Total War: Warhammer 30k? maybe!

[Lucien Eilam]

of course it's not an announcement, just a "i/we would like to do that if total war: warhammer does well", but i really like the idea and hope this will be a thing

It's not even that. The bit about 30k isn't a quotation, the journalist who wrote the article is saying he has his heart set on it. All the guy from CA said was they'll be keeping an eye on Age of Sigmar.

[ShVagYeR]

If this were to happen, it would make me cut all other spendings and upgrade my PC for the first time since 2006. Not even The Witcher series made me do it.

[Majorbookworm]

Yup. It's not like they happen to be co-developing Halo Wars 2 with 343i or anything. Set in the 2500s. With guns. Guns.

 

I mean, CA have stepped outside their comfort zone in the past. Viking: Battle for Asgard, for instance. Guess we'll see though.

That's not going to be a Total War game though, its simply being developed by CA. It will most likely be pretty similar to the Original Halo Wars.

[Majorbookworm]

TW wouldn't really work with anything set after the 1870's both strategically and tactically IMO, unless they total change up the core mechanics, which i doubt they would do.

[Arkangilos]

TW wouldn't really work with anything set after the 1870's both strategically and tactically IMO, unless they total change up the core mechanics, which i doubt they would do.

Strategically it would work if the main forces were still human (or other regular xenos), and space marines could be requisitioned. IG regiments would be raised from the planets, etc. Space Marines could have a "home world"

 

Naval battles would work perfect. 

 

The only things that won't work are the tactical battles, so they'd need to make a hybrid, like with what I said earlier. You still have the limited army size, but you have battles done like in Company of Heroes.

[Kais Klip]

 

 

TW wouldn't really work with anything set after the 1870's both strategically and tactically IMO, unless they total change up the core mechanics, which i doubt they would do.

Strategically it would work if the main forces were still human (or other regular xenos), and space marines could be requisitioned. IG regiments would be raised from the planets, etc. Space Marines could have a "home world"

 

Naval battles would work perfect.

 

The only things that won't work are the tactical battles, so they'd need to make a hybrid, like with what I said earlier. You still have the limited army size, but you have battles done like in Company of Heroes.

Why would you have tactical battles? Do you have tactical battles in Total War as of this moment? Tactical battles is changing the core mechanic.

 

Legion warfare, say, either of the Isstvaan battles, would work out almost exactly like the Napoleon mechanics did, albeit slightly more quicker, and with Warhounds cresting the hills.

 

The only tricky part would be figuring out the balance between how long it takes each man to die and the amount of men per unit, to give adequate reaction time for the player.

[Arkangilos]

Why would you have tactical battles? Do you have tactical battles in Total War as of this moment? Tactical battles is changing the core mechanic. 

 

Yeah, I play with tactical battles at this moment... You can play tactical battles or auto-resolve, and I *rarely* auto resolve. 

 

 

And yeah, you would need to change the tactical battle, which is changing the mechanics.

 

And I fail to see how you can play out the tactical battles like a game set in the 1800's. The legions don't fight like that.

[Kais Klip]

One of us misunderstood the other, "tactical battles" in the sense that the scale of dawn of war is tactical, squad level gameplay, whereas total war was always about the wider set piece strategy of a pitched battle. There have been no instances of the former in total war battles, unless I missed a moment.

 

Why would it be any different, you manoeuvre your big chunk of legionnaire squads from cover piece to cover piece (cratered area, forest, urban building, bunker) to the best position for them to unleash a concentrated Fury of the Legion volley at an enemy squad in range in favour of taking constant potshots (which are ineffective against power armour, allowing plenty of time for micro). Your legion jet bikes and armour squadrons are the flanking cavalry, and your artillery is, guess what, napoleon's artillery.

 

My entire premise is based on the fact that large scale, set piece battles (favoured by the iron hands and the like) have not changed from the battles of Alexander's time; as the pikes replaced the engagement range above that of the sword, the automatic rifle changed the engagement range of the pike.

 

As I said, the key is sticking a balance between power armour's durability and squad size, giving players enough time to manoeuvre multiple bleeding blocks of Astartes, before charging into close assault/pinning the enemy in place with a concentrated volley and directing artillery fire, which in war is the only sure fire way (sorry) of clearing a position from the enemy.

 

The scenario wouldn't work with modern forces, neither would it run with the Imperial Army, because your men would die to damn fast when caught in the open fields, but for Astartes it seems perfect to me.

[Doctor Perils]

I'm pretty much agreeing with Total War battles being bigger scale than DoW. Also, I would really not like having buildings producing units during battle. I'm not familiar with how CoH works, but from what I read quickly on Wikipedia, with the concept of supply lines and so-on... why not ?

 

The thing is, you seem to be focalising on "changing the core mechanics" of TW. They've already changed in the past, not necessarily drastically between each game, but between Shogun 1 and the Rome 2, there is a world of difference. Also, I think that Total Warhammer will be one of the more innovative ones, with concepts such as monsters, magic and individualised characters appearing for the first time: CA are obviously not afraid of experimenting.

 

For the 30k/40k debate, I'd like to see 40k, but I also think that 30k would be easier to set in place for a first foray into everyone's favourite GrimDark future : the player factions would be set out very easily, as you said with most units being general LACAL, with certain Legion modifiers, and with unique units. When looking at how the roman empire was divided into three sections in Rome 1, you can easily see a parallel with how you could organise the Legiones Astartes, even if it wouldn't be quite fluff friendly. Having different sectors as territories, and different sub-sectors as regions like in rome 2 could be feasible as well, putting aside the concerns for the galactic map.

 

40k would be absolutely awesome of course. Unfortunately, it's a bit too convoluted as things stand to make a TW out of it easily.

 

 

 

Of course, as various people have mentioned, this is not a proper quote, let alone an anouncement: we can but hope !

[Arkangilos]

One of us misunderstood the other, "tactical battles" in the sense that the scale of dawn of war is tactical, squad level gameplay, whereas total war was always about the wider set piece strategy of a pitched battle. There have been no instances of the former in total war battles, unless I missed a moment. 

 

No no, when I refer to tactical battle, I refer to the battle itself. In the total war games, there is the campaign, and then there are "tactical battles" which is when an army clashes.

 

My entire premise is based on the fact that large scale, set piece battles (favoured by the iron hands and the like) have not changed from the battles of Alexander's time; as the pikes replaced the engagement range above that of the sword, the automatic rifle changed the engagement range of the pike. 

 

Only they have. All the way up until about WW1, the battle lines were focused on company levels. Post WW1, it was dropped down to platoon level. Now it's closer to squad level. The tactical battles of Total War games are *built* around company level operations. They simply won't work for what we need them to work. 

 

 

The thing is, you seem to be focalising on "changing the core mechanics" of TW. They've already changed in the past, not necessarily drastically between each game, but between Shogun 1 and the Rome 2, there is a world of difference. Also, I think that Total Warhammer will be one of the more innovative ones, with concepts such as monsters, magic and individualised characters appearing for the first time: CA are obviously not afraid of experimenting.

 

 

There really is not that much of a difference. They changed the board game style campaign, and the graphics, and added the ability to stand on walls. That is it for the most part. 

 

I'm pretty much agreeing with Total War battles being bigger scale than DoW. Also, I would really not like having buildings producing units during battle.

 

Well of course they are bigger, but they are in blocks of 120 + men, not squads. And they are built around melee and inaccurate weapons. Also, I wasn't mean they would be produced by buildings. I was meaning the battle would play out like CoH2, where you have your squads, tanks, etc, and it focuses on the smaller scale. 

 

Lets look at this another way: If we want to stick true to the fluff, and the units operate as they do in the fluff. If you play like you do in the current total war games:

 

Current Total War battles consist of about 2-4000 men per side, all fighting at the exact same time. Each army can have 20 units of 60-120 in the latest total war games (graphic limitations), and 60-320 in some of the previous games. 

 

If we played with the same size armies, and the exact same way, but changed the unit count to fit with the fluff, you would have 20 units of 10-20 men each. 

 

That is 400 men per army, unless you up the unit count. So if you upped the unit count to have 2000 men per army, you would be controlling 200 units you had to simultaneously control. And that will be a LOT harder for you than for the AI.

 

 

However, if you had them fight int battles like from CoH, You would control maybe 20 at most, but would keep calling them in until the battle was over. All losses count towards the army losses, so if you lost 900 men and went straight to the next battle you would be 900 men less than before. When you hit 0, that army is completely gone. 

 

You can still build armies the exact same way. You still have to maintain armies the exact same way. But the tactical battles play out more like how they really would play out.

 

40k would be absolutely awesome of course. Unfortunately, it's a bit too convoluted as things stand to make a TW out of it easily.

 

How do you mean? It would be easier. Legions (for the most part) only have a handful of recruiting worlds, and they don't recruit from worlds they recently took. Imperial Guard, on the other hand, recruit from every world, including those liberated for the Emperor. Honestly, 40k would be the option that is closer to the fluff in every way, and you don't have to worry about thousands of planets. Focus on one sector with a 100 planets or so.

 

 Also, I think that Total Warhammer will be one of the more innovative ones, with concepts such as monsters, magic and individualised characters appearing for the first time: CA are obviously not afraid of experimenting.

 

But again, this doesn't change the core mechanics, where it is ancient style fighting in blocks of 100+

[Doctor Perils]

Ah, thanks for that explanation, I had evidently misunderstood your arguments. Consider me corrected.

 

I have to admit, I play Total War mainly for the campaign style rather than the individual battles (heresy I know), so I see the possibilities for the campaign style rather than the battle style. So yeah, for me the "core mechanics" are more to do with those of the campaign and interaction between campaign and battle, rather than the battle mechanics.

 

In heresy, you would be able to control a Legion, more or less as a Primarch presumably, conquering worlds and placing them under compliance. You would therefore have expeditionary fleets under your command, and worlds that fall under you would be dominated by forces under your command, rather than the Imperium at large : this is where it would be different from the fluff. So you'd have a set of Legions plus xenos and non compliant human planets, much like their are the important factions and the "barbarian" factions in TW. In the 41st Millenium however, there are multitudes of chapters and regiments and orders and warbands and so on and so forth, there isn't really one cohesive faction (or set of cohesive factions) like you could find in 30k.

[Arkangilos]

In the 41st Millenium however, there are multitudes of chapters and regiments and orders and warbands and so on and so forth, there isn't really one cohesive faction (or set of cohesive factions) like you could find in 30k.

 

That's easy. You have your sector, and your sector has lets say... 4 main factions.

 

You have the Imperium, which consists of all the major human worlds. Each army is it's own regiment. Only one space marine chapter would really be present (unless a crusade is declared, much like in Med2). You could recruit only so many space marines at a time, and only from one world (whichever world had the building constructed). 

 

Remember, regiments all work for *one* faction, the Imperium of Man. Same as space marines. 

 

Then you have your chaos faction: It is a small chaos empire. It has it's traitor guard equivalents (each regiment being a warband/regiment), daemons, space marine warbands, etc. You then have your Orks, which can play as one or more factions, and your Eldar, Necrons, and/or Tau and Dark Eldar (the DE can be random event armies, maybe?). 

 

Imperium secessionists can occur when planets revolt, and planets can turn to chaos or tau depending on agent actions.

[Joe]

 

Yup. It's not like they happen to be co-developing Halo Wars 2 with 343i or anything. Set in the 2500s. With guns. Guns.

 

I mean, CA have stepped outside their comfort zone in the past. Viking: Battle for Asgard, for instance. Guess we'll see though.

That's not going to be a Total War game though, its simply being developed by CA. It will most likely be pretty similar to the Original Halo Wars.

 

 

You missed my point. Hue.

EDIT; Oh, yo, don't forget Shadow of the Beast and Alien: Isolation as well. Both were made by CA. End of the day, sure, CA are pretty well known for making the TW series, but they aren't exactly lacking in the talent department.

[Arkangilos]

 

 

 

 

Yup. It's not like they happen to be co-developing Halo Wars 2 with 343i or anything. Set in the 2500s. With guns. Guns.

 

I mean, CA have stepped outside their comfort zone in the past. Viking: Battle for Asgard, for instance. Guess we'll see though.

That's not going to be a Total War game though, its simply being developed by CA. It will most likely be pretty similar to the Original Halo Wars.

You missed my point. Hue.

EDIT; Oh, yo, don't forget Shadow of the Beast and Alien: Isolation as well. Both were made by CA. End of the day, sure, CA are pretty well known for making the TW series, but they aren't exactly lacking in the talent department.

But that's not the point, the point is that it won't be a "total war" game. The company can make it, but it won't be what makes a total war game

[Brother Tyler]

Okay, this isn't "news," a "rumor," or an "announcement." It's just wish-listing.

 

So I'm moving it to the Other Games forum so that members can discuss what they'd like in a Total War-like game for the WH40K game universe.

[Remus Ventanus.]

God i hope this doesnt happen

[Destrucifex]

I love Total War but I think a Total War engine would be the worst possible option for a 40K game.

 

Total War is best suited for pre-AOS FB-style gameplay with rigid formations, though I'm expecting Warhammer: Total War to resemble Warmaster more closely than WHFB due to the scale of TW games. Total War is just wrong for small units who fight in loose formations and make sensible use of terrain and cover.

 

It would be difficult to come up with a 40K computer game that really resembles tabletop play. The scale of the typical tabletop game would make for a very slow and boring computer game if turn-based, or a very fast and unmanageable game in real-time. I suppose this is why you see squad games, epic games and one-man-army games in the 40K setting but nothing on the "five squads and three tanks" scale.

 

What really needs to happen is a Firaxis squad-combat game in the 40k setting. It could just be X-Com reskinned with Space Marines and I would be happy.

[Knight of the Raven]

RE: Total War: Horus Heresy

Yo dawg, I heard you like fully-tested complete games so I'm selling you an untested beta for $60 so you can beta test for us and crash to desktop while you give us $60 and crash to desktop.

[Doomrider!]

Hmm best miniature company + best video game company + Warhammer 30k? That would be Amazeballs.

[Marshal Rohr]

OH MY GOD.

 

 

This would be so cool. You don't even have to have the heresy. You could actually unite the Imperium and rule it like it was meant to!

 

RE: Total War: Horus Heresy

Yo dawg, I heard you like fully-tested complete games so I'm selling you an untested beta for $60 so you can beta test for us and crash to desktop while you give us $60 and crash to desktop.

 

 

Haven't played recently have you? The game is better than ever.

[blackoption]

I definitely think the strategic layer of Total war would work for a 30k/40k game.  Building the Imperium, managing resources, raising forces (both Mortal and Astartes mechanics) and building hives/fortresses/space stations would be interesting to see.  But for it to work, the strategy level would need to be on a sub-sector scale at least. The tactical engagements... well that would be harder to manage.  I agree that Total War's current tactical design would be ill suited (but not unworkably so) for the combat we'd expect to see in the game.  But I still have hope, if just that.  It would be very hard to translate table top game play onto a computer as well. 

 

Perhaps a better method would be to use the game 'Combat Missions' as a template. It is an older game, but it might not have the pace that contemporary gamers are looking for.

[Marshal Rohr]

If they could create an engine that didn't require micromanaging of squads, instead focusing on companies, and animate them suitably, you could apply total war principles to modern combat. For instance, instead of a block of Swordsmen or company of musketeers you could select a company of space marine infantry, and tell them to attack another company, then the animation for this is an automated result that looks more like modern fire and maneuver, it would be so sick. I don't think out technology is there yet, tbh.

[Doomrider!]

What if you play as a legion/mechanicus/whateverthehumanguyswerecalled and then you seize planets, develop them and build squads in your companies (company could be like a army in tw: 20 or so units) it would be a lot like fall of the samurai as you pick your side to determine the fate of the universe.

[Calgar 2.0]

It would have to be a massive overhaul of gameplay for the battles. Total war battles aren't meant for anything past the 1860's.

 

And total war games are limited to smaller army sizes. Honestly, 40k would be better, and it should cover a sector, not a galaxy. Each army is a regiment, and you can "recruit" space marine companies. The battle should be like a dawn of war/company of heroes 2, but with limited reinforcements based on strategic campaign armies (so what you recruit and send into battle, and how many you lose carries over like in a total war game). Naval battles would be perfect as they are (based on Empire's system).

 

But GC and the whole galaxy is too big of scope to do well.

Have you seen the Great War mod for Napoleon? It would definitely work.