Demo sessions are often terrible ways to see a game, doubly so at conferences. You want to sink into a game at your own pace (and with unbroken access to fresh cups of tea), not get dropped into the middle of the action, hoisted up again 20 minutes later and plonked into another section of a game. However, that's the nature of these things sometimes and it suits some games more than others.
Total War: Warhammer absolutely does not suit it.
Grand strategy games are built for armchair generals. Not just any armchair, either, a wingback one where the leather on the arms is nearly worn through where said general has rested their elbows in deep contemplation. They're not games made to be played in short bursts. As such, I can't really speak to Total War: Warhammer 40,000's end quality from its Gamescom demo, but perhaps it says something that after an hour where I played 20 minutes of the battle tutorial, 20 minutes of the campaign tutorial, and 20 minutes in a scenario where my Space Marine army faced an overwhelming assault from an ork horde, I still came away keen as the baked beans found in an Astra Militarium ration pack to play the full game.
I think we'll largely skip over the two tutorial stages, they showed off what you would expect from a Total War game: battles take place on large maps and to succeed you need to wield your units' strengths and mitigate their weaknesses, largely through how you position them on the terrain. Unlike other games in the series, pretty much every soldier in Total War: Warhammer 40,000 is armed with a gun, so there is a greater emphasis on ranged combat. Maps also revive Empire: Total War#s cover system, so that focus on ranged weapons is matched with choices you can make in positioning. Basically, if you stick your Space Marines in a covered position on the top of a hill, they will eviscerate any Ork Boyz that try to run up the hill to meet the Imperium of Man's boys in blue in hand to hand combat. Reverse their positions and the Space Marines may become overwhelmed by the charging masses.
"A lot of RTS games are more focused on the matchup," battle product owner David Petry tells me after my demo, referring to the rock, paper, scissors tactics of games like Age of Empires, where you use cavalry against archers, archers against infantry, and infantry against cavalry. "We care a lot about matchup, it's really important. But positioning also really matters. Positioning is one of the most important things in Total War. It should almost trump match up."
As for the sliver of campaign I saw, I built up bases, I moved armies, I launched into battles. It's very Total War. Though, I didn't get to see any of the interplanetary gubbins that mark this game out from others in the series. Nor did I see much of the base building that gives you additional support in battles. Though, as Petry says, that part of the game will be important for "teeing up the right stuff for a battle."
When you're eyeing up a battle ahead, in traditional Total War games, the best preparation will be to bolster your army. In Total War: Warhammer 40,000, there are off-map playing pieces you can use to tip the odds in your favour. If you have a fleet in orbit on the planet, they can provide bombardment abilities, great big flesh-melting lasers and strafing runs from gunships. You can also build massive howitzers that launch cannon shots on your enemy from miles away. "Making sure that you've got a fleet with the right stuff on it, with the right people in the drop pods, and all of that ready to help you out in that battle [means] you can deploy the things that you need where you need them in order to win," Petry says.
Though, as I say, I didn't see the link up between these off-map components in the demo I played, in all my battles that prep work had already been arranged.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/i-got-whomped-by-an-ork-horde-in-total-war-warhammer-40000-definitely-on-purpose-to-teach-you-a-lesson-about-positioning
