Sword_Monkey
03-08-2002, 12:43
As testimony to the amount of pure gaming goodness in the STW:WE, I just got around to playing the Mongol Invasion campaign this week even though I've had the game since August. I'm a bit mixed on my feelings about this add-on campaign...
Sure, it's a neat idea, but who knew the strategy to building massive armies was to get your ass kicked (for Hojo). As anyone who's played with the golden terrors knows, there's really nothing the AI can do against you as the Mongols. It took me about four years of smashing and pillaging to burn everything in Japan other than a couple of castles to the ground but another five years of, dare I say it, boring tedium to win. Every year it was one peasnt or loyalist revolt after another - in the first few years, it meant something because I didn't have enough troops to hold all my territories, but for the final four years of the campaign all it meant was an hour or more of fighting the same battles again and again and again. I just felt like I was fighting a random number generator designed to prolong the game as there was no rebel/loyalist produced troops that could possibly touch my high honour Mongols. In Kai, Hojo managed to "produce" between four to six hundred troops every season for at least six seasons running and it wasn't like I hadn't garrisoned the place because I smacked them down each year with plenty of Mongol to spare. Overall, Hojo "produced" and threw almost more troops at me every season for those last years than he could have legitimately built and transported had he controlled all of Japan with facilities instead of the three to five territories with hardly a castle between them.
Design-wise it seems a cop-out, they weren't able to create a campaign that builds and twists like the various Sengoku ones, so they let you either smack the Japanese around like rag dolls or try and stop the plague of the Mongol horde. Which should have been fine for a quick, fun campaign -> so why the heck did someone feel the need to pad it with "value" by making it last hours longer with pointless random battles. They should have simply had more initial opposition present in the country but let you hold territory easier. Does difficulty affect the frequency of these pointless battles? (I played this one on Hard - I'd try expert but not if the rebelling is going to be even worse).
OTOH, playing as the Mongols was certainly a fresh twist, particularly since I play infantry heavy armies typically and it was fun to learn to use speed that way. Korean Thunder Bombers had me laughing at the game: Boom, there goes half a unit of YA! Boom, there goes half a unit of No-Dachi! Boom, there goes half my Thunder Bombers http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
Are there any user made campaigns that make use of the Mongol units? I'd be interested in trying them in a more structured campaign than the included one.
Sure, it's a neat idea, but who knew the strategy to building massive armies was to get your ass kicked (for Hojo). As anyone who's played with the golden terrors knows, there's really nothing the AI can do against you as the Mongols. It took me about four years of smashing and pillaging to burn everything in Japan other than a couple of castles to the ground but another five years of, dare I say it, boring tedium to win. Every year it was one peasnt or loyalist revolt after another - in the first few years, it meant something because I didn't have enough troops to hold all my territories, but for the final four years of the campaign all it meant was an hour or more of fighting the same battles again and again and again. I just felt like I was fighting a random number generator designed to prolong the game as there was no rebel/loyalist produced troops that could possibly touch my high honour Mongols. In Kai, Hojo managed to "produce" between four to six hundred troops every season for at least six seasons running and it wasn't like I hadn't garrisoned the place because I smacked them down each year with plenty of Mongol to spare. Overall, Hojo "produced" and threw almost more troops at me every season for those last years than he could have legitimately built and transported had he controlled all of Japan with facilities instead of the three to five territories with hardly a castle between them.
Design-wise it seems a cop-out, they weren't able to create a campaign that builds and twists like the various Sengoku ones, so they let you either smack the Japanese around like rag dolls or try and stop the plague of the Mongol horde. Which should have been fine for a quick, fun campaign -> so why the heck did someone feel the need to pad it with "value" by making it last hours longer with pointless random battles. They should have simply had more initial opposition present in the country but let you hold territory easier. Does difficulty affect the frequency of these pointless battles? (I played this one on Hard - I'd try expert but not if the rebelling is going to be even worse).
OTOH, playing as the Mongols was certainly a fresh twist, particularly since I play infantry heavy armies typically and it was fun to learn to use speed that way. Korean Thunder Bombers had me laughing at the game: Boom, there goes half a unit of YA! Boom, there goes half a unit of No-Dachi! Boom, there goes half my Thunder Bombers http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
Are there any user made campaigns that make use of the Mongol units? I'd be interested in trying them in a more structured campaign than the included one.