I was wondering if Slitherine will look at the Medieval as a possibility for a future title. With the multiple campaigns (such as Crusades 1,2 and 3, Mongol Invasion, Frankish Invasion, and so on) this would be very interesting. Plus a Grand Campaign, Historiacal Events, the Princess cattle market this would make a perfect big hit for Slitherine. All the unique units the pageantry of the period the epic battles and the nerve racking assasinations would provide tons of hours of enjoyment to the fans.
Religious wars and when playing in the Grand Campaign calling upon crusades would add to the immersion and accurately portray the tense setting of Europe at the time where Empires where made and broken in a day.
The intricate family connections between the Royal Families would provide an excellent excuse to allow fellow (of the same religion) factions taste the steal of your soldiers. The war between France and England comes to mind here.
So what does everyone think? Could it fly or will it sink to the bottom faster than the Titanic?
Going Medieval
Moderator: Slitherine Core
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IainMcNeil
- Site Admin
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atheniandp
- Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
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- Location: Athens, Greece
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pompousdivinus
- Lance Corporal - SdKfz 222
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First of all it will take more than a year anyway to realise something into a game, I suppose. But anyway, since the MTW2 add on will be released a year after their first release there would never be a ???right??? time to release the Slitherine game of that topic??¦
Furthermore you can even cash in on a ???medieval frenzy??? that might start some time after the MTW2 game is released.
Thirdly you wouldn??™t have to compete on a mere graphic level with MTW2 since your target group is different.
Your products might not be made for the mass market but as far as I get it you have a good reputation in a niche market and your target group does not consist of gamers with an attention span of 3 seconds who care a damn that you actually didn??™t have vast standing armies in the middle ages, that there was something like a feudal system in place (with fantastic opportunities for game play) and that conquering the whole known world in a ???risk??? game style manner against a moron AI (but wow, its armies are soooo flashy??¦) is not necessarily all what RTS gaming is about.
I recon quite a lot of your customers used to play board games when in their teens, might have children who are or soon will be of an age when they start playing more intelligent games themselves and are willing (even against the fiercest complaints of their wives) to invest in that hobby buying maybe even 2 medieval games a year
So why not producing a game that targets this group?!
A game that provides the gamer with some more options and confronts him with more events he has to react to than: foe A (who is the dumb AI) has built up a giant standing army (who cares where it got the money from - must have been from the script- but the army must be giant cause AI can't handle it anyway) and is standing around for some years now (since dumb) waiting to be attacked??¦.
A game that combines e.g. ideas of the old Kingmaker (Avalon Hill) game and some of the ideas of e.g. Crusader Kings by Paradox entertainment (feudal system) and a challenging diplomacy system with good graphics as in Legion Arena ?
Sounds easy doesn??™t it?
The idea is the following:
Start with a fiefdom as e.g. earl and a family somewhere in Europe,
Draw taxes out of your cities& fairs& harbours and your own fiefdoms
Invest into population growth, into your castles& personal guard, into splendid banquets, into churches, into the education of your family members, bribes etc.etc.
If King goes to war (event) decide whether to follow that call (and your barons have a moral check as well) and nominate a family member commander of your contingent.
Gain titles for your familiy members (nice heraldry, income, land, functions etc) e.g. by pleasing the King (follow battle calls with personal guard and the contingents of your barons whose equipment status depends on your taxation and relation to them) winning in battles (start with only your contingent randomly positioned in the battle line, friend and foe will be AI led in the beginning. Whole armies can only commanded by family members who have ascended the title ladder).
Gain titles & influence by marriage, inheritance etc. etc
I could go on for ages??¦in short an excellent game can be conceived with less graphics but more ingenuity! The Middle ages was more about personalities than states, why not depict that.
One thing is obvious: we all want splendid victories, win riches, gain titles, become powerful, marry princesses and be celebrated by the public??¦for some people strangely enough not all of this comes true in real life??¦so GIVE THEM HOPE MAN !
....and if not with a medieval then with an epic spacegame...
Furthermore you can even cash in on a ???medieval frenzy??? that might start some time after the MTW2 game is released.
Thirdly you wouldn??™t have to compete on a mere graphic level with MTW2 since your target group is different.
Your products might not be made for the mass market but as far as I get it you have a good reputation in a niche market and your target group does not consist of gamers with an attention span of 3 seconds who care a damn that you actually didn??™t have vast standing armies in the middle ages, that there was something like a feudal system in place (with fantastic opportunities for game play) and that conquering the whole known world in a ???risk??? game style manner against a moron AI (but wow, its armies are soooo flashy??¦) is not necessarily all what RTS gaming is about.
I recon quite a lot of your customers used to play board games when in their teens, might have children who are or soon will be of an age when they start playing more intelligent games themselves and are willing (even against the fiercest complaints of their wives) to invest in that hobby buying maybe even 2 medieval games a year
So why not producing a game that targets this group?!
A game that provides the gamer with some more options and confronts him with more events he has to react to than: foe A (who is the dumb AI) has built up a giant standing army (who cares where it got the money from - must have been from the script- but the army must be giant cause AI can't handle it anyway) and is standing around for some years now (since dumb) waiting to be attacked??¦.
A game that combines e.g. ideas of the old Kingmaker (Avalon Hill) game and some of the ideas of e.g. Crusader Kings by Paradox entertainment (feudal system) and a challenging diplomacy system with good graphics as in Legion Arena ?
Sounds easy doesn??™t it?
The idea is the following:
Start with a fiefdom as e.g. earl and a family somewhere in Europe,
Draw taxes out of your cities& fairs& harbours and your own fiefdoms
Invest into population growth, into your castles& personal guard, into splendid banquets, into churches, into the education of your family members, bribes etc.etc.
If King goes to war (event) decide whether to follow that call (and your barons have a moral check as well) and nominate a family member commander of your contingent.
Gain titles for your familiy members (nice heraldry, income, land, functions etc) e.g. by pleasing the King (follow battle calls with personal guard and the contingents of your barons whose equipment status depends on your taxation and relation to them) winning in battles (start with only your contingent randomly positioned in the battle line, friend and foe will be AI led in the beginning. Whole armies can only commanded by family members who have ascended the title ladder).
Gain titles & influence by marriage, inheritance etc. etc
I could go on for ages??¦in short an excellent game can be conceived with less graphics but more ingenuity! The Middle ages was more about personalities than states, why not depict that.
One thing is obvious: we all want splendid victories, win riches, gain titles, become powerful, marry princesses and be celebrated by the public??¦for some people strangely enough not all of this comes true in real life??¦so GIVE THEM HOPE MAN !
....and if not with a medieval then with an epic spacegame...
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dithyrambos
- Senior Corporal - Destroyer
- Posts: 103
- Joined: Sat May 13, 2006 5:01 am
- Location: Thermopylae, 480 B.C.
Personally, you wouldn't have to compete with M2:TW for my business. I quit on the Total War series after R:TW. The Total War series was a big let down with Rome. I bought the Warlord Edition of Shogun: Total War and loved it, bought M:TW and the VI expansion, and loved all the added features for the game... though the AI was kinda stupid. Then I got all exited for R:TW, thinking that it would blow M:TW out of the water. I bought it the day it came out and... was disappointed. The graphics were nice... but... the AI was dumber than anything I've encountered before. And some of the features I had really loved about M:TW were gone, such as recording your campaign battles. And from what I've heard about M2:TW, I'm just not even going to buy it. Total War has gone off the deep end and I'm through with them.
Sorry about all that, just had to get it out of my system...
Anyway...
If Slitherine made a Medieval style game that took the best of the games already out there and made an awesome game, I'd buy it.
Plus, this is just personal opinion, but, I think more time should be spent making a smarter AI that won't randomly attack everybody, even its allies (such as in R:TW. Your AIs are smarter than R:TW's, but I think they could be made even smarter), and which can react to my strategies, and which won't besiege a super-fortress with an army of 20 guys (I've seen this in R:TW and Crusader Kings), and more smart stuff instead of 3D graphics. Personally, I love good old fashioned 2D graphics, though I think I am a rarity among my generation, being in my late teens.
Don't get me wrong, 3D graphics won't turn me away, I just don't want you guys to turn into a new Total War or something, by getting so focused on having flashy graphics that the gameplay and AI suffer. It is my opinion that any sensible player would prefer gameplay and good AI to flashy graphics (though considering the success of Total War, I begin to wonder if there are any sensible gamers outside of the Slitherine/Paradox players).
I say all of this with respect to Slitherine, and as a friendly suggestion from a devoted fan.
Dithy
Sorry about all that, just had to get it out of my system...
Anyway...
If Slitherine made a Medieval style game that took the best of the games already out there and made an awesome game, I'd buy it.
Plus, this is just personal opinion, but, I think more time should be spent making a smarter AI that won't randomly attack everybody, even its allies (such as in R:TW. Your AIs are smarter than R:TW's, but I think they could be made even smarter), and which can react to my strategies, and which won't besiege a super-fortress with an army of 20 guys (I've seen this in R:TW and Crusader Kings), and more smart stuff instead of 3D graphics. Personally, I love good old fashioned 2D graphics, though I think I am a rarity among my generation, being in my late teens.
Don't get me wrong, 3D graphics won't turn me away, I just don't want you guys to turn into a new Total War or something, by getting so focused on having flashy graphics that the gameplay and AI suffer. It is my opinion that any sensible player would prefer gameplay and good AI to flashy graphics (though considering the success of Total War, I begin to wonder if there are any sensible gamers outside of the Slitherine/Paradox players).
I say all of this with respect to Slitherine, and as a friendly suggestion from a devoted fan.
Dithy
"Now Dithyrambos, the Thespian captain... by trade an architect and by no means a professional soldier, had already distinguished himself with such magnificent courage throughout the day..." From Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire
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kleinemann
- Corporal - Strongpoint
- Posts: 53
- Joined: Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:47 pm
Hah, this company is great! It actually listens to (or reads the posts of) the people on the forums!!!
Slitherine's making "History Channel: The Great Battles of The Middle Ages", and it seems to be based on this post...
Dont know why I'm bothering to write this down... everyone probably knows...
nevermind, I'll post this anyway
Slitherine's making "History Channel: The Great Battles of The Middle Ages", and it seems to be based on this post...
Dont know why I'm bothering to write this down... everyone probably knows...
nevermind, I'll post this anyway