Earlier this year, Creative Assembly unveiled Total War Saga. Billed as independent stories that "focus on a specific point in history", Thrones of Britannia marks the first—set in 878AD on the British Isles in the aftermath of the Viking Invasion of Britain. Now, the developer has revealed details of its map, including its size, history, factions, provinces, settlements and more.
First of all: size. Thrones of Britannia's map sound huge, dwarfing that of Attila's 23-times over. "The overall map is comparable in size to the whole Grand Campaign map in Attila," says Creative Assembly in a new blog post. In doing so, the dev says this is the most detailed version of the British Isles ever to feature in a Total War game.
Paying typical meticulous deference to history, faction distribution and names, Britannia's map aims to be as historically accurate as possible. I particularly liked the following excerpt about naming conventions:
With names in-game we’ve decided to stay true to the era, West Seaxe instead of Wessex for example. We did have all factions in their modern names for a while, but it didn’t feel right, especially when it came to the Five Boroughs in the Danelaw and the settlements around there. These are the smaller factions located between East Angle and Northymbre, that represent the individual territories that existed there.
Having the ‘Vikings of Cambridge’ come to raid you felt a bit… off. For us it conjured images of hardened warriors coming down the river on punts! It didn’t match the feeling of authenticity we wanted, so we reconstructed Old Norse names for them based on available research, and followed this approach for all the other factions.
On the provinces front, Creative Assembly says it's trying something new in Thrones of Britannia against the likes of Total War: Warhammer or Attila. Here, provinces are still made of multiple regions with 6 building slots and garrisons, however minor settlements do not. The latter also don't have walls, and will comprise either one or two building slots. Building types will also be predefined and relevant to the land around them.
"In this way the system is more of a cross between the Shogun 2 provinces, with resource buildings located outside the main settlement, but combined with the Rome 2 and later system that allows for each of the minor settlements to be controlled independently," the blog post adds. "This means that the vast majority of the buildings that give you food and money exist outside the safety of the major settlements walls. This means that you will have to think about how you keep them protected but it also opens up a new set of offensive opportunities.
"You could for instance sack the farm provinces of an opponent to trigger a food shortage or occupy their mines to cut off income and cripple their ability to maintain a strong army. Attacking the minor settlements in a province can also be a good way to force a fight by pushing a stubborn opponent to step out from strong defences to protect their interests."
Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia is due at some point in 2018. Read the latest blog post in full in this direction.
