Almost every series I see get annualized like this suffers the same thing. Cut content, less polish or other quality issues. Watching this video, everything from the dwindling quality of the naval battles leading to outright removal to the inconsistent excuses made by the devs just reminded me of what's happened to the Pokemon games on the whole. I hate that the annual strategy seems to pay off too, going by sales and the people that will staunchly defend the devs for cutting features and simplifying mechanics that should be more fleshed out.
@@banger2998 yeah, if only they took a little bit more time so they don't have to force their staff to work under such incredibly difficult conditions.
I can already sea it: *Total War: Pacific Warfare* CA: “We are not putting any ship combat because we feel it will be creatively detrimental to our vision for this game”
Total War: Pacific theater Featuring the USA x JPN war in WW2 CA: "We are not including naval combat because there are few historical entries of naval warfare of the time"
WOW, even after all these years of playing Empire, and looking at the crews in all of these battles, I never noticed that the captain often climbs the mast and watches the battle. Despite its game-play flaws, Empire's still one of my favorite titles next to Medieval 2 and Rome 1.
Naval battles were amazing in gunpowder games, they could be good in Rome 2 and Attila if they tried to fix the bugs. I want naval battles back, but not as low effort shit.
That is the problem with CA. They try out these things like Naval battles, population, etc. But then it doesn't really work out; but instead of fixing it and changing it for the better they always decide to cut the content since it is so much easier. Same with the one feature I miss the most from games like ME2. Moving single units without a general.
Honestly i didnt enjoy naval battles at all, but in empire they were actually really good. Like "naval is the third big part of the game now" good. In every other total war they were basically meh, for different reasons. I just dont enjoy boarding/ramming fests wich at least in rome 2 and attila it was just that.
I don't think we will see Total War games with the level of details the ones from Empire up to Shogun 2 had. Example, the black powder weapons in TWW don't even have reload animations.
They've already shown that unit variety is going to be terrible in Troy, it's going to have the worst land battles in the whole franchise, calling it now.
@@const1988 I think the problem with an American Civil War game would be faction variety, but an Italian one could be cool with all the small different kingdoms/republics/etc.. (but it's gonna need naval battles because I'm not gonna play Venice without his fleet)
His not oblivious to the ship sinking, it's just that he can't believe he is in that hoorible naval gameplay. It's how he feels... It's how I feel sometime
These 30 minutes sure passed quickly ! Great video, I love your work, and I hope content like this will continue in the future ! RoP is a greatly underviewed channel.
I've wanted naval battles in the Total War:Warhammer series since they first announced it. So much potential for absolutely amazing set pieces and multi-pronged battles, but I guess that's just not "worth it" to CA. Between the absolutely abysmal sieges, tons of missing units, including most aerial units, lack-luster settlement/field battle maps and "stream-lined" diplomacy/empire building it's like they just used the Warhammer IP as an excuse to put out a half-finished game.
The problem is the full extent of it. Unlike most other games most factions have vastly distinct navies (if they even have some at all). It would take about as much resources as a ful game to make navies for all game faction not to mention making it so you can at least somewhat compete with other on the sea and not be completly shafted as beastmen when you face a stack of dwarf ironclads.
@@teroslarone1171 That's fair, but CA has already shown that they are willing to add new units, lords and factions to the game without regard to pre-existing lore. I'd be down for asymmetrical naval warfare as it would encourage differing playstyles, even with all the jank bugs that would probably come with it. Would pay 50 bucks easily for a DLC that added nothing but dedicated naval units, naval combat and hybrid sieges.
@@teroslarone1171 Nah, many people want naval battles -- its just the detractors keep echoing "how naval battles suck in TW" that we come to the situation today. Plus the faction diversity in TWW can make really cool battles -- sure Dawi have Ironclads but Beastman have freakin Narwhals and probably other sea monsters. Don't bring balance as an excuse for missing features when BM destory DW in competitive multiplayer even though DW have better tech than BM.
There's still no hotseat mode and thus no possibility to play with multiple players over a longer period by sending save files to each other. That was biggest fun about Medieval 2.
Ever since the first Rome i thought Naval Battles would be FUCKIN awesome, was so happy to see them for the first time in Empire. I personally never thought that they would actually go BACKWARDS in terms of gameplay options especially since they already had the tech , the only game i could have said potentially ''yeah okay '' was Total Warhammer 1 but .....im just really dissapointed since naval warfare is always a cool thing when 2 big navies collide in order to break a port or have the navy help with the siege of a naval city or town. SO dissapointed in CA along with other reasons. I do hope for the inevitable MEDIEVAL 3 they bring it back but i dont have high hopes. Good video my dude.
Loved the video. And what you say at the end, about development and such: I couldn't agree more, but in the current, general state of game development, I would not get my hopes up. It really seems we are in somewhat of a Dark Age in gaming, where developers, or rather the publishers I should say, don't give a f*** about making a great game, and only about sale numbers, with CA/SEGA being no exception. I mean the bland game of Three Kingdoms was obviously nothing but a quick and easy cash grab from the chinese market.
I agree with the sentiment for the most part, and whilst parts of 3k are definetly bland (most notably the unit variety), it's extremely unfair to call 3k nothing but a cash grab. Of course games are made to sell, especially aaa-games like the mainstay total war games. That has always been the case. 3k is a great game. You may not like it personally but certain aspects of it go above and beyond. Especially the diplomacy system is the best we've seen ever, and unpredictable diplomatic AI makes the political game quite different in every playthrough, at least in my experience. The developers obviously made a huge effort to make it a great game. It was neither quick nor easy, as you put it.
Games have always been made to sell or for profit, it’s just games had to actually be good way back when in order to sell well. Total war was a niche franchise once upon a time, so they had to make quality work to get people to love it. But they’re a pretty mainstream corporation as far as gaming goes now, they have plenty of solid entries, they’re sailing on favor with their fanbase now. Especially after they realized the fantasies of every warhammer fan by making that universe come to life, they can do no wrong to some people at this point.
Riblix there’s no longer an expectation of quality, people have become content with shit as long as it comes from a big name. Kinda like how Star Wars can pump out shit movies and still make a profit just because it’s called Star Wars
I think the pinnacle of TW naval battle is Shogun 2 and FOTS. You can't deny that trying to capture the legendary Black Ship in Shogun 2 isn't awesome. I lost 2 whole fleets trying to capture that ship.
I loved naval warfare in FotS. If not for the combat, then for how they interacted with the map. Bombarding towns, blockading ports, and cutting trade made a huge difference, especially if you were a faction who made much money or resources off of trade. It made it vital that you developed a fleet in being. On top of that, japan itself was perfect as much of the country was coastline. Naval warfare became an extension of your strategic capabilities, and bombardments became a tactical advantage for cracking castle gates or enemy formations. We need more total wars in that time period, to be honest
The only Naval Battles i actually enjoyed were in Empire. It just fittet in mechanically and didnt feel like a boarding fest were ships would just ram each other.
Late game empire was incredible especially with darthmod. My economy was superior having privateered my way to glory in the ivory coast, east indies, and south america, I had constructed a massive fleet comprising of mostly first rate ships of the line. The one nation that prevented my passage into the middle-east was Russia, my arch-rival. They had secured naval passage through the mediterranean and had sucessfully amassed a navy comparably large to mine. My main fleet, consisting of 12 heavy first rate ships of the line supported by third-rate frigates sailed into the mediterranean, and engaged the russian blockade, engaging the fleet for an hour. They retreated deep into the mediterranean, and we cased them for several days until we ran their ships into the bay of italy, finally cornering, and conquering the enemy fleet. This is why I will continue to play Empire no matter how old it gets.
It was bittersweet for me when they patched the ships to pull out in ROME2. Because i used to take ports as Carthage by spamming tower ships and have them land on the shore, and use them as permanent beach towers to whittle down defenders with fire arrows lol
Man I would really want a TW game with an "empire's" take on naval battles, but representing a period of late XIX - early XX centuries. The pace of yechnological advancement of navies was ridiculous back then, and the variety of ships would be incredibly vast. Just imagine going from first ironclads to pre-dreadnoughts, and then to the dreadnoughts themselves, with all this variety of styles, classes, tactics and sizes. And the potential conflicts? Trying to save your colonies as Spain in Spanish-American war, or as Russia - building a Pacific navy to compete with Japan on par and prevent the fall of Port-Arthur and the Tsushima disaster, or as Germany - splitting and ambushing the british Grand Fleet, to crush it with the overwhelming force of Kaiser's dreadnoughts... Man... what a glorious battles it could be
Napoleon is really good with mods such as NTW3. I suggest watching a video on it. It simply makes the game realistic as possible. Also alot harder and better AI.
dude you forgot the black ship from shogun 2. the european trade vessel fitted out like an early empire ship. if you could capture it you could dominate the sea battles because you had cannons.
Wow, I was looking for something so detailed yet RTS-like 18century navy fights but never had any of them. Thank you for shoving that. It's real shame they are dropped, as it seems unfair to drop something so amazing and lackluster in market.
I cannot imagine naval battles featuring a doom stack of War Elephants, Dragons, or some other huge monster or warmachine doing ship to ship warfare in Total War Warhammer. Still, Dreadfleet ships do look pretty sweet.
best total war games for me was empire then fall of the samurai, love to see Victorian era total war game with the entire world options and colonizing Africa race and options the death of the wood ships and ride of steam, have coal wars and spark the opium war,working all the way up to pre ww1.
In the end it's not that naval battles were bad, it's that CA made them worse over time, Empire had great naval, Napoleon I didn't play much but I heard it's awesome, Shogun 2 was great too, even the classic naval combat was quite fun, everything past rome sucked horribly. Also the first landmass of WH sure didn't have many seas, but WH2 does have a ton of it, 3 main continents separated by water and sea-focused factions like vampirates, there is no excuse to not have them. Also WH could go even beyond Empire's naval system using engines, sails, cannons, warplightning, magic and even giant creatures, it's a great messup.
@Plubzzo Honestly I'd pay full price for a naval expansion for WH, as in full WH price, not DLC price, it's worth that much for real By the way I just made a thread about naval battles on the steam forums and it got deleted, great company I see..
I thought chain-shot in Empire had the same range as cannonball? If I remember it correctly you could even use it to hit ships that weren't in the cannonball range yet with manual fire because of their high arcs.
Empire , Napoleon, and Fall of the Samurai are the only total war games i continue to play because of the Darth Mod and how good the naval battles are.
Hated the way any ai vessel could outrange you in Fall of the Samurai.then again also remember playing Rome 1 and wishing the naval battles were playable,best naval battles Empire total war ! Good video,
I've never really been good at naval battles and rarely play them. I used them in the older Total war games to defend against ocean bound invasions. I think it's a good option to include them. To be honest, it's a BS excuse that they dont have the resources, they're taking millions and millions in, especially off games like Warhammer 2. Medieval 2 is still like 15 quid or something, bit of a joke really. Oh, and excellent video as always mate!
They're cutting corners, it's obviously bullshit to increase profits. Now if that's CA's decision or SEGA's is a different matter, wouldn't be surprised either way though.
The naval battles in Empire were basically a clone of the old "imperial glory" naval battles. Interesting to note that Feral interactive was involved with both games. Could it be that they gave CA the heads up on the naval battles in Imperial Glory?
I doubt they'll ever put naval battle in the total warhammer series, but even if they don't don't I still want a game that lets you play a naval battle with a Black Arc Corsair, even if it's just for the spectacle.
In defence of ToB's simplictic naval battles naval battles of the time were rare and entirely melee focused. Only commpitent navies were vikings and they really just jumped aboard and slogged it out.
6:20 No. The best aspect of total war was the trade system. It's the reason why it is the best total war game to this day. They made the strategic gameplay interesting in more ways then just conquer the map.
Cool video, very instructive. One nitpick though: while I doubt that GW would object to CA's adding naval battles in the Warhammer games, the licence argument doesn't exactly come from nowhere. In the eventuality you didn't know, naval battles in the Old world are handled under a whole separate ip - the Man O' War franchise - which has also been licenced separatly from the main Warhammer battle ip. And this specific licence has been granted to another developper (Evil Twin Artworks). Not sure what the state of this licence agreement is, but this is probably where the licencing concerns came from. As for the issue of adding Naval battles to the Warhammer games, I'm questionning if this would actually benefit the games. The main focus of these games are arguably the land battles. With 15 different races with wildly different units and play styles, there's a lot to balance and play with. Adding naval battles would equate to adding a new game in the game, with its own separate balance and, if you want to be truthful to the franchise's lore, adding a lot of totally new units for each factions. With this in mind, it would sure be nice to see new options added to the game from a gamer's perspective but I also understand why CA would consider as much more cost-effective to focus on the main offer. Even though there's a lot of scapegoating from CA in this argument (this is a disappointment to not see naval battles added to TW:Troy for sure), as your video evidenced, they might have concluded that it wasn't worth the effort anymore.
I loved sinking troop transports by ramming them with navy ships in Rome 2. I still long for the naval battles in Empire. It was like AC Black Flag but you controlled the entire navy instead of a single ship.
When you see a developer like CA move to a yearly release schedule you have to fear the worst for the quality and scale of the product. Sadly with Warhammer CA have a license that will print money and an audience (at least those new to TW) who have no idea what scale was there before. I really do think that we might never see a true Totalwar game again, in terms of scale, ambition and desire to add depth of gameplay. Welcome to "Fifa Totalwar" yearly updates of the same system, just different colours and different names. Less history, less depth more loot boxes!
So, my personal theory about the lack of resources is just that, due to a new total war having to be released every year (Thanks sega) the development teams are competing with each other on funds and time. The most likely reason as to why naval battles have been either cut out entirely or left to become stagnant is due to the fact that there either just isn't time to make naval battles work in a new game or that they just don't have the money since they are a smaller scale release, like Britannia, and they just don't get priority.
It would be great if we could have the Roman boarding ship used to defeat the superior Carthage Navy... We could have at least the auto-resolve naval battle in the new titles...
My biggest gripe of FoTS naval battles regards two problems. First is the ridiculously high accuracy of shots (also inability to really manually aim, the moment you aim at enemy ship, cannons all aim at it), which makes the battles very short and making some units pointless, like the torpedo gunships or Kotetsu's gatling guns. Second is poor representation of European ships. Warrior always wins, despite L'ocean's much better sloped armor and more powerful cannons or Roanoke's small profile, just because it has so many cannons. The latter two are also rather rubbish against other ships due to low crew numbers and easily inflicted rout when being shot at.
I MUST express my disagreement to your points in port invasions on Rome 2 and Atilla!! I have had so much fun creating "pirate" (maybe better described as guerrilla) fleets, which I would sail to the flanks of my enemies and wreak havoc on whatever port settlement they had. Naval units are, in both games, expressively weaker than their landlubber counterparts in almost all stats: numbers, armor, morale, ammo... but mostly not DPM. In Rome 2, raining a settlement with artillery/arrows and following it up with a marine invasion was much more tactically enticing than the standard assault I'm so used to, because I had to worry about unit positioning a lot more: I could take on a walled city, with 1/3 to 1/2 a full garrison, with an invasion armada if, and only if, I would rely on speed, flanking, and traps, the kind of tactics you're not forced into with a full stack of heavy legionaires. It taught me to rely on morale a lot more, and kite the enemy instead of mindlessly charging. Afterwards, even if I couldn't burn the place to the ground like in Atilla (by God, burning down cities in Atilla is the best), I would take over the settlement, pillage it, and then leave it to rebel or be taken back with everything in ruins, so it had a major impact in the campaign as well. I really dislike the pure naval engagements in both of these games, but then again I don't think those kinds of battles were a big thing back then; sailing behind enemy lines and surprising them with angry mariners and seafaring ballistas was the rule, and in my experience both games portrait that pretty well in spite of purely naval battles!
Makes game set in the Greek Isles Does not make naval battles... Its really funny, my favorite total war in terms of era/setting, technology and scope is empire/napoleon and they are the worst of them all when it actually comes to technical execution
I loved Shogun 2 and FOTS naval battles but I hated Rome 2’s. I don’t mind them missing in 3K since there are like… 2 islands. But like I would expect them to be in Warhammer since places like Nippon and I think an entire elvish race basically relies on the sea
in rome 2 now, naval battles are fairly good, with all the fixes that have come since the release, but its really such a shame that it took so long to get to the point its at now
Here is my case/idea for naval battles: right now no one plays them cause... They are pointless and have essentially no strategic value. The easiest way to make them meaning full.. Is to implement a supply line system. You want your armies to travel far from home And fast? Make you sure they are well supplied, and the best way to do it is by ship. If a line to Ur settlements is cut off, Ur army staves to death. So right off the bat the water which is currently just a blank canvas with the exception of a few trade routes all of a sudden is criss crossed with supply lines and you have places that you have to use Ur ships actively to hold. And when you are cUtting off enemy supplies, you can decide what to block and what to allow making the campaign a lot more interesting. What do you guys think?
TBF i can understand the idea of naval being a bad addition. Back in the Trojan war everyone really had the same ships and there wasn't a whole lot of differentiation between the navies of differing nations, which doesn't make a lot of fun game wise
The point is, in my view, if there are no navies on the campaign map, nobody will miss naval battles - but if there are navies, then one can ask why naval confrontations have to be automatically resolved (with _random_ results in 'TW Medieval 2'). To have the player _influence_ the outcome of battles (even down to _aiming_ _artillery_ pieces) is the _core_ _feature_ of the 'Total War' series, in compare to any other wargames. That is why it should be _further_ _developed_ if it fits the setting, instead of being _reduced_ . Ulysses was a _sailor_ and his Odyssey was about not finding his course home - 'TW Troy' should reflect such elements of the story in gameplay, in my view. If there is no more _innovation_ of features, modding will just do fine...
thousands of hours on rome 2 , never saw a single naval battle glitch like that , the game is actually the most perfect total i have , i have seen lot on warhammer 2 and 3k and attila but almost never on rome 2 , reason why its my favorite tw and reason why i love its naval battles . its just perfect to me . most of the glitches are from year 1 footages and not post 1.17 patch ones .
It's okay to like 'TW Rome 2' in it's present state. I enjoy it, too - especially the fact that it received updates like the family tree and DLCs like 'Empire Devided'.
1:08 ROP "And Rome 2, being kinda, universally, considered the worse". Me: *EXCUSE ME!* Rome 2 naval battles are better than Shogun 2 in general, and also has naval units in land battles, adding to the fun. IMO Shogun 2 has the worst naval battles, and the buggiest, (had an almost unkillable tradeship once (it took me 20 minutes of max speed with 2 bow ships to kill it, damn naval invasions -_-)).
@@RepublicOfPlay Maybe at launch, but now they're alright (better than Shogun 2 IMO), but the community might still hate them, after all a ton of people seem to forget that Rome 2 has had years of updates -_-
Conclusions are all naive. Naval battles were perfect yet in Empire TW, tho with modders community help. In Shogun 2 had reached a peak. You could be fired a few torpedoes that go kilometres away and reverse your engine watching the thing heavily puffing trying to avoid torpedoes that were seen under the surface of the water. In Rome 2 the bugs mentioned were also cured. That somebody didnt pull ropes or what not is not the point, ships spectacularly crushed and new elements appeared. All that vast richness was hated and on commission of the House of Rotschield was closed happily by the comany scoundrels.
@ RepublicOfPlay I like this video ! I like the editing shots, the bugs you showed and even its length, however I feel like you should do a second part as this was not enough ^^ - Part 1 (this video) as a touch on history and fanboys bullshit excuses and CA's ignoring the issue or out right lying about it. Part 2 focusing on the future and how could it be improved , personal touches and what you approve of going forward. Part 3 (or maybe combined with part 2) a touch on the naval history/development/future of campaign as you barely touched it.
This took so long to make, unless it gets like 100k views I'll probably not do another for a very long time. These are passion projects, that I lose a lot on typically. But thanks for the kind words, wish every video I did was like this!
@@RepublicOfPlay me 2 ! how long did it take if I might ask ? I tried to use legend to shout out your video , but he didn't watch it yet - shame it came out during his 5.3k views stream and not before cause he would have shout out for your video otherwise (I am pretty sure).
Very well made video for sure. And, gosh, would I love to play Warhammer Naval Battles... The Dreadfleet... wow... The Black Arc... amazing. The Empire Fleet, there are soooo many cool things. Magic and the High Seas, maybe underwater monsters, commanded by a faction. Dragons on board which takes flight and attack vessels in the vicinity. Endless options and possibilities here available. I would pay easy 50 to 60 for it.
