The GA Game

[Sir Chauncy]

I have just, for the first time, started to to play Glorious Acheivements. It really is a completely different sort of game, I have launched crusades in a serious way for the first time and hammered the infidel. I have also actually been able to make peace with some of the factions What do you know? I couldn't believe it myself. The French actually asked for Peace then the Egyptians after I attacked Palestine. I really was feeling a bit happy. I even managed to wrangle an Alliance with the Danes who are normally so conservative they never get past launching ineffective raids on Sweden. All in all, because I am not fighting my nearest neighbours, they aren't fighting me.
The one excpetion to this is the Aragonese who attacked Aquitaine and nearly took it. Then, in a wonderful example of how the alliance system works, me and the Spanish attacked Aragon and the Aragonese got excommunicated. Sweet sweet irony.

[Si GeeNa]

Interesting thread...

I have to say that the human gaming personality is not the only one that changes with the difference in Objectives.

Previously, in World Conquest games, i see a tendency for the AI to rush into its closest neighbours. This means a high hostility kind of game, but not very intelligent. Often, the game degenerates into a few super-powers dominating the scene. This can take the fun out of the game, especially when you begin at Early. (Before i reach High, the stage is set for World Wars.)

At the GA games, the AI's strategy is more measured. Something which i appreciate more than the one above. It seems to consider the picture more. Partly, i suppose that it is more inward-looking. (maintaing Homelands and achieving Strategic Objectives~ GA Goals)

I began playing the game at Conquest Objectives, thinking that it was a more difficult game. Turns out that GA is the harder one, and more sophisticated as well.

All in all, i agree with Chauncy. More than that, i like the GA more.

[Revenant69]

Yeah i began to like GA games when i got tired from endless conquests. In a GA game you have clearly defined objectives and you can even plan the size and content of your empire beforehand, as to minimize the ammount of border provinces.
So when my empire reaches its predesignated (by me) size, I start playing defensively - fight off crusades, respond to wars of agression etc. And i agree that it does get more difficult later on as AI's armies slowly improve.

All in all I like GA games, however when it comes to PBM games then I wont care much if it is not a GA game.

My 2 cents.
Rev

[Idaho]

Sorry to dig this one out of the bin

I am in the approaching the end of a GA campaign as the English... and I never stopped to ifnd out what it is I am supposed to acheive Can anyone tell me? It's 1400 and I am runnign out of time

[Bob the Insane]

The last of the buttons, the cup thing shows the GA's...

They are usual require you either to capture a specific province, build some or loads of things in one of your provinces, or someting more global (earn more trade from wool then any one else). One thing all the GA's share is time senitivity, you have to do these things by a certain date..

Even the universal Homelands (maintaining your home provinces) is scored on specific dates.

Therefore, just checking now means you will have missed out on a lot of scoring opportunities..

You can also see the different (surviving) nation's scores and where you are in the lead or losing (and didn't even know it...)..

[Kristaps]

Well, I've played a few GA games. A few things I noted: (1) it is not harder than Total Domination (especially for the large nations who can attain lead score just by hanging on to their homelands); (2) the AI does not really strive for achieving their GA 'goals': how otherwise one could explain appearance of a citadel in Arabia rather than Egypt for Egyptians... (3) the AI still attempts to 'score' by conquest; (4) given 2 and 3, you'll soon see yourself at a comfortable lead relative to any AI faction...

[Brutal DLX]

Yes, that's true. But there is more balance, AI techs up more and to be honest, whether playing Total Domination or GA, the outcome is hardly ever in doubt if you know your MTW. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
But it's much nicer to be able to have a smaller realm and still have a chance of winning rather than overpowering your opponents because you have the most and richest lands.

[Anti-christ]

there is really only while playing a few minor factions that you can actually loose, and for that, you need to mod the game. Otherwise, if you've played for a while then nothing can really bring you on your feet...

[The Wizard]

There is a cheat that lets you play rebels... (forgot what it was an its irreversible)

[King John II]

I started my first last night - HRE/expert/high. So far I'm enjoying it a lot.

I decided to make Denmark my first objective and the AI proceeded to give me a flying start by way of this stunt.

I was stripping such units as I could spare and moving them to the Danish border when the the first Danish prince appears and that triggered the Danes to invade their rebel held neighbour. The king evidently does not trust the prince to do the job properly and goes himself.

So now there is just one unit of royal knights in Denmark.

But I was not ready so I continued my build up. Whereupon I get to watch the two weak units of rebels take to their fort and get starved out by the Danish king over two years. Failing to storm the fort meant it was lost to the Danes and also kept the province at a particularly low loyalty level during the period of the seige. Which proved costly as the Danes then encountered a big rebelion.

I was ready now and invaded Denmark. I expected the Danish king and his four or five good units to give priority to defending his homeland and immediately to fall back on Denmark. The issue would then be whether my numbers or his extra stars were going to prevail.

But not so. He stayed in the conquered province just long enough to decide that he had no chance against the rebels.

Having decided which, with nowhere to retreat to, he fell into the rebels' hands and got himself executed because Denmark, now defended by just the prince and his royal knights, fell to me.

Not too bright, really. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Kristaps]

Just some material for thought: maybe the 'economic potential' of human empires could be limited by requiring more garrison troops than 100 strong units of peasants... C'mon, in those times, no province would stay loyal being watched over by a unit of peasants while the king is campaigning thousands of miles away somewhere in Africa...

Once high upkeep units or a higher number of low upkeep ones would be required to keep the backyard from rebelling, it would be harder to generate enormous treasury to finance unlimited expansion... And the AI is doing it anyways: how many times have we seen huge stacks of troops in AI backyards? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[TheSilverKnight]

Quote[/b] (Wizzy @ Nov. 06 2003,06:27)]There is a cheat that lets you play rebels... (forgot what it was an its irreversible)
.conan. is the cheat

[hellenes]

Quote[/b] (Wizzy @ Nov. 06 2003,12:27)]There is a cheat that lets you play rebels... (forgot what it was an its irreversible)
Well in practice it is reversible... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Just add the -ian command line and you can change to any faction during the campaign 1 rebels 2 alms 3 byz et etc
shift+2spanish 3turks etc etc...

Hellenes

[Brutal DLX]

I'll always have one unit of spearman and one urban militia as garrison units.
And in a GA game, I don't plan on going on conquest, so I'd never think about invading Denmark unless I get attacked first and then have do a punishment expedition. The purpose of GA is, in my opinion, not to focus on conquest (unless you play the Sicilians or Aragonese, where you have to take at least one or two or provinces) but rather defend your realm and getting GA points from the GA goals.

[The Wizard]

Usually, I barely have garrissons in my Heartlands, because I've made sure they are 200% loyal 24/7... oh and I make sure that I have full sea control. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Old Bald Guy]

I had been playing GA mostly for months, but now exclusively after seeing how ghastly the AI plays Conquer mode. I was testing the MedMod autorunning using -ian and watching the AI over and over attack with one or two units. Two factions completely depleted every unit they had over a single province. It's totally ridiculous No wonder it's so easy to win the game.

At least with GAs, the AI takes its time to a much greater degree, playing more like humans play. A much more interesting game.

[mystic brew]

what makes the GA game more interesting to me is that defending homelands forces you to do things like garrisoning isolated provinces.

Take the situation when you are Byzantium.

in TD mode, it's simple. Georgia and Armenia aren't worth much while you tech up, you can grab much more convenient provinces which will provide the same revenue. likewise naples, where I just wait for the rebels or sicilians to come and get me...

It's easy. you can let those far flung provinces burn while centralising eeverything else. You can only produce troops from constantinople at first, so you can't really afford to thump out any boats...

And the islands which would be the best source of a navy are probably 20 years from being able to produce ships.

So realistically speaking Naples has to survive 30 years isolated. So, do you try to keep it? build watchtowers to keep the rebellions in check? Or do you build an inn in the hopes of defending with quality but expensive troops? or do you really go for it and try to build the province up so it can produce an army of militia, TAs and so on?

One things for sure, leaving 2 units 1 BI and 1 naptha throwers is condeming them to death.

But even then you might lose everything there with an attack by the Sicilians, whose kings always seem alarmingly fertile. A few units of Royal knights is too much for the low quality you can usually afford.

Armenia and Georgia suck up valuable troops, leaving you even thinner.

So you are left with not that much money (on expert anyway&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif and 2 enemys in the East just looking for that opportunity to strike. there are potentially easy pickings in the West, but you have to decide where to send scarce troops.

I found TD with Byzantium very easy, GA is fun

[Revenant69]

As I said above (some time ago) GA games are my favorite. I am currently playing France GA/Early/Expert and it is vastly different from playing France on TD mode.

Because in GA you have to send the Crusades and build the infamous Krak des Chevalier which takes a lot of planning + other GA goals which i havent found out yet.

I must say this, if i were playing French on TD mode, I would not have done things that i have done, I would not have stopped my european conquests to concentrate on Crusades. I probably would have just kept rolling my steamroller before it ran out of steam http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

The other fun part of GA is this: AI can get really nasty big empires with nasty troops. Byzantines were second to me and their holdings included Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Tunisia, all their mediterranean islands, all Russian provinces, most of the Balkans + their original holdings in Asia Minor. Their shipping stretched from Black sea to Baltic Sea (same as mine), they were my biggest trading partners in the world.

Byzantine armies also had a lot of Avar nobles, Byzantine Lancers, Katanks, Varangians and Steppe Heavy Cavalry. To put it bluntly - they werent just rabble. Their immense trading revenues meant lots of money, and when they started bribing 2 or 3 stacks of rebels at a time - it began to worry me. I didnt want them to bribe my armies.

And all this just before 1230 So in 150 years the AI, if left alone, can become a major powerhouse. I however utilised the arrival of the Horde to resolve the Byzantine issue, i needed Crete or is it Cyprus (one of the two I forget which one) as my homeland objective. With Mongols attacking them from the East and me attacking them from the south, the Byzantines caved in, but not before giving my troops a fight of their lives.

So what happens now? Mongols control most of Russia and the scary thing is - they have a navy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif
The otehr scary thing is that the Russian provinces had citadels galore in them, so mongols are pumping out fully armed Steppe Heavies - ouchie ouchie ouchie.

To summarize it - this would have never happened have I played the game in TD mode.

So I say GA all the way (hey it even rhymes http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif )
Thats it,
Rev

[Kristaps]

Regarding Byzantines and Naples: I found it the most fun part of the Byzantine campaign to defend the isolated province... I rushed the italian infrastructure to produce units in the following sequence: (1) urban milita, (2) trebizond archers, (3) spearmen, (4) naphta, (5) horse archers.

With a few units of urban militia + the original garrison units my general succeeded to defeat several Sicilian kings and princes. He bluntly refused to fight outside the woods, until he got a decent number of spears/trebizonds and horse archers.

Once, He was able to form a hill-top trebizond-heavy battle-line, a couple kings got the "coward" vice after facing napolese naphta throwers {I still have a screen-shot of one of these poor characters: reluctant and poor attacker, coward, an atheist [yes, some AI dropped an inquisitor on the sicilian king]} while being peppered by trebizond arrows. From that point, whenever sicilians got sufficiently drunk to cross the straights, it was enough for my urban militia-men to say 'booo' to send the invading armies of royal knights, feudal sergeants and men at arms, along with militia seargeants running back to their women... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

And, by that time, the imperial armies from the mainlands of Asia Minor had arranged for transportation to take care of the Sicilians in their homeland anyways http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

P.S. Story wouldn't be complete, if I didn't mention that Byzantines had an 'unhinged loon' of a prince whom everyone disliked. Alexius was his name though everyone called him simply 'Crazy'. Once the treasury and technology allowed for sea-link to be reestablished between Asia Minor and Naples, the Emperor sent the crazy fella (40 Kats) to pay a visit to the cowardly Sicilian ruler who was sitting in an island with a 1400 strong army of high quality early period troops contemplating his last imperial failure.

I figured, that would be the last we heard of Alexius, but wrong I was... Crazy Alexius and his unit climbed one of the highest mountains in Sicily and just waited for the defenders to attack... To Alexiu's amazement, the reluctant atheist coward, being a poor attacker as usual, was running uphill ahead of the crowd... One charge by the kats, and the dishonor of the Sicilian dinasty was ended... The initial success made the nutty prince berserk and he routed the whole sicilian army. After that, his crazy deeds continued on the eastern front: against the Turks and Egyptians http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

P.S.S. I know, the woods negate the rank bonus for spears. Nevertheless, they appear to still give the 'hold formation' defense bonus to units. I put one unit of urban milita in 'hold formation' while charging it into a unit of royal knights and flank/rear with another unit of UM in wedge formation. Works wonders... Royals disappear regardless of their generals stars... The tactic is harder to pull off against full-size knight units (40) though (with UM that is)