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I've gotten invested in Empire now with Sweden. Unified the Baltic coast (minus Prussia, who has more or less unified Germany), penetrated deep into Slavic land and built a colonial empire of some of the Indian coast, majorities in every trade theater, the Caribbean islands, Hudson Bay, Markland and Vinland. My only real goal is to liberate the Netherlands (Protestant roleplay) from France and ultimately control the North American interior. An imperial model like that of France.

I think Terra Invicta is a good model of how characters should be in these things, like a sequel to Empire or Napoleon. Come in archetypes (gentleman scholar, general, spy, etc.) but have personality traits and events tied to them and the ability to be upgraded and customized into various roles. More freeform and RPG-like.
 
Any guesses for the new game(s) that they're hinting at revealing EOY? I'm going with another licensed game(40k, LOTR, etc.) and a medieval 2 remake.

Development of Warhammer 3 DLC has slowed to the crawl and been handled over to the Bulgarians. Creative Assembly is focused on the new stuff. I wish I could be optimistic, but Warhammer 3 is only now being fixed and it's over 3 years old. The "new game team" are fuckups who don't learn lessons from previous games.
 
Imperialist #348 said:
God I hope not.
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I didn't think the Rome remake was atrocious but I think Med 2's modding community makes the original not a worthwhile option. Too many great mods to lose access to.

There's a decent number of fantasy universes to use. Shit I'd be interested in a revival of LOTR after watching some games of Age of the Ring.
 
likeacrackado said:
Any guesses for the new game(s) that they're hinting at revealing EOY? I'm going with another licensed game(40k, LOTR, etc.) and a medieval 2
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LOTR would be nice but something tells me they probably won't after watching Amazon obliterate interest in the fandom with ROP. As far medieval 2? We've been asking for that for years now and given the teams they have now I kinda hope they dont. The best people that could have did it well are long gone
 
Agarathium1066 said:
I didn't think the Rome remake was atrocious but I think Med 2's modding community makes the original not a worthwhile option. Too many great mods to lose access to.

There's a decent number of fantasy universes to use. Shit I'd be interested in a revival of LOTR after watching some games of Age of the Ring.
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I couldnt get over the UI changes in the R1 remake, too much like a mobile game. If they remade M2 it would probably be the same thing. The game runs fine on modern systems and the only improvement I can think of would be fixing pathfinding and unit behavior in sieges. Maybe add a few tool tips to explain some of the more obscure mechanics. Other than that it's nearly the perfect TW game.

Empire could use a remaster, but at that point they might as well make a new game.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
What's the most fun factions in Medieval II?
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Any Muslim faction due to their chimp out Jihad mechanic being easier to trigger than the Crusade mechanic. However, my personal favorites are Hungary, due to their interesting mix of being a Catholic faction yet their roster being a mix of more Eastern-style horse archers and Western-style heavily armored knights, and Sicily because it feels more open-ended than other factions. Don't get me wrong, you can pretty much do whatever you want with the other factions but with Sicily you're literally smack dab in the Mediterranean and thus you can decide to invade Italy, focus on North Africa, maybe kick some Moorish asses in Spain etc.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
What's the most fun factions in Medieval II?
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+1ing the Hungary suggestion but also tossing in Milan being a fun one. You can expand in many directions, can easily buddy up with the pope due to short distance. You've also got Genoese crossbowmen.

Byzantium is also a lot of fun and gets access to greek fire units.
 

Empire DLC?

likeacrackado said:
I couldnt get over the UI changes in the R1 remake, too much like a mobile game. If they remade M2 it would probably be the same thing. The game runs fine on modern systems and the only improvement I can think of would be fixing pathfinding and unit behavior in sieges. Maybe add a few tool tips to explain some of the more obscure mechanics. Other than that it's nearly the perfect TW game.

Empire could use a remaster, but at that point they might as well make a new game.
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The UI is only mildly inconvenient, otherwise, the remaster was great. Lots of customization options and Steam Workshop for DLC.
 
regalterry said:
Only for mobile platforms, for now. Here's hoping they release it on PC too.

That being said, I wish they would have done something about fort maps to make them less of a pain to play, even just replacing them all with a generic, slightly enlarged, star fortress would have improved the gameplay of Empire significantly.
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Honestly the bigger problem was the siege AI which somehow made the one in R1 and M2 seem competent by comparison. Made the game way too easy too on defense given that the AI simply could not handle attacking at all and would just stand there doing nothing sometimes.
 
LegendofTotalWar posted a video regarding the state of Total War Warhammer 3, which covered the situation regarding AI being broken (again) and just general community related issues.


tl;dw of this video is that every time he tries to put together a community to do something about it and not just sit on their asses and take it, he gets a massive backlash with people falsely accusing him of harassing CA or whatever. Yesterday he put up a community post which explains his feelings on this issue much better than the rant during his video.


I read a lot of comments from the video last night. Everyone said a lot of nice words but the vast majority of people have completely missed the point. I also saw there was an appreciation post on Reddit. I never asked for that and I don't want it.



If you dislike me for any reason I'm completely cool with it. But do it honestly. I only object when people spread lies about me, which that post has its fair share of bullshit. I've had to deal with a lot of that this year.



What I've actually asked for is for the community to start treating each other with kindness and not form into these tribal shit flinging contests. Nothing about the past few day appears to have changed that. You know how to put pressure on CA, you succeeded in 2023. You don't need to be retaught how to do it.



Many people are saying things like no good deed goes unpunished. It's easy for you to say that when you're not the one that bears the punishment. I didn't mind bearing the punishment if it moved the community closer to being proactive about holding CA accountable but this event only proved to me that all the previous times I stood up to CA were for nothing. You're all so passive and complacent. CA is only as good or bad as you allow them to be and so they're an incompetent mess that represses dissent. You give them some pushback and just one little statement from them and you go "ok sounds good. We'll be good boys and wait. shut up and take my money."



If this wasn't the time for you to put pressure on them then it never will be. I can't think of any other game I've played in the past 20 years that been allowed in a broken state without the devs being booed into oblivion. Somehow it's ok for Total War. Nobody forced them to release 6.3 when they did. They had an opt in beta for people to flag issues. Why didn't they pick this up before hand.



Content Creators saying "I criticised the game and I never got into any trouble" doesn't mean anything. I also didn't get into trouble for criticising the game. I got into trouble for criticising the behaviour and business practices of the company and the partner program. They didn't do that. I will give you a specific example.



In 2023 Creative Assembly issued a copyright takedown attempt on Volound. He was reacting to a leaked video of a conception video for Hyenas that used clips from movies, none of which are the copyright of CA or SEGA. He dissected it intensely and commented over every moment of the video. This is transformative and fair use, and even Youtube itself threw the takedown attempt out. This was a blatant act of intimidation. If Volound was lying CA could easily deny that it happened, but they didn't. They just ignored it like they always do.



At that point in time Volound and I were not on friendly terms. I reached out to him regardless and asked what happened with the takedown. He provided me screenshots of the documentation with evidence that he was telling the truth. I then tweeted that CA owed Volound an apology and that acts of intimidation were not acceptable. I wasn't demanding that heads should roll. A simple acknowledgement that they screwed up would have been enough. I just wanted to make sure it didn't happen again.



I was the only content creator partnered with CA at the time that stood up for Volound. A few creators privately messaged me telling me not to defend Volound. I tried to explain to them that the rules have to apply to people we like and dislike equally. It doesn't excuse anything he's done to piss you off but two wrongs don't make it right. We cannot just enforce the rules when it suits us or else they're not rules. They become weapons that are used to destroy those we disagree with. It puts whoever enforces the rules into positions of power where they can mete out justice as they see fit. I'm not having any of that. What they did was blatantly fraudulent and to this day they never took accountability for it because there wasn't enough pressure put on them to do so. I took the consequences for this stance and I'm not sorry for it.



I've tried to not call out specific bad actors within CA when they aren't public figures or executives. So in this next case the person shall just be referred to as Influencer Manager.



The person that signed the form to strike Volound was Influencer Manager. In the years I was in the program Influencer Manager manipulated me and fed me false information. He even privately messaged "evidence" against Volound when I was feuding with him. He made promises he didn't keep and used emotional blackmail to try to get me to fall in line. When those tactics failed he pushed me out of the program by cutting me out from events I should have been invited to which everyone else was invited to and told me that I should leave the program despite me not technically breaking any rules. If I had broken any rules I would have been booted out. He didn't kick me out, but made it unbearable for me to stay so I left on my own. This relieved CA of having to provide a reason for blacklisting me. This then allows the entire community to make up their own reason for it that aligns with whatever reason they don't like me and defend CA on their behalf. Genius. They don't even have to do anything, you do their work for them. Every gripe I've had with CA is directly confrontation with Influencer Manager. I gave him multiple opportunities to try set the record straight and talk it out and he refused every single time. Preferring instead to use soft intimidation tactics. "you say you don't trust us and that makes us upset. please stop saying these things about us or maybe you should leave". I am paraphrasing a bit here and I don't want to post the actual DM's because there is legal issues in doing so. But any time he said something like that I'd respond with "Tell me how I'm wrong. I want to be wrong. Explain to me where I've got it wrong". He never even attempted to explain his side.



The final straw was when I caught him in what appeared to be a very obvious breach of contract and when I confronted him about it rather than addressing it or explaining it he contacted SEGA legal team in order to intimidate me. Maybe I was wrong, maybe they were wrong. Don't know because I wasn't given a chance to resolve it. I knew this was a losing battle at this point and left the program because I knew no matter what the outcome was it was bad for everyone involved. Efforts to hold Influencer Manager accountable were completely failing so I left the program and admitted defeat. I don't have the resources to go to court over this and even if I did and I won it'd still be a loss because getting any amount of settlement money from CA after the crap that happened with Hyenas would have put the company in even more hot water. The last thing I wanted was to actually be responsible for them shutting down. So I just had to slap a big L on my forehead and walk away.



I do not want anyone to find or harass Influencer Manager. I do not want compensation. People should at least be aware of what can happen so that this crap doesn't happen again.



After all this had occurred it caused me to crash out on livestreams multiple times because I was so mentally defeated. My audience responded with shut up and play the game. It's not their fault because it wasn't their burden to bear, but I couldn't manage to supress my anger so in October of last year I stopped livestreaming Warhammer 3 for good. I haven't streamed it once since. At the end of this month it will have been a full year.



CA reserves the right to partner with whoever they want for whatever reason they want. However they ARE repressive bullies. Their method of bullying is isolating the dissident and attempt to turn them into a pariah. It's a method that unfortunately works. I'm not going to list the people they've done this to but its a non trivial amount. It's up to them if they want to come out and tell their stories but I've heard enough of them to know how rotten the partner program at CA really is.



Nobody took action which is why the game can have a game breaking AI bug for months without any real push back. This should have been an all hands on deck moment to get that fixed and it should have happened weeks if not months ago. How the hell is CA going to sell ToT this October when the game's current state is like this.



This is the last time I'm going to have a dig at CA. I've said what I needed to say and I'm done now. From now on I'm just going to focus on making content about gameplay. No more petitions or leaks or rallying against their bad business practices. I'm sure for many of you that's exactly what you want. It's what I've always wanted as well. All this other stuff has always been a burden.



Just watch if you enjoy and don't watch if you don't enjoy. I'm going to make content I think you'll enjoy. I'm not your friend or your dad. I'm just a dude that plays a broken game in a very weird way for your entertainment. Making me out like I'm anything other than that is stupid. Don't form parasocial relationships with Youtubers.



Either work together to put pressure on CA to do better. Or don't and expect to be taken advantage of. You know how bad things can get with them. All of the power is in your hands.


I'm not getting involved next time. There will be a next time.

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Two interesting bits I found:
  • Legend defended Volound when there was an attempted takedown from CA for bullshit copyright infringement reasons. Other creators reached out to Legend urging him not to do it. He done it either way, which led to his own isolation despite still being present in CA’s partner program.
  • An “Influencer Manager” at CA manipulated and pressured Legend, eventually pushing him to leaving the program by himself.
  • Legend claims that most creators are just too afraid to speak against CA and lose their early access to CA products. He underlines that criticizing the games usually is fine, but not when you speak against their business practices.

I personally would say that this is the result of the community being largely dominated by Reddit and this whole result is Legend being tired of dealing with Redditors, since they're just scum of the earth. When he says that CA likes to intimidate and manipulate the community or people dependent on them, then it isn't an exaggeration at all. One of the examples I had witnessed personally is TW's modding community. The whole 'ability' to mod the game is dangled over modders heads like a carrot, with CA constantly saying that it can be taken away any moment should people start doing shit that CA doesn't want (often blaming GW to dodge accountability, and I say it because there is nonsense like being unable to port stuff from historical titles, which got nothing to do with GW). All this resulted in modders becoming weird little minions to CA and seeking out the bad apples and harassing them. Or just creating this hideous snitch mentality.
 
ratnoid said:
I personally would say that this is the result of the community being largely dominated by Reddit
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Already change my review (again) to negative. I think that is certainly a part of it. CA in how they behave and communicate ( when they do ) has always been an issue. But them mostly only paying attention to that place is a big problem. But I don't think that is the only reason. Legend made the important point that apart from him, there is no community that cares and calls CA out on their bullshit. I've been playing this franchise for over two decades now and in all that time it was time and again Legend who held CA, or at least tried, to a certain standard.

CA, reddit and no community that cares are in my opinion not the real culprits for the dire straits CA and TW have been in for these past couple of years.

Warhammer was and is the issue here. The moment this shit cropped up, it has been problem after problem. TW tried to be a yearly franchise and failed, a bigger decline in quality DLC, a lack of proper QA and the Stockholm syndrome zealous fans that will die for Warhammer who are incapable to make any criticism to the game were maybe the final nail in the coffin.

Let's look at the WH trilogy. WH 1 was a middling product with shit DLC. The game was and is a beta. Nothing is refined or makes sense. What from that game still exists today in WH3 untouched ? WH1 was the point where CA really started phoning it in. WH2 launched and was again a mixed bag. Remember Norsca not working for months because of CA's spaghetti code ?
Remember that Skaven needed the "Warlock and the Prophet" DLC because their roster was utterly gutted ? Remember that throughout the games' lifetime, patches and especially hotfixes were held hostage by CA in exchange for DLC. Remember that big fuck you all last patch ? Which left so many bugs still in the game, like that ambush one that they introduced just before they were all hands on deck for WH3.

With Warhammer 3 you could see the denial from both the fan base and CA during its launch and there was still no accountability from CA and any reflection from the fan base which has been taken over by Warhammer. Remember that privilege post ? Remember spaghetti code ?
Shadows of Change and its fallout was the only time when shit really had an impact, and we got a good DLC and good patches for the game.

My prediction is that CA is banking all on a Hail Mary with TW 40K. And unless they changed engines, which I highly doubt, it's going to be worse than WH3's launch. But that will show the true colors of the Warhammer fans if they buy and continue buying this shit when CA shits the bed again. They will eat it up and never criticize CA, and that will be the death of TW and hopefully CA.
 
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Legend is finally done and is retiring from TW starting next year. Unsurprising this is happening now, it was inevitable at some point. Fascinating that this franchise will have no actual community and no central YouTuber to rally behind. Owari da...
 
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Just clocked in 700 hours in WH3 yesterday. I wanted to share some positivity as im only just now really looking at the community as a whole but even seeing all the bad shit and knowing how fucked CA can be I still love the game. I recently got a 50 series gpu and the flickering is god awful and I can barely see UI elements sometimes but goddamn is that going to stop my 3rd Throt campaign? No I'm still getting my shit rocked but im having fun.

I spent a long time in my personal bubble of the game and was ignorant of how bad it really is. Im not even a die hard dick sucker but you bet your ass I'm getting ToT and buying the 40k game. The only real major criticism I wish would be fixed is by mid to late game and make it more fun.
 
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