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Thread: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

  1. #31
    Infinite Jest Member easytarget's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Yeah, i think going for an eco victory would drive me batty. I'm having enough trouble with CA's efforts to take money away from me via this artificially high corruption component they've just up and decided to throw in the mix. If I ever got the impression that CA play tested anything thoroughly I'd be ok with it, but it sometimes feels rather ad hoc.

    I understand you don't fully develop every settlement and you pick and choose what you dedicate them for, but this corruption thing just feels over blown to the extent that it drives me down a certain development path that in my opinion is the antithesis of what TW games are about, which is providing you historical settings to "what if it" w/in a game design framework that makes choices a trade off. That requires balance and a more unified design vision than I feel R2 has ever had, or alas, ever will.

    Oh well, I'll soldier on, I still quite enjoy all the DLC campaigns even in spite of the tweaks I don't agree with. Funny how games are no longer games really, they just change over time so much they end up being like BladeRunner where Ridley Scott just wouldn't leave well enough alone and all told has like 6 or 7 versions of the damn thing at this point. Seriously: which one is the real movie?

  2. #32

    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    My dislike of WoS is the really basic city battle maps. Athens looks like a generic ancient town with a wall. The Grand Campaign had a good map. Why was that not used?

  3. #33
    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    I have a question, old chaps:

    What about the names of the Persian generals? Do they have the same ridiculous names like the ones in Rome II, where you can meet Assyrians in the depths of Sogdiana or the Creative Assembly had decided to add historical Achaemenid names, like Pharnabazus or Tissaphernes?

  4. #34
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    @Myth, so how about that idea of a succession game in WoS settings?

    don't the leaders live forever in WoS?

    @Bramborough, econ victory is still very doable, in GC at least. I have pulled off two (legendary) in the last 3 weeks (one with Baktria, one with Pergamon).

    The thing you do about corruption is a bit counter-intuitive: you counter it by raising taxes (and slave population). In late campaign, I'd have close to 100% corruption negated by around 100% tax rates so I'm left with the net worth of the province as income (+ all the bonuses from builds + taxes). Even with the patch 16 corruption, I could get 21K income from Antioch alone (in late campaign).

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 




    But you're right, it's harder to pull an econ victory off in IA; simply due to lack of trading partners. The condition has been lowered though: now it's only 15 trade partners needed, not 20.
    Last edited by Slaists; 01-16-2015 at 17:01.

  5. #35
    Infinite Jest Member easytarget's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    So I can lower corruption by raising taxes and instead of killing or freeing after battles enslave them? Won't both of these raise unrest?

    And I got to say, the idea of raising taxes to lower corruption is certainly not an immersive one because it so flies in the face of real world.

  6. #36
    Dux Nova Scotia Member lars573's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Quote Originally Posted by Patricius View Post
    My dislike of WoS is the really basic city battle maps. Athens looks like a generic ancient town with a wall. The Grand Campaign had a good map. Why was that not used?
    The city wasn't built up enough. In one of my Carthage campaigns Carthage itself was besieged 27 times over the course of it. And it didn't get the fancy historically-accurate-as-CA-could-get map until city level 3.
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  7. #37
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Quote Originally Posted by easytarget View Post
    So I can lower corruption by raising taxes and instead of killing or freeing after battles enslave them? Won't both of these raise unrest?

    And I got to say, the idea of raising taxes to lower corruption is certainly not an immersive one because it so flies in the face of real world.
    @easytarget

    Raising taxes does not directly lower corruption but it compensates for the hit you get from it. The final value of the income you get from a province follows something of the sorts: TOTAL INCOME = [PROVINCES BASE WEALTH + ALL BONUSES] X [1 + tax rate % - corruption rate % + slave bonus %]. The slave bonus gets extra modifiers from slave markets (and potentially some faction bonuses).

    With EE release, CA has raised the corruption rates significantly, but they have also raised the extra tax rates you get from going from normal to high then to very high taxes. Tax rate increases used to be much smaller in the earlier versions. So, I guess, this is how CA has envisioned battling corruption in the game.

    So, if your (extra) tax rate is less than the corruption rate and you have no slaves your income will start to go down with each new region added after a certain empire size has been reached (since corruption goes up in all your provinces). However, if your tax rate + slave bonus is higher than the corruption rate your income won't go down as you continue to grow.

    In late campaign, it is possible to have around 100% (even higher in specialized provinces) in extra taxes. Corruption in the later imperium levels is of comparable magnitude. So, these two cancel each other out.

    p.s. Yes, very high taxes and slaves reduce PO. That's why the very high tax regime and high slave levels are achievable only in mid-to-late campaign when the philosophy tree has been researched fully (all the PO bonuses stack now; so does extra tax rates from tech and culture conversion). Corruption is not much of an issue in early campaign anyway.

    I also tend to have several characters max promoted politically. Each of those gives +4 to PO globally (in all provinces). 5 Hetariros generals, for example, give you a whooping +20 to global PO. Capturing the right world wonders helps too (the one in Parthia and the one in Lybia give around +5 to PO each). Also, for slaves, I boost their level only in the econ provinces (with >15 K income/turn). That way slave PO is manageable.

    You can see my tax rates, corruption, slaves and PO in Syria in the screen I provided in the previous post. Even at 45% slave income and very high tax regime, my PO is +6/turn.
    Last edited by Slaists; 01-16-2015 at 20:55.

  8. #38
    Infinite Jest Member easytarget's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Thanks for the info, I'll see how some of it applies in my current campaign. Do diplomats help here? I see you mention general attributes benefiting quite a bit.

    I remain troubled by the change, this narrows the options a player has in his/her campaign, from a game design standpoint that's not the choice I'd recommend taking on the strategic level. And if CA wanted to take this route they should have made it make sense to the player with a direct way of addressing that involved trade offs. This to me feels not unlike their civil war "fix" which I find nearly meaningless since it's so easy to avoid.

  9. #39

    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Lots of food for thought there. I've consistently run low/mid-tax, slave-free empires from the start in R2. It has worked fine, and still does for military victories (and I assume would serve as well for a cultural win). Certainly high-tax/high-slave would indeed be counterintuitive for my playstyle. But I can see how that would be the way to go for economic victory now...will have to give that a try.

  10. #40
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Quote Originally Posted by easytarget View Post
    Thanks for the info, I'll see how some of it applies in my current campaign. Do diplomats help here? I see you mention general attributes benefiting quite a bit.

    I remain troubled by the change, this narrows the options a player has in his/her campaign, from a game design standpoint that's not the choice I'd recommend taking on the strategic level. And if CA wanted to take this route they should have made it make sense to the player with a direct way of addressing that involved trade offs. This to me feels not unlike their civil war "fix" which I find nearly meaningless since it's so easy to avoid.


    I agree on your points. Just saying, that's how it works now (for now). :)

    As to dignitaries: I tend to keep them in my armies. I get much bigger "bang" for them from reducing upkeep than sitting in provinces. In the late game, if I need those extra couple K for an econ victory, I'd stick one or two dignitaries in top econ provinces to raise taxes even more.

    Another counter-intuitive thing is: dignitaries tend to pick up tax boosting traits while managing armies. So, you might want to stick a fresh dignitary in an army and level him up in tax management while doing military admin. Once he has his traits picked up, send him to the econ province.

    As to limited choices for the player: I slightly disagree. My example of >90K profit/turn and several million in the bank is extreme (yet needed for an econ victory). You don't need anything near that for a military victory or the cultural one.
    Last edited by Slaists; 01-17-2015 at 00:41.

  11. #41

    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    I too have recently started using dignitaries in armies much more often, once I noticed that they increased net income much more that way than by parking them in provinces. The trade-off is that by using dignitaries, I can't use champs for training (my previous "standard practice").

    So my style has evolved such that I use 2 or 3 armies as my main "battle force", fighting the major conquest battles; highest-end units my tech accesses, always led by own-faction general. These armies first get a champ, and I level the units up to around 6 or 7, then switch out the champ for a dignitary.

    Then I've got somewhere between 3-5 "second-line" armies. Cheaper units, don't always have cav or siege capability, often led by opposing-family generals. Used for maintaining public order in recently-acquired provinces, dealing with rebels or raiders, providing an emergency defense if I get attacked at opposite end of my empire, etc. I just plop a dignitary with them from the beginning, as I'm not concerned that much with maximizing their stats. In fact, I want the 2nd-line opposition-led outfits to be significantly weaker than the loyal battle force. Just in case I happen to blunder myself into a civil war somehow (although, as easytarget pointed out, CW has become too easy to avoid).

    With this scheme, I'm usually able to field the max number of 20-unit armies allowable at whatever imperium level I'm at, and still have a pretty decent income left over.

  12. #42
    Infinite Jest Member easytarget's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Hmm, well thanks for the additional input both of you. Think I'll take my dignitaries on the road w/ the troops and rotate champions around so as to not neglect the opportunity to buff them.

    Back in Shogun 2 and still in Rome 2 I tend to not build a bunch of armies, just maintain a few full strength ones. Ironically in a game with total war in the title I hate spending money on armies (and their associated support costs).

    Question to follow back up on the slave thing, if I start to enslave defeated enemies how often can I rely on this before I start to take a serious hit in the slave rebellion dept? Do I need to worry and therefore put some effort into buildings and/or research to deal with it, or has CA tweaked this as well (I'll admit the patch history on this game is so comically long I've long since given up keeping track, I only noticed corruption because of a thread at the main TW forum where someone was complaining about 100% corruption)?
    Last edited by easytarget; 01-17-2015 at 01:29. Reason: grammar

  13. #43
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Yeah, 100% corruption is quite possible at imperium VII (or VIII), especially if no philosophy tech has been researched.

    As to slaves: I find that taking them in battles (rather than sacking cities) is the "safest" way as the increase tends to be small. You should still check your slave pops after battles to see what's the best course of action in the next battle. It seems, the best place to check is your capital. That's anecdotal though. For me the biggest bump in slave pop tends to happen there. Once got close to 90% slave pop in Baktria and the darned thing was declining only 0.1% per turn, LOL...

    I do use sacking if I want to boost slave pop fast though. For example, when I have 5 hetairos simultaneously and all are of young age (+20 PO combined across them).

    p.s. by the way, some say, the slave bonus is calculated outside the "extra tax - corruption" equation. As in: TOTAL REVENUE = [BASE WEALTH + BONUSES] X (1 + TAX RATE % - CORRUPTION %) + [BASE WEALTH + BONUSES] X SLAVE BONUS %.

    Now that I look at it, it does not seem to make a difference one way or another; only if the bonuses were applied differently, lol. Anyway, some folks point this out.
    Last edited by Slaists; 01-17-2015 at 04:20.

  14. #44
    Infinite Jest Member easytarget's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Well, don't know what this signifies, but I'm guessing that the Persians who have kept to themselves for the most part after taking over the eastern section of the map are no longer going to be content with staying over there.


  15. #45

    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Well...that looks rather ominous....

  16. #46
    Infinite Jest Member easytarget's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    It will be interesting to see how aggressive they become as I've got this one pretty well nailed down, I think I'm like 3 short of hitting the 55 provinces and need to get either a military alliance or just go ahead and conquer the last couple of settlements needed to complete the province list unique to the Athenian victory conditions.

    This is also usually the point where the existing military alliances unravel for no reason other than they appear to be programmed to do so when the player gets close to hitting the victory conditions. I ran into the same sort of thing all the time in Shogun2, it manifested itself in kamikaze like attacks anyone left in the game along with vassals turning on you when you were one province short, then you suddenly right at the end find yourself actually further way from the goal. Sort of amusing actually because you knew it would put that last bit of pressure on you to complete the campaign.

    Hopefully this little twist isn't quite as dramatic as realm divide, guess I'll find out shortly (I've only one full army over on that side of the map and it's 5 or 6 turns for anyone else to reach that area of the map).

  17. #47
    Infinite Jest Member easytarget's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    While I wouldn't call this insurmountable, it is a tad troubling nonetheless because the size of this army, and this is just the stacks I can see all in one place setting off in my general direction now, is larger than my entire current army. I don't keep large standing armies typically. So this is going to create an interesting race at the end, I need only to complete two provinces at this point, I've got the count, although that's likely to lose some ground as Persia eats up some of my allies territory or directly takes some of mine. I think I might just keep pressing to hit the victory conditions rather than directly confront this army.


  18. #48
    Infinite Jest Member easytarget's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Well, as it turned out the Persians stayed over on that side of the map harassing my allies, which left me with the mop up at the end, funny thing about the victory conditions, never noticed till I had completed the province count and grabbed the right particular provinces that I also need to hit a recruitment target for ships of 60, at the point I noticed this it was the only thing I still needed so I can to go into a crash course of recruiting which still took like 5 or 6 turns while I hoped I didn't lose control of one of the key provinces.

    Playing Athens was fun, as I've said before, all the DLC for me are way more than than the GC. Next I guess I will have to play the other side and take a run as Sparta!

  19. #49

    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    The ones that annoy me are sometimes there's a mercenary unit requirement. And I never use mercenaries otherwise, except perhaps in extreme emergency cases where I'm trying to extract a beat-up army from a bad situation, and then I only keep 'em for a turn or two. So I just leave the mercenary thing to the end, and just hire a bunch to meet the victory condition. Even then I kinda begrudge having spend money on those bloodsucking rascals.

  20. #50
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Quote Originally Posted by Bramborough View Post
    The ones that annoy me are sometimes there's a mercenary unit requirement. And I never use mercenaries otherwise, except perhaps in extreme emergency cases where I'm trying to extract a beat-up army from a bad situation, and then I only keep 'em for a turn or two. So I just leave the mercenary thing to the end, and just hire a bunch to meet the victory condition. Even then I kinda begrudge having spend money on those bloodsucking rascals.
    Mercs actually become very affordable pretty early in the campaign. Military tech gives a decent upkeep discount across all troop types + the extra upkeep discount targeted at mercs. Those stack with grand camp following army's tradition, dignitary's upkeep discount and any discount you're getting from a politically promoted general. In the end, my mercs are cheaper in terms of upkeep than regular troops (this is due to the extra upkeep discount mercs get from the tech tree) even for factions other than Carthage. Carthage can get them to zero upkeep easily:

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    "Every nobleman has his price"... yeah, right.

    So, I use the good mercs (Cretan archers, Syrian archers, veteran hoplites, Syrian elephants, etc.) wherever I need them. Naturally, mercs gravitate towards my armies that have dignitaries embedded in them. Then again, some 70-80 turns in, I am making so much cash that I do not care about merc upkeep even in regular inexperienced armies.

    @easytarget, good job on that campaign. I'm myself grinding through a Corinthian one now. The winter was a "nice" surprise for my treasury once it struck (in October, LOL...)
    Last edited by Slaists; 01-20-2015 at 22:04.

  21. #51
    Infinite Jest Member easytarget's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Yes, the first time winter hit for real I was taken aback by how badly it dinged the economy. And it went on for a few months too, not like some one turn thing. Actually pretty cool. I just wished they'd programmed the Persians to do more that simply posture with a bunch of armies and instead came out an expanded into the map a bit. It made for a potentially interesting end game threat that didn't actually amount to anything. I may have to pick up more mercs, I've been avoiding using them for cost reasons as well.

  22. #52

    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Lol, Slaists obviously is in an entirely different league than most of us as far as having this game's economy figured out. Or...more likely, simply has more discipline and attention to detail than I do to fully maximize and synergize the various unit/character/faction/etc buffs together.

  23. #53
    Infinite Jest Member easytarget's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Yep, no doubt about that.

    I tend to only pay attention when it interferes significantly enough to get me to focus in on it, like corruption did. On the whole I like decisions that are meaningful w/o becoming tedious, bit of a fine line for the devs I know.

    But to each his own!

  24. #54
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Quote Originally Posted by Bramborough View Post
    Lol, Slaists obviously is in an entirely different league than most of us as far as having this game's economy figured out. Or...more likely, simply has more discipline and attention to detail than I do to fully maximize and synergize the various unit/character/faction/etc buffs together.
    LOL, simply too many hours with the game.

  25. #55
    Strategist and Storyteller Member Myth's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    The rulers are immortal in CiG, but not here as far as I know. I will have to test it.

    The first scucession game we had was on a very unstable version of Rome II. The game is a lot more polished now, we can give the main campaign a go too. I forsee problems with missing DLC however.
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    These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth;
    (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.
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  26. #56
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Quote Originally Posted by Myth View Post
    The rulers are immortal in CiG, but not here as far as I know. I will have to test it.

    The first scucession game we had was on a very unstable version of Rome II. The game is a lot more polished now, we can give the main campaign a go too. I forsee problems with missing DLC however.
    In WoS, with 12 turns / year (or 6, forgot) you're pretty much guaranteed to have immortal generals unless they die in battle. Maybe the first generation who are older to start with will die of old age over the campaign, but probably not the next generation.

    Sure, grand campaign sounds fun too. Any faction picks? I have all the DLCs btw.
    Last edited by Slaists; 01-23-2015 at 15:22.

  27. #57

    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Any mode with more than 1tpy seems problematic to me for a succession game; the faction leader will (usually) live too long for more than 2-3 people at most to participate. As one example, in my current Augustus (4tpy) Egypt campaign, I'm at 17AD, so just over 200 turns, very close to final victory conditions...and my original faction leader just now died of old age last turn.

    Some other ideas for "reign" length demarcation:

    - Set number of turns. The precise number would depend on whichever particular campaign we'd use. But I'd think that number would be somewhere between 30-50, depending on how many players wanted to participate, and how many times through that player list we'd want to rotate.
    - Mission milestone accomplishment. (with some allowance for the wrinkle that it's not uncommon to basically hit two milestones at once on successive turns).
    - Imperium levels perhaps?

  28. #58
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    I agree, anything more than 1 TPY is problematic for a succession game.

    So how about a Grand Campaign game? We have quite a few faction choices now. Let's pick a category. The way I see it, there are 2:

    1. Relaxed: Rome, any Greeks, Carthage, Armenia, Parthia, Pontus
    2. Less relaxed: any barbarians, raiders, etc.
    Last edited by Slaists; 01-24-2015 at 07:56.

  29. #59
    Member Member hoom's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    Syracuse in HatG has Hiero II die fairly early, which is a PITA when you didn't expect it...
    So I wound up conquering with Heironymous.
    maybe those guys should be doing something more useful...

  30. #60
    Member Member hoom's Avatar
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    Default Re: Wrath of Sparta! impressions and discussion

    For those of us waiting for a special: WoS is US $5.09 on Steam this weekend (till 16 Feb).
    maybe those guys should be doing something more useful...

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