Playing the Horde?!

[PseRamesses]

Planning on playing my first domination game ever so I´d like to play the Horde on my regular MTW/ VI game and read somewhere that changing MINOR to MAJOR is an option but will cause crashes??? Or is the use of the -ian command better to play a hazard free game? How do I change the command line then?
Have seen this on numerous occasions but now when I need it I can´t find it.

[PseRamesses]

I found out how to change the command line through the beginners guide to MTW. What I haven´t found is which num-key does change me into the mongols in 1231? Also I´d like still to know the difference between playing with the -ian command or by changing minor to major in the startpos.txt file. Anyone?

[Lord Ovaat]

It's really easy, just a few simple steps. Go to your desktop and right click your MTW icon. Send another icon to your desktop to be used solely for this command, that way you can still play without it, even the same campaigns. Right click the new icon, select "Properties" and go to the command line, which is in the "target field".
The end of the command line will read: TW.exe" -strictserver. There is a space between the " and the -. At the end of the exe", insert (space-ian) without the parenthesis. Click apply, and that's it. New line should then read: TW.exe"(space)-ian(space)-strictserver. You may or may not have the -strictserver command in your file. Use the new icon to access the game.

This gives you testing latitude that you can also use to play the game with. If you choose to unlock the battle screen camera, you can move it to just about any position creating the opportunity to capture some spectacular screen shots. On the campaign map, pressing the letter "g" gives you access to the whole map, which you may or may not like. Makes the game a little too easy, but can be quite useful for observing AI. You can easily move from faction to faction by using the numbers and shift + numbers. List as I know it follows:

Number Faction Shift + Number Faction
1 Rebs 1 Russians
2 Almos 2 Spain
3 Byzantines 3 Turks
4 Danes 4 Aragon
5 Egypt 5 Crusaders or
Burgundians
6 England 6 Mongols
7 French 7 Hungary
8 Germans 8 Swedes
9 Italians 9 Papacy
0 Poland 0 Sicily

You'll notice some of the factions are from Med Mod. For instance, Shift5 is blank in the vanilla game. After a while, one gets bored with any game, so we go to new games, mods, etc. This extends the opportunity to play MTW without falling asleep. You can build up an empire through one period, then take control of another later to see if you can beat what you created. You can give a faction deadringer just to see what it does with the money. I will warn you, however, giving money to the AI doesn't produce an award winning apponent. The money is generally spent on producing hordes of crappy troops, spies, assassins, and briberies. Sad. BUT, you can take control every couple of turns and load the building and unit quees with what you want, instead of junk. In the end, however, this gets boring also.

Best way I found to play the Horde is to start in High with any faction. I usually switch a few times during the next 25 moves to even things out for the AI a bit. At half past noon, the Horde appears, but you can't take control until 1231. In 1231, just hit shift + 6 and you now are the Horde. Pretty cool. You can also load Med Mod and take control from the start with the Horde, but only in High.

Playing the Mongols is very hard. You are completely bankrupt within 5 or 6 turns, regardless of what you do. I haven't been very successful. You don't have money to turn out spies, troops, anything. Tough, tough. Hope this answers your question. Enjoy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

PS: I hope you noticed that you CAN GET TOTAL CONTROL OF THE POPE You can't excommunicate, but you can really make his life miserable. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-evil3.gif

[PseRamesses]

Thanks a mill, Lord Ovaat
I got as far as changing the commandline and changing facs in-game but couldn´t find the "shift X" anywhere so I couldn´t change to the mongols.
They say this one is hard. I tried it in MM i think, and read that Katank had done a fairly good jopb with them. Or maybee it was someone else. Thanks anyway

[VikingHorde]

Quote[/b] (PseRamesses @ April 16 2004,12:15)]Planning on playing my first domination game ever so I´d like to play the Horde on my regular MTW/ VI game and read somewhere that changing MINOR to MAJOR is an option but will cause crashes
I think it will only crash if you play GA mode. If you want GA mode, you need to add a GA shield for the horde.
You can only play in late period.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (VikingHorde @ April 16 2004,16:05)]
Quote[/b] (PseRamesses @ April 16 2004,12:15)]Planning on playing my first domination game ever so I´d like to play the Horde on my regular MTW/ VI game and read somewhere that changing MINOR to MAJOR is an option but will cause crashes
I think it will only crash if you play GA mode. If you want GA mode, you need to add a GA shield for the horde.
You can only play in late period.
You can´t play the Mongols on GA-mode since the game will only crash and adding a shield doesn´t fix it since there are no goals and you can´t make goals since it´s hardcoded.
One have to settle with domination and that´s why I picked the Mongols for my first domination game ever.

[VikingHorde]

Quote[/b] (PseRamesses @ April 17 2004,13:48)]You can´t play the Mongols on GA-mode since the game will only crash and adding a shield doesn´t fix it since there are no goals and you can´t make goals since it´s hardcoded.
One have to settle with domination and that´s why I picked the Mongols for my first domination game ever.
hmm, OK. I will try and check my MOD. I can play GA mode with all my added factions. When does it crash? when you look at GA sceen or? I have set up homelands for my factions and GH allready had homelands..

[Zhuge_Liang]

thanxs, i will do use of that

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (VikingHorde @ April 17 2004,12:34)]I can play GA mode with all my added factions. When does it crash? when you look at GA sceen or? I have set up homelands for my factions and GH allready had homelands..
I can play with all factions since I changed minor to major for all eras. I can play GA-style too BUT then game CtD when I check the GA-button. So you´re saying you have a way around this? Nothing would please me more

[VikingHorde]

Quote[/b] (PseRamesses @ April 18 2004,11:05)]I can play with all factions since I changed minor to major for all eras. I can play GA-style too BUT then game CtD when I check the GA-button. So you´re saying you have a way around this? Nothing would please me more
I have made GA shields for the swiss, GH, burgundians and Novgorod. My game allso CTD before I added shields for all factions, but works ok now. Last night I gave the horde a try in GA mode and played til 1351, allso useing GA-button. No problems.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (VikingHorde @ April 18 2004,10:28)]I have made GA shields for the swiss, GH, burgundians and Novgorod. My game allso CTD before I added shields for all factions, but works ok now. Last night I gave the horde a try in GA mode and played til 1351, allso useing GA-button. No problems.
My bad That´s great since up until now everyone seems to belive that playing the unplayeble factions can´t be done with GA-goals. What Ga-goals do you have for the Mongols then? Is it just homelands, conquest or what? Don´t tell me you´ve manage to add GA-goals too? Then I will be extatic

[VikingHorde]

Quote[/b] (PseRamesses @ April 18 2004,19:08)]My bad That´s great since up until now everyone seems to belive that playing the unplayeble factions can´t be done with GA-goals. What Ga-goals do you have for the Mongols then? Is it just homelands, conquest or what? Don´t tell me you´ve manage to add GA-goals too? Then I will be extatic
I can only add homelands sadly, all the rest are hard coded (no new GA-goals). The homelands are set in the regowner_table in the main folder. It is not easy, but can be done. I found the info someware at the org.
You can play GA-mode, but without GA-goals. You only get points for taking new provinces and holding provinces. So it is more fun playing GA-mode with the danes, than the golden horde.

[PseRamesses]

So do you think that the reason my game crashes when playing a minor on GA is the lack of shields and homeland?

[VikingHorde]

Quote[/b] (PseRamesses @ April 19 2004,10:35)]So do you think that the reason my game crashes when playing a minor on GA is the lack of shields and homeland?
I think it is the lack of shields. The game will play even without homeland.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (VikingHorde @ April 19 2004,11:37)]I think it is the lack of shields. The game will play even without homeland.
So I just sit here quitly until you tap on my shoulder and let me know that your mod is released, ok? Thanks for the enlightenment.

[VikingHorde]

Quote[/b] (PseRamesses @ April 20 2004,21:47)]
Quote[/b] (VikingHorde @ April 19 2004,11:37)]I think it is the lack of shields. The game will play even without homeland.
So I just sit here quitly until you tap on my shoulder and let me know that your mod is released, ok? Thanks for the enlightenment.
lol, ok. I have uploaded my Mod today, so it should be out for downloading soon. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[VikingHorde]

OK guys, you can get my mod here.

The Mod can be downloaded here:

http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin....t=16715 (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=27;t=16715)


Enjoy