Totally Mad About Total War?
We take a nostalgic look back at Total War with Alasdair Lane, as well as looking to the future of the combat classic.
Epic. Epic is the word. To describe what? Well, the Total War (T.W.) series of course. Literally thousands of soldiers of near endless variety clashing in gargantuan battles: a team of archers rain down fiery death on a stricken group of infantry; two cavalry units break off from each other, encircling then decimating the utterly helpless bowmen with a classic hammer-and-avail strike; then suddenly through the air whizzes a pin-point accurate artillery round slamming into the overly confident and exposed horsemen. This is ten seconds of a battle which can last an hour. This battle is simply a footnote in the catalogue of wars which make up the games Grand Campaign. This campaign is punctuated with the trade, politics, espionage, religion and much, much more aside from the fighting. This is Creative Assemblys (C.A.) Total War. Epic. We were first graced with the series all the way back in summer of the year 2000 with Shogun: Total War. The player was pitted with the challenge of leading his or her faction to victory and becoming the ultimate leader of feudal Japan. It was brilliant. Following a pretty standard two year interlude, C.A. brought the blood-shed and horror of the Dark Ages to our desktops in 2002 with Medieval: Total War- again, it really was fantastic. However, for myself and many other Total Warlords (correct title?) it was in the autumn of 2004 when a true, irrevocable love for the games developed with the release of Rome: Total War. This game was, and with all honesty still is, my favourite game of all time, on any platform. Despite barely qualifying for the Teen rating in the bottom left of the disk box Rome blew my young mind. Age of Empires 2 and its competitors had captivated me before this but it soon became clear that they were only the appetisers to the main meal. And boy was it a tasty feast! Suddenly I wasnt commanding armies of 100 men who would engage enemies one at a time like an incredibly brutal game of rock-paper-scissors, but fighting proper wars from my Dads desk-chair. I dont want to suffocate you with the pall of my fanboy-ism too much but let me beg of you, if you havent played this game, go onto Steam, spend the five odd quid asking price and enjoy. Since then a whole host of Total War games have cascaded out of the doors of C.A. central: Medieval II brought enhanced visuals and gameplay to the 2004 original; Empire and Napoleon saw the player lead their factions to imperial glory during the 18th and 19th centuries, utilising the increasingly mechanical nature of warfare of the time. Finally to the current iteration, Shogun II- unsurprisingly the sequel to the original, and arguably the best yet. And so we reach the question that I feel team over at Marvel Studios must ask themselves pretty often these days: what next? If you have ever chanced upon one of the multitude of online forums attached to this issue you wont need me to tell of the heart wrenching volume of virtual blood spilled by vitriolic fanboys defending their point of view. Without further ado, let me run some of the possibilities by you: Sequels equal success?
While in the film industry a sequel is always a risky move, for game producers it seems to be a smoother ride with a mass of gaming series making big bucks. Indeed, C.A. have certainly proved themselves the master of the remake with both Medieval II and Shogun II. Not only did these sequels deliver on the obligatory graphics bulk up from the originals, but also introduced new and significant features- Medieval II for instance added much more weight to the religious dimension of the campaign, and Shogun IIs Avatar Conquest was an innovation. Yeah, sequels are great. And trust me, I hope for nothing more than for C.A. to announce their next release as a follow-up to my beloved Rome with all the bells and whistles of modern gaming. However, where would they go from there? I mean were talking approximately the year 2015 by the time fans will be demanding another Total War fix in order to stop them actually attempting world domination for real, by which time Empire will be six years old and ripe for a remake. And then Napoleon, and then Medi... you see where Im going? I just feel that if C.A. commits itself to another sequel straight after doing Shogun II then they may find themselves stuck in a downward spiral of remakes, which I guarantee you the T.W. faithful will not stand for. Therefore, as much as I would love to see a Rome II announcement in the coming months, I dont think C.A. will make that blunder, especially considering they were astute enough not to fall into this trap by bringing out a sequel to Rome immediately after Medieval II.Press the advance!
Working on the basis that we will not be seeing a remake as the next Total War outing, just when will this enigmatic game be set? Ignoring the chronological pandemonium between the first couple games, the series has followed a pretty linear time scale: from Ancient Rome to 19th century Japan, and one or two different periods in between. Can C.A. maintain this unrelenting advance towards modern day? This is a challenging question to answer indeed. One school of thought- the no corner if you like- rigorously defends the ideals on which the T.W. series is built- huge open-field battles where two (or more) armies line up opposite and utilise all manner of nasty weapons to kill each other. All very civilised, eh? This kind of conflict is well suited to military eras in which warfare incorporated a healthy balance of melee and projectile troops: the hand-to-hand guys can whack each other on the head while the skirmishers pick off baddies at a distance. It all paints a lovely picture, let me tell you. It just so happens that the eras in which C.A. have focused on so far have fitted into this battle mechanic very well- there were some fears that the fire-arm based combat of Empire would deviate too greatly, but such were the poor quality of the guns back then the two sides could line and blast away at each other contently without everyone dying after the first volley. The furthest forward the series has ever gone in time is the 1860s with the most recent Shogun II expansion, Fall of the Samurai. This game brings new features which some dedicated fans believed they would never see. The new Gatling gun for instance really is the first true depiction of systematic killing on an industrial scale in a Total War game, and the introduction of railways (on the campaign map) and steam ships also drives home the modern mechanical nature of the era. Does this work? Well, with the very positive reviews aside, I would say I definitely does, though it is a close call. You see, in Fall of the Samurai these new means of mechanised warfare are still in their infancy and as such do not yet completely dictate the events on the battlefield- numbers and experience still win the day. This being said I do not feel the series could make the leap to the 20th century. There are a lot of rumours of a WWI based game, which may sound appealing (as far as war games go) but I feel it would be too difficult to make. By the early 1900s, while modern day military heavyweights such as the tank or airplane were not quite perfected, the machine gun and long range artillery very much were. The days of linin g up opposite and toughing it out were over, and men were forced to entrench themselves to escape the efficiency of contemporary weapons. Consequently, the whisper of the series moving even nearer present day with a modern warfare like setting, or God forbid a sci-fi-esque futuristic theme are in my are completely nonsensical. There are some great strategy games out there which do master this idea, but unfortunately it just cant be for Total War games. However, if were agreed that the mid-1800s is just about as far as C.A. can push it, then say a Victorian: Total War- with all the nice new technology from Fall of the Samurai but on a grander scale with the big imperial powers of the day- could be very interesting indeed.