Valrak Total War: Warhammer 40,000

[ZeroWolf]

46 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

Please explain how, then? Which of these 2 things do you think is not the case and therefore it can work?

- The Total War series revolves around the Early Modern era style of Warfare or earlier, depicting something comparable to a Napoleonic War style with units fighting in large singular blocks, maneuvering and fighting in formation with each member arranged right next to each other, standing in line to fight and trade fire with the enemy while standing still with little to no initiative shown. This is what the series has been about from the very start, what its engine focuses around and is built for, and just in general what the series does.
- The style of Warfare depicted in 40k lore is generally closer to modern warfare (with more melee). Eldar, Tau, Orks etc do not fight in formation in dozens-strong blocks, standing out in the open to trade fire like they're 18th century line infantry. They make use of cover and suppression tactics, operate at a squad level with members organized into small units, and individuals have a level of initiative that lets them behave on their own to some extent. They are not standing next to each other organized, fighting and maneuvering as a single block.

 

I don't think anyone saying it couldn't work is claiming that they wouldn't make a fun 40k game, just that in order to do so one of those 2 things will have to have significant changes made for it to happen. The franchise already has monsters, magic etc even vehicles and air units to some extent that can be trasferred to the 40k setting just fine, those things would work, but  it's the behaviour of individual unit members and the overall depicted style of combat that is the issue. It's the same reason WW1, WW2, Star Wars, Modern day etc combat also would not work, as that more free-form, fluid, less strict non-rank-and-file warfare is such a huge difference from what the series does.

Since they're doing both a 40k and a star wars version (I'd wager that both were done with an eye to tweaking their current engine, though SW would require far more work), CA must feel able to do justice to both settings  especially with GW breathing down their necks to make sure things are as they should be. No idea if the mouse will be doing the same with SW. I'd hold off any doom and gloom till we a) have it officially announced and b) have seen things in action (pre-rendered trailers don't count).

 

If Valrak's sources are accurate, June is still 6 months away.

[TheVoidDragon]

1 hour ago, ZeroWolf said:

Since they're doing both a 40k and a star wars version (I'd wager that both were done with an eye to tweaking their current engine, though SW would require far more work), CA must feel able to do justice to both settings  especially with GW breathing down their necks to make sure things are as they should be. No idea if the mouse will be doing the same with SW. I'd hold off any doom and gloom till we a) have it officially announced and b) have seen things in action (pre-rendered trailers don't count).

 

If Valrak's sources are accurate, June is still 6 months away.

 

We don't know they're actually doing any of them. They're all just rumours.

I really don't see what there is that's controversial about saying it doesn't fit. Of course they could drastically change the core elements of the series to be able to do it, but that's what those saying it wouldn't work are saying; they'd have to do that to be able to do it. It comes across like this to me:

"It wouldn't fit the series because they'd have to change the core elements of it"

 

"No, It would fit the series, just change the core elements of it!"

 

It's possible they'd do that, yeah, but that doesn't change the point being made that it is not a good fit, that that would be required just illustrates that and is what those saying it wouldn't work/doesn't fit mean in the first place.
 

Edited January 1 by TheVoidDragon

[Scribe]

2 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

- The style of Warfare depicted in 40k lore is generally closer to modern warfare (with more melee). Eldar, Tau, Orks etc do not fight in formation in dozens-strong blocks, standing out in the open to trade fire like they're 18th century line infantry. They make use of cover and suppression tactics, operate at a squad level with members organized into small units, and individuals have a level of initiative that lets them behave on their own to some extent. They are not standing next to each other organized, fighting and maneuvering as a single block.

 

This, especially the bold, is the part that is going to give. DoW still had units running around, TWW right now has skirmishers, different unit sizes, and any number of attributes (Stalk, Snipe, etc) that can be applied to a unit.

 

Units still are going to be in "coherency" and if the engine can handle fighting in a broken city without losing LOS/Line of Fire, and so on? It will just work.

 

I dont know if you are playing Warhammer 3, but they have maps which are the large cities of the age. It doesnt work particularly great for me, BUT, the concept is there.

[TheVoidDragon]

21 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

This, especially the bold, is the part that is going to give. DoW still had units running around, TWW right now has skirmishers, different unit sizes, and any number of attributes (Stalk, Snipe, etc) that can be applied to a unit.

 

Units still are going to be in "coherency" and if the engine can handle fighting in a broken city without losing LOS/Line of Fire, and so on? It will just work.

 

I dont know if you are playing Warhammer 3, but they have maps which are the large cities of the age. It doesnt work particularly great for me, BUT, the concept is there.

 

So you think they're just going to have 40k combat depicted like 18th Line infantry? That's then not a good depiction of 40k as was said, that's the very same issue with the WW1 total War mod. The things you mention that can work with 40k aren't the issue, it's specifically the style of warfare shown being completely different.

 

The Total War series is an RTT that tries to depict its settings at a reasonable level for what they are meant to be, and that just wouldn't be the case if they did that. They would have to significantly overhaul the core features of the series to depict a more modern style of warfare or instead it's something that's not 40k but a Napoelonic Wars style game with an unfitting 40k theme randomly stuck ontop.

Edited January 1 by TheVoidDragon

[Scribe]

12 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

So you think they're just going to have 40k combat depicted like 18th Line infantry?

 

No, I think they will have 40K combat where a number of squads, which must maintain coherency to themselves, will move through a city, capable of providing cover (Suppression is a WH3 attribute) while other units charge into melee, with aircraft and tanks providing support.

 

It wont be 10th, it will be 40K.

 

Again, are you playing Warhammer 3 right now? Have you played their more involved city maps?

[TheVoidDragon]

14 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

No, I think they will have 40K combat where a number of squads, which must maintain coherency to themselves, will move through a city, capable of providing cover (Suppression is a WH3 attribute) while other units charge into melee, with aircraft and tanks providing support.

 

It wont be 10th, it will be 40K.

 

Again, are you playing Warhammer 3 right now? Have you played their more involved city maps?

 

So you think they're going to change the core aspects of the Total War series in order to get 40k to work then...which is what those saying it doesn't fit are saying they would have to do. If they have it so units are no longer fighting like 18th century line infantry, then that is moving away from what the series does, has always done, and depicts - and doing that would require significant changes to the foundations of the series.

I have seen some of the WH3 city map gameplay and know what that is like, city combat isn't really one of the reasons 40k wouldn't work, again it's specifically the style of warfare that's the issue not the scale or maps or whatever.

Edited January 1 by TheVoidDragon

[Indy Techwisp]

12 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

So you think they're going to change the core aspects of the Total War series in order to get 40k to work then...which is what those saying it doesn't fit are saying they would have to do.

I have seen some of the WH3 city map gameplay and know what that is like, city combat isn't really one of the reasons 40k wouldn't work, again it's specifically the style of warfare that's the issue not the scale or maps or whatever.

 

An attribute that is avaliable to units in TWWH3 is the ability to Shoot while Moving, either in an specific Arc or 360 around them so in order to not make TWWH:40k feel like Napoleonic Line Infantry, they could just give all the Ranged units at minimum a forward arc of shoot while moving and Assault/Skirmish units can have 360 shoot while moving.

 

Additionally, the units of TWWH3 form up into ranks because that's how WHFB had your units. However this formation can be tweaked in the code, so all they'd need to do is swap out the line for the vaguely circular "Combat Blob" shape and there's another Napoleonic aspect removed. Some units an TWWH3 already combat blob iirc, tho I think it's mostly Beasts.

 

If the rumour that this is being built of the back of a scrapped WW1 Total War game is true, then there's probably already mechanics present for taking cover in terrain and vehicles which actually work like vehicles and not Chariots.

 

All in all, a lot of what would be needed is already present in small numbers and the stuff that isn't could be recycled from the WW1 game, which itself would need this stuff in order to make it not be Napoleonic in nature.

[Scribe]

27 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

I have seen some of the WH3 city map gameplay and know what that is like, city combat isn't really one of the reasons 40k wouldn't work, again it's specifically the style of warfare that's the issue not the scale or maps or whatever.

 

The maps will 100% dictate the style of warfare.

 

Obviously a battle on a flat plain with no hills or trees, is going to play out completely differently than a map straight out of City Fight.

[Indy Techwisp]

Moving on from arguing about whether or not the Total War engine can handle doing stuff it already can on Maps that could be modded in to see if it would work with them...

 

How do we think they'll deal with Legendary Lords, Lords and Heroes?

 

Let's say I boot up TWWH:40k and I want to play Ultramarines, so go to Faction select and click Space Marines.

Am I going to see Marneus Calgar here as my Legendary Lord, or Guilliman?

If it's not Guilliman, is he an exclusive Lord or Hero for Ultramarines or could any Marine faction pick him up?

If I chose Dark Angels instead and Lion wasn't the Legendary Lord, would it be Azrael or Asmodai?

Would Dark Angels and other Divergent Chapters be their own factions entirely with the Codex chapters all bundled into a general Space Marines faction?

[Redcomet]

2 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Moving on from arguing about whether or not the Total War engine can handle doing stuff it already can on Maps that could be modded in to see if it would work with them...

 

How do we think they'll deal with Legendary Lords, Lords and Heroes?

 

Let's say I boot up TWWH:40k and I want to play Ultramarines, so go to Faction select and click Space Marines.

Am I going to see Marneus Calgar here as my Legendary Lord, or Guilliman?

If it's not Guilliman, is he an exclusive Lord or Hero for Ultramarines or could any Marine faction pick him up?

If I chose Dark Angels instead and Lion wasn't the Legendary Lord, would it be Azrael or Asmodai?

Would Dark Angels and other Divergent Chapters be their own factions entirely with the Codex chapters all bundled into a general Space Marines faction?

For the main game there will probably only be 1 Marine faction. With other added as DLC. 

[Scribe]

3 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Moving on from arguing about whether or not the Total War engine can handle doing stuff it already can on Maps that could be modded in to see if it would work with them...

 

How do we think they'll deal with Legendary Lords, Lords and Heroes?

 

Let's say I boot up TWWH:40k and I want to play Ultramarines, so go to Faction select and click Space Marines.

Am I going to see Marneus Calgar here as my Legendary Lord, or Guilliman?

If it's not Guilliman, is he an exclusive Lord or Hero for Ultramarines or could any Marine faction pick him up?

If I chose Dark Angels instead and Lion wasn't the Legendary Lord, would it be Azrael or Asmodai?

Would Dark Angels and other Divergent Chapters be their own factions entirely with the Codex chapters all bundled into a general Space Marines faction?

 

My hope, would be that its not Primarchs right away. I'd prefer they keep this to the Marine level.

[TheVoidDragon]

21 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

The maps will 100% dictate the style of warfare.

 

Obviously a battle on a flat plain with no hills or trees, is going to play out completely differently than a map straight out of City Fight.

 

It's not about a specific map or situation like going between open ground to a city, but overall how the combat in the game is depicted regardless of those. Whether it is a city map or an open plain, units in the total war series (outside of things like monsters) fight like 18th century line infantry.  That's what the series does, focuses on that Medieval / early modern warfare period (or earlier) style of combat, but that's not what 40k is. In order to have something more representative of 40k they would have to drastically change that core aspect of the series and move away from what it has always done to instead be something with a more modern combat style seen in the 20th century and later, with squad level organization, cover, showing initiative etc. They're two vastly different eras of warfare and you could just easily go from one to the other. 

 

27 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

An attribute that is avaliable to units in TWWH3 is the ability to Shoot while Moving, either in an specific Arc or 360 around them so in order to not make TWWH:40k feel like Napoleonic Line Infantry, they could just give all the Ranged units at minimum a forward arc of shoot while moving and Assault/Skirmish units can have 360 shoot while moving.

 

Additionally, the units of TWWH3 form up into ranks because that's how WHFB had your units. However this formation can be tweaked in the code, so all they'd need to do is swap out the line for the vaguely circular "Combat Blob" shape and there's another Napoleonic aspect removed. Some units an TWWH3 already combat blob iirc, tho I think it's mostly Beasts.

 

If the rumour that this is being built of the back of a scrapped WW1 Total War game is true, then there's probably already mechanics present for taking cover in terrain and vehicles which actually work like vehicles and not Chariots.

 

All in all, a lot of what would be needed is already present in small numbers and the stuff that isn't could be recycled from the WW1 game, which itself would need this stuff in order to make it not be Napoleonic in nature.

 

Yes, the series does have some of the features that are vaguely relevant to what would be required but they're still something that would require quite a lot of work and development to get them properly representative of the 40k versions.
 

Edited January 1 by TheVoidDragon

[Indy Techwisp]

5 minutes ago, Scribe said:

My hope, would be that its not Primarchs right away. I'd prefer they keep this to the Marine level.

 

My initial thought process that lead to the question was:

It'd be easy for CA to do the Cult Legions by just taking the CSM base and giving the Cult legion Legendary Lords some unique units (for example, Thousand Sons is just CSM with Ahriman as the LL and when Ahriman is your LL you get other unique stuff like SoTs) but then I thought about how they'd do that for LSM and realised that Marines are going to cause a lot of issues on the named character front.

[Scribe]

11 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

It's not about a specific map or situation like going between open ground to a city, but overall how the combat in the game is depicted regardless of those. Whether it is a city map or an open plain, units in the total war series (outside of things like monsters) fight like 18th century line infantry.  That's what the series does, focuses on that Medieval / early modern warfare period (or earlier) style of combat, but that's not what 40k is. In order to have something more representative of 40k they would have to drastically change that core aspect of the series and move away from what it has always done to instead be something with a more modern combat style seen in the 20th century and later, with squad level organization, cover, showing initiative etc. They're two vastly different eras of warfare and you could just easily go from one to the other. 

 

What you are describing is fine for a DoW 2 kind of game but obviously had nothing to do with DoW 1 for example.

 

Was DoW 1 not "40K"?

[TheVoidDragon]

37 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

What you are describing is fine for a DoW 2 kind of game but obviously had nothing to do with DoW 1 for example.

 

Was DoW 1 not "40K"?

 

DoW1 is an RTS. They have different considerations to an RTT like the Total War series, which goes for a more authentic level of abstraction for its settings combat.

I'm not even entirely sure what you are disagreeing with at this point though? You've already said that you wouldn't want to see 40k shown as if it's like the Napoleonic Warfare the series depicts and that would have to change, which is what saying "it wouldn't fit and they'd have to change the core of the series" means.

[DemonGSides]

I don't think it's crazy that the battle system would look different than what we see in other total wars while the management level stuff looked similar just on a wildly different type of map. This stuff isn't made cookie cutter; even Pharaohs battle system is pretty different than something like WH3. 

 

I think it's weirder to get so worked up about other people looking forward to it.

Edited January 1 by DemonGSides

[DeadFingers]

1 hour ago, Indy Techwisp said:

My initial thought process that lead to the question was:

It'd be easy for CA to do the Cult Legions by just taking the CSM base and giving the Cult legion Legendary Lords some unique units (for example, Thousand Sons is just CSM with Ahriman as the LL and when Ahriman is your LL you get other unique stuff like SoTs) but then I thought about how they'd do that for LSM and realised that Marines are going to cause a lot of issues on the named character front.

If WH3 is any indication, and with the rumours of what's going to happen with Daemons in 40k looking more credible by the minute, the Cult Legions would probably get the monogod faction treatment, with a mixture of their unique units, daemons, and vanilla CSM units reskinned to fit the bill.

 

As for the Legendary Lord situation, if I may, I'd like to offer a different, if unlikely, approach. The Dawn of War method, original characters doing their own thing. Like I said, unlikely, as the big names will help sell the game better, but y'know, just throwing that possibility out there.

Edited January 1 by DeadFingers

[Wispy]

3 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

We don't know they're actually doing any of them. They're all just rumours.

as an aside it's rather annoying to get snarked at people here who have immediately committed into a Valrak rumour being true, official announcements. Happened the other day with someone telling me I should be more grateful for all the great Space Wolves toys I was going to get when it was just a nebulous list of maybes that i have no idea if i'll even like the look of even if they were true.

 

Valrak himself will tell you all rumours are lies until confirmed. He has a very good track record but it'd be nice if we all operated on a slightly more amenable and skeptical posture.

[TheVoidDragon]

42 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

I don't think it's crazy that the battle system would look different than what we see in other total wars while the management level stuff looked similar just on a wildly different type of map. This stuff isn't made cookie cutter; even Pharaohs battle system is pretty different than something like WH3. 

 

I think it's weirder to get so worked up about other people looking forward to it.

 

Just who's saying you can't look forward to the game? Saying that it just doesn't fit the series without significant changes to the formula is not "getting worked up" about anything, that's just stating how things are. I think a 40k game with the same scale and variety and quality of what the Total War Warhammer games have done would be fantastic, but that doesn't mean that the Total War series is a perfect fit for 40k as it is.

Either the way 40k combat is depicted would have to be changed to fit within the Total War series or the Total War series' core battle gameplay has to change significantly to fit with 40k, because they both involve very different styles/eras of warfare. Whether someone likes the idea of a Total War 40k game or not doesn't make any real difference to that.

Edited January 1 by TheVoidDragon

[ZeroWolf]

6 minutes ago, Wispy said:

as an aside it's rather annoying to get snarked at people here who have immediately committed into a Valrak rumour being true, official announcements. Happened the other day with someone telling me I should be more grateful for all the great Space Wolves toys I was going to get when it was just a nebulous list of maybes that i have no idea if i'll even like the look of even if they were true.

 

Valrak himself will tell you all rumours are lies until confirmed. He has a very good track record but it'd be nice if we all operated on a slightly more amenable and skeptical posture.

To be fair, it's Valrak's sources who have the good track record, and I think the man himself as some sources he trusts over others. The only recent blip with one his rumours was the black templar ancient but even then I'm not sure if that was him theorising or if it was ever suggested by a source.

[Scribe]

2 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

DoW1 is an RTS. They have different considerations to an RTT like the Total War series, which goes for a more authentic level of abstraction for its settings combat.

I'm not even entirely sure what you are disagreeing with at this point though? You've already said that you wouldn't want to see 40k shown as if it's like the Napoleonic Warfare the series depicts and that would have to change, which is what saying "it wouldn't fit and they'd have to change the core of the series" means.

 

DoW 1 was an RTS, it was also 40K.

 

Warhammer 3 is enough to show me in my 1000+ hours, that you can fight in various theatres, various types of terrain, with a multitude of unit types from small character single model, to skirmishers, to vehicles, to flying units, to single entity monsters, that could cover the vast vast majority of 40K unit types.

 

Total War hasnt been 'napoleonic' since Warhammer entered the scene.

[DeadFingers]

By the way, what is "Friends and Family testing"? Googling it only gives me answers to do with England's National Health Service, and maybe I'm just dense but I fail to see how that has anything to do with potential video game announcements.

[WrathOfTheLion]

There's definitely been rumors going around about something like this since Anuj left SDS for Creative Assembly, which was something like four or five years ago now. It'll be interesting to see what comes of it all though. Assuming something of the sort does come out, whether it's good or not will definitely depend on execution.

[Wispy]

41 minutes ago, DeadFingers said:

By the way, what is "Friends and Family testing"? Googling it only gives me answers to do with England's National Health Service, and maybe I'm just dense but I fail to see how that has anything to do with potential video game announcements.

it's when an employee on the dev team invites their friends and family to play an unfinished version of the game in a closed testing environment. 

Edited January 1 by Wispy

[DeadFingers]

10 minutes ago, Wispy said:

it's when an employee on the dev team invites their friends and family to play an unfinished version of the game in a closed testing environment. 

Huh. That's probably a lot of NDAs.