Some tricks to add to game feeling...

[Kadagar_AV]

1. ROUGHNECKS You know all those vices, perversion, bloodlover, coward and so on...

I take all these units, and place them in a special stack, the ROUGHNECKS Here I also place any units who flees when they should have held their ground...

anyway, I give this unit a cannon or 2 (or whatever artillery you have), and have them attack fortifications only.. High losses? Who cares?

If some unit does well, I will remove them from this stack, and have them lead a special ops squad in a regular army (you know, the kind of squads who does a naval assault way behind enemy lines and stuff).

This gives character to an army, and it gives you a reason NOT to autoresolve battles.

2. Roleplay... never break a alliance, dont go against the pope if christian and so on... if someone assassinates one of your princesses, do the same to them. Try and role play, dont just attack where it's best, also have a reason for WHY to attack:)

3) Dont always use the "best" army... I found myself using 7 units of arbalesters 1 general, and 8 varangian guards every time i played the Byz... avoid this, try new things, even if it makes the game harder and gives more cassualties.

4) Only ONE BOAT PER PROVINCE. Yepp that's all you get... or rather, only one stack of boats per province (so you can have a few to defend, specially against sicily). This would solve the cheesy tactic of traderouts.. it means you have to plan more:o)






well people, that's all for now.. Tell me what you think, and share your ideas..

the "roughnecks" idea was the most fun for me... It's GREAT when all units in an army has character... Like my 3 men unit of varangian guards, with 12 valour... These 3 guys in one battle singlehandedly took out 2 units of FMAA http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

so, share http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[Jeff]

I actually do similar things to make the game better for myself.

1. Until at least 1200 I try and not attack any provinces unless they are going to help me with my Economy. I don't even bother with provinces that don't have any trade goods or resources.

2. Sometimes when I want to make the game really difficult I will attack 3 or 4 different factions at once and see if I can survive the initial retaliatory onslaught from all of them.

3. I usually do make up a couple of crack squads who are always outnumbered yet seem to kick everyone's arse. Also when I have a few units that seem to always run I will put them with the crack squads for a while to boost morale and give them some real combat experience.

[USMCNJ]

i play like a 50 year control game =>
this means that i cannon conquere a province and hold it for more then 50 years.
I use this to build up provinces that have troop advanges for the AI. (cause lets face it, the AI would never do it himself)
I also never attack rebel provinces, unless the faction i'm playing as did so in history.

[Jxrc]

An interesting challenge for me has been to make FMAA the backbone of my army in place of spearmen, FS or CS.

This made the battles more interesting since you have to pay much more attention to the enemy cavalry, use woods, etc ...

A fun thing to do was also to use my king whatever his vices were ... Getting your beautiful armies smashed because your king has doubtful courage teaches you ... humility ...