Can we rule the world? New info on regional occupation.

[emcdunna]

"In the distant future there is only war" is from warhammer 40k, the futuristic sci-fi game.

Now, all of those arguments are good ones. One thing i'm loving about attila is that as rome, you are basically playing survival mode. That's awesome!

So honestly I hope the campaign in TW:W has more of a survival/tower defense type challenge. Chaos would be like the huns on steroids, then regardless of which faction youre playing, you just have to survive chaos (and each other).

I'm also wondering if there's going to be mass invasions/problems in the south (near greenskins) that we have to worry about, like tomb kings showing up randomly (they could get away with a simple reskin of VC and a limited roster for a non-playable faction).

[Akhenaton]

"In the distant future there is only war" is from warhammer 40k, the futuristic sci-fi game.

Now, all of those arguments are good ones. One thing i'm loving about attila is that as rome, you are basically playing survival mode. That's awesome!

I fully know that. WH Fantasy and WH Sci-fi are similar in many ways, so I used this quote to point at the possible theme, CA might be aiming for.

Anyway, I agree with the rest of your post, I would also like a campaign of perpetual war with a good quest system.

[async]

I personally like this idea. This adds some more difference between the campaigns/ factions.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

I'm quite neutral to the idea at the moment. If it work out as intended, then it is all good, but I am a bit sceptical about whether it will actually make a difference in regards to faction survival. I you invade an enemy and desolate their territory they should logically be as dead as if you conquered it. Might even make it easier since you won't be slowed down by having to maintain public order or tie up forces to defend it. Of course attrition should be a greater concern if you can't reinforce or recruit in desolated areas, but I doubt that would be enough to compensate for the previously mentioned factors.

On the positive side it should result in limiting the maximum extent of your empire. Hopefully that will mean less routine management and prevent you from reaching a position of invincibility. After all, a Chaos invasion would not really be very menacing or impactful if it could just scratch the edges of your 100+ provinces empire... Still if they really wanted to make it impactful, they should probably condense every province into a region as it seems like you still will rule over too many settlements to really feel threatened. Having each Empire county being one settlement would be perfectly fine, the Empire would still have plenty of settlements, so don't compare it with how ETW made whole major countries into single regions...

[emcdunna]

I don't think you necessarily need a hard limitation (like a cap of maximum 50 settlements), but could instead go with scalable effects that make expansion way harder.

Basically, things like corruption, upkeep, public order penalties, attrition, food cost, etc. Should all be used to make expanding to cover the whole map nearly impossible.

So you don't say haha sorry you can't settle here, but you do make it so the late/mid game is still tough

[C.Maximus]

So, after reading the explanation that came out recently I have a little better idea how this whole thing works and frankly they did not sell me with their argument. Their main argument is that it would not work with lore and that Humans would not occupy an orc city or the other way around. Their biggest argument is that in the lore that it never happened and does not make much sense for it to happen due to the wastelands not being a place that a Human would want to live. Or that the Empire sacked the Dwarf capital before but never occupied it.

Now, as much as I agree with them that this is sticking with the lore, they never held such restrictions before even though it did not play out as historical. For Instance: Being able to occupy Constantinople as any faction other then ERE in Attila is not historical yet however you are allowed to do it. I do understand that there are differences between orcs and humans over goths and eastern romans, however you should atleast (as far as I know in every fantasy setting) be allowed to demolish the city then rebuild a fortress or outpost of some sort. Also, he argues that Orcs will not go in and govern some human town but instead kill everyone inside. Well the same happens for Dwarves no? If a Dwarf stronghold fell would the orcs just start governing the citizens? No I assume they kill all the Dwarves and occupy the empty graveyard of a hold. Why should an Orc be able to occupy a Dwarven hold over a human hold? Just does not add up! Plus its Total War which has always allowed for a counter history to take place. If you want to take the Picts and take control over the whole world you can!

Also. For undead.. Are Dwarves not allowed to be undead? That like a thing in Warhammer.. I am basing my knowledge off of other Fantasy settings I know and I am pretty sure Dwarves can become undead. Why cant the vamp counts take a Dwarven hold? Raise all the dwarfs into Dwarf zombies? Makes -just- as much sense if not MORE sense for a Vampire to take a Dwarven city due to the fact that it is under ground and defends them from possible light. (or do Warhammer vamps not burn in the light?)...

Anyways.. Their explanation seems half assed.. sort of "Well this didnt happen in the books so it cannot happen in our game" when the whole previous approach to total war was " You can go against history and do anything you want." I think they just need to come out and say "We did not want to make 4 different building models for each settlement... sorry"

[Vanders]

Can't believe the response here honestly. They try something new and interesting and you guys just freak out.

Actually, I think the responses in this thread from the point at which the occupation & conquest system was fully explained has been rather level headed and intrigued for the most part.

[Lord Baal]

So, after reading the explanation that came out recently I have a little better idea how this whole thing works and frankly they did not sell me with their argument. Their main argument is that it would not work with lore and that Humans would not occupy an orc city or the other way around. Their biggest argument is that in the lore that it never happened and does not make much sense for it to happen due to the wastelands not being a place that a Human would want to live. Or that the Empire sacked the Dwarf capital before but never occupied it.

Now, as much as I agree with them that this is sticking with the lore, they never held such restrictions before even though it did not play out as historical. For Instance: Being able to occupy Constantinople as any faction other then ERE in Attila is not historical yet however you are allowed to do it. I do understand that there are differences between orcs and humans over goths and eastern romans, however you should atleast (as far as I know in every fantasy setting) be allowed to demolish the city then rebuild a fortress or outpost of some sort. Also, he argues that Orcs will not go in and govern some human town but instead kill everyone inside. Well the same happens for Dwarves no? If a Dwarf stronghold fell would the orcs just start governing the citizens? No I assume they kill all the Dwarves and occupy the empty graveyard of a hold. Why should an Orc be able to occupy a Dwarven hold over a human hold? Just does not add up! Plus its Total War which has always allowed for a counter history to take place. If you want to take the Picts and take control over the whole world you can!

Also. For undead.. Are Dwarves not allowed to be undead? That like a thing in Warhammer.. I am basing my knowledge off of other Fantasy settings I know and I am pretty sure Dwarves can become undead. Why cant the vamp counts take a Dwarven hold? Raise all the dwarfs into Dwarf zombies? Makes -just- as much sense if not MORE sense for a Vampire to take a Dwarven city due to the fact that it is under ground and defends them from possible light. (or do Warhammer vamps not burn in the light?)...

Anyways.. Their explanation seems half assed.. sort of "Well this didnt happen in the books so it cannot happen in our game" when the whole previous approach to total war was " You can go against history and do anything you want." I think they just need to come out and say "We did not want to make 4 different building models for each settlement... sorry"

Oh I forgot about the undead. They are the other exception. Of course anything can become undead, and it should.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Im rather surprised the response is as positive as it is. For me, if this can't be modded out, it's pretty much a deal breaker. What's the point of ever playing a faction more than once if your borders are literally pre-determined? This completely kills replayability.

"Ahh, you have recreated the Roman Empire. Congratulations."

"Excellent, now let's expand into Germania."

"Oh, no, you can't do that."

"What...? Why? It's just a collection of tribes, they have no way to stop me."

"Yeah, but Rome never did that in real life, so..."


The entire point of Total War throughout every previous installment has always been to change history. Or not, if you'd like. If you want to maintain strict historical borders, you can do so! But if you want to sail from England into Russia and form a steppe empire of longbows, you could do that too.

From what I understand of Warhammer lore, there's nothing preventing a dwarf from living outside of a mountain. There's definitely nothing preventing vampires from taking over dwarf mountain karaks. Absolutely no reason that orcs couldn't conquer the Empire, at least in so far as orcs ever conquer anywhere.

Im not against this because it's different, Im against this because it's literally just removing the ability to do something that you used to be able to do. I've hated these types of changes every single time they've been implemented. No, sorry, you can't have armies without generals anymore. No, sorry, you can't recruit armies anymore, you've hit the army cap, doesn't matter how much money you have. No, sorry, you can't build another church here, you built a well. No, sorry, you can't recruit armies in settlements anymore. No, sorry, you can't manage infrastructure outside of settlements anymore, they'll just automatically build roads eventually when they feel like it. No, sorry, you can't expand past this border, because.

I simply do not see how this is beneficial to the game, whether from a gameplay perspective, or from an immersion one. A natural thing limiting your expansion would be public order penalties, or diplomatic penalties, or economic penalties. Elves don't want to live in mountains, so they will be unhappy. Dwarves have an alliance with the Empire, so conquering the Empire would have severe diplomatic penalties. The Badlands are hostile to most forms of life, so human settlers will neither be very happy, nor will their lands be economically viable. But then, other factions simply wouldn't have such penalties, like Vampires. They don't really care where they live. Because they are dead.

This changes "Wouldn't" to "Can't" and that's terrible. Gaul wouldn't have sent an expedition to conquer Egypt, but it would be a terrible gameplay decision to make it to where the player can't send an expedition to conquer Egypt.

[Person012345]

I actually like the idea less since they explained it fully. I dislike it now.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

The more I read about this, the worse it seems.

FROM A GAMEPLAY PERSPECTIVE
This is by far the most important factor in the choices we’ve made regarding Regional Occupation. First, I want to quickly talk about the pretty standard TW campaign formula… Although some of our games encourage players to have outpost settlements in various areas of the map that are distant from the main faction’s start position, essentially, every faction in every TW game to date broadly follows a similar theme. Whether turtling or expanding (or somewhere in between) the overriding common-sense approach to progressing through a campaign game is to occupy regions next to your starting ones and then systematically expand out from that point. The bubble then gradually grows outwards from those starting regions.

This is still very much the case with TW: Warhammer but, more often than in previous TW games, players are confronted with some regions that they cannot occupy. Instead we want players to think differently about certain regions. Do they raze the settlement to the ground with no gain other than the knowledge that this is the most efficient way of curtailing the threat from this area? Will a player sack the settlement, gain an immediate cash boost and diminish the short term productivity and threat of the settlement but have to deal with it again in the medium to long term? Will they choose instead to not over-stretch themselves and instead fortify their defences, creating deadzones and buffers in preparation for a likely invasion?

These kinds of factors don’t just bolster the feel of each of the races in the WH lore but they create an interesting set of gameplay choices. It’s still very much TW but with a difference that keeps the gameplay fresh and new throughout the course of your campaign. And never underestimate the usefulness of forging peace with an ally whose territory you can’t occupy, then using them as a buffer when Very Bad Things are coming towards you… and take it from me, they will.

This immediately raises questions. How exactly is this situation that he outlined in any way better than an average campaign? You could do all these things in a regular Total War campaign, except you could also choose to occupy it if you wanted. Literally the only difference in gameplay is that they removed the ability to occupy it. How is that better?

Obviously you would just immediately raze any settlement that threatened you, unless sacking income has been increase significantly, in which case you would sack it and then raze it. You know how everyone hated the fact that Europe became an empty wasteland in Attila? Well this game actively encourages that to happen, apparently.

Gameplay features like choosing what to do with a settlement after conquest are interesting when they have merit, not when you have no other options. Make me want to sack rather than occupy. Make sacking fun, make occupying settlements outside of your comfort regions more difficult, not impossible. Interesting strategy games are about making logical strategic choices based on the available information. The more you limit our ability to make choices, the less interesting the entire game becomes.

Conquering the whole world has never been required to win a campaign. The only reason anyone would do it is if they specifically wanted to do it. The only thing you are doing by limiting that is going to unnecessary lengths to curb a behavior that is optional, and thus you're only really affecting people who wanted to do it in the first place. Honestly, this doesn't just affect people who want to conquer the whole world, either, but people who want to form their borders into a certain shape, or play migration campaigns where they move to a different position on the map, or role play. The people who weren't interested in those things, or thought they made you too powerful, just wouldn't have done them in the first place!



One section up from this, they talk about how lore is a big reason for this feature.

One section below this, they say that Karl Franz can go around razing Imperial cities to the ground. "Not very lore friendly, but it's up to the player."

Really.


I mean, I like that they recognize that basically every Total War game plays out the same, and are trying to change that. But this is not an interesting way to do it. Implementing new mechanics would be an interesting way to do it, not removing old, fundamental ones.

[emcdunna]

It's not the same as gaul getting to conquer Egypt. It's a lot more immersive than that.

The regions for both holds and human realms expand over the entire map. If you're the empire, you can conquer practically the whole world (who cares about moiuntains anyway).

Just either ally with dwarfs or raze all holds to the ground.

This is NOT the same as if they made it so you couldn't conquer any of bretonnia, or sylvania.

As orcs, kill off dwarfs and conquer all the mountain holds. Then, you can launch assaults and raze all the human settlements with being only 1-3 movement turns away from any settlement.


This is NOT the same as if 2 faction's were stuck in north America, couldn't cross the Atlantic to europe, while 2 others fought over Europe and couldn't cross the ocean to attack america.


CA's arguments suck, they're very apologetic and contradictory.

They should have just let you occupy the region as a sort of outpost/watchtower/fort like they had in medieval 2 or rome 1.

If people really hate it, they'll just do a patch and fix it 2 weeks after launch

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

I
This is NOT the same as if 2 faction's were stuck in north America, couldn't cross the Atlantic to europe, while 2 others fought over Europe and couldn't cross the ocean to attack america.

No, it's more like making a Victorian Era game and not allowing the United States to occupy territories in Europe, because it "Goes against lore, and makes for more interesting gameplay."

[Beregond]

I simply do not see how this is beneficial to the game, whether from a gameplay perspective, or from an immersion one. A natural thing limiting your expansion would be public order penalties, or diplomatic penalties, or economic penalties. Elves don't want to live in mountains, so they will be unhappy. Dwarves have an alliance with the Empire, so conquering the Empire would have severe diplomatic penalties. The Badlands are hostile to most forms of life, so human settlers will neither be very happy, nor will their lands be economically viable. But then, other factions simply wouldn't have such penalties, like Vampires. They don't really care where they live. Because they are dead.

This changes "Wouldn't" to "Can't" and that's terrible. Gaul wouldn't have sent an expedition to conquer Egypt, but it would be a terrible gameplay decision to make it to where the player can't send an expedition to conquer Egypt.

Third Age TW did it best, kinda.
You can expand to the forests as Dwarves, yet you can build only basic walls and some low-tier building there. Same for Elves in the mountains. It looked so much better and immersive, I actually want to play TATW again ))

Perhaps it's the ancient Warscape engine to blame. CA games have been steadily going downhill lately

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Third Age TW did it best, kinda.
You can expand to the forests as Dwarves, yet you can build only basic walls and some low-tier building there. Same for Elves in the mountains. It looked so much better and immersive, I actually want to play TATW again ))

Perhaps it's the ancient Warscape engine to blame. CA games have been steadily going downhill lately

Yeah, even something like that. Limit settlement "levels" in regions where your specific race wouldn't do well. Make recruiting units cost more, or make garrisons cost upkeep there, or something interesting instead of just saying, "Nuh uh, you crossed the line, you can't settle past this line!"

[econ21]

Sounds fine to me. For some reason, I never expected to be occupying the whole world. That kind of gameplay started to get old in the original MTW (wasn't that when they introduced glory goals?). And the WHFB map always felt rather immutable. It's kind of like destroying France or another major power in ETW: you don't want to do it, as it makes the game less rich.

I always imagined the Empire would be about unifying and then consolidating. The dwarves seem the archetypal turtle faction. Chaos are Huns. Orcs maybe plunderers and VC razers. (There should be some mechanic for casualties generating cannon fodder skeletons for VC). Sounds more fun than painting the whole map red.

[Derfel von Saljeth]

Anyone knows if we will be able su subjugate other factions? For VC it would make more sense to subjugate Empire or Dwarfs (or Norscan tribes) than conquer them and "paint the map red". In the current lore, even Sylvania is subjugated to Vampires, most of popolation are living beings under their dread rule.

Anyhow, i understand the "lore" motivations, and i think the campaign will be set in a few years timeframe (no hundreds) so makes sense no one will be able to conquer and replace all other races with their own in a few years.
It's not like humans vs humans, where the winner can impose his rulers, colonize the place and blend with the native people.

[C.Maximus]

Third Age TW did it best, kinda.
You can expand to the forests as Dwarves, yet you can build only basic walls and some low-tier building there. Same for Elves in the mountains. It looked so much better and immersive, I actually want to play TATW again ))

Perhaps it's the ancient Warscape engine to blame. CA games have been steadily going downhill lately

Yes, thank you.

I remember helping my Dale allies in the east steppe area of middle earth as the Dwarves and having to have a steady supply line from the Iron hills to the east in order to keep up a continuous attack. Even though I was able to occupy and build basic trading towns and mining cities (lots of gold lore wise around there) I was not able to build anything to the extent of the Iron hills, Misty mountain, or Lonely mountain holds. Or the Blue mountain holds. Not only was I not able to construct buildings I was not able to recruit armies effectively (1 dwarven warrior ever 8 turns 1 miner every 5). Yet when attacked I was still able to use the walls of the old city. Hold the gates and utilize the fortifications while reaping benefits of the lands around (trade, mining, farming) while still it not being a "Dwarven hold"....

Warscape doesnt have a limit on men you can recruit like the med 2 system... however, I am sure they can dd it.

Also. I am all for client states. I am sure that will be an option. But will get a bit difficult when they start to constantly rebel.

[emcdunna]

Yeah I don't think I WANT to make the other races extinct. I mean if i'm turtling as dwarfs and the AI empire kills off the vampire counts before I can ever play against them, that's kind of a bummer!

In fact if this entire game was just a raid other faction's and survival game, that'd be amazing.

Maybe they should install some sort of resurgence thing, so like an automatic rebellion that occurs 5-15 turns after a race gets annihilated which brings them back with a small city and a full stack army.

[Sharpe]

No, it's more like making a Victorian Era game and not allowing the United States to occupy territories in Europe, because it "Goes against lore, and makes for more interesting gameplay."

Your missing a big point, which is the scripted stuff that will take up your time instead of straight up conquering.