Total War: The Hitler Problem

[Evo]

I did a quick post the other day on (the new look) The Reticule briefly surmising what I expect to see in the next game in the Total War franchise. One of the comments on that post led to one of my co-writers to write about The Hitler Problem

I bring these two things to your attention as I know that a few people are fans of the Total War series, and The Hitler Problem is a very interesting read as well as being a very debatable topic.

Some of the comments already present on these two pieces are also quite interesting.

 

[VictimOfScience]

That's the snag that Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix ran into back when LucasArts was developing it. Germany was and is such a huge market for adventure games that putting Hitler and Nazis in the game would assure poor sales in the world's most important market. Totally sucks though. ;(

 

[Shakermaker]

Total War has never been about politics. Which, in a twisted way, the holocaust was. So Millennium: Total War or whatever the fictional game would be called, could work for me without the possibility of exterminating the Jews. And concerning slave-trade, it is possible in MTW2 but it's just one of the many commodities. That Empire doesn't have any doesn't really bother me tbh.

And concerning a (semi-)modern warfare TW-title, I am all for it. I don't know how / if Creative Assembly could ever pull it off, since it would be an even bigger departure from the original concept of the series (esp. the gameplay in the RTS part of the game) than Empire will be, I certainly want to see them try.

 

[Bob_Marley]

Theres been plenty of political simulations games that allow you to do this sort of thing. The Hearts of Iron series for example.

To me its a non-issue. The past is the past and its all a part of what we are today, no matter how terrible that past was. There is a great deal more value in facing these things as they are rather than hiding them and trying to pretend they never happened.

 

[Bad^Hat]

I haven't actually played a Total War game (much), but reading that article made me realise that not a single WWII game I've played has ever touched on the holocaust. A wise decision, no doubt, but it helps to hammer in the point that games aren't really ready to step up alongside films and other forms of media in terms of storytelling and mature content.

 

[Solaris]

A mordern total war game would be crap. th ebattles wouldnt work

 

[NamelessHenchman]

'Twas a good read. I'm a long-time fan of the series, started with Medieval:Total War 1, then Shogun and eventually Rome:TW+BI and M2TW. While I wouldn't be thrilled to see the series advancing to the 20th century warfare(or god forbid, sci-fi as in lazers and robots!) this viewpoint is interesting. However, I don't think CA's games have ever been all that historically accurate nor ballsy enough not to give into the demand of political correctness.

The partial solution to this dilemma is already here : Total Wars have an extremely(imo)dedicated modding community that would make dozens of mods to get the gaming experience historially correct, as has been done in the past. I'm pretty sure that slavery will find itself back to E:TW through mods some day. It's a blessing that TW franchise has such a modding community, since Rome and Medieval 2 are disgustingly easy and the mods also expand the game to new settings and eras we couldn't even dream CA making themselves. So gamers get to play Hitler and CA can avoid losing important markets.

 

[Kadayi]

I'd rather they revisited and revamped Shogun:total war tbh. There's enough modern warfare/WW2 shit out there already.

 

[Mr Stabby]

The biggest problem facing a possible 20th century total war, was the lack of infantry formations in the 20th century.

 

[Blackthorn]

WWI would be awful in a strategy game, mainly because the lack of strategy. You'd just have the "Send Another Few Hundred Thousand to Their Death" button until your opponent is defeated through economic stresses.

 

[Mutley]

WW2 in a Total War game would be good but I think it will take a lot (even with the following of the series) to beat what CoH brought to the table for WW2 Strategies.

 

[Kadayi]

WW2 in a Total War game would be good but I think it will take a lot (even with the following of the series) to beat what CoH brought to the table for WW2 Strategies.

Also there's less opportunity to incorporate political marriages etc into the game mechanics. All that sort of thing has no place any more in a modern setting.

 

[Bob_Marley]

WWI would be awful in a strategy game, mainly because the lack of strategy. You'd just have the "Send Another Few Hundred Thousand to Their Death" button until your opponent is defeated through economic stresses.

We have the benefit of hindsight, if you look at the tactics used in the late war then there is a great deal of strategy to be made use of. Mines (as in tunnels with mahoosive explosives dug under enemy positions), minefields, creeping barrage, night raids, snipers, etc.

The problem is that unlike how other TW games work its virtually impossible to have a single, short, decisive enguagement in WWI style combat.

But I do have to agree with most of the other people in the thread, beyond the late victorian era the TW concept does not work very well.

 

[Acepilotf14]

That's all fairly correct, but there's already a game that you can get a mod for that let's you do that(minus the RTS battles.)
Europa Universalis.
And that is terribly accurate when it comes down to nation positions(in M2:TW, bullshit on there being a Spain.) and politics.. portugal expands like hell, and it wasn't until I looked through the world map on different start dates did I find out how much of a juggernaut Spain really was in the 17th century. While in my own game of EU3, I was dragged into a world war with me and france on one team, versus some small nations(I think burgundy), Portugal, and England. I was assaulted on all sides(as Castille) but managed to keep my head and killed all the foreign invaders, and proceeded to invade portugal. Was I thinking about how many men must have died to save our country? No. I just wanted to subjugate Portugal under my rule.. those bastards! Taking my iberia!

EU3 is more of a quasi-political/military game, whereas Total War is more about.. well, war. You don't have to make one alliance, while in actual historical terms, alliances were pretty much commanplace so that it wasn't an unfair war. (See the Triple Entente, the triple alliance, triple triple, Axis, Allies...) While Total War is all about expanding your empire and killing those bastard French who are after your Pyrenees mountains, and less about politics.

 

[Krynn72]

Rome 2: Total War plz