So apparently they're making N:TW and it's available for pre-order on Steam. This is more like a provocative bashing thread on what I feel the Total War series has spiraled into. Behold, a graph will show what I mean:



Shogun: Ground breaker. Bread & butter.
Medieval: Expansion of the original. Bread & butter + marmalade.
Rome: New engine, new joys. But new problems and gripes.
Medieval 2: Expansion of the new engine. Still fun, but bigger gripes and bigger pains.
Empire: Countless problems. All good things come to an end?

I personally think TW has died, but I will keep my eye open on any future titles.

And you consider Marmelade a good thing? I liked Rome and Medieval II, and Medieval is great too (I never played shogun or Empire, but will play the latter some day in the future). The problem is that the endgame always bores me. Medieval is unplayable for me now because of the clumsy graphics and interface.

Yea, it's really not all that much fun any more. I came in on Rome and enjoyed it. Medieval 2 was cool too, but it just didn't have the pizazz of Rome for me. Empire was even more reduced. My excitement level for Napolean is about the same as for the dentist.

I first want to replay Empire when it's completely patched...the original version had so many lame bugs that it took the fun out of the game for me. I still think it's a good game though.

RTW was a classic for me, MTW2 and the expansion were great. Haven't played the others and won't buy Napoleon on release.

I just noticed something which most of you probably did a while back...

And this isn't entirely related to NTW...

DLC's... Given E:TW was a very closed, firmcoded, anti-moddable title compared to the rest of the TW games, i mean, it's no secret that it's been designed not to be modded. And given that they're just released like a £3 DLC that basically adds 15 new units... the whole DLC concept is potentially a very bad thing for PC gamers isn't it? Those 15 units would have been provided my the modding community for free, and a whole other host of units, mods and stuff would have been created, for free.

I mean, 15 new unit's we're not talking much here... We're talking some new textures, new stats, and a bit of coding.

So in the case of ETW, DLC's generate more $ for devs but at a detriment to playability for gamers.

well, so they would hope. I'm willing to bet not too many people actually buy that DLC. Most DLCs, really. To me a DLC is supposed to be an expansion. The crap they're peddling as DLCs doesn't qualify and isn't worth even a few bucks. I didn't even get any Fallout 3 DLCs, and those provided much more of a bang.

I think the DLC thing is still new and people are experimenting with it. Once they realize they need to provide more value, they'll accommodate, I think.