A Total War Saga: TROY - Any Thoughts?

Started by ArizonaTank, September 16, 2021, 12:15:49 PM

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ArizonaTank

"A Total War Saga: TROY" has been out for almost two weeks now. Steam reviews are mixed. Otherwise I haven't heard anything about this one.

If you have played it, what are your thoughts?  Asking for a friend.
Johannes "Honus" Wagner
"The Flying Dutchman"
Shortstop: Pittsburgh Pirates 1900-1917
Rated as the 2nd most valuable player of all time by Bill James.

al_infierno

I dabbled a bit when it was free on Epic.  Unless you're really hankering for Total War in yet another costume, I'd say give it a pass.  I found it to be a significant step back from Thrones of Britannia, and even that one struggled to retain my interest.
A War of a Madman's Making - a text-based war planning and political survival RPG

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge.  War endures.  As well ask men what they think of stone.  War was always here.  Before man was, war waited for him.  The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.  That is the way it was and will be.  That way and not some other way.
- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian


If they made nothing but WWII games, I'd be perfectly content.  Hypothetical matchups from alternate history 1980s, asymmetrical US-bashes-some-3rd world guerillas, or minor wars between Upper Bumblescum and outer Kaboomistan hold no appeal for me.
- Silent Disapproval Robot


I guess it's sort of nice that the word "tactical" seems to refer to some kind of seriousness during your moments of mental clarity.
- MengJiao

ArizonaTank

Quote from: al_infierno on September 16, 2021, 02:19:19 PM
I dabbled a bit when it was free on Epic.  Unless you're really hankering for Total War in yet another costume, I'd say give it a pass.  I found it to be a significant step back from Thrones of Britannia, and even that one struggled to retain my interest.

Thanks, it does sound like a "pass"....heck, its already on sale.
Johannes "Honus" Wagner
"The Flying Dutchman"
Shortstop: Pittsburgh Pirates 1900-1917
Rated as the 2nd most valuable player of all time by Bill James.

W8taminute

Quote from: ArizonaTank on September 17, 2021, 09:13:09 PM
Quote from: al_infierno on September 16, 2021, 02:19:19 PM
I dabbled a bit when it was free on Epic.  Unless you're really hankering for Total War in yet another costume, I'd say give it a pass.  I found it to be a significant step back from Thrones of Britannia, and even that one struggled to retain my interest.

Thanks, it does sound like a "pass"....heck, its already on sale.

Which says something because checking on the remastered version of RTW 1 shows that it's still at full price and has not been on any of the recent Steam sales. 
"You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

Romulan Commander to Kirk

MengJiao

Quote from: ArizonaTank on September 16, 2021, 12:15:49 PM
"A Total War Saga: TROY" has been out for almost two weeks now. Steam reviews are mixed. Otherwise I haven't heard anything about this one.

If you have played it, what are your thoughts?  Asking for a friend.

  I dunno.  The reviews on steam are so varied it makes you wonder if there's not something interesting buried in there somehow.  I might look at it in a few years.

solops

No interest in yet another TW. They still have yet to fix problems floating about in most of the current TW games.
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

Gusington

I own it on Steam because the myths and legendary units they brought in interested me, and I also know next to nothing about that period of history. Haven't fired it up yet but will be 'soon-ish.'


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

MengJiao

#7
Quote from: Gusington on September 20, 2021, 02:00:01 PM
I own it on Steam because the myths and legendary units they brought in interested me, and I also know next to nothing about that period of history. Haven't fired it up yet but will be 'soon-ish.'

   It's kind of sad that the whole TW thing is slowly popularizing itself out of existence by trying to situate itself in front of an audience that is presumed to have "heard of"...say Rome or Attila or hey!
The Trojan war.  You've heard of that, right?  When it might be better if they just calmed down and focused on putting together games that made sense on their own.  The problem with the Trojan War for them is nobody really knows what the basic economy and society of the Aegean was like in say 1200 BC.  All that is known archaeologically and from the Egyptian regime that survived the catastrophic mess at the end of the Bronze age is that nearly anything you can name completely fell apart.  Now that might make an interesting game (going down hill with the Hittites or the Assyrians or whatever regimes were in the Aegean (plus Crete -- always a weird case, plus Cyprus always an even weirder case etc.).  But you know gamers are not going to like late New Kingdom Egypt or the Shardana and no one knows who the Sea People were or if they were just an Egyptian expression for people burning down empires around the Levant.

Gusington

It makes for a pretty good-selling book (which I have not read, yet):

https://amzn.to/2XvNgIW

IIRC the Trojan War is the most ancient history I was taught in school, in literature class...along with the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Haven't read them or anything similar in 30 years but I am going to start, and probably play Total War: Troy at the same time.

I like pairing my reading and gaming when I can.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

MengJiao

Quote from: Gusington on September 21, 2021, 08:23:23 AM
It makes for a pretty good-selling book (which I have not read, yet):

https://amzn.to/2XvNgIW

IIRC the Trojan War is the most ancient history I was taught in school, in literature class...along with the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Haven't read them or anything similar in 30 years but I am going to start, and probably play Total War: Troy at the same time.

I like pairing my reading and gaming when I can.

Wow!  The book looks compelling!  I was educated as an archaeologist so I tend to wonder how objects got transported to all the odd places where one finds them more or less piled up.  The problem with the end of the Bronze age is you have a coherent trading system in the Levant that makes some sense and you can find where things came from and where they went.  There are even inventories in the Mycenean citadels that note what went where and why (Linear B)...then from about 1250 to 1150 that all collapses.  A few of the big empires (Egypt and the Assyrians) survive more or less but everything else suddenly disappears only to re-emerge rather fitfully and very differently with iron-armed warriors running things very differently BUT with some traditions that seem to go back to the world before the collapse.  So things changed radically -- but not totally.  Kind of an intriguing set of problems.

Gusington

I did not know that you went to school for archaeology! Can we call you Indy?

I admit that I never really knew how sophisticated the world was around 1300BC. Other than some basics about the Assyrians and Egyptians, I thought everyone else was running around and smashing each other over the head with rocks.

I now know...that I was wrong :)

Now that we're talking about it I will probably get that 1177 book sooner rather than later. It is the first exposure I have had to the 'Great Cataclysm' and does sound really interesting!


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

MengJiao

Quote from: Gusington on September 21, 2021, 09:00:23 AM
I did not know that you went to school for archaeology! Can we call you Indy?


  I never adopted the whip, but the hat and jacket descend from The Secret of the Incas (Charlton Heston 1950) and that I could manage back when I did some archaeology.

  So yes, the big collapse ( starting in say 1250 and running quite a while after 1177 even) is intriguing.  There's just enough evidence on either side of the event to suggest there's some way to get a handle on what happened.  As someone trained in the American Southwest, I would say its possible that nothing much happened except that elite consumption stopped and people dispersed back into less intensive modes of production BUT there are some of signs of major destruction, refortification and/or progressive abandonment of large sites and a lot of small remote defendable sites coming after that.  So some kind of shift in warfare was involved and weapon technology did change (though exactly in what way isn't all that clear).  Trade also shifted dramatically and you get Phoenicians all over pretty fast taking up the slack after the collapse knocked out the big players or made trade more rewarding or something.  So something fairly major happened.  I guess I'd better read 1177 and see what the new take on all that is.

Gusington

Sounds like you're suggesting it was man-made catastrophe like a massive ancient world war.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

Toonces

I didn't know you were an archeologist, Indy.  That's pretty freaking cool.
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

al_infierno

A War of a Madman's Making - a text-based war planning and political survival RPG

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge.  War endures.  As well ask men what they think of stone.  War was always here.  Before man was, war waited for him.  The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.  That is the way it was and will be.  That way and not some other way.
- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian


If they made nothing but WWII games, I'd be perfectly content.  Hypothetical matchups from alternate history 1980s, asymmetrical US-bashes-some-3rd world guerillas, or minor wars between Upper Bumblescum and outer Kaboomistan hold no appeal for me.
- Silent Disapproval Robot


I guess it's sort of nice that the word "tactical" seems to refer to some kind of seriousness during your moments of mental clarity.
- MengJiao