Observations from a new MTW player

[Eyecare]

Well here I am after a few weeks of episodically playing this game. It's 1275 AD and I'm facing 3 armies of 20-30 fully equipped stacks each. Usually not a problem except that in this case they all belong to one country (the French) who by now control over 1/2 of the world plus most of the sea lanes. But I'm getting ahead of myself..

I'm a newb. I freely admit that I don't understand the intricacies of MTW and VI. Coming from being a SC/BW addict I decided to try something different and this is different enough. Here are some observations I've made in the few games I've tried:

1. Economy (florins?): Youll get a heck of a lot more by trading with ships than by land. Not sure why this is; I suppose that's just the way this game is programmed. I had over 1 million florins in the game above. Sicily alone was bringing in almost 7k per turn. Granted, I tried very hard not to get in a war with anyone for a long time. I started this game as Sicily on hard, primarily expanded by bribing rebel commanders and had ships everywhere. Of course I wasted quite a bit by building everything I could in every territory I bought but saved by not investing heavily in Army garrisons. It helped to use peasants in rear bases. I did have 20+ stacks of fully upgraded forces though and a large number of ships. I usually pick a govenor (peasant) with 4 or more feathers and set the game to autotax.

2. Land wars: Not really sure how the tactical part of the conflict works as I've only played this from the strategic side so far.(Trying to save time.) I figured I'd just make some decent combined force armies and let the AI take care of the rest. The only time stars and vices seemed to make much difference was when I attacked a Swiss garrison that had Swiss Halbs with a 7-8 star king with the vice of being able to fight harder when outnumbered. He ate up two of my attacks that had double or triple the number of troops he had. I was impressed.

3. Sea wars: Now this is intriguing. The winner of a sea war between an equal number of ships seems to be random (whether you attack or defend) unless the commander has more stars. In sea wars, command seem to be the overriding factor, all else being even. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to produce admirals with higher command ratings. I can't upgrade them like I can generals. Somehow the French ended up with 4 star admirals and the best I could come up with was a one star. This was in spite of me making an Admiralty. I ended up having stack of ships 7+ deep (mostly galleys) just to see if it would make any difference. Interestingly, all my single ships with lesser command were picked off almost immediately while the heavy stacks (the fully packed ones) managed to survive despite having lesser command ratings.

4. Rebellions: A nuisance but not normally a problem unless you happened to wipe out the Pope. On the harder levels, the Pope has a nasty habit of coming back almost every other turn despite Rome having a loyalty rating of 200%. More annoying is the fact that he'll show up with 6+ stacks of the latest troops every time. It's easier to knock off the Pope last than to deal with recurring Papal comebacks. In other places you can keep control fairly easily with a high enough loyalty rating.

5. Bribery: This is probably the easiest way to expand if your economy can handle it. While it might cost over 70k florins to bribe a stack belonging to a regular country, rebel stacks can often be had for less than 3k. Quite the bargain and you can often get decent troops as part of the deal.

6. Units: This is more about the number of units. The French with their huge army(ies) and number of countries are taking 3-5 minutes to think at this stage of the game. I suppose this is because it has to go through so many permutations before it responds. Now I don't have the fastest computer in the world but it's no slouch either. (It's a P4 2.53 with dual 7200rpm HDs 512 of Corsair XMS a Radeon 9600 pro, etc.) I can literally go down to the kitchen, make a fresh pot of coffee and return and not miss anything. I'm not advocating unit limits and I suppose this may be an exception as I never experienced it before in previous games but it seems excessive.

So far I've played VI as Saxons, Mercians and Irish (hard and normal levels) and MTW as English, Spanish, Turks, Egyptians, Danes and now Sicilians (all but one hard and all early period). Never had a problem winning until now though. I think I needed to expand more aggressively earlier in the game. Once one comp country has the lead in tech, income, forces and number of countries and controls most of the sea lanes as well, it's very hard to counter. But it's only a game and I'm having fun. Off to the attack.. :cool:

[torsoboy]

Taking control of the most important ports (Flanders, Venice, Sweden, Constantinople, Sicily) and ruling the seas is a sure-fire way to win this game. This game really favors the attacker, since a besieged province cannot build anything. Attack constantly even if you're not sure you can win. You will eventually win through attrition.

You're only playing on the strategic map? Try the battles, they are fun and its not hard to get the hang of it. On the battlefield most losses you would otherwise have could be turned into victory.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

First of all, let me welcome you to the ORG, Eyecare. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Second, let me comment on your campaign and hopefully give you some more tips than you already have.




Quote[/b] ]I'm a newb. I freely admit that I don't understand the intricacies of MTW and VI. Coming from being a SC/BW addict I decided to try something different and this is different enough.
That's good. One always needs a change from our favorite game, from time to time. Although I believe many people on this forum might disagree... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif




Quote[/b] ]1. Economy (florins?): You'll get a heck of a lot more by trading with ships than by land. Not sure why this is; I suppose that's just the way this game is programmed.
No. It is like that because historically it was like that.
Throughout the Midddle Ages, Venice and Genova ruled the trade in the Mediteranean and grossed enormous profits from that situation.
That, up until the Portuguese discovered the naval voyage to the Indian Ocean. Then the Portuguese ruled the world trade and Venice and Genova withered.

Trade allows you to trade the products from one province with all the provinces that have contact with that province. An inland province only contacts with the adjacent neighbors, therefore only makes money out of the trade with them. A coastal province in contrast can, with a port, contact and trade with ALL the provinces in that sea and adjacent seas, provided you have ships deployed there. That is the reason that coastal trade provinces are the biggest money making machines in the game. It was like that in the Middle Ages and troughout Ancient times.




Quote[/b] ]2. Land wars: Not really sure how the tactical part of the conflict works as I've only played this from the strategic side so far.
OMG http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
You're missing the MAIN FUN FACTOR of the game
Total War games are built around the tactical battles. The rest is very interesting, challenging and engaging, but the tactical battle is the REAL must of the game.
Try it NOW http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pissed.gif




Quote[/b] ]3. Sea wars: Now this is intriguing. The winner of a sea war between an equal number of ships seems to be random (whether you attack or defend) unless the commander has more stars.
Not random. Two factors are important:
-Admiral rank (number of stars)
-Number of ships in battle (bigger stack has the edge).




Quote[/b] ]4. Rebellions: A nuisance but not normally a problem unless you happened to wipe out the Pope. On the harder levels, the Pope has a nasty habit of coming back almost every other turn despite Rome having a loyalty rating of 200%. More annoying is the fact that he'll show up with 6+ stacks of the latest troops every time. It's easier to knock off the Pope last than to deal with recurring Papal comebacks. In other places you can keep control fairly easily with a high enough loyalty rating.
You're right.




Quote[/b] ]5. Bribery: This is probably the easiest way to expand if your economy can handle it. While it might cost over 70k florins to bribe a stack belonging to a regular country, rebel stacks can often be had for less than 3k. Quite the bargain and you can often get decent troops as part of the deal.
Right again.




Quote[/b] ]6. Units: This is more about the number of units. The French with their huge army(ies) and number of countries are taking 3-5 minutes to think at this stage of the game. I suppose this is because it has to go through so many permutations before it responds. Now I don't have the fastest computer in the world but it's no slouch either. (It's a P4 2.53 with dual 7200rpm HDs 512 of Corsair XMS a Radeon 9600 pro, etc.) I can literally go down to the kitchen, make a fresh pot of coffee and return and not miss anything. I'm not advocating unit limits and I suppose this may be an exception as I never experienced it before in previous games but it seems excessive.
I don't have that problem. My PC is only a Celeron 466MHz. I think you let the French get too strong. They really must have MASSIVE stacks of armies everywhere.




Quote[/b] ]I think I needed to expand more aggressively earlier in the game.
Right again. You can't let a faction get too much control. I generally star pumping emissaries early, to spread them all through the map. Then I just keep watching for any unbalance in other factions. If one gets too strong, I do a bit of raiding to destroy their improvements, because I always pump my navy early too.




Quote[/b] ]Once one comp country has the lead in tech, income, forces and number of countries and controls most of the sea lanes as well, it's very hard to counter.
But if you played the tactical battles, you would win much more and it wouldn't be that harder... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[bighairyman]

Quote[/b] (Eyecare @ Dec. 27 2003,15:12)]Well here I am after a few weeks of episodically playing this game. It's 1275 AD and I'm facing 3 armies of 20-30 fully equipped stacks each. Usually not a problem except that in this case they all belong to one country (the French) who by now control over 1/2 of the world plus most of the sea lanes. But I'm getting ahead of myself..

I'm a newb. I freely admit that I don't understand the intricacies of MTW and VI. Coming from being a SC/BW addict I decided to try something different and this is different enough. Here are some observations I've made in the few games I've tried:

1. Economy (florins?): Youll get a heck of a lot more by trading with ships than by land. Not sure why this is; I suppose that's just the way this game is programmed. I had over 1 million florins in the game above. Sicily alone was bringing in almost 7k per turn. Granted, I tried very hard not to get in a war with anyone for a long time. I started this game as Sicily on hard, primarily expanded by bribing rebel commanders and had ships everywhere. Of course I wasted quite a bit by building everything I could in every territory I bought but saved by not investing heavily in Army garrisons. It helped to use peasants in rear bases. I did have 20+ stacks of fully upgraded forces though and a large number of ships. I usually pick a govenor (peasant) with 4 or more feathers and set the game to autotax.

2. Land wars: Not really sure how the tactical part of the conflict works as I've only played this from the strategic side so far.(Trying to save time.) I figured I'd just make some decent combined force armies and let the AI take care of the rest. The only time stars and vices seemed to make much difference was when I attacked a Swiss garrison that had Swiss Halbs with a 7-8 star king with the vice of being able to fight harder when outnumbered. He ate up two of my attacks that had double or triple the number of troops he had. I was impressed.

3. Sea wars: Now this is intriguing. The winner of a sea war between an equal number of ships seems to be random (whether you attack or defend) unless the commander has more stars. In sea wars, command seem to be the overriding factor, all else being even. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to produce admirals with higher command ratings. I can't upgrade them like I can generals. Somehow the French ended up with 4 star admirals and the best I could come up with was a one star. This was in spite of me making an Admiralty. I ended up having stack of ships 7+ deep (mostly galleys) just to see if it would make any difference. Interestingly, all my single ships with lesser command were picked off almost immediately while the heavy stacks (the fully packed ones) managed to survive despite having lesser command ratings.

4. Rebellions: A nuisance but not normally a problem unless you happened to wipe out the Pope. On the harder levels, the Pope has a nasty habit of coming back almost every other turn despite Rome having a loyalty rating of 200%. More annoying is the fact that he'll show up with 6+ stacks of the latest troops every time. It's easier to knock off the Pope last than to deal with recurring Papal comebacks. In other places you can keep control fairly easily with a high enough loyalty rating.

5. Bribery: This is probably the easiest way to expand if your economy can handle it. While it might cost over 70k florins to bribe a stack belonging to a regular country, rebel stacks can often be had for less than 3k. Quite the bargain and you can often get decent troops as part of the deal.

6. Units: This is more about the number of units. The French with their huge army(ies) and number of countries are taking 3-5 minutes to think at this stage of the game. I suppose this is because it has to go through so many permutations before it responds. Now I don't have the fastest computer in the world but it's no slouch either. (It's a P4 2.53 with dual 7200rpm HDs 512 of Corsair XMS a Radeon 9600 pro, etc.) I can literally go down to the kitchen, make a fresh pot of coffee and return and not miss anything. I'm not advocating unit limits and I suppose this may be an exception as I never experienced it before in previous games but it seems excessive.

So far I've played VI as Saxons, Mercians and Irish (hard and normal levels) and MTW as English, Spanish, Turks, Egyptians, Danes and now Sicilians (all but one hard and all early period). Never had a problem winning until now though. I think I needed to expand more aggressively earlier in the game. Once one comp country has the lead in tech, income, forces and number of countries and controls most of the sea lanes as well, it's very hard to counter. But it's only a game and I'm having fun. Off to the attack.. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif
1. nothing to say

2. try to command battles by urself. that's the fun part of this game. if u fail, don't worry, u can pratice with the custom battles. if u troops are not that good in qulity, battle more advanced weapon producing facilties. and try to build metalsmiths and armor smiths if possible. they will benefit ur troops. also try to have a high star # commanders to command a army. the extra stars will make ur troops more experience.

3. Sea battles are totally random. the easiest way to sovle this problems is having multiple number of ships in each sea lane. but don't put them in a group.

4. for rebellions. also try to ahve a spy in each province, they will warn u of generals that have low loytaly, and warn u of possible civil wars and ringleaders, very useful. also try to keep a couple assians in each prvince. tuse them to take out low loyatly generals and other enemy units.

5. if the troops are low quilty, don't bother bribeing them. use ur own troops and crush them. it will provide some experience for ur troops and myabe rais stars for ur generals.

6. try to use grand inqustorers(sp) to burn high star, low piety french generals. bribe low loyalty french generals. and if all else fails. hire mercanries and supplemnt it with ur own troops and crush french armies one by one.


also on the pope, it's easier to just leave him to rome. but make sure left large # of troops in the surrounding provinc so the pope won't invade. also on french, try to get the french excommunited, and lunch crusades against them. is there any othe comps near the french? ally with them and maybe they can help u bring down the french.

Good Luck http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

oh yeah, for ur lonf french loading problem. try pressing the space bar http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Eyecare]

Thanks for the suggestions. I just tried the Byzantines, again just hard. Spent nearly the whole day (I think around 14 hours) fighting off either the the Muslims or the Catholic factions, often simultaneously. Fortunately knew when the Golden Horde was going to arrive so was able to wipe them out fairly easily. The toughest part was maintaining control of the sea lanes from the Italians (green - whatever they're called) and the French. I managed to get a number of 3-4 star admirals this time. I think it must depend on owning fortresses.I made them on the islands because they weren't used for much else than producing ships and occasional peasant armies to cover newly conquered territories so the main force could move on. I still have central Europe and the Pope left to conquer though. I didn't save the game until 4:45 AM when I finally had to get some sleep. With the extra time it takes to do the actual combat, I don't see how you guys get the time to play a whole lot of games.
I did try the introductory land battles. They're interesting and could really almost be a game in itself. I still have some learning problems with game controls and best troops deployment strategies. What you guys can probably win with ease is a 50:50 proposition for me. It's not totally clear to me yet what made the difference between a narrow victory and a total rout.

[kiwitt]

Definitely play the battles out in the 3D Battlefield. While a good general helps it can't beat the hands on control of the human player. Even when the odds are against you can beat them.

I have successfully defeated a Mongol invasion on their first appearance. Hard, but worth it.

[gaelic cowboy]

And also if you play the tactical battles and win your general gets better stats autocalcation can backfire and kill your general. And if you use a rebel province as a training like say portugal where it rebells all the time you can end up quite good although some members consider it to cute by half i think it is handy. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Silianat]

yes it is

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ] With the extra time it takes to do the actual combat, I don't see how you guys get the time to play a whole lot of games.
We don't play a whole lot of games. A full Early campaign takes a LOT of time, specially if you always play the tactical battles.

Some members, when their faction is strong enough, start to auto-resolve. Others never finish the game, they settle for a 60% victory.

I always finish and always play tactical battles. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif




Quote[/b] ]I did try the introductory land battles.
Good. That's the way to do it... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif




Quote[/b] ]They're interesting and could really almost be a game in itself.
They are... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif





Quote[/b] ]I still have some learning problems with game controls and best troops deployment strategies. What you guys can probably win with ease is a 50:50 proposition for me. It's not totally clear to me yet what made the difference between a narrow victory and a total rout.
Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it soon enough. It takes practice.

For unit and tactical knowledge try frogbeastegg's guides. They're awesome for getting rid of any doubts. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

A Beginners Guide to Total War (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=9190)

The Complete Total War Unit Guide (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=13453)

[Jammies]

Wow

Either hard is very different than normal or games vary A WHOLE LOT from campaign to campaign.

I'm at 1215 now in my first campaign and it takes like, oh 3 seconds, to go from one turn to the next.

The typically country would have maybe half a stack (8 units) in it, with countries in hotly contested areas having 1 stack or 1 1/2 stacks.