by Davout on January 17th, 2010 at 3:40 am
You need to make a Civil war or better yet a WW2 game like this, I think that would be really neat/fun to play and I’d defiantly buy the game then, I dont really care about this war or Napoleon, the game sounds boring to begain with other than seeing what the new Engine can do, I see this game being on the shelves of Walmart for $19.95 real fast, really reminds of games like Diablo2 yaw real fun for two hours then just cheat so I can see all the graphics becuse the game is so tedious and boring, WW2 I’d buy for $59.95 and play just my feed back…
Posted by Ken on January 17th, 2010 at 4:13 am
You’ve gone to the Napoleonic era and that’s fantastic but I can’t help but wonder – where next? Another Rome or Shogun maybe but seriously, you’re running out of era’s. I can’t see a TW WWI or WWII game and there aren’t that many new places left to go, so you’ll be having to think abouth that pretty soon.
Posted by oogabooga on January 17th, 2010 at 5:44 am
I have seen the new trailer of the coalition and something has hurt me…..the Santima trinidad
have the flag of france!!!!!whatb the hell is that is an spanish battle ship made in Cuba, the biger in the history and NTW put the flag of the french…
I hope is only a mistake of the video, and no the game. Also i want to remenber that one of the bigest problems of Napoleon was the spanish population, also we can read that napoleon in his fninal days said that the worst error was the conquest of spain he losses 300000 mens…but maybe the british programers prefer to forget somothings…
Posted by Elfabo on January 17th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Will us as Customers be given the right to be able to close the gates of forts and repair the walls in Napolean? because it is ridiculous that, in ETW, pathfinding bugs & issues force the gates open when it is frustratingly undesirable and just plain nonsensical.
I keep getting the impression that my enemies are utilising psy-powers such as telekinesis and mind control against me.
Posted by Gareth-Ciaran Tipton on January 17th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
I really hope you all have improved NTW over ETW. Empire was a real disappointment for many of us. Empire was and is a flat-out boring TW game. I actually would rather load Shogun Total War over Empire any day. I understand we are in a computer gaming age where 3-D graphics and sound are the main beef of any game, but let’s not forget about the fun in a game that people crave for. If a game is boring or not fun then why bother to make one?
I hope NTW is the game that ETW should have been. I hope we can actually see cannonballs now instead of the white rocket thingies. I hope NTW does not crash as much as ETW did. I hope NTW has more period era music instead of the same tunes playing over and over again as in ETW. I hope you all play Shogun, Rome, and Medieval before you release NTW so you can remember what fun TW games were. I could go and on, but you get my drift.
Thank you CA for your continued hard work and I am looking forward to NTW. I have high hopes in NTW and I think that it will be at least on par with Shogun, Rome, and Medieval.
Posted by Dave on January 17th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Hi Mike,
I want to follow up oOIYvYIOo’s comments about possible updates to the Shogun, Rome and Medieval Series. I am not particularly bothered about updates but would love to see these games (arguably my favourite strategy games) on Consoles.
I currently play more games on my XBox 360 than PC. And would like to admit that I am very excited about the impending release of Sliterine’s ‘History Great Battles Medieval’ in February. However, it had been my hope that if and when RTS games made this kind foray on to Consoles, they would be TotalWar games; any plans for this?
Speaking for myself, I would love to be able to play my TotalWar games on a big widescreen TV with no more than a Control Pad and at the push of a button on my Console and command huge armies on the battlefield against opponents on XBox Live; instead of powering on the PC – waiting, logging on – waiting and then inserting the game disc – waiting etc.
Posted by VAlak on January 17th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Hey, will Portugal be playable in this Napoelon Total War? Maybe not in GC, but in battle/multiplayer could be! Don’t forget the portuguese caçadores (infantary and cavalary) unique troops that were very famous on that time in the peninsular war!
Posted by Voltron on January 17th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
To state that Napoleon is the best game yet is almost funny. But then compared to EMPIRE almost anything would be an inprovement. I seriously doubt Napoleon will be that much better especially after comments maded by you and your staff, that it’ll be as good or better than patch 1.5 in Empire (LOL)and also as late as you came out with the beta-version of multi-player as I doubt if any or all bugs were even looked at much less fixed before Napoleon released date.
Then your supposely improved BAI. What did you do have Kerian do another of those battle scenes on video like he did for Empire which almost anyone which owned Empire can tell you the BAI never ever acted that way in the real game.
Hopefully this time you get it right but I seriously doubt that, as I like many,many others will take a pass on this game as your words don’t hold any honor with us your once loyal fan base as I don’t plan on getting burn again or being a beta tester on a game after its released. Beta-testing by the way is supposed to happened before the game relased not after,at least thats the way most game companies do it.(hint)
Posted by W.Cooke on January 17th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
If you guys who find ETW so incomplete — and believe me, i did as well — haven’t done so already, you might want to check out what Darth Vader has done with his mod. The game is actually fun now.
I would have liked to see something about the MP campaign here, too, as that is my primary mode of gaming. Finally, I sure hope that the absurd rope ladders from ETW don’t carry over into NTW. It would have been good enough — and realistic enough — if attackers had to force breaches in enemy walls with their artillery, which, amazingly enough, was the way it was really done. Right now, a fortress is as much a hindrance to the defender as to the attacker, at least in vanilla ETW.
Posted by B.C. Milligan on January 17th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Hello,
is it possible that your company issue a software that allows to modify startpos file and some features of the game. This would allow players to customize the game to their wishes.
it’s like if one want to play South America in general Total War Empires and to handle european army and to study european tech-tree.
Anyway players do it studing hard startpos-modifying software. Why not to help them – it will increase emotional ties to your great GAME
Posted by |Serhy on January 17th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
will the american faction be included in napoleon total war
Posted by jackson on January 17th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
This seems kinda rushed. As a lover of the Total War series (I have all of them from Shogun to the Present) I would prefer you guys update Empire and make it more stable rather than push out a new game. But that seems to be the reality of CA these days. Just a few updates to stabilize it so that my $110 isn’t wasted. Yes ladies and gentlemen your eyes don’t decieve you I have spent $110 on it. $70 for the Special Edition Empire: Total War and then $40 on all the DLC. Sad thing is that the game is to unstable to play and now I have an empty wallet and a game that doesn’t work. I liked how Rome and Medieval II never crashed on me unless I was playing on a beta for a mod. And where are the modding tools for Empire? The modding community was promised those for a year and then when release happened you didn’t give us anything. The mod that I am working on currently really could use those tools. 1:13 Total War is basicly stuck at the drawing board until you give us some tools. Overall Empire seems to be something you guys wanted out of your office as soon as possible. I’m not asking for you to give me a million dollars, I’m just asking for you to make my $110 worth while. Never been disappointed with a CA game yet, please don’t make Empire a first
Posted by Apophis150 on January 17th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
I’m fine with the game I am going to buy it either way so you will get your money, One more problem in my eyes though, If your on a land battle and your shooting round shot out of a cannon and even when the shot lands out of range right on enemy infantry or any enemy for that matter it didn’t kill them, Very unrealistic and that problem alone makes this strategy game seem awful.
Posted by Aaron on January 18th, 2010 at 5:54 am
i waited so long and was soooo exited for ETW to come out, i pre ordered it like 3months b4
i got home and played it, i was like YUUUUUS
but then this was the 1st thing i noticed…
THE CITIES IN THE BATTLES
u dont fight IN paris, u fight in some boring non-interesting town out side it, this was a big dssapointment as they didnt even have streets in them going between the houses, the same goes for the forts, they were all the same and pretty useless. and the BAI when retreating would run INTO your fort sometimes and in an anoyinin single file that cavalry couldnt attack because one guy is stuck on the battlements of the fort..
THEN i got off a ship in france, as soon as i got off there was a ambush in place and i got attacked.
was the armies near the boats? NO. were they even near a sea? NO could you even see a sea in the distance? NO. this really anoyed me because even rome TW took in the environment and had ships in the sea in the distance! i was pretty shocked really, it just seems to randomly genrate a terrain to fight on completely ignoring what terrain you are accually on or near.
and rebelions, they should be fought inside the city, with your troops defending the government building while rebles climb over your emplacements and defences to kill your men.
i also agree with everything said in comment 1, 2 and 4
im obviosly not the only person that was anoyed with ETW as my friends that bought the game also feel the same way.
get your act together or NTW is the last straw, u stuff up this and i dobt its going to be a pretty sight when your looking at making anouther game
THESE THINGS should all be added and improved on in NAPOLEON TW, if not i will be hugely dissapointed and so will a hell of alot of people so buck your ideas up, wait anouther year to fully make this game proporly and fix ETW stupid bugs too
Posted by Jordan on January 18th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Hello. will this game work for macbook pro? i have a “imac” with bootcamp and i wanna know if this game can be run fine at it?
– Denohbot
Posted by denohbot on January 18th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
why not get your heads together and design a game what everybody would love yes here it comes ZULU TOTAL WAR can you imagine the joy this would bring to all us hard core fanatics of the total war series imagine rorkes drift 1879 your the development team are more than capable of doing this i have complete faith in you infact im that confident in this game selling huge amounts ill stake my life on it come on ask your fans do a questioner you know im right thanks for listening enyway
Posted by mark on January 18th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Seems good but ETW needs alot more work!! I think that the trait system for faction leaders is very repetitive and leader seem more like regular ministers and have no individuality. For some reason Absolute Monarchs get traits such as jug head etc. Seems like something that you the great CA can fix no prob 😉
Posted by Pie Ryan on January 18th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Like I said before, better have put all the effort you claim to have put in this game. If it turns out to be another bad apple like Empires started out(and still pretty much is), you guys are sunk. We will see soon enough.
On another note. Why on earth are we limited to just the European map and not the entire world this time. The entire world was all descovered by this time. Now I love the whole matching in historical detail when it comes to where and who Napoleon faught against, but you are taking away what makes TW a good game…THe ability to shape history how I see fit and not be limited to the same old enemies. SO what if I want to have Napoleon invade America over Russia or invade Austraila over Italy or smash all of South America over attacking whoever. I mean come on, you already have Most of the Americas on Empires, shouldn’t be too hard to use them and add the complete world to what you have from Empires.
I truly think this games needs another year before being released
Posted by Jay on January 18th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
I really hope that there will be even more focus on the strategy in battles in this game. After all Napoleon was a master of tactics, and knew how to win in a difficult situation.
In ETW it often seems that as long as you are defending you will only loose if you are vastly outnumered And the AI will never surpirse you with a different tactic. + The AI always wastes its cavalry istead of using them to turn the battle as they were used in era.
Btw it would be great if you revieved the Shogun game with a sort of remake
/B
Posted by BM on January 19th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Wouldn’t it be nice to atleast say something about why Empire was released unfinnished and hasn’t been updated to work 100%?
I will buy Napoleon: Total War, but if this one is left to die as Empire was, then this is my last.
Posted by Jonathan on January 19th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
I dont have many problems with Empires anymore, back when it came out i may have been slightly furious at game crashes, terrible AI and general shoddiness. However now the game is good, its actually very good, but its only as good as it should have been 9 months ago. Lets not forget the game should have come out in september 2008!
One thing that does annoy me though is how CA never went through with making a fluid campaign map. This is wjhat really excited me about Empires in the first place, that for the first time there would be no tiles, countries wouldn’t be preordained shapes and u’r armies would just push boundries the further they got, why did that not get put into the game?!
Posted by John on January 19th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
The text really needs to be fixed as it is just so frustratingly difficult to read in Empire that , as much as I would like to, I just could not bring myself to buy Napoleon if I have no evidence that the text problems have been solved.
A text fix should also be patched into Empire. I believe it was a patch that caused the problems in the first place.
I have never experienced this flaw in any other game or software application I have ever used.
Posted by Preciousgollum on January 19th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
IVE NEVER COMMENTED BEFORE ON ANY OF THE TOTAL WAR GAMES BECAUSE TO BE HONEST WE CAN ALL MOAN AND GROAN ABOUT LITTLE THINGS BUT WE ALL STILL BUY THEM BECAUSE THERE GREAT LETS BE TRUE TO OURSELVES EMPIRE TOTAL WAR FANTASTIC GAME BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO SEE MORE THAN ENYTHINK WAIT FOR IT OK BOAR WAR YES CAN YOU IMAGIN IT TO THOSE OF YOU THAT DONT KNOW THIS ITS ZULU TOTAL WAR WHAT A GAME IT WOULD BE REMMEMBER THAT FILM WHEN MICHEAL CAIN SAYS ZULUS THOUSANDS OF THEM THERES THE CHALLENGE THEN LETS SEE
Posted by mark on January 19th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
As if they have to justify it being a game in its own right, because we all know this expansion pack is what empire should have been and maybe what CA wanted ETW to be. This isn’t neccessarily CA’s fault but lines like ‘we put four times as much effort in as BI’ surely it should need no justification and is absolutely no comfort to me. Whats more the new features remind me of the kindoms expansion pack, are there really any new features that will improve gameplay? I simply won’t count the AI improvements which are a staple in every TW marketing campaign.
Its saddening to me that I bought the beta for £30 a all those months ago along with the lies and misinformation that TW marketing is.
Posted by Will on January 20th, 2010 at 12:17 am
“The period was documented in great detail, and that detail is readily available and widely consumed. Fans of the period would be disappointed if we failed to delve in to that detail.”
in your game italy campaign start from 1778 to 1793…..in 1778 napoleon was a kid of 9 years old ( born in august 1769)…i am quite disappointed by your documentation. why such a mistake ????
Posted by dates on January 20th, 2010 at 12:46 am
I think sega should do rome 2 total war which are have naval battles, better graphics, and better gameplay look like med2, and in medieval 2 total war sega should do naval battles, or if sega don’t want to do rome2 , or make naval battles in rome or med2, I think they should do about asian, look like shogun total war, and factions are campuchia, laos, thailand, vietnam, china, japan, korea, mongol,…
Posted by Bo Tran on January 20th, 2010 at 1:19 am
I thought something starting just before WWI and going until current times would have been the next step after Empire. Well documented history, bigger map, still enough powers through the times (Britian, USA, Germany, Japan, China, USSR etc) with enough smaller factions (Malaysia, Vietnam, Korea, Australia etc) to make this pretty enticing to bring out next.
Maybe this is why I am not a developer
Posted by nick1408 on January 20th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Please fix the repair walls/forst bug
Posted by Thomas on January 20th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Hi, I’m just wondering. You guys didn’t have any music with the soldiers accept the drums. Shouldn’t there be some fife music or something. That would be really cool. You should try to put that into your game. Then I would buy it for sure!
Posted by Chris W on January 20th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Just make it work properly.
Posted by Kuarlos on January 20th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Why is the Total War always a step or two behind Europa Universalis? …Was Napolean’s Ambition that big a success?
Posted by clausisme on January 20th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Excellent! I’m glad to see the blog updated, I was wondering if it had been abandoned. As you can see from the comments, people seem to have stopped coming back to check after the long silence.
… I cannot forgive you for what Empire was. I can be sympathetic, I can read deeper than your words and try to imagine a financial/corporate maelstrom of hell with you and your comrades tossed like leaves at the epicentre. And I can say “Creative Assembly made choices, whatever their misfortune, and released a horror story of bugs, performance issues and totally broken/absent features”.
… But you encourage me. I hope your words on Napoleon being ‘the finest TW yet’ will be shown true at release, or soon after.
For myself, nothing has yet met the atmosphere of Medieval 1, or the scope and challenge of Rome. Medieval 2 merely felt like sequences of scripted events triggered by whether I was winning or losing, an endless slog against mindless but persistent AI made ‘challenging’ rather than ‘alive’. Empire.. I won’t go there just now.
.. But I look forward to Napoleon, for the first time. And I look forward to further posts on the blog =)
Posted by Jakkar on January 21st, 2010 at 4:32 am
Id like to know when the actual gameplay bugs will be fixed, there is still a hell of a lot of players out there who cant even get text in empire and from my own personal experience cant play the game due to the crash back to windows constantly happening after 15 game years, despite several patch updates. These need to be addressed or the Total War franchise is dead.
Posted by EmpireTotalWar on January 21st, 2010 at 11:14 am
I was wondering about the chance of making a Rome 2 ?
I think that rome and medieval 2 was the best of the series because of the “low” technology
Just guys and catapults
And everyone i talked to thought the same.
So can you tell me if there would be a chance that it would happen
?
Posted by Jesper on January 21st, 2010 at 8:53 pm
will they fix steam because i didnt get to play empire total war
Posted by travis vaughn on January 21st, 2010 at 10:57 pm
i hope napoleon total war is much more playable than empire
Posted by travis vaughn on January 21st, 2010 at 11:00 pm
No one is going to take their time to rework a now ten year old game while they are working on a new game.
Posted by John on January 22nd, 2010 at 12:17 am
Hi Mike!
I’m a long time fan of TW and played all of them since Shogun, EXCEPT for Empire: Total War. I was so lucky to be away from my computer for an extended period of time and when I returned I found thousands of comments showing what a horrible game Empire: Total War was (and apparently is). You used to produce great games and I still have faith in you but, I have learned that it is better to wait. In these days there are multiple huge titles coming out at the same time. I can name three interesting ones in February alone and many of these companies I still trust to release a finished game that I’m a comfortable with pre ordering. I can’t say the same for CA anymore (never could for SEGA tbh) so I will wait and see what the community thinks before purchasing NTW.
So if you want me to buy it, release it in a way that will please the community. Otherwise I will, yet again, learn from the mistakes of others.
Kind regards,
Michael
Posted by Michael on January 22nd, 2010 at 9:04 pm
I’m a former Senior VP of a Software company now retired. First, I’m one of your long term loyal customers going back to the days of Shogun. Great games, and I pre-bought ETW. Never again, you lost my trust, I feel like a lover that has been cheated on.
Will I buy NTW? Yes, But not in in February as your revenue cycle demands. I will buy it in September 2010 when you have come out with your 5th patch.
PS. Tell your CEO to read these comments. THEY ARE GOLD if you want to continue to make money my friend. I know, I use to be in your shoes and now I’m retired because I actually LISTENED to my loyal customers.
Posted by Vectorsrule on January 23rd, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Why Napoleon?
WHY STEAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Kieran on January 24th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I have an idea for the next “total war”, what about time revolves around the 1-2 World War? we should in this game, the German side and endless games to play.
The bad things such as “concentration camps” do not have to necessarily be able to build but a message on the side of the screen it should give an indication what happened to the time for the German occupation of Poland.
A complete map of North and South America, Eurasia, Africa and Australia sets new standards. Playable factions to do as America, Japan, Russia, Germany, England, France, Austria, Italy, China, India, Canada and some African tribes as an add on;) give every player the opportunity to get whatever the viewing angle.
The campaign is divided into the 2 world wars, focusing in time to the 1 World War to the German colonies in Africa and the Eastern and Western Front in Europe. For world war 2 is about Europe, Asia and America. The aircraft might as targeted attacks on the real-time map can be used. Bonus missions such as the Ardennes offensive would be more responsive to happen in the in Europe.
Small tasks In addition to effects such as the Imperial Glory given where an army would also receive a small incentive to give for this game
I hope my ideas come not only to reject
I look forward to positive response
Sven
Posted by Sven Tibit on January 24th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
an idea i would like to see would be a massive empire total war. it streaches from all of america, south america, africa, europe asia and autrailia including the islands in the oceans. we could move all over the world and start as a nation in china, or europe, india, austriala tribes, african tribes or just any nation. napolian total war should have been an expansion just like the warpath campaign.
Posted by chris on January 25th, 2010 at 4:23 am
Since everyone else is offering advice that is unlikely to be read or heeded, here is mine — if you are going to have a blog, maintain it. Otherwise, you are just putting an untended can of gasoline beside the fire.
Posted by B.C. Milligan on January 25th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Rome is dead. My favorite game of the series but its over, accept it.
I Just wanted to share a couple ideas I had to further the game experience.
1. I’d like to see different units. All Empire had was 1 nation with several different color choices. seriously, thats one of the things that made Rome so great, Rome had legionaires, greece had hoplites, Barbarians had… well the shreiking woman!
2. A government builder. You touched on this in Empire, i’d like to see it expanded. Let us create our own form of government stealing a page or two from Machiavelli. If i want to be a benevolent dictator slaughtering all my citizens that opose me, let me.
3. A total world map. I know thats probably the most unrealistic request but the only reason i enjoyed Empire was because the vastness of the campaign map. You werent just stuck in the same countries we have been fighting in since Rome. Besides, a world map adds to the replayablity to the game. This time i could be England and take over Europe, next i could be america and take over North and South Americas, after that, Japan and take over the pacific etc.
4. Stop focusing so much on graphics and build a game that works. I guess I come from a different age than most. Back when i started playing games on the 16-bit 2d genesis I remember playing games that actually had substance. It seems like now all companies care about is making a game that looks pretty but lacks any actual depth to it. You saw the effect with Empire.
5. Maimed soldiers. War is hell and a shot doesn’t always kill a guy. why not instead of one shot one kill, have some soldiers who are occasionally wounded? I know its a little grotesque but if you’re going for a realistic approach have some guys on the ground kicking and screaming cause they got their leg blown off by a stray cannon ball?
6. DLC sucks! when i pay $60 for a game i expect to get a complete game. Instead, “here’s half a game, now for $10 here, $15 there, you can get the rest of it!” I understand the concept of expansion packs, but if i wanted to add a couple units that should be in the game already i’d rather just mod it. I guess its a matter of corporate greed. Kinda why you all gave up on empire to build Napoleon. Don’t make any money on patches do you?
Just a few ideas to float around. I hope you did more to Napoleon than just shrink empire and make it prettier.
Posted by elfhoe on January 26th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
It goes without saying that E:TW was a mess of bugs and crappy AI that made the vast majority of people who bought it (Especially me who paid extra for the special forces edition) feel like they had shelled out for a beta. I was so angry when I read the positive reviews for the game because I felt that without harsh truths and constructive criticism, the TW series as we know and love it would be dead. At least the fans have criticised, though it doesn’t seem to have done much good. It seems like the TW series we know and love may just very well be dead anyway, CA don’t seem to care about the people who keep them in business by swallowing their false promises. I now have severe reservations about buying N:TW and will definitely wait until I’ve read the reviews and heard what fellow fans have to say. If this game doesn’t deliver, I will never buy another TW game again.
However, the main gripe I had with E:TW wasn’t the bugs, or even the lousy AI really. Those things could be fixed (If CA cared enough to). The thing that got me the most about E:TW was it’s gameplay. It’s very difficult to put your finger on without somewhat anthropomorphising a plastic disc, but when I played M2, Rome, M1 heck even (perhaps especially) Shogun, it felt good to play. Fun, engaging and consistently challenging, it drew you in and made you feel like a mighty general, or king of a fledgling power, and as you progressed you felt more and more proud of what you had achieved, more and more defensive of your lands and a deeper desire to eliminate your enemies. Those thoroughly engaging and enjoyable games had a soul. You could tell they had been created with real passion.
E:TW had no soul. It failed to engage you properly, so rather than feeling like a part of the game, fully engrossed….. You were wondering what time dinner was. You felt no connection to your generals, no real interest in your government/monarchy, generals were ten-a-penny and more or less useless and enemy factions seemed more like jealous old men than mighty nations. People here are saying games aren’t serious business, just games, and that is totally true. But they are meant to feel like serious business. They are meant to feel realistic enough to engage you whilst remaining fun enough to entertain you, you’re supposed to feel under pressure while knowing in the back of your head that it’s a faux pressure that you can enjoy, because you can detach yourself from that pressure at any time. With E:TW, I just felt total apathy towards it all. I owned every single territory and had enough wealth to buy Mars, but it was just boring, going through the motions and achieving a victory that in Medieval 2 or Rome would have made me swell with pride, but in E:TW was just met with total ambivalence that was transformed into bitter disappointment when I realised there was absolutely no reward (Unlockable factions, new units, not even a STEAM achievement, NOTHING) for world domination or completing the victory conditions of your faction. No reward? Might as well have not bothered.
CA now seems to have become a soulless machine for selling games and having the best graphics in the business. However, I would take Shogun over Empire any and every single time, even though it’s just a bunch of .gif’s jerking about a background. At least it felt fun. If CA can’t find their roots again and begin catering for their long time fans then they will lose most of them. Pre Industrial Revolution games seem to be what they do best. I cannot describe how a new Shogun or Rome would make me feel. These new ones just don’t do it for me.
I sincerely hope that someone at CA sits up and takes notice of what the people they need to be pleasing are saying, because nothing would upset me more than my favourite game series of all time being killed off by the people who used to love it most.
Posted by D. on January 27th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
1. NTW uses Steam
2. NTW uses DLC
3. Total world map missing (including Africa, Australia, far east etc)
4. Expansion pack will steal more money but build on the game mechanics
5. Game engine only allows 2000 soldiers per side since Shogun, surely technology nowadays could raise that higher
Posted by Chris Waling on January 27th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Wherever the Total war series goes in the future, please please ditch the steam will you, steam is such a pain to be bothering with. The installation time for me with steam in Thailand was 23 hours !
Rome was by far the best game, Med2, then Med 1, They keep it simple, swords, spears, shields, axes, bow’s & arrows, lances, Pikes.
Following the Rome 2 route wouldnt be such a bad idea, I still go back to play Rome now, coz Im bored with the messy, buggy, Empire.
I’m bored with fire by rank & all the muskets, give me my Hoplites any day rather than that.
Posted by Tom on January 28th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
all of this look cool but will ther never come a campaign with the world or just like Empire total mabye an expantion or juse some thing?
Posted by Simon on January 28th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
ETW is definitely the best TW game (out of RTW, M2TW and expansions for both) I have ever played it has a smart simple diplomacy and great clear unit recruitment and building I have played as all European factions and can inform you they are all different. I have never had any problems with crashes and/or freezes and bought the game 2 weeks after it came out definitely the best TW game yet and I am looking forward with great anticipation to NTW.
Posted by Tom on February 3rd, 2010 at 10:49 pm
Is the map only Europe continent?
Dont we get a whole world to conquer? That seems dissapointing…
Posted by Aseken on February 4th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
I, for one, am looking forward to NTW. I didn’t have as many stability issues with ETW as others (though I did feel the effects of a rushed product until it was completed through patchwork and improved with mods. Thanks Darth.)
I am really hoping the next titles we see from CA return to Feudal Japan and Rome. Both have SO much potential with the level of campaign options available now.
Moving into the industrial era may be interesting as well. I was eagerly awaiting the chance to play “War leaders, Clash of Nations” but I think it fell trough in NA? It followed the TW diplomacy/campaign/strategy map motif, and I got really excited. CA could capitalize on that void.
Posted by Chris on February 5th, 2010 at 4:37 am
People, if the game was run off a steam engine in the NY,SF gameplay sites which was highlighting Napoleon.Then chances are you wouldn’t playing a game off a CD.Remember how they had Keiran do his supposely great battle from Empire,but yet when you got Empire the game never played like that.Soirry you guys were sucker into playing a game which TW could control the BAI.
Only thing now CA now can used you. So beware when Napoleon released and the GAMEPLAY isn’t like that you experienced in NY or SF.So go on with your glaring reviews.I mean it’s your name, CA can ruined and blame when the CD-ROM version is different.As you’ll have no recoursed, as you’ll be unable to prove otherwise and they can honestly claim they never made such claims making you look like fools.FOR YOUR SAKE I HOPE I’M WRONG but after EMPIRE I put nothing past SEGA-CA.
Posted by wrc on February 5th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
what is the next total war game time based in?
Posted by James on February 7th, 2010 at 3:00 am
I have had all the Total War games to date. I will not be purchasing Napoleon Total War due to many of the reasons stated already.
Learning, especially, that the world map is to be removed for a smaller map of Europe has left me even more determined not to purchase this game.
I agree with many others that this should have been an expansion pack – not a full game. Outrageous.
Perhaps, in future, if there is another TW game, such as Total War:World War 1, I may consider buying it. Until then, so long Total War and Sega, you have lost a customer.
Posted by StvAce on February 9th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Hi,
Thank you for your explanations. I look forward to play NTW. I have been an avid fan of TW since Shogun and buy each new game religiously. I think continuing to build on the ETW platform is a good idea. I was wondering though, next game, would it be possible include East Asia as a fourth main theatre to complement Europe, India and America? I think it would be highly enjoyable to experience something akin to the Boxer Rebellion among other things.
Keep up the good work!
Michael
Posted by Michael Gabriel on February 11th, 2010 at 9:57 am
I have to say, I’m not surprised the previous comments have been pretty consistently either negative or naively hopeful that NTW will somehow be a coup de gras to complete the TW series. I have been an avid fan since Shogun, and have bought every game thus far, sometimes multiple copies after moving, and would love to have reason to continue doing the same.
However. Since the inception of Steam I’ve faced excessive and unnecessary stress and difficulty in actually maintaining the ability to even play Empire for numerous reasons – which I won’t list here except to sum them up with an expression of disgust for Steam – and have come to fervently believe that my favorite game series has sold it’s most recent child into obvious prostitution with a renowned and despised pimp like Valve and has similar designs for the next. Empire, despite the acceptable bugs was really quite a wonderful game, and I’ve enjoyed it as much as any of the previous games except for the annoying security measures, but that’s just it – it wasn’t really any better than Medieval Two. Different, to be sure and I enjoyed the government systems, but I found quite simply the best improvement was in the size of the map, which led to far more factions and subsequently more complex and interesting interactions. An east Asia/Australia sphere seemed like such an obvious next step I’m appalled no one has brought it up seriously yet.
I’m growingly certain that this next title will be a decided step backward in the series if it is to be any of the following; one, an anemic sub-sequal to Empire, without an actual increase in the abundance of interactive features such as government structure, social ideas or propaganda, having more means to influence AI factions or individual provinces; two, for the love of God anything less than a clear increase in Campaign and Battle AI rationality, this has been frustrating to no end and it’s heinous that it’s still such a major problem; three, a smaller map instead a step closer to the World Map which everyone is crying for but has yet to appear; or four, a game which relies on newer graphics to impress and bedazzle more gullible consumers but keeps basically the same game quality as Empire.
I’m not buying NTW until it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that it has in fact improved on the previous games, if that happens to be the case. I do however hold out hope that the title after next will be a marked improvement, and judging from the obvious chronological progression of the Total War series since Rome, one can easily assume this next might be WW1 which regardless of any change in quality would be simply on premise alone exciting enough to attract attention. But regardless, I see no reason why an Asian expansion was not be released to the Empire franchise, with at least some attempt to improve the AI issues.
All that said, Total War is still in it’s own class in the Strategy gaming world, and is still more enjoyable than most games for myself at least. Before Valve I was inclined to sing the praises of Creative Assembly far more than I am today, by marrying themselves to that organization which in my opinion had heralded the end of freedom in gaming.
Here’s to progress
Posted by Andrew on February 13th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
i will buy NTW IF…
1. you include the 9th rifles for britain
2. make minor factions playable when you complete world domination and in skirmish
3.more sieges
4.better AI for battles and campaign
5.free DLC only scum like microsoft charge for DLCs i mean ive bought the game already y do i need to keep paying to have a chance against other players
6.more varied uniforms
7. rebels good for lvling up armies
8. simplified naval controls
9.whole world to conquer even if they come out gradually through FREE DLCs
10.have unique nation powers e.g KGL for britain, better arty for france, cossacks for russia
11. give ALL cavalry the ability to use firearms. in this period nearly all cavalry had some for of gun such as cavalry pistols for cuiassers (autofire when charging) and nearly all others had carbines or short muskets
12. better garissons for towns no offence but the militia sucked in ETW and where nearly worse than no soldiers at all
13. free upkeep for any soldiers in a settlement
14. unique units restricted to 1 unit at 1 time
15.BRING BACK MERCS
if all these features where in the game i would gladly pay £60-70
Posted by ASSASSIN[GB} on February 16th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
This game sounds good, but I think that they should also try to use the world maps, with Africa included. What confuses me is the fact that players of ETW are complaining about the best game in the series. Perhaps you could use a variable timescale?
Posted by Cameron on February 16th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Dear Mr Simpson and all CA developers, QA, and team,
I just want you to know that I appreciate all your hard work and am looking forward to the next game. I don’t often read the forums or blogs and I am astonished by many of the negative comments I read here. I got ETW when it was released and of course I noticed the various issues that have been mentioned – but that did not stop me enjoying the game.
I have played all the TW games and the sight of my first ship plowing through the waves with the camera zoomed in, seeing the crew working the cannons and rigging must go down as one of my favourite gaming moments (alongside seeing the wreckage and burning ships of my first reasonable sized naval battle :o)).
I am a software developer by trade and know how difficult it is to get everything perfect, no matter how much time and resources you have. The feature set for ETW compared to MTW2 was huge and with any software project that large you can guarentee that there will be bugs as well as things that you don’t get to do exactly the way you wanted (or at all!), and that some of them will be quite annoying for the user. However, you can’t keep iterating forever and there comes a point where its better to release what you have as the benefit of the new stuff outweighs the bugs. For me, this was true for ETW and I am sure it will be the case for NTW when it comes out next week.
Good luck with the release and I hope you all feel appreciated for your hard work – there is nothing worse than spending ages implementing and testing something only to find that no-one cares or just picks on the bits that don’t work rather than the bits that do!
David
p.s. In defense of steam, yes the installation of ETW was a real pain and there were loads of issues, but I am happy to put up with this in exchange for automatic updates, not having to keep track of cds/dvds and product keys, and for the guarentee that if I want to install the game a few years later I will be able to install the latest fully patched version and not have to hunt around the internet trying to find someone who still hosts the patches. I think its a step forward for pc games and it (and its competitors like Stardock Implulse Now) are the future of pc game distribution.
Posted by David I A Grant on February 17th, 2010 at 1:01 am
Looking forward to this game – TW is an incredible series once the bugs are worked out. A bit disappointed with the similar style or period of warfare as Empire but will keep an open mind…… Here’s what I would love to see next (I think this time period is begging for a TW game….)
– Maybe called TW:Imperialism
– Time period: start mid 1800s covering new wave of imperialism & rebellion (Opium Wars, Mexican American War, Texas Republic,/Revolution, Idian Rebellion, American Civil War, Indian Wars in the USSpanish American War, Sino_french Wars, Sino-Japanese Wars, And maybe up to or including WWI………..
– tons of possiblity here in new war technology and naval development.
Let’s fire this one up and get this project going!!!
SteelRAin
Posted by steelyrain on February 17th, 2010 at 7:53 am
First off, let me say that I love your games. Rome was probably my favorite. I am loving the graphics and naval battles. I agree with with much of what the above blogger s are saying, however, I am going to buy N:TW because I am a loyal fan of you products and there are many more like me. There are a few things I would like to add to the list of complaints however.
– What happened to the family trees. They add an interesting and fun dimension to game play.
– Some national leaders in these time periods still led their armies in battle, so why are they not available as generals. In the original M:TW some of the fun was risking your leader in battle.
– If you are going to have a faction or country on the map, let us be able to control them.
– Maps should be getting larger, not smaller
Thank you for listening and creating these wonderful games.( I would really like to see Rome redone and I’m sure i,m not alone)
Kdaberg
Posted by kdaberg on February 17th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
My friend got kicked out of steam so he can’t play empire or NapoleonTW.
I think this is pretty unfair because he’s being denied of playing the games.
That isn’t very democratic and I wish that total war should have a talk with the owners of steam.
This might happend to other people who’s probably been looking forward NTW and now being denied of playing it.
Posted by Jacob on February 19th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
i hope your the next game would be a remake of shogun total war
Posted by Philipp on February 20th, 2010 at 11:55 pm
I was pleased to here that CA were making NTW but like a few here I have reservations. I really hope that history plays a bigger part obviously you should be able to change history but the path should be there.
I was surprised that you haven’t included N.America. The wars of 1812 could easily have been included no?
More importantly to me where is the Penninsular campaign? It was integral to the whole era as was the Russian campaign of course. Will it be DLC? If you answer this please state the truth and not misleading statements yyou have said regarding ETW.
Posted by Crowsy on February 22nd, 2010 at 6:57 pm
are you guys ever gonna go back to good old sword fighting? like Rome total war?
Posted by Wuh? on February 24th, 2010 at 3:27 am
i had bether cannons with mediebal 2 TW than Empire total war. E-TW is great because of the sea battles! but i always fight with the same ships! 2 tipes of cannons for a long time, and the same front line units all the game! I want a “WW1 TW” with bigger maps and realy long artillery range. Artillery is just too slow and stupid.
Posted by alejandro on February 24th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
I woud really have more advanve tech than my enemies! for example some cannons with longer range, and powerfull bullets! and been able to notice it! in this game i don notice the tecnological advances on the same unit! But i love it!
Posted by alejandro on February 24th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
Dear TW Crew!
Please finish the Multiplayer Beta in ETW! Maybe some of your AI Problems aren´t solveable. Thats why multiplayer gaming is the key to have enduring fun with ETW and NTW, too. My friends and i are often playing the MP Beta and its the first time we have really fun in fighting battles, because no BAI is needed anymore. Now we have real line battles like in the 18th century. Please, do us that favour! We have spent enough money for the game and all the DLCs that your company sells to us, to get more and more money without working for it.
And fix the bugs:
-artillery keep firing into empty land, because the targets moved out of range
-repair of broken fortresses isn´t possible
-if you fight a war with allies they don´t really help you
-if you make peace with your opponent, the allies keep fighting on. What´s wiht a common peace aggreement possibility to end a war with many participants completly?
– AI´s never make peace wiht AI´s. Wars endure for decades. Why?
-The difficulty level is stupid. If you play on hard and very hard, you have to pay “special taxes” (i call it like that) every turn, while the KI gets extra money. That´s unfair and to simple. CAI must be simply more intelligent in strategy and economy on a hard difficulty.
-wiht the technology of firing in three lines (don´t know the english expression tor that tech) infantry don´t shoot on incoming enemys, just because of one or two soldiers didn´t reload their guns before. The whole unit can´t shoot at a storming enemy unit because of one guy is still reloading! Thats unrealistic and frustrating.
I love the TW series! Youre work has written pc games history! Finish your job! When ETW is free of heavy bugs, i will buy NTW.
AND MAKE THE MP BETA TO AN ALPHA BY SOLVING ALL THE PROBLEMS! THAT´S THE KEY FOR EXCITING BATTLES AND REALISTIC CAMPAIN WARFARE!
Thanks for reading
Posted by Tenfingerjack on February 28th, 2010 at 1:59 am
Total War is virtually it’s own genre… but you are missing the boat. When I installed the multi-player mod for MTWII it was like discovering whole new game.
So… Multi-Player for all the games, release them and I’ll buy ’em.
And… kick anyone’s $%@#$
Posted by DANEgerus on February 28th, 2010 at 4:55 am
Seeing as though E:TW was the “beta”, i’m assuming that all the previous issues have already been addressed in N:TW?
Really though, i feel it would be better to make Rome2:TW.
Posted by Connor on February 28th, 2010 at 11:45 am
I’ve complained before about ETW on this discussion board. I did actually go out and get NYW and I have to say, I have not had 1 crash in the 5 days straight I have been playing it, which is definitely a step up from ETW that crashed every 5 minutes. Though there are some new features that I don’t like in NTW, so far this game is BAD ASS and I say Buy it. Trust me when I say NTW is a really good game, because man was I pissed about ETW being total crap.
Good job on NTW CA, it’s a really good game this time..no joke.
Posted by Jay on March 1st, 2010 at 5:10 pm
DISAPPOINTED at best.
Map is way too small.
Not that mnay “flavor units”. Not that mnay chpices to create. different army types.
Not new batter cphices (pretections, mines, etc).
AI still very bad in battle.
No new, exiciting, technologies.
Actually some mods for ETW are far better than this $50 “graphic upgrade”
Posted by vikingo on March 1st, 2010 at 11:26 pm
I now have NTW. Wow…….I have a brand new computer that far exceeds all requirements for game play esp. designed for gaming, IT WILL NOT RUN. Thanks total war for another premature birth. Love the games, but for all that is holy-give us something that runs (out of the box).
Posted by James on March 2nd, 2010 at 11:58 pm
hey i was wondering if you can add Greece. i know there wasn’t many wars historically but i and a lot of my friends would like to have them as a playable region/country. they been around for hundreds of thousands of years they did fight in some wars just not as a nation so i was hopping the next game can include Greece please
Posted by inucha on March 4th, 2010 at 8:01 am
tok a punt on NTW….why AGAIN when we have two disks in a box do we have to download the flipping game?????????????????????????????????
Posted by lee on March 5th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Just wondering if there might be plans for a Total War: North vs South (Civil War) version down the road? I currently own Shogun Total War, both versions of Medieval Total War and Rome Total War and enjoy playing all of them.
Posted by Mikey5802 on March 7th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Yoo-hoo! You might as well entitle your posts, “Dear Diary,” as I very much doubt anybody from CA is paying attention to anything we say here.
Posted by B.C. Milligan on March 8th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
ETW is a pretty good game and it at least runs without crashin on my PC anyway, so I’m content with it. I do have a few questions though. What happened to fire by rank tactic? We can use it in ETW, but not in NTW? That doesn’t make sense. Also what happened to impact exploding rounds that we had in ETW for howitzers but now we don’t have that in NTW which is suppose to be a further time in history then ETW? just wondering, cause I actually liked getting to the point where I had better arty and better tactics for my infantry. I would have liked to see these and a few other research abilities in NTW along with some newer ones for the times.
Posted by Jay on March 9th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
It would really be a great idea if you managed to make a TW game based on all of the worlds history. This would be a huge step forward for the series rather than a Napoleon version of the game which although is an alright game, it really is just ETW. Out of all the TW games i have played Medieval: Total War was by far the best. TW seems to be going backwards rather than forwards.
Posted by bhyat1 on March 13th, 2010 at 1:36 am
Also it should be made that every nation that existed during the time period should be playable like in MIITW.
Posted by bhyat1 on March 13th, 2010 at 1:40 am
Steam. What a complete pile of manure that is.
Every game in the TW series I’ve got – Rome, Medieval, Medieval II, Shogun, Barbarian, Viking… all sweet as a nut B-)
Then we get Steam & it all goes tits up.
Can’t play Empire, can’t play Napoleon, too many bugs, games won;t even load.
Here’s a little tip in big, froendly letters: DROP STEAM.
Posted by Jerry on March 14th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Just wanted to ask is there anyone else haveing problems with Steam?
Posted by clintell on March 14th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
what is the next period of tw?
is it a rome total war 2 or tw based on word war warfare?
Posted by manecas on March 21st, 2010 at 7:15 pm
*world
Posted by manecas on March 21st, 2010 at 7:16 pm
When CA goes out to make a new game for Total War what ever it will be please,please, please can they stop including arcade types units that for me spoil the game. For example in Rome it was the catapult (used as a battle field weapon). The catapult again in MTW 2 and now in ETW the mortar ( also unlimited ammo for some strange reason?) and in the naval battles as well the mortar ships and rocket ships, WhY they do this I don’t know, but it is very depressing. The mortar teams in the game would put a modern mortar team to shame. A modern mortar team has computers and forward observes with radios to direct the fire and reliable consistent ammo. The 1700’s mortar team had a hammer, a lever and a city to fire at with no real clue where the shot would go.
Siege weapons belong in sieges only not the battlefield. Up to the middle ages siege weapon were made on site by engineers even the great cannon at the siege of Constantinople was made on site.
Posted by Grumpy on March 28th, 2010 at 10:34 am
I love this game but i have a question for you, where the hell is TW for MAC??? i think that you should think about it and learn about games like AOE III. In my opinion this game is much better than AOE but it´s only my opinion and i think that you will earn much more money. TOTAL WAR FOR MACC!!!
Posted by Eduspain on March 30th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Hello all ,
I’m very , very disappointed with NTW . Its NOT even a year since ETW has been released and they come out with a whole new product ? They’re just gonna chuck ETW in a corner like they did with the other products .
. There are only less than 10 factions to play with within SUCH a short period of time ( about 20 years ) where there are hardly any technological advances .
BAI : In ETW , i could close up with a few infantry against the BAI in their flanks and when in range , they don’t even line up their units against me , and when my troops start firing , the BAI stay in the same position . In NTW , There is a slight improvement . the BAI troops will scramble ( WALKING ) to line up against my troops when in a gunfight .
Campaign : The new and improved Voice advice is really cool . But 4 EASY campaigns and you expect us to pay $40 + for it ?
Improvements : Other than the New units , Better looking uniforms , more detailed Cinematics , there isn’t really much difference from ETW . A simple bayoneted rifle that can fire one shot with such a slow reload time , cannons , wooden ships . TW series has been jumping from 300 year intervals but everything is the almost the same in ETW and NTW ! Of all things , you guys had to make NTW , why not go to WWI , or ancient China where 9/10 of their population was wiped out in the time of war ? It might be a better marketing plan but whats more important ? The income or the customers happiness ? Judging by the prices , more and more of the customers will go into Piracy .
Posted by Concered Fan on April 5th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Hello
How does the scoring system in multiplayer games is the logic?
How many stars will win?
In a lost cause yükseldikce compare scores more points are lost?
In a comparison yükseldikce why you have earned points are taken at points?
A friend of my answer to this question here?
Thank you.
Posted by guldiz on April 8th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
I love Empire Total War. I Love Napoleon Total War. I think CA you guys did a great job with both even with the problems. The only thing I hope is from here you incorporate a world map, include all modern nations and do a WW1/WW2 scenario. Or even slowly progressing, do a civil war era moving on from Napoleon era. The incorporation of the North American countries was great but it wasn’t fully realised as America really wasn’t playable (at least in Grand Campaign). Even to have the further realised Canadian colony defense of 1812 against the Americans would be an epic custom battle. Having Asia in it would be very cool as well. A remake of Shogun with expanded campaign map would be cool. Anyway, great job guys, I think you are great still, and yup I have bought every single TW title, expansion and unit additions since Rome. Keep it up!!
Posted by Steve on April 8th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
i am a big fan of TW i think that NTW is good but rome TW is the best one you made .
is there going to be a world map fo NTW?
what is the next TW going to be?
Posted by velin on April 19th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Hi Mike
First of all i would like to say that the TW games has been a pleasure to play. I had alittle trouble with ETW, but not nearly as much as all of my friends that played this game also, but i think enough have been said on that subject already.
NTW is a great game in my opinion. And the modding community is all over it making great mods already. There is one thing though which i’m really disapointed about.. WHY add swedish voices to Denmark?! All research and history books shows that the command language was evenly german and danish, and it can’t be that hard to find a voice actor that knows the danish language?
If your team knew just alittle about scandinavian history you would know that it’s almost a mortal sin to add swedish voices to the danes, thinking on the two countries war history. I mean when you talk about making a game with focus on details something like this just saddens me. At least change it for the next TW game, or make a patch and add either german or even add new danish voices to Denmark in NTW. Not doing this the first time in ETW is just so slobbish and out of charactor thinking on the games you guys have released so far. Please correct it!!!
It can’t be that hard, damn even i would do it in my vacation just for a free plane tickit and a room on a hotel, no salary. It can’t be that hard when i think on all the other details you guys have remembered!
Concerning the next TW game i’m thinking maybe the civil war, either as a expansion DLC or a stand alone game like NTW. Robert. E. Lee Total War/Civil War Total War or something like that. Maybe even World at War Total War, thinking on the first world war here, though i think you’re going to satisfy the americans and make at least an expansion on the civil war.
Personally i’m hopeing on a new Rome Total War game. The graphics in NTW in the Roman age would be simply amazing! And navel warfare with wave of galleys with archers and mounted catapults firing hot shots and the enemy ships burning while the crew jumps in the water is enough for me to buy it. I would even accept swedish or norwegian as the language for the vikings/northren tribes.
Thanks for some nice games, but please fix the language, it’s an embarrassment for your history team that made all the research to NTW.
Best regards.
Posted by Christian Johan Goth on May 9th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
what is the next TW gona be u guys really did a good job but i think that u should move on to something like WW1 or 11 or even modern times people would like this
Posted by Sermed on May 22nd, 2010 at 9:05 pm
You have a great game but your Victory Conditions are a little Ridiculous and in fact have nothing to do with the actual Conflict. Why in the Hell would Russia bother getting Prussia into the War against France, just to turn on them and seize their Territories? Itt’s completely idiotic and has no basis on any kind of Reality.
Just like Austria’s idiotic Victory Conditions, the whole idea is to form a Coalition against France, not work against your Allies. To suggest Austria taking a Territory from the Ottoman Empire and Russia borders on sheer Lunacy. Your game needs some major fixes, especially where the Mamelukes have massed artillery (French.
As a Historian, I deal in facts and not Fantasy
Posted by Patrick D on May 26th, 2010 at 8:33 am
TW Napoleon is the best of the series. How about TW American Civil War??? Short time period, but lots of tech. advances. Have a scenario where the British enter on the Confederate side. Maybe add Mexico, Native American or other European powers.
Posted by m. wallace on August 24th, 2010 at 3:29 am
Check out my blog, http://rebelliousopinion.blog.com/ it’s about Napoleonic War vs World War 2
Posted by Dennis on November 26th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
It must be a show of incredible endurance to have to sit down and read every last comment, esp. with the occasionally ridiculously garbled spelling and grammar, hopefully I don’t stick my foot in my mouth.
Well, just like everyone else I’d like to voice the same general opinion and then give my own unique twist on what I think you should do, if not just agree with a few of the hundred other people that have commented.
Yes, Empire was buggy. Yes, Napoleon was incredibly specific and confining after playing Empire. Yes, believe it or not, they did a good job going into such specific detail regarding the Napoleonic Wars. Yes, to all the things that are still wrong with the games they’ve released. Yes, they should do an American Civil War/Pax Britannica. Yes, corporate America is going to break up pieces of just about any game and sell them seperately to make more money. Life isn’t fair in some regards, and unless you’re the CEO of SEGA, you probably aren’t going to get what you want.
What I’d like to submit as a suggestion however, is that maybe you should branch off with the two different ideas, create an extremely specific storyline in relation to whatever conflicts you want to with the Total War logo, like you are doing with Shogun 2 and did with Napoleon. But, you should create a seperate game that combines all the general information behind the specifics and slap it all together into a massively global Total War.
Empire introduced the idea of being able to wage war on factions completely on the other side of the world even though your enemies were right next door. If there were an American Civil War TW, I would find it immensely satisfying and have a bonus hilarity to invade Canada if I so desired, or China, or South Africa, or colonize Greenland and Antarctica if my economy permitted me to.
Like someone else was saying, if you make victory conditions based on a positive diplomatic setting, it doesn’t make sense in a Total War game where everyone wants to put your balls in a sling on the hardest difficulty. If you want to be diplomatic you have to refine your economic settings to not be something like 80% dependent on conquering other factions and waging war on your supposed allies for more territorial income.
I do love the specific historical Total War however, I like learning about things like that, as long as I can assure myself later by doing my own research and finding out that all the general’s names were historical fact and the general idea behind the storylines, with the irony of being able to win the battle of Waterloo with Napoleon given the same circumstances that he was given.
I don’t know what to say other than whats probably already been said, Coporate is going to hold an axe over the head of a game’s release date, and testers are going to make mistakes, even though they might be technically testing for free, and different fans are going to want different things, and enjoy different aspects.
The ironic thing is that no one ever likes to read this much…
Posted by t.a.r. on December 6th, 2010 at 2:55 am
lets go and post some more
Posted by baidu123 on September 8th, 2011 at 11:47 am