A most unnatractive situation...

[EatYerGreens]

Hi all,

as mentioned several times already, I'm in my first ever MTW campaign. That's MTW v1.00, VI not installed yet and no mods.

As the English, I've got the whole of the British Isles, Norway, Sweden, have wiped out the French, then the Danes and lately, the Aragonese.

Prior to the last of these, I got into a tussle with the HRE. They put one solitary boat in the Baltic and instead of playing sensible and building up their economy, within two or three years they decided to launch an unprovoked attack on the single barque I had there. They sank it and blockaded four countries' worth of trade with the Novgorod plus that from two provinces of their own. Vengeance was swift; I piled in, sank their boat and they've not built another one since. Battles on land broke out, them invading me (but it was me that gets the papal warning) which they lost and I took Lorraine off them too, later Switzerland but this only triggered nastiness from the Sicilians, who didn't like the look of my garrisons and thought Provence would be a good place to hit me (but they started by cutting my Med trade route near there).

The HRE generals evidently didn't approve of their Emperor's foolish ways and a civil war broke out. I had a choice of two lots of rebels to attack without being excommed. Foolishness on my own part had me attack the one with the highest income level first, rather than the one which was on the coast (Friesland). Part of the idea of being the English is to go for a trading empire, after all and monstering the coasts, landlocking everyone else seems to be the way to go.

Ultimately, I lost the landlocked province (Swabia?) to a massive HRE counter attack but, while I was still preparing to follow up on the Friesan rebels, maybe within the next year or two the &^%$ing Spanish beat me to it and invaded it by sea (we had been allied a long time, so the sea lanes were wide open). Okay, fair game. We have a mutual border and they get to expand without bothering me overtly. Now this is where things start getting really wierd...

I thought a Port would be the first thing they built but no. It went through the whole sequence of fort, watch tower, Border fort, town watch, Bowyer, spearmaker, swordsmith, farms +20%, then a trading post, and finally a port. I think this is probably what would happen if you selected 'auto-build' in the game options and I'm not sure I like the result. I lost a chunk of trade to Portugal when it rebelled. YEARS later, the Spanish still haven't built a port there - perhaps in full knowledge that it only serves to advantage me... :grin:

During all this time, it has virtually emptied its home provinces and has been moving units every year into Friesland! Egypt was long attacking them in North Africa but is a shadow of its former self and only a modest garrison is left by Spain in Morocco and another one to keep the Portuguese under control. Meanwhile, it now has about four full stacks in Friesland. When the Sicilians attacked me for no reason, this caused the Spanish to drop their alliance and things are getting tense.

I had time to build a chapter house in Flanders and launched a crusade to try and suck up as many of these troops as possible. I only got about 4 'free' units, added some low-loyalty units of my own to make it 600-odd, plonked it in Friesland and got the number up to 1100+. I didn't know what would happen if I waited too long to move it any further and I promptly took it by sea to Algeria, with an ultimately hopeless target of reaching Palestine (a Jihad on Provence is coming the other way.... don't ask!). The Spanish were quickly back to four full stacks, in spite of this ruse.

The crusade moves to Tunisia and I've put a backup force of potentially rebellious generals into Algeria, not really expecting them to outlast the Jihad. I wanted to get a 2-valour spy trained up by assassin-catching in Algeria but found the trade route which worked okay for the armies (one-way only, no port there!!) does not work for agents, so he has to go to the nearest port - Spanish-held Granada - and then through Morocco.

No sooner than he gets there, he sends word to me that the Spanish are mobilising for a major attack and this is to be against the English!!! It's due next year or the year after next and my Fortress in Wessex is three years from completion (due in 1300).... :furious3:

So, this is the 'most unattractive situation' I refer to. Spain has three ships in the North sea (seems they're too stupid to extend trade route to Norway and Baltic?) which at least narrows the options for where I should defend. Most of my forces were defending borders on the continent and I've had to build more troops for home defence now. Potentially, he could attack Scotland, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex simultaneously, with a good chance of winning all four.

I know full well that, in fact, what it will do is put all four stacks into one target province. It doesn't even need to win - simply initiating the blockade from the North Sea to the Straits of Gibraltar alone will cripple what's left of my economy. I've a feeling it will go for Flanders, currently pulling in 2300+ per year and with only 1.5 stacks to defend it. That income is more than my annual profits. The only upside is that much of Flanders' value is from trade to Spanish provinces and likewise his trade income is coming from my ports around Britain and France (I could easily demolish two or three imports-only ones right now and just live with the mobility problems for a few years if it stands a chance of suddenly putting them in an overspend situation), so they should lose more than they will actually gain. Peculiar how sea invasions destroy the port in the process, if successful. The one thing required to resupply and/or pull out if things don't go well....

I think I stand a good chance of sinking much of their fleet after they start a war; any losses I sustain will help cut my running costs down to size and I may be able to recoup losses on land after some time and effort. My ships have been sinking 1 or 2 Egyptian Dhows almost every year for quite some time and recent naval agression by the Sicilians has just given them even more target practice. I have two 4-star admirals, two 3-stars, one 2-star and several of my freshly built boats are starting at 1-star level spontaneously. :cool:

I don't think I have sufficient time to obliterate my crusade, deliberately lose Algeria and let the Jihad on Provence prompt the Spanish to send troops back home before it launches this attack on me. That will take more than four years, even if it presses on without siegeing me. I just thought it was really wierd for the AI to keep on sending huge numbers of troops into one tiny, next-to-worthless province, remote from home, leaving minimal garrisons behind and no way to ship anything back home once the mutual blockade starts. What the hell are they up to, I have to ask?

About all I can do in my next turn is get my heirs overseas before I lose the landbridge completely. If I get four stacks arriving in Wessex I either have to abandon the province completely (demolish everything now to get some cashback and risk the invasion arriving elsewhere after all) or risk my faction being entirely wiped out from the king and princes being under seige. :dizzy2:

Then again, what about 'Royal blood' generals, who are not in line for the throne as long as a King and princes are still about? Do they become rebels, or can they take over as king in their own right, if the worst should happen?

Oh, before anyone suggests that I should pre-empt their potential seaborne invasion of Britain by declaring war first (I could attack Morocco from Algeria without losing sleep over the troublesome generals I posted there or go all out on their fleet) to ensure a blockade... I am currently at war with the Egyptians, the HRE and the Sicilians. In spite of repeated attempts, none of these will accept a ceasefire. I wanted to keep the Aragonese in the game but their alliances and the war they declared on me made alliances impossible, so they had to go.... I have no allies at all now and no other faction will accept one, either due to their own alliances with the ones I happen to be at war with, or just due to the lack of influence of my current king.

Until my spy piped up, I had been planning an invasion of Saxony via Denmark. I thought I should go ahead regardless and hope the pincer on Friesland might make the Spanish think twice about their next move. I'd even placed the army pieces in Saxony before quitting the game and saving but I'm now thinking of making it into a 'bluff' mobilisation and shipping them back to Flanders and Britain while I still have the chance.... With luck, the extra numbers will cause the Spanish to spend at least three more years moving yet more troops in to assure their victory. The fortress will let me get away with a minimal garrison in Wessex and to be able to defend better elsewhere. The castle in Flanders itself was only completed a couple of years ago and I may be able to garrison and redeploy, taking that into account. Especially as I've found out how costly castle assaults can be in MTW.

In the meantime, does anyone else have any better ideas?

[TonkaToys]

Do you have many ships around your British Isles coasts? If you declare war with the Spanish don't these blockade and therefore stop invasions? I thought that was what happened, although I haven't faced that yet myself.

[Magraev]

First of all: When you get strong you'll get attacked by everybody and their uncle. It's hardcoded into the game. So expect an attack from every neighbor and you'll probably be right.

Second: NEVER send a crusade unless you're sure of it's success! You lose influence and risk civil war that way.

Third: Get VI and the patch - it's a completely different game (and far better).

Fourth: I think you're right that spain will attack Flanders - it's a popular target. So be prepared. Form a dedicated defensive army of elite troops (longbows not as useful as arbalests for an extended confrontation) and one stack should be capable of defeating four, especially since the ai seems to like building crap. Once the first stack routs you have an opportunity to inflict crippling casualties. Make sure your navies have numerical superiority in all sea-squares.

Fifth: Let us know how it went :bow:

[Boris of Bohemia]

Don't try to predict, because any action you take will modify the actions of your enemy. Just weigh risks: is Saxony worth the risk of losing Flanders? Isn't leaving the Spanish fleet alive for three turns damn risky, knowing what you know?

[Procrustes]

Some random thoughts....

I would be loath to do a "burnt earth" as you suggest - fight it out instead. You can't predict where they will attack, so you may burn the wrong province. You have a good chance of winning - you are smarter than the AI, and it is also apt to send far fewer troops than you expect. Even if you don't win the first battle you can counterattack, and counterattack, and counterattack....

Regarding the AI build up in Friesland - it may have been that you provoked an arms race. When Spain saw your (bigger) armies on it's border it instinctively added to it's stacks - which caused you to do the same - and on and on. It's esoteric now, and I bet you would have gotten attacked anyways. If I can, now I try to keep a modest army on my borders and a large reserve one province back - and I murder any agents that wander by.

Assassins and inquisitors are good tools to use right now - start burning as many of thier good generals as you can. Swarm them. Leave the generals with bad vices alone - you want as many cowards and good runners facing you as you can get.

You can't move your armies around very effectively if there are Spanish ships about - you are going to have trouble getting reinforcements around and overall loyalty is apt to suffer. I would suggest pulling back your fleets and attacking the Spanish ASAP. Put any province you can afford to work building more ships - you are about to loose some.

HTH. Curious to hear how it plays out - hope you will let us know. Good luck,

P.

[EatYerGreens]

Do you have many ships around your British Isles coasts? If you declare war with the Spanish don't these blockade and therefore stop invasions? I thought that was what happened, although I haven't faced that yet myself.

Hi TT,

yes, I have ships around my coasts, otherwise I wouldn't have a complete trade route from the Baltic down to the western end of the Med. What I don't have is MANY ships. Some years back there was a bit of a scrap with the Novgorod fleet, in which they came off worst and we called it quits. However, they can spit out 4 longoats at a time into the Balic and I've been carefully force-matching with them, yet trying not to provoke more trouble as I get four province's worth of trade with them for every exporting province I've got.

Due to perpetual blockade by the Egyptians, much of my ships have been concentrated down there and picking up stars in the process. I've got a 4-star admiral on his way but he may arrive late or only get to cut the Spanish reinforcement route in the middle. In the meantime, I have only token forces around the Isles but it's immaterial once I'm blockaded. Basically I need to redeploy troops before hostilities start and, since I don't know when that will be, I am loathe to make the first move.

Of late, my ship production in the north has halted so that I can raise more troops in a hurry but I have a number of yards and may be able to out-pace the Spanish when things get hot and they may end up backing down.

By the way, I'm ex-commed at present, thanks to the Sicilians attacking me, so I'm fair game and can expect a Crusade against me as soon as they can build a Chapter house in Freisland, or ship one in. I want the Spanish to get ex-commed for attacking me (funny how this didn't happen to the Sicilians but, then again, they didn't end up on my lands and that's the bit that counts, or so it seems).

The tricky part is that the Pope's about 72 and all parties are aware that they can start trouble any time soon but the ex-comm won't last for long.

The plan for attacking Saxony was a rash attempt to make one more land-grab before the ex-comm is lifted again, once he's popped his proverbial clogs - the next one will last a lonnnng time, if I time it wrongly.

[EatYerGreens]

First of all: When you get strong you'll get attacked by everybody and their uncle. It's hardcoded into the game. So expect an attack from every neighbor and you'll probably be right.

Second: NEVER send a crusade unless you're sure of it's success! You lose influence and risk civil war that way.

Third: Get VI and the patch - it's a completely different game (and far better).

Fourth: I think you're right that spain will attack Flanders - it's a popular target. So be prepared. Form a dedicated defensive army of elite troops (longbows not as useful as arbalests for an extended confrontation) and one stack should be capable of defeating four, especially since the ai seems to like building crap. Once the first stack routs you have an opportunity to inflict crippling casualties. Make sure your navies have numerical superiority in all sea-squares.

Fifth: Let us know how it went :bow:

Hi Margraev,

I dunno about the 'strong' part. I've got a reasonably good economy, about 28 grand in the war chest (not a millionaire, like some players) but the Novgorod have got a huge chunk of the map, from Finland, across to Silesia, to a border with Hungary, down to Trebizond and Edessa, bordering Turks and Egyptians. I'm wondering what happens if the AI gets to 60% of the map first - game over or does it wait until the player reaches the win conditions?

However, I take your point. The western factions rightly perceive me as a threat to their own ambitions, so they are bound to club together... and club me!

Crusades:
Well, as I said, I'm learning the ropes. One failed because it wasn't far enough away and the Spanish beat me to it. Another failed because I had no idea of the strength of the various Muslim units and I got creamed by a force about half the size of mine. I then found I couldn't dismantle the remains of the crusade itself and I just did 'autocalc' battles until they were wiped out.

Thanks for pointing out the effect on influence rating though, I'll be careful of this in future. My current king is on about 3 and I was wondering why it was so low whilst I was apparently doing so well but he wasn't in power at the time of the previous failed crusades, so that can't be the reason.

VI & Patch:

I have VI but it's not installed yet. I assume the patch is downloadable? What needed patching? (A thread pointer would do).

Flanders:
Longbows I've got. Arbalests I haven't experimented with yet but will consider them. Low rate of fire sounds like a major disadvantage but, in a long battle it does mean they remain effective longer. I have battle time limit ON at the moment, which should work in my favour if I ever do run out of ammo.
Naval superiority I'm working on, either by building or moving from elsewhere. So far I've ensured each area around Britain has a minimum of one Caravel and one Barque. Caravel-only attacks seem to fail because they are speed-1 and barques etc can escape engagement but with defence-3 they can just sit there and discourage attacks from anything less than another Caravel. Barques have the speed to ensure an engagement occurs, if not always the strength to pull it off, unless I can get 3 or 4 of them against one equivalent target. :evil:

Yup, I'll let you know how it went. Going to do some serious last-minute redeployment before I hit that end year button....

[EatYerGreens]

Some random thoughts....

I would be loath to do a "burnt earth" as you suggest - fight it out instead. You can't predict where they will attack, so you may burn the wrong province.


Precisely what I was thinking. I'm not going to trash Wessex, what with the fortress so near completion and, if I trashed Flanders at least two things happen.

One. The Spanish achieve at least one objective without a fight, which is to deprive me of a large chunk of income. I'll recover half my investments but, at the same time, the current crusade will vapourise if I took down the Chapter House.
Two. Flanders becomes a less attractive target, in pure economic terms, thus making an attack on Wessex more likely, not less, and that will trash the incomplete build, plus a lot else too.



You have a good chance of winning - you are smarter than the AI, and it is also apt to send far fewer troops than you expect. Even if you don't win the first battle you can counterattack, and counterattack, and counterattack....


True. And a bit more entertaining too... ~:)



Regarding the AI build up in Friesland - it may have been that you provoked an arms race. When Spain saw your (bigger) armies on it's border it instinctively added to it's stacks - which caused you to do the same - and on and on. It's esoteric now, and I bet you would have gotten attacked anyways. If I can, now I try to keep a modest army on my borders and a large reserve one province back - and I murder any agents that wander by.


The curious thing is that I had big armies on the border with Spain, notionally to keep the Aragonese at bay until I finally had enough and wiped them out. The alliance with Spain, which recently got cancelled, meant that they never felt the need to match with me there. They have Navarre, held by about 4 or 5 units of Royal Knights, with a couple of princes. I could easily attack, if I wanted to, but don't know the game well enough to judge how much of a mauling they could give me, even if I won the battle, so I've left them alone. I still find it strange that they've left virtually the whole of their country deserted, in favour of this build-up in Friesland and wondered if the AI was just totally deranged... :laugh4:

Having recently got a castle completed in Flanders I was wondering to what extent I could learn by their example, redeploy out of there just leaving a 420 garrison, actually hoping for a siege, where I could inflict casualties for not great cost, or perhaps do a massive siege-lift operation, having first ensured that it's the Spanish who commenced hostilities. With a blockade in place, I can still make use of this peculiar 'land bridge' thing. Even a protracted siege would give me time to knobble the Spanish navy.



Assassins and inquisitors are good tools to use right now - start burning as many of thier good generals as you can. Swarm them. Leave the generals with bad vices alone - you want as many cowards and good runners facing you as you can get.


My agents were mostly down south, dealing with the Sicilians. In return for them attacking me twice in Provence I have so far
1) Killed about 500 the first time, 450 the second time and picked up some ransom money for another 150-odd prisoners, both times.
2) Assasinated about 4 province governors to slash their income
3) Sunk about 4 or 5 of their ships in the Med, losing only 2
4) Burned a couple of heretics - found one not guilty, the rest are mega-pious
5) Found Tuscany with only watch-towers, moved in a V-2 spy and 5 V-1s and triggered a revolt (mosly peasants - it didn't last long but stuff got wrecked).

So they're leaving me be for now. :cool:

I lost Guy of Gisbourne some time ago but I've got another assassin up to V-5 recently but he's back in Britain trying to root out whoever assassinated two of my Bishops in Northumberland and someone else in Mercia, which both have Border Forts. They've been regularly catching German and Spanish agents during this time but the mystery guest is obviously a serious piece of work.

Of the stacks in Friesland, the only one with any stars left at all is the Spanish king, with not particularly good odds of getting him by assassin or inquisitor. I stopped previous frying attempts as the zeal rating was going up, which would only make any incoming crusades that bit stronger.




You can't move your armies around very effectively if there are Spanish ships about - you are going to have trouble getting reinforcements around and overall loyalty is apt to suffer. I would suggest pulling back your fleets and attacking the Spanish ASAP. Put any province you can afford to work building more ships - you are about to loose some.


Like I said, I'm reluctant to initiate anything until I'm at least happy about where my troops are placed and that Norway/Sweden/Denmark can look after themselves for a few years, while cut off. The Sweden/Denmark landbridge will still allow some movement. Likewise for France - it's somewhat hollow behind the fronts and under-developed for replacement troops. Aragon is giving me Jinettes and other good troop types, so I should be able to get by.

Shipbuilding is taken care of, with 8 provinces which can do barques and 6 which can do Caravels but 5 of the 8 will be competing with the need for specialist troop types. 3 replacements at a time should cover the worst eventualities, costs permitting.



HTH. Curious to hear how it plays out - hope you will let us know. Good luck,

P.

Yup, you will. And thanks - I'm going to need the luck!

[EatYerGreens]

Well, I got the Fortress completed in Wessex after all, in 1300 as scheduled. The Pope snuffed it, lifting the excomm situation but leaving me at risk of another if I attacked anywhere in Europe, so I concentrated on goings on in North Africa instead, shipping more troops out that way, to defend against a pair of Jihads (stange how they can do that when we're allowed only one crusade at a time) which were coming that way.

The Spanish still didn't make a move (other than more troops into Friesland) but then, 1302, they started it by sinking a ship in the north sea. Curious event as I'm sure it was one which I'd moved from another sea area into there on that turn; the stack it was going to join would have easily seen to them, I thought.

So, in retaliation, I moved my king (2-star) and his stack into Flanders, the 6-star general in Flanders was sent to attack the four stacks in Friesland, with reinforcements from Lorraine. I didn't expect to win, just begin nibbling away at a province where I could potentiall wipe all of them out (no retreat path), bar the castle refugees, provided I could rout all of them on the field. Additionally, I sent a force from Aquitaine into Navarre, as there was a Prince there, who I could trap in the castle and also launched naval attacks in every possible sea area. Typically, the AI doesn't stack its boats so I could not engage all his ships simultaneously but attacking singletons assures some degree of success.

The Spanish responded to my move by sending 2300+ troops into Flanders. Luckily, the move from Lorraine into Friesland was presented to me first, as if it was a separate battle, 200-odd versus 700 or so and I had the chance to back down from that. THis particular border crossing makes it a river attack, apparently. I then had 2400+ to defend Flanders with.

Initially, it went badly. I tried to do an all-units move sideways with fixed-facing thing, so that the end of my line was next to some woods and make things tough for their mounted troops. This started off okay then a clumsy click on the ground with all units still selected, whilst attempting to relocate the assembly point flag caused the all the unit formations to change shape and go out of alignment (like a turn to face direction command?). I used the group controls to restore some order but I still had to manually stretch the archer units out to a 2-line shape. All the while, their force is moving rapidly towards my position.

Well, I killed their king on the field at one point but got carried away with chasing routers and their reinforcement column soon began to overwhelm my tired unit remnants. My broken units had a long way to go to withdraw, my reinforcements were equally taking their time crossing the whole distance and my king ended up captured himself! Annoyingly, when my 3 Longbow units ran out of ammo and I withdrew them, earlier on, the reinformcement column sent infantry, then cavalry and the spare archers never made it onto the field by the end.
Luckily I still won the battle. We fell back to the halfway point, rallied and the incoming Gallowglasses gave them a serious seeing-to. When the cavalry units arrived, the Spaniards (down to FSarges and peasants by now) began to run for it. Killed: 1619, Captured: 374, Lost 749. Pretty expensive as victories go and I'll soon find out how much a king's ransom is...

In Navarre, they began to attack the right hand end of my line as I moved my entire force onto a high ridge, closer to the elevation of their defence point. In getting them to move to me this achieved one goal and the billmen and archers did some fine work on the mix of royal knights and FSarges. A unit of crossbowmen delayed the final ending, running this way and that, eluding my spearmen but the Jinettes (Aragon trained) I'd brought chased the last of them down. We'd killed their general but it didn't mention any Prince and he wasn't trapped in the siege so I'm not sure what became of him.

Out of nine sea regions, my fleets sank 10 ships, for the loss of only 3. ~D

My crusade had gone into battle, which I'd autocalced, to save time, so I paid a ransom to get some back. Then, instead of a ransom screen for each of the Spanish battles, I just got one message, saying that they refused to pay the ransom on the prisoners I'd taken, giving a total number for both battles and including 2 Nobles. This was annoying, as I'd have liked to have had the cash. Fortunately, it seems that routing them in Flanders meant my king (and other prisoners) had been released unharmed, so there were no bills for me to pay.

I'd done three long tactical battles in this session and was tired out after all this so made just a few preliminary moves on the strategic map before deciding to exit and save.

Pressed the escape key and noted that the background music was continuing to play alongside the outro music. Then it crashed to the ^&%$ing desktop!! :furious3: From elation to desperation at the press of a key.

Which file should I reload from? I gather that autosaves are prone to file corruption, quicksaves not that much better and I'll have to remember about 6 years' worth of moves to get back to the point where these battles occurred. Not sure I can remember all the detail...

Okay consider this Part 1. I'll post again if I can repeat this performance.

[bretwalda]

Keep it up! :) Managed to recover the savegame?

[Tomcat]

EYG - Always save the game with your own savename after every turn or before clicking "End of Year". That way, the most you lose if something goes wrong is simply the last turn.

Tomcat

[EatYerGreens]

Keep it up! :) Managed to recover the savegame?

In spite of anticipated trouble, I restored from 'Last Autosave' and refought the two European battles, again autocalcing the crusader battle.

In Flanders my starting position was different, middle-left of the map, facing diagonally downwards this time but I still had trees to my right to keep cav at bay. I shuffled my units to give me a fourth unit of archers and one less inf unit and went ahead. This time killed 1293, captured 647, lost 367, again killed their king but this time kept mine out of trouble.

In Navarre, the map looked somewhat different and the AI started in a different place and behaved differently too. Instead of their whole force coming to me, I had to tease units to come down the slope before I could engage them properly. After a bit of work, I won again K:348 C:91 L:242.

Then, after getting the results of three naval battles, the next click sent the thing crashing to desktop once more, so I'm going to have to fight these yet again!

Things were working fine in MTW prior to this. In spite of me setting Windows Update to only download and install when I ask it to, and have hitherto avoided fetching SP2, M$ have somehow forced SP2 to download itself to my machine and I went ahead with the install because there seemed to be no way to avoid doing so. This is within the last week and suddenly MTW is messing about. Anybody have any idea if there's a connection?


Tomcat,

I take your point about gamesaves but it was pressing escape to reach the save menu which caused the first CTD anyway. I can certainly make a point of doing quicksaves before every 'end year' but, as you might understand, I'm a bit wary of the escape key at the moment.

If it turns out that the autosave I restored from is corrupted, then I have a 'proper' game save for 1301, which is the year before the Spanish attack one of my ships. If all else fails, I can go back to that, even if it gives me the unfair advantage of knowing "what happens next".

Thanks,

[Tomcat]

EYG - If you think SP2 is at fault, then you could try a restore to a previous save point. If you want to try this I suggest you read this post in the Apothecary before trying the "roll back" since there are lessons to be learnt:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37572

I also see Kraellin has just started a new "sticky" on SP2 in the Apothecary.

SP2 probably found its way onto your PC because you may have selected "Express Update" where Windows takes all the update "decisions" ie it installs everything (including probably SP2), as opposed to "Custom Update" where you make the decisions as to what to install. For example, I updated today the latest 5 (I think) WindowsXP Security Updates through a custom install that first strongly suggested I install SP2 - which I naturally refused!

Tomcat

[Kraellin]

you can also use control-s to save. this will do a 'quicksave' and aave you the need to hit the escape key.

also, one note on mtw/vi and saving... some folks highly recommend you save ONLY at the beginning of a turn and not at the end of a turn. the rationale for this seems to be that you dont get as many corrupted saves and mtw/vi is rather bad about corrupting saves.

K.

[EatYerGreens]

EYG - If you think SP2 is at fault, then you could try a restore to a previous save point. If you want to try this I suggest you read this post in the Apothecary before trying the "roll back" since there are lessons to be learnt:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37572

I also see Kraellin has just started a new "sticky" on SP2 in the Apothecary.

SP2 probably found its way onto your PC because you may have selected "Express Update" where Windows takes all the update "decisions" ie it installs everything (including probably SP2), as opposed to "Custom Update" where you make the decisions as to what to install. For example, I updated today the latest 5 (I think) WindowsXP Security Updates through a custom install that first strongly suggested I install SP2 - which I naturally refused!

Tomcat

I checked out that thread you linked to. Reads like a catalogue of disasters... fortunately my system's not in that bad a state, post SP2, though I have experienced worse symptoms - like a PC which wouldn't even find the HDD in the BIOS. HDD only about 10 months old, ended up replaced under warranty.

I was genuinely puzzled about how SP2 snuck its way onto my machine because I HAD selected the option to just notify me when updates were available and let me fetch and install them manually. Like I said before, given the opportunity, I would have skipped it having seen some warnings about TW series vs SP2.

Anyway, this time, I just saw a yellow shield icon appear on my taskbar, telling me 'download xx% complete' when I put the cursor on it. I would rather have been doing something else (offline) on the PC at the time but I just watched some telly for a while and let it complete the download. It then went straight to the install process. Fortunately I remembered to create a restore point before pressing the button to proceed, but I've not felt the need to go back to it yet.

I'm not actually sure what goes into a restore point anyway. Would I lose all recent gamesaves and other recently changed data files by doing a Windows restore or does it only save the condition of system exe's dll's, registry and so forth?

For the time being, I'm assuming that my problems with this campaign are down to the autosave file and I'll go back to the last conventional save.

In the meantime, having repeated these battles three times now and tired of that campaign completely, I've started a whole new Early campaign, as the Byzantines. In my English campaign they've ended up confined to Rhodes, with more Katanks than they can afford to support and I'm trying to find out why things went so wrong. The game says they are easier than the difficulty level chosen but Naples rebelled on the first turn. Beat them off with no trouble but wasted two years on building WT/BF's and before I could complete a town watch (no ships to move extra troops in) the Sicilians caught me off guard and stole it with about 400 troops to less than 100 of mine. (harumph!)

[EatYerGreens]

you can also use control-s to save. this will do a 'quicksave' and aave you the need to hit the escape key.

also, one note on mtw/vi and saving... some folks highly recommend you save ONLY at the beginning of a turn and not at the end of a turn. the rationale for this seems to be that you dont get as many corrupted saves and mtw/vi is rather bad about corrupting saves.

K.


Thanks for the tip Kraellin. I do have that habit of doing Ctrl-S a number of times as I make moves on the strat map, so mine are the end-of-turn type that you warn against.

If saving after battles are resolved but before making moves, as you say, I presume you still have to wait for the various dialogues about kings dying, events occurring and so forth to finish before you get the chance to do Ctrl-S?

Incidentally, there must have been some kind of long-term fault in my English campaign. I recall seeing the message about discovery of the compass, allowing boats to sail outside coastal areas but first I discovered that Barque and Caravel are coastal-only, with or without compass (some Egyptian boats could elude me through the parts of the Med where I couldn't go and short-cut to Gibraltar Straits) and second, even after completing Citadel and Fortress, it still wouldn't give me the opportunity to upgrade the Dockyard to the next level of shipbuilder. According to the info parchment, it seems that the higher buildings are conditional on the discovery of the compass. Even though the event has occurred, it's like the game hasn't registered that fact properly. Gunpowder weapons are available but I can't move up to the more advanced ships, even though it's past 1300.

This last bit ought to be a separate thread really...

[Tomcat]

EYG - Read the Byzantine thread from the MTW Guides section:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=31248 Lots of good ideas there.

Like you I started mt first Early Campaign as the Byzantines at the weekend and I have the Egyptian Sultan cornered in Antioch. Managed to get a fort built in Naples after quashing a couple of uprisings. Also, touch and go in Sicily. I move my Byz Infantry there every other turn but the Sicilians keep retreating to their Keep and not fighting. Then back to Naples to quell the next uprising with a several starred General now. I do not think I have ever wanted to get Peasants built so badly to get some loyalty in that Province lol!

Tomcat

[HopAlongBunny]

Sounds like you have a great game going!

cntl-s is your friend; there is nothing worse than playing for hours and having a ctd.

are you playing 1.0 or 1.1; the patch fixed a lot of the annoying "features" of the original MTW. the "event" message for compass comes long before you can actually begin building caravels; beyond caravels you will also need gunpowder to build the next dock upgrades.

have fun with the Byz ~:) some of the most seriously overpowered units in the game (Early) make them a steamroller...just gotta get the killing machine moving first ~D

I agree with Tomcat ; check the guides, no point trying to reinvent the wheel :duel:

[mfberg]

I have had no problems with SP2 and MTW, but I started from scratch. Save all the stuff you need (saved games, documents, those pictures of your grandkids), format and install XP, then update and install SP2 and then re-installed all your other programs. Its a long way to go, but it really cleans out the computer.

mfberg

ps My 40G hd is 90% full, my 10G hd is full. Total war is going to force me to invest in a 120G hd.

[EatYerGreens]

HopalongBunny,

well it was going well (English campaign) until that CTD thing but I still haven't gone back to it just yet. If I wait long enough I can come back to the last decent game save with renewed enthusiasm.

In the meantime the Byz campaign is going great but was touch and go in the early stages. If the Turks and Eggys had worked together, I would have been a goner but they beat each other up and later on I'd built up enough to finish the Turks and the Almos did for the Eggys. The trouble is, having allied to the Almos, I was kept busy looking after the T & E re-emergences whilst the Almos set about all the places I couldn't yet reach, polishing off the Spanish and Aragonese, pushing the French and a section of the HRE to the Baltic coast and my northern border respectively, then the Italians and Sicilians.

I never did have enough dough to bribe the Irish and still go on building. They had cannily left some units in their fort, separate from the main stack, requiring two separate bribes (ludicrously large for mostly Kerns and just 2 Gallowglasses) if I was to avoid an immediate battle. Somehow they had afforded a port and some buildings, so I bided my time. Of course the Almos beat me to grabbing Ireland and they took many years to rebuild the port, losing me trade in the interim. The English had to re-emerge twice to end up with just Wales and Wessex; the French held onto Scotland until recently, with the Almos in between. I grabbed Norway whilst I still had the chance, which is a useful boost to trade. The Danes had Sweden at the time but had built up their farmlands instead of ships and were evidently too poor to build enough troops to take it for themselves. The Baltic is now the only region not plastered in Almo ships....

End of year animations are entertaining, to say the least. Almo stacks flying from one side of the world to the other in every conceivable direction, they attack with 9 or 10 full stacks at once and it's only the repeated rebellions which are inflicting any casualties and keeping them at bay. I need enough in the bank to be able to survive with a negative profit margin for a decade or two before I can really get to grips with the Almo beast. I think a blockade on their trade will hit them even harder than me due to the sheer number of troops they have. If I time it right and all their stacks are in one province in mainland Europe, I can storm across Africa and meet them in Spain in the time it will take them to march there on land to meet me - sea battle successes permitting.

Stuff about the Golden Horde is going in a separate thread. I strated on it here but it was going way off topic. ~;)