Total War Sagas

Mr Crispy

So following on from a blog post last month, CA have announced a new branch/series for the TW franchise. These sagas will be smaller campaigns set in historical eras already covered in previous recent Total War games, with the intention of covering "flash-points in history". Basically they're saying these different sagas will be along the same lines as Fall of the Samurai in terms of size, scope etc.

Sounds like it's going to be an ongoing series, so we could see plenty of variety. Any particular areas you'd like to see explored?

pawrick

I don't think i played Fall of the Samurai as i really didn't like Shogun so I cant say how that plays or remember playing it anyhow but I'd like a more detailed Alexander game, I remember being really disappointed with the add on campaign they did years ago and I think it should be revisited.

Mr Crispy

I wouldn't mind revisiting that period at all. Or even go back a bit further to the Greco-Persian wars.

Mr Crispy

Well, we can rule that^ out for now. :pac: From CA's Facebook page;

Today we’re thrilled to announce a new class of historical Total War game for PC! Total War Saga games will be standalone spin-off titles focusing on exciting pivotal moments in history rather than whole historical eras. We've already started work on the first one in this new series.

We’ll announce it properly in the next few months, but it’s another spiritual follow-up to Total War: ROME II, like Total War: ATTILA, and moves the time period forward in much the same way.

We're sure you have a lot of questions, but read the blog first for all the information we can give you at this time: https://www.totalwar.com/bl…/a-total-war-saga-announce-blog/

Just a quick note - this is NOT our next major historical title, but instead this is just like Napoleon or Fall of the Samurai in that it’s a standalone spin-off from a previous big era game.

Mr Crispy

First one announced - Thrones of Britannia. No gameplay or anything like that yet though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fu0UPnk4kc

ancapailldorcha

"Stand alone spin-off" sounds like a euphemism for "Half game at full price".

Varik

Saw a lot of post before this was shown just saying please don't be vikings.

I get that I don't really like the whole barbarian thing, I like shiny armour and a bit of civilization but this seems like it might give me that.

Hopefully we'll get an irish faction, as I really liked the kingdoms expansion even if the factions weren't that filled out.

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

"Stand alone spin-off" sounds like a euphemism for "Half game at full price".

The thing they keep mentioning is fall of the samurai.

Kiith

I always want an Irish faction in Total War games, but i don't think we've ever had one, have we?

ancapailldorcha

Kiith wrote: »

I always want an Irish faction in Total War games, but i don't think we've ever had one, have we?

Me too.

Medieval II had an Irish faction in it's Britannia expansion though they just recycled the Scottish voicepack. Empire had Ireland but Great Britain had to have the region rebel for it to emerge. I think you can mod Barbarian Invasion to play as the Celts if they count.

doccy

There will be Irish factions in this one. Sagas is an attempt to recreate the success of Fall of the Samurai (which I think Jack Lusted was part of).

The Empire Divided DLC for Rome is a bit of a placeholder for historical TW fans after three years of Warhammer. This is based off code for Attila and will be a more hardcore histoical TW release.

Varik

10 factions it seems, excluding AI only factions.

Map is similar to Attila in size.

Mr Crispy

Factions and campaign map(s) revealed. The British Isles are about 23 times bigger here than they were in Attila, as seen below;



Here are the factions. They're not saying which ten are playable yet, apart from Wessex, but they've attempted to use historically accurate names at least.



More maps, including settlements and provinces, are on the site.

Mr Crispy

Plenty of previews doing the rounds at the minute. Here's RPS' take, which sounds positive.

Release date is April 19th and the price is €35.99 on Steam (regular price will be €40), and 25% of pre-order profits will go to War Child.

Generic Dreadhead

Someone needs to overlay these with the names they use in the Vikings TV show :P

Kiith

The map for this looks fantastic. Looking forward to taking an Irish province and changing history by invading the bits :P

s7ryf3925pivug

I liked Alexander. Think it's the only one I played to completion, instead of getting bored once my empire had grown beyond having significant rivals.

pixelburp

Never could get into the Total War games, and that's speaking as a RTS junkie. Just found the slower pace & pre-gunpowder era of warfare not to my taste; though oddly that did mean the one Total War game I did enjoy was Empire: Total War - the one fans don't actually like

CruelCoin

pixelburp wrote: »

Never could get into the Total War games, and that's speaking as a RTS junkie. Just found the slower pace & pre-gunpowder era of warfare not to my taste; though oddly that did mean the one Total War game I did enjoy was Empire: Total War - the one fans don't actually like

I thought the campaign map in Empire was one of the better ones, but the battles were dog****.

Going blue in the face while my riflemen spent ages dressing their lines while cavalry was charging them.

"Just SHOOT you ****ing muppets!!!"

Dave_The_Sheep

CruelCoin wrote: »

I thought the campaign map in Empire was one of the better ones, but the battles were dog****.

Going blue in the face while my riflemen spent ages dressing their lines while cavalry was charging them.

"Just SHOOT you ****ing muppets!!!"

Campaign map of Empire with the battles of Napoleon would be awesome. Not that both games weren't, I loved them to bits to be honest. Napoleonic times are my historical kink though.

ancapailldorcha

CruelCoin wrote: »

I thought the campaign map in Empire was one of the better ones, but the battles were dog****.

Going blue in the face while my riflemen spent ages dressing their lines while cavalry was charging them.

"Just SHOOT you ****ing muppets!!!"

I quite like a lot of Empire but it was far to slimmed down on a strategic level with agents being a prime example. You can win the game just with Colonial Line Infantry and Fire by Rank. That's it. Cavalry are pointless save for charging artillery but then you can just throw a wave of infantry at it for the same result.

CruelCoin

I want the depth of unit and buildings and diplomacy/agents from Medieval Total War (1st one)
I want the campaign map from Rome Total War (1st one)
I want the Battles from Rome Total War 2
I want the Agent videos from Shogun

I tried and hated the warhammer versions. Very pretty, but no depth to the game at all. Tiny amount of units etc.

Dave_The_Sheep

CruelCoin wrote: »

I tried and hated the warhammer versions. Very pretty, but no depth to the game at all. Tiny amount of units etc.

... what?

Of all the things you can criticise the Warhammer TW games for, unit diversity is not one of them, not even remotely. Each race has it's own completely different unit roster.

Varik

Thinking about Empire, I don't think I even set foot in India.

Shiminay

Warhammer was the first Total War I've played, I never went near the others because all I knew is that Total War games are broken as all hell for about a year after launch so who wants that?

But now that I see what they have to offer, I'll be paying more attention. The British Isles map looks great and I have ambitions to start a themed game from my home province of Connaught and spread the hell to the rest of the world

CruelCoin

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

... what?

Of all the things you can criticise the Warhammer TW games for, unit diversity is not one of them, not even remotely. Each race has it's own completely different unit roster.

Yes, but a very limited roster per

Or at least thats my feeling on it.

I'm likely just spoiled from the medieval days.

Generic Dreadhead

CruelCoin wrote: »

Yes, but a very limited roster per

Or at least thats my feeling on it.

I'm likely just spoiled from the medieval days.

Thats largely due to specialisation of each race.
So not every town/leader/race can build a slew of Rock-Scissors-Paper variants like in Medieval 2 where you could have elite Bowmen, Cavalry and Infantry no matter who you were playing as.

Varik

We're getting more in dept formations again.

Might have been known already but I'm happy.

ancapailldorcha

The idiot in me pre-ordered Britannia last night. Didn't think it deserved its own thread. Anyone else thinking of getting it?

Samuel T. Cogley

Anyone else looking forward to becoming King of Ireland?

Dave_The_Sheep

Assuming the reviews hold up, I ****ing am.

ancapailldorcha

Pre-ordered this which was a daft thing to do. Downloaded it this morning.

degrassinoel

disappointed that the Mide faction (Meath) has northern Irish accents on the battlefield and the king himself sounds like an english fella putting on a Quiet Man, Darby O'Gill, etc.. accent.. Jaysis, the cringe is strong in that intro, and that's massively off putting.

Played it for an hour before i knocked it off.

ancapailldorcha

degrassinoel wrote: »

disappointed that the Mide faction (Meath) has northern Irish accents on the battlefield and the king himself sounds like an english fella putting on a Quiet Man, Darby O'Gill, etc.. accent.. Jaysis, the cringe is strong in that intro, and that's massively off putting.

Played it for an hour before i knocked it off.

I remember that they gutted the Scottish voicepack for Ireland in the Kingdoms expansion to Medieval II. Shame that they've not done a better job now that they are a much bigger studio.

degrassinoel

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I remember that they gutted the Scottish voicepack for Ireland in the Kingdoms expansion to Medieval II. Shame that they've not done a better job now that they are a much bigger studio.

yeah, i expected more from them on this tbh. I'd actually have more fun playing TW:Warhammer than this atm.
Seems like they cheaped out on authenticity when it came to voiceactors and chose some generic "irish" sounding to english ears accents - and they'll probably get away with that, and once again, the oul Irish accents suffer the indignity of being stereotypically garbage.

For me, that ruins the experience - not that i wanted to hear full-on guttural gaelic, but a meath/kildare/westmeath/dublin/wicklow accent, non-theatrical english would have been a start for authenticity

Billy86

How does that even happen in this day and age? There have been a few games now where I've seen Irish characters basically just be Scottish (if we're lucky!) rather than having an authentic accent. It's hardly like we're short for struggling actors who would jump at the opportunity for a low enough cost, and it's not exactly hard to find people from smaller markets like Ireland with this amazing fandoogle they've come up with called the internet.

It always baffles me, on TV and in films too - the worst I can recall was Sons of Anarchy where it actually caused me to just stop watching. There's only so much you can hear supposed Belfast locals with dialogue like "yer old lady ain't got the grit, son!" in an accent about as accurate as my attempt at Louisiana Cajun.

ancapailldorcha

degrassinoel wrote: »

yeah, i expected more from them on this tbh. I'd actually have more fun playing TW:Warhammer than this atm.
Seems like they cheaped out on authenticity when it came to voiceactors and chose some generic "irish" sounding to english ears accents - and they'll probably get away with that, and once again, the oul Irish accents suffer the indignity of being stereotypically garbage.

For me, that ruins the experience - not that i wanted to hear full-on guttural gaelic, but a meath/kildare/westmeath/dublin/wicklow accent, non-theatrical english would have been a start for authenticity

Voice packs are little more than soundbyte bundles. I'd say a fair few TW fans would happily have done it for free. My excitement at playing as Ireland in M2TW compensated somewhat.

Fun Fact: The guy who did the Scottish/Irish voices is Graham MacTavish who plays the Saint of Killers in Preacher.

Billy86 wrote: »

How does that even happen in this day and age? There have been a few games now where I've seen Irish characters basically just be Scottish (if we're lucky!) rather than having an authentic accent. It's hardly like we're short for struggling actors who would jump at the opportunity for a low enough cost, and it's not exactly hard to find people from smaller markets like Ireland with this amazing fandoogle they've come up with called the internet.

It always baffles me, on TV and in films too - the worst I can recall was Sons of Anarchy where it actually caused me to just stop watching. There's only so much you can hear supposed Belfast locals with dialogue like "yer old lady ain't got the grit, son!" in an accent about as accurate as my attempt at Louisiana Cajun.

Madness, I know. CA are pretty big now. Surely this is the sort of thing that a contracted actor and a few hours would sort easily. They've ditched the generals' speeches so it's not like there's anything beyond "Orders, sir" and "General's bodyguard". Hardly the sort of thing you need to get the Royal Shakespeare Society for.

pawrick

not rushing to buy this at the moment but I'm looking forward picking it up in a sale at some point and hopefully i have the time to play it too!

Generic Dreadhead

Overwatch has a decent Irish voice actor. That's the only game I can remember with one

Dave_The_Sheep

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

Overwatch has a decent Irish voice actor. That's the only game I can remember with one

What, you mean Cait in Fallout 4 didn't do it for you?

degrassinoel

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

Overwatch has a decent Irish voice actor. That's the only game I can remember with one

payday2 (god i hate that game so much) has a very well voiced though completely over-the-top with violence and vulgarity and well, vagina as one of the first female heisters from "the wrong side of dublin" i'm guessing that's Donnybrook then. Anyway, aside from all the screamy shouty threats, she did it really well for a country girl.

Clover aka Aoife Duffin - NSFW


www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxmxp9kcxRI

video doesnt want to be embedded - but that's all of her lines in payday2

degrassinoel

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Voice packs are little more than soundbyte bundles. I'd say a fair few TW fans would happily have done it for free. My excitement at playing as Ireland in M2TW compensated somewhat.

Fun Fact: The guy who did the Scottish/Irish voices is Graham MacTavish who plays the Saint of Killers in Preacher.

He does the accent very well in preacher - mad show that

Mr Crispy

I know there have been mods for previous titles which tried to redress poor voice work, but given our relative size, that's unlikely to happen in this case.

PS Could a mod merge the two threads (other one here)?

ancapailldorcha

Started a Mide campaign last night on hard. Some changes have been made which seem interesting at the least.

Mickeroo

degrassinoel wrote: »

He does the accent very well in preacher - mad show that

You thinking of Cassidy (Irish Vampire) rather than Saint of Killers? He's definitely one of the better put on Irish accents I've heard. McTavish just has an american accent in Preacher I think. Great show

degrassinoel

Mickeroo wrote: »

You thinking of Cassidy (Irish Vampire) rather than Saint of Killers? He's definitely one of the better put on Irish accents I've heard. McTavish just has an american accent in Preacher I think. Great show

your right, my bad. Yer man cassidy does it very well, and so does Ruth at hiding hers, though Americans might think differently

KonFusion

So what're folks thinking? Is this worth a buy?

degrassinoel

KonFusion wrote: »

So what're folks thinking? Is this worth a buy?

steamsale it, cant recommend it with the badly done and inaccurate Irish accents.

ancapailldorcha

I've played it once since I got it. I don't know, something seems off about it.

Kiith

Merged both the threads.

Shame about the voice pack. I'd say it would get pretty annoying to have to listen to it constantly. Might wait for a lower price in a few months.

Tony EH

So, Britannia's no use then? Bugger, I was kind of hoping it would be good.


Tried to get into the Warhammer thingy and just can't. I'm just confused by it all, to be honest. That was the last TW game I played. But, I think the last truly enjoyable one was Shogun II (until the realm divide killed the game stone dead).

cherryghost

Yeah Shogun II was the bees knees. Rome II is good now too. At launch and for some time after is was pretty dire.