This series of articles explores our ideas for the next era that should be explored in Creative Assembly’s Total War franchise.
Overview and Scope
Setting: Bronze Age 3000-1000 BC – The Fertile Crescent.
Other Total War veterans may believe this would just be a rehash of Rome, but older and boring – but I believe the potential for exploring this era is full of opportunities and new perspectives. After all, these were the first civilizations such as Ancient Egypt and Babylon. As such, this was when the first truly organized armies formed, culminating in the first empires like the Akkadians and Assyrians. Creative Assembly has already played a little with this era with Total War: Troy, so we say why not go all the way and present the greater Eastern Mediterranean map?
Proto-Economics
One element that was introduced in Total War: Troy is that its economy is not currency-based. This makes sense as money as we know it wouldn’t be widely adopted for centuries. Instead, the currency is measured in trade goods such as grain, bronze, wood, stone, and gold being most valuable. Each item contributes to your buildings or sustains your armies. This is something that can be explored further to include other materials that were widely traded: jewelry, tin, marble, ivory, and different types of livestock.
Factions
Including both the major and lesser-known players of the era, we propose the following factions.
- Egyptian Empire
- Babylonia
- Mycenean Greece
- Nubia
- Hittites
- Kaanenite States
- Kingdom of Israel
- Assyrian Empire
Additionally, later campaigns could have you following King David’s Jerusalem or exploring the dawn of civilization from one of the first recorded cities – Ur.
Finally, an open-ended question of history is what led to the Bronze Age Collapse. We would like to see you answer that question with blood by taking control of the Sea People.
The era and assortment of empires should end around 1000 BC, as that’s when Iron started to emerge and would become the ultimate game-changer. Iron would give your armies superior quality weapons and armor as such it would make a compelling arms race. Any further down this timeline then we would be heading to Rome territory, and we would be in for a lazy extension of Rome 2 (*cough* Attila *cough*).
Tech Tree
Our Tech Tree would reflect the dawning days of social and military organization. Not just weapon upgrades or army reform, but also seeing an organized system of government the first time.
Martial Development
Similar to Rome, you would develop the core doctrines of your military by satisfying 3 families:
- Officer Corps
- Troop Divisions
- Mercenary bands
Economic Development
How you build your empire is often as important as what you’re building. You will have 2 major avenues to employ your citizens, with the path you choose defining your empire to your peers.
- Organized state labor (proto-socialism)
- Economic incentives (proto-capitalism)
Most importantly (and controversially), you will have the option to allow or prohibit slavery in your empire, whether owned by the state or by the people/nobles. Production may increase with it, but your people’s happiness and your relationships with your peer empires may be in jeopardy.
Diplomacy
Similar to previous titles, you will foster relations with your neighbors through mercantile trade and foreign ambassadors – depending on how advanced your economic development has become.
Technology and Craftsmanship
Weapons and similar innovations will be incremented as you gain access to not only raw materials themselves but the experts who know how to craft them. (It’s useless to be sitting on a copper mine if you’ve got no idea what it can do)
Stone
The starter materials let you build only wood clubs and spears to fight like native tribes.
However, you can start mining (or trading) for access to more lucrative materials like…
Copper + Tin = Bronze
After gaining access to enough copper and tin, you can finally make bronze spears and sickle swords that will cut through wooden weapons and armor.
(Crude) Iron
Strictly an end-game material to avoid spilling over into the Iron Age, the most advanced civilizations can create Iron short-swords. The materials to create these will be kept prohibitively expensive to keep them from becoming standard issues among the legions, but elite guards and units may adorn themselves with the Valyrian Steel of the era.
Horse Domestication
Independent of your economics and materials, the science and art of horse domestication/breeding will be critical to building your cavalry units. Early domestication will grant you chariots, but only through investment into selective breeding and stronger horses will let you form the first mounted cavalry units.
Gameplay
Though unlikely to become a reality, ideally the gameplay would fall back to a similar system to Rome 2 – as that appeared to be the peak of large-formation combat in the series. The overly stiff and flashy combat animation system from Three Kingdoms has not translated well to large-scale pitch battles as we’ve seen it in Total War: Troy.
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