Your first MTW campaign

[Hamburglar]

What kind of dumb and ignorant things did you do in your first MTW game? How'd it go?


my first, I played as the English in early.

My biggest problem was that I was ALWAYS poor for the first part of it. I built buildings pretty randomly because I wasn't really aware of the tech tree (that chart isnt all that helpful)

Having played Shogun, I also thought I knew the power of archers. Archers suck in MTW. I didn't know this.


Well, the first thing I did as the English was invade Scotland. I took it with a bunch of men and had 50% survivors. The next turn I saw a gigantic revolt with a lot of peasants and a lot of Italian Infantry. In hordes. Every one of my men died.

Well, the new king goes up to get revenge with a nice army and after a brutal battle I finally get the damn place. During the course of the game it will revolt several more times.

I pursue a war with France in the meantime, and eventually beat them even in my newbieness (come on, it's France). For some reason I sent a Crusade to Chernigov. Yes, Chernigov. I proceed to develop it like its a major province.


Whent he Mongols come in, they always attack Chernigov but only from one direction and that made it a river map. I got a lucky break and thrashed them all the time. I also sent a Crusade to Nicea, which eventually got beaten a few years after It ook the province. I got a loyalist revolt on my team and took Constantinople.


The rest of the game was kind of uneventful. took over Iberia and pushed into Africa all the way through to the middle east. My Chiv knights and Chiv men at arms didnt do too well against the desert soldiers but at that point I had a ton of them.

At about 1340 I lost interest in it and started a new one as the Danes.

As it stands, I've never completed a campaign even to 60%. Once it becomes certain that I am so much more powerful than anyone else I just lose interest and start anew.



Items of interest:

I was deathly afraid of Ghulams. I don't know why.

Why the hell did I randomly launch a Crusade to Chernigov. What was I thinking?

Ships? Who needs em. Who knows how to make em?

Mercenaries.. Never saw em'

Retraining units? Huh? Going into combat with tons of units of 10 guys was fun.

[Basileus]

Didnt have any problems propably cause ive played shogun but i remember my first campaign where i didnt even check the manual yet so i didnt know what to do with the province titels hehe after like 100 years i started adding the titles http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Muneyoshi]

Dum, who me? Never http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif I honestly didnt have to many problems, was just weird getting used to it (sort of)

[andrewt]

In Shogun, peasants were servicable. In MTW, they completely blow. I started as English and attacked Scotland. I though that having 1-2 more units of peasants than the enemy has with a few other units as to complement them will do. Boy, was I wrong. If it wasn't for my great warrior heir, I would have lost. He was reduced to one unit for a long time, however. I still managed to hold on to the province afterwards.

I lost that guy many years later in another blunder against the Almohads. I only managed to win because stupid Elmos attacked me across a river and I lost around 900 units to their 1800. I lost that province but they weren't a threat anymore after that.

Right now, I'm in my fifth campaign and am still surprised at some things. I launched a crusade against Lesser Armenia and fought Egyptians either in Trebizond or Rum. My general was level 0 and I fought against Nur al-Din who's level 6. I managed to march my spearmen, feudal sergeants and order foot into a forest. He charged with Armenian Heavy Cavalry and beat the crap out of me in the woods. I barely killed anything.

[Leet Eriksson]

First campaign,as a british,early period.several blunders in the british campaign against the french.also lost to the scottish.eventually i adjusted to the tactics of MTW and took horrible revenge against those bastids.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

My level of dumbiness is pretty even. I am 'blessed' with a flat learning curve.

Most common dumb mistake. Sending armies oversea to place with no port whatsoever (like Ireland / a few place in middle east/ poor med island...).
I still do it.

Louis,

[Panther]

I was pretty stupid but i hadnt played STW so that made it ok http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif
Weel i was English in Early and attacked Wales and lost ( stupid longbows) they i got a bigger army and won and then later attacked Scotland and won. All this time i had been pumping out troops and buildings like mad and as a result was a bit short on cash well i was so sort i was in debt http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif so i decided to start again.
I attacked France and aimed for their province with king and killed him leaving no heir http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif so france went rebel and got all of that captured Britain and declared war on Germany and beat them.
Even though i was carefuler ( http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif ) i still went in debt so i quit and started as Byzantines and ever since i have always been Byzantines, Turks and Polish and usually play England and GH aswell

[Maniac]

I actually did quite well. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

After finishing the tutorials I started an early Byzantine campaing on expert/conquest. Well I ended up conquering 60% even before the golden horde invaded. I agreed to end the game at that point as it was getting boring just sweeping away everything in my way. Although at that time I didn't know about the mass rebellion/civil war/re-emergences syndrom and about the GH invasion. If I had known I would have continued playing.

P.S. I did suck at battles then though and after loosing a few times to armies with twice less soldiers I started to use auto-calc for most battles.

[Heraclius]

Let's just say that I brashly rushed into my first campaign (as the Byzantines) without consulting the manual or tech tree. (I thought that playing shogun was enough). Within ten years the Turks had taken Constantinople. My ancestors would've been ashamed. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Pablo Sanchez]

First campaign I played as byzantines. I didn't understand the tech tree, so I was repeatedly angered when I wasn't allowed to build horse breeder's in Constantinople. I couldn't get any kats, and the turks were killing me Then I looked at the info on the 20% farmland improvement, slapped my forehead, and in about 20 years wiped the turks off the map.

[desdichado]

in my first campaign I thought a 80% farming improvement made me a net 609 (or whatever) florins, not just the difference between 60% & 80% so I busily made 80% farming improvements everywhere (yes, even Scotland & Norway) before I figured out why I never had any money.

Second dumb thing was thinking my 2 star generals were badasses and then not understanding why the (when I actually bothered to look) 6 star almos thrashed me.

[PoLsKa_HuSaRiA]

Quote[/b] (Hamburglar @ Mar. 09 2003,05:45)]Retraining units? Huh? Going into combat with tons of units of 10 guys was fun.
Umm :S i still don't even know how to do that yet :S If someone could tell me id be glad http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (PoLsKa_HuSaRiA @ Mar. 09 2003,18:11)]
Quote[/b] (Hamburglar @ Mar. 09 2003,05:45)]Retraining units? Huh? Going into combat with tons of units of 10 guys was fun.
Umm :S i still don't even know how to do that yet :S If someone could tell me id be glad http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Move them into a province where you can construct them, bring up the build queue, and drag-n-drop them onto it as you would if you were moving them from one army to another.

[Foreign Devil]

I didn't understand the tech tree very well and I had no idea what to do with the titles. 40 or 50 years into it, I was still using only peasants, spearmen and heirs. Aragon invaded me (was playing as the english), had several revolts, got scared, and then went and read the manual.

[Hamburglar]

I also thought it was best to be the defender. Its definitely true on land, but I carried it over into the sea.


Theres definitely an attacker advantage in sea battles but I would NEVER attack another ship. Alwayslet them go after me because I thought I'd do better.

[LRossaRikimaru]

funny post http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif , i remember that i make crusade random and every time i forgot them in a small province. Or die without any possible heirs only because i'm really happy of doing heirs suicidal charge Go conquer your throne your little dumbass

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif bye

LRossaRikimaru

[SFC Tako]

England England dear old England

I've only played seriously with the english so far.
In the beginning I bribe the dumbass i Wales and send him to Scotland with some of my own men to take it - which goes quite well if you attack with superior numbers(on the contrary to what most people say, I really like to use the archers - they're quite useful if you protect them).

After that I just try to make friends with everyone and try to wait for the others to start wars...you see after a war has raged there's always a window of opportunity, like taking rebel provinces, attacking the really weak and so on.
Heh heh, I'm a slimy weasel alright, but it works wonders.

About economics - cash is king and what kings are made of. England must have a strong fleet with multiple ships in every sea lane. That way I pretty much dictate the terms in half of the mediterrenaen and all of the Atlantic. And of course, having built up as many merchants as possible I earn a good living. I'm currently fighting the Greeks (geeks) who control all of eastern europe and eastern mediterranean, but I'm not sweating the least (I've got all of France, Scandinavia and the British Isles) because in just a few years the mongoloids will be swarming the greek's back heh heh.

I just love this game

[chunkynut]

I had played STW and read some stuff on DDs MTW site, so it wasn't so bad. But i did make some large mistakes with regard to ships and trade, but i think everyone did, hey?

I also found the tech tree of use, and got to producing billmen with a vengence and the almos had no chance.

But it was on easy so i took spain and finished the game to start a dane, normal game like pretty much every one else who played england first it seems http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[mav3434]

My first was as Byz, early. It was fun but I was pretty much just mindlessly conquering province after province, using an unusually large number of steppe cavs, which I liked bc they were fast and fun and cheap and pretty useful in the desert. Most of my big battles were just straight, full frontal brawls, with me throwing huge numbers at the enemy. My provinces were not developed for sh-t and had no border forts, churches, etc. and thus revolted like crazy, A problem that I fixed by buying them off, giving me huge numbers of peasant/spear armies. I didn't really understand shipping at all back then, so I built a few galleys which got sunk. I eventually hit the 60 percent marker but at the end it was like: conquer 3 provinces, lose 2 to revolts, buy back 1 more per turn.

I did an interesting thing last week and dug up an old save game from that campaign towards the end. I am now replaying it the "right" way, and building up and specializing my provinces and armies and generally having a much better time of it. Far fewer revolts and much better organized armies. This time I am going on for 100 percent of the map, which I have yet to do. It's a fun thing to do, replaying old games, I recommend it if you're looking for an additional twist on gameplay.

[Syterion]

My first game was Byzantines on Early Easy. I started off with a meager understanding of the tech tree, so I mindlessly built up my provinces until the Turkish started to annoy me but I was too afraid to attack them. So I kept building, lost Naples to the Sicilians, and went into debt. It took about 40 years to crawl out of debt, and after I was rich. I swept into Hungary, Poland, and Gemany while bribing any enemy general I couldn't attack. Since I didn't develop that much, I used Treb archers, Byz Inf, and Katas from my generals. I pretty much went into France then all hell broke loose like it does and I gave up.

[DemonArchangel]

well, my first campaign (Byz, early, expert) I ran out of money within my 1st 10 turns because i didn't know how to set up a trade route. I crawled out of debt only to get crushed by advancing germans.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Here's a good one:

The first time I used Naptha throwers, I didn't realize I had to take them off skirmish mode. So, I saw a bunch of MAA target them, so I order them to attack with grenades. I then watch, bemused, as the two units run all of the battlefield without ever coming to grips with one another.

[Juan Madsen]

quite curious most of you started with england and byzantium.

I did with the Danes, invaded Sweden, won and was shocked whith the inmense revolt that followed. In few more turns I decided to resign and try again more calmly (I have also been a long time Shogun player so I thought....).

Better prepared I started (now seriously) with the Spanish. Two days latter my wife wanted to divorce from me (je, je) even though at that time I was not using ships, did not understand well how to use the tittles, liked to have the princess at home (bad guys out there), did not know how to make spies, did not know florynomics, did not handled the troops as now, etc.

Still I have the same problem as others, once I see clearly that I am the superior power I loss interest and go for another game.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

I decided to ease into MTW on my first campaign so I set the difficulty to easy & chose the Byzantines. I was making decent progress conquering the map when suddenly everything ground to a halt. My empire was too large to support further expansion without improving my economy, & I couldn't improve my economy because I had no money & no income. My economy was weak to the point that it only paid for all my troops. I couldn't build any improvements or units.

Rather than try to fix it, I started over with English on normal & paid attention.

[Divine Wind]

I to started with the English. I thought being the die hard SP Shogun fan id have some knowledge of medieval But sadly i played like i was very drunk http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif I also built lots of worthless buildings in every province and quite suddenly found myself in debt. Whoops Another Tax raise for the english citizens hehe. I was also astonished by the revolts as they happened a lot more easily in mtw than shogun and those scottish guys provided a lot of heartache. But it was a fun experience and im looking forward to Vikings and little Roman people http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Satyr]

Hmmmmm, my experiences were a little different. I have played other games competitively and so I came to this forum and read everything that had ever been written. It was fun reading about people exploring how the game was played and the excitement they were getting from the battles and I was forced to buy the game about 1 1/2 weeks after it came out. I too started as English on normal in early and proceeded to run out of money over and over. Read some more and I have only stopped playing for short periods since. I have finished 1 game and done 60% on about 5 others. I have played all factions and I cannot wait for VI and the Rome.