THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE: Total War Sieges Have Never Been WORSE

[Music] all right guys so Siege battles in Total War games are a really interesting topic we've seen them go up and down throughout the series some games did them really well some games didn't and some games were quite in between right but Siege battles in Total War games were some of my most memorable battles of my childhood experiences playing them for the first time in the original medieval Total War completely altered my perspective of how fun Total War could be watching my Army surround a mighty Castle breaking down multi-layered walls with trebuchets charging in masses of infantry it was just incredible over the years Siege battles have developed in some ways with more complexity larger cities with multiple layers of streets and choke points with new mechanics like victory points it's become one of the focal points of battle gameplay but looking back at all these games and the progression in the series I can't help but notice that Siege battles got worse with the Roman Evil 2 though having really nice features like City viewing with citizens running around and of course introducing proper 3D Siege battles they suffered terribly from a non-responsive Ai and unit pathfinding issues that have largely persisted throughout the rest of the series as well these games especially Rome and Medieval 2 did not age well at all in Siege battles and though the battle Health System meant things were at least more realistic weighty and tactical from a gameplay perspective The Siege battles in these games were largely bogged down by frequent bugs and engine issues Empire and Napoleon were equally horrible to play in Siege battles and that was mostly down to Battle AI that insisted on having Longline battles no matter the battle map so you'd often see the AI Army Sally out of wherever it was to meet you on open ground plus this lazily implemented battl map design besing a city like London or Paris you'd expect a major Metropolis but instead we got these tiny looking towns that resembled Villages if anything Siege battles in these games were so poor in quality that they were almost always avoided and these games have a reputation for having the worst Siege battles in the series with Shogun 2 Total War things got a lot better we had decent Siege battles with multi-layered castles we had an AI that did a decent job of trying to defend its walls and defend it right to the last man we had generally a pretty tough time to win Siege battles especially without actual Siege equipment Shogun 2 Siege battles kicked my butt and I enjoyed it I enjoyed going through technology again to get better units get better skills for my generals to have a better chance of winning them I enjoyed defending a multi-layered keep again ordering my units to retreat up to a higher level with my archers using covering fire on the walls it always got my heart pumping and I gave every single Siege battle My Blood Sweat and Tears to win and man did I give it my tears when I lost which was more often than I'd care to admit but then we got Rome 2 and Atilla and for the first time we had campaign mechanics changed the way Siege battles played and felt in such a drastic way the map region system switched to provinces where you have to have every region in a province to maximize the benefits of owning them which was a way of narrowing the scope of how the player expanded you ideally want to have three to four full provinces quickly rather than have a dozen cities all in different provinces just to maximize public order income Etc but the bigger change here was locking armies to character generals the days of captains leading a few units around the map were gone and instead we had an army limit system locked to characters where let's face it you were facing an AI usually just busy idling and recruiting in a city you had to besiege suddenly we were besieging cities left right and center now The Siege battles in Rome 2 and Atilla themselves looked pretty damn good from an immersion and visual perspective they were some of the best the series had ever seen you had really diverse set of City battle maps that I really enjoyed looking at in both games light and bright in Rome 2 and dark and Moody with an escalation system in Atilla of course let's not forget and the design and layout of the cities were nicely done as well with room for choke points funneling enemy troops this way and that Etc but on the other hand CA opted to completely remove multi-layered Castle battles in these games which was a damn shame them being the favorite styles of battles for many players in the series thus far even so the battles were nice to look at the weather systems were fun The Siege equipment with sapping upgradable Siege Towers ladders nice and with Naval combined Siege battles as well at first glance it all seemed really really cool then you actually started playing them and most of the time tactics unfortunately went out the window the AI is weakest in these games in the series as it has absolutely no idea what to do with Cavalry often throwing them away to defensive Towers the AI doesn't effectively use Siege equipment most of the time attacking one wall while the other one was already broken down or just going for a gate Throwing Fire at it until it breaks down which I just never understood why that was an option in these games to begin with and generally defending City walls are an incredibly tedious Affair you almost always are better off fighting on the ground where you can choke the enemy in they were going to go on the walls anyway of course so you could have archers on the ground just firing From Below naval ships unloading troops onto beaches could get bugged we had the gate bug of course that we still have today we we still had pathf finding and clipping issues it was just a really messy Affair that isn't to say that none of the battles were fun though you did have some fun battles at times especially with the Western Roman Empire defending against hordes of Huns in aella Army after Army attacking your city until they've wiped you out and they burn it all down playing as Carthage and Hannibal at the gates and fighting your way across the Alps against countless Roman armies and finally getting to lay Siege to the the gates of Rome was an awesome time and between catapults ballistas trabichet and more The Siege units in these games were so much fun but with AI issues with a change in the unit HP system leading to not very impactful or weighty fighting I often found myself getting bored or simply getting annoyed more often than not as nice as battle map design was in these games and as visually appealing as these cities are I avoided them as much as I possibly could now while AA improved on Rome 2 everyone agrees Thrones of Britannia improved on it with most players regarding the game as having the best Siege battles the series has ever seen multi-layered and Visually stunning British Villages and cities that were amazing to attack as the Vikings pillaging across the islands or to defend as Britannic kingdoms Manning these brilliant walls against masses of powerful Viking Raiders for the first time in a while units felt like they had genuine weight and charge impact Cavalry felt more balanced than ever battle maps had some really unique design with Town entrances that were choke points Naval and land combined battles that were super fun elevation that mattered and especially after the optimization issues of Atilla having smooth beautiful battles and Thrones was just a godsend but since Thrones Siege battles with every new game were either much the same or far worse Three Kingdoms is nothing extraordinary mostly a return to Rome 2 or Atilla with visually immersive and well-designed Maps but all the while lacking fun Siege equipment and suffering from pathf finding issues Troy on the other hand was an extremely baffling game with Siege battles because small town battles were essentially land battles with extra steps and city battles were absolutely massive unnecessarily massive and you didn't have Siege Towers until you unlocked them in the tech tree which was just ludicrous game design defensive Towers melted your troops of course before you made it to the walls ass ladders it just felt like the Warhammer battle gameplay reskinned to fit this setting Blobby and uninspired the AI again was decent enough but overall this Warhammer style gameplay meant that units felt massless visuals looked soulless and things were just not very fun and then we have the Warhammer games and I've played them quite a bit and Siege battles are Absolut absolutely the worst almost every battle is a Siege battle which diminishes their importance walls are basically there cosmetically as so many units can easily break them down and to be fair you don't even need to break them down as units can jump up and climb them with ass ladders and the design and layout of the Cities mean that you can only attack from one side completely removing tactical depth all together AI might be okay and pathf finding might be a bit better but these Siege battles have no no strategy or depth whatsoever units feel squishy and weightless no impact no regard for casualties it's a complete blobfest with Total War Pharaoh it was a mixed bag but the good news was that CA Sophia took a massive step back into the past and try to at least emulate Rome 2 or a bit of Thrones which compared to Warhammer definitely had much better Siege battles minor settlement battles are reminiscent of Thrones here with nicely laid out map design with things like weather I conditions different types of terrain actually making a difference and Visually major Siege battles are basically like Rome 2 or Atilla huge sprawling cities that honestly are far bigger than you know what to do with the problems with Pharaoh though again are pathf finding AI behavior and battle frequency it seems however creative assembly improves in one area with Siege battles they screw up in other areas because AI sallying out not being responsive to being under attack reinforce for Ms arriving outside a city to get slaughtered it's all just getting incredibly old and that's why Pharaoh saw such a major backlash it was a return to historical style battles yay but without solving the issues that bog them down in the first place Siege battles in Total War Games simply need to be better players are tired of how bad a state these are in we've had ups and downs some games did some things right others got it all wrong but no game so far has got it perfect yet I would personally say original medieval Shogun 2 and Thrones are the best we've had in the series and those games are decades old now so CA really needs to step up their focus on fixing Siege battles all around bringing some balanced gameplay that is fun challenging and rewarding the absolute bare minimum for me is we need Siege battle maps with proper walls Siege equipment Victory point locations choke points and multiple layers of defensive positions we need an AI that knows how to use each of these elements to its Advantage yet still leave wiggle room for the player to employ tactical gameplay usage of different equipment different styles of units to take advantage different situational features to overcome challenges and we need Siege battles to be infrequent with post battle replenishment nerfed at the end of the day the player needs to feel like a Siege is a last resort and a loss could determine the outcome of a war this is what's missing from the series right now and that's it for today guys this has been my case study essentially and how Siege battles have been implemented from game to game and how the series as a whole has made some progress here and some major setbacks there battles are the primary aspect of Total War that sets these games apart and I really want to enjoy battles and yet sieges in particular feel neglected and forgotten about the next game hopefully does a better job all around maybe not perfectly but hopefully at least with a little more effort and Innovation with multi-layered visually stunning cities bringing back castles and keeps that change visually with each upgrade fixing Ai and pathf finding issues that are so often just cringe to watch achieve a playable balance between meeting the challenge of an offensive Siege and putting up a stalwart defensive Siege against insurmountable odds all of this and more would go a long way to making Siege battles in Total War the best that they can be I really hope you enjoyed this video and found it informative if you did give it a like and drop any thoughts or questions in the comments section below I'd love to hear what you think about everything I've discussed here today what you think about Siege battles in Total War subscribe for more Total War content gameplay and videos just like this and thanks for watching guys I'll see you next time

Channel: TheTerminator

Views: 81,616

Keywords: total war, total war rome, real time strategy, total war warhammer, total war: napoleon, siege battles, warhammer 3 siege, siege rework, total war gameplay, total war siege battles, total war attila, total war rome 2, the terminator total war, total war mods, siege battles total war, total war siege battles suck, rome 2 siege battles, warhammer 3 siege battles, pharaoh siege battles, total war pharaoh, total war napoleon, total war empire, napoleon total war 3

Id: BuUtmc8Ax1g

Length: 13min 33sec (813 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2024