How long does it take?

[Windwood]

I purchased my copy of MTW in late December with some Christmas gift money. It has since turned out to be one of the coolest games I have ever played. I'm not a big PC gamer, I just don't have the time. But I am really enjoying MTW.

I have dropped in on this forum several times as a guest to get some of my questions answered (e.g., how to deal with the Papacy, where to get the patch, general strategy recommendations, and other such things). Now I finally decided to register and post something. I hope that it is not too mundane.

So, I started playing an SP campaign back about 2 months ago. I'm playing as the Danes. The AI offered me the chance to take a lesser victory once I conquered 60% of Europe, but I have opted for total victory. I've crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and I now own Morocco in the west, and I have taken Georgia in the east as well as Constantinople. Thus, my quest for European domination is well-underway.

I am curious, how long it takes most of you to complete an SP campaign. With a fulltime job, wife, child, pets, home and so on, it's hard to carve out time for a little conquest. I am assuming, with all of the increasing rebellions in my empire and that pesky papacy, that I still have at least another month before I can claim my victory.

On average how long does it take you to complete an SP campaign?

Just wondering.

[desdichado]

welcome to the org Windwood..

I guess the time varies but i have never had a campaign take as long as yours. It really depends a lot on how many battles you fight. Some years can take 4+ hours to get through all the battles whcih can get annoying. To speed thigs up I auto calc the small unimportant battles.

The only time I have gone for total domination near the end I started autocalcing all battles as game had got a bit dull with me being an overwhelming superpower etc. I didn't experience the masss rebellions that everybody else seems to talk about so i think this helped speed things along.

One trick I found was that if you have the florins keep building farm upgrades in every possible province as your ruler gets magnificent steward virtue which is I think +20%??? happiness & +30% farm income - helps to keep the masses happy.

Also how much do you manage alll your strategic agents - I found once my empire got too big moving all my pieces on strat map took over an hour and didn't really achieve much.

I admire your dedication in finishing campaign though and good luck with those rebels http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Gregoshi]

Welcome to the Org Windwood. Now you've got one more thing to eat up you limited time. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I've never finished a campaign. I started an HRE campaign in August and played about 100 years through mid-December. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif I just haven't gotten back to the campaign since then. Two weeks ago I started a Spain campaign, played it two night over the weekend and haven't picked it up since. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif Alas, I don't even know the smell of gunpowder, nor fought against a few of the factions. 'Tis sad.

I do know I play at a slower rate then others. I must think about my moves too much. My florin budget is very low so I spend much time deciding how best to spend my measely treasury. I only auto-resolve battles that are 4-1 or worse. If I were to guess, my average time per turn/year is about 1 hour, which varies depending upon how many battles there are to fight. I've been thinking about turning on more auto items so I've less things to consider during a turn.

One of my little TW wishes has been to watch someone who bangs out a complete campaign in a few days. I simply cannot imagine how they do it.

[Cazbol]

It takes me about 5 weeks to finish a campaign, not including the campaign I lost after 2 game years. I always go for total conquest and never autoresolve a single battle. This is with a full time job and a spouse, but fortunately without kids and pets. Most people would find the percentage of my spare time that I use for games to be abnormal, unhealthy, sick and whatnot.

[Brutal DLX]

Quote[/b] (Gregoshi @ Feb. 28 2003,03:15)]Welcome to the Org Windwood. Now you've got one more thing to eat up you limited time. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I've never finished a campaign. I started an HRE campaign in August and played about 100 years through mid-December. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif I just haven't gotten back to the campaign since then. Two weeks ago I started a Spain campaign, played it two night over the weekend and haven't picked it up since. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif Alas, I don't even know the smell of gunpowder, nor fought against a few of the factions. 'Tis sad.

I do know I play at a slower rate then others. I must think about my moves too much. My florin budget is very low so I spend much time deciding how best to spend my measely treasury. I only auto-resolve battles that are 4-1 or worse. If I were to guess, my average time per turn/year is about 1 hour, which varies depending upon how many battles there are to fight. I've been thinking about turning on more auto items so I've less things to consider during a turn.

One of my little TW wishes has been to watch someone who bangs out a complete campaign in a few days. I simply cannot imagine how they do it.
Hey Gregoshi.

it really depends on how much time you go on your hands...
If you got several hours, let's say you play from 6 pm until after midnight, you can finish a campaign withign a weeks's time.
Of course it will take much longer than that if you are fighting every single battle personally, but I don't do that, too time-consuming. If you only fight the early battles, and the must win battles, then autoresolve the ones where the outcome isn't so important (just wearing down the enemy while you have no trouble replacing your lost troops), then you will finish any campaign in a few days.
Personally, I couldn't play this game if I had only one hour of time or so every now and then. It would take me at least 30 minutes to get the feeling back and recall what I wanted to do where, and then I wouldn't have time left to put any of my great plans into action. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I think you should at least play for 3 hours per session...

[TheViking]

between 10-20 hours depending on how many and big battles i fight, and +3-4 hours if i dont autocalc the fight against mongols (1 battle), I dont auto-tax or something like that i dont use spies, assassins, priests and units like that, and i only autocalc a battle if i have a much more superior force like 10-1, happens most when the enemy have nowhere to run.

[KukriKhan]

About a month, if I do everything myself (that's about 90-100 hours of actual time).

Mostly nowadays, I auto-calc taxes (figuring that the AI will do the same as I would: max tax at below rebellion levels) and auto-assign titles (figuring that if I find a weasel as governor somewhere later, I can always 'fix' him). That cuts the real-time commitment by half.

Finally, since I have a low-end vid card, I only personally command the battles with less than 1,000 troops. Which brings down the time to about 5 days per campaign (about 15-20 hours).

So, to sum up: micromanaging = 100 hours, vs auto-tax, auto-title & auto-res big battles = 20 hours.

Your mileage may vary. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Windwood]

It's interesting to me to read all of these responses. They make me feel like I'm not too far off track.

My wife gets a little irritated if I spend too much time gaming, so I slip in time to do it when I can and just let her know I'm not going to be available for other things for a while. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Sometimes I try to drop in and do a quick battle and get out, but I inevitably end up getting sucked into it more deeply, so my sessions usually last from 3 to 4 hours.

I have had the auto-tax set up, as well as auto-build. However, I have intervened on many occassions to get certain things built that I wanted when I wanted them and I maintain control over the construction of units.

I rarely auto-resolve combats unless I have a significant advantage because the AI tends to sacrifice a dramatically higher percentage of soldiers than I lose when I am commanding.

I guess another reason it has taken me so long is due to the agression I am pressing in the campaign. I attacked Saxony right away and was successful. I've fought a battle in almost every year since I started. I'm now up to 1290 and I would estimate that in all the time I have played, I have had maybe 10 to 15 years of peace.

Recently, I have had to set aside much more time to play in an individual session. I've been going up against the last two significant factions (Turks and Egyptians) on an epic scale. In order to take on the Turks who had massed over 5,000 soldiers on my eastern front, I launched a massive 4-prong invasion of 4 Turkish provinces in one game year. This prevented the Turks from reinforcing any one province. I attacked with over 7,000 soldier spread out in four arenas and launched from seven different provinces. I had to wait until I had about 6 or 7 hours to sit down and play it out.

That reminds me, is there any way to pause and save a game in the middle of battles or between battles in a game year? It's sort of frustrating that I cannot stop and save a battle in order to go take care of something. A couple of times I have had to stop the game mid-battle and lose the progress I had made because I couldn't save. I had to start the year over again with my saved file the next time I played.

Well, I think I'm starting the babble on here http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/redface.gif

I best be back to work.

[HopAlongBunny]

Quote[/b] (Windwood @ Feb. 28 2003,10:12)]That reminds me, is there any way to pause and save a game in the middle of battles or between battles in a game year?
Unfortunately no http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Its probably one of the number one requests...maybe in Viking Invasion (dreaming:)

hehehe yes, campaigns take a lot of time. I suppose you could rocket through and auto-everything, skip the tour every year...but it just wouldn't be the same http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Jazzman]

Know how you feel, i think i heard the Viking add-on allows you to save between battles, that'd be great, staying up til 3 finishing battles can be painful the next day. my first campaign took about 2 months playing maybe 10 hours/week but that was a 60% victory (easy setting too easy). On hard setting i am about a month and am only at 1200 prob take a 60% victory fairly soon there, cant imagine going all the way to 1453. I also like to do everything myself except some real lopsided battles, started doing sieges auto too because they are always pretty similar. Guess i'll just have to quite my job to devote the proper amount of time to conquering the world. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[_Martyr_]

Normally about 2 weeks for me, that means fighting all battles I see as fun or important (and all the early ones) But when I have over 4:1 odds (etc..) I auto resolve

One time I purpasely tried finishing a campaign as quickly as I could I did it in about 4-5hours, playing on normal and auto resolving nearly all battles, I conquered all Wasnt that fun after a while though too easy

[cugel]

I've run a couple hundred turns off in one evening, but that was playtesting mods as the Sicilians. Just build ships so no-one can attack you, build a trade network so you have plenty of florins, don't attack anyone just sit back and watch the ebb and flow of conquest with .matteosartori. cheat on, like a passive observer. It's actually quite interesting to see what happens. You get a real feel for playbalance and which factions are stronger if you run off a few campaigns that way. Occasionally there are hilarious incidents, like a muslim loyalist uprising in Tyrolia or the Egyptians waging a desparate series of battles against the Irish after launching a seabourne invasion, etc. If you don't interfere by trying to become a major faction, the AI acts quite differently than you may have observed, it gangs up on the biggest faction and cuts it down to size (I'm usually the one it gangs up against in my normal campaigns).

[Red Harvest]

My suggestion is to declare victory at 60% or when you feel the last major hurdle has been cleared (sometimes a little after 60%, but rarely.) It will take far longer for that last 40% than for the first 60% and it is quite boring as well. It easily takes me 60 hours for a 100% campaign. The only time I bothered was when it was a challenge to complete a Late campaign before time expired. I've got several at ~75% that I've decided not to finish.

Same as you I have a wife and small children.

[Sir Black Raven]

i always go for GA. It's better than Total achievment plus even if u loose some regions to rebels or factions if u keep the goals u can win. But MTW campaigns are longer and if u dont have to much time to spend they can last forever. In Shogun it's easier and more enjoyable.I'm playing MI campaigns again instead of MTW. I keep MTW for Online only mainly cause eveybody seems to be there.

[Dîn-Heru]

I to spend about one month on a campaign, fighting every battle personally. My current campaign as the Danes, began on the 25th of January, although I haven't played every day since then, so I quess it takes from 50 to 100 hours, give or take. I am now in 1412, own about 60% of the map, and this is despite that I at one point was down about 60K. But it doesn't matter how long it takes, as long as it doesn't dominate your life.

[Gregoshi]

Greetings Din-Heru and welcome to the Org. Don't let us dominate your life, but do come back often. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Dîn-Heru]

Thank you, it is nice to be here. But I have been visiting for two years or so. So I can assure you that it will not dominate me. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[A.Saturnus]

NOw when you say it, I realize it dominates me
I need help
Well, maybe getting my avatar will help (not seriously).
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif


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