>>16864272
> Warscape engine has been either completely fixed in most areas and mitigated in others
Haven't they been saying that since Shogun 2 made its limitations for melee combat obvious?
From what I've gathered TK suffers from the old shogun/shogun 2 problem of limited variety since "everyone plays the same faction" more or less.
I know this might also sound like sacriledge, but I didn't like the battles/sieges in Shogun 2. Compared to Medieval 2, the castles feel small, the sync kills and warscape engine issues bother me and everything dies too damned fast. Even Wava is better, if you use the right mods. Too bad about Wava's sieges…
Don't get me wrong, the strategic part of Shogun 2 was some of the best its ever been, right down to the little movies when ninja's do their thing. It's just the battles that are bland and obnoxious so I always end up autoresolving everything.
For all its faults, Wava does the battles really well, when using mods like SFO or Radious so they aren't over in 2 seconds. Lots of variety between factions, strategic and tactical and so on. TK was a huge step back in this regard.
>>16864592
So you want a Total War: The Thirty Years War. I could definitely see myself playing that.
BTW, anyone remember good old Fragile Allegiance? I would LOVE to see FA's diplomacy system in something like TW.
Basically it goes like this, every treaty includes an agreed upon punishment, in cash, for breaking it, as well as pissing off the guys you had the treaty with and making you look untrustworthy. It was essentially a fine you paid to the other guy for not living up to the treaty.
It doesn't seem like a big difference, but it makes breaking a bad treaty a more calculated risk, and one the others guys might calculate too. It also shows the other guy how committed you are to the treaty.
Another neat trick from FA was the secret treaties. They are just like normal treaties, except factions other than the ones involved in the treaty can't see its there. They can be uncovered by spies in FA, and outing a secret alliance between people who are supposed to be at war but are preparing to betray their official allies is an exceptionally fun way to stir up shit. And since all treaties also have a date for when the treaty is no longer valid, you can do a lot of calculated shit, like attacking an "ally" the second the treaty expires.
And then there's the Joint Combat Treaties. This is at its simplest, a treaty that obligates both factions in it to attack a third party. A "please join my war" kind of affair. Except it has an agreed upon goal of how much damage you have to inflict to the target, in terms of value of captured or destroyed cities/armies/infrastructure and so on, and an agreed upon fine for failing to do enough damage. This means you have to actually fight the target in order to fulfill it. And these can be secret, just like all the other treaties. This is how you create secret alliances against enemies or isolate specific enemies from their friends. And exposing these is always fun. And of course, Joint Attack Treaties also have negotiated time limits like the rest of the treaties.
The whole lot of it combines into making treaties, betrayals and exposing secret ones, endless fun.
For example: Are your dwarves going to make a secret non-aggression treaty with the invading orcs to stop them from taking all your shit, knowing that if this treaty is exposed, your fellow dwarf factions are going to get REALLY pissed, on the other hand, those orcs are about to take several important cities. What about a secret Joint attack treaty with the skaven against the orcs at the same time, to distract the orcs with skaven attacks? And when you are building up forces to fight back against the orcs, when the treaty ends, are you going to hit them before it ends, and pay the fine, after it ends, when they expect it, or try to get another non-aggression treaty to keep them off your back? And just because you made a joint attack treaty against the orcs with the skaven don't mean you can't fight the skaven, nor that they can't raid your shit. And imagine what would happen if one sneaky little skaven from a different faction than the one you have treaties with, managed to uncover all these secret treaties…
This kind of shit makes diplomacy between even fairly friendly factions into a cloak and dagger affair full of calculated betrayals, schemes and manipulation.
