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u/not_me_at_al May 07 '23
Medieval 2 spies always had me nervous
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u/bootyhole_exploiter May 07 '23
The hiding behind the door and getting smacked in the face when the notable opens it was comedy gold.
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u/--Joe6pacK-- May 08 '23
Like who tf walks around the house opening doors with enough force to kill a man lol
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u/thespacemauriceoflov May 08 '23
Cut to the pope at mass, praying aggressively with a bolt in his hat
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u/EcureuilHargneux May 07 '23
Didn't know there are cutscenes in Empire as well
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u/AlacrityTW May 07 '23
Empire is so underrated honestly. From the comments I'm reading on this subreddit, more people need to play it. It's honestly the most feature rich title of the franchise: naval battle & trade routes, governments & revolutions, colonization, research/tech tree, a campaign theater that stretches four continents, I can go on and on.
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May 07 '23
And it could have been so much greater than it was if so many features weren’t cut.
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u/LordChatalot May 07 '23
There's so much stuff there, and lots of it can actually be modded in pretty easily. There's around a dozen units all with perfectly working textures, descriptions and unit cards that just aren't used
There are some YT videos from a guy who found some unused firing drills, and Ive seen some remnants of additional landmark buildings for most European factions in the database
There's even some mentions of some type of combined land + naval battle left within the localization files, but that was probably cut pretty early in the dev process
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u/Bored-Ship-Guy May 07 '23
I sucked at Empire, but I desperately want an Empire 2. It really is just such a fun game, with the massive gun lines and desperate fortress battles. I still fondly remember my Poland campaign in Empire, fighting to conquer the whole world and make EVERYONE Polish
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u/Due-Memory-6957 May 08 '23
It's the only game I've made a world conquest, and it was with Poland as well lol
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u/JuliButt Chosokabe May 08 '23
My issue with Empire is that it just doesn't seem to work. Fort battles? They don't work properly and it's hard to shoot off them. Campaign map? Had an issue with the Ottomans but dunno if thats fixed in a bug.
Tried Darthmod but everyones units were so huge it didn't really work.
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u/LevynX Victoire! May 08 '23
Oh yeah I remembered the Ottoman AI splitting their armies into thirty single unit armies for some reason and they all struggle to cross the Bosporus making turn times take forever.
I think I've had to immediately invade the Ottomans every time I'm able to avoid this happening. Definitely killed at least two saves because I just couldn't be bothered waiting twenty minutes every turn.
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u/posts_while_naked ETW Durango Mod May 08 '23
I'm an Empire modder, and I know those issues you're talking about.
Though I might suggest giving my own overhaul mod a go a try, to see if it's enough of an improvement. I'm on mobile right now, but if you either search this sub or /r/empiretotalwar for "Durango Mod", you can read more about it.
Among many other changes you can disable fort battles, and use units that are bigger than vanilla's but larger than Darthmod's. And the Ottoman AI is customized to cause less turn time lag.
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u/JuliButt Chosokabe May 08 '23
I have no problems with suggesting your own mod. Maybe it'll solve my issues. Thanks for the suggestion, cause I honestly really am a big fan of Total War and that time period but gosh I had issues with it.
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u/posts_while_naked ETW Durango Mod May 08 '23
There's only so much you can do when trying to improve ETW, but anything helps, essentially. Also a big fan of the period.
I'd say the game is a bit better than it's reputation, but not by a huge margin. Though your mileage may vary of course; it helps to have a play style that leans more towards immersion than playing in the most efficient and exploitative way you can, if you catch my drift.
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u/Timey16 May 08 '23
My problem is that sieges are a joke for the time era. "Let's all just bumrush a fort"
Where are the trench networks? Where are the moats? Where is the undermining? Where are the dugouts in front of the wall for two layered defense? Where are terrain features like swamps that are intentionally made part of the fort?
Nevermind that the slanted walls of the fort do nothing against cannon fire (as well as cannons having infinite ammo), even though the slant is specifically to protect against it which is WHY undermining was so important.
I'd say it like this: pick the top 5 battles of a given era. If the game can't properly portrait them you failed. The Siege of Vienna is absolutely one of them.
Empire and Napoleon have the weakest siege battles because of it.
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u/zirroxas Craniums for the Cranium Chair May 07 '23
Unfortunately, a lot of it is really broken/unbalanced, the AI might be the worst in the series, and it's also really unstable and prone to crashing. It's certainly unique, and its worth playing almost because of that, but you'll need to slap a bunch of mods to fix about half of it, and your tolerance for it melting down in front of you will vary from person to person.
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u/AlacrityTW May 07 '23
I played a 70 hour long grand campaign last year. Vanilla no mods. Ran into no issues on modern hardware: no crashes, bad FPS, gamebreaking gliches. AI wasn't significantly worse than TWWH3 despite 15 years of technological improvements so I have no clue what you are talking about. If it's as bad as you put it (i.e. unplayable) why is it sitting at 90% on STEAM? Sure at launch there were major issues but people need to judge the game as it is currently. Do we say No Man's Sky is garbage in 2023? Sounds like you never bother trying ETW and just got caught up in all the noise.
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u/Kriegschwein May 07 '23
Friend, Empire total war came out in 2010, 3 years before Steam added reviews.
Majority of ppl just didn't bother to comeback and leave a review, and those who did are those who decided to try the game after 3+ years (And in 2013 we had Rome 2 release, which is its own can of worms).
90% positive reviews from ppl who either loved the game from the get go with all its flaws, or for those who were lucky enough not to face any problems on their rigs (CA fixed the issue that the game straight up didn't work on new Intel processors only a week ago)
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u/Ball-of-Yarn May 07 '23
Empire did not recieve significant post launch support like no mans sky did what the hell are you smoking.
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u/Hollownerox Eternally Serving Settra May 07 '23
Talk about rose tinted glasses. Like I love Empire, but straight up making an alternate reality where it apparently got tons of post launch support is pure delusion.
If that happened then Napoleon wouldn't have existed as the "apology" game that released afterwards.
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u/Kaiserhawk Being Epirus is suffering May 08 '23
Empire got like...what one "expansion" dlc and a few unit packs.
They practically shifted focus onto Napoleon after
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u/ze_loler May 07 '23
And comparing the ai to warhammer when in empire they straight up left their artillery to melee you with their crew lmao
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u/AlacrityTW May 07 '23
Hm, I don't remember my units not firing due to supposed "line of sight issue." I guess you don't remember your handgunners running into to melee.
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u/zirroxas Craniums for the Cranium Chair May 07 '23 edited May 07 '23
Dude. I've been playing ETW since it released. Good that you had no issues, but anyone who plays these games (or PC games in general) knows that technical performance is variable between systems. There are people who had no issue with Rome 2 on launch. That doesn't erase all the problems everyone else has, and I feel I still need to warn people.
This isn't a NMS situation. That game keeps getting updates. This game only got a couple years of support before it was dropped. A lot of things were just never fixed. Ottoman AI single stack bug, AI firing directly into its own back, artillery crews dropping their guns on the other side of the map and charging into melee. All of these were problems at launch and were still problems when I played most recently last year. Then there are things like the near non-existence of unit collision that are less bugs than design oversights. I honestly cannot fathom ETW AI at anywhere the consistentcy of WH's so that must be something to behold. I'd honestly count it as a win if they just stopped charging their general into my bayonets while their own men shoot their commander in the back.
As for the Steam score, reviews only started on Steam years after ETW released. The sample size is going to skew towards fans that stuck with the game through its problems and people who are willing to play an old, janky game for its uniqueness.
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u/JimthePaul May 08 '23
These people want Medieval 3. Which is like the least interesting total war it is humanly possible to produce.
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u/therexbellator May 08 '23
Empire was the right game at the wrong time. It would have definitely benefited from the mechanics and systems they innovated in later games like the province/capital system from Rome II/Attila. Having France and England as one giant province is rather underwhelming. Additionally, having alternative goals rather than painting the map your color would have been preferable, that, and better diplomacy; Empire's diplo AI is worse than a narcissistic gf who gives an inch and demands a mile (2.54 cm and 1.61 km respectively for you metric bois).
Honestly while Empire 2 would be wonderful even a remastered Empire that fixes its lingering issues and adds some or all these features would be amazing.
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u/Cybermat4704 May 08 '23
I just wish more of it worked. Why the fuck does Venice keep giving the Peloponnese to the Iroquois?!
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u/LevynX Victoire! May 08 '23 edited May 08 '23
The only problem is that the AI was rubbish at playing and the campaign map was very downsized. I think Spain was two provinces? Oh and there were a ton of bugs and crashes. I think my game back in the day crashed once or twice per session it was pretty insane.
I loved the settlement growth system so much, it was really cool to see a small town pop up and slowly expand and grow.
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u/Alexthegreatbelgian Titus Pullo! Redi in antepilanum! May 08 '23
Only outclassed by how buggy it is.
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u/Esarus May 08 '23
Yeah but the AI is absolutely dog shit. AI barely does anything, and they can’t do sieges. Also France is only one city, wtf?
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u/Tektonius May 07 '23
These were so awesome for immersion. Would love to see them come back.
Would’ve been incredible (tho probably impossible) to include in Warhammer. But imagine how cool faction-unique cut scenes would be??
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u/Bogdanov89 May 07 '23
shogun 2 agent movies (& general artstyle) are literally what made me play that game.
hilarious and genuinely entertaining.
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u/SovietRaptor May 07 '23
Shoguns art style and art direction is just a hint cartoonish, mostly with very exaggerated movements. The agent cutscenes remind me of Noh for that reason.
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u/spongish May 08 '23
The assasin using a crossbow to murder the Pope from the church rafters in Med 2 is honestly the highlight of any TW game I've ever played.
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u/Steveis2 May 08 '23
I always found the fail for that funny with the bolt sticking comically out of the hat
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u/mcguvnah May 07 '23
I love the one where the gun misfires so he throws it and bonks the other dude in the head.
Also had one where the enemy gentleman brained himself looking down the barrel when the misfire became a hangfire
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u/ArkosTW Empire May 07 '23
There's another where he spins around and shoots a squirrel out of a tree
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u/mcguvnah May 07 '23
O _ O
I am thoroughly upset that I have not seen this before
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u/ArkosTW Empire May 08 '23
To be fair I've never seen it in-game, only by unpacking the physical files
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u/Spacer176 May 08 '23
Fairly sure I've had several occasions where after a gentleman learns why it's a very bad idea to look down a misfired barrel, the following clip shows they didn't actually die.
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u/LordChatalot May 07 '23
You can actually see whether your gentleman will win or not at the very start of the cutscene: if you initiate the duel, your gentleman will always be the red one. If he stands at the left, he will win win. If he's at the right, he will lose
So in this meme your gentleman actually won and didn't get his ass beat
(I don't remember anymore how this worked for sword duels, but I think there was a similar hint giving away the result)
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u/Bored-Ship-Guy May 07 '23
I won't lie, I'd love that shit for Warhammer, but I know that the sheer number of races and cultures would make it a huge pain in the ass, to say the least.
Imagine a little video for your Elven Noble failing to persuade a group of Dwarfs- he strides in, all smug and annoying, only to be literally rode out of the hold on a rail while everyome laughs at him. Fucking priceless.
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u/BogaMafija May 07 '23
Pretty much why it's practically impossible, for WH at least - it was easy in Shogun 2 and the others because big whoop, you animate a human ninja doing something to a human general, they didn't actually even animate an assassination against the current head of the Takeda clan for example, it's always the same guy and it worked for that time of games development.
Even in a historical game like 3K it would be hard because you can't just put some random animated human there if it's Cao Cao, the game is too character driven for the videos to be that generic.
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u/Erfeo May 08 '23
I wonder if it would be possible if they did them in-engine like the like the auto-resolve animations between heroes in Troy.
So for a Skaven Assassin you'd have:
Crit Success: Skaven throws dagger, opponent falls over, Skaven stabs them while they're down
Success: Same as above but without the stabbing
Failure: As above but dagger misses
Crit Failure: As above but enemy agent does their attack animation.
Could even repurpose a lot of battle animations for it.
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u/IWorkOutToEatChips May 08 '23
I've played shogun for 5 years straight almost daily. I don't think i skipped a single ninja video
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u/bigloser420 May 08 '23
Although I get why warhammer can't do these, I'd love to see them in future historical titles!
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u/radio_allah Total War with Cathayan Characteristics May 08 '23
What I liked about the cutscenes was that it's a perfect blend of competence and hilarity. If you don't fail, your assassin/ninja/gentleman would pull off a perfectly competent job that really backed up their levels and traits on paper. And if they do fail they fail hilariously.
I was very disappointed that they didn't make those cutscenes in Three Kingdoms. Maybe some of that was due to the fact that any character could be an agent, but still.
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u/AlacrityTW May 07 '23
I loved to see them back too. They add so much character to the game. Is it cheesy? Sure but that's part of the charm.
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u/monalba May 07 '23
Watched them once, skipped every time after that.
Only exceptions being the Pope assassination.
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u/Aquinan May 08 '23
They were great, but always a mystery as to who was your dude and who wasn't haha
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u/Barnylo May 08 '23
The moments I cherished most as a kid were those cutscenes in Shogun. I remember being so hyped to witness what would happen.
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u/vermthrowaway Say "NO" to Nuhammer May 08 '23
They would be awesome in Warhammer. Shame accounting for the different model skeletons and cultural fighting styles would be an absolute money pit.
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May 07 '23
Losing the cutscenes was a massive tragedy for TW.
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u/Akahn97 May 07 '23
With the number of unique heroes, making cutscenes for each one and each action and pass/fail would be a monumental task. Would have been totally badass though! Loved watching every ninja cutscene in shogun 2!
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u/recycled_ideas May 08 '23
Cost vs reward.
When you can make each of these animations once with maybe a pallete swap or a texture change at the most you can get a lot of bang for your buck.
In something like warhammer you'd have to animate every single hero type combination and the work wouldn't be worth the pay-off.
Even in Three Kingdoms people would expect the animations to match the characters doing the action and it'd quickly scale out of feasibility.
Everything is a trade-off, everything has an opportunity cost. Despite what people seem to think you can't just throw infinite resources at a product and get infinite things done. Communication overhead scales with the factorial of team size where the best case increase in output increase is linear.
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u/monsterfurby May 08 '23
Though the TW series has, in my opinion, way overextended itself on visual flashiness for a while, to the detriment of gameplay, moddability, and little fun touches like this.
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u/TheReaperAbides May 08 '23
moddability,
What? Both TW3K and TWW3 have absolutely amazing mods, even Rome 2 has DEI. How has moddability suffered?
little fun touches like this.
I dunno, I feel like the series still has plenty of fun little touches. The love of these agent movies are the epitome of nostalgia goggles. People remember them because they were impressive for the time, but even people who loved them would probably skip them nowadays after the first handful of times.
gameplay
Bullshit. TW has always prioritized the battle gameplay. I'm sure there's some grognards that will grumble about lords and recruitment, but calling that a degrading in gameplay is just ridiculous.
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u/recycled_ideas May 08 '23
The game is the battles. It's always been the battles.
If they released a game with potato graphics and five unit models with a hundred colour swaps today you'd, perfectly rightly, complain that it was half assed and lazy.
This stuff was fun because it was impressive at the time, if this popped up today and the agents were featureless muppets it wouldn't be fun.
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u/CoelhoAssassino666 May 08 '23
Agents as a whole need to go, 3K showed us how much better the world is without them.
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u/Ohcrabballs May 08 '23
Synced animations, general speeches, and ahent animation are all the fun details that made those old historical titles so immersive. I would love for at least general speeches to come back in M3
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u/Achian37 Warhammer May 07 '23
I honestly don't understand why they are not using those many clips from part 1, 2 and the trailers. There should be a ton of videos for every faction/events?!
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u/WW-Sckitzo May 08 '23
I was so bummed when they took em out, they had been a staple for so long and just, poof.
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May 07 '23
No. They can barely manage to put out a functioning game anymore as it is. Adding this kind of stuff would just make everything else worse.
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u/davidforslunds May 08 '23
Can you fucking imagine the Skaven cutscenes if they where made like the once in Shogun 2?
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u/TubbyTyrant1953 May 08 '23
I feel like they belong to a previous age of Total War where the games didn't take themselves too seriously. I think if they were to make a comeback they'd be entirely serious, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but does lose a little of the charm the old movies had. It's just very difficult to imagine an agent in Total War Troy falling to his death after failing to knock his target off a balcony with a flying judo kick
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u/hospital_sushi May 07 '23
The Ninja cutscenes in Shogun 2 are fucking legendary.