WolfThomas said:
I wish Total War delved in the alternate timelines more. If I decide for Poland or Carthage to rule the known world I want to see the outcome. What annoyed me in Medieval War limited some factions from getting gunpowder like Byzantium and Scotland because they were meant to be beat early.
Likewise making me have to own parts of India, Gibralter and America as England in Empire means I'm stuck repeating history. What if I want to stage a bloody revolution and push into the heart of Europe?
That really annoyed me about Empire Total War. As Sweden I wanted to make a colonial empire in North America but nope, if I wanted to win I had to conquer Moscow and make an Empire in the Baltic. Part of the fun in historical games like this should to make alternative history, which is something that Paradox games do well at but not so much Total War games.
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One possibility could be to make a total war game that covers the time between Rome Total War, Barbarian Invasion, Medieval, Empire and possibly up until the 20th century. Like in Paradox games you'd have historical bookmarks so if you wanted to try and save the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century you could, or could start off as China in the 15th century and try to colonise America, or start off at the beginning as an Irish tribe and conquer the world. I'd put some emphasis on controlling a ruling dynasty, so traits are passed down from parents to children and political decisions you make influence their attributes- but the family tree wouldn't be as extensive as it is in Crusader Kings say. If you were to start off as in 200BC as Sparta say, your dynasty's family tree would be insanely large by 1000AD. So the focus would just be on your ruling king or queen and their immediate heir.
Then I'd put more emphasis on culture, religion and ideology influencing diplomacy and your faction's features and abilities. Pagan and Christian factions would obviously dislike eachother, and each religion would confer difference advantages and disadvantages. So for instance Islam could give a bonus to science research, or Norse Paganism could confer combat advantages. Types of government, such as tribalism, absolute monarchy or republic would also have different pro's and con's as well, so really you'd be taking some of the good features from Empire Total War and applying them to the time periods covered in the earlier games. The general idea really is to take what's best from the other TW games, plus similar other games and put them into one big game that gives players a lot of freedom to make their own factions, shape them to their will and make history which I think is what is most fun about Total War games.
Only this time, you could have situations where you're playing as the Republic of Rome and colonise America in the Middle Ages, invade China whilst playing as the Inca or decide to play as Ireland and aggressively try to covert Christian Europe to Celtic Paganism. It would feel very different to a normal Total War game (which tries to adhere to historical accuracy through gameplay) but I'd say scrap that and shake up how the whole game feels.
It may be too grand in scope, and I'm not sure how battle mechanics would work post-Empire total war period once you get to trench warfare, tanks and machine guns (although a total war game set in the 20th century would be interesting). If you have played from the ancient era, a cut-off point in, 1914 say might feel arbitrary. However, maybe the game could end once the first faction invents nuclear weapons on the basis that MAD means that you can't outright invade a nuclear power without destroying the world. Anyway, I think i've given this waaay too much thought but that's my two cents.
