Total War: PHARAOH

[Tyrr]

Wasn't Shogun 2 the first TW where they gave up on proper siege mechanics and just let everyone climb the walls?

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Wasn't Shogun 2 the first TW where they gave up on proper siege mechanics and just let everyone climb the walls?

The funny thing is sieges in Shogun 2 are the best in the whole franchise. There is a lot of decline on the campaign map and with the overall design direction in Shogun, but the RT battles are the exception. The siege maps are clean and very well designed and most importantly worked.

 

[Gromoer]

because we know a lot of the team was fed up with Rome 2 as its development was a massive shitshow that even put Empire to shame.

Assuming people do their jobs there because of something other than money is laughably naive in the first place.

 

[Gromoer]

I even liked fall of the samurai! It still holds up except for bugs that crash coop multiplayers lol. It improved on almost every aspect of Empire and Napoleon battles-wise.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

The siege maps are clean and very well designed and most importantly worked.

I don't know about that, I felt that the AI still didn't handle it too well - still suffered from the flag rushing bullshit from Empire. Its mainly though that because the sieges are built around the idea that walls aren't a big deal unlike with Empire it works a lot better, the AI will just path over a wall in Shogun 2, in Empire they get caught on the walls. The AI still does brain dead suicide charges though which takes all the fun out of battles as such I found Shogun 2's BAI too easy even on Legendary but I found its CAI was outright unfair and cheaty which is normal for CA games, the balance I usually go with is Normal for CAI and Legendary for BAI because it prevents the CAI from doing outright bullshit with diplomacy whilst still retaining some challenge. Even though I've done Legendary CAI playthroughs I just found them to be boring because you end up fighting waves of very similar battles which I similarly disliked about Rome 1 but Rome 1 had the advantage of having a technological end-game - Shogun 2 tries but ultimately the end-game techs can be easily rushed just like they could with Empire (because Prussia doesn't need a navy so fuck it rush the bayonets and fire by rank!).

Shogun 2 again it only works because of its limitations, the Sieges work because they basically got rid of the walls so its a lot more intense and fast. I do think its preferable as Sieges were always total wars weakest points.

 

[Average Manatee]

Wasn't Shogun 2 the first TW where they gave up on proper siege mechanics and just let everyone climb the walls?

While I never liked this (I also very much hate how archers have great accuracy shooting at indirect targets inside walls), the reasons Shogun 2 sieges worked were:

- Morale actually mattered. Most armies were ashigaru who could be routed if you killed just 1/3rd of them. In Warhammer (just picking this because I've played it 10x as much as other post-shogun 2 TW games) most units have insanely high morale scores and even tier 2 units will fight to ~25% of their unit remaining unless you use special lord abilities or magic to reduce morale.
- People still fell climbing walls and got completely exhausted, which actually mattered in Shogun 2. In Warhammer everyone gets exhausted after about 10s of melee combat anyway and as soon as the AI reaches the top of your walls they immediately start beating you in melee anyway because it barely affects stats. In Shogun 2 if you have ashigaru ontop a wall and ashigaru are climbing it you'll probably only lose 10-20% of your unit before the enemy gets routed.
- The fact that inside the fort is large open terrain for managing actual melee engagements and using your ranged units well makes fighting there fun. In Warhammer all of the streets in cities are a specific width that is like 1/3rd of what is comfortable to play in. Basically only one unit can fit in it at a time which means the only strategy is having 1v1 meatgrinder matchups with no tactics (aside from exploiting when the AI does something really dumb, which is why sieges feel dumb when that's all you do).
- Ranged units on the wall received significant protection and a great vantage point so they felt useful. If the enemy started climbing the fact that the walls are connected to flat terrain means you can immediately pull them off and have melee units get ready. In Warhammer walls are all raised and pathing awful so it takes like 60s to cycle a melee unit to the top. And once they get there the melee unit can get raped by enemy archers since its practically unprotected while your archers have to deal with not getting a firing arc in the congested cities.

So the net effect is that the walls provided a decent amount of benefit to the defender and slowed the attacker. Ideally you could use this to rout part of the enemy army and snowball your advantage to rout more and more. At no time did you feel like defending a fort hurt you as the defender because once they got up there it was just a fairly normal land battle.

 

[janior]

wasn't shogun 2 where they ramped up AI cheating? Sure it was still present in previous games but iirc in that one they really went overboard with it

 

[Average Manatee]

AI gets a lot of campaign bonuses at higher difficulty level and diplomatically become extra aggressive against you. Battle bonuses are fairly light though, basically any advantage you can get tactically is enough to win an even matchup.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Empire was the game where the AI cheated hard. AI could simply magic unit stacks into existence.

 

[janior]

Empire was the game where the AI cheated hard. AI could simply magic unit stacks into existence.

it wasn't the case in shogun 2?

 

[True Ukrainian]

Empire was the game where the AI cheated hard. AI could simply magic unit stacks into existence.

it wasn't the case in shogun 2?

I remember it being way more obvious in empire.

 

[AdamReith]

Shogun 2 fixing/simplifying sieges is the main reason it's probably my most played in the series.

So many Medieval 2 campaigns end with me rage quitting from a particularly obnoxious siege. Even though the castle in question is probably beautifully reproduced the AI just can't cope while the holdout time for a decent sized castle might be 10 turns plus.

In Shogun 2 the holdout time is 2 or 3 turns so I rarely even consider bothering with a direct assault.

 

[The_Mask]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1937780/discussions/0/3881599433111892275/


An Apology, and clarifications on Moderation
Hey Folks,

By way of quick introductions, I’m Adam Freeman – Creative Assembly’s Head of Community.

Today you’ve seen us post a reminder, and clarifications on the moderation standards applied across our forum here on Steam. Since that post went live, you’ve helped to highlight parts of the message that was presented which on deeper reflection by ourselves doesn’t properly speak to our intent, or fairly treat you as active members of the Total War Community.

As we emphasised in the original post, we are welcoming of all criticism made against our games and continue to be an active partner to you all in ensuring that your voices are heard across our teams at Creative Assembly.

Where we let you down today was in how we spoke to the topic of constructive criticism, choosing language and phrasing which completely missed the mark, and led too many of you to feel that your feedback, your thoughts, and your passion for the game to be an out of bounds subject.

The original thread has been archived, with a closing post made by myself linking folks back to here where we feel its best to continue the discussion. You can continue to view the original post at this link .

For introducing new frustrations to you all with our post today I apologise, and we’ll return to you in the coming weeks with updated guidance, including clearer examples of good and bad actions that can prompt interventions from our moderation team.

Please note that we are still required, both by Steam and Creative Assembly to moderate these forums to the advertised standards posted by Steam here: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6862-8119-C23E-EA7B.

You will continue to see inappropriate content moderated in accordance with the Steam Forum Guidelines, including the locking or removing of posts, temporary suspensions of users where deemed necessary, and when ultimately requiring it, the banning of users identified to be repeatedly crossing the line.

The action of banning a user is never taken lightly, and only done as a result of repeated violations, warnings issued by moderators, or for actions which necessitate the response as outlined here: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6862-8119-C23E-EA7B#violate

If you ever feel that a moderation action has been mis-issued, you can reach out to the Steam or SEGA Support[support.sega.com] teams depending on who issued the ban or warning.

I’ll be active in the replies offering further clarifications as needed with you all throughout the weekend.

Freeman // @PartWelsh[x.com]
Head of Community – Creative Assembly

 

[Lord of Riva]

I was banned from their forums for calling them out on Pre-order bullshit (eg. Chaos warriors for warhammer 1) So not only is that answer hollow, as to be expected, from where I stand their behaviour is not anything new.

 

[thesecret1]

Are they really trying to shift blame on Steam? "We don't want to ban you, but, uh, you see, Steam's advertised standards..." Bruh...

 

[Harthwain]

When they realized that banning everyone who disagrees isn't going to cut it, they try to pretend like they're listening to their community. It's damage control.

 

[The_Mask]

It's kinda sad. I was kind of looking forward to an Egyptian-themed game. Had not played one of those in a long while.

Oh well... I'm sure I can use my money for something better.

 

[Lord of Riva]

It's kinda sad. I was kind of looking forward to an Egyptian-themed game. Had not played one of those in a long while.

Oh well... I'm sure I can use my money for something better.

Felt the same, I really thought this had potential but I'm not interested in half-assed shit.

EDIT: The setting and shit.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

 

[RobotSquirrel]

When they realized that banning everyone who disagrees isn't going to cut it, they try to pretend like they're listening to their community. It's damage control.

My reaction to it was "first time?"

CA's been behaving like this for a long time now, its only just that they're being called out of it this time. But this was very common on the TWC and Official CA forums to be strong armed and bullied into submission, the reason its blowing up so much is because they're doing it on the steam forums where a lot of casual customers are now seeing it and seeing how CA's Community Managers and Developers behave. Turns out, they don't like that shit.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's kinda sad. I was kind of looking forward to an Egyptian-themed game. Had not played one of those in a long while.

Oh well... I'm sure I can use my money for something better.

Get Fields of Glory 2 with the Swifter Than Eagles DLC if you want a good game where you can play Bronze Age Egypt.

 

[JarlFrank]

The other solution is to simply make the victory condition to only take 40% of all territories on the map, or whatever percentage after which the game is already decided. This is what the classic 4X games do (e.g. MoO), and it's also what Total War adjacent Field of Glory 2 does in its tactical battles (which I have been playing the last few days, highly recommended).

This is how old TW did it too, there were options for short campaign and long campaign, each having a different province number requirement. Even the long campaign only required you to conquer 50% to 60% of the map. This lasted until Shogun 2, where a game was won by capturing Kyoto and X number of provinces. You could choose long campaign or short campaign which adjusted the number of provinces required alongside Kyoto. Additionally each faction in old TW games had their own required victory conditions reflecting historical ambitions, so playing as the HRE requires you to wipe out Milan in Medieval 2.

The victory conditions changed in Rome 2. The victory conditions there are way more bloated, and sadly the series stuck with that for the most part.

 

[True Ukrainian]

I like how CA has repeatedly treated their fan base like pay pigs, being more and more exploitative of them to make up for bad decisions, openly deriding their pay pigs for having the nerve to speak up about the abuse and finally putting on pikachu face when the pay pigs have had enough.

 

[Harthwain]

My reaction to it was "first time?"

Did I sound surprised? I was aware of Creative Assembly being shitty for a while, because I know a guy who plays their games even longer than I did (My last Total War was Shogun 2. I didn't buy Empire and Rome 2) and he is aware of what is going on in the community, and he shares some juicy bits. So I know they tried to suppress the streamers before by blacklisting the ones who were critical towards their games, too, for example.

Get Fields of Glory 2 with the Swifter Than Eagles DLC if you want a good game where you can play Bronze Age Egypt.

How about Field of Glory: Empires?

 

[janior]

It's kinda sad. I was kind of looking forward to an Egyptian-themed game. Had not played one of those in a long while.

Oh well... I'm sure I can use my money for something better.

Get Fields of Glory 2 with the Swifter Than Eagles DLC if you want a good game where you can play Bronze Age Egypt.

shiterine also locks 90% of their games behind dlc paywall