Battlefields in Warhammer

[PROMETHEUS ts]

I can't not notice that the Battlefields in Warhammer look mostly all the same, I donot mean the surrounding and nice viewscapes that are greatly different and fantasy , but the battlefield itself that looks like the usual semiflat maps of the latest total war game releases .

I was more than impressed by the complexity and coolness of the Arena maps , but the flat , dull uninteresting maps of Total war games have come to bore me now . they look like flat landscapes with slightl ondulations here and there ...
What do you think about it ? I hoped to see something like Arena , not over and over again the same battlefields .

[Markas]

I see what you mean, the worst were in Rome 1 where they were often just flat green fields. Med 2's were better as you had entire maps that were part of a sloping landscape. The newer games seem to have self-contained areas that don't make a whole lot of difference to the battle. They don't seem natural or interesting. I'd prefer more battlefield objects as well- Towers, Special wooded terrain as in TT, villages etc.

[warl0rd13]

To be honest I really can't think of any Total War game that had really interesting maps, the only exceptions I can think of are Empire, Napoleon, and Medieval 2, the first two only because there could be random buildings and walls that troops could take cover behind, and that's actually counter productive late game in empire, while Medieval 2 could just have some maps that were just plain insane, with roads on impossible angles and very steep hills and mountains.

[Vardeus]

I'd like to see more "tactically relevant" elements in total war maps, each map should have 2 at the very least. Arena has too many for my taste (blame its genre), but i agree that something should be done in that general direction. I loved using med2's random manors/keeps in its battlemaps as a way to secure one of my flanks, this is what people tried to do historically.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

To be honest I really can't think of any Total War game that had really interesting maps, the only exceptions I can think of are Empire, Napoleon, and Medieval 2, the first two only because there could be random buildings and walls that troops could take cover behind, and that's actually counter productive late game in empire, while Medieval 2 could just have some maps that were just plain insane, with roads on impossible angles and very steep hills and mountains.

Actually I do remember Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 maps , wich were more interesting in terms of battefields, if not wrong also Shogun 2 had good maps .

[Cadian Guardsman]

If I recall correctly Shogun II's maps were pretty run of the mill usually a hill here and there to break up the monotony of terrain as well as a few trees here and there. Still I hope that at least the sieges (something that is usually the majority of battles in total war) are improved and the maps varied and interesting. If I have to attack more generic peasant villages I'm going to cry.

[warl0rd13]

If I recall correctly Shogun II's maps were pretty run of the mill usually a hill here and there to break up the monotony of terrain as well as a few trees here and there..

Yeah, that's what I remember too, to be honest I didn't like Shogun 2 all that much until Fall of the Samurai came around. Admittedly that may be because I remember when my PC was garbage that could't even hope to run Shogun 2 well at all.

[Evan MF]

I think the main reason we don't get interesting maps is Total War's perennial issues with unit pathfinding and cohesion. Maps with natural barriers such as cliffs and rivers have about as many problems as ones with urban features, such as buildings and fortresses. That's just about the entire spectrum of what can 'make a map more interesting'.

CA have sort of copped out of actually tackling the issue (seems to be their strategy with everything these days). The maps that happen to include interesting features tend to be highly unrealistic and very much oriented around the unit mechanics. They're constructed as little arenas which tend to entail a central gimmick to them, gearing you towards a particular army layout or play-style and generally trying hide or direct you away from ever encountering the awkward hiccups of unit path-finding. Instead of addressing the game's underlying issues that prevent realistic maps being functional to play on, they're just streamlining/optimizing within the flawed framework of the game mechanics.

This is one of the reasons why people increasingly attribute the 'arcadey' adjective to the franchise, because it very much is adapting historical warfare to their narrow, flawed game engine, rather than adapting their game engine to the realities of historical warfare.

An ideal Total War engine would allow units to easily pathfind across a map with any combination of urban or physical features that are plausible with reality. The most efficient way of doing so would probably be to make a new game engine, but they don't seem interested in that investment.

[Ichon]

Yes, this is the second biggest complaint I have with TW after sieges and really the sieges and battle map flatness are part of the same problem. Some of the maps in Warhammer look a bit better- prettier at least- but even the recent swamp map appears to be only graphics, the terrain has absolutely no effect in the battle that I could see.

The part I have trouble grasping is that even in MTW2 while terrain wasn't always important it often was and the AI made use of hills and woods while in a game made 10 years later the AI appears somehow stupider in many ways. Flanking and BAI response to players unit movements has improved starting with Shogun 2 where the AI immediately moved the appropriate 'counter' unit according to players moves if it had such a unit available. It was actually a bit stupid in that being so predictable that yari samurai would chase cavalry halfway across map and it was extremely easy to kite/bait AI.

More recent games have slightly less obvious counter units though they still exist the terrain has virtually zero impact in battles. Maybe 1/10 battles have a terrain feature that plays a role compared to 1/3 up to 1/2 the time in MTW2 and some mods. The sieges in Warhammer are likely to be better in my opinion but at the cost of uniqueness while the battle map terrain seems similarly flattened as all other recent titles just hidden behind pretty layers a bit better but zero tactical impacts on gameplay.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

Wish they could atleast allow custom map making and ability to upload them for MP.

[PeonKing]

If I recall correctly Shogun II's maps were pretty run of the mill usually a hill here and there to break up the monotony of terrain as well as a few trees here and there. Still I hope that at least the sieges (something that is usually the majority of battles in total war) are improved and the maps varied and interesting. If I have to attack more generic peasant villages I'm going to cry.

I'm not sure if you recall correctly actually, I'd say it had a lot more than just a 'hill here and there' You could fight in little micro-towns if you were by an outside of the settlement building on the campaign map, there were raised hills with a few choke points created by cliffs, large sheer forested cliffs, impassable ditches, as well as a lot more varied gradients where you had steep hills in front of plains that made archer/melee unit placement work a lot better. Honestly I remember having to bank on the terrain more than a few times in S2 to win battles. I thought Shogun 2 did a pretty decent job, especially if you compare it to Rome 2 or Attila, which has almost no terrain variation.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Speak of the devil... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux4IqM4gXeY

[Nth]

Speak of the devil... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux4IqM4gXeY

Hype meter rising. Cav charges looked brutal in that as well.

[craziii]

the best battlefield maps were etw and ntw with actual towns and garrisonable buildings on top of all the regular stuff. but how would that work for other time periods though? without gunpowder? yea you run into a building, the enemy captain or general would just burn you alive along with the building.

[KAM 2150]

Hype meter rising. Cav charges looked brutal in that as well.

I would love to finally at some point see cavalry actually trampling infantry and riders stabbing the poor dudes instead on moon bowling simulator ; P

[Frost, colonel]

the best battlefield maps were etw and ntw with actual towns and garrisonable buildings on top of all the regular stuff. but how would that work for other time periods though? without gunpowder? yea you run into a building, the enemy captain or general would just burn you alive along with the building.

Tell that to Pyrrhus of Epirus, regarding the old woman and the roofing slate.
Not all buildings burn easily. How easily did the Romans clear out Carthage the last time, I thought that one was a street by street fight? I mean barricades, archers, slingers, roofing tiles, etc.

[craziii]

Tell that to Pyrrhus of Epirus, regarding the old woman and the roofing slate.
Not all buildings burn easily. How easily did the Romans clear out Carthage the last time, I thought that one was a street by street fight? I mean barricades, archers, slingers, roofing tiles, etc.

and how would you simulate house to house fighting in a game like total war? and weren't we talking about field battles, not cities? hell, no need to burn down the buildings, just the smoke alone can probably kill everyone inside.

[AgrippaDaRippa]

They just released a video on their youtube channel that shows how the battlescape will be changed by its area and history of site.
Atleast thats what I got from the video...

[PROMETHEUS ts]

They just released a video on their youtube channel that shows how the battlescape will be changed by its area and history of site.
Atleast thats what I got from the video...

What video?

The Last I saw shows a siege and apart the nice supersized Castle on the back , wich looks just as a background scenery , the terrainis completely flat and uninsteresting . I understand some purists like only flat battlefields , but I find them extremely boring , uninteresting and after a while all battles are the same like that .

[flippers]

What video?

The Last I saw shows a siege and apart the nice supersized Castle on the back , wich looks just as a background scenery , the terrainis completely flat and uninsteresting . I understand some purists like only flat battlefields , but I find them extremely boring , uninteresting and after a while all battles are the same like that .

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux4IqM4gXeY