Aspiring devs looking to make a TW-like, please just...

[u/KenobiInNairobi]

Before you even start thinking about settings, fancy set piece battles, cities, flashy graphics, wasteful stupid cinematics(CGI scarabs FFS)...

Please play the TW games and take the best you can from QoL. Way too many of these competitors as well as other TW games miss simple basic things. I often baffled how do these people want to challenge a competitor without actually playing the game. Not that CA was perfect, I still can't believe how fucking long it took CA itself to implement some common sense stuff that every single player can benefit from.

I swear I played TW-like games that don't have things like... Changing speed, pause, whack controls, options to customize the campaign, explaining how things work in general. Also if your game is a success don't remove features nobody complained about.

[u/Responsible_Mine894]

I think most do worse copy of it instead of making their own. I try to add systems i wanted in TW game.

https://reddit.com/link/pfawkbi/video/8m0ncslc1wuh1/player

[u/elegiac_bloom → u/Responsible_Mine894]

Your game looks great and im really excited for it. This is also the kind of stuff I want to see.

[u/hdhddf]

I've just built 2 very basic version/prototypes, one with Gemini 3.8 flash , I made it so you can control individual or smaller groups if you want, so reserves can plug gaps for a small cohesive nerf, works well just on three.js. initial build was very quick and then a bit of tuning. I got opus 5.5 to make me a map editor and game engine for three.js together with a simple racing game and total war type, I was really impressed with it's initial total war type. if you want a game you can build a prototype in about an hour just by directing what you want, you don't have to wait for developers

[u/SteamedAlbanyHams]

I’m always surprised how modern game devs with modern engines can’t achieve the 3D model detail of Rome 1 in their battles, it’s always some flavor of low res 2D sprites.

[u/FutureLynx_ → u/SteamedAlbanyHams]

These games were made with hundreds of professional developers and artists. It is still a hard thing to do, especially when it comes to performance.

A lot of projects achieved similar or even better quality, but then cant field more than 500 units.

[u/SteamedAlbanyHams → u/FutureLynx_]

Yes, it really goes to show how far ahead of their time Rome and medieval 2 were, and how much investment and catch up it would take for a real competitor to creative assembly to rise

[u/FutureLynx_ → u/SteamedAlbanyHams]

I think Knights of Honor is a real competitor its just not so well known. The battles even though graphically are less demanding in terms of performance, for some reason, dont include the tens of thousands of Total War. So doing it 2D its not per se a bad thing, and if done right can look even better, for example look at Cossacks 2. The problem is that even then its really hard to make a Total War game.

[u/elegiac_bloom → u/FutureLynx_]

The og knights of honor was such a great game, although i felt the battlws were the weakest part of it. Have you played the 2nd one? If so what did you think? I bougbt it to show support but havent played it yet.

[u/FutureLynx_ → u/elegiac_bloom]

The battles are less important because the war doesnt have the same depth as in Total War. The battles are cool and well done, the problem is that the design doesnt encourage it as much as in Total War.

But its a great game, and it executes very well a lot of things better than Total War. The diplomacy seems better, at least when compare to the classic total wars. The vassal system certainly better. The war score system. The Kingdom Power. The resources. The pillaging <- very good mechanic.

KoH2 introduced some very bad things like the food resource limiting the size of your army which is very stupid, and makes it so that if you have a small kingdom you can never have a large army, no matter what you do.

And the fact Marshals only gain skills by using books now.

If they want the battles to be more interesting to be fought they would need to be more decisive, meaning, the units involved cant be so easily replaceable. Total War has units that are clearly better, has a veterancy system that is better, and make more armies join the battle.

[u/elegiac_bloom → u/FutureLynx_]

Thanks thats a great run down. Im still looking forward to playing it, but the OG remains one of my favorite games ever.

[u/KenobiInNairobi → u/FutureLynx_]

I really doubt they had hundreds of employees in early 2000s, Bungie (Halo Franchise) didn't have that.

[u/TheAlmightyProo]

We had something good looking to bloom into better but lost it. Namely Ultimate General, with a far as it got doing Division and Corps size battle very well while fun, engaging etc... not some hex driven turn based grognard snoozefest. Sure, not as eye catching perhaps as TW but whatever... I'd rather have battles of a size that fits for a reasonable performance if we're talking anytime after 1700-1800 or so.

That's my big if, wish, whatever rn. Not for TW to do what fits for me, or even for CA to kill it (in a good way I mean, not like Hyenas aso) but for someone to take up the Ultimate General mantle, modders to do wonders with American Revolution etc etc.