what do you do to prolong a game

[khurjan]

i was wondering what tactics or strategy you guys use in campaign to make it last longer
i.e you start in early period and i think most peeps here tend to conquer majority of the map by mid game....what if you didnt want to play just a conquering game but wanted to have fun and excitement in the way that you expand only limitedly and play off different factions and see how it goes?

[KukriKhan]

Several guys have posted their personal iron man rules here and in the Main Hall.

My favorite 'restriction' so far has been as Denmark in MTW, to build & use only vikings, no horse, no spear, no arrow, just vikings.... and never build a ship. Winning was do-able, but took forever, and I was so far in the red, florin-wise, that by the 1450's I wondered if I could get 1 million negative florins. Didn't quite make that sub-goal, but always wondered what would have happened to medieval economics if the dominant force was a deadbeat. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[the Black Prince]

spend your time on *politics* instead of conquest. conquer a faction by assinating your way through the royal family then bribe the generals. can take agers but you end up with a small cadre of brilliant unstoppable 5 star assasins and Spies.
for the factions with different religions use pristes as well...

[Magraev]

Sometimes I decide that I won't attack anybody without being attacked first (rebels excluded). Sometimes this means 100 years of building and trading, but that's fun too.

[the Black Prince]

that way you can build up large armnies of really advanced units then your military machine is unstoppable......
*dreams of conquest*

[Magraev]

Quote[/b] (the Black Prince @ July 10 2003,03:24)]that way you can build up large armnies of really advanced units then your military machine is unstoppable......
*dreams of conquest*
That's not quite true - with a relatively small kingdom you can't afford a large army. So you'll need the tech bqz you'll be severely outnumbered. Also your kings will be kinda crap since they haven't accompliced much. Still great fun.

[the Black Prince]

good point
i forget sometimes coz i normally play germans or byz from early and they have large numbers of provinces. i'm not ashamed to admit that i've never taken the danes to victory, i can't get enough money early enough

but once you start empire building from your fortress provinces that are really advanced etc you can get more money to support larger armies. one reason ai factions that start with 1 or less provinces never seem to do anything is that i reckon they go bankrupt. they build an army to invade new provinces, and then heirs come along, and their orginal and only province cannot support the royal family, led alone an actual army, so denmark and aragon ends up with large armies of royal knights

[Satyr]

I just play faster so I can get to the next campaign sooner. I prefer the first 50 years of the game to the last 100 years (yes, it only take 150 years to win) and so I am always looking forward to my next campaign.

[ToranagaSama]

Whatever happend to the guy who said he could win in 40 turns, if I recall?

[Crash]

I also prefer to delay victory as long as possible in order to see more of the advanced units and create highly developed provinces, but it usually never takes much more than 150 years for me so far. That is why my grand strategy is to attack other factions only when attacked, the exceptions being Aragon and Denmark since they will never attack. Rebels don't count, of course.

Here's some other rules of mine:

1. Whenever I'm not at war, or not seriously threatened by stronger factions, I don't build any military units, but I will build spies, amims/bishops, assassins, and emissaries.
2. When not at war with anyone I will focus on building agriculture, religious, economic, castle, and military improvements - in that order.
3. Prioritize ship building and expanding trade. If you want to avoid war, do not place any of your ships in sea zones with other faction's ships.
4. Make as many alliances as possible, and don't break them.

Doing everyting to stay out of wars, and concentrating on non-military development might allow you to play a longer game, unless you get run over by an AI faction that has conquered everyone else, while your generals and kings have been relaxing in their palaces. That's why playing a faction like the Byz might is good, since they always have highly rated generals and leaders, even if they never fight.

Playing the Italians or the Byz also gives you trade advantages too. You can conquer Antioch and Scandinavia and just build up your trade too. The huge amount of money from trade can help fund your province improvements, but protecting your trade can get you into wars. Staying out of wars, and refraining from conquests might stop other factions from disrupting trade, however.

I'm sure that there's a lot more to say on this subject. I hope others will have more feedback on this...
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif

[Satyr]

Heck, if you really want a game to last a while, and maybe be somewhat harder too, don't build boats and don't build merchants. Learn to live off farming and mining. Only build a few boats at the very end to take over the islands. Also build only 1 or 2 of any kind of agent. No spying, no assassinations, no conversions and certainly no burning at the stack. Fight all your own battles and generally have fewer, and maybe better, troops than the opponent. Assault all castles on the first turn and lead these assaults personnally too. If you are a bit nuts, try to always be at war with more than one faction at a time. This will cause you to take longer to eliminate a faction and chances are, you will have to divide your armies up more to handle all the opponents. Try to have 4 different wars going at once. Never sue for peace. Enjoy. Oh, and load WesW's mod.

[Mount Suribachi]

How to make the game *longer*??? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

Crikey, I've yet to finish the full campaign once I want the game to be shorter

[hrvojej]

To deal with this problem, I play on high. The only reason I would like to wait with the conquest is that both me and the AI can get better units. Whenever I play on early, it's too much of a peasant horde game, and the wait is simply too long, some 50 years of doing nothing to build the first chivalric unit. On high, everything is much more developed. I can field armies I want fairly rapidly, and the AI also mostly builds somewhat decent armies. I've also modded a bunch of early units to be available in high, so the armies are as colorful as possible. Armies are also more expensive, so you cannot just build droves of them, and the economy is less developed than it would be if I was playing from early to this point. Therefore, sometimes I have to stop and think about my next move since opponents will be more capable in comparison, and not just arbitrarely stopping myself so as to not finish the game before it gets more interesting. The only annoying thing with playing on high is that I'm really sick and tired of fighting huge Mongol armies composed of only three types of units...

[ShadesPanther]

If you want the AI to have really good units make peasants, urban militia and spearmen unbuilable (ie remove building requirments) this makes them have feudal and chivilric armies which with a good general can make them really had to stop http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif

[Suppiluliumas]

I like to allow either rebels, or rival factions to take about half of my provinces away before I start playing in earnest. It can be fun having to fight for survival for awhile before moving on to bigger and better things. And of course, I only assign titles to nobility and never build watch or guard towers. All of that helps keep the game fresh for me.

[Crash]

Another rule for myself is to never attack with more than one or two stacks, preferably one. This forces you to think more about exactly what you want to do in the upcoming battle. This is a little more challenging than assembling multiple stacks and trying to just overwhelm the enemy.