Simple changes that gave the game 400% more replay ability, please read CA!

torak8988#3885

So I’ll keep it short, as no one wants to read long explanations. The point of this post is rather simple, these changes significantly added to the replayability of the game while being pretty simple.

1. Being able to choose your own start location.
This one was absolutely fantastic, I have a few favourite races, and the game is completely reborn if you play on a new location with your favourite faction!

2. Reshuffling all starting locations of the AI.
This complete map reshuffle is absolutely fantastic, having the races scattered to new locations on the map basically lets you rediscover and develop new strategies, making the same starting location feel totally new.

3. Reducing all build times to 1 turn only.
Like the others, this is very simple, but I can’t put into words how refreshing this was, not having to sit around clicking end turn to wait until a high tier building is constructed reduced boring downtime massively, letting me do a lot more fun stuff instead, such as making strategic choices instead of waiting around. It also lets me finally use the highest tier units in campaigns, as it no longer takes forever to finally get the highest level barracks.

4. 1 turn recruitment for all units.
Exactly for the same reason as the building times, waiting around for things is downtime, you want to reduce downtime as much as possible in games as it’s basically just wasting the player’s time without adding fun to their experience.

5. Increasing upkeep by about 50%.
This sounds simple and a bit lame, but it was incredibly refreshing, no longer was 20 stack spamming a thing, garrisons felt meaningful while the map wasn’t spammed full of armies, increasing pointless micro management.

6. Introduction of supply lines, 15% upkeep increase per extra army.
People disliked this mechanic, but I thought it was a fantastic system to encourage elite unit armies. Without it, I’d just be spamming basic units which felt rather boring and uncreative strategy-wise, as there was no incentive for me to develop elite, interesting units.

7. Damage magic spells nerfed.
This one is pretty straightforward, having a lord carry the battle with up to 10k gold damage because he kept spamming vortexes, bombardments or winds, is very arcade like and doesn’t feel like a strategy game. It’s also really annoying when your formation gets ruined because a single spell blew them all up. However I am a big fan of status effect spells, like increased/decreased attack, changes to movement speed, teleportation, ammo regeneration etc.

8. Change to of Regiments of Renown system.
While some people love to quickly get one of a kind elite unit, I think these units do not enable new strategies or tactics as you only one of them. Although the idea is really cool. I just hate it when these units are summoned instantly which the AI and player abuses if they are in trouble. Please lock these units behind a tech, quest or building and make them take a turn to recruit. And hopefully with ability to make more than 1. I’d love to see more of the special doom knights, but there’s only one of them, disabling me from making complex and cool strategies with them.

9. Less agent spam.
This one is very simple, I like mages as agents, but non-magic agents start to feel very stupid, they don’t provide much battle buffs, and generally underperform as a unit due to their single entity nature. There are some exploit buff stack strategies, but I don’t think that’s a fun way to play. Please less agent types or make agent’s more army buff focussed like the mages, preferably by having their own aura's and unit buff abilities.

10. No more city walls.
While I have been pondering sieges for a while, I think sieges are fantastic. With one exception, the walled city battles. They look amazing and are very grand. However the walls themselves block certain units from performing well as the attacker, while making certain defender unit types very strong. I mean cavalry and ranged units are useless on the attack, while on the defence you want as much ranged units as possible. Thankfully unwalled city battles solve this issue, which is fantastic and I hope this siege rework is here to stay, just not with walled city battles please.

11. Race unique HUD’s.
This is one of those aspects that only takes a simply PNG, but really allows the player to immerse into the specific race. I love to look at the art works, but while the event artworks are fantastically made, I’m not often looking at them. Putting all that effort into making a beautiful HUD for each race might be a lot more effective and immersive. I love the art team's work, but please let them make custom HUD’s and post battle screen artworks by instead of having a bloody flag, make a gif or painting of a post-battle painting representative of the outcome. So that while we play, we get to see the full piece after a satisfying event like a completed battle or as a loading screen or simply the HUD.

12. Balanced units and balanced faction economies
This is already clearly on CA’s list, and thankfully so, this is basically having all units perform respective to their cost, which is fantastic, my compliments to who-ever balances the units, I think they are really well balanced, which is says a lot as often times this isn’t the case with game designs. Thus I also hope CA keeps a close eye on faction balancing, for example the wood elves are very restricted on income, but that’s a worst case example. The Norscans for example got really nice economic buffs with their ports. Which I am a huge fan of, please push the faction’s uniqueness while ensuring their economies are balanced. Great work! Please keep going! I also want to say that the new faction unique building bonus effects, such as strong or higher magic for Tzeentch providing bonus effects, or high elves at 100 public order, is a dream come true, the more factions are rewarded for playing their unique style, the better. I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with in the future, adding depth and complexity to the buildings and economy is a change total war seriously needed. I just hope barracks get some kind of change as well, as I have little reason to build more than 1 of a barrack type, perhaps making barracks provide an upkeep reduction for its respective units, or an EXP increase could help? Or intergrating unit recruitment with economy buildings?

ottakanawa#9312

lol

Neodeinos#5871

May I introduce you to the Steam Worskshop ?

overtaker40#8926

To many things here. Pick a couple your most passionate about and think have the greatest chance of being successful and make a few separate posts. People can't agree about one without the rest.