So ...

[frogbeastegg]

Ok, fast again; this is my last day off for a bit, and I want to make the most of it.

1. Thanks for the tip about drivers which work with BI for certain; I'll try them today.

2. I played the Saxons because I'd seen quite a few posts here and on .com from players who had had a very hard game as them, right from the start. Including one person who was totally wiped out by the WRE.

3. I played another hour last night. I took two more WRE settlements easily. Now I have several thousand in the bank and a good income. Nothing else has changed at all. Things just got even easier.

4. Yes, I'm "whining" that I haven't seen any action at all in 25 or so turns! That's several hours of play (at my normal rate, more like a week of play), several boring hours, and I'm losing interest in continuing. I'm on the attack, and I've never even seen an enemy army. Maybe WRE is totally overstretched and busy on another front ... but my spies are now all over the place in there, around Rome, near Spain, off along Greece, as well as in France. I'm not finding any armies belonging to anyone, or any evidence of their other borders being crushed. I can't even claim to be garrisoning my cities well, or supporting my provinces with armies - I've 1 unit of peasants in each city, and a governor in two of them. I have two armies, one stuffed in the far end of Denmark rebel smiting, and the other off conquering the WRE. My eastern border and my south eastern border are entirely undefended, my western border only lightly guarded by the same army doing all the WRE conquering. It's been that way for a long time.

Doug has a good point - why are they playable, if this is all you can expect from them?

And my own question: why do other people have such different experiences with the faction? Why do they get a very aggressive WRE which crushes them swiftly? Or multiple barbarian tribes attacking them at once? I've seen more posts like that than ones saying they are easy and peaceful, though I have seen some of the latter type too.

Or perhaps another question: How many turns of boredom do I have to survive before I am 'due' something more interesting? Games are supposed to be fun …

5. Rome shell: thanks. I shall use the no-fog cheat, I think, and see what is going on in the world in my Saxon game. See if I can find out why everything is so quiet.

5a. So there's no longer an easy text file to edit, with the player's starting money on each difficulty? Why not? Or do factions each have different amounts of starting cash? If that's so, I'd presume any edits there would also affect the AI. Hmm, :notes down the Rome shell method of removing starting cash:

6. Recommend me a faction, then. I want one with good infantry and passable cavalry. I don't want to play cavalry heavy just yet. I also don't want the hardest faction just yet, because that leaves me nothing to go on to. So no WRE.

Things I do actually like so far
Lest I forget.

1. I love the way multiple units in the shield wall formation will form a solid block when told to use the group formation 'single line'. Love it! I strongly hope this has carried over to phalanx units in the classical era game (has it?)

2. The battle AI does seem improved, even if my experience with the campaign AI says it's the same old comatose non-opponent. It's not a huge or spectacular change, but it's more ... solid now.

3. So far I'm liking the changes to archery. Though I am wondering if javelins have armour piercing of some kind now? Or are all missiles rather weak against very heavily armoured units? Be nice if that had gone back to the old TW way, and it's provide some way other than melee to take out those tricky heavily armoured units.

4. I do like the shield wall formation itself. Not sure how much use it is, but it looks nice

5. The unit names are better, for the most part.



EDIT: Checked the whole map for my Saxon game in Rome shell. WRE is remarkably intact and peaceful, with only a few rebels as obvious threats. They don't have many armies at all, and the ones they do have are puny. They can't really fight anywhere because they have nothing to fight with. Does it start as bad as that? Or has something drastic happened, which has not left more obvious signs for me to find on the map now? ERE is being beaten on by Gothic, Roxulani (SP?) and Vandal hordes, and once they stomp their way through a few provinces they will most likely all decend on the WRE. The Huns are being Hunnic at the Sarmatians. The [can't remember name, but the livid purple people near the Saons at the start] are fighting the Bergundii; it looks like something of a stalemate. Otherwise, it's quite quiet.

[lismore]

Of course, you could argue that I should be taking the fight to 'em, but I figured to weather the first onslaught before counterattacking-- it just hasn't happened yet. Plus it seems very much a two-front war-- there's nothing going on in about 3/4 of my empire and no potential enemies except for the odd rebel army or two. Guess I had envisioned this massive empire beset from all sides. Sounds like the WRE is a whole different proposition, and it's only one campaign, but for me so far it's been quiet-- TOO quiet.

Hi swordsman

Its interesting what you say. Im 50 years into a VH ERE campaign and I havent had a barbarian cross the frontier. The vandal and hun hordes declared war on each other: the sarmatians turned horde but have just walked backwards and forwards, the goths have just sat there and according to the faction scrolls the WRE is the biggest. All the barbarians are staying put.

The biggest challenge so far has been chasing swimming kurdish javilenmen

Is there a way to mod the barbarians to make them want to fight?

[Jambo]

YEah, sometimes campaigns in BI seem to play very differently from each other.

My first as the Saxons (H,H), I made a few really bad mistakes - using an assassin on the Franks when they were allied making them go to war with me when I was already at war with the Burgundy, WRE and Celts. This number of foes proved unsustainable eventually.

Second as the Goths (H,H), I got trampled on by the Vandal and Hun hordes. Eventually my own horde ended up where the Saxons start - mainly as a result of running as far away from trouble as I could! Eventually this campaign had to be given up.

Third and my current campaign as the Alemanni (H,H). With the knowledge of the previous two campaigns and avoiding making the same mistakes, I've now got a fairly good foothold in central Europe and look well on my way to an easy victory. Without wars on multiple fronts I've been able to simply rip into the WRE and like people have reported before me, there seems a major lack of any worthwhile and sizeable stacks anywhere. I can only assume that many of the other factions are simply bankrupt?!

The support costs are high and barring the large starting treasury, money is incredibly hard to come by for building significant armies. It's possible the support costs are just a little too high in BI (and RTW?) as there really aren't any major stacks/battles anywhere on the campaign map other than those belonging to and relating to factions in horde mode.

Cheers
Doc

[frogbeastegg]

I swapped my drivers for older ones, and went to start a new game as ERE. I was immediately greeted with this:

Yes, the world was flooded again. This is ... I think the fourth time I've seen this now. The map doesn't scroll smoothly like this, and as I scroll mountrains and other unidentifiable artifacts appear and vanish all over the screen. Alt-tabbing out of the game and back fixes this, until it appears again after a battle or when I load the game back up after a break.

Here is the drugged up campaign map I get after battles roughly a third of the time:

Scrolling the view so the messed up part of the map is hidden, then returnnig to that area fixes this problem.

Also, anyone else using 1280X1024 as a strat map resolution? If so, is half your interface fuzzy, like this:

Not the best of pictures, I'm afriad. The fuzziness is bad enough that it's hard to tell which buildings are what. I know it's an unsupported resolution, but in RTW it worked without a hitch, and I'm wondering if the fuzziness here is related to the resolution or to the other problems I'm having. I tried the map in 1024X[whatever it is] and the interface was pin sharp, as it was in RTW. But the rest of the map was not.

I did a repair install of BI, and still the problem persists. BI was installed fresh onto a clean install of RTW which wasn't even a minute old. Nothing is modded, except the resolution, minimal interface, and no green arrows, and they are all mods I had working without issue under RTW's various versions.

Anyone got any ideas? Anyone else experiencing this?

The only thing I can think of is that my video card might have been damaged after all when my PC got fried, but if so it's very ... strange, give how the errors are not consiatant and fix themselves if the game is prodded a bit. Other games work properly, DX diag reports no problems, I'm not installing drivers over old ones, or anything obvious which might give me a helping hint here.

Oh - I keep forgetting to ask, but can anyone else disband assassins? I couldn't get rid of my unwanted Saxon one when I decided I didn't want to pay his upkeep. There was no disband button on him.

[Garvanko]

That is just plain weird.

Sometimes the sea turns black for me on the campaign map, but Im suspecting this is something to do with night battles, though im not sure. Whenever that happens, I am offered the option of a night battle.

[Kraxis]

You know I had that fuzziness in RTW but now it is gone. So it seems we are exactly opposite there.

Just for info, the WRE starts out with 1000 denarii and an empire in the red. No surprise they haven't got any armies to speak of you go about capturing their provinces.
In my ERE campaign they took a nice long time before they began to compete with me to the advanced spot, so time will help their economy it seems.

[gmjapan]

Nope, no assasin disband option. I just sent mine into missions with horrible odds hoping to get slain by bodyguards.

This showed me something I was impressed with - their attributes can reduce for poor performances! They used to just escape with their lives.

Also, in battles, what is this ctr+t you are using? Decrease speed? I just press 'p' when the phone rings. p = pause.

[TinCow]

Those are definitely video related problems. Since you have no issues in other game or programs, I'm almost certain it's the drivers and not the card itself. If you can't get the official drivers to work properly, try using Omega Drivers. They can often fix what the official ones cannot.

[frogbeastegg]

Big, big, big froggy grin here! Weee!! Take a look at this, turn number 4 from my new Saxon campaign:


Here's the WRE, attacking in force the settlement I captured just last turn with a small, dashed together army scraped out of my starting units. I'm outnumbered roughly 3:1, and half of that army is hunters, and so a bit crap in a stand up fight. By the way, the Roman general is far better than mine.


And here are my lazy, good for nothing, never attacks or tries to expand neighbours, beating me to the siege of the other rebel town. No idea what troops they have, because my spy is now trapped inside that city. That second army of mine consists of 3 levy spearmen and my faction leader, i.e. every unit I've just built and my only other general.

I think I'm in trouble My medium and short term plans just went down the toilet Oh, goodie, goodie, goodie!

I didn't get a screenshot because I had no chance, but while I was besieging that rebel town I was attacked by a second rebel army I didn't even know was there. I survived that only because I managed to kill one and turn about to face the second army, fighting them individually. That's why there is a famous battle marker next to the town.

Now this is more like it! I've saved the game (sadly out of time to play it now) but I'm going to continue this one. My other Saxon game has gone in the bin, saved deleted so I can't confuse them. This is all I wanted I hope it continues this way.

So now I must abandon that second rebel province to the purple people, and go and try to stop WRE before they take my second town. If that fails, I'm going to be doing last ditch defences of my starting city. Erm, I find myself wondering if the Saxons can horde ...

Why a second Saxon game? Bored curiosity to see if it would be any different. What did I do differently in this game? Er ... nothing much. I've built levy spears instead of keels, which makes my armies marginally bigger in terms of men. I think I am going after Campus Chattii a turn earlier, maybe. The only big difference really is that I haven't had to attack the AI non-rebel factions, because they beat me to it.

Now if only I had got this on my first game, not my second.



Alt+t is the time acceleration hotkey.

[Doug-Thompson]

Big, big, big froggy grin here! Weee!! Take a look at this, turn number 4 from my new Saxon campaign: ...

I think I'm in trouble My medium and short term plans just went down the toilet Oh, goodie, goodie, goodie!

That sound you hear, even those of you across the seas, is me breathing a sigh of relief.

Edited P.S. I haven't checked the tech help forum, but the video issues brought up here deserve attention. Tech saavy folks, the fact that an LCD screen was in use here couldn't make any difference, could it?

[Byzantine Prince]

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

[SpencerH]

Does anyone know whether with BI we have to continue to order units to pursue routed/retreating enemy (you know the 'feature' in RTW where a pursuing unit would stop for inexplicable reasons forcing us to right-click again and again so that they would inflict casualties)?

[TinCow]

There's still the problem where they they will run alongside the enemy unit rather then into them, but I have not seen my chasers stop on their own in BI unless the enemy was off the map or dead.

[RabidGibbon]

From First hand experience, Saxons can't hoard. I imagine its because there start province is one of their "Victory Condition" provinces.

[Geoffrey S]

I'm afraid I can't help with the biblical graphical glitches, but I can confirm the building icons and the like were fuzzy in RTW under 1024x768. Haven't the foggiest what causes it though.

Now this is more like it!I've saved the game (sadly out of time to play it now) but I'm going to continue this one.

Good job that load/save bug is outta there!

[chilling]

Frog, your graphical problems?

What size is your LCD monitor. They usually have a native resolution that they will run best in, generally 1024x768 for smaller panels (15"/17") and 1280x1024 for larger panels (19+"). As you're running at 1280x1024 I pressume you have a larger panel that has this as it's native resolution. If not that could be the cause of the blured images you get.

I have a similar setup to yours but have a 9700pro card. It runs without any graphical problems. Your video card could be overheating, try running the game for a while with the side of your case removed. Also you could try the Omega drivers that you can get from here. http://www.omegadrivers.net/ I've always used them and find them to be extremely stable.


Tsunami Total War, now there's an idea.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I just got BI. Started a campaign as the goths. All went fine, although laggier than R:TW, until I had fought a battle against the vandals for around 30+ minutes. The vandal horse archers were out of ammo and came swimming across the river. I ordered my heavy cavalry to attack. Result? The cavalry rode out into the stream and DROWNED! My two family members and key troops for success in the remaining phase of the battle, which I knew I could win, now ended in a terrible defeat...

Anyway, apart from this IMO terrible bug, BI has been a nice surprise in many aspects. Battle speed seems lower, morale of all units seem better, and battle mechanics overall seem more like M:TW. But I've only played two battles so far, so it might be too early to say so.

[TinCow]

I ordered my heavy cavalry to attack. Result? The cavalry rode out into the stream and DROWNED! My two family members and key troops for success in the remaining phase of the battle, which I knew I could win, now ended in a terrible defeat...

Anyway, apart from this IMO terrible bug

That's not a bug. In the manual it says that tired or exhausted troops may drown if they try to swim. Only swim well-rested units.

[Bob the Insane]

I don't think Heavy Cavalry is supposed to be able to swim, so it probably wan not exhaustion...

I will have to give this a go... Wait until a unit is swimming and then send a non-swimming unit to attack them and see what occurs..

Scout: The enemy are swimming the river sir!!
Commander: ah-ha... Bob, take your cavalry down there and kill them all...
Bob: umm... errr... I don't think...
Commander: I don't pay you to think, get going...
Bob: But I don't think I can swim in all this armour!!
Commander: Are you refusing a direct order!?!? I will have your head!!!
Bob: Ah.. well... of course we will attack immediately!!

Bob: Right lads, our target is the men in the water, form line and CHARGE!!!

Splash... gurgle... bubble...

Swimming Barbarian: Well that was odd!!!

[Rodion Romanovich]

They were just about to get up from the water, so I reckoned a charge at that time would be devastating as they didn't have their formations ready, sort of. But instead, the unit just ran down in the water. It was a set of 3 fresh units. And they DIDN'T have the swim ability. I thought the logical thing would be to stop just above the water line and kill the incoming enemies, but no, they decided it was best to suicide charge down into the water...

[Kraxis]

I'm getting more and more into the 'thinking' of the WRE.

I have noticed in my own several campaigns (mostly tests and two serious ERE campaigns) that the WRE loves to attack Campus Frisii. In every single case they have attacked and taken it. I have also noted that several others have indicated that the WRE has taken that city in their games, and now froggy experiences an attack when she takes it early.

Campus Frisii = WRE attack!

[Doug-Thompson]

They were just about to get up from the water, so I reckoned a charge at that time would be devastating as they didn't have their formations ready, sort of. But instead, the unit just ran down in the water. It was a set of 3 fresh units. And they DIDN'T have the swim ability. I thought the logical thing would be to stop just above the water line and kill the incoming enemies, but no, they decided it was best to suicide charge down into the water...

This needs to be on a bug thread. It sounds like CA could have created an unforeseen loophole when they took away the prohibition of any land unit entering the water at all. Moving the heavy cavalry into the water wouldn't have worked, but attacking might have sent them down.

At the very least, it's a possibilty that others should look at. Put it on a bug thread and you may get "Yeah, that happened to me" responses. It also might explain the sudden disappearance of land units while the player wasn't paying close attention. After all, it's not like we can replay recordings of campaign battles and find out what happened any more.

[Kraxis]

This needs to be on a bug thread. It sounds like CA could have created an unforeseen loophole when they took away the prohibition of any land unit entering the water at all. Moving the heavy cavalry into the water wouldn't have worked, but attacking might have sent them down.

At the very least, it's a possibilty that others should look at. Put it on a bug thread and you may get "Yeah, that happened to me" responses. It also might explain the sudden disappearance of land units while the player wasn't paying close attention. After all, it's not like we can replay recordings of campaign battles and find out what happened any more.

I'll add it right away.

[Viking]

This needs to be on a bug thread. It sounds like CA could have created an unforeseen loophole when they took away the prohibition of any land unit entering the water at all. Moving the heavy cavalry into the water wouldn't have worked, but attacking might have sent them down.

At the very least, it's a possibilty that others should look at. Put it on a bug thread and you may get "Yeah, that happened to me" responses. It also might explain the sudden disappearance of land units while the player wasn't paying close attention. After all, it's not like we can replay recordings of campaign battles and find out what happened any more.

This bug was found in the demo already.

[Doug-Thompson]

This bug was found in the demo already.

[Azi Tohak]

I rather like this thread. My only thought right now is the SW bent of the hordes, but that is no complaint as that is what actually happened. They left the purple alone and went after the red. Maybe I need to try a barbarous horde (after I actually WIN a campaign [I never took 50 provinces in RTW, just got boring]) Perhaps Goths.

Azi

[frogbeastegg]

Take a look at this:

That would be the Roman horde. None of the units are junky ones either; the worst kind are the limes guard (whose name escapes me). There are quite a few comitansii (SP?) down there, and even scholae palatina. It's only about 374AD.

My army consists of 4 levy spears, 2 keels, 2 hunters, and a few green general. My other army is 3 levies and an even worse general.

I managed to beat off that siege I posted before with my two armies combined, but I lost something like half my men. Those comitanses(SP?) are nasty! The second and third armies in that first picture retreated a bit and joined forces with a general, then came after me.

Since then it has been near constant warfare. WRE attacks me; I just barely hold them back, we both take a bit to rebuild, then they come at me again with more and better units. Meanwhile, my currently pitiful income of 100 denarii per turn means I'm being ground down. Now I can't afford either new or extra troops, and the WRE is here in very great force. My original faction leader died in valiant, almost single-handed defence of a city against the WRE. By some miracle his small bodyguard beat the larger and better Roman one. I have only 3 generals now, one of whom came from a marriage, and all of them are pretty crappy.

I need to expand to get the resources to build more troops, but I need the troops before I can expand. It's great fun I guess maybe if I survive this next WRE assault they might have lost so much my next replacement army can break out and pillage the nearby WRE city. I doubt I will survive, if all those WRE armies come at me soon. Simple weight of numbers, and on a one to one basis almost all of those Roman units are better than mine.

So all in all it's been great fun, and the only cloud on the horizon is my fear that if I lose this game and have to start another one I won't have such aggressive and fun factions to play with again. I don't want another game like that first one.

I did like the way two units of rebel peasants tried to swim a river while I defended the bridge. I shot them to death, and the bodies floated gently away ...



Has anyone seen a battle where the enemy general doesn't appear on the map? I attacked one WRE army (3 comit ... thingys, 1 archer, 1 general) and the archers acted as the general, with no proper general and bodyguard.



I took Campus Frisii in my first game too.

I think my monitor is 17 inch. Or maybe 19. Overheating isn't the problem; the cooling and so on is all fine. Omega drivers ... I might try them, but on my next day off. Which is days away.

[CountMRVHS]

I've been reading about a WRE general who starts the game with a "bodyguard" of Archers instead of cav..... this might be yer problem.

CountMRVHS

[TinCow]

So all in all it's been great fun, and the only cloud on the horizon is my fear that if I lose this game and have to start another one I won't have such aggressive and fun factions to play with again. I don't want another game like that first one.

I am actually hoping that I will lose the game I'm playing. I want to play the best I can and still be completely eliminated. When that occurs, I will have found a TW game that I will never get bored of. Up until now I either win or quit due to boredom.

For an update (from my WRE campaign described in the "easy" thread), the Vandal horde remnants finally moved against me again, but they were nowhere near as coordinated. They laid siege to another city, but their two stacks remained seperated and I was able to attack the beseiging force without drawing in the other army. My garrison force was mostly poor troops but my two armies were outnumbered by themselves, so I decided to let the AI control the sallying garrison to shift numerical superiority in my favor. I rushed my force into the middle of the field and formed a box with a shieldwall in front and comitates (sp?) guarding the sides and rear with cavalry and those 'hide anywhere' troops in the middle. The Vandals enveloped me and tried to crumble the corners of my box. Shifting units around allowed me to hold. While this was going on, my AI army came up from my rear, engaged and drove back the flanking enemy horse archers and then attacked the Vandals flanks.

Not only did the AI army vastly aid my victory, but they also were solely responsible for eliminating the enemy horse archers with combined use of light cavalry and foot archers. The friendly AI general also vigorously engaged routing enemies and was responsible for some 400 casualties alone. This is the first time I have EVER been pleased with the tactics of a friendly AI army. I will be giving them more opportunities to aid me in the future.

[Bob the Insane]

There is some mention that this may be a type of bug, that if you look through the units file, after the general's bodyguard the next viable Roman unit is the Archers and something odd is happening there...

I have seen this myself playing as the WRE...

Interestingly I started a Saxon campaign myself last night to see the issues you had brought up. 15000 is alot of starting funds, but it goes quickly and if you had any less I don't think you would stand any real chance at all. I too took the two nearby rebel provinces and then got into a bit of an arguement with the Franks and then the WRE... I think the WRE (and the ERE for that matter) are having a lot of problems with rebels which has diverted their attention away. I noticed that Colonia Agrippina was manned by only one general. and I had some cavalry and an assassin in range... So I took a chance and sent the assassin. With only a 30% chance he suceeded and left he town undefended for my cavalry to ride in and loot the place...

That was just before I saved and finshed last night so next I have to decide whether the keep the province or not, and see what the WRE response will be...