View Full Version : Tips for managing empire in the later stages?
The Gauch0
05-15-2003, 03:53
This is the 4th Total War installment now, and the game has only grown worse as far as managing your empire on the strategic map. With the enormous maps of MTW, it can be a real pain to try to keep track of what generals are faltering in their loyalty, what troops you were trying to reallocate to different regions, where your governors are, etc. Does anyone else find themselves becoming mentally worn out during the later stages of the game?
I'd like to open a discussion about two things: What are some tricks, tips or strategies for overcoming these problems in the current game, and what would you like to see in Rome TW that might make the logistics of a sprawling empire more manageable? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/argue.gif
Wheatley
05-15-2003, 04:59
Well, at least it is realistic, because in real life it becomes exactly the same way.
Hakonarson
05-15-2003, 05:31
I generally use the shift key top check loyalty once a turn & only ever go to adjust it if it's not Green.
Occasionally I'll cycle through all provinces using the arrows at the top of the province info parchment jsut to make sure they are taxed to ythe max & have governors. Ditto with building units - generally I only have a few provinces building units in the later game - the ones that have all the armouries, and I'll only build in other provinces if there's an emergency in hte area & I can't get there rapidly with anything.
Colonel Kurtz
05-15-2003, 10:02
I just got VI and I love it, but I can't believe they STILL haven't included a list you can access of provinces which are currently idle in building or unit orders.
When you have 75% of the map in the later stages it's tedious beyond belief to have to check them all periodically.
HopAlongBunny
05-15-2003, 11:56
My kingdom for an honest man
End game governors are a lawless lot. I find that my appointees become absolutely worthless one turn after getting the job. Added to that, is the fact that your long standing governors start to develop the same colourful behaviors-lawless, corrupt, dominant trader, ...etc.
Searching for new governors is tedious as well. Hunting the stacks to find someone competent is dull...to have to do it again the next turn is worse.
-Set auto tax at 200 (use command line -loyalty:200)
-Set building cycles and assign provinces to them...eg all mainland England have a building cycle. the Crusader kingdoms have another. This saves having to keep checking what is being built. With the building info summary it's much easier now.
-Set building queues
-Set amry training queues, e.g you have 10 army production provinces, make a queue in each so that after 5 years you have approximatly 4 complete armies.
-Set navy training queues e.g you have 5 ship producing provinces, set a q in each so that after 5 years you have a strong attack fleet
-Decide your empire before you start the game. Type in .matteosartori. This enables you to see the whole map, examine all the land, think about which provinces you want your empire to comprise. Once you have decided on the best regions, split them into troop (subdivided into missile & arty, cavalry, attack infantry, spearmen etc.), navy, economy and special agent production areas. I generally produce only one type of unit in each province to maximise the upward growth of the tech tree. e.g Constantinople already has a citadel, it becomes a conquest target. It's taken and now I start builiding ONLY that which is necessar to train Janissary Heavy Infantry, and NOTHING else. Once the JHI buildings are complete I start buidling other things. Another example, Georgia is taken I start building only what is necessary for Janssary Archer. Meanwhile Antiocj and Tripoli, Edessa, Syria are building ONLY economy enhancements. So basically plan the campaign out before you play it. It's much easier to keep track of things.
-Keep ypur armies organsied, try not to have too many scattered units here and there. What I do is split the military into strike armies and provincial armies. Strike to attack, are usually together with another replenishment army which can resuplly troops. Provincial armies are the home guard.
Hope this helps.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
PS once your planning phase is complete type in .matteosartori. once again to hide the rest of the map. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
trickytree
05-15-2003, 12:59
Don't have much sympathy with the pov that things should be made easier for managing a sprawling empire.
Being able to control such a large territory - especially one which encompasses so many different peoples, religions and languages - would have been a logistical nightmare. MTW just reflects that.
If you prefer a slightly more manageable realm either curb your expansionism or play STW or the VI campaign. Simple really.
There is a difference between easier and practical. I advocate practicality, just so there is no misunderstanding.
Welcome aboard btw.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
trickytree
05-15-2003, 13:27
Thanks for the welcome.
Hmmm, I guess I have a 'glass half full' attitude to the game. Because I love so many of the good things about MTW I suppose I can seek to make excuses for some of its problems. Especially when it makes the game that bit more difficult.
Having lurked on these boards I've realised that most players feel exactly the same way I do. Really everybody is looking for an AI which will kick their shiny daffodil butts all over Europe.
The Gauch0
05-15-2003, 13:50
Some good points.
I disagree with the argument that the logistical problems are fine because they're realisic. I don't think it has anything to do with realism or not. For instance, when you conquer a new territory and you need to locate the best general for governorship, wouldn't it be handy to be able to see some more information on the generals list besides valor rating? I certainly don't think such a feature would take away from realism, since even the most micromanaging emperor had deputies and councillors working for them.
Another feature that would be most welcome would be the ability to direct units to move several provinces away at one time. That way you could order your sewly created Swiss pikemen from Switzerland to join the defenses at Constantinople, and however many turns later they would arrive there. As it is now, if you're trying to shuffle units around the map, it almost takes a pen and paper to remember where you were planning to move your units last turn.
Overall, I think the strategic game could benefit from more detailed reports and the ability to customize and sort the way information is displayed.
It's an excellent game, but there's always room for improvement.
Doug-Thompson
05-15-2003, 16:24
Under the heading of tricks or tips ....
It might be a newbie mistake, but I rotinely purge garrison units with no acumen and replace them with a new batch of urban miltia. This gives me loyal, 4-acumen governors in each provice and a similarly talented back up. It also gives me a 4 or 5 star general once in a while.;)
When a good governor goes bad, I disband his unit and replace him with another one already in the territory.
As for keeping track of armies, I've fallen into the habit of using important choke point provinces like Morocco or Constantinople as rallying grounds. If in doubt, put the new unit there. Group those units into larger formations the next turn and then move them to the intended province. Experts can keep track of different armies taking different routes to the same place, but newbs like me have to add an extra step.
A variation on that same theme is to take a province that borders a lot of other provinces and use that as the collection point. Syria, for instance, is a very nice rendezvous point for armies on their way to Asia minor.
While administrative problems in a big empire are reality, the lack of a few tools to address them is not.
If I were King of half of Europe, I'm fairly sure I'd have myself a cabinet, council, board of directors, whatever you want to call it, to give me information and carry out a few routine tasks.
Steps that could (and probably won't) be taken to come close to this would be in the reporting menus. I want to talk to my Minister of Spies, and don't want him commingling his report with the Minister of Emissaries. Give me all the spies in one report, all the Emissaries in another, I'll look at my stable of Princesses separately, then I'll go visit the head of my country's church to see what the Bishops or Imams are up to, and give me a report from the Building Minister, and let me see a list of idle provinces, or provinces starting construction this year. My Finance minister should give me a budget estimate, so I don't get surprised by a shortfall due to not doing math in my head well. I can hire a guy with a pencil, it isn't realistic to demand the King to do it in his head.
Moreover, I want to be able to vector newly produced troops. I want to be able to order that until further notice, all troops produced in province A will proceed directly (taking all necessary turns to do so, of course) to province B, until I change it, or something makes execution of the order impossible (loss of route to do so, loss of either province A or B.) Don't make me move these guys every friggin' year. Let me issue standing orders that they just GO.
Let me play the game by making decisions, not doing the same routine clerical tasks over and over.
Oh, yeah, I'd like a way to group strategic units so that I can move 20 spies from Scotland to Egypt without scrolling across the whole map 20 times. Once, sure. 20 times, come on. Just a little transit tray to toss them all onto in Scotland, scroll once to Egypt and click them all onto Egypt would be fine.
The Gauch0
05-15-2003, 21:04
I completely agree with you Popeye. Some nice ideas about what features could be added.
I like the idea about advisors a lot. I'd like to see my lord chamberlain (or whatever title is appropriate) recommend a short list of candidates for governorship based on criteria that I ask for. Who has the best acumen? Whose loyalty needs the most shoring up? Who has a high dread rating for this trooublesome province?
Grouping strategic agents is one that I hadn't thought of lately, but I agree that it's a royal pain to try to move, say, 15 spies from Wessex to Jerusalem, one at a time.
It would also be a neat feature if spies would gradually gather intelligence about other factions that could be viewed in an intelligence report. For instance, I'd like to know what are the most advanced units an adversary can produce before I start a war with him. For the sake of realism, it would be nice if this information was sometimes unreliable (depending on the valor of the spy who provided it) and incomplete.
It would be nice to be able to group assassins on an assassination attempt or spies on doing a particular task.
The_Emperor
05-16-2003, 13:51
Quote[/b] (monkian @ May 16 2003,07:04)]It would be nice to be able to group assassins on an assassination attempt or spies on doing a particular task.
Yeah send a strike team of assassins in, that would give better chance of success.
Asmodeus
05-16-2003, 17:07
Quote[/b] (Colonel Kurtz @ May 15 2003,04:02)]I just got VI and I love it, but I can't believe they STILL haven't included a list you can access of provinces which are currently idle in building or unit orders.
When you have 75% of the map in the later stages it's tedious beyond belief to have to check them all periodically.
I have to agree with you on this one, it would really speed things up
The Gauch0
05-17-2003, 04:11
Just got myself thinking about intelligence (spies and the like), and it occurred to me that intelligence has always been such a pivotal factor in war, yet I can't think of a single PC wargame where intelligence is a significant aspect.
MTW does include a nice feature where spies can tip you off to impending invasions or attacks on other countries. How about some further development of this concept? What if your spies could tell you where an enemy appeared to be anticipating an attack? Of course, this would only be relevant if your own intelligence about what units would be defending a certain province was not infallible. If there was more fog of war to keep you from always knowing what you'd be facing when you attacked or were attacked, it would certainly add to the realism and excitement. Invading a province by sea only to find there were three times as many defenders as your inexperienced spy indicated would be pretty gut-wrenching. Or what about launching a crusade against a technologically inferior enemy only to find that the are really armed with culverins and arquebuses? It would provide a real incentive to train a quality corps of spies.
Another option that such changes could make possible would be tasking your spies to spread disinformation. Have your spies tip off the enemy that you're going to invade one province when in reality you are planning to invade another. Or deceive the enemy into thinking your defenders are much weaker than they really are, surprise them on the battlefield, and then deal a mortal blow with a vicious counterattack. Such use of subterfuge has led to decisive victories throughout history--think D-Day, the campaigns of Hannibal, Saladin or the Trojan horse. (Or the French in Monty Python's Holy Grail--I told him we already got one.) Wouldn't it be exciting to bring this kind of warfare to the PC?
(Hmm. Somebody needs to create a Monty Python Holy Grail mod. I want to face the peril. Naughty, naughty Zoot.)
Just wishful thinking. I'm sure one day, PC wargames will evolve into something so sophisticated. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
Portuguese Rebel
05-17-2003, 10:48
Quote[/b] (The Gauch0 @ May 14 2003,21:53)]This is the 4th Total War installment now, and the game has only grown worse as far as managing your empire on the strategic map. With the enormous maps of MTW, it can be a real pain to try to keep track of what generals are faltering in their loyalty, what troops you were trying to reallocate to different regions, where your governors are, etc. Does anyone else find themselves becoming mentally worn out during the later stages of the game?
I'd like to open a discussion about two things: What are some tricks, tips or strategies for overcoming these problems in the current game, and what would you like to see in Rome TW that might make the logistics of a sprawling empire more manageable? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/argue.gif
Why don't you try to play Master of orion 3? The guys that made it have set the game in full auto. Seriously, you can pratically set all the autos on and the game will play itself, you just have to keep pushing the end turn button http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
I only wish they had an auto end button... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
You guy are lazy huh http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Big empires should be hard to manage... howelse would the small ones get a brake?
You think a king of europe would know the exact loyalty of all his generals? Anyway revolts only happen if there is a royal blood general with low loyalty. just control that and you will be fine.
Queue up troops, as a the king of europe you can manage to make huge armys, this or that Company is no more valid. However it would be aprreciated if we could set rally points somewhere on the map.
About governors you can go to the province screen and find the governor for that province. What more do you want?
About becoming mentally worn out, thats the way one can distinguish the great Emperors in history (the ones that had an hands on approach) from the not so great Emperors (the ones that wasted time in partys and other entertainments). It is supposed to be hard to manage a big empire. And if someone touches my Total war series to make it like the autoplaying itself bull**** of Master of Orion im gonna came after you guys http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif
The Gauch0
05-17-2003, 14:06
Quote[/b] (Portuguese Rebel @ May 17 2003,04:48)]And if someone touches my Total war series to make it like the autoplaying itself bull**** of Master of Orion im gonna came after you guys
I don't think anyone is advocating put more decision-making power into the hands of the AI. The argument is for better ways to view and sort information.
If I want to spend hours on end doing tedious, repetitive tasks that could be easily made more efficient with some improvements to the way data is gathered and presented, I could go get a job with the civil service and get paid for it.
Games are supposed to be enjoyable, so I don't buy the argument that an aspect of the game is tedious and poorly organized because that's the way it would be in real life (which it wouldn't anyway--most of what we're discussing as far as organizing and filtering information is a clerk's job, not a king's.) If this wasn't the case, then I'm sure there would be plenty of popular strategy games with titles like File Clerk: Total War, Chartered Accountant: Total War and Toll-Booth Attendant: Total War. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Portuguese Rebel
05-17-2003, 23:18
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
fine dude... as long has you stay clear from decision making it's cool by me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Doug-Thompson
05-18-2003, 19:42
Quote[/b] (The Gauch0 @ May 17 2003,08:06)]If I want to spend hours on end doing tedious, repetitive tasks that could be EASILY (emphasis added) made more efficient with some improvements to the way data is gathered and presented, I could go get a job with the civil service and get paid for it.
If it was easy, the game developers would have done it.
There's certainly been enough complaining about it to get their attention, and I'm sure playtesters had the same gripes.
If anybody replies how simply it could be done, please include your list of best-selling computer games you've designed along with the repy.
I don't like the tedious work either, but I also assume there's a reason. My blind guess is that the AI assigns each unit individually, which computers can do easily and quickly. Giving humans a different way of moving units might cause some conflict and crashing. Just a guess, though. The main point is that you don't have to be a fanboy to figure that the MTW designers are not stupid. I assume they had some reason to leave such an obviously clunky system.
The main point is that you don't have to be a fanboy to figure that the MTW designers are not stupid. I assume they had some reason to leave such an obviously clunky system.
Yes they do. The system is a carryover from Shogun, which had much the same problems. It's also obvious why it was designed that way: The strategic map was like Risk, with armies and units depicted as unit counters on a province map. The designers thought: Wouldn't it be cool to have a Risk-like map of Japan with colorful counters for armies and spys, etc.? (I think one of the developers explicitly said this about Shogun in a pre-sales interview in PC-Gamer mag). No-one from CA anticipated that the proliferation of counters would prove such a pain in the ass - and they just never changed it for MTW. Period. You want to move a spy or 10 spies or an army of 1600 men or 16 armies of 100 men? Move the counter. And the next. And the next. etc, until your mouse hand gets numb. The game sold well so why change the system just because of a few gripes?
There are so many things to like about this game that I just live with it. I don't make many agents and try to ignore enemy agents to the extent that I can (when I can't I kill them).
The Gauch0
05-19-2003, 04:24
Not knocking the intelligence of the designers. As anybody knows who started out playing computer games on a Commodore 64, programming has come a long way, and it stands to reason that it will continue to improve exponentially. Maybe griping about this stuff will spur somebody to figure out a better way to do it, just to shut up the complainers. Or maybe not.
Anyway, I didn't start this thread to complain, really. Although it's interesting to discuss how the game could be improved, I was also hoping somebody might have some tricks they discovered to make tasks like finding good candidates for governors easier.
Ah, and speaking of games I've designed, I now recall a masterful piece of programming the I did on the old C64. Believe it or not, I came up with a program that would write my name on the screen, AND THEN it would repeat it endlessly, scrolling down the screen forever and ever. Ah, yes, BASIC was such a marvelous tool. I never patented that program. What untold riches could have been mine if only... Ah, well. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
LeeJackson
05-19-2003, 04:39
Too be honest late in the game when I am covering a huge portion of the map I could care less about governor loyalty. My best command generals are always in huge stacks which are to much for the enemy to bribe. My influence and happiness rating is so high that none ever challenge me.
Also building a lot gets you the builder and master builder which give a bounse to general loyalty.
Al Shama'ar
05-19-2003, 11:35
Well, me thinks there's a fairly easy thing that could be done about moving several spies from one province to another.
You could choose to STACK them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif That's not so difficult is it?
I mean, maybe, if we think enough, some of these annoiances could be solved quite easily, imho.
Al Shama'ar
Doug-Thompson
05-19-2003, 15:52
Quote[/b] (The Gauch0 @ May 18 2003,22:24)].... I was also hoping somebody might have some tricks they discovered to make tasks like finding good candidates for governors easier.
I wish I could help you there. About the only trick I've learned is to replace peasants with urban militia as soon as possible, then replace urban militia with better units ASAP -- but keep the ones with high acumen and loyalty.
Pretty soon, EVERY peasant or militia unit you see is a good governor.
Let me play the game by making decisions, not doing the same routine clerical tasks over and over.
Popeye makes the most succint point here. MTW already has some useful reports to help us make strategic decisions - Economy, Alliances, Heirs, Agents, Units. We just need more of them, more useful info in them, and quicker ways to get to them. Other reports could include Generals, Production, Fleets and Armies (stacks), Buildings, etc.
The problem with any strategic game that keeps increasing in scope is the exponential growth in information that accompanies it. But even you had all the reports that you could ever wish for, people would then complain of information overload. Then we are still back to the issue what kind of empire manager you are - do you delegate (to the AI), micromanage, or somewhere in between?
The only answer is to have as many options as possible to make everyone happy - an impossible task.
Sorry I didn't come up with any more tips for managing a sprawling empire - could use some myself, but I do believe future versions of the series should provide enhancements and tools for those who wish to have more control over more details of their mega-empires.
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