For me personally, Total War is the very trigger that makes me go crazy and buy a device that is unnecessary in principle. Like Ancharted for Sony, like an apple on your phone, like special effects in the Avengers – you look and give money without even thinking about whether you need it. So, when I see the next system requirements for TW, I go and update my computer.
2004 – our first meeting. I remember this night as I do now – in the computer club, going about my business, squeezing past drunk and stuck players and out of the corner of my eye I notice HER! An incredible picture – two huge armies, much larger than is customary in strategies, converging in perfect order – and not in a crowd, as usual – on the edge of the forest. Everything is beautiful, detailed, and most importantly, epic. I come closer and start to peer. The player, noticing my interest, begins to explain, simultaneously entering into battle.
-Look, seven hundred fighters, mostly heavy infantry, because the Romans, there are a few spearmen, so scare the cavalry. I almost didn’t take archers and slingers, just a couple of squads. And there’s not much cavalry either, we didn’t have enough money, we’ll run around the rear and finish off the retreating ones.
-But their archers came out, what are you going to do??
-Light cavalry, just for such a case. She chases them until the infantry approaches the center.
-And what do they have?? Elephants?! What are these elephants??!
-Yes, war elephants, but with them everything is simple. We set fire to the pigs and throw them at the elephants, only carefully so that they don’t run away ahead of time.
Archers, cavalry, war elephants and burning pigs – no, this game can’t be that awesome. I run to my computer, forgetting why I went, find the shortcut and launch. Quick battles, historical battles – and there is also a global map, companies for dozens of countries, city development, diplomacy, trade, pumping, development… In the morning I get up with red eyes and shaking hands, and in my head there is only one desire – to go back and finish the game.
Next year we will be focusing heavily on Rome Total War. It was a time of delightful stories – about grandiose battles, about long sieges, about killed military leaders, brilliant tactical decisions and shameful defeats. It was a time of great conquest and hard thinking. It was a time when you created an empire overnight, took over the whole world, and then woke up in the middle of the audience in the second class. There was almost no Internet back then, you had to find out everything yourself. My inner commander wouldn’t shut up for a minute.
“Come on, come on,” he whispered to me, “gather archers, forget about the infantry and cavalry, we’ll shoot them like rabbits.”
“Cavalry, cavalry is the key to victory. A couple of detachments of light cavalry, two-horse riflemen, and the rest – heavy cavalry, so that they can be trampled into the ground up to their ears.”
“You have legionnaires! That’s it, urgently expel the remaining units from the armies, fire the military leaders, fill the troops to capacity with legionnaires.”
And I tried, recruited, reformatted, and at the same time learned to use everything at once. Rome became an entry point for me, a turning point, and since then I haven’t let go.
The distinctive feature of Total War is personal participation. Not only global politics and development, but also the outcome of specific battles depends on you. Using your brains and skills, you can drag out fights in which the computer would have lost with a crushing score.
2007 – I almost https://nonukcasinosites.co.uk/astropay/ quit, but they pulled me back. Coincidentally, I got my hands on a powerful computer, Medieval II: Total War and the opportunity to play as much as I want and whenever I want. It was stronger than me. I again fought with someone, built something, developed it, destroyed it, entered into agreements, marriages, fought off neighbors and tried to take over the whole world. Warriors – knights, pikemen, archers, swordsmen, Slavs, Franks, Turks, Arabs – all were coolly drawn, varied, with a lot of animations,. Life was in full swing on the global map. Crusades, raids, Horde invasions, spies, inquisitors, merchants – everything got bigger and better.
“Declare a new Crusade,” my inner strategist advised, “Recruit more of these homeless people into the army.”! Capture all the cities that lie along the way to your goal. And then – give up the Kingdom of Heaven and go into the sunset!»
"Fuck you, Timurids! Run around the cities, lure them under the walls, use the stupid AI, shoot arrows, and then finish off the rest in the open field!»
“So, so, so, against whom should we send our pumped up killer-inquisitors or enemy generals?? Inquisitors or generals? It has been decided that we will somehow fight off the enemy armies, but the Catholic Church will not give up on us so easily.»
This part has been trampled up and down. Company for those, company for these, company for a dispute, company for a while. Around this time they started telling me that I was playing a lot. Pfff, don’t make me laugh. There are 24 hours in a day, but I don’t even spend half of them on the game! I have no idea how much I played in Rome: Total War, but in Medieval that figure doubled. Thank God, there was no Steam and no hour counter back then, so now I can poke doters at their 2000 hours shouting “ewww, nerds”
The problem that accompanies almost any strategy, from Heroes to Generals, is the lack of a worthy opponent. At some point you became so strong that the game lost its meaning. And all the accumulated armies, resources, built cities and fortresses – everything that you had prepared for the last battles – became absolutely unnecessary. The armies on duty, scattered throughout the cities to prevent uprisings, easily destroyed the remaining opponents. My dream is an enemy who, having accumulated resources and strength by the end of the game, will organize a grandiose war, so that until the last it is not clear who will take whom. Oh, dreams, dreams..
2009 – Empire: Total War. This was the very time when it was necessary to prepare for the release of the game. Having upgraded the video card and processor, I decided that it was worth splurging on a license. The name “Steam” didn’t mean anything to me (probably something like DirectX), and I didn’t take the inscription “Internet required” seriously – since I have a disk, I can run the game! As it turns out, no. After several unsuccessful attempts, I figured out the disposition – a heavy computer, a non-working but desired game and a friend with Internet access at a distance of three kilometers, made an action plan (pack the computer, drag it to a friend, connect it, install it, activate it, drag it back and enjoy the game) and was able to play for about three hours. It turned out that if you launch a game with a broken Steam (for example, Half-Life 2), the license needs to be reactivated. At this point I gave up and went back to Medieval. I still have all the impressions from the new part – awesome picture, strange combat, hatred of Steam (sorry, Gabe, I’ve never been so wrong) and naval battles, which Creative has been tormenting for the seventh year now and still can’t bring to fruition.
Much later I managed to play this part normally, but somehow I wasn’t hooked. All this diplomacy, science, development tree and, most importantly, battles with firearms – this was enough for my inner old fart to firmly declare “I’m too old for all this crap”. I liked the fuss on the global map much more, but this was not enough for a comfortable game.
(During the writing process, I installed it and tried again – maybe it will work! Still beautiful and stupid. Seriously, the tactic is to form chains against each other and shoot until someone runs – this is not Total War. Yes, there are cavalry, and formations, and cannons that don’t allow you to sit in one place, but it’s still sad.)
2011 – Empire: Total War cooled my love for the series, so I reacted indifferently to the news about the development of Total War: Shogun 2. Well, it will come out and come out, maybe someday I’ll evaluate it. But somehow it happened that I again updated the processor, video card, added memory and on the morning of the release day I ran to the computer store. I purchased 2 discs for 500 rubles each (for myself and a friend) and…
This game has the best multiplayer that humanity has known. Capturing provinces for new types of troops, clan battles on the global map, character development, companions that completely change battle tactics, the optimal number of units when you have a choice and your eyes don’t wander, and the cherry on the cake is the battles.
Every battle you arrange your troops and make great plans. Start – and you begin to slowly converge. The first thing you do is look at the enemy army and calculate the cost, trying to estimate how many troops are in ambush. Then, in accordance with your new knowledge, you begin to feverishly rearrange your fighters. Along the way, you try not to give away your ambush and are torn by the desire to split the army and go capture control points (this is not provided for in the plan, but you can select a couple of detachments). And suddenly you notice how on the left flank his archers have advanced too far, you throw in the light cavalry with the desire to rip a little, then the spearmen run out, you can no longer stop and throw swordsmen at them, simultaneously bringing up the archers, the enemy’s cavalry begins a flanking maneuver, you open an ambush, hoping to save your plan… and suddenly you realize that there will be no plan, that the battle is here, it has begun, that the plans have gone to hell, and now only attention, reaction and improvisation will save you from defeat. You change places three times, units are constantly attacking new targets, generals are being hunted, someone is always trying to break through to the rear – on the battlefield you are simultaneously monitoring a dozen things, and this is an indescribable feeling. After a good game, even a loss was perceived adequately. And the victory did cause a storm of emotions.
Of course, the multiplayer had its drawbacks, the main one of which was the long search for an opponent (and finding two against two is generally a fantasy), but it’s still great. I went into the company for exactly twenty minutes. I have nothing against the Japanese, but messing around with seizing islands after destroying empires is not interesting.
With the release of the Fall of the Samurai expansion, the number of players dropped sharply and interest in the game faded. It was impossible to fight with those who purchased the add-on (they clearly showed you how and why the samurai went astray), but I didn’t see the point in buying it for myself. The memory of Empire was alive.
Total War is famous for its advanced but completely unnecessary graphics. You enjoy a beautiful picture and careful design at the very beginning of the game, and then you spend all the time at a bird’s eye view, from where the appearance of the figures does not matter much.
2013 – Announcement of the new game Total War: Rome II – all the best that was in the series, plus a larger scale, plus incredible graphics plus updated multiplayer – and all this taking into account the most modern gaming standards. On the third of September the game was loaded, the day off was taken, and the refrigerator was full. I was getting ready for a gaming binge.
On the first day I played about six hours. In the second – four more. I played about twenty hours in a week, but I still couldn’t decide on my attitude towards the game. On the one hand, all promises were kept. Scale, epicness, graphics, many changes and innovations – all this was present.
On the other hand, there was a dead multiplayer and inadequate AI. I still don’t understand who at Creative Assembly thought of removing all of Shogun’s work in one fell swoop and going back 10 years. Here’s a dozen nations, here’s a rival, here’s a battlefield – fight. And that’s it! Yes, you can go through a company in co-op, but that’s a completely different story. None of the gaming publications said a word about the killed network mode. I understand that it is not available in the “demo version”, but it could have been written for those who buy games!
The second question is artificial intelligence! The illogicality of his behavior has long been the hallmark of Total War, but this time they have outdone themselves. For each player they prepared some kind of individual stupidity. It takes a long time to describe, but in my case I had to fight manually (manually, damn it, because on the automatic machine the losses were as if I had a legion of suicides) up to four battles. These two minuses and a bunch of smaller jambs thoroughly spoiled the impression of the game. Steam says I’ve played a hundred hours, but I suspect this is the first time it’s trying to trick me. It just feels like I spent about thirty hours, and I don’t want to go back. Total War failed me for the second time. Of course it’s not "Shut up and give my money back!", but still disappointing.
After that, I naturally ignored Attila, although according to reviews the series moved in the right direction.
The next step was Total War: Arena. 2015 – I was launched into beta, and I, obsessed with doubts and hopes, rushed into it. In words, it looked like a dream come true – twenty players, each with their own army, are fighting on a dozen maps. Several sides, the ability to upgrade generals, all types of troops, additional bonuses for capturing points, several game modes. In reality, it really turned out to be a dream, but somehow crooked. The main plus and minus at the same time is ten players. Looking from the outside, how everyone steers their three squads, drowning in micromanagement (which gives real room for maneuver), there is a complete feeling of the reality of the battle. Whatever one may say, one cannot provide such a variety of actions and tactics. But a team of ten strangers in strategy is a complete failure. It gets to the point where you start to wonder if bots are playing with you? Someone is marking time at the base, someone is playing ambushes while a battle is going on nearby, someone is trying to break into the enemy base alone. It’s impossible to do anything alone, even if you’re the reincarnation of Macedonian. But if you have a couple of friends, the quality of the game skyrockets. But here comes the second problem. No matter how cool the combat was, in Total War it was always a means, not an end. In any company there came a time when all the battles were automatic, and you were completely immersed in the global strategy. The figures of captured supplies, captured soldiers and resources of conquered cities became more valuable and more interesting than the battles of thousands of troops. Even in Shogun multiplayer, where battles are a central focus, you couldn’t help but feel like you were building your own empire. The Arena is deprived of all this, and therefore is unable to captivate for a long time.
And finally, 2016 – Creative Assembly goes crazy and releases a game based on the WARHAMMER universe. They promise a completely new setting (this is understandable), new gameplay features, magic, monsters, artifacts, unique heroes, a changing landscape, a huge map, amazing story campaigns… and not a word about online play. What am I personally waiting for?? Nothing specific. I just want the game to evoke the same emotions as Rome, Medieval or Shogun. So that I can sit at night and not look away. To come home from work and really look forward to the moment when I start playing. To enter network mode with trembling hands. So that I can play a hundred hours in a week and not regret it at all. In general, let this be the coolest Total War in history!
P.s. judging by the latest reviews from journalists, my expectations are close to the truth. And now my inner strategy lover is screaming with delight:
Ave WARHAMMER! Ave Total War! Rule forever, Creative Assembly!