Pants-wetting goodness. A Gamespy preview and a trailer.

Yeh, the naval stuff looks good.

I would've liked to see some game play videos, but yea, I'll be getting this one. I've enjoyed every Total War since I started with Rome. It's about damned time the naval battles were fightable, too.

Another preview covering mostly land battles. While this all just looks cool, with an AI this smart this might become a very difficult game too, I hope it will remain as fun as the earlier games.

Good AI is a good thing. The AI in the previous games was between middling and retarded... by dong certain things you could confuse the AI and just win every time, even against overwhelming odds. Kinda made it lame. At the same time, I don't like getting my ass beat constantly either so let's hope it's balanced. Or has multiple AI difficulty levels.

/me thinks of many games where AI has 'magical' knowledge and seemingly inexhaustible funds, as well as the ability to produce and command units at a staggering speed (because the AI doens't have to scroll and click, obviously). Definitely FTL.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/41949.html

enjoy

Wow, that trailer just raised my hopes. It seemed to show 3 aspects of the game:

- Naval battles
- Politics
- Land battles

And to that I say:

Mr. Higgins, set a course, sou-sou-west. Ready the main guns! STARBOARD BATTERY, FIRE!!!

lol...now you know why I liked to play Silent Hunter as much as I did

"Wahnsinnige Fahrt voraus!!"
"Jawohl Herr Kaleun!"
"Zerotiefe!"

Ahh...

I'm still sceptical about the naval battles in E:TW...until I see a submarine.

I'd like to see more modern Total War... how about WWII : Total War? Actually I'd rather see WWI : Total War, but WWII would probably be more interesting. Of course, at that point the map would need to be the size of the planet.

I dunno, I think WWI would fit the concept of TW as we know it better. Massive battles involving a lot of infantry, trenches, etc. Only basic air power, basic tanks and mostly classic naval warfare (first subs were only just appearing) and there's even still cavalry, so nothing too hard to balance. Nerve gas, flamethrowers, pill boxes and all to spice up land battles.

I would say that accurately portraying WWII with its air superiority, tank battles, sub warfare and atomic weapons in a TW game would actually be pretty hard.

heh...perhaps. One of the biggest problems with TW is there was no way to really alter the geography. you could build forts but that was about it. I'd love to see the ability to completely destroy a city and wipe it off the map... or build a new one.

But sure, WWI would be fun. I'd be cool with a Korea: Total War or Vietnam: Total War or something too. Not exactly huge in scale, but neither was Shogun I guess, if you get right down to it. Then again, it's not quite the same since all the weapons and force production was going on outside the country. Bleh, I dunno.

Empire: Total War is coming to Steam and prepurchasers get Rome: Total War gold edition for free.

i think you guys are treading on weird ground with the whole Ballistics: Total War.

Ballistics: Total War? I must've missed something.

Y'know what would rock.... WWIII : Total War. Life the defcon game but with the tactical depth of total war. And the use of tactical nukes.