Being a filthy colonial our fair commonwealth overlords do not deign to provide us with the television of the glorious motherland (can I include any more tropes in that sentence?
) I can't watch the series (yet) but I guess it'd be worth giving a short spiel for the uninitiated on Total War.
Effectively, Total War is like a wargame, your unit are made up of troops that move in formation. However, command and control is instant, a click of a button gets the units moving instantly. Of course, presumably command and control issues are shown by the teams have 2 generals and 2 captains (at least in the original series that is all up on youtube, I enjoyed that - mostly) who have to communicate - and miscommunicate, with each other.
The problem with Total War is that a great deal of it is arcadified. Formations - particularly in the later ones, don't really act like they should (cavalry WILL still charge into contact with infantry, even if they are in square) and in Napoleon Total War (which I presume they used for the Waterloo game) unmodified, units don't even shoot in volleys (!!).
Whilst it's an ideal gateway drug for historical gaming and should be lauded for that, it unfortunately fails in almost all counts in historical accuracy. I'm struggling to find a game equivalent (without pissing people off) - but imagine trying to play the Battle of Waterloo in full historical accuracy mode using the rules for two Empire armies in Warhammer Fantasy. Your figures might look right (Cuirassiers = knights) but it'd play radically different to the real thing.
The one game they might've used is Scourge of War Waterloo, unfortunately, that game looks like a crap - and would be a disaster if put up on TV. Unfortunately, Total War has no direct competitor, and so we are left with Total War which in recent years usually puts out absolute tripe on release and might - if its in a good mood - fix some of it later on.
Anyway, despite the grumbling here, I'm still interested to watch it, but I won't be holding my breath. Ideally, you'd get a bunch of people in a Nato command bunker to play out World War III, but that's not happening - yet.
P.S. There was a TV show somewhat recently that was a televised version of I think a NATO wargame (or something that took place in Britain, they billed it as the first time such a thing had been shown) does anyone know what it was, presumably by now it'll be available to get a hold of in the antipodes.
12 October 2010, 02:32:14 PM
