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View Full Version : Some questions and some thoughts for improvement



Icerian Rex
06-15-2003, 20:00
Having played STW for quite awhile, I was really excited about playing MTW. Once I played, I was even more excited about getting through to the end... at least for the first WEEK or so of the campaign. So, listed below are some of the things I think would have made for a better game (perhaps some of these things exist, and I just don't know how to access them). Also, below the first part are a list of stupid new guy questions. First off, how I think the game could be improved:

1. Alot of the time, once I have established a good set of trade routes, people begin to attack, and all at once every trade route is blockaded. I try to attack the ships blockading me, but the computer just flip-flops them between blockading one spot and another. I think that if you're being blockaded, you should be able to attack to release the blockade... otherwise I wind up with four good sized ships unable to break the blockade of one itty-bitty ship. Either that, or the blockade should be weighted, meaning that one ship blocks perhaps 25% trade, two block 50%, etc... and that if the enemy wants the blockade to continue, they MUST engage in combat.

2. Often, once a blockade is in place, I have to take out the enemy entirely before the ships go away. I think that if ships no longer have access to a port, they should starve in the same way that a crusade that sits idle would.

3. There needs to be a better between-turn interface. Perhaps like an old looking book or something. Some of the things you could find there would be A) Information on which provinces wrapped up construction (I search constantly for that sort of thing, which gets complex once you have alot of provinces), B) What types of troops are where, C) What provinces can produce what types of troops, etc...

4. There should also be an on-screen way of toggling things on and off. For instance, by hitting the 'L' button, you could see the loyalty of every province, as well as any spies. By hitting 'R', you could see the religious zeal, as well as any priests/bishops. By hitting 'T', you could see what provinces did the most trade, and to what countries this trade was going to.

5. Alot of the time I find that as I get bigger, I'll wind up making enemies just so they can balance me. Regardless of what I do, I can't get these people to stop being my enemy. I find this unrealistic, especially since I wind up pummeling them, and they still won't stop being an enemy. This gets annoying.

6. Provinces should be able to trade with other provinces.

7. When invading another province, alot of the time the destruction can be severe. If I invade a prosperous province, the enemy retreats, and then comes back and takes it back, often the damage could take 100 years to repair. I think, instead of doing it this way, there should be invasion types, such as raiding vs. conquering. The former would cause more damage and provide more plunder, while the latter would do far less damage but provide little plunder.

8. When playing in Glorious Achievements mode, there should be more types of glorious achievements to be had. There are a few interesting onces, but often it boils down to defending such and such provinces over and over again. This gets old. Perhaps building some unique buildings, only available in this mode, would be interesting. I dunno... just ideas.

OK, here's some Questions I have:
1. I keep hearing about people playing as the Hungarians, Swiss, Irish, or people of Novgorod, etc... How do you do this? Do more units become available? Also, it seems that some of this stuff is specific to VI in some of the threads, as alot of the troop types I haven't heard of. Could this be the case?

hrvojej
06-15-2003, 20:52
Hi and welcome to the Org. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
As far as your question goes, in VI you can play as Hungarians, Sicilians and Aragonese in addition to the originally available factions. If you want to play as Novgorod, Swiss, etc., I suggest you check out the modding forum for tips on how to enable the factions to be playable. VI also has several new units, so people are probably refering to those. You can also make HUngarians etc. playable if you don't have VI through modding, but you won't get those new units, of course.
Cheers

Sir Robin
06-15-2003, 22:23
Good suggestions all.

I think you can filter what is being shown on the campaign map. I can't remember the hotkeys for them though I am pretty sure they exist.

MonkeyMan
06-15-2003, 22:37
Hi Icerian Rex excellent first post. Welcome to the org http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

I see your question is pretty much answered, i.e. through modding your files in the startpos directory and the rest are valid points.

Enjoy your stay http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Crash
06-17-2003, 00:03
I heard in VI that the buildings don't get destroyed if the castle is never taken. For example, the castle can besieged, but the siege is lifted by a friendly army or because the besiegers withdraw voluntarily.

Hoplite
06-19-2003, 19:09
Quote[/b] (Crash @ June 17 2003,02:03)]I heard in VI that the buildings don't get destroyed if the castle is never taken. For example, the castle can besieged, but the siege is lifted by a friendly army or because the besiegers withdraw voluntarily.
That's right. In a recent danish campaign i saved my polish allys behind several times by defeating the rebel armies annoying his prussian garrison from time to time. No damage was caused to the provinces infrastructure.

As for hotkeys,

Shift shows the color-coded loyalty indicator for your provinces.

C toggles castles on and off on the strategy map.

X toggles between different types of pieces, armies, agents, etc.

Z toggles between friendly and enemy pieces.

(X and Z could be the other way around, I'm not playing at the moment.)

Regarding blockades, if the AI is blockading your shipping routes with hit-and run blockades(moving the blockading fleets every turn to prevent attacks), you need to attack the blockading fleet with faster ships. For example, a Baggala (speed 2) can't be attacked by a Caravel (spped 1), but a few barques (speed 3) will do the trick. If the attacking fleet has the same speed as the target does, or is faster, then the target fleet cannot escape.

hrvojej
06-19-2003, 19:41
And V shows the traffic light for the sea zones, (green - you control them/have trade route; yellow - neutral; red - hostile).

Degtyarev14.5
06-19-2003, 19:52
Hi Icerian Rex,

Okay, point one has been dealt with. Thank you Hoplite - two Egyptian baggalas have been driving me nuts for the past ten (game) years... Time to fertilise the sea-floor, methinks. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Point two: the further a ship is from a friendly dock, the greater the support costs. While this works in theory, in practice the amounts we're talking are negligible, and thus pointless. To mod or not to mod...

Point three: you can get a summary-notification re: which provinces have wrapped up construction over the past year, by disabling in the game menu something like Show non-essential notifications, or something like that.

Your other two suggestions: sorry, there's the long way, and then there's the long way.

Point four: dealt with, for the most part. Those suggestions that haven't been acknowledged aren't possible, but they are good suggestions all the same.

Point five: much discussion has been devoted to this topic. There will come a point in every game where every faction just seems to go ABSOLUTELY NUTS and declare war on every other faction. Unless you're prepared for this moment, your trade routes will most likely be the first casualties.

Point six: true, but sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Point seven: addressed.

Point eight: yeah, sounds interesting, but this would have been more work on the part of the developers. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

And your final question: if you don't have VI, you can play as the Russians, but not from the Early period. (Dunno why they made that decision here, and with no others.) As has been mentioned, the Swiss, the Mongols, the Portuguese, the Irish, the Scots, all these can be modded in. Hell, you could play as the Pope if you really wanted to But VI adds the Hungarians (these are AWESOME), the Sicilians (haven't tried them yet) and the Aragonese (basically Spanish with a geographical / geopolitical handicap) only.

WOO-HOO, I've just built my first ever carrack http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif