The Total War series is one of the most controversial of the genre. Many love it, many hate it. Over the years 9 games have been released, expansions included. Presenting some of the largest battles in video games, it is one of the most influental brands out there.
Total War kicked off with Shogun: Total War. A bold move to make a game of feudal Japan insted of the usual European theathre. After a good welcome, the invasion began: an expansion game, the Mongol Invasion was released. The second game, Medieval: Total War was a safer release, set in medieval Europe. Continuing the tradition, the expansion was called Viking invasion, which was set in 8th and 9th century Britain. Introducing a new game engine came along Rome: Total War and its natural successor, the Barbarian invasion. Returning to the middle ages, Medieval 2: Total war used the same engine as Rome TW. M2TW broke the tradition of "invasion" expansion with Medieval 2: Total War Kindoms, which added not one but four new campagins to paly. The latest release, Empire: Total War got over the fear of gunpowder and feasts on the joys of 18th century Europe.
Let's start in chronological order: Shogun: Total War was slightly a victim of its own big ideas. The early gmae engine was flawed and the grand idea of battles with 10,000 men wasn't perfectly executed. However the game more than made up for it with an exellent campagin mode and a new exotic setting of medieval Japan. The expansion intoduced many new units to an already impressive selection. The infant game had problems with troops: all the unit sizes were set at 60, so peasants and samurai cavalry had the same unit size. In terms of gameplay, not the best, but immersive and something you keep coming back to.
Medieval: Total War, arguably the breakthrough of the series, is my personal favourite. Gameplay improved from Shogun: Unit sizes varied from 20 to 100, and were adjutable by the player. Battles were more managable, even at the high end, close to 10000 soldiers. Some unpleasant aspects of the aging engine still remained, sieges for exaple, were not as realistic as fans would have wanted: you couldn't place troops on fortifications, your towers tried to destroy your walls and the units were somewhat sticky to command inside small areas. The campagin mode was not complex, easy to learn and despite simplicity, quite flexible. Operating a certain area as a province worked well, although left little chances of tactical troop placement. Some of the buildings took ludicrously long to complete, when compared to others: a trading post took 4 years, whereas a gigantic fortress took 20. Were they building that trading post one grain of sand at the time? Despite small flaws, entertaining to paly and addictive to some extent. Good gamepaly and excellent music. The suddenly reappearing already destroyed factions were a nuisance, they always popped up at the time you least wanted them to. Which made it all the more rewarding to crush them again.
The diplomacy/agent configuration was perhaps too straightforward simple, players may want more options than just "alled-neutral-at war". The viking invasion and its separate Viking campagin were fun to play, and brought variation to the traditional unit setting with blood crazed berserkers and other interesting troops, mainly celtic warriors. In Medieval: Total War there are dozens of factions and about an incredibly wide selection of troops, each faction with its specialities.
MTW isn't pretty, but it sure is fun [http://www.counterfrag.com/screenshots/medieval%20total%20war%20viking%20invasion/1.jpg]
The time travel Back to antiquity and the glory of Rome worked. The new 3D engine made the campagin map far more interesting and tactical than ever before: rivers, mountains and forests now had an effect. The updated diplomacy system was a welcome change, allowing the execution of rather complex political schemes. The "end turn" button now turned the clock forward only 6 months, making winter and summer relevant. Also buildings no longer took an eternity to complete. New features to the building/recruiting panels were the much requested repair/retrain options, making the cities more dynamic and the troops renewable, instead of the old "on use only" soldiers. Generals with their armies, diplomats and other agents now moved independetly across the campagin map. The player had to carefully plan his moves or an army could be lost in an instant.
The 3D campagin map [http://medieval2.heavengames.com/albums/screenshots/Medieval_II_Total_War_PCScreenshots6288MTW2_18_10_0277.jpg]
Three things are necessary in order to maake war: money, money and more money. In Rome: Total War, making mountains of money was easy. too easy, in fact. In earlier TW games, it wasn't impssible to forge a fortune, but it required a bit of effort. In RTW, the player is bombarded with gold and the cities sprout out thousands upon thousands. In all, Rome: Total War is easy. Even on the hardest difficulty level getting the funds to reqruit a massive army is nearly effortless.
New 3D models [http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/article/533/533806/rome-total-war-20040727114614815.jpg]
In terms of gameplay, Rome: Total War is sublime. The battles, now in full 3D, with walls that can accomodate troops, phalanhax and testudo forming units, exotic specialities like war elephants and chariots were incredibly fun. The campagin may have been easy-ish, but the whole catch of Total War games, the massive battles, offer challenges even to a veteran player. How many persians can you defeat with only 300 spartan hoplites? How many war elephants can you kill without casualities? The new shiny 3D graphics were a quantum leap from the old total war "semi3D" pixelated masses". The battles are great entertainment and make the game a good benchmark.
Hoplites! [http://www.totalwar.org/games/screengallery_rome/images/TotalwarOrg_Rome_0020.jpg]
Perhaps the biggest flaw of Rome: Total War was its many new features. It was time consuming to operate an empire reaching from Gibraltar to Baghdad, configuring each city and moving each army separately. Leaving the cities for the AI to worry about is not an option, if you want to actually benefit from contolling them in the first place. One turn could take 4 hours, with all of its battles and fine tuning. A long campaging is a massive undertaking, bur then again, it is a massive game. The Expansion is set after the fall of West Rome, it offers new units and othen fun new content, nothing revolutionary, aside from night fighitng, which is a great new tactical add-on.
With Medieval 2: Total War, there are some problems. The graphics are better than ever, battles are still great. Basically nothing wrong. But something is not right. The campagin is supposed to be simpler than it was in RTW. It is, but in the wrong parts. The "turn" now takes 2 years in the game callendar. Still the generals move even less than they did before: marching from London to Edinburg takes about 12 years. Now that's not right. A crusade marching to Palestine from France will scatter after 30 years of dreary walking across Hungary. Buildings take very long to build and the cities grow at an agonisigly slow pace. While getting filthy rich in RTW was easy, it's impossible in M2TW. That's good. Medieval kingdoms didn't swell in gold and making war was tremendously expensive. The price is right, so to speak. Reqruiting an army takes about 1/3 of waht it used to, thanks to multiple training slots. Also good. Mustering troops for war has to happen quickly.
New shiny graphics, still looks good today [http://medieval2.heavengames.com/albums/screenshots/Medieval_II_Total_War_PCScreenshots6286MTW2_10_10_0249.sized.jpg]
The Battles are still outstanding, sometimes even better than RTW, with an astonishing selection of unit types and settings for the battles. Also new special abilities some units have make it all the more interesting. The Expansion, Medieval 2: Total War Kingdoms adds quite a lot of new content. Four new campagins, the Britannia, the Crusades, the Teutonic and the America campagins, all of which are interesting and fun to play. Along with them come even more unit types and a more complex campagin family tree and agents. Altoghether a good game, but it suffers from some annoying issues.
Teutonic knights [http://ve3dmedia.ign.com/images/00/15/1519_medieval-ii-total-war-kingdoms-screenshots-20070510005255977_normal.jpg]
The latest of the series, Empire: Total War is the most radical with new features. For the first time, sea battles are available for the player to play personally, a truly long awaited feature. In the campaging map, the king no longer gallops around the map slashing rebels every now and then, but sits in a palace in the capital and enjoys luxuries. Which points to a new direction: diplpmacy has a much greater influence on the game than before. Conquering half of Europe is no longer always the best option. Refreshing and interesting. The campagins have many interesting new possibilities, such as universities that do research on new technologies and resources the palyer can take advantage of more intensly instead just trading them. The option to change the system of goverment is also a good one. The campagin is very challenging to play without making mistakes.
Pirate hunting, anyone? [http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/empire__total_war_-_leipzig-pcscreenshots9479etw_announce01.jpg]
The battles have become less intense, not quite as exiting as they were before. Troops firing muskets at eachother is somewhat cool, but doesn't give the same thrill as warriors chopping eachothers limbs off. The combat it well simulated, well animated and quite entertaining. The land battles are jsut not what they used to be. But the sea battles are something else. The great wooden warships are awe inspiring and the cannon fire is truly spectacular. Larger battles on water are of course challenging to control, the AI wants to make it into a big gathering os ships all shooting at every possible direction. Annoying whne you're trying to execute a delicate flanking maneuver. But that's usually the way things went: commanding a fleet is never easy. And the avarage player is hardly a Horatio Nelson reborn.
A fgure from the Napoleonic era brings me to a point about the incoming expansion: it's going to be about napoleonic wars. I'm genuinely looking forward to that, it is going to be a challenge to simulate 19th century warfare.
The Total War series has its up and downs, more ups than downs in my mind, and it is a big name. It offers strategy fans a chance to have fun and if the need arises, test their abilities. Any new gamers interested in the series should not start with the latest, but recommndedly with Rome: Total War. It is a good entry game with varying levels of challenges. The older games may not look as pretty as most modern games, but they are worth a look anyway. TW is not a game series for the hasty and hotheaded, thinking is required. The TW games are the leading name in their scarcely populated genre, and for a good reason: they've had time to develop the gamepaly and the campaging.
EPILOGUE: This is my first review on the Escapist, please, speak your mind.
Total War kicked off with Shogun: Total War. A bold move to make a game of feudal Japan insted of the usual European theathre. After a good welcome, the invasion began: an expansion game, the Mongol Invasion was released. The second game, Medieval: Total War was a safer release, set in medieval Europe. Continuing the tradition, the expansion was called Viking invasion, which was set in 8th and 9th century Britain. Introducing a new game engine came along Rome: Total War and its natural successor, the Barbarian invasion. Returning to the middle ages, Medieval 2: Total war used the same engine as Rome TW. M2TW broke the tradition of "invasion" expansion with Medieval 2: Total War Kindoms, which added not one but four new campagins to paly. The latest release, Empire: Total War got over the fear of gunpowder and feasts on the joys of 18th century Europe.
Let's start in chronological order: Shogun: Total War was slightly a victim of its own big ideas. The early gmae engine was flawed and the grand idea of battles with 10,000 men wasn't perfectly executed. However the game more than made up for it with an exellent campagin mode and a new exotic setting of medieval Japan. The expansion intoduced many new units to an already impressive selection. The infant game had problems with troops: all the unit sizes were set at 60, so peasants and samurai cavalry had the same unit size. In terms of gameplay, not the best, but immersive and something you keep coming back to.
Medieval: Total War, arguably the breakthrough of the series, is my personal favourite. Gameplay improved from Shogun: Unit sizes varied from 20 to 100, and were adjutable by the player. Battles were more managable, even at the high end, close to 10000 soldiers. Some unpleasant aspects of the aging engine still remained, sieges for exaple, were not as realistic as fans would have wanted: you couldn't place troops on fortifications, your towers tried to destroy your walls and the units were somewhat sticky to command inside small areas. The campagin mode was not complex, easy to learn and despite simplicity, quite flexible. Operating a certain area as a province worked well, although left little chances of tactical troop placement. Some of the buildings took ludicrously long to complete, when compared to others: a trading post took 4 years, whereas a gigantic fortress took 20. Were they building that trading post one grain of sand at the time? Despite small flaws, entertaining to paly and addictive to some extent. Good gamepaly and excellent music. The suddenly reappearing already destroyed factions were a nuisance, they always popped up at the time you least wanted them to. Which made it all the more rewarding to crush them again.
The diplomacy/agent configuration was perhaps too straightforward simple, players may want more options than just "alled-neutral-at war". The viking invasion and its separate Viking campagin were fun to play, and brought variation to the traditional unit setting with blood crazed berserkers and other interesting troops, mainly celtic warriors. In Medieval: Total War there are dozens of factions and about an incredibly wide selection of troops, each faction with its specialities.
MTW isn't pretty, but it sure is fun [http://www.counterfrag.com/screenshots/medieval%20total%20war%20viking%20invasion/1.jpg]
The time travel Back to antiquity and the glory of Rome worked. The new 3D engine made the campagin map far more interesting and tactical than ever before: rivers, mountains and forests now had an effect. The updated diplomacy system was a welcome change, allowing the execution of rather complex political schemes. The "end turn" button now turned the clock forward only 6 months, making winter and summer relevant. Also buildings no longer took an eternity to complete. New features to the building/recruiting panels were the much requested repair/retrain options, making the cities more dynamic and the troops renewable, instead of the old "on use only" soldiers. Generals with their armies, diplomats and other agents now moved independetly across the campagin map. The player had to carefully plan his moves or an army could be lost in an instant.
The 3D campagin map [http://medieval2.heavengames.com/albums/screenshots/Medieval_II_Total_War_PCScreenshots6288MTW2_18_10_0277.jpg]
Three things are necessary in order to maake war: money, money and more money. In Rome: Total War, making mountains of money was easy. too easy, in fact. In earlier TW games, it wasn't impssible to forge a fortune, but it required a bit of effort. In RTW, the player is bombarded with gold and the cities sprout out thousands upon thousands. In all, Rome: Total War is easy. Even on the hardest difficulty level getting the funds to reqruit a massive army is nearly effortless.
New 3D models [http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/article/533/533806/rome-total-war-20040727114614815.jpg]
In terms of gameplay, Rome: Total War is sublime. The battles, now in full 3D, with walls that can accomodate troops, phalanhax and testudo forming units, exotic specialities like war elephants and chariots were incredibly fun. The campagin may have been easy-ish, but the whole catch of Total War games, the massive battles, offer challenges even to a veteran player. How many persians can you defeat with only 300 spartan hoplites? How many war elephants can you kill without casualities? The new shiny 3D graphics were a quantum leap from the old total war "semi3D" pixelated masses". The battles are great entertainment and make the game a good benchmark.
Hoplites! [http://www.totalwar.org/games/screengallery_rome/images/TotalwarOrg_Rome_0020.jpg]
Perhaps the biggest flaw of Rome: Total War was its many new features. It was time consuming to operate an empire reaching from Gibraltar to Baghdad, configuring each city and moving each army separately. Leaving the cities for the AI to worry about is not an option, if you want to actually benefit from contolling them in the first place. One turn could take 4 hours, with all of its battles and fine tuning. A long campaging is a massive undertaking, bur then again, it is a massive game. The Expansion is set after the fall of West Rome, it offers new units and othen fun new content, nothing revolutionary, aside from night fighitng, which is a great new tactical add-on.
With Medieval 2: Total War, there are some problems. The graphics are better than ever, battles are still great. Basically nothing wrong. But something is not right. The campagin is supposed to be simpler than it was in RTW. It is, but in the wrong parts. The "turn" now takes 2 years in the game callendar. Still the generals move even less than they did before: marching from London to Edinburg takes about 12 years. Now that's not right. A crusade marching to Palestine from France will scatter after 30 years of dreary walking across Hungary. Buildings take very long to build and the cities grow at an agonisigly slow pace. While getting filthy rich in RTW was easy, it's impossible in M2TW. That's good. Medieval kingdoms didn't swell in gold and making war was tremendously expensive. The price is right, so to speak. Reqruiting an army takes about 1/3 of waht it used to, thanks to multiple training slots. Also good. Mustering troops for war has to happen quickly.
New shiny graphics, still looks good today [http://medieval2.heavengames.com/albums/screenshots/Medieval_II_Total_War_PCScreenshots6286MTW2_10_10_0249.sized.jpg]
The Battles are still outstanding, sometimes even better than RTW, with an astonishing selection of unit types and settings for the battles. Also new special abilities some units have make it all the more interesting. The Expansion, Medieval 2: Total War Kingdoms adds quite a lot of new content. Four new campagins, the Britannia, the Crusades, the Teutonic and the America campagins, all of which are interesting and fun to play. Along with them come even more unit types and a more complex campagin family tree and agents. Altoghether a good game, but it suffers from some annoying issues.
Teutonic knights [http://ve3dmedia.ign.com/images/00/15/1519_medieval-ii-total-war-kingdoms-screenshots-20070510005255977_normal.jpg]
The latest of the series, Empire: Total War is the most radical with new features. For the first time, sea battles are available for the player to play personally, a truly long awaited feature. In the campaging map, the king no longer gallops around the map slashing rebels every now and then, but sits in a palace in the capital and enjoys luxuries. Which points to a new direction: diplpmacy has a much greater influence on the game than before. Conquering half of Europe is no longer always the best option. Refreshing and interesting. The campagins have many interesting new possibilities, such as universities that do research on new technologies and resources the palyer can take advantage of more intensly instead just trading them. The option to change the system of goverment is also a good one. The campagin is very challenging to play without making mistakes.
Pirate hunting, anyone? [http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/empire__total_war_-_leipzig-pcscreenshots9479etw_announce01.jpg]
The battles have become less intense, not quite as exiting as they were before. Troops firing muskets at eachother is somewhat cool, but doesn't give the same thrill as warriors chopping eachothers limbs off. The combat it well simulated, well animated and quite entertaining. The land battles are jsut not what they used to be. But the sea battles are something else. The great wooden warships are awe inspiring and the cannon fire is truly spectacular. Larger battles on water are of course challenging to control, the AI wants to make it into a big gathering os ships all shooting at every possible direction. Annoying whne you're trying to execute a delicate flanking maneuver. But that's usually the way things went: commanding a fleet is never easy. And the avarage player is hardly a Horatio Nelson reborn.
A fgure from the Napoleonic era brings me to a point about the incoming expansion: it's going to be about napoleonic wars. I'm genuinely looking forward to that, it is going to be a challenge to simulate 19th century warfare.
The Total War series has its up and downs, more ups than downs in my mind, and it is a big name. It offers strategy fans a chance to have fun and if the need arises, test their abilities. Any new gamers interested in the series should not start with the latest, but recommndedly with Rome: Total War. It is a good entry game with varying levels of challenges. The older games may not look as pretty as most modern games, but they are worth a look anyway. TW is not a game series for the hasty and hotheaded, thinking is required. The TW games are the leading name in their scarcely populated genre, and for a good reason: they've had time to develop the gamepaly and the campaging.
EPILOGUE: This is my first review on the Escapist, please, speak your mind.
