Why did a Europa Universalis/Total War hybrid never happen?

Haven't you ever played both game types, admired the tactical aspects of say RTW1 or MTW2, then played EU and enjoyed the turn based strategy, and then thought, "Why the heck can't someone combine both? It would be the perfect game.

It's frustrating. When Civ 3 came out it was so much fun, and when Civ 4 came out, I thought surely they would add a whole tactical aspect that could be a choice. Instead we got Civ 4 which was pretty boring but pretty.

I don't understand why they can't combine the two ideas as an option and cover a historical period thoroughly so that you could chose to fight out each battle and make use of terrain and tactics and weather but also have a generalized sense of outcomes based upon unit strengths and experience level.

It's rather a missed chance in computer gaming. Now the games seem more about style over substance.

Because it would be terrible.

From my experience, a lot of people who played MTW2 autoresolved instead of fighting each battle. Which is rather weird because the whole great thing about the game was taking a smaller less equipped group and winning using tactics.

Why would it be terrible to have both kinds of games in one? You wouldn't have to fight it out.

They could have been clever about it. Sins of a Solar Empire is just watching the battle take place (pretty much) and that would have been one great way. Consider the exemplary work making units that's been done by modders, and I think most of them would want to see these units in action versus number crunching in EU.

Imagine seeing units duke it out in EU!

Link to video.

That would take forever, to play and develop. They'd have to make functioning AI for the battle modes and the Grand Strategy when already the separate games are weak in those areas. It is something that is fun to think about until you take your head out of the clouds and look at what it would really take to develop a game like that. Combining two full games together isn't going to turn out nicely even if they weren't as complicated as grand strategy and RTS.

In short: It would be terrible.

Crackerbox said:

From my experience, a lot of people who played MTW2 autoresolved instead of fighting each battle. Which is rather weird because the whole great thing about the game was taking a smaller less equipped group and winning using tactics.

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Because it takes forever.

Crackerbox said:

Why would it be terrible to have both kinds of games in one? You wouldn't have to fight it out.

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This idea comes up somewhat often, but it is fraught with problems that quickly become apparent.

The first, most pressing issue is that of developer. Paradox has no major competition in the grand strategy sphere: plenty of wargames and 4X games exist but very few really have the same kind of overarching, yet still somewhat rather detailed focus. Creative Assembly doesn't do the same kind of thing, and Paradox doesn't do the same kind of tactical gameplay. I do not think either developer has the ability to properly create it. Joint-development is unlikely. A third party could try their hand at it I suppose, but that has a whole host of other issues.

Secondly, mechanical integration would be a difficult process. The AI in both series is already known to be pretty shaky, and having two completely separate systems like would exacerbate the issue. This would carry on to other weak aspects of the game, such as the already-noticeable lack of things to really do at peace in EU. The cost of making such a hybrid would dilute the strengths of both games while simultaneously compounding their weaknesses.

Thirdly, it would be incredibly time-consuming. Both series already take quite a while to play, and combining the two would lead to an even longer game. Minor wars and uprisings would take far longer to resolve. While later versions of EU have improved rebellions somewhat, it is a fact that previously rebels have been a major annoyance more than anything else. Increasing the time to deal with these is hardly beneficial.

Fourthly, while you are correct in saying you do not have to play out the battles, and could simply autoresolve, that really leads to the question of what exactly has a tactical element added? The opportunity cost involved would be enormous, and the resources involved could most definitely have been used to improve other aspects of the game. Being able to watch the battles resolve would just be a flashy and time-consuming gimmick.

Let's not forget that both Paradox and Creative Assembly have also had issues with bugs and glitches. While the former is definitely improving with regards to the base game, they still have rocky DLC releases.

Crackerbox said:

Haven't you ever played both game types, admired the tactical aspects of say RTW1 or MTW2, then played EU and enjoyed the turn based strategy, and then thought, "Why the heck can't someone combine both? It would be the perfect game.

It's frustrating. When Civ 3 came out it was so much fun, and when Civ 4 came out, I thought surely they would add a whole tactical aspect that could be a choice. Instead we got Civ 4 which was pretty boring but pretty.

I don't understand why they can't combine the two ideas as an option and cover a historical period thoroughly so that you could chose to fight out each battle and make use of terrain and tactics and weather but also have a generalized sense of outcomes based upon unit strengths and experience level.

It's rather a missed chance in computer gaming. Now the games seem more about style over substance.

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They did. It was called EB.

I think it would work only if it was exactly like EU, but you only got to fight your "important" battles via a TW type interface.

But then, what exactly defines an important battle? And why would they create a full 3D battle interface, if you only use it a couple times a game? I don't think it'd work.

I think what might be cool if you were a general - and the AI was the king and controlled the country. So basically the king would tell you "take your army to Bavaria and help General Steve with his assault on Muenchen.".. and you do that and get medals. But then that leaves you reliant on either crappy AI/computer strategy decisions or a lot of scripting.

I'm not sure if there's a good way to do something like this, but I think ther emight be something to that last paragraph ^^..

Crackerbox said:

It's rather a missed chance in computer gaming. Now the games seem more about style over substance.

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This is only true if you're talking about modern AAA games. There are some amazing things going on in the indie world, particularly around strategic/tactical/management games.

Owen Glyndwr said:

They did. It was called EB.

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What's EB?

Also star wars rebellion and empire at war are supposed to kinda do this.

But I think a big reason is fans of one type aren't necessarily fans of another type. I love civ4, don't really like sins of a solar empire or rts games anymore.

However my pc game in my head that I've been mulling around for years (I will never actually make pc games, but you know how everyone has an idea for a movie or a book? Mine's an idea for a game) is to take the mechwarrior universe and make it a civ style/rts hybrid. You would go around colonizing planets, on each planet you would also have to build cities, factories etc and then it would break down into two lower levels of play. One would be strategic deployment like mechcommander and command from rts level but you could also jump in and pilot a mech yourself like mechwarrior 4. A huge mashup of games and no one is ever going to make it but it sounds awesome in my head!

I assume Europa Barbarorum mod for Rome: Total War.

I would love something that greatly improved the total war campaign map but had either the same battles or even turn-based ones on a hex grid. Not quite EU or CK2 level of complexity sure, but something in that direction would be great. It would have to be designed to have slightly fewer battles, ie all the minor ones would be either less common or dealt with differently. Which would actually be rather realistic since in major wars most of the time there were only a few major battles and most of the smaller ones were raids or other small forces running into each other.

Civ5 would have greatly benefited from a hex-based tactical map and having actual armies instead of the kind of lousy and utterly unbelievable system of covering the land with units. Kind of like those old Imperialism games.

Others have mentioned the complexities involved, and tradeoffs. It's a thing where if EU4 has the grand strategy part 90% right, and Total War has the battles part 80% right, if you mesh them together, it will only feel 72% right since neither part will be better than it was before. And since the developer would have less time for each part than they do now, each part might be worse than it is now, too.

warpus said:

I think what might be cool if you were a general - and the AI was the king and controlled the country. So basically the king would tell you "take your army to Bavaria and help General Steve with his assault on Muenchen.".. and you do that and get medals. But then that leaves you reliant on either crappy AI/computer strategy decisions or a lot of scripting.

I'm not sure if there's a good way to do something like this, but I think ther emight be something to that last paragraph ^^..

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That sounds cool, and then I thought... isn't that kind of like Mount and Blade? I guess in Mount and Blade, you can choose where to go (though there are missions), but it's somewhat similar in that you are a commander and serve a king. Disclaimer: I've only played it once, and that was for 10 hours in one day. I haven't gone back in part due to fear of not having a life if I do.

Sort of, you can command (if you are in a position to do so) or just request other lords do stuff like go there, take this place, raid that village, follow me.

I haven't gone back in part due to fear of not having a life if I do.

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Go back and play it, now! M&B is your life now!

There are a few modpacks that add even more functionality. Floris lets you join an army, which is good for safely building up XP and cash in the early game. Floris battles also tend to be less charge ALL the time.

As for the topic, I don't really think anybody wants what they think they want when it comes to combining Total War with anything. When you try to combine things like that, stuff is lost. EU players might not want to micromanage the hundreds of battles they deal with in a single year, and Total War players probably don't want to get bogged down dealing with the more complicated mechanics of Paradox games that brought Paradox players to those games in the first place.

Yeah that is the Freelancer submod, a number of mods use it and it is pretty great.

Obviously if they did make a game that combined Total War battles and a grand strategy map they would, unless the dev wasn't very good, probably not just slap the two extremes together without adjusting so you aren't fighting tonnes of battles all the time and Total War fans can still just play the Total War games if they don't want any actual strategy when it comes to the map and management side of things.