Cos3
12-14-2006, 00:55
I just had one of the greatest battles I can remember in all my time playing the Total War series since Shogun was released. Or, it would have been the greatest...
Anyway...
Hard campaign, very hard battles.
I had pushed the Byzantines out of Constantinople as the Turks and was building up the rest of my empire, which was just short of Jerusalem to the south. Simultaneously I was building up another army, with two stacks of reserves to ship accross the ocean so I could start an invasion of Sicily (I thought it would be fun)
I had two armies guarding Constantinople, both consisting of a mixture of militia, professionals and horse archers (I try to play a fairly historical mixture rather than using all the best units) The reserve army was directly behind the first army so it could support me in battle; Six stacks of Byzantines massed on my border told me I would need them.
The inevitable happened, they invaded and attacked with three stacks.
At the start it was just a 1 v 1 battle, with my usual charging of thier missile troops to kickstart the A.I into action (stupid passive A.I). All was going well, with thier first army taking a pounding and being outnumbered thanks to the ridiculous over-use of catapults and trebutchets.
Thier second army arrives and heads directly for me. Again, thier army has wasted 5 unit places of useless artillery.
The battle starts to turn in thier favour, since I did not have enough shock cavalry and most of what I did have had already been severely butchered after taking out the siege engines. I feel the battle's lost when thier third army enters the battlefield.
I have three units of janissary heavy infantry fighting the massed remnants of the second army and a unit of 20 horse archers well away from the action, having just rallied. Just as the third army routs my Janissary's, my A.I controlled army enters the field.
So I run my remaining unit of horse archers back to the allied A.I and watch the action.
Since the third Byzantine army also had 5 or 6 artillery pieces they were also lacking in numbers and they were completely destroyed by the charging Turks. The combat was over in mere seconds, which is another sign the stats and morale need to be tweaked.
It was a battle that should have been lost by me, but due to the A.I's ridiculous use of artillery in thier armies I came away with a hollow victory. What should have been an awesome battle was let down by bad programming (yet again)
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In this campaign I spend just as much time trying to kill heretics as I do anything else. It's getting seriously annoying and ruining the game for me. Sure, I can easily cleanse the lands of them, but they have an inexhaustable supply. It got old after killing the 30th one.
Other than the fixes in the patch, the following mods will increase the enjoyment and flow of the game immensely. For me, anyway:
Remove Heretics and inquisitors completely. I'm sure I am not the only one totally sick of these fellows. They're a chore to deal with and don't add anything to the game except punishment. Annoyances.
Remove siege equipment from the game. The A.I does not know how to use these correctly. It's not historical to use these in field battles. Even if you don't care for historical accuracy, the A.I severely weakens its field armies by including them instead of regular units, which decreases difficulty to the point where it's a walkover. It's not like trainable siege equipment is even needed to assault a castle or city. They should have been only trainable at the same time as siege towers and battering rams.
IMO, with the patch and these few mods the game will become far more enjoyable to play.
Anyway...
Hard campaign, very hard battles.
I had pushed the Byzantines out of Constantinople as the Turks and was building up the rest of my empire, which was just short of Jerusalem to the south. Simultaneously I was building up another army, with two stacks of reserves to ship accross the ocean so I could start an invasion of Sicily (I thought it would be fun)
I had two armies guarding Constantinople, both consisting of a mixture of militia, professionals and horse archers (I try to play a fairly historical mixture rather than using all the best units) The reserve army was directly behind the first army so it could support me in battle; Six stacks of Byzantines massed on my border told me I would need them.
The inevitable happened, they invaded and attacked with three stacks.
At the start it was just a 1 v 1 battle, with my usual charging of thier missile troops to kickstart the A.I into action (stupid passive A.I). All was going well, with thier first army taking a pounding and being outnumbered thanks to the ridiculous over-use of catapults and trebutchets.
Thier second army arrives and heads directly for me. Again, thier army has wasted 5 unit places of useless artillery.
The battle starts to turn in thier favour, since I did not have enough shock cavalry and most of what I did have had already been severely butchered after taking out the siege engines. I feel the battle's lost when thier third army enters the battlefield.
I have three units of janissary heavy infantry fighting the massed remnants of the second army and a unit of 20 horse archers well away from the action, having just rallied. Just as the third army routs my Janissary's, my A.I controlled army enters the field.
So I run my remaining unit of horse archers back to the allied A.I and watch the action.
Since the third Byzantine army also had 5 or 6 artillery pieces they were also lacking in numbers and they were completely destroyed by the charging Turks. The combat was over in mere seconds, which is another sign the stats and morale need to be tweaked.
It was a battle that should have been lost by me, but due to the A.I's ridiculous use of artillery in thier armies I came away with a hollow victory. What should have been an awesome battle was let down by bad programming (yet again)
-------
In this campaign I spend just as much time trying to kill heretics as I do anything else. It's getting seriously annoying and ruining the game for me. Sure, I can easily cleanse the lands of them, but they have an inexhaustable supply. It got old after killing the 30th one.
Other than the fixes in the patch, the following mods will increase the enjoyment and flow of the game immensely. For me, anyway:
Remove Heretics and inquisitors completely. I'm sure I am not the only one totally sick of these fellows. They're a chore to deal with and don't add anything to the game except punishment. Annoyances.
Remove siege equipment from the game. The A.I does not know how to use these correctly. It's not historical to use these in field battles. Even if you don't care for historical accuracy, the A.I severely weakens its field armies by including them instead of regular units, which decreases difficulty to the point where it's a walkover. It's not like trainable siege equipment is even needed to assault a castle or city. They should have been only trainable at the same time as siege towers and battering rams.
IMO, with the patch and these few mods the game will become far more enjoyable to play.