View Full Version : Diversity of outcomes on strategic map (no Hojo horde)
One nice feature of MTW is the way the performance of different AI factions varies so much from game to game. I play only on early, often on hard, and tend to act conservatively as usually the English or HRE, going for glorious achievements but avoiding rushes. I have not played games through to the bitter end, but have noticed that a variety of outcomes with the other AI factions.
There are two areas on the peripherary of Europe where developments are often dramatic:
1) Spain vs Almohads: this seems to go very different ways; sometimes Spain quickly steamrollers the Almohads, I suspect using a crusade towards the Holy Land. Sometimes the Almohads do the reverse. Last night, there was even 75 years of initial peace between them.
2) Byzantium vs Turkey: more often I see Byzantium fall and the Turks sometimes end up carving out a large area of rebel/Novogorad territory from the Black Sea to the Baltic. However, in the latest game, Byzantium contained the Turks - well, actually the Turks busied themselves wiping out the Egyptians - and has taken Eastern Europe for itself.
In addition:
France vs England: often France is hopelessly constrained, but last night it wiped out England.
Minor Nations: is it just me, but are the Scilians often terrifying? Twice on hard they have amassed very large armies. I suspect it is the early access to trade.
Anyway, left to their own devices, the AI factions can develop in a variety of different ways, which greatly increases the replay value of the game. As HRE or England, one or two powers will emerge as the most powerful - Spain/Almohads; Turks/Byzantines - but it is not always clear which one it will be. I seem to remember Shogun was far more predictable, with Hojo horde being the one to watch for.
Rosacrux
10-28-2002, 16:56
In my games (I've played lots of campaings, but seldomly to the end) these are the patterns:
English vs French: About 80% of the times,the English are wiped out by the French, who are fighting multiple-front wars, against the English, the HRE, sometime Italian and/or Spaniards.
Byzantium vs Turks: They allways fight (well... most of the times I play as the Byzantines so I just cleansweap Asia Minor off those infidel bums http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif ) and about half the times the Turks completely wipe out the Byzantines, who then inevitably come back, sometimes very strong, sometimes tiny and weak in the islands (Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus). A few times the Byzantines wipe out the Turks (about 10-15%) and the rest they both survive, with the Turks being usually stronger.
Spaniards vs Almohads: A nice couple, in my games they always start fighting in the first few rounds and stop only when one of the two is dead and burried. The current balance is in favor of the Spaniards (they must be using them crusades a lot) about 70% against 30%.
Add to it that Sicily ends up fighting Italy and the Pope almost all the times (especially when modded as a playable faction even if it's run by the AI) but half the times gets wiped out. The rest... endless struggle against the reappearring pope.
Also, the Danes NEVER make it big under AI (their best performance once was to get 3-4 provinces from HRE, plus Skandinavia, before succumbing to the ongoing Hojo... err.. Almohad horde).
Hungary fairs well in my games too.
i just love this aspect of the SP game. the fluidity of the distribution of the factions in the campaign map.And often one faction starts dominating, but something happens (for instance, a successful crusade) and another factions takes over. I had one campaign in which the dominating faction changed at least three times. The fourth time it was me.
in my games:
1. the french almost always defeat the english
2. i never saw the turks conquer the byz empire, byz always ended up somewhere north
3. sicily fights italy and the pope but never gains a lot of land
4. elmo fights spain, usually wins
5. the danes never do anything at all and hungary and poland stay relatively small.
In my latest game, the Spaniards have fought the Elmoheads back as far as North Africa, the Sicilians have wiped out both the Italians and the Pope (although the Italians came back on Corsica and Sardinia just recently), the Byzantines have a small empire carved out in the western provinces of Russia, and the Egyptians have the all-conquering horde - having wiped out Turkey, and advanced as far as Greece, Constantinople, Bulgaria and Moldavia in Europe.
In the previous game, the Sicilians had nothing but Malta, the Egyptians had been seriously pushed back by the Turks (as had everyone!), and the Elmoheads had totally wiped out the Spaniards - I'm definately liking the unpredictable nature of the AI factions http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Rosacrux, I would agree 95% with your post. The many games I've played, but never really finished seem to go the way you described as long as I don't personally intervene.
It's interesting how just playing a different faction can make sublte changes in the whole order of things. I suppose it's why I can never seem to finish a game to the end. I'm too curious to see what will happen in the next campaign if I played a different faction.
This last campaign, really went bizzare. I'm playing England, Spain has wiped out the Elmos, and is heavily working on Egypt. Germany (this was surprising, after many defeats, finally subdues the French to two provinces. Aragon, has six provinces, and regularly sends crusades against Egypt. (four total now). Poland destroyed the Mongols, and is eating the Russians up like apple pie. They must own nearly the whole quarter of the map. The Danes have five provinces cut from the Germans and seem to still be strong.
It's a pretty interesting campaign so far, and seems much different then the last few I've seen. Anyone else see this?
blackfire83
10-29-2002, 05:33
On a similarly related note, I've noticed people talking about the Aragonese taking over provinces and such, and the Strategy Guide refers to them, in at least one instance as taking over the entire Iberian Peninsula regularly... I was just curious about this, because I have NEVER seen the Aragonese do ANYTHING except take, at the most, one additional province. They seem to just sit in Aragon and gather heirs, never really accomplishing anything. Is this because I play on normal or is it just the luck of the draw? Or is their 'dominance' over-hyped?
-blackfire83
I play the French quite a bit. The Aragonese have a nasty little bug in them.
More times than not they take Toulouse within 10 years or so. By the time you get rid of the English and into a position to take Toulouse back you discover the Aragons are not at war with you and are neutral!!! They never send a emissary or anything. They just decide that on their own without any input from you.
ToranagaSama
10-29-2002, 05:54
Quote Originally posted by Praylak:
It's interesting how just playing a different faction can make sublte changes in the whole order of things. I suppose it's why I can never seem to finish a game to the end. I'm too curious to see what will happen in the next campaign if I played a different faction.
[/QUOTE]
Gotta ditto that! Maybe once a person's tried all the different factions and difficulty levels, it might be more interesting to finish a campaign; but there's mods!! hehehe
cart6566
10-29-2002, 06:22
Get this, in my current HRE early game, it's 1208 and the Spanish and Almohads have been allied for nearly a century! Only my second game (I like to play to the end) so don't really know about other trends. Thought that was funny though after reading this thread.
It is 1272, I am playing Egyptians. The turks have been allied with me since 1096 but have almost extinguished the Byz who are trying to make a comeback. The Italians are at war with the turks, me, the french and the HRE. I killed the Almos and met the french in spain killing the spaniards. The french have taken england twice and are at war with me, the italians, the HRE, and the turks who they keep crusading. If not for the french crusades, the turks would rule the world.
Quote Originally posted by Apeboy:
I play the French quite a bit. The Aragonese have a nasty little bug in them.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah... it seems the Aragonese have a pathological need to attack France. They are especially good at doing it when the french are busied elsewhere, I have yet to see them not wait for another war to erupt.
I once saw the French getting a smackdown from the HRE (I was English and fighting both, nice threeway battles in Lorraine and Champagne), then the Aragonese made a Blitzkrieg and took Toulouse, Provence, Aquitaine and Anjou in three years. With the HRE from the east and me from the west the French were confined to Ile de France.
The Danes have yet to do anything spectacular in my games. At best they have taken Sweden and Saxony.
Novgorod/Russia on the other hand seems to be able to expand like nothing else, they always become big if I'm not Poland or Byzantium.
Byzantium has been confined to the three isles in most of my games, only once have they actually managed stem the tide of Turks and Egyptians.
If I'm Western European I always go for a quick expansion down to Iberia, then I await the inevitable Almohad/Spanish conquest northwards. So far it is a 70/30 advantage for the Almohads.
Sicily have survived most of my games with their main lands and Naples. In a few games I have seen them make invasions of Cyrenaica and Tunesia.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
I'm playing my fourth campaign and Spain has never won against the Elmoheads. They never fought once and I had to kill both. In my last game, the Elmos attacked Leon and Spain retreated then Spain attacked Cordoba and the Elmos retreated. It's annoying how the AI retreats too often.
I've never seen England beat France, either. France always gets the continent back. In my last game, they are attacking the HRE. The HRE, with the biggest army in the game, are reinforcing their eastern border with Poland and Hungary while the French are destroying their western border. They are even building troops out west and moving them east.
The Byzantines always manage to conquer many rebel provinces to their north. They either don't go to war or eliminate the Turks. Even when I'm the Egyptians, they conquered some provinces up north before I destroyed them.
Sicily has always been a lame duck for me. They get large armies but only conquer Naples and Venice once when they rebeled.
Egypt just builds up troops and gets large armies without going anywhere.
HRE gets into war with Danes. HRE usually ends up in a civil war. Danes only conquer up to Sweden, Norway and 1-2 HRE provinces.
Aragon usually gets defeated early either by Spanish or French. They like to attack the French.
PanthaPower
10-29-2002, 17:53
Quote Originally posted by andrewt:
Aragon usually gets defeated early either by Spanish or French. They like to attack the French.[/QUOTE]
Well, I think it is because of the border provinces. I mean, would you invade Valencia from Aragon with all these bridges? I wouldn't. That leaves only Castille open for attack and it's usually heavily defended by the Spanish. I would also go for the French because they would have a harder time defending their two bordering provences.
chunkynut
10-29-2002, 19:34
I had a strange one with poland.
Minding my on thing (a 40 year war with the People of Novorgrad) and suddenly (not suprisingly the turks turn up in kazar.
Suprisingly a few years later the eygptions arrive and then take the eastern half of europe.
In this time i have the norvograd down and am building up teritories and trade routes only to find out the almos are doing the same the other side!
So it is me controlling all of north/north eastern europe and the rest smack down the middle divided between Eygpt and Almos.
Not in one of my games have eygpt done .... anything then they wipe out the turks, hungry, half HRE, italy and the pope!! mad
insolent1
10-30-2002, 02:53
Well in most games i've played I always face 2 hordes the Almohads from the east & Byzantium from the west. At the moment i'm playing a little mod I made that I turned all factions to expansionist & gave some of the smaller factions some extra land. I also bumped up all farm income by 50 florins extra & gave all factions access to at least one iron deposit.
I'm playing english & have only held the UK, ireland, normandy & flanders. I have made very little impact to the game as I have only ever attacked once & that was to take flanders. Its been an enjoyable game & have never had problems with alliances or ceasefires as I stayed small. The French have 2 provinces lithunainia & champagne, the hungarians have lorraine & friesland, the HRE have pomerania & prussia, the danes have scandinavia, the scialians have italy except papal states(pope) & the italians have saxony & brandenburg. The almos have eastern side of map & byzantines have western side of map. They have just gone to war with each other. So its a few small factions squashed up near me in between the almos & byzantium hordes. I ahve been watchin the way the AI plays for a long time now & I have to say the AI is useless, it would take hours to explain teh strategy but the biggest problem that I have seen is its troop placement. It is completely unable to garrison a province adequently to stop revolts let alone to stop it been invaded & funniest of all is watchin teh byzantines moving there 50+ stacks everywhere but where the wars are. Its been hard to play the way i have been playing as the AI just leaves so many opportunites that its hard to hold back. Btw don't but byzantium on expansionist as they just kick lumps into turks & egypt very quickly & have western thrid of map in 20 years.
muffinman14
10-30-2002, 05:58
hungary was doing good but most of the time I see the egytains or almohads when i play a catholic faction take control. When im a muslim faction i usually see spain being the dominate one.
Okay, another few decades along the line in my HRE/early/hard game, byz is being crushed between egypt and sicily (!?) - sicily has conquered bulgaria, greece and constantinople! weird.
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