CA's Total War: The Celtic-Han-Lizardmen alliance that never was

[Fez]

Weirdly, and disappointingly, CA is ending support for Three Kingdoms a year early and not releasing the previously announced nothern-focused DLC. Instead they're working on a new game set in the Three Kingdoms era.

Maybe they're planning on switching to a Warhammer model, but I'm not sure that works without expanding the map. And if the focus really is on the Three Kingdoms still, there's not much map expansion that can occur.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Weirdly, and disappointingly, CA is ending support for Three Kingdoms a year early and not releasing the previously announced nothern-focused DLC. Instead they're working on a new game set in the Three Kingdoms era.

Maybe they're planning on switching to a Warhammer model, but I'm not sure that works without expanding the map. And if the focus really is on the Three Kingdoms still, there's not much map expansion that can occur.

It will still be China, right? If it's the same era, I don't see why they can't include a northern and Korean expansion.

But honestly I was very confused about their announcement video. They mostly said nothing.

[Fez]

11 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

It will still be China, right? If it's the same era, I don't see why they can't include a northern and Korean expansion.

But honestly I was very confused about their announcement video. They mostly said nothing.

As an expansion sure, but following the Warhammer model, the base game of 2 would be just Korea/Mongolia and that doesn't feel sustainable for a game that is supposed to be Three Kingdoms 2.

[Corvinus85]

12 minutes ago, Fez said:

As an expansion sure, but following the Warhammer model, the base game of 2 would be just Korea/Mongolia and that doesn't feel sustainable for a game that is supposed to be Three Kingdoms 2.

So is it really the 3K era, or a different era set on roughly the same map? I could see them doing the Warring States. Or they could move much more forward in time and do the Tang dynasty.

[Fez]

9 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

So is it really the 3K era, or a different era set on roughly the same map? I could see them doing the Warring States. Or they could move much more forward in time and do the Tang dynasty.

No idea, and I think it's just a rumor that they're following the Warhammer model (i.e., have some version of Mortal Empires for people who have both games) rather than anything confirmed.

Whatever the case, I'm disappointed. And surprised; I'd have thought Three Kingdoms was selling really well because of popularity in Asia if nothing else.

[Corvinus85]

43 minutes ago, Fez said:

No idea, and I think it's just a rumor that they're following the Warhammer model (i.e., have some version of Mortal Empires for people who have both games) rather than anything confirmed.

Whatever the case, I'm disappointed. And surprised; I'd have thought Three Kingdoms was selling really well because of popularity in Asia if nothing else.

One of the jokes I've seen is that 3K was really just CA laying the groundwork for Cathay in Warhammer III. 

[Slurktan]

Going by the video on youtube where they announced they were ending support, they are making another game which closely follows the novel or at least a part of it. I'm guessing they wanted to shed the historicalness of it and just go all out with the heroes as a three kingdoms game should be,  Who knows maybe they want to try and make a Dynasty Warriors game since Koei shit the bed on the last one.  Or even an RPG like the ol' Destiny of an Emperor.

[Corvinus85]

29 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Going by the video on youtube where they announced they were ending support, they are making another game which closely follows the novel or at least a part of it. I'm guessing they wanted to shed the historicalness of it and just go all out with the heroes as a three kingdoms game should be,  Who knows maybe they want to try and make a Dynasty Warriors game since Koei shit the bed on the last one.  Or even an RPG like the ol' Destiny of an Emperor.

umm, boooo? Isn't that what the Romance mode is inspired by? 

[Werthead]

The community manager said that the new game will not interface with Three Kingdoms. It's "a Total War game based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

Whether it's a game of equal size or a Saga title or whatever is unclear. Looking on a few websites and people seem quite pissed off about it (either because it's cancelling the 3K DLC or they think it's stopping them moving on to the next historical-only game, which everyone is convinced will be Medieval III).

[Corvinus85]

Yeah, there is a lot of backlash that I'm seeing. I can't say I feel confident in CA right now. They seem to be doing something similar with how they handled Rome 2 and Atilla. 

 

[Slurktan]

14 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Yeah, there is a lot of backlash that I'm seeing. I can't say I feel confident in CA right now. They seem to be doing something similar with how they handled Rome 2 and Atilla. 

 

It's same old CA.  You should never feel confident in them, they are trash.  Always have been, always will be.

[Werthead]

18 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Yeah, there is a lot of backlash that I'm seeing. I can't say I feel confident in CA right now. They seem to be doing something similar with how they handled Rome 2 and Atilla. 

And Empire and Napoleon, which I know annoyed a lot of people because of CA's habit of only fixing problems in the base game in the expansion, so when the expansion turns into a stand-alone game, the fixes for the base game tend not to happen. I don't think Three Kingdoms is remotely as in a bad state as Empire and Rome II were, so that might not be quite so critical a factor.

[Corvinus85]

23 minutes ago, Werthead said:

And Empire and Napoleon, which I know annoyed a lot of people because of CA's habit of only fixing problems in the base game in the expansion, so when the expansion turns into a stand-alone game, the fixes for the base game tend not to happen. I don't think Three Kingdoms is remotely as in a bad state as Empire and Rome II were, so that might not be quite so critical a factor.

There was still opportunity to fix some issues. They just released another patch, and the previous big update included some major rework. 

[Slurktan]

So final DLC for WarHammer 2:
 

Beastmen and Lizardmen interestingly.

[Jon AS]

I guess Beastmen desperately need something to make them more appealing, but I've basically written them off completely, so not terribly excited about this. I hope the new lizard makes up for it.

[Heartofice]

8 hours ago, Jon AS said:

I guess Beastmen desperately need something to make them more appealing, but I've basically written them off completely, so not terribly excited about this. I hope the new lizard makes up for it.

I’m the opposite. Beastmen were in such a bad place compared to everyone else that I am most excited to see them be a playable faction.

Lizardmen have always been the faction I found the most boring to play as, even with huge dinos, and I don’t expect there will be much in the way of interesting mechanics with this new Lord 

[Werthead]

There's an odd thing in Rome Remastered that wasn't in the OG release, where you can cheese much larger armies by forcing them to fight bridge battles. Bridge battles have always been good force-equalisers in TW games, but never to this extent. I put 2-3 melee units (we're still pre-Marian reforms) at the end of a bridge and then have them backed up by Hastati. The enemy swarm over the bridge and crash into the melee units, who hold them whilst they're being pelted with javelins from the Hastati. They panic, try to rout, but can't go back (as the bridge is a seething mass of men at this point) so they try to run through my units, and die en masse.

I've destroyed full stacks this way with defending armies consisting of just 3-4 units and lost maybe 30 men. Completely bonkers. In the OG game you could attempt something similar, but it took a lot more damage to start routing the enemy and you needed to have some beefy units holding the end of the bridge (and if possible, to rotate units in and out of the line). I've conquered Gaul in about a third of the time it used to take and every bridge in western Europe has a "an epic battle was fought here" marker.

[Jon AS]

17 hours ago, Werthead said:

I've conquered Gaul in about a third of the time it used to take and every bridge in western Europe has a "an epic battle was fought here" marker.

No wonder Caesar was so proud of his Rhine bridge.

[Heartofice]

Latest DLC for WH2 is out, Silence and the Fury. 
 

Downloaded it last night and tried out a couple of different campaigns. Beastmen updates really improve on a pretty forgotten race, think the blood grounds feels a lot more thematic and really incentivises your to run around butchering people.

Not sure if I have any motivation to play the lizard men new Lord, seems like that is the more boring of the two new lords, and there always is a boring one.

Outside of that, excited to play with Ogres, as well as check out the changes to Dwarves who are another faction that feel a little lacking.

[Corvinus85]

I'm looking forward to diving back into WH2 when I get the chance.

I think adding mercenary Ogres strongly suggests that the pre-order race for WH3 will be the Ogre Kingdoms.