I was going to play some RTW2/DEI (Divide et Impera); arguably one of the best TW mods ever done ... won lots of awards.
Look at this unit standing on a 45 degree slope. The maps are beautiful rendered, but it is all for affect. These Romans must have their space boots on!!! Time for some FOG2 ... I cannot deal space/time warps in Total War!!!
2020-10-23 19-18-35.jpg (223.73 KiB) Viewed 3366 times
MarkShot wrote: ↑Fri Oct 23, 2020 11:29 am
I was going to play some RTW2/DEI (Divide et Impera); arguably one of the best TW mods ever done ... won lots of awards.
Look at this unit standing on a 45 degree slope. The maps are beautiful rendered, but it is all for affect. These Romans must have their space boots on!!! Time for some FOG2 ... I cannot deal space/time warps in Total War!!!
2020-10-23 19-18-35.jpg
Not defending the Tw franchise game play in any way, but that looks fine to me, visualIy. I can stand upright on steeper slopes than that, most people can barring ankle problems.
i on the other side use to play a hell of al lot and still be part of its moding scene. The problem is that being an RTS and with a weack AI the battles dont have the authenticity that FOG2 have. part of it, is that Possitioning is not so important as you can very easly and quite fast change position of your units and your dessisions are not so weighted. Terrain play a role but not at all the fontamental fog2s' one. same goes to moral. generally is more clicking and less thinking. Visuals are stanning though ( unit cohesion apart ) and DEI not only made the campaign justice, it has leterally thousands of historical researched units and very deep faction rosters. both are very good games in their own ways.
now u kinda made me want to play TWR2 , Romans against romans only. leme know if u wana play some battles. i am rusty with TW , but i ve played it since i was 1 year old
TW despite the fine work of modders can only go so far, because of the combat engine coding.
This is not a criticism of CA or TW players, since it is aimed at a certain market, and after 20 years ... their business model has proven very successful.
I am thankful there is a FOG2 with one of the best TBS UI's ever done for deeper more contemplative modeling of the ancient world's battles.
Thank you, Richard.
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Also, there is much that is commendable about FOG2.
Those of us who are software engineers know that every problem has many solutions.
If we look at Battlefront and CM:
CMx1: Was statistical based modeling of combat to deliver realistic outcomes. (the behavior of a square of terrain or fire power of a squad)
CMx2: Is object modeling of individual trees, soldiers and rounds. The developers felts this approach results in greater fidelity. Certainly it is far more work to code and far more CPU to run.
Richard has demonstrated that a set of abstract rules can do a fine job of generating realistic outcomes. This take less programming than computing the ballistic behavior of every pilum, and it also means that this game can run fine on a wide range of computers. Because the ultimate goal is the outcome and not the computer code.
Richard has as a result of FOG2 demonstrated a key lesson of game design. Software mimicry is NOT the answer to every simulation, but just one possibility.
FoG2 did kinda ruin Total War games for me even though they are probably my most played game series of all time.
Compared to how unit types interact with each other and the terrain in FoG2, the same elements in Total War feel far less interesting and refined. The TW battles tend to boil down to both sides rushing for the highest hill on the map that also tends to have a huge impact on the following melee as well. The fight itself is always the same big clash followed by small scale flanking and rear charges by cavalry, or a slow defensive grind in a bottleneck.
Siege battles, which are pretty much the most common type of battles in most TW games are also the least interesting as the strict unit based mechanics don't really bend to what should be far more organic and chaotic plundering (I find the original Stronghold games do this the best). There isn't real skirmishing light infantry in the TW games as the skirmish mode that has been part of the series for ages doesn't really work as it should. Together with the ability to shoot "blindly" over walls and friendly units into melee makes ranged units highly unrealistic and overemphasizes ranged units in the series. The cavalry is straight out of Lord of the Rings movies and and a massive pain to micromanage.
A lot of the things FoG2 does better and more believably is thanks to its top down design. For Total War games to reach similar level of authenticity they would still have to model a large number of soft factors and move away from the unit based design. That's certainly not going to happen as the series has seen fairly little mechanical development (not counting strategic layer) after the original Rome Total War and most of it has been cosmetic or gamey.
I still play classic Rome Total War all the time. Especially modded.. the Restitutor Orbis mod came out in beta relatively recently after being in development for literally 10 years and I honestly think it and others like it are among the best examples of historical media out there, bar none. Sure it could do some things in terms of battle modeling better but I think its overall a nice enough representation for the kind of quasi-arcade simulation that hits enough of the basics in emphasizing positioning and morale.
I think Shogun 1 was always the most 'wargamey' on the battlefield - weather, height, forests all had pretty strong effects, and the point of battles was generally to inflict a chain rout. Later Total Wars became gradually more forgiving, and more about killing than breaking the enemy. Still, I pretty regularly play Fourth Age Total War, a Rome 1 mod. I think the comparison is largely apples and oranges - the FoG system I play for a more realistic battlefield experience and that table top feel, Total War for a cinematic battlefield experience and a solid campaign system.
My dream would be a Shogun 1 or Medieval 1 style campaign map wedded to the FoG system - but there's dangers in going down that route. It's a lot of development time and resources, and people would always want more features. I do feel that the later Total Wars try to do too much with the campaign map, to the point where I'd rather just load up CK2 or EU4. The early Total Wars hit a sweet spot for me, with some strategic decision making, some development, but always concentrating on fighting battles in context. The one-battle-after-another 'campaign' system we have in FoGII never did it for me, neither did more advanced versions of this model such as in Ultimate General Civil War. I want a map, and to move around on it. Pike and Shot and Sengoku Jidai have this to an extent, but it's extremely bare bones.
There is of course FoG Empires, but that looks more complex than what I'm looking for. And of course that's the difficulty - some people want more complexity, some less, and generally studios are good at making a tactical engine or a strategic engine, but not both, not to mention cost.
SnuggleBunnies wrote: ↑Mon Oct 26, 2020 3:13 pm
Still, I pretty regularly play Fourth Age Total War, a Rome 1 mod.
FATW is so good. Have you seen the Wainriders expansion they are working on? Its moving to the Alexander engine and set during the Third Age 1500 years or so prior to the book events.
The factions in FATW minus the elves and orcs and such would actually be a good base for a Fog2 mod.
I echo Snugglebunnies' admiration of Shogun I -- a real breakthrough wargame. Brilliant! The series has gone downhill ever since, with the exception of Shogun II. The area strategic map was perfect. There was an ancients mod for Medieval I which was far better than than Rome I or II. It's kind of sad actually.
SnuggleBunnies wrote: ↑Mon Oct 26, 2020 3:13 pm
Still, I pretty regularly play Fourth Age Total War, a Rome 1 mod.
FATW is so good. Have you seen the Wainriders expansion they are working on? Its moving to the Alexander engine and set during the Third Age 1500 years or so prior to the book events.
The factions in FATW minus the elves and orcs and such would actually be a good base for a Fog2 mod.
Getting far off topic here, but I think Middle Earth could certainly be adapted to the FoG system, though balancing would take a lot of testing to get right, due to the extremes in unit size and Quality. The reason we haven't seen it is that modding it would require a lot more modeling and graphical work than most modders are capable of, and an official expansion would require the sort of insanely expensive purchasing of rights that even AAA companies hesitate to commit to. Still, Slitherine is clearly aware that fantasy strategy can be quite profitable - see Fantasy General II. So we can dream.
grumpydaddy845 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:16 am
The Romans were world renowned for their strong ankles. It's pretty much what held the empire together.
Well it certainly stopped their feet from falling off the bottom of their legs.
