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I was sad to see that THQ going under would delay (perhaps permanently but I doubt it) the release of the Dawn of War series. However, the news that SEGA (who owns Total War Series) has picked up Relic and the rights to Warhammer 40k is incredible. For about a year now I have day dreamed about the possibility of a 40k Total War though I never thought it would actually happen. Now, it absolutely can. '

This thread will serve two purposes. First, I want to share my brief ideas on a Warhammer 40k and to hear your feedback. Second, I want you to share all of your own ideas about a 40k Total War title.

My Ideas:

"World Map"

1. That the galactic map be limited to one or two Segmentum. It provides a clear boundary for the galaxy but infinite possibilities because Segmentum's are vast.

Imperium

1. I would like to capture is the sprawling and disorganized nature of the Imperium,

2. Multiple playable Imperium factions (a la Rome Total War). These would be named after a major planet such as Ultramar or Cadia.

3. Imperium factions would draw from Imperial Guard, Imperial Navy, Space Marines.

4. Space Marines could only be trained from select recruiting worlds and would have limit to how many could be trained (base this number on balance purposes but still be a good game mechanic to reflect the Codex fluff. When you exceeded the limit some voice saying the Codex prevents recruiting any more space marines could sound off. This could be adjusted for say a chapter like the BT's that's cool with breaking the codex).

5. Recruiting worlds would be set to train certain types of Space Marine units (CC/Long Range/Anti-Armor) based on the chapter they belong too. Salamanders would have kick ass flame thrower units for example.

5. There would be multiple minor autonomous factions which would underwrite the Imperium. More on this below.

6. Fighting heresy would be a core game mechanic. It would be based on a scale system using order/heresy/efficiency. You'd want to maximize order and efficiency while decreasing heresy. One Imperium faction might have special means of achieving that (for a heavy price in coin) while other factions rely more on brute force of Witch hunters. Some planets would be more susceptible to heresy than others but ideally the longer you hold on to a planet the more resources Chaos would have to spend converting it to heresy. Witch hunters might decrease heresy but they could also decrease efficiency (hard to work hard when your entire family was just killed the other day for heresy). Depending on their skill a Witch Hunter might increase order only in the short term (they aren't good at rooting out real heresy so they kill enough innocent people that in the long term the planet is more liable to engage in non-chaos related rebellion),

7. Imperium would start off with more planets than other factions but obviously have to respond to way more enemies. I remember a game I played as Lithuania where I was fighting a war on four fronts on Hard/Very Hard and for every real victory I made a new catastrophe opened up on another front. The slow and inexorable breaking of my country was beautiful especially in light of the serious gains I would occasionally make on one front only to lose the same amount of ground on another.

Naval Warfare

1. I would like this to be a major part of the game. Naval blockades and epic space fights abound. I thought Star Wars Empires did a good job of naval warfare and I'd like to see something similiar only with more ships and a little more depth to the naval fights (ie more options like boarding).

2. Default transports would automatically created when you grouped your army with your navy but if the navy was attacked while your troops were grouped with them those default troop transports would be targetable. Furthermore, upgraded transports you could purchase would be an option so that you could carry more troops in one transport with more armor (like a Rok for example).

3. Invasions during naval battles. If you don't want to risk your army you can just attack a planet without troops. But if you do bring them along you can engage in a invasion of the planet while the naval combat is going on. Meaning you could lose the naval battle but potentially still land an army capable of taking the planet anyways.

4. Raids. This would be someway of attacking a planet without engaging or engaging only part of their fleet. On the ground you essentially just do as much damage as possible before escaping. Big for Eldar but other factions could do it too.

5. Warp is a huge part of the game too. Warp storms are more frequent with the likelyhood of damage or destruction of your fleet being based on the size of the warpstorm vs the strength of the ships gellar shields. Different factions could discover ways of predicting, using or resisting warp storms. I'm imaging a Chaos player attacking an opposing factions fleet and only aiming for their gellar shields before retreating. They know that the fleets path will take them toward a huge warpstorm next turn that will devastate the fleet.

6. Warp routes would connect planets but not always in a coherent way. Meaning one warp route if you discovered it could potentially take you from a planet on one side of the map all the way to another while the other one may just lead to a nearby planet. Players will start with a pretty comprehensive knowledge of warp routes but more could be discovered.

Webway

This would be a separate set of routes only available to the Eldar/DE that would allow them to feth with the minds of their opponents. How did a massive Eldar army drop into a planet where I control all the adjacent warp routes? Webway bitch now suck my AVATAR OF KHAINE.

Planets

I haven't decided if planets should have multiple stages of invasion. If they had multiple stages I'd imagine each hardpoint has a set number of buildings that could be constructed. This would make raiding targets important. Do you want to take out their barracks so they are delayed from recruiting troops or knock out the orbital cannon so the naval fleet has a better time of it when they jump in next turn? Decisions, decisions.

Minor Factions:

1. I imagine there being numerous autonomous factions underneath the Imperium. Let me give you an example. Blood Ravens are located on X planet in the Aurelia subsector. They will attempt to conquer all of the planets in the sub-sector until they are destroyed or win. Once all Aurelia is within the control of some Imperium designated factions than you can declare crusades for the BR to embark upon. Any planet they conquer will be turned over to whoever called the Crusade but I'm a bit iffy on determining on how to share them between the major Imperium factions. Do they all share them and its just a first call to crusade wins? Or base it off of which major Imperium faction controls the majority of the sub-sector? That needs work.

2. Minor factions can be turned against you. If Chaos conquers BR's planet than some event about the corruption of the BR's sounds off (enter Kyras) and they will crusade about for Chaos until you kill Kyras.

3. Every faction would have minor factions that they could interact with (some more than others).

Minor Events

These things could be triggered through action and/or time. For example maybe claiming one planet for the Eldar opens up the knowledge of a new webway route while converting a key human planet for the Tau could trigger a negative consequence of spawning an Imperium army ready to go for a counter-crusade. Lots of fun options to keep the strategic fighting engaging.


More to come but hopefully this is enough to chew on for now.

 Shlazaor wrote:
I was sad to see that THQ going under would delay (perhaps permanently but I doubt it) the release of the Dawn of War series. However, the news that SEGA (who owns Total War Series) has picked up Relic and the rights to Warhammer 40k is incredible. For about a year now I have day dreamed about the possibility of a 40k Total War though I never thought it would actually happen. Now, it absolutely can. '

This thread will serve two purposes. First, I want to share my brief ideas on a Warhammer 40k and to hear your feedback. Second, I want you to share all of your own ideas about a 40k Total War title.

My Ideas:

"World Map"

1. That the galactic map be limited to one or two Segmentum. It provides a clear boundary for the galaxy but infinite possibilities because Segmentum's are vast.

Imperium

1. I would like to capture is the sprawling and disorganized nature of the Imperium,

2. Multiple playable Imperium factions (a la Rome Total War). These would be named after a major planet such as Ultramar or Cadia.

3. Imperium factions would draw from Imperial Guard, Imperial Navy, Space Marines.

4. Space Marines could only be trained from select recruiting worlds and would have limit to how many could be trained (base this number on balance purposes but still be a good game mechanic to reflect the Codex fluff. When you exceeded the limit some voice saying the Codex prevents recruiting any more space marines could sound off. This could be adjusted for say a chapter like the BT's that's cool with breaking the codex).

5. Recruiting worlds would be set to train certain types of Space Marine units (CC/Long Range/Anti-Armor) based on the chapter they belong too. Salamanders would have kick ass flame thrower units for example.

5. There would be multiple minor autonomous factions which would underwrite the Imperium. More on this below.

6. Fighting heresy would be a core game mechanic. It would be based on a scale system using order/heresy/efficiency. You'd want to maximize order and efficiency while decreasing heresy. One Imperium faction might have special means of achieving that (for a heavy price in coin) while other factions rely more on brute force of Witch hunters. Some planets would be more susceptible to heresy than others but ideally the longer you hold on to a planet the more resources Chaos would have to spend converting it to heresy. Witch hunters might decrease heresy but they could also decrease efficiency (hard to work hard when your entire family was just killed the other day for heresy). Depending on their skill a Witch Hunter might increase order only in the short term (they aren't good at rooting out real heresy so they kill enough innocent people that in the long term the planet is more liable to engage in non-chaos related rebellion),

7. Imperium would start off with more planets than other factions but obviously have to respond to way more enemies. I remember a game I played as Lithuania where I was fighting a war on four fronts on Hard/Very Hard and for every real victory I made a new catastrophe opened up on another front. The slow and inexorable breaking of my country was beautiful especially in light of the serious gains I would occasionally make on one front only to lose the same amount of ground on another.

Naval Warfare

1. I would like this to be a major part of the game. Naval blockades and epic space fights abound. I thought Star Wars Empires did a good job of naval warfare and I'd like to see something similiar only with more ships and a little more depth to the naval fights (ie more options like boarding).

2. Default transports would automatically created when you grouped your army with your navy but if the navy was attacked while your troops were grouped with them those default troop transports would be targetable. Furthermore, upgraded transports you could purchase would be an option so that you could carry more troops in one transport with more armor (like a Rok for example).

3. Invasions during naval battles. If you don't want to risk your army you can just attack a planet without troops. But if you do bring them along you can engage in a invasion of the planet while the naval combat is going on. Meaning you could lose the naval battle but potentially still land an army capable of taking the planet anyways.

4. Raids. This would be someway of attacking a planet without engaging or engaging only part of their fleet. On the ground you essentially just do as much damage as possible before escaping. Big for Eldar but other factions could do it too.

5. Warp is a huge part of the game too. Warp storms are more frequent with the likelyhood of damage or destruction of your fleet being based on the size of the warpstorm vs the strength of the ships gellar shields. Different factions could discover ways of predicting, using or resisting warp storms. I'm imaging a Chaos player attacking an opposing factions fleet and only aiming for their gellar shields before retreating. They know that the fleets path will take them toward a huge warpstorm next turn that will devastate the fleet.

6. Warp routes would connect planets but not always in a coherent way. Meaning one warp route if you discovered it could potentially take you from a planet on one side of the map all the way to another while the other one may just lead to a nearby planet. Players will start with a pretty comprehensive knowledge of warp routes but more could be discovered.

Webway

This would be a separate set of routes only available to the Eldar/DE that would allow them to feth with the minds of their opponents. How did a massive Eldar army drop into a planet where I control all the adjacent warp routes? Webway bitch now suck my AVATAR OF KHAINE.

Planets

I haven't decided if planets should have multiple stages of invasion. If they had multiple stages I'd imagine each hardpoint has a set number of buildings that could be constructed. This would make raiding targets important. Do you want to take out their barracks so they are delayed from recruiting troops or knock out the orbital cannon so the naval fleet has a better time of it when they jump in next turn? Decisions, decisions.

More to come but hopefully this is enough to chew on for now.

The Total War system honestly would break down with WW1 and beyond style combat. It's not meant to handle large numbers of small squads which replaced the massive bricks of formations once the machine gun made all those pretty lines a great way to get slaughtered. Order of War would probably be a better example to look to, having a similar scale for battles but being world war 2 oriented.

Have you heard of Men of War? That would be my dream 40k video game style. Total War would be appropriate for WHFB, which according to rumors we may be getting in a few years.

 Shlazaor wrote:
"World Map"

1. That the galactic map be limited to one or two Segmentum. It provides a clear boundary for the galaxy but infinite possibilities because Segmentum's are vast.

I think nothing bigger than a single sector should be the maximum size of the world. An entire Segmentum overrun by chaos or orks would result in ultimate lorerape and massive nerd rage across 40k community.

Also, as anyone who has ever played Spore or GalCiv knows, an even moderately to scale galaxy is ridiculously huge and you are highly unlikely to conquer it all.

Sega dont own the 40k license. They bought the fantasy license, but passex on buying the 40k license. Ecen if they did own it, Sega will never make a 40k game in the total war style, they would have to create entirely new game mechanics for it to work, however, slitherne, or something like that, are makeing a 40k strategy game, but they don't own exclusive rights to it

 Toastedandy wrote:
Sega dont own the 40k license. They bought the fantasy license, but passex on buying the 40k license. Ecen if they did own it, Sega will never make a 40k game in the total war style, they would have to create entirely new game mechanics for it to work, however, slitherne, or something like that, are makeing a 40k strategy game, but they don't own exclusive rights to it

Relic went with Sega I believe, so they'd still be making 40k games.

Relic did get merged with Sega, but they didn't bring the 40k IP. As far as I know, it was THQ who owned the IP, and when they went, the IP went swell. Sega only have the rights to fantasy.

 Avatrass wrote:

 Shlazaor wrote:
"World Map"

1. That the galactic map be limited to one or two Segmentum. It provides a clear boundary for the galaxy but infinite possibilities because Segmentum's are vast.

I think nothing bigger than a single sector should be the maximum size of the world. An entire Segmentum overrun by chaos or orks would result in ultimate lorerape and massive nerd rage across 40k community.

They could just declare it non-canon. I've never heard anyone complain that an Egyptian army could invaded England in Medieval Total War II.

 Toastedandy wrote:
Relic did get merged with Sega, but they didn't bring the 40k IP. As far as I know, it was THQ who owned the IP, and when they went, the IP went swell. Sega only have the rights to fantasy.

Even if the rights didn't get transferred, GW is almost certainly going to give Relic the rights back so they can make DOW 3.

Probably will, hell, it would be stupid not to. But as for 40k total war, very unlikely.

The total war engine wouldn't work for 40k, fantasy however is a different ball game. I've spent many hours playing away at the fan made warhammer mod for Rome Total War, was really well done in its own way.

 Toastedandy wrote:
Probably will, hell, it would be stupid not to. But as for 40k total war, very unlikely.

Just wait and see if CA's Fantasy battle total war game works out.

Judging by the succsess of the call of warhammer mod, very likely that it would do brilliantly. But total war would not work for representing 40k, if they made a larger scale rts, like dawn of war, but far larger, with naval battles and a dark crusade style campaign, I would be so happy.

 Toastedandy wrote:
Judging by the succsess of the call of warhammer mod, very likely that it would do brilliantly. But total war would not work for representing 40k, if they made a larger scale rts, like dawn of war, but far larger, with naval battles and a dark crusade style campaign, I would be so happy.

What you mean like Supreme Commander?

Someone needs to make a 40k mod for that. If it wasn't for the pigs ugly models, I'd be allover that

 Toastedandy wrote:
Someone needs to make a 40k mod for that. If it wasn't for the pigs ugly models, I'd be allover that

I'm fairly certain there already is a 40k Supreme Commander mod.

Speaking as someone who made the grave mistake of buying Empire: Total War, the Total War paradigm does not work for simulating combat when ranged attacks are the primary attack method. I know it doesn't apply to all 40k factions, but the Imperial Guard for instance would just not work at all.

Bludbaff wrote:
Speaking as someone who made the grave mistake of buying Empire: Total War, the Total War paradigm does not work for simulating combat when ranged attacks are the primary attack method. I know it doesn't apply to all 40k factions, but the Imperial Guard for instance would just not work at all.

Eh that's debatable, but as someone who's playtested world war one mods, once machine guns enter play and thus invalidate large infantry formations as a valid tactic, Total War becomes unworkable. Real and actual vehicles, aircraft, and BVR artillery only further muck up it's formula.

World in Conflict style.

Not super huge scale, but still dozens of tanks and plenty of infantry, and support weapons from off map. Also fits 40k with no base building.

 -Loki- wrote:
World in Conflict style.

Not super huge scale, but still dozens of tanks and plenty of infantry, and support weapons from off map. Also fits 40k with no base building.

Combine that with a 4x style overworld map (a la galciv and alpha centauri) and I think you'd have a good deal. Space battles should be handled like in sins of a solar empire in the tactical map and like Master of Orion/Galactic Civilizations in the overworld map. On the ground you'd have large formations but in the tactical map you'd command smaller groups who would try to decisively affect the large scale battles which would go around in the background.

GW already gave another company the rights for a new 40k game, as seen here http://www.matrixgames.com/news/1021/Slitherine.links.with.Games.Workshop.on.new.licensing.agreement

Sega has the rights to Warhammer Fantasy, not 40k. 40k went to another company.


That said, a Total War style game would be awesome. But there would be a few things that would have to be done to make it work IMO.

1) The campaign map and battles would have to be 2 dimensional like all the other Total War games have been. Incorporating the 3-d aspect of space would be insanely difficult and would likely make the game suffer in other areas. IE: No 3-d space battles.

2) It would probably only work on maybe a sector or segmentum level. Putting the whole Galaxy in the game would be tough. I could even see the game having a randomly generated Campaign map feature, and maybe a couple set maps. Different factions depending on the location the sector is.