Ironman Rules

[Malrubius]

Anyone have any suggestions or want to discuss what types of restrictions they place on themselves to make RTW more of a challenge?

I'm looking to try to stay realistic with these, and give some rationale for the restrictions.

Here are a few I've seen in various places, like this thread:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=14355&st=12

I thought there was one on this site, but I couldn't find it. I have seen a few rules as asides in larger conversations, though.


1. Cultural Considerations in Recruiting

Before recruiting/retraining anything better than town watch in a newly-conquered settlement, you must have no culture penalty (town watch and peasants are allowed, to represent collaborators who see that there is a new ruler in town and seek to profit from it, or at least preserve themselves from enslavement/extermination). This most likely means destroying all military production buildings and rebuilding them as your culture's structures.

Rationale: Recruiting hastati, for example, requires some Roman citizens to have settled in the province so there is a pool of manpower to recruit from.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=715251#post715251


2. Governor Presence Required

A governor must be present to direct the construction of any buildings, and to recruit any units better than Town Watch. This goes for retraining, too, but building repairs can be done without a governor. Of course, the settlement can be set to AI control and given general directions, like Growth, Financial, etc. For further restriction, you could limit yourself to building and recruiting only if a governor is present, and have no AI control of anything.

Rationale: A firm hand has to be present to organize military units and supervise construction.


3. Naval Transportation

A naval unit can only transport one military unit at a time. For example,
an admiral with a stack of 3 ships could only transport 2 hastati and 1 velites.
This is more realistic, and will definitely put a cramp into quick amphibious
invasions. For Spies and Diplomats, of course, these limits do not exist.
Even with retinues, they're not going to take up more space than 40+ men with full military equipment.

What about elephants and horses? Should it require more ships for a
unit of these? Can a single elephant even ride on a bireme or trireme? Could it take 6 ships to carry a unit of elephants? The cost of ships makes this impractical.


4. Treatment of Routers

When fighting anyone but rebels (who can be annoying), once you have set all your enemies to routing, do not hunt them down one by one, just end the battle. Maybe they will be able to regroup in a settlement to fight another day and provide for more exciting battles.

I'm not so sure about this one myself. It's fun and historical to chase routers and is about the only time you can sit back and watch. Also, will it even work? Often times, they will dissolve into the countryside anyway. Maybe it would be best if you only did this when substantial numbers of men were in rout; any unit under 7 men could be chased down and slaughtered, since it will disappear anyway. Also, if the army has the "can't withdraw" skull on the pre-battle scroll, you might as well hunt them down, since they'll be gone anyway.


5. Captain Autocalc and AI Reinforcements

When a captain engages in battle instead of one of your generals, autocalculate the battle. This will better represent him being not as good
as your generals. Also, if you get a man of the hour this way, you'll know he
was something special.

When reinforcements are engaging, set them to AI control unless they
are under the command of one of your generals. Again, for the same reasons.


6. Saving and Reloading After Defeats and Mishaps

With the loadgame bug, this is even worse than it would normally be. Knowing that you can't easily correct a mistake means you'll be more careful or suffer the consequences. But with the bug, it can save you from a seige or prevent AI factions from expanding.

I'm trying to just leave the game running in my current campaign so I don't have to reload.


7. General Exploits/Cheating

I'm sure there are a lot of these, and basically, the Iron man doesn't take advantage, or at least, not excessive advantage, of certain known AI weaknesses. I'm not much for bribing or trying to get exorbitant sums for my maps. Cheating by giving yourself lots of money is right out. This is a kind of fuzzy area, since one man's exploit is another man's sound tactic ~:) , but I'd like to know what rules other people impose on themselves.


8. No Walls

This may be an interesting restriction, since it would reduce the severity of the loadgame bug and also means more effort must be put into defense.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=44718


Any more? What do you think of these?

[Azi Tohak]

So do you play on VH/VH? I don't like the computer having a huge advantage over me with its troops so I like normal or hard battles.

Anyway, I try to stick with 'real' armies, or using armies that were reasonable for the times. No loading a Julii army with Cav for instance, just enough to cover the flanks and let my infantry do the dirty work.

But beyond that, I don't usually do too much, but then, I am not bored either.

Azi

[Quietus]

The ultimate iron man rule would be an all-peasant army ( but who's crazy enough to do that?) ~D

Personally, I just use one army, unless an AI attacks me and doesn't want a ceasefire then I build another one to get rid of that faction (unless he chooses ceasefire). Currently, it is 201 BC (I have ~8.3 million denari and high tech provinces; gotta love those trade networks ~;) ), I just got my 50th province, and I'm forced to build a third army (which is only less than half a stack just to fend off the seleucids) since egypt attacked me (and they require a full stack to fight them off ~:) ).

The only exception are quick building units to rid of rebels. after roaming and clearing-off the brigands, I send them out as reinforcements.

I also cycle. I retire my faction leader, then the heir takes over all the battles.

[Darius]

Try offering your enemies Ceasefires whenever they will accept it. Also, never invade unless you are attacked first.

[mfberg]

My favorite - mercs only

mfberg

[Malrubius]

So do you play on VH/VH? I don't like the computer having a huge advantage over me with its troops so I like normal or hard battles.

Anyway, I try to stick with 'real' armies, or using armies that were reasonable for the times. No loading a Julii army with Cav for instance, just enough to cover the flanks and let my infantry do the dirty work.

But beyond that, I don't usually do too much, but then, I am not bored either.

Azi


I think there's actually a problem with hard or very hard battle settings being easier than medium since 1.2:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=24070&st=0&#entry1812002110

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=24032&st=0

I agree about going light on cav and archers with the Romans. My armies when playing the Julii were mainly hastati and velites, with some barbarians recruited for fodder.

[Oaty]

I go with the cultural training rule. Along with that I do'nt train troops until the unrest desolves. Now if the town will always have 15 percent unrest I wait until it hits that natural 15 percent. Makes Egypt a tough bugger unless you are an eastern.

[Quietus]

I think there's actually a problem with hard or very hard battle settings being easier than medium since 1.2:

If you meant, the longer the battles the harder, then I disagree.

The longer the battles, the easier. A human player can flank much easier than the AI. The window for flanking is much smaller with quick melee.

Now if this is a regular RTS, then yes. But this is Total War, completely different.

:charge:

[Jambo]

One of the best ones:

Always merge units (m key) after battle and before units are retrained.

[Malrubius]

If you meant, the longer the battles the harder, then I disagree.

The longer the battles, the easier. A human player can flank much easier than the AI. The window for flanking is much smaller with quick melee.

Now if this is a regular RTS, then yes. But this is Total War, completely different.

:charge:


I had read that the AI morale bonus for h/vh had been messed up in the 1.2 patch.

[PseRamesses]

1. No troop-building facilities, other than town watch on "foreign soil".
2. No mercs. Ok, if senate gives you one.
3. Always enslave pop. Exept with Carthage = pop ext.
4. Never chase routers.
5. Only one army offensively when at war.
6. Always besiege until one turn before surrender.
7. Ally with all facs and let THEM breake the treaty.
8. Always offer ceasefire + traderights after capturing one enemy city thus rendering me a lot of cash and outbleeding my opponent.
9. When given a stupid assignment by senate to capture some far off settlement I do so and sell it back to what ever roman fac is closest to it.
10. I´m more prune to conquer, stop, build, conquer and always tries to get my enemies into protectorates.
11. I keep bands of velites, some 200, scattered around the countryside to take care of rebels and farm "men of the hour", it´s really effective and 200 velites can actually take care of well over a thousand brigands if use well.
12. My build order is happiness, order, money and last troop-related. Remember: "We Romans never seek war", he he ;)

[Lochar]

I was looking over the controls last night and seen the option for view area of general only, has anyone tried this?

Mainly the only thing I do is usually the troop training in my native cities,and when I capture a foreign town, I destroy pretty much every building to replace with a native type or if the upgrade is avail, then do that until the whole town has no foreign culture in it. If everything upto that point is done then I start with troop buildings.

I love sieges too much to adopt no walls, and while it may hamper my true playing difficulty, I still enjoy the game.

[Malrubius]

I was looking over the controls last night and seen the option for view area of general only, has anyone tried this?


Yeah, with that option you can only see what your general can see, except that your view is higher up. It makes complex manuevers difficult, so you might have to resort to AI control of parts of your army. That should definitely increase the challenge level. ~:)

Here's some other threads I found on this topic:

Camera restricted to General:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37974

making game harder...ideas...
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=44200

Using auto-resolve to increase campaign difficulty
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=43885

That last thread recommends only playing out battles which your faction leader commands in person and autoresolving everything else.