View Full Version : SP - Iron Man Rules
Jo_Beare
10-19-2002, 18:30
Does anyone play with self imposed rules to level the playing field with the AI.
These are a few that I have been considering.
1. No more than one spy in a enemy province. Eliminate player supported rebellions in AI controlled provinces.
2. No destroying buildings. Eliminate pillaging your opponents to the stone age.
3a. Army can not be composed of more that 25% of any single type of unit. No spamming uber units and rolling over your opponents.
3b. Peasants would be exempt from (3a) and must be kept at least 50% of the units of the standing army.
3c. Use the auto train feature to decide which troops to train.
4a. No unprovoked attacks. You can not declare war on anyone unless they declare war on you first.
4b. Crusades would be the exception to the unprovoked attack. Allow players to take up the attack against Muslims and excommunicated catholic factions.
4c. Crusades can not be supported by non crusading armies. Any additional units to be placed in a crusade will have to be placed in the crusade before it leaves a player controlled province.
5. No auto resolve castle assaults.
Just some ideas to extend the fun and challenge of the game. Some of the items might contradict each other (3b, 3c).
JoBeare
insolent1
10-19-2002, 19:12
Just play Polish expert on high or late period. Thats the toughest I have played. I have played all the supposed other factions on hard & none are as hard as the Polish.
About the 50% pesants I would love to use that as its historically acurate but in most of my games I end up fighting 20-30 stacks of almohads & pesants just won't work on them.
btw in my latest campaign the almo's have 2 full stacks with just AUM in them...ah christ
The Scourge
10-19-2002, 19:52
My iron man rule is that I,m only allowed to fight battles with what I'd consider an army as opposed to a garrison force.That's battles involving my King or a prince or one of the more noble generals(At least got to be a Knight.)
All others are auto resolve,no matter what.
And never save and refight battles.
anymapkoku
10-19-2002, 19:59
Real iron man rules are:
1)Not allowed to hire or train any units besides peasants.
2)Cannot abuse saves. That is, no reloading a save unless you had actually stopped playing at that point or your game crashed or something(unintentionally).
3)Play on expert.
spiffy_scimitar
10-20-2002, 01:32
Last Iron Man game I played, I resolved take over the world WITHOUT TRAINING ONE SINGLE UNIT. If you're truly a good player..
you'll be smart enough not to, 'cause the idea's retarded.
solypsist
10-20-2002, 02:01
no save and refight battles.
no eliminating factions (by me, anyway)
anymapkoku
10-20-2002, 04:50
Anyone can beat the game by hiring a unit on easy and letting the computer autocalc their battles for them:/
RabidMonkey
10-21-2002, 05:25
Hey spiffy does that mean you cant retrain your starting units either?
RabidMonkey
10-21-2002, 07:25
It would be really interesting to work out iron man rules for each faction, to better reflect how that faction worked historicly. I dont have any examples for this idea yet but it could be fun. Maybe limiting the type of troops you can use or something.
Play Almohads without AUM. See if you have the willpower to do so.
Quote Originally posted by solypsist:
no eliminating factions (by me, anyway)[/QUOTE]
that's actually easier to win this way, because you prevent respawn (keep the factions to one or two territories)
I've tried many hardmen rules, the best for my money were to :
- play in expert, GA, conquer only provinces in your natural zone of influence
- use only or as much as you can your specific units (ex the longbows as english, even tough the arbalesters are MUCH better)
- no use of strat units for offensive purposes (esp spies)
- of course no save
BUT by far the most challenging I found yesterday : simply start late. You only have about 120 years, you can't really tech up / trade / conquer at the same time, so it is much more difficult. It's frustrating because you'd like to play forever, but it's too easy to start early or middle, so I'm only going to play late now.
Yeah. Rabid Monkey is right. This could be quite fun. I mean to "role play" the civ you control.
1. The Almohads Only one territory can build a structure at any given time.
2. The Byzantines Never attack unprovoken. Never slaughter the prisoners of rebels or enemy fractions.Assasin or frame every king or heir of your fraction with a pervetion or major negetive V&V(no matter how good he is)
3. The English Set tax rate to "very high" in all territories *always*
4. The French Force Popes excommunication.
5. The Germans Never have peace with Muslims.
6. The Turks Always kill all prisoners. Never in peace with christians.
I cannot thing anything about Denmark or Russia but I am sure that there are enough Danish friends outhere who can tell us something about Iron Rules for their faction.
Rosacrux
10-21-2002, 15:10
The point is not only to have a hard time winning, but also have fun while doing this.
So, I have used Maroule's formule, imposing some self-restrictions to myself, in order to have an enjoyable game.
As the Byzantines (my fav faction) I tend to refrain from conquering anything outside the "physical sphear of influence" of Byzantium, that is the provinces it starts with plus all the middle east (down to Egypt)and the Balkans. I do not field gunmen and/or cannons (tough bitch in the Late era...) and gungalleys. I tend to fight the Turks ASAP and push them out of Asia-eliminate them. After that (and the elimination of the Arabs) I am playing a very conservative/defensive game after the first stages (my reconquista http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif of Asia Minor/middle east)
My latest invention is the "one province - tough rebells challenge". I go with the one faction=one province rule, (starting provinces adjusted to keep balance) and have high rebelling factor (1-2 in most, 3-4 in many) in all provinces. Plus strong starting rebel armies.
Works like a charm...
Rosacrux, Byzantines are my favorite civ too (because I am Greek) and I believe that there are quite a few realistic self restrictions to use when you play them. Most of them are associated with history. Byzantine rulers where often assasinated from their heirs or generals, or framed and exiled for pervetions or minor flaws like a severity. They rarely waged wars apart from Bulgaria and Serbia and rarely slaughtered their prisoners.Often they prefered diplomacy and indrigue over arms and usualy half their army was composed of mercenaries. Rarely if ever where they allied to Catholic Nations. All of those elements can easily compose a set of difficulty rules for Byzantium, which can simultaneus be historical and therefor fun...if you are the role player kind of type. Well ofcourse this is a strategy game,not an rpg,but the time period,some elements of the game(like the diferent characteristics for the Kings,the Heirs,Generals,Lords etc) can help someone to see it that way. Maybe some friends from other nations that have some knoledge about other factions historical backround could throw in some nice ideas.
Rosacrux
10-21-2002, 15:51
Another Greek... cool, we'll be the dominant force in the .org soon http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
Well, despite some minor gripes - many-o-times the Byzantine armies slaughtered their prisoners or (more often) blinded them, and also Byzantine history is full of offensive wars, usuall though to reclaim territory - I must agree that Byzantium gives you a great deal of roleplaying potential.
Take a look at my thread "greatest battle", to see how a byz army handled the steppe-savages http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
Who hasn't? If there is an Empire which was more peacefull than the rest then this was the Byzantine. All of the wars for expansion where mostly done until 1000ì÷. The rest were - as you said - for reconquering lost territories. You know ofcourse that the game was to be named Crusader : Total War, but although the Muslim factions had the Jihad and the Catholic the Crusades,the Orthodox (meaning the Byzantines and the Russians) had nothing in the history to fit for a "Holy War". So the name changed.
anymapkoku
10-21-2002, 18:13
You all forgot peasants only for your ironman rules.
Quote Originally posted by anymapkoku:
You all forgot peasants only for your ironman rules.[/QUOTE]
maybe because it's a boring rule?
Rosacrux
10-21-2002, 19:24
Quote Originally posted by maroule:
maybe because it's a boring rule?[/QUOTE]
...extremely boring... what kind of fun is that, fielding only peasants? Tsk, tsk, tsk... kids...
PanthaPower
10-21-2002, 20:42
Yup, also play with most of these rules except 3c, 4a and 5. I don't like to cheat my way into the flaws of the computer AI too much.
I´am thinking about making a nice mod ... not historical by any means ... but should be fun to play.
My Iron Man rule so far was ... never freak out but stay kinda realistic ... meaning : I don´t use hunderets of Spies and my Armies always have at least 4-6 diffrent types of Units. Another thing I o is ... to take the Game slowly and not overrun the rest of the World asap.
anymapkoku
10-21-2002, 22:27
The purpose of Iron Man rules is to see who is the Ironman. Hence the peasants.
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