Valrak Total War: Warhammer 40,000

[Gillyfish]

Creative Assembly will have a number of design choices to make. I can still see the Total War brand name being used for marketing purposes, even if what is delivered is rather different in battle-engine terms as it will provide a level of expectation for there being a capmaign and a real-time battle.

 

For the campaign there will need to be a decision about when to set the game (current 10th or before the 13th Black Crusade, for example, or do you do a sub-sector or just one world like Armaggedon?).  Depending on that choice, you have further choices; do you include space combat? What scale of warfare are you aiming for? Platoons of guardsmen sound reasonable, or should it be company level? Squads may be too granular, but, if you go for larger than a single squad how do you deal with command and control of units on the battlefield withiut it being too abstracted and frustrating?

 

Would we be aimng to deploy an entire Chapter of marines and a regiment of guardsmen in one battle or would we be looking at something more akin to a tabletop battle where it might be half a company (hardly feels like total war - more like a skirmish then though, right?). Plus, surely we want god engines? Basically, perhaps we need something which has the scale of Epic? So you would be deploying detachments of marines, etc with transports to take and hold buildings, whilst tanks advance to provide ranged support. Meanwhile the enemy tries to remove those tanks so that they can move up their own infantry to assault the building and remove the entrenched infantry. Again, that scenario comes with choices; how many squads makes up the 'unit' you have deployed to the building? Are the transports part ofthe unit or separate and how do they interact?

 

Lots of tricky stuff to fugure out.

 

Of course, you could just get a titan or Ordinatus to destroy the building and its occupants...

[TheVoidDragon]

6 hours ago, Mogger351 said:

People aren't claiming it'll end up as a re-skin, they're saying that nobody has any idea how it'll look, if it exists. 

 

This is the repeated problems with your posts, you're tunnel visioning on the weird fixation about napoleonic warfare and how it is 100% impractical for 40k, when everyone else is just happy to let them cook and see what they make.

 

Several of the posts here have been basically saying it'll be a reskin with 40k depicted like that, though. That's what this whole thing has been about, a strange insistence that 40k is typically rank & file formation warfare like WHF and the Total War series focuses on so that wouldn't need to be altered. Really didn't think it would be so problematic just to say how 40k differs when it should be immediately apparent just from reading a 40k novel or seeing the animations or looking at any of the tabletop games that it absolutely is not that style of warfare.

I don't want to keep going on about it as it's taken up the past few pages though, so best to stop there. I do hope the rumours are true and they are working on something 40k regardless as TW:W is just great and that level of variety, scale and quality applied to 40k as well would be fantastic.

 

 

Edited Saturday at 03:48 PM by TheVoidDragon

[Kallas]

3 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

Several of the posts here have been basically saying it'll be a reskin with 40k depicted like that, though. That's what this whole thing has been about, a strange insistence that 40k is typically rank & file formation warfare like WHF and the Total War series focuses on so that wouldn't need to be altered. Really didn't think it would be so problematic just to say how 40k differs.

Yes, several posts have been saying that...by you! You're the one who insists that TW can only do Napoleonic-style warfare, and that TW:40k would only be a reskin of other TWs.

 

Most others have been bringing up the various ways that CA currently uses mechanics that don't match to the Napoleonic-style, but you flat out refuse to accept that these are good enough, or that CA could do anything else.

 

Here are a few things that CA has already done in various TW games that could easily translate into better combat for TW:40k:

• various formations for units to depict different styles of warfare (eg, blobs like Orks; organised ranks like Necron Warriors), including toggles for different formations (again, something which has already existed since Rome 1)
• garrison-able buildings (IIRC, this was ironically available in Napoleon TW!) where units could enter buildings and use them to fire from. Similarly, in TWWH we have sieges (much maligned, they have many problems, but mechanically they have what you're wanting) where there are places units can dock for bonuses and elevation, as well as having actual elevated positions just in general (ie, it's not just a flat open field) - it would definitely need additional work (nobody is saying otherwise!) but they have the bones they need to create a solid 40k game
• area terrain - we have seen CA using multiple forms of area terrain such as Forests, Shallow Water, and Shrub with varying effects such as Speed debuffs on larger units and (in some circumstances such as Wood Elves in Forests) stat buffs such as Melee Defence to represent their affinity for certain terrain. These are all easily modifiable effects that could fit a wide variety of 40k terrain with just a little bit of thought
• for some of the most recent examples, we have CA improve upon things like the Empire Steam Tank - it now has multiple weapons (frontal grand cannon; turret steam gun; and an Engineer firing from the top hatch) that all fire independently of one another; it also has Directional Shield, which gives it a missile block chance depending on what angle it is hit from (very much like 3rd-7th vehicle armour values in style). Basically, this is a big step towards somethings much more like actual vehicle mechanics that would fit a TW:40k
• similar to the above, TWWH implemented flying units and magic, which are both significant mechanical changes from previous TW titles and massively change the way the games operate. Flying units would obviously translate to a lot of the air-capable 40k units such as Jump Pack Troops and even skimmers. It is not perfect in implementation as-is, but it is definitely the ground work for such 40k units to utilise
• Magic is obviously a solid groundwork for psychic abilities, and TWWH especially has numerous kind of activated and passive abilities with varying triggers (ie, some effects build up intensity based on certain actions; some are just activated for a certain time, etc), We've also seen CA apply more buffs and debuffs based on specific keywords (eg, adding a Slayer keyword, which does nothing on its own, but enables certain buffs; eg, Ungrim's campaign) - again, not the most amazing thing in the world, but this is an indication that CA has the tools necessary to create a robust 40k experience

Basically, CA has what it needs, and nobody is insisting that they would be creating a Napoleon TW with 40k skins - except you, who keeps insisting that they can only do Napoleonic style warfare.

[TheVoidDragon]

1 hour ago, Kallas said:

Yes, several posts have been saying that...by you! You're the one who insists that TW can only do Napoleonic-style warfare, and that TW:40k would only be a reskin of other TWs.

 

Most others have been bringing up the various ways that CA currently uses mechanics that don't match to the Napoleonic-style, but you flat out refuse to accept that these are good enough, or that CA could do anything else.

 

 

 

Why are you determined to continue this when I've said it would be best to stop? Go back and re-read what I have said. I have not been saying the TW can only be that Napoleonic style and they literally can't do anything different.  I have said that that style of warfare is it does currently and has done since the start, so it's not a case of just reskinning things to 40k. It would require some more changes and additions to suit the setting more but I have already said that there are several aspects that can be used for 40k just fine already, including outright mentioning magic, vehicles and flying units myself. I even said a few pages back that they could do something more like the unit behaviour of COH or DOW2 but on a total war scale to fit 40k more, so don't misconstrue things and act as if i'm saying the game has to be a reskin and nothing else can happen when I've been saying all along is that a 40k game would have to do something different.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 05:29 PM by TheVoidDragon

[Gillyfish]

I think the only thing that is clear from the current argument is that weneed to wait and see; clearly some of us have concerns about CA's ability to realise a 40k set game based on previous Total War titles. Others have more confidence in their ability to provide something that feels like it delivers the flavour of the setting, again, based on those previous titles.

 

It's known that CA acquired the license for the IP settings when they acquired Relic. Warhammer was probably the closest in style to existing TW settings, which is probably why that was delivered first. It's been interesting to see how that and the aspects people enjoyed have informed their non-GW titles and vice-versa,

 

IF (and it is a big IF) they feel ready to deliver on a 40k set game it will be for several reasons. Whilst financial pressures will undoubtedly be a part of that, it would be foolish for them to try to deliver 40K if they weren't confident that they had solutions to some of the questions we have posed in this thread.

 

Hence: we'll see.

[TheVoidDragon]

33 minutes ago, Gillyfish said:

I think the only thing that is clear from the current argument is that weneed to wait and see; clearly some of us have concerns about CA's ability to realise a 40k set game based on previous Total War titles. Others have more confidence in their ability to provide something that feels like it delivers the flavour of the setting, again, based on those previous titles.

 

It's known that CA acquired the license for the IP settings when they acquired Relic. Warhammer was probably the closest in style to existing TW settings, which is probably why that was delivered first. It's been interesting to see how that and the aspects people enjoyed have informed their non-GW titles and vice-versa,

 

IF (and it is a big IF) they feel ready to deliver on a 40k set game it will be for several reasons. Whilst financial pressures will undoubtedly be a part of that, it would be foolish for them to try to deliver 40K if they weren't confident that they had solutions to some of the questions we have posed in this thread.

 

Hence: we'll see.

 

Isn't it SEGA that has Relic and the 40k license, rather than Creative Assembly? Doing a quick search I can't see anything about them having already got the license for 40k, just fantasy, but not sure how it works when their owner company gets the rights

Edited Saturday at 07:12 PM by TheVoidDragon

[Gillyfish]

I am not sure. I do know that a friend who worked for SEGA at the time of the acquisition contacted me at the time to say that Total War: Warhammer was planned, so they were evidnetly working pretty closely at that point. It does seem to the CA who are making most use of the license rather than other SEGA-owned software houses.