Preliminaries

[Kraellin]

ok. got the game, installed just fine. no problems. played the campaign tutorial and looked briefly at the map editor and registered online and went into multi. i was on the satellite so didnt actually play a multi game.

the campaign tutorial is pretty brief and just goes into the very basic movement and building aspects, which all of the vets shld already know from previous total wars.

here's a preliminary review of what i've see so far. first off, have a LARGE amount of free harddrive space. this sucker is BIG. 1714 megs and no custom or 'short' installs. it's a full install or nothing.

the lead movie is the same as the demo.

there are 373 maps included with the game.

in the editor on 'lush' i saw 181 textures.

the editor also includes sound effects, wind, the sea and so forth.

multi has NO separate chat rooms. it's just the foyer.

the hosting options are:
season
architecture (style of)
game type (only last man standing currently)
time limit (up to 60 minutes)
terrain; lush, temperate, arid, desert
server name (you name your game)
password (or not)
max playing (up to 8)
attacker florins
defender florins
map listing

and one really cool thing is that in stw/we/mi we had a .tga showing one screen shot of a map. in mtw you get a continous scrolling map of the entire thing as the map display. VERY nice touch. am curious how map makers are going to make their own on this one.

and that's about as far as i've gotten.

oh, one thing, when you register your cd key, it's apparently case sensitive, so use upper and lower case characters as necessary. and if yer wondering where your cd key is listed, it's behind the fold out tray for the 2nd cd in the case.

a couple folks were complaining about the log in procedure, particularly with gamespy. i already have a gamespy account, so all i had to do was start the game, hit multi, enter my email addy, the name i wanted and my password and i was in. remember, you'll need the gamespy arcade and a gamespy account to log into the game, plus an in-game name and pw. you do these separately thru the menu system.

that's all i've got at the moment. heading into the campaign shortly, so i'll post more later on.

it's looking pretty good so far, but i'm mostly skimming through the various aspects of the overall. the only complaints so far are with multi; no chat rooms and only 'last man standing' games. perhaps the x-pack will add in more of this later on.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Target]

Yeah, there is currently only one muliplayer game type but in my defence, did anyone actually play the other MP game types in Shogun?

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Quote MagyarKhans Cham:
i even suspect Target is coming here to hype things up.[/QUOTE]

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
remember, you'll need the gamespy arcade and a gamespy account to log into the game, plus an in-game name and pw. you do these separately thru the menu system.[/QUOTE]

You don't need Arcade installed to log into GameSpy from MTW; just a GameSpy account.

Quote
no chat rooms and only 'last man standing' games. perhaps the x-pack will add in more of this later on.
[/QUOTE]

Chatrooms will be detected automatically if/when we add them at the server end.

Game types: we might add a couple more sometime, but we couldn't persuade ourselves that anyone had really liked anything except the straightforward battle, and at least three of the STW game types seemed utterly pointless, so we stripped it back to the raw battle. If there really are any "Assassinate The General" or "Halve The Enemy" fans out there, speak up now...

Gil ~ CA

[Kraellin]

target,

admittedly, not many of the other game types were played after the first week of release. but, we did occaisionally play koth games, usually at my request. i LOVED that style of play. a capture the flag style would also be nice, but i wasnt a fan of the assasinate the general or halve the enemy or capture the honjin. but koth was a hoot :)

yeah, wasnt real sure when i posted that, gil, if it was right, about the arcade. i already had it installed so figured it had just auto-detected it on my machine. thanks for the clarification.

if, by chance, you did opt for a capture the flag mode, i'd prefer not going the capture the honjin mode, but rather have just one flag per team. this would have been particularly good in something like the mongol game where horses were so prevalent and fast. i can easily see a bright red or white flag being placed on the field by each team leader, hiding them in nasty locations and so on on one's own side and then with 4 armies each, trying to defend and find and capture the flags. as the flag is 'captured' you simply erase the one on the ground and change the banner of the capturing unit and stick up one of those banners announcing the fact to both sides. you could even add an option for death as permanent or death as reinforcements like koth games.

so, forget those folks with little imagination and just make it for me. but make it playable in single player custom battles so that when i cant talk anyone into it in multi, i can at least knock heads with the AI ;)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[DarknScaly]

I thought you guys were going to add "Greasy pig" and "Chase the chicken" as well as "King of the Hill" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

("Chase the chicken" aka "Catch the Pigeon" is like some seriously whacked out fun! And on a serious note is also a darn hard thing to win at times - makes for a much more mobile game and really sorts out the "static guys" fromt he Mobile ones.)

[Kraellin]

k. here's a feature i dont recall seeing in the previous games... of course i'm lucky if i remember my name from day to day, but there's this option in the main menu called 'quick battle'. i tried it out and was instantly taken to the field of battle on a hillyinland.02 map, and given an army of spanish troops. my opponent was the almohads (or something like that). i didnt get to choose the faction or the army. the computer just picked everything and sent me to go fight.

this is kind of cool. it's great for when you just dont wanna think about it all; ya just wanna kill something. apparently it's a totally random selection from the custom battles but everything is set up for you, as if you were just a peon in some nation and your leader said, 'here, go fight.'

i didnt count noses or anything but it seemed fairly balanced tween the 2 sides. i had some armored cav, arq's, cav archers, infantry and so did the opponent. neither started with a great map advantage, though i was on the higher ground, but i was also the attacker, so that didnt much matter.

the enemy didnt just blindly rush me and when i moved, he countered as the defender. at one point i made a move out of a valley to try and get a downhill rush. instead of standing firm or backing up, the ai decided that if i didnt want the other high ground on the other side of the valley, that he'd be just fine there, so he moved. ok, that one surprised me. wouldnt surprise me against a human player, but did that the ai did it. i then had to try and hit his tail as he was going up and also try and cut him off, which put me at somewhat of a disadvantage. i sent in my cav archers to harry his backside and distract and confuse, and it worked a bit, but he also turned, and already having the higher postion, began to harras my cav. i pulled the cav back, while sending my other units higher up the hill to block and managed to also flank some of his weaker units in the rear with my knights. i sent 2 or 3 of those units running, but my main body was in disarray and the ai took advantage of it by rushing. i was now split and dis-ordered and had to pull back and regroup and lost 2 units in doing so, but managed to re-organize and get my knights back in play. the ai seeing what i was doing, did pretty much the same thing and we both squared up against each other on the side of the hill we'd both been positioning for. it was still fairly even, but i had a slight missle advantage, so i brought them up and began driving his units off one by one. i also had managed to get my mounted knights up higher on the hill and in an almost flanking position and this was just too much for the ai. he finally began to really break down and finally ran, game over.

the ai seemed MUCH smarter than we/mi. i like the morale where it's currently set. units can recover quicker than before if they get sent running. and the back and forth play is much more interesting than earlier games.

there is also an addition to the cursor display that i dont remember in the demo. there is a lot more information being given about various units as you move the cursor over each unit. for me, this is a very good feature. i know almost nothing about these units of this period and i'm sure others are in the same boat. this cursor info thing gives you a quick synopsis about any unit, its strengths and weaknesses. but, i can see where this might get annoying down the line as i no longer need it due to being more savvy as i learn who is who and what is what, so an option to turn this off might be good.

target, gil, do you know if this can be turned off in a file for those that dont want it there? like i say, i currently like it a lot, but i can see where it might become 'in the way' later on.

the one or two things that did raise question marks in my mind about this battle, were that one or two units seemed to do some back and forth dancing when ordered to attack an opponent. they'd go forward, turn around, move a few steps back, turn again, and go forward again. not sure what that was all about. it was a cav archer of mine in particular that i noticed doing this, so he ..might.. have been starting to attack but was also in skirmish and moving away from something coming at him...not sure, but it was odd little dance at times. i noticed one or two ai units doing this also, but i think they were ground troops, not cav.

ALL units seem much better at disengaging now, which i like, but you have to remember to set their settings so that they dont rush back in as soon as they get out.

and, lo and behold, as advertised, at the end of the battle i was offered to save the recording! i couldnt help it, i saved it. it was my first win in mtw :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[GilJaysmith]

Quick Battles were a late addition, implemented most excellently by Target, with most of the battles constructed by LongJohn I think. They aren't random, they're predefined with a random selection made from the available set.

No option to disable the mouseover tips about units (which also appear in the army selection screens in custom and historical battle setup) but we can see if it'll squeeze into the patch.

Can't account for the safety dance you describe; something to investigate in more detail if others see it I think.

We're going to get such a kick reposting all this stuff on the internal newsgroups tomorrow. Many thanks to you and indeed everyone else who's posted their initial feedback.

Gil ~ CA

[MagyarKhans Cham]

it seems like Square dancing to me, which originated frm the Irish?Scots so it seems authentic. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

furthermore the diffrent gametypes are not needed that much, better concentrate on a nice patch and add it in the add on. I know our Khan did only play KOTH and HONJIN, KOTH wasnt realistoic battling and HONJIN lacked the online enemies.

fast skirmishes against the AI is nice but for vets not an option.

so, so far so good...

[DarknScaly]

Quote Originally posted by GilJaysmith:

Can't account for the safety dance you describe; something to investigate in more detail if others see it I think.

Gil ~ CA[/QUOTE]

Ive noticed it a lot with cavalry Gil - they can do their "repositioning dance" infront of ranked spears and pikes an awful lot..its abit like they cant quite convinces their horses its a good idea to "REALLY go on boy - charge in there - you'll be fine...honest!"

(In detail/seriously: Ive seen it most commonly where cavalry are trying to charge ranged untis placed behind spear/pike units - the cav start to move in then stop, reposition, shuffle and dont seem to be able to make their minds up what to do - I always thought it looked like some sort of morale check going on in a cycle.

When ranged units do it its "always" been a case of the ranged unit being at their maximum range and simply shuffling into their ideal range to their target [so that the whole unit can fire - more obovious in mounted units as they tend to be deployed deeper ranked, ad thus the "shuffle" is more obvious] .. probably totally wrong mind you but wth.)

[MagyarKhans Cham]

KRAELLIN, can u sent some logfiles to our empires proggers...? so they can start working on a logfilereader...

[MagyarKhans Cham]

magyarkhan@hotmail.com

[Magyar Khan]

u spamming Cham? that might lead to severe punishment...

[ElmarkOFear]

I played a battle where I attacked an English bridge province, (not sure which one), but I did notice the 40 English Hoblar unit doing the "safety dance." Also during that battle, I had an unusual outcome. It was my French peasants & and archer unit vs. a unit of English peasants, archer unit, & the 40 Hoblar unit mentioned above. The bridge battle was devastating. The 40 Hoblar unit attacked my peasants on the bridge and were able to kill all but 36 of my units until my archers and peasants routed them. The funny thing that happened was my peasants routed at the same time as the enemy hoblar unit, but my archers stayed put while the enemy archer unit and peasant unit routed along with the Hoblar. These two units had few casualties, but I did kill the general. I had my general/king captured during the battle, but I guess I got him back once the enemy routed. I will try this battle again after work and see if it occurs again. Just thought it was interesting and not what I expected to happen. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif Overall the game looks good thus far. I have yet to play online though, so I cannot attest to how it plays there.

[Kraellin]

well, i tried the replay feature out and specifically watched the 'dance'. by putting my cursor over the dancing unit(s) it seemed to be related to low morale. all the 'dancing' units were uncertain or wavering, that i could see. i think what's going on is that the unit tried to advance, but then gets hit by another morale check and retreats back, then recovers a bit and advances again and so on, back and forth. that's the best i can guess to account for it. in a way, it does approximate a unit that is 'uncertain'...cant make up its bloody mind whether to attack or run.

btw, the replay is a VERY nice feature. you can even speed it up for the very slow times, especially at the beginning of the battle.

and, as i stated in that post a while back about what faction you were going to play first, i did indeed pick spain. i found it interesting that the various factions one can choose have modifiers to the difficulty rating you pick. if you pick easy and pick spain, you actually play at a higher difficulty rating because it's spain. byzantine seems the easiest, from i saw, english are moderate and dont really remember the rest of them.

as spain, i made a fatal error to start my campaign and had to restort it about 8 or 10 moves later. this time i drove out the almohad in about 2 years and was even into morocco sieging the castle there. all that was left untaken of spain were the rebel provinces. my fatal error in the first game was trying to take the rebel province of portugal too early. beware of this, not all rebel provinces react the same way when first taken. portugal has a FIERCE loyalty to portugal, where valencia drops like a fly and stays that way. upon taking portugal i had a MASSIVE uprising the following turn that was about 800 men strong in the rebel army. sheesh! wasnt counting on that at all.

i'm currently playing a very simplistic campaign game. it's on easy and i'm playing almost entirely militaristically. build, invade, siege, raise loyalty, build. i took the southern province of spain and on the next tun i was offered something to do with mercenaries. not quite sure what's going on there yet, but i didnt seem to get them. i'll have to start reading the manual, it would seem ;)

all in all, the front end shld be fairly familiar to all shogun lovers. sure, there's new stuff, but the play is very familiar.

and in the first game, like i said, i'm playing it militaristically, i had a couple daughter princesses but was pretty much ignoring doing anything with them, when all of a sudden i get this message that one of them has become a 'spinster' and 'is now retiring to less arduous tasks'...lol. that had to be target's doing ;)

cham, and magy, i'm playing everything so far in auto-resolve for the sake of speed in finding out other things, so i've only got that one logfile so far. shld i remember, or read this again tomorrow, i'll send it off to you.

and to the guys at CA, this must seem something like a hollywood premier night. all the 'stars' come out of hiding to see the new show and then talk and write reviews and so on. so far, i'd say it's a hit :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[DarknScaly]

hehe

Yeah Portugal is a serious hotbed of rebellion for its own ends... often end up ahving to throw in extra spies and extra troops just to keep the darn place quiet and peaceful.

There's some others like that also... ;-)

[Nelson]

Wouldn't you know, 12 kingdoms to pick and I took Spain too. I'm playing on normal difficulty.

The first thing I noticed was that King Alphonso VI is a hell of a guy . Influential, smart, pious, commanding, and even a bit dreadful with a knack for defending in the field. Then I had to sort out the dukes and duchies and appoint a chancellor. This took a while because I had to examine each general. I gave Castile to the wrong man and had to officially take it back. So let this be a warning to all, bestowing titles (and princesses) is immediate, not when you hit the end turn button. You need to be very careful. The one usable daughter I have I packed off to Aragon to marry the king and hopefully secure my north east flank while I begin the Reconquista down south.

With 8000 in the treasury I then had to decide what to build. This is when the tech tree comes in handy. I hope it's correct. Since on region can build Knights of Santiago with +1 valor I began the construction path that will let me raise them. I won’t see them any time soon. Until then, I will raise (very useful) jinetes there. In Castile I built watch towers to see what the Almohads and the Valencians were up to.

After several turns I have taken Valencia from the rebel El Cid (maybe I should have bribed him) and captured Cordoba from the Moslems. The later was a pitched battle over two river crossings having 900 men on each side with the command edge going to Alphonso. Many fights in Owari prepared me for this and I suffered just 64 casualties and captured almost 500 prisoners worth 1400 florins. During this fight the jinites units were invaluable. Their javelin volleys tore the Almohad urban militia to pieces and their pursuit lead to all the captives. If the Almohads had had more cav this would have been tougher but as it was my cav could maneuver at will. When the javelins were gone they could charge home to good effect. In this battle the jinetes routed the enemy all by themselves as the infantry watched.

Something had to go wrong and sure enough after leaving my coward of a son (-9 morale!)in Valencia the rebellious locals revolted which will mean a bit of punitive work next turn by a better man than he.

I have spent no money thus far on ports or trade but intend to once Iberia proper is altogether Spanish. I’d like to arrange a Crusade against the Almohads before long.

The game has been a blast so far. The strategy map demands a lot of thought. I’m glad for that.


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COGITOERGOVINCO

[Kraellin]

nelson,

the key for me in spain was send EVERYTHING you have towards the almohads on the FIRST turn and just keep on going south. drive them completely out of spain and even take morocco or further. do NOT let them start building and then attack them later on. their reserves down south are too weak and too far away to put up any decent resistance and they'll just start not even fighting, but retreating back to the next province. just keep em moving back while building up spain. you can then handle the rebel provinces much easier. keep one good army in the south to keep the almohads from attacking and you can then start concentrating on other directions. so far, that's been my best strategy for spain.

when and if you go after portugal, do so with a huge force, spies and emissaries so that you can camp out there and build up the loyalty quickly. it's one nasty province.

spain is apparently one of the hardest provinces to start in, but it's a key faction when it comes to trade routes, particularly by sea.

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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[DarknScaly]

Spanish farm lands are bloomin' marvelous also (you can go over 1000 florins per province and more with a good governor) - and the 3 provinces with iron deposits is a BIG advantage later on with weapons upgrades.

Kraellin's tactics v the Almohads is the only way I have found to survive as the Spanish - the ALmos ALWAYS eventually come after Spain and if you let them build up then they will toast you.

Once established though you ahve trade routes north and south(east), superb farmlands and good trade items, iron deposits and even silver and gold mines, especially once you roll over the ALmohads.


Always keep an eye on the Aroganese though - they are notorious for stabbing you in the back and they'll invade any juicy province you leave vaguely undefended (at least they do on expert)..they also seem to breed heirs and princesses like rabbits, its almost frightening...surpised their kings ever find time to fight.

[Nelson]

Thanks for the tips guys.

My intent when I crossed the border into Cordoba was to hit hard and not stop. I attacked southward as soon as I had parity in numbers. The win was big and now the Almohads look weak in Granada so I'll push 'til they can stop me or until they are gone (assuming some other power doesn't drop by for a war in Spain!). I'd like to get a Crusade going against them but I need the right infrastructure first. A bishop or two might also be a good idea to convert the Moslems. I may try bribing Portugal just to see how bribing works. If successful I won't need to divert forces from the south to deal with them. I need a low risk solution to my heir problem (don't want a bad heir day!) so I may try letting the prince assault the castle in Cordoba before it falls in order to help correct his cowardly rep. His attributes are so good save for the pants pissing fear thing that I want to rehabilitate him if I can. I am also gambling that Aragon will stay friendly long enough for me to snuff the Almohs. If they don't I'll see what siege defense and relief is like! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif The grand plan has the Almohads going down followed by the acquisition of a trade empire. After that I need to see how things look. I can foresee any number of ways the wheels can come off my cart as I reach for Spanish glorious achievements.

You can spend a hell of a lot of time deciding what to do on the map. The options each turn can be staggering even with a small kingdom. You absolutely need a long range plan.

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COGITOERGOVINCO

[Kraellin]

ok, the almohads are now extinct and i own all of north africa, save egypt. portugal fell without any counter-rebellion. arogon is staying civil with me and i've finished my first goal...the land grab.

i'm going to have to crack open the manual now and see about this trade stuff and diplomacy, now that i'm a faction to be reckoned with. i'm getting emissaries flooding my lands looking for alliances and marraiges and i'm warmly and cordially accepting all of them....so far :) no spinsters this time. lol.

i finally figured out how to get the mercenaries i kept clicking on. you have to also click on the 'hand' at the bottom to seal the deal and then they show up.

i also captured the little rebel province to the north and have my northern border well protected. i've begun building ports and have been increasing my income production upgrades right along. i'm currently, by report, the wealthiest faction in the world, but lagging behind in tech tree and military. seems the germans are fairly militaristic and they hold that honor. the byzantines hold the highest tech level honor.

but, by now having a nice potential land base to work from, i can begin to upgrade and improve tech and military. but the next goal is to establish the seas and trade routes and domination there and for that i'm going to have to do a little reading.

gil, one thing about the multiplayer foyer. i'm an old fart and that text in there is a bit smallish and a bit garbled with one or two characters for these old eyes. raising it about 2 font points would be nice. or maybe include an option where the player could pick his font style and size? that would be the best. we also dont really need all that side dressing. could the chat area be expanded in width? i'd much rather have a full screen chat area than all the side dressing stuff. i know it looks nice and all, but function over aesthetics, always.

well, now that the north american premier night is over and the reviews are pouring in, what's it looking like from your end at CA guys? gonna be able to pay the bills? :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Azmogeddon]

Damn, I could read these game descriptions all day - keep em coming! Can't wait to get this game.. if I was a girl I'd be wet. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Azmo
[long-time lurker]

[Forward Observer]

Well, I finally started as the English on normal difficulty. I was so used to being aggressive like in Shogun that I attacked Wales toon soon, and the Welsh longbowmen kicked my bloody tail really bad.

I don't quite have a good feel yet for what my troops are capable of, but I did go back after a couple of game years and took Wales with a superior force. Then I had to decide if I should let the captured troops return to their home, execute them, of execute their leaders. There seems an endless variety of options and decisions at each step that truely makes for dynamic game play.

This might just be the first game that I would welcome--no, make that want a strategy guide if it was halfway decent.

Well, I'm back off the take on France.

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Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.

[Kraellin]

ok, i just found the first feature i really dont like. relax, most of you wont care ;)

i decided to take a break from the campaign and look at the editor some more. when you start a new map it loads up a nice semi-hilly type of terrain, similar to what we/mi did. that part is fine. i decided i wanted to try out castles and the possibility of moats around one.

and this is the part i dont like; when you drop a section of land down to water, the water 'laps' against the shore, rising and falling at a fairly substantial rate. since there is no 'freah' water as compared to ocean or salt water, ALL water does this. that means an isolated pond, a river, a puddle, is going to rise and fall like that. i dont recall this sort of thing happening like this in we/mi. it's fine for ocean water; i would expect that there, but not in inland water. could we scale this effect back for the patch or at least the ex-pack. this is quite annoying...to me, at least.

as for the rest of the editor, they have upgraded some things which are quite handy! the best new feature i've found so far is for when you place models. when you click on the model mode icon, you get the same listing of models like you did in we/mi. of course they've all changed to fit the new game, but the thing they've added is at the top of the screen. you can now select an icon to 'snap the model' to an edge of a tile, to a corner, or to the middle...and i think there was one other, but cant recall at the moment. this is QUITE handy. we/mi almost did this, but it was somewhat hit and miss and certainly didnt have those icons at the top. this makes it a breeze to line up castle walls, for instance. you dont have to use a laser beam now on some of those sequential adds, like walls, to get them all nice and lined up correctly. very nice feature!

one other thing i noticed that is the same as we/mi, they didnt update the F1 help button for mtw. it's missing the same commands that we/mi was missing in the list. not sure if that stuff is listed in the readme or in the game manual either. and i really hate it that EVERY game manufacturer refuses to support their editors. i dont mind the disclaimers stating do this at your own risk and that we cant guarantee that your map will work and that you may blow up philadelphia when using our editor, but the 'we aint claiming any responsibility for this thing', i find a bit annoying.

on the other hand, i wouldnt want them to pull the editor either just because someone blew up philadelphia ;)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Forward Observer]

Well, I'm back before bed. Here's a hint. If you play the English stay out of friggin' Scotland until you have a bloody big and mostly professional army.

240 highland clansmen massacred my first army of 420 men. I'll admit that this first army was about 1/3 peasants and the rest archers and urban militia, but still sheer numbers should have counted for something. I sent armies of 2 to 1 into Scotland twice more and got whipped each time. I finally had the Scots whittled down to 24 men before I won. They were tough cookies.

By this time I had run out of money, and was starting to go negative in the treasury. My only choice was to break an alliance, and invade French held Flanders. I massed together an army and put my oldest son in charge. The French ran with out a fight. I netted about 1500 Florin, so I can survive a few more years, but I am expecting reprisals.

I can hardly wait until I can build and get to use siege engines.

Later

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Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.

[andrewt]

I easily defeated Scotland. The second heir I got was insanely powerful and killed around 150 clansmen. Around 50 of those, I think, was after his entire retinue died and he was left all alone. Between him and the peasants he rallied, I chased of the clansmen. It was a close victory. Too bad he is an unhinged loon. Oh well.

[Forward Observer]

Quote Originally posted by andrewt:
I easily defeated Scotland. The second heir I got was insanely powerful and killed around 150 clansmen. Around 50 of those, I think, was after his entire retinue died and he was left all alone. Between him and the peasants he rallied, I chased of the clansmen. It was a close victory. Too bad he is an unhinged loon. Oh well.[/QUOTE]

I'll admit that I really got impatient to do battle, and I just threw a ragtag army led by a rank 1 general against the Scots, who held the high ground. It was like going up againt Buddhist Monks with only Ashigaru. I got what I deserved for my impatience.

I do think that peasant troops are probably only good for garrison duty early on. About 2 or 3 highlanders routed over 100 peasants in one of my battles. I wanted to slap them silly, and I only begrudgingly paid their ransom afterwards.

Cheers

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Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.

[This message has been edited by Forward Observer (edited 08-23-2002).]

[Lord Aeon]

It's a good idea to take Scotland very early, before you have to contend with WIlliam Wallace (i think that's who trounced me in Scotland... maybe it was Connor McCloud, lol).

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"You have offended my family, and you have offended a Shaolin temple."

[Kraellin]

i know this is picking at an old wound, but i just have to say that the more i play this mtw campaign, the more i hunger for an online multiplayer campaign. i dont care if it's all auto-resolved; that part doesnt matter. we can play single real time battles the normal way to satisfy that lust, but all this intrigue and trade routes and religious stuff, spies, assassins, emisarries, military conquests, has the wonderlust running for some REAL players on a campaign map!

to the guys at CA, i know this has become sort of the holy grail with us and that it's considered to be too much work for too little of a return, but i swear, if you could work it out, i'd buy it as a completely separate game, using only what it available in the current game. hell, i'll send ya a check right now if ya want...and sinc gil is open to, ummm, incentives of a dubious nature...

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Kraellin]

whelp, i just got ex-communicated. seems the pope took exception to me taking aragon. such a small little province and faction; i'm surprised his eminence even noticed (the old fart). he's also announced to the entire catholic world that it's entirely ok for them to engage upon holy crusades to take my head and is even encouraging it.

hehe. now, i'm going to purposely ignore the pope and not even try to win back my catholic status. normally i might. i've got a huge army camping on egypt's doorstep and it be little more than a trifling to win back my status by attacking them, but since this is my 'training' campaign, i want to see if anyone has the cahunas to come after me.

even without my religious status, i'm currently the biggest military, the biggest income and the most popular faction in the known world. normally, under such conditions i'd just start walking across europe, free from the pope's influence, and simply take everything in my path. sure, i'd have to have a pretty good area control machine to get loyalties shored up quickly, but that wouldnt be much of a problem.

what i am doing, just to test things out, is improving defenses, improving income, and working on building up a trade empire. i've even trimmed some of my mercenaries that were draining my income. i've also been building up my spy network to see if anyone is going to taket he pope up on his offer. i've also been toying with the idea of converting all my provinces to islam...hehe, excommunicate me, eh? i'll show ya!

building is slow and tedious. every port must first have a keep, the port itself, a merchant, and then the ships themselves. this takes a LOT of money and years to build. i've often wished there was someway, given that you could afford it, to build more than one thing at a time. this seems just a bit arbitrary. i mean, are there only 20 people in this country working? if i've got the population and i've got the money, i dont understand the limitation here.

one thing i noticed with my king is, that as he gets older, his overall rating seems to be dropping. he's now 67 and where he used to be a 7, he's now a 4. that seems logical. i've stuck the doting old bird in his castle where he can make heirs for the remainder of his life. he seems content. :)

i've also been letting the computer handle all the titles and so forth, but it took me a while to figure out i shld maybe send them home every once in a while, so most of them are also sitting at fireplaces and governing their provinces directly.

most of what i'm doing currently is rather dull. building up my spies, building up a trade system and keeping an eye on who might be taking the pope up on his offer to have me beheaded. like i say, normally i'd just go get the pope's head and the rest of the pious factions to boot.

i'm wondering here, CA, if you could put in a hot key, maybe one of the F keys, for a quicksave button. going back and forth to the main menu is somewhat annoying. not a big thing, but it would help. or did i miss something and it already exists?

oh, and one last item, the maltese rejected my king's daughter's marraige proposal...the snobs! :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

an online campaign with auto resolving teh combats should be in the next add on.

teh next step would be, an online campaign where u can input and output the army files to resolve the outcome ypurself, online

i know there is a god, we have one, Mongke Tengri. but how can we make him listen? sacrificing an head?

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
i'm wondering here, CA, if you could put in a hot key, maybe one of the F keys, for a quicksave button. going back and forth to the main menu is somewhat annoying. not a big thing, but it would help. or did i miss something and it already exists?
[/B][/QUOTE]


Quicksave on the stratmap should be Ctrl-S.

Gil ~ CA

[Forward Observer]

I finally eliminated the French. Not too hard either. For some reason I thought they would be tougher. Of course this pissed off the Pope, so I got excommunicated.

I only took one loss, and that was because I had grouped and placed about 3 units in a woods on my left flank to spring a trap. For some reason two of the units marched right out of the woods against my orders right into some French knights. I probably had them over-lapping or something, but it was still irritating.

I decided after the French king holed up in his castle to go ahead and attack via the siege option. I had acquired a couple of ballistae and one catapult. You can actually hire a mercenary catapult crew if you build an Inn.

Hint---Make sure that if the fortress has an both an outer and an inner wall that you place your siege engines close enough to reach the second wall. I didn't the first time, and after knocking down the stockade walls, I had to retreat because I was stuck outside the main castle with no way to get in.

The Ballistae will take out a stockade wall, but I don't know if they will take down a stone wall. Will have to go back and try.

I just discovered a nice camera feature that is new with this game. When in the battle mode, you can use your mouse wheel to raise or lower the height of your camera. You can go from a birds eye view to almost eye level with the troops.. You get some very cool perspectives this way, and you can really get up close to hear the camels snorting. They snort a lot, too.

When in the strategic map screen this function works as the map zoom. I could not find a key command for this in place of a mouse wheel.

The have really tried to address the reinforcements issue this time. You still have the "replace unit" button available before battle just like the WE, but now after the battle starts there is a "reinforcements" button. If you are below 16 units you can click the button and reinforcements will appear at the edge of the map. Then automatically they will march towards a white flag that starts out located just behind where your army initially formed up. There is also a button to allow you to move the flag as needed as the battle unfolds.

This is so much better that the infuriating random entry that was in the Warlords Edition. I only fought one battle where the enemy had one unit of reinforcements, but they came from the enemy's rear like normal.


I have also found a minor bug. The control/H key combo for selecting hand to hand or melee units only seems to work sporadically, and sometimes it will select cavalry too. The other troop select keys seem to work fine. Of course as an alternative you can control/double click on any unit and all like units will be chosen.

I really need this function because I am still getting some of the missile troops mixed up with melee troops in the confusion of battle. There is such a wide assortment now, it is harder to tell.

Guess, I'll tackle Spain next---reports are that the Germans are too damn strong.

Cheers

[DarknScaly]

You can "manually" knock down wooden walls and All gates btw. Just get a H2H unit to attack them - you'll see them throwing little torches at it and slowing breaking them down.

You can also destroy buildings on the battle maps - when attacking a province this will raise your dread rating.

[Kraellin]

thanks gil.

f.o.
good stuff there. if yer playing in the early era, the french are pretty weak and the english constantly give them hell to keep them that way.

one question though, if you've got a wood stockade and a stone wall, how do you position your siege engines close enough for the inner wall as well as the outer wall. i know there's a cursor change, the green arrow/red arrow thing, so do you move the cursor over each wall to make sure you're close enough to the inner?

the key commands for zoom are 1 and 3, i think, but it may be 1 and 3 on your keypad or cntrl 1 and 3, but i do recall the 1 and 3 being right. i always use the mouse so never bothered to verify.

K.


------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Forward Observer]

Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:


--one question though, if you've got a wood stockade and a stone wall, how do you position your siege engines close enough for the inner wall as well as the outer wall. i know there's a cursor change, the green arrow/red arrow thing, so do you move the cursor over each wall to make sure you're close enough to the inner?---


[/QUOTE]

Exactly! In a seige, even though you are attacking, MTW allows you to move your troops around just like when you are defending. Makes more sense anyway since that castle isn't going to go anywhere.

Anyhow, you just click your seige engine around until your curser is green over everthing that you want to destroy. Of course if you try for the keep you might get so close that you would take return arrow fire and lose your crew.

I'm curious to see what happens when the castle has a ballista or a catapult tower. That could really up the ante in a castle assault.

Cheers.

PS. As a side note in checking through the game folders in MTW, I didn't find any CGA's other that the intro. No big deal--fun to watch once or twice, but then you tire of them and turn them off. I kind of miss the throne room though.

Also, I am really pleased with the music so far. Really well done.

------------------
Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.



[This message has been edited by Forward Observer (edited 08-24-2002).]

[ShadeHonestus]

The political arena involving religious affiliation and who you choose to call your friends definately gets a huge thumbs up. Its definately deeper than before.

In my most recent exploit...
The French destroyed the English and were excommunicated...So of course I took out the french, as time and the Pope permitted of course. Then I turned toward the Almohads who had taken out the Spanish. The first couple battles with these troops resulted in my butt being handed to me, AI seems to take a quite different strategy based on faction troop type (once again adding to the depth of the game).
Just as I was reconsidering my role as a slayer of the infidels...The Spanish and the English came back from the dead (long lost heirs) and were backdooring the Almohads.
Nice of those long-forgotten claims to nobility and kingship to show up. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Kraellin]

whelp, i'm moving along nicely. my trade routes are starting to develop and the italians that decided to start a crusade against me have decided it would be wiser to use their new armies towards things closer to home, so that distraction is gone for now.

i'm finding a few little information things a bit annoying here and there. for instance, i've got two trade routes set up, but i'm not really sure if they're producing or not. a province can generate internal or local trade without the ships so when i look at the income readout i'm not real sure if my provinces with the linked ships is generating anything from the ships or it's just local trade. a break down of your trade income would be good here, or, at least an explanation of the listing.

btw, to find what the current breakdown is of your incomes and expenses is per province, open up the income window and scroll down the list of provinces. as you cursor over a given province's name, it gives you a more detailed report of info for that province. handy.

i would also like to see the name of the faction stated in text when i right click on a given army or general or emissary or princess. it's a small thing, but i dont know all the flags and cant always tell from that. i know you can move your cursor over a unit and it will tell, but there is a delay on this so i tend to just right click on the unit. having the faction's name in there would help.

btw, i found the governor of malta and made a screen shot :)

i'm still playing the first campaign, so i'm still on the easy level and like i said earlier, it would have been easy to walk across the map militarily at that one point. i'm the richest faction, most tech advanced, biggest military and most popular (even though i'm still ex-communicated). so the easy level is just that, pretty easy. it makes a very good tutorial level, which is why i chose it. you can make all those newbie mistakes and still recover.

for the vets, i'd say ignore the manual and just start. you'll only need the manual when you start mucking around with diplomacy and trade and crusades, maybe. i had to pause and read when i got to fooling with trade. there are a lot more fine points than shogun, so dont just throw the manual away.

there is also a nice foldout, LARGE, tech tree included separtely from the manual...printed on both sides. i've had to refer to this quite a few times lately, particularly when trying to start up these trade routes. one one side it has all the buildings in a cross-referenced top and bottom visual spreadsheet style that shows you the sequence and requirements of advancing your tech levels along a certain aspect. this may be a bit confusing at first. took me some thought to realize that just because i had built a port i couldnt now automatically build a shipwright. you have to also look over to the side and cross-reference the fact that a shipwright requires you to also have a keep. so it is spreadsheet style.

my trade income is very small per route right now, but the manual explains this and tells you how to increase it. the tech tree also shows the advancement of buildings and so on needed. and progression throughout the world is fairly equal. i've seen germany, the byzantines, the english and others, all holding various titles of 'the best' at this or that. i also notice that other factions are now building ships and there's going to be some real competition in trade and military sea routes.

i do have one question about the trade routes and this is partially sparked by someone else in these threads mentioning that 2 trade ships, 1 from each of two factions, will tend to lower the trade one to the other. is this true? i would think there might be an arguement for it increasing the trade value, since the opposing ship is bringing new goods into the area also and that 'trade ports' would tend to become vast centers of commerce, thus increasing the trade value to that port. i do see the logic in it decreasing it at first, but as time went on, wouldnt it tend to increase it?

another note on trade routes. while playing still all on land you get disasters from time to time in different areas. i've had famines, earthquakes, influenza and so forth, but it wasnt till i made my first ship that i got 'storms at sea'. the first storm sank my first ship, but it seems this is a random thing, because the 2nd storm my ship survived the storm and no ships were lost. nice :)

as i continue to build up my spy network i'm finding a vast amount of stuff is going on out in the rest of the world. the french have finally driven the english out. the italians and the germans seem to hate each other and i believe that 'crusade' the italians got going against me was just a ruse to build up an army to protect themselves from the germans. again, nice touch.

it's getting harder and harder to maintain emissaries and other spies in other parts of the world. i typically lose a couple each turn and my generals seem to be under constant attack from assassins, with varying results and varying info on 'who done it'. and being excommunicated, it's been harder to marry off my princesses. the poor girls just keep getting rejected and a couple have gone into spinsterhood. but, my old 70 year old king is still cranking out the heirs. i now have 4 'of age' sons and one more coming. i wasnt aware that viagra was available in those days.

so far i havent run into any major disappointments or bugs. the game runs smoothly on my 1.2 gig machine. the 'easy' level is pretty easy, but not a walkover. i'm looking forward to trying out the more difficult levels and the other game goals.

K.


------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

Quote btw, i found the governor of malta and made a screen shot http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[/B][/QUOTE]

Send in http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[Kraellin]

ok, after going back in i figured out the ship trade incomes and where they're shown. you dont see it in the ships themselves, you see it in the province income. the sea zones will be listed when you have ships there, but all they show are the expenses for being there. the incomes go to the provinces, so they're listed there in a separate window that shows up when you click on their name in the income window.

i've now managed to get some internal security up and running and the assasinations internally are dieing down. meanwhile my external spies and assassins are starting to get better. pick easy targets for your assassins to begin with and get their rating up before you go after the harder targets.

as an aside, i decided to try out one of the historical campaigns. i picked the battle of stirling at the bridge. this was quite interesting. the english forces charge you across the bridge with some units having 200 men in them. that bridge was a total mess before it was over. it got so bad i couldnt even click on it to direct men onto it it was so cluttered with dead bodies.

i managed to kill their general and drive the english back over the bridge, but because i was coming across in one unit at a time, the english rallied, swarmed and drove me back. i set up on the far side of the bridge again, but my units were tired and my general had routed. before too long i was defeated.

the real interesting part of this was the battle summation. i killed nearly 2 to 1 and the english had a negative valor rating, while mine was quite high. so whereas i lost the battle, i did it with honor. i dont ever recall stw/we/mi displaying the results so accurately regarding valor/honor.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Yager]

Some of the bridge fights are just insane. Single bridge with Germans(me) invading the French. Forces were equal in number but I more infantry, pikeman, swordsmen, swiss halberds, and the French had a unit or two of cav. Being the one for tactics that I am.. I turned off the countdown clock.

Trying to be crafty, I figure they are going to have all of their archers and that is where I'll take the biggest toll. So I go with heavy down pour. The rain obscures most of the field from me other than a large army just sitting on the other side of the bridge. Really, I could have picked them off with archers, but the only archers I had were a unit of cav crossbows. So I move a unit of pikeman reinforced by feudal sergeants to the bridge.

As the men begin to slog across the bridge I hear a loud launching sound. Eh? An enormous ball bounces on the bridge directly in front of my troops and rolls off into the river. They had brought a catapult. Inadvertantly though I had picked the best weather and there was no way they were going to hit me from that range. So I continued on. Attacking the enemy the battle manages to stay on their side for a bit... then they charge everything in at my troops. Those fighting are exhausted and run for the hills. My units waver as the cowards pass through but they hold and I bring in a couple units to staunch the hole. These units manage to fight their way across the bridge and hold them 3/4ths of the way across. I'd imagine that there were some 1000 units in the space that one normal unit took up. The units in the back pushed those in middle forward and I tore them apart. Had a mix of anti-armour and anti-cav. So we continue slogging it... my crossbow cav keep firing. They run out of ammo and sit there while the men fight it out, withdrawing a unit as soon as it gets exhausted. The enemy archers run out of ammo and run at the bridge. By the time the downpour had turned to a bright and sunny day.. we had made no progress. There is really nothing much I can do since my units are winning easily.. but the enemy just wouldn't give in.

So I head off to the other room and watch T.V. for a bit then return.. my men had moved maybe a centimeter across the bridge. This was an hour show mind you. Leave for a bit for another show, come back to see my bridge units had broken and headed back to the rear. Luckily for me, the enemy didn't capitalize(not knowing I was away from the keyboard) so I moved another pair of units at them, they move units to engage... and it begins again. This was pretty much the story for /3/ hours. I finally won by about 300 men but yeesh.

[fubi]

wow...

i need this game...

[Kraellin]

ok, not sure how well this will show up, but here's the screen shot:

http://home.domaindlx.com/takiyama/kraellin/malta-gov-k-1.jpg

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Forward Observer]

Kraellin:

Have you tried the Bannockburn battle yet? It is about as tough as they come. All that Robert the Bruce has is his 30 or so knights, three 60 man highland clans units, two 100 man spear units, and about 60 peasants for a total of about 470 men

Edward II has about 700 to 800 knights and
another 240 crossbowmen. All Bruce's men are out on open flat ground, and his group of knights are half a mile away from his main force. If I had been those Scots, I would have soiled my kilt.

It took me about 6 tries, but I finally nailed it by retreating the whole force into a small grove of trees about 200 yards behind their starting postion. They had to run to get there before the first wave of knights hit. I went on the notion that cavalry doesn't fight well in the woods, and
it worked.

In the mean time I was running the Bruce around trying to keep his little band of knights from getting swarmed, and also trying to get some licks in on those crossbowmen at the same time. Anyhow the English finally broke, and it was over.

Most of the historical battles and campaigns start your troops in positions that you would never choose if you were allowed to place your troops beforehand. I don't know if the starting positions are historically accurate or they are just done that way for a challenge.

I suspect the latter.

I got through all of the single battles, and have completed the English part of the 100 years war. Now I am trying the French part as Joan of Arc. The first battle is a puzzler, since you have to sally out from your castle and destroy 4 ballistae that are at the four corners of the map. Of course there are English troops everywhere, so it is not as easy as it sounds.

Crap, I have got to go to bed. Later


------------------
Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.



[This message has been edited by Forward Observer (edited 08-25-2002).]

[Funky Phantom]

Wow Kraellin, thats one hell of a high acumen governor!

His talents are wasted on Malta though http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[mizuYari]

From now on, Tera is also known as "Lord Morosini" in my mind, and I would use the picture to find him whenever we meet at a future gathering...

MizuYari

[Kraellin]

f.o.,

no, the only one i've tried is the stirling one. i'm still in the 'kid in the candy shop' mode and trying a little of this and a little of that. i was also tempted to try out one of the historic campaigns, but decided i'd better finish my first campaign or i'd never get back to it.

i've done a quick battle, an historic battle, a full 8 player custom battle, the map editor, and am still working on the campaign. they packed a lot of stuff in this game and with the ability to mod stuff like we can, i can easily see that i may have to clean off one of my 15 gig partitions and devote it entirely to this game :)

yes, that governor did have a high acumen. if you look in the upper left hand corner of the screen shot you can see the faction he's from; just dont ask me to tell you which one it is. i can also tell you that every time i now send an assassin to that island it gets discovered and killed before i can do any damage. it seems that malta is quite protective about things like that. i do remember that that screenshot wasnt taken on malta itself; the guy was over in sicily, i think, when i took the shot.

i've also noticed that i'm not getting many emissaries coming down into my territory now. i dont know if that's from the ex-communication or from the fact that i've built up my counter-spies and external spies, or if i'm allied with with the right people, or what's going on there, but the traffic of foreign agents into my lands has almost ceased. i dont even find very many assassins coming for my generals now.

my own assassins are operating throughout southern europe with varying degrees of success. one thing i'm not quite sure of is, when one of my spies is found and killed, does the nation that found them know where they came from? this isnt clear so far to me. it seems like fairly important data to know, but the 'killed' message doesnt really specify, that i can tell.

one thing that was bugging me for a while, was that i couldnt build merchants, for some reason, in some of my provinces. i kept looking at the tech tree and going, wtf, why cant i build that here? lol. turns out those provinces had no tradeable goods, so the game wont let you waste building a merchant where no merchant could survive :)

i'd also request of CA that new ships, when first placed on the sea, NOT be put into an existing fleet automatically. i first noticed this when going, 'where the heck are my new ships that shld be being built?' there's so much going on in this game, that i'd lost track of my fleet stuff for a bit and finally noticed i wasnt getting any new ships, or so i thought. when i finally clicked on one fleet i had 5 ships in the fleet. lol. so now, i have to run thru all my fleets each turn to see if any new ones have shown up. this is a bit annoying. stick the ships out there by themselves so that i can see them when they first show up.

the manual is pretty spartan with info about the trade routes and how they work. for instance, i've one ship on the west of spain, north of gibraltar, that i'm not sure is doing me any good, but is taking up florins to maintain. there is no port there, but it does connect my routes from the atlantic to the mediterranean, so i ..think.. it's helping, but not real sure. i also noticed that having more than one ship in a sea zone on a route produces more income than a single ship. logical, but again, not real clear in the manual. and i'm not sure how much data there is about warring with ships in the manual, but then, i havent read all of the manual either, so that's certainly part of it.

i'm starting to run into doragon's massive agents moving around on every turn. it seems that the english and the french and most of western europe are quite paranoid about each other and maintain very large spy networks.

the game also seems weighted in seeing to it that certain factions attempt to grab and maintain traditional territories. this must have been hell to program, and i'll bet it's one of the 'dirtiest' parts of the code. i'm tempted to start another campaign and try out the 'glorious achievements' mode where you attempt to do exactly that, grab and maintain traditional homelands.

and this leads me into a couple questions/requests to CA. what about some campaign modes/goals based on economics or diplomacy or religion? it could be as simple as biggest in any of these categories by the end date of the game. in fact, any of those announcements like 'most popular', 'biggest military', 'richest' and so on, could be used for this.

another item on my wish list is a rotating campaign map. the first reason for this is in finding agents. i've seen countries where there may be a hoard of agents from all over packed in there, along with my own. and my agent may be behind 2 or 3 others. a rotating map would allow me to get at these boys a little easier. i can usually zoom in and pick them out of the crowd but it does get a bit close in some of those smaller provinces at times. the other reason for a rotating map is simply point of view and the value that brings. i often find myself trying to rotate the bloody thing by running the cursor over to the edge of the map just to get a different view on things. oddly, it never cooperates.

i'm also a bit dismayed still by not being able to spend my money on more than 2 things in one province in a given turn. if i've got a horse breeder and archer thing and spear trainer and ship builder, why can i only build one of these in one province per one year. just seems odd to me. let the money decide on what can be built or not, not this arbitrary of one province, one unit, one year. i would even think this could be expanded upon to include having more than one ship builder in a province and being able to build 2 or more ships per turn. again, let the money and population size be the determining factors here.

at any rate, i'm still having fun and still havent run into any major bugs yet. there's some things that could stand some polish for sure, but nothing major yet.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Nelson]

Having eliminated the Almohads, I have begun to build ships for fun and profit. The Aragonese where still on my northern flank so I betrayed my alliance and attacked them as son as Alphonso VI died and Alphonso VII took over. All Aragon had was a prince and his bodyguard so they retreated into their fort and motte and the pope threatened to excommunicate Spain if I didn't get out of Aragonese territory in 2 years. I then promptly stormed the fort without siege engines (which looked neat actually) and captured the place. At that point I was no longer on Aragon land but mine! I did not attack any more Aragon property for ten years and the pope never did a thing. The moral of the story being, if you can finish the conquest before the pope's get out of Dodge time limit expires you can keep what you won as long as you chill out for a few years.

------------------
COGITOERGOVINCO

[andrewt]

Trade is good. You should rush for ships ASAP. My revenues as Britain are almost 30k with 18k profits. At least half of that comes from trade.

That guy is from the Sicilian faction.

[DarknScaly]

Kraelin:

""the game also seems weighted in seeing to it that certain factions attempt to grab and maintain traditional territories. this must have been hell to program, and i'll bet it's one of the 'dirtiest' parts of the code. i'm tempted to start another campaign and try out the 'glorious achievements' mode where you attempt to do exactly that, grab and maintain traditional homelands.""

I hazarded a guess in preview that the AI factions actuall work towards some of their GA's even on a normal "conquer" mode.

This may also explain why some factions only start concentrating on trade expansion around the 1200's, which is where more of the trade orientated GAs come into play for factions. (its sort of like the end of the "crusade period" as i call the early era)

I catagorise the 3 eras as: Crusade/war; Trade; Structures

Thanks K2 http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif



------------------
Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif

[Kraellin]

dd,

it certainly seems that way, especially the french. they could have gone many different directions, but chose some very traditional ones.

shipping, i'm not so sure. i havent even reached 1200 yet and my seas are already covered in ships, for me and the other factions. seemed like on this one the other factions were rushing to catch up with me, in this case. i had ships before 1150. i'm still not sure if i'm using them right though, so i just cover everything and then double them up :) maybe you'd write me a tutorial on that one? i can tell that a 'chain' of ships in sequence across the zones does indeed provide transportation for military units and i can also tell that this same chain provides trade to all other zones thus linked, if they have something to trade, but does increasing the ship size and number of ships per zone increase the trade amount? i know it gives the captain of the fleet a better rating to have more ships. and how do ships fight and how are they affected by other faction's ships in the same zone?

i know the linking of ships gives teleportation to military units because i hopped an army over to norway and took it and then sweden. and i know the ship chain gives trade across the link because of the info sheet on income. so let this be fair warning to all that ALL of your lands are vulnerable to attack if an opposition faction has a sea chain touching your shores. well, at least they're vulnerable where the link touches. this is what makes sea zones so valuable and important. i'd better check to see if the attack capabilites come ready on the same turn that you complete a link to a distant shore. this could be crucial.

oh, a funny thing happened just recently in my game. as far as i know i've been ex-communnicated now for years. recently, an emissary from the pope showed up on my doorstep and asked if i wanted an alliance. lol. i almost said no. the only reason i can think that he wants to be all buddy buddy with me again is that i crushed the rebel provinces of sweden and norway...or that he's in trouble ;) not sure which.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Kraellin]

oh, i also checked on those 5 lists in the game. they are military, alliances, economic, agents, and heirs. and indeed, the military listing, when you click on an item within it, takes you directly to that army and displays the army underneath, just like the agent's list does.

to check provinces and what they are building, however, you still have to go province to province and look at the icons in the lower left of the screen.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[andrewt]

You have to be in the same sea zone at the beginning of your turn to attack another fleet. If the enemy has multiple fleets in the same region, only the ones you attack will join in the battle.

As for routes, you only need 1 per zone. Having more than one only means you are harder to attack.

[DarknScaly]

I honestly dont know about ship sizes affecting trade income Kraellin. I was hoping a lot of that sort of "ultra-detail stuff would be in the manual or strat guide (neither of which ive seen btw)...

to be entirely honest i never bothered to try to work it out "manually", but i suppose thats possible to do.

Tot he best of my knowledge though: the ship size,a nd certianly the number of ships, doesnt improve trade figures.

Waiting to be proven wrong on that though, as its not something ive tested.

- -

on that "GA thing":

Aye -a gain its ahrd to tell if the AI does do things " a certain way" - one assumes it must have some rough guidelines somewhere to it. Problem is that i've never played 2 games that were the same.

I mean, the Almohads "almost always" attack the Spanish - but even that's not guarenteed... and France in one game, never attacked the english.

There's so much going on its hard to distinguish any solid patterns.

[andrewt]

France was allied to me for a long time. They would attack if I let down my guard.

[Kraellin]

thanks dd,
perhaps it's time for me to crack the manual open again and see what i can find on the ship sizes and numbers.

ok. a couple more tips here. if you have a mouse wheel you can use it in several places to scroll various things. in the large panel below the main campaign map, the one that shows what's built in your provinces, you can build so many buildings that it will spill over into another panel. to see that other panel, you can use the mouse wheel while holding the cursor over the panel, or, there is a speak-like symbol just to the left that will point up or down depending and also show you the rear panel when you click on it.

you can also scroll in any of the main lists of the game, economic, military, heirs, alliances, and agents, by using the mouse wheel.

ok, i just checked the manual and it says nothing about ship sizes or numbers affecting trade. what it does say is: "The larger and grander the Merchant involved in trade from a province, the greater the potential profits." so, it would seem it's the merchant upgrades that increase profits, not ships. and here's another quote: "Fleets work in exactly the same fashion as armies as far as organization and movement are concerned... ...Fleets can contain up to 16 ships at any one time, and there are no restrictions about mixing ship types in a fleet." thus, i would say that the only advantage in having multiple ships in a zone is the attack/defense rating of the fleet, but nothing to do with trade.

all sorts of little tidbits in this manual. here's one on spying: "The longer you leave an agent in a province the more information he will gather."

there are seven different types of revolt!

during sieges, "You can drop a spy on the castle in an attempt to have the gates opened from the inside."

there are also baronial revolts and civil wars. "You will also need to regularly review the loyalty of your generals. Army commanders with low loyalty may revolt if they can find a ringleader, and a civil war with the kingdom split from top to bottom can be the result." hehe. cute :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[andrewt]

Ship battles are fleet to fleet instead of province to province. If there are more than 1 fleet in a region, only the fleet you attack will be attacked. Also, if you have multiple fleet in a region, only the ones you command to attack will attack.

[Kraellin]

well, i've put aside spain on easy to try poland on normal. this one is harder, in my estimation. you cant put your back up against the wall and have it protect you. you're sitting out there in the middle with all fronts exposed. you have the germans to the southwest, hungary to the southeast, the byzantines to the east and rebels in the rest of the surrounding areas.

the strategy here seems pretty obvious. make peace in the south, and attack in the north. on the first turn i sent my emissary to germany and my princess to hungary, both to secure alliances. i sent one army west and one army east, and bribed another army to the northwest in a rebel province. what this does, because of the layout of the map, is block all other opposition in central and western europe from going north, unless they come through you and you've already made alliances with those on your southern border.

once you've established this 'polish line' and created the southern alliances, you're free to build and go after the northern rebel provinces, and there are quite a few of them. novgorod, in the extreme north, is going to also VERY interested in taking these rebel provinces, so you have to forego a lot of high tech building/units and build peasant armies, while also trying to build up your income.

unlike playing spain, i found myself constantly getting the message, 'insufficient funds' on each turn. however, this seems to have been applied mostly against buildings and not new peasants, so i was able to keep the supply of fresh troops heading north. this is vital. i think it was dragoncat, in another thread mentioned, lithuania is a b*tch to take with a half trained army. i was taking big losses and it took several turns to finally take it. the rebels were also sending down re-inforcements at times to help the lithuanians. remember, when you attack a rebel province, you are declaring war on ALL rebel provinces, so they do send re-inforcements to beleagured provinces.

the rest of the march northward was almost as painful. these rebels all seem to have at least 2 units of 40 cav that are really quite nasty, plus 1 unit of infantry, in most cases. i was losing every 2 against 1 battle i fought, having to buy back captured men each turn and re-supply the whittled units.

i was pleasantly surprised to find the novgorod, whom i had allied with earlier, sending ME re-inforcements when i would attack a rebel province! oh, how little they know me :) this also occurred once with a rebel province in the south the hungarians jumped in to help me. sweet! in all cases, i was awarded the province upon rebel defeat.

i finally managed to march through all the rebel provinces in my northward path, with only 2 remaining, currently under siege. i now have a VERY large land empire extending from the eastern edge of the map north of the black sea, all the way to germany and hungary in the south and bordering the sea on the west. phase 1 is over :)

it's now time to consolidate and build an economy. again, these lands dont seem to be as rich as the ones in spain. i'm only making a bare 1000 florin profit per harvest. but, i do border the eastern and western access points to world trade on the seas, so i'm confident i can secure my realm in fairly short order.

once i've built up my economy i'll build up my tech tree, and then novgorod is in danger. by wiping out the nov's i'll have a secure and true, northern realm of power with a secure front on the south and in the seas.

and one very interesting thing i've noticed here, is that whereas the polish are catholic, the provinces in the north are not. nor are they muslim. they are pagan. i'm very curious to see if i cant convert my entire realm to paganism and thus avoid the sanctions of the pope. this shld be fun :)

i've also noticed one other thing i find a bit peculiar. my king is off fighting war after war in far off provinces, yet my king's wife is cranking out heirs and princesses. have they not invented chastity belts by now?

and one other thing occurred that i dont really know much about historically. at one point my king died of an illness before a son could come of age and the game told me i had lost. so, i simply picked it back up from a saved game and continued on. but this raised a couple of questions. i did have 2 princesses at the time and had at least 4 sons, not of age. wasnt it more true than not, that the royal line was maintained even if it meant having a queen rather than a king or that a regent would be appointed until an heir came of age? someone fill this in for me, cause i really dont know.

at any rate, i'm now fairly confident that i can win this game at this setting with this faction, so i may just quit this one and bump it up another notch and try another faction. it's quite interesting to see how differently i've had to play the polish compared to the spanish. nice.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Hirosito]

oh it all sounds sooo good. thx K for the lenghty posts.

[Kraellin]

thought i'd post a screen shot from my polish game on normal. i had to reduce it a bit to fit in there and enhance it a touch to hopefully show up better.

http://home.domaindlx.com/takiyama/kraellin/poland-k-1.jpg

i've just finished taking novgorod in the north. they're gone now and as you can see from the radar map in the upper left of the screen, i'm doing pretty well.

if you also look at the right side of the radar map, you'll see a gray vertical bar. this is a pull out panel for managing your game and some of the ai stuff. very helpful.

at the lower left you shld be able to see the 5 little icons that give you the various lists, military, alliances, income, agents and heirs. click on the appropriate icon and up pops the list.

below those icons is the two little boxes for showing what's being built in a province, buildings on the left and units on the right. click on either of these to bring up the queues for adding more.

in the middle bottom is where units in an army and buildings in a province are displayed, depending on what you click and highlight. by right clicking on any of those items in that box you get more detailed information.

on the right bottom is you florins, the date, and the 'end of year' button.

if you look at kiev you'll notice it's shaded gray. that's the last province i clicked on. if you right click on any province you get a nicely detailed list of the province, its resources, religious leanings and so on.

taking novgorod was more difficult than anticipated. they had some good units up there and were also allied with the byzantines who are sitting on my direct southeast flank. they were also my ally. before going after the nov's i had to make sure i had enough muscle in the south to ensure the byzantines didnt get too greedy.

it was quite interesting. i attacked the nov's and the byzantines started making noises. they cancelled our alliance and i thought, 'oh crap. they're going to attack and i'll be fighting on two fronts...not good.' what actually happened was that i immediately sent a princess down and got her married up to the byzantine emperor. he continued to make noises about me attacking one of his allies and how dangerous this could be, but never invaded! apparently he was also fighting somewhere else and couldnt spare the men, even though he had quite a few sitting on my borders. so, the whole thing was a bluff on his part and i called it! fun stuff :)

and now it's truly consolidation time. i'm still struggling with income. i've a huge peasant army that needs to be upgraded and i still have no sea trade going. so time for a little internal work.

truly addictive :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[MJDore]

This is good stuff keep it up!!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

I luv this type of information.. just cant wait to play for myself.

[Funky Phantom]

Whoah, considering you started with only 2 provinces youre doing pretty damn good http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Where next for the Polish armies? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Kraellin]

today's installment is rather dull. like i said, it was time to build up the internal engine. this meant trimming a lot of soldiers from the ranks and sending them home to cut down the costs. i also cut a number of mercenaries.

one thing i'm not sure about with the mercenaries is does their loyalty rating go down hill over time? i wasnt particularly watching for this, so i'm not quite sure about it, but i noticed myself begging to ask that question...no answer yet.

i also found a number of governors with terrible acumen. previously, i had had this action being handled by my own AI, but it seems that it makes a number of bad choices from time to time, at least the way i see it. maybe my AI wasnt judging it completely on acumen though. it might have been considering the dread factor as well, for loyalty's sake. at any rate, i replaced every governor with an acumen of 3 or less with at least a 4 or higher. this improved income a fair amount.

when trimming my military down, i had to be a bit careful. the byzantines dissolved our alliance when i went after the novgorods and they've been sporting some large armies on my borders ever since, moving them around a bit so i dont get too comfortable, but always a step or two provinces.

the germans also invaded the hungarians which forced me to choose between the two factions for an alliance. knowing how the germans are constantly warring with someone in this game, i chose to remain friendly with the hungarians, figuring the germans, by attacking everyone else was going to whittle down the rest of my alliances. this seems to have been the better choice. the hungarians have taken a province or two from the germans, stayed friendly with me, and removed some of the threat the germans had sitting on my borders. i'd have taken advantage of the german's bad fortune by invading them myself, but with my poor income, a smaller military, and a larger territory to defend, it didnt seem prudent for now.

i did finally manage to get 2 ships built and start my foreign trade economy (why can that only be done by sea, btw?). and my income is growing slowly. as the income grows, i'm able to invest more in income producing upgrades, but i'm still getting the 'insufficient funds' messages at each turn.

ok, so that brings us almost up to the present. my old king died, a new king rose, and married internally, some aristrocrat's daughter who is now bearing children. i also sent an emissary to england and got the king to marry someone in my faction...not even sure whom. this was a clever little ploy on my part because the english are at war with the french, and i'm currently allied with the french, so i couldnt offer an open alliance, but i wanted to start making ties with the english as my sea trade begins to head towards their shores. the game took it for exactly how i meant it and the french didnt bat an eye over it...so far.

the byzantines continue to reject all overtures of peace with me, but that seems to be because they are currently fighting some of my allies. they acknowledge the overtures of peace with polite conversation and even went as far as saying something like 'perhaps soon', but that's as far as that's gotten. they have removed some of the troops, however, whether because of my jestures or because they're involved in a war elsewhere.

so, on my southern border i have germany and hungary warring with each other. the byzantines seem to be less concerned with me and no one has sent any sea trade up my way as a prelude to war.

given that, and given that i still do have enough military, other than garrisons, to launch a small attack somewhere, i decided sweden would be a good choice, and this is where it starts to get good again. i formed an army of 8 cav units and sent them over the baltic to sweden. the rebels retreated to norway without a fight and i had enough of a force to secure the loyalty without a rebellion. good! on the very next turn, with my new army now stranded in sweden without a port (which i knew would occur and planned for), i get this nice little message that while i did a nice job of wiping out the novgorods, i apparently missed killing off some important heirs and they've formed a new faction of novgorods in MY territory. the cheek! and not only have they formed a nice little army in finland of about 500 men to 2 small garrisoned units, they've also got new armies in TWO other provinces! i think i now understand the word that i've previously not uttered through ignorance of its meaning.....GAH! all my units in the north are garrison units! all my larger armies are in the south protecting those borders! i've just cut my bloody armies down so i could make some money so i could improve life for those ungrateful slobs in the north! and here i was going to convert to Paganism as well! bah! Kraellin the Kruel shall rise and smite them all!

hehe. now, i think this returning faction thing is a great idea. i also think it's a bit much that the nov's are returning in 3 provinces at once, with a rather substantial fighting force, particularly given that all 3 provinces they are showing up in were over 100% loyal. true, they had not been converted to a new religion, so i'll give ya that one, but 3 provinces where no unrest was showing seems a bit overdone. in all fairness though, i didnt have any bishops, emissaries, princesses, or assassins working there to uncover plots, so perhaps that explains some of it. live and learn.

i'm tempted to turn back the hands of time a couple of turns and stick some heavier forces up there for this apparently inevitable event, but i'll play it out and keep it as a learning experience. maybe i'll even bribe one of their armies and use it as my own to put down the others :)

this game has just about the right amount of detail of play in the campaign mode. europa universalis II, which is always going to be the direct comparison for campaign mode, is a bit TOO involved. i just cant wrap myself around all those stats and details; i just get bogged down in it. mtw has some managers to help you with details and flows a lot better.

so, tomorrow i'll have to see what i can do about remmoving the nov's and preventing their continued return. that could really get annoying...and costly, and i've just got too much to do to have to keep putting them down.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[the Count of Flanders]

nice, keep 'em coming K

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http://users.skynet.be/fa307901/sig_org.jpg
Proud member of the OOOO (http://www.oooo.freewebspace.com)

[Kraellin]

"Incompetence! Bloody hell! How can these idiotic bastard peasant governors be so incompetent?! Bah! Must I do it all myself?

You! Call for my generals. Assemble my army! And get that bastard son of mine, the 'King' of Lesser Poland out of bed. We ride north!"

such begins the next tale of the polish empire.

the novgorods had re-surfaced after years of quiet in the north. and they didnt just re-surface, they swarmed! three provinces...three! now all being contested by some upstart heir of the former land owners. the garrison troops would never be able to handle this. the northern army had just left the mainland to conquer sweden and had no way to return for a few years. this would be risky. troops would have to be sent up from the south, leaving fragile borders even more so. units from other nearby garrisons would have to be pulled, leaving those provinces ripe for rebellion. it couldnt be helped. if the nov's gained control again in the north, the south would become weaker and incomes would suffer throughout the lands, not to mention conquest and opportunities would be lost elsewhere. this needed to be handled quickly.

the king ordered his princely son to grab whatever was available in poland proper and head north. no province was to have more than one garrison unit and all others were to be sent immediately north and meet up with the princes wherever they could find them.

finland was ordered abandoned. there wouldnt be time to rescue it even if the army there holed up in the castle. it would just mean a loss of men and a ruined province. better to leave and then garrison the surrounding provinces to prevent further plunder by these upstart peasants calling themselves the 'Sons of Novgorod'. finland would have to wait.

smolensk would be much easier and even muscovy wouldnt be too awfully difficult if he could get his armies to them before the garrisons fell. hmmm, maybe a bribe would work...

bah! these damn peasants! they just dont work hard enough to bring in enough taxes. bribes wouldnt work.

a distraction maybe, a feignt? hmm, too risky at this point.

the garrisons will have to hold. but...yes, if i pull a unit from here, and over here, and one from the south, and another from the north, smolensk might just fall. and i can get my southern watch army up to the borders of muscovy to contain the rebels at the borders, so even if the castle falls, it will be a difficult task for them to go anywhere else. ...it will have to do.

smolensk is mine again! yes, the cowards had no stomarch for a real fight, but they've retreated into muscovy, compounding the problem there. the finland armies are testing my garrison's resolve with raiding parties...nothing serious yet, but they've still got over 500 men resident there and they could still break out.

the muscovy garrison is weakening, but they shld make it. armies are now stationed on the borders, poised to attack. with smolensk gone, that entire army can also join the campaign for re-taking muscovy.

damn, the hungarians are pushing the germans back and i can do nothing to take advantage of this. i will have to curtail building new upgrades for my provinces and build my armies back up. i am too weak in the south.

and what's this? the turks have taken byzantine lands and now border me? another opportunity and all my forces are now north. it must be my pagan background. the gods are not favoring me. i will give up my pagan gods and openly profess to this catholic god. he is surely more powerful.

ah, life can be sweet at times, even during a rebellion. muscovy is under siege, but now it is these upstart peasants who hold the castle while my forces bash at the gates. the end is in sight and i shall begin diverting troops to border finland and make sure they do nowhere but back into the sea that spawned them. surely this catholic god now favors me and is rewarding me for my conversion.

muscovy is secure. the rebels are dead. we march to finland.

there shall be no mercy for these scum. there will be NO secret heirs left to claim these lands again, for i shall burn this plague from my lands.

the whimpering of the dying can be heard even outside the besieged castle. they die like diseased cattle within, moaning and mooing throughout the night and day. the castle shall be mine very soon. the battle was less fierce than i had anticipated. these rabble, though well equipped, fight like old women.

i can afford to move men south. the pitiful forces still remaining within the castle will fall soon. it is tempting to even grant them them some clemency just to keep them under a watchful eye, if nothing else. but alas, i made a vow and i shall keep it. they die this year. no survivors.

the byzantines are pulling out. the turks must be giving them hell in the south. i must prepare. germany is in a similar predicament with the hungarians. it is time to honor my alliance with the hungarians and help myself to some rich german soil. i am such a noble ally :)

the byzantines are leaving provinces completely unprotected. they must be fighting for their lives with the turks. the time is near, if i can just get those northern armies south again. finland is now mine again. time to move.

ah, a nice new german, er polish province. the soil is rich here. it must have been fertilized well with the blood of german peasants in all those wars those folks have fought. this pittance holding the castle will not remain long and their ability to counter-attack is small. they didnt even put up a fight for the province, just retreated into the castle. i may have to 'help' my hungarian allies some more.

*********************************************

hehehe. as you can see, i'm getting into this :) when i started writing this today the style sort of turned into 'the king's diary'. lol. fun stuff.

but it was a fairly accurate account of the day. i pushed the nov's back, and did secure one german province. and the byzantines are under serious attack from the turks...who are also my allies, so i may have to 'help' them also :)

sweden now has a port, so i can move my army there when i need to. my income is still not sufficient to keep me from getting the 'insufficient funds' message, but it is growing. my new ships and trade route are expanding and i am now out past the english channel, but this is only bringing in about 100 florins per year. not enough ports doing trade in my lands yet.

my armies are still fairly inexperienced and weak, so i have to rely on large numbers and mercenaries to help me out, but my generals are getting more experienced.

the reference above to now following the catholic religion was because i had a lot of provinces that werent primarily catholic and i was even considering trying to get my entire faction to turn pagan so as to not have to deal with the pope, but, i finally built a church to help put down and keep down rebellions, so the just sorta stuck that in the story :)

this game just beats shogun all to hell and gone. the gameplay is so much more interesting. the surprises and smarter ai just make this much more enjoyable. i havent played one game so much in a long while. and that's the true test.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Mount Suribachi]

This is great stuff! Thanks for all the detailed posts

[Taohn]

Don't think you can change your leaders religion even if his people are completely different. About this game beating Shogun "all to hell and gone", perhaps, with a little help from CA, a talented person will try their hand at a Shogun mod? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
Anyway, you write good war stories. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
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Like all Miyagi, Shimpo Sensei was fisherman.... Love fishing. Love sake. One day, strongo wind, strongo sun, strongo sake, but no fish. Shimpo Sensei fall asleep off coast of Okinawa, wake up off coast of China.

[This message has been edited by Taohn (edited 08-30-2002).]

[FasT]

Bump!

[Kraellin]

well, since Fast has bumped this back to the fore, i guess i'll have to update things a bit.

first off, i'm working on a secret project. if i can get it to work, it shld be kinda cool.

2nd, my empire expansion has stalled out a bit. it's not a complete stall, but it has certainly slowed. my alliances have all shifted and i'm still trying to find money in the seat cushions.

the novgorods have seem to have gone away and my northern lands are secure and producing. i find that you're mostly only offered horse trainers up there as upgrades and very little infantry, besides peasants and woodsman come out of the north. nice touch, actually. northern steppe horses. my herds are unrivaled.

i've no idea what folks are talking about re the mongols. havent seen them and it's getting on to about year 1180 or so. perhaps my provinces are too loyal and strong for them to invade? or am I the mongols...hmm, dont think so.

what started my alliance shifts was the turks. i'd been allied with them for a long time against the byzantines in particular, but the turks got greedy and wanted some of their homelands back. i obtained one of their former provinces by attacking an enemy of the turks that had taken the province, so i had never attacked the turks to take anything from them and thought that they were my buds. heh, that proved to be a lie waiting to bite me in the butt.

out of nowhere, the turks attacked that little province to the east of the black sea and took it from me! hmmm, not good. that sent to of my other allies running for the hills, the italians and the spanish, both strong factions. seemed they liked the southern factions more than me, or maybe they felt i was getting too strong. at any rate, this caused a cascade effect in my alliances and i found myself being attacked all across my southern border, with the exceptions of the hungarians who have been my allies since the first turn. at least they didnt turn on me.

i think i mentioned that i already had a war going with the germans, which the germans started with the hungarians...i just dived in to grab a bit of land for myself, thank you very much.

i've been pushing the germans back steadily, causing at least 2 civil wars in the country by bribing their generals to turn to the dark side. lol. i love that. the germans are down to about 2 or 3 provinces, but holding in there.

one of the oddball things in the game has occurred several times now. it seems that an enemy can send a ship out into your trade lanes without the pope batting an eye, but if you attack this hostile ship which is cutting your income and hurting your nice loyal catholic faction which is ostensibly sending nice yearly tithes to the pope, the pope turns around and clips your wings with a threat of excommunication. hmmm, now that dont seem very fair. so i attack them anyways and thumb my nose at the pope.

now, thumbing one's nose at the pope in this era tended to have some nasty consequences, one of which is that other loyal catholic bastar...factions tend to start crusades against you and sure enough, the french start a crusade on me and are heading north of poland to chernizgov(sp?). naturally i cant let this happen and also just as naturally i'm now at war with france...d'oh. so, i gather up some armies and stand them in the way, but, i make the mistake of thinking that if i attack the province with the crusade in it that it wont be able to move out of that province cause i'm barreling down on them and would intercept them. no such luck. they move, i move, they're in my province and take it, and i'm in their province and take it. lol.

but, they've effectively run my blockade and now i have to really do some shifting around to try and block them from taking anything else. i finally trap them in one province, though they've now wrecked buildings in two provinces. they're surrounded, outnumbered and when i attack they all give up and poof, no more crusade. costly, but could have been worse, and i did pick up one more province at the cost of about 6 buildings in my current provinces. not a great trade, but, land is land.

now, while all this is going on the byzantines have decided they want bulgaria back. boy, this is getting ugly. they take it. their king, also in command of the attacking forces, is some godly pious, dread, high command, high acumen monster. in my counter attack i send in some medium weight troops in numbers of about 3 to 1 against this monster. he eats them alive and i'm repulsed. whoa! that's not good. next time i send in about 5 to 1. he says thank you very much for the snack and i'm repulsed again! this is gettin serious. i'm running out of troops and barely scratching his. if he decides to counter attack i could be in serious trouble. thankfully, he doesnt. he's also fighting the turks. hmmm, alliance time? i send an emissary. i'm gently rebuffed but, maybe in a short time he will reconsider this if i go attack 'our common enemies'. ok, now i know a hint when i see it. he holds off attacking me and i'm to go attack the turks and he'll reconsider. cool.

meanwhile, i dont have any choice about the turks. they've invaded khazar! what the heck is up with these guys? we used to be friends! and it wasnt even a great attack. i repulse them and send in a counter attack, but he's re-inforced the province and i retreat without a battle. but! he's now started two(!) jihads against me heading to khazar! not one, but two...in the same turn!

boy, this european and middle eastern stuff just may not be worth the taking.

hehehe, so, back on the western front i've found this really nice source of mercenaries and i'm buying them out every turn, stocking my armies with killers and thieves and cutthroats. this is making france and germany REAL uneasy. ....as well it shld.

both france and germany had been pulling this blocking my trade route every so often, so i decided to put a stop to that by attacking first the german province with the port and then the french one. this worked and i'm pushing france on down the coast. i also invaded the provinces in england they had taken, after allying with the english, of course, and managed to hold one. i already had scotland.

i then bribed the rebels in wales and own that as well. i'm currently getting ready to invade flanders so that the french cant keep sending re-inforcements over to england via the channel. frankly, i think the english channel shld only be crossable by ship, but it's one of those automatic crossings where you dont need a port to cross if you hold flanders and the corresponding english province. so, i have to boot the french out of flanders to stop all that nonsense.

so, in the east i've got the byzantines and the turks on my back. the turks with their jihads and the byzantines with their godly king....i hope the s.o.b dies soon.

the one good thing about the east is that i've managed to work my trade route completely around the altantic into the mediterranean and up to the black sea. so, with the exception of a few byzantine ships that have to be destroyed, i can now hit both of these yo-yo's in the back with military forces.

now, if i only had some military forces i could send. lol. the germans and the french are tying up my western armies, so even though i have the means of travel, i dont have anything to travel on it. lol.

i gotta say, this campaign game is keeping me amused. despite the few bugs and glitches, it's one hell of a game.

ya done good, CA :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.