Normal vs Expert

[Kraellin]

i've put aside my Polish empire on normal for a while. i decided to try and play the most difficult game i could make to see just how good the game really is. i picked expert with the french. the french are rated 'hard' to play and tells you that it's like playing one level above whatever difficulty level you've picked, so at 'expert' i guess playing the french is like playing 'super expert'.

i've got to say, this is a pretty tight game. on the very first move i drove the english out of traditional france and back to their island. they were none too pleased.

finding alliances has been much more difficult, though i have now managed to get secure quite a few. i'm well into the game and i find the play pretty challenging. there are all sorts of extra little things the AI seems to do on expert. for one, it's a bit harder to get loyalty ratings up and the ai is a bit reckless with auto-taxing. auto-taxing works fine on normal, but on expert i've resorted to manual control because the ai would leave my provinces at a loyalty rating of under 100% for the extra income. didnt like that, especially in provinces that can re-spawn factions.

one very fine piece of ai work i've noticed is after driving the english back to england, i tried to make peace with them. i'd send my emissary to the englis king each turn and each turn he'd reject it. and, i'd get quite a variety of reasons as to why he rejected it. one of those reasons was that he wanted me to remove some of my troops facing his border. hmm, ok, if that will ease tensions and make peace i'll do it. he still wouldnt make peace.

however, taking that as a cue, i had a very uneasy border situation with the germans. we were both massing huge armies all along our mutual borders, and frankly, he was doing a better job of it and i was getting worried. so, i decided to see if the ploy of removing troops would de-escalate the situation and started CAREFULLY removing small numbers of troops into rear provinces. they could still counter attack if necessary, but at least they werent on his border. sure enough, in a few turns of doing this, the germans began removing troops also and the entire situation defused. i was impressed with this bit of programming! during the course of the game this happened several times, so i dont think it was just a coincidence.

i finally had to invade england, as the english seem desparate to capture flanders, their route into the mainland, and they had invaded me once during a moment of weakness on my part. so, i was forced to exterminate them to close off that front from attack.

the ai seems to play a much more cadgey game of cat and mouse in expert. it seems to play the tech tree game more and is much more careful about getting into wars, but, at the same time, seems to be much more opportunistic, taking advantage of any little mistake on your part.

before invading england i was getting bogged down into a defensive game. i had to build or buy so many troops to defend my borders that i couldnt hardly put any money into expanding my tech tree. this was a dead end route and was another reason i finally invaded england. now, all i have to immediately contend with is the germans to the east and the spanish to the south.

the spanish refused every attempt i made at making peace in the early game. so i made an alliance with the almohads instead :) the spanish were not pleased, but didnt invade. they were too busy with a war with the almohads.

the germans in this game are downright scary. i regularly get the message about them being the biggest military might and i've been expecting at least raids from them. so, i've been making alliances with every faction that the germans are also allied with even though the germans refuse to ally with me thus far.

i've also sent emissaries up into the russian territories and i've noticed a very strange thing here. chernizov(sp?) was a 'blank' province. no rebel forces, but it did have an inn. my emissary couldnt bribe anyone, as there was no one there to bribe. it couldnt claim the territory for itself. i couldnt do a thing. i wouldnt call this a bug necessarily, but i would call it a bit of a mistake. it did say that the province was owned by whomever rebel faction, but there were no rebels there to bribe or fight or even talk with. seems odd.

the ai definitely seems brighter on expert. i can almost see the germans posturing and the spanish getting a bit nervous, being hemmed in by this alliance tween me and the almohads. the feel is definitely 'play this one a bit more careful or you'll bite the bullet quick'.

with the english out of the way now, i'm stablizing my provinces and trimming my mercenaries so i can hopefully start upgrading again.

the early game is much more crucial. i actually blew my start as france about 3 times. in one start i had rebellions and bandits and loyalist rebellions going on all over the place. in another, i was retaking flanders from the english and the germans also decided on that turn that they wanted it and i ended up inadvertantly starting a war with the germans along with the one i had with the english.

i still dont like that one can cross the english channel without ports or ships. true, this has worked in my favor at times, but more often it works against me and just seems like a cheat that i can wade massive armies across the channel.

i also find it a bit odd that the english are so determined to get into mainland europe but leave wales, scotland and ireland completely alone for so long.

as poland on normal, i was able to expand very quickly in the early game and became THE power to reckon with quite quickly. as the french on expert, i have to take much smaller, calculated strides, even risks, if i'm to expand. going after england was one such risk. as soon as i attacked england i was excommunicated. the spanish love crusades, but they already had one going against the almohads, so i was fairly safe from them. it was the germans or italians i was worried about. i also had to move a fair number of forces across the channel to take and secure lands, thus exposing my weakened homelands to the germans. at that point in time the germans had about 600-700 men in 3 different armies bordering me and i kept expecting at least a raid. so i was lucky when it didnt happen.

somehow i'm no longer ex-communicated, but that seems to mean that i'm now subject to inquisitions and sure enough, i've had one general already put to death with the inquisitor running amock in my english territories. heh. payback comes in odd forms at times.

and that brings up another point. why is it that i cant kill one guy with a whole army? i would have preferred it if you could outright kill emissaries, inquisitors, and even princesses if you wanted to with your military. sure, you'd suffer the penalties of war or ex-communication, but sometimes i just want those bums out of my territory. i mean, i ought to at least be able to say, 'get the hell out of my country or die'.

all in all, i'll prolly not be going back to 'normal'. this is a much tougher game to win and thus more satisfying when you do.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Jagger]

Well written!

I tried "hard" as the English and it is a handful. I am not sure if I like it better or not. I am noticing I am surrounded by massive armies and 5-8 star generals yet I have won most of the few battles. And inquisitors have helped with some of the enemy generals. Then I have a crusade boucing between two of my provinces for the last ten years. Actually I was surviving OK until the crusades showed up. I am waiting for either the Germans or French to take advantage of the crusade.

I am not sure if I am ready for hard yet...

[oZoNeLaYeR]

Hey K, i played as english too for like 5 times, and i tend to take Flanders first rather than Wales, or scotland, u could bribe the rebels in wales tho.

i invaded flanders and bribed rebels in wales. so far so good :d

[Soapyfrog]

I am playing my campaign on Hard as the French. I had to restart after attacking England right away and getting torched. This time I built up for about 10 years and THEN took them out... MUCH better.

Now, in 1290, I own about 50% of Europe, and it's been tooth and nail the whole way. No real breaks, the AI always keeps you busy, and frequently gives you a tight run for your money... I evry much like the curbs on expansionism (army support costs, excommunication, rebellions, respawning factions) takes awhile to firgure out what work and what doesn't, and you can't neccessarily just grow like a weed.

Can't wait to see what the next century and a half hold!!

[Kalt]

I like that the game can be slowed down somewhat, but on the other hand, the rebel activity opn expert can be unrealistic and infuriating.


Having a full stack of 16 nice units (not peasants) spawn into a province with a rank 4 general is total crap. Peasant rebellions should be composed almost totally of PEASANTS! And a general of rank 2+ should be very very rare.

[ltj]

does the AI use less-but-better soldiers on the harder levels? it is irritating to have to constantly beat back hundreds of peasants over & over again.

[Kraellin]

hehe, i'm glad you guys are finding the same difficulties as i am. warms my heart that you're getting pushed to the wall as well ;)

ozone,
i havent played as the english yet, but i'm curious why you'd go after flanders before the easier rebels on the islands. i would have thought the way to win as england would be to take the islands, build sea power and a strong homeland and then set out for the rest of the world. ??

soapy,
yup. i did the same thing in one of my failed games. i went after england and the germans came in behind me and nailed me while i was fighting the english. i also got excommunicated and the spanish raised a crusade on me....NEXT! start over :)

kalt and ltj,
the trick with rebellions is to either not have them, or have them in a controlled manner. you CAN control this through province loyalty, so it's a thing you can control. i dont mind the peasant, loyalist or bandit rebellions; it's the re-spawning faction ones that drive me nuts. those ARE unrealistic in their numbers. to justify it in my own mind, i think of them as a sort of mini wild card crusade that spawns all at once. still, you can control this by keeping loyalty in captured faction provinces at 120% or better. then they wont occur at all...so far. it might be a different percentage in hard or expert, but on normal it does seem to be 120%

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[insolent1]

Hi Krae,
I am in the middle of a French game on expert and you are right it is dam hard. I kicked the English out of mainland Europe by about 1095. Then the filthy aragonese took toulose as I was seiging aquitane even tough I left 300+ pesants to keep them away(lol it didn't work). I think the reason the English keep tryin to take Flanders is becuase of its wealth firstly & becuase its their only way into Europe secondly. After kicking the English out of Europe I went staight for Wessex so I could elimate the faction. I got excommunicated while I was seiging & the Italians & spainish launched 2 Crusades against me & the Germans invaded ille de France. I pull all my men out of britain to fight the crusades & Germans, then Mercia & Wessex have a faction rebellion so i'm been torn asunder at the moment. Expert is the only way to play you should try the Spainish as that is hard aswell & never trust the Aragonese they are backstabbers & should be elimated as early as possible

[insolent1]

lol i forgot to say that the crusades are aimed at ille de france which is now in german hands so this should be interesting. I might retreat to British Isles & see what happens. Expert does lead to more weird situations as when I was playin Spain the fRench launched a crusade aginst egypt just as I launched a Crusade aginst Palestine. I held all provinces to Egypt on the North african route. The French crsuade stopped in the province beside Egypt under the protection of my army with its 7star General & when my crusade(was collecting high quality troops) caught up with them both attacked egypt at the same time & the French got Egypt whith my crusade in it. Then the French & my crusade held off 5+ attacks & 2 jihads now I can't reinforce my crusade(so it can continue its march to Palestine) without invading Egypt which is in French hands(only about a 100 though). So I will have to war on my brave allies after all those battles http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif
the worst thing about expert is the starting money 4000 dosen't go along way even with the small bits of help the pope gives you i think 6000 would be better as u miss out of the opportunity of some very good early bribes

[Kraellin]

rofl insolent,

that sounds pretty close to one of my failed games as well. i went after the english too early also and all hell broke loose in my homelands. i ended up moving to japan and committing sepuku :) and yes, the aragonese are nasty little backstabbers. they did the same thing to me in another game. they are now extinct :)

i think i'll try out the english next and do a little 'britania rules the waves'.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Polar]

Quote i've got to say, this is a pretty tight game. on the very first move i drove the english out of traditional france and back to their island. they were none too pleased. [/QUOTE]

hehe krae, south west france was their home land, the island was their new expansion http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif that may explain why the english takes france as prority......

when i played english, i took care of france first as well. because i dont need to worry about the rebels border, and i need mass troops to protect the french border anyway. if i attack the rebels, i would need a large garrison force to stay their, coz wales and scotland are very rebelion. and the income from these 2 provinces are not worth it. so i chose to secure the east front first. i used aragon as a buffer zone between me and the spanish. the germans always have the largest army, but they dont have good generals, and their troops are mostly cheap spearmen. so after beating france, i had a relatively easy time to deal with the rebels and develop the techs.

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http://chat.carleton.ca/~fbai/pix/gh1.gif
++ UglyPolar ++ GlassHeart

[Kraellin]

hehe. yeah, i just tried it as the english. it now makes perfect sense to me why one goes after the french first. although, i did make one conquest into wales. scotland i'll leave for later. the french are now gone and i'm in almost the exact same postion playing as the english as i was playing with the french. lol.

i think i'm going to play one as the english and just totally abandon the armies in france and play an isolationist game and see what happens. ;)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Jagger]

Be careful about leaving Scotland or Wales alone too long. I had the French move a massive army with a 7 star general into rebel Scotland. They are too big and well commanded to go after. Sooner or later, that army will march south.

[Kraellin]

alright, for a really good challenge with playing the english, do this at the very start of the game:

abandon france completely by moving all of your units there up to and through flanders. attack flanders on the first turn with your units in normandie and maybe a couple from wessex. you'll win. in fact, if done right, the french will simply walk away and not fight.

dont build anything in the french area. just keep marching your units that still exist there up to flanders by land and then move them ALL into wessex. the provinces will rebel behind you as you go, particulary if you set the tax rate to very high to get the last few florins from it as you leave.

once you've abandoned flanders and it's rebelled, consider this the game start. save the game so you can refer back to it again if you need to without having to do those first preliminary abandoning steps.

now, play the game from here. this is my isolasionist game. if played right, you can build up england, taking wales, scotland and eventually ireland, and never be attacked. it takes some smart diplomacy, a bit of luck and a LOT of economic management. it took me almost 100 years of risking invasion through a weak military to get rid of that 'insufficient funds' message.

i'm not going to wreck it by telling you how to do it. just try it. the really hard part is giving up those rich french provinces at the start :)

you also may have to give up global domination on this one and settle for your own goals. that big loss of income hurts ya, but i'm finding this an interesting game nonetheless.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Hirosito]

awwww this all sounds so exciting but i dont have the game....well i'm having fun as well so i'll just wait until i'm back home. keep playing and go online guys.

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Hirosito Mori

Hirosito the Baptist of the Babbiest Babe Thread.

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

[Kraellin]

hehe, this english challenge i set for myself has been the most interesting game yet. because i weakened myself so much in the early part of the game, i've been fighting, finagling, finessing, and fudging my way back to being a power to reckon with. i've had to rely on diplomacy for a major portion of the game. i'm currently up to about the year 1200 and i'm now just starting to get a couple of the 'best' messages; best contentment, best richest. i've gotten those two once each so far. so, i'm at least holding my own now and could, if necessary stave off at least one major attack.

the really interesting part of all this though, is the diplomacy game. it's like playing this massive chess game where you are constantly assessing situations and powers and relationships and so forth. one can really get a feel for keeping the balance, the whole detente thing, meanwhile building yourself up to avoid 'the most vulnerable' position.

i've been balancing the french and germans as my two major concerns, since they both sit so close to my doorstep. somehow, i've managed to keep them from attacking each other and from attacking me. the whole alliances thing is far from being a straight divinding line. it can get pretty complex with large chains of alliances intermingled, where, altering any single one could result in your being attacked because someone down that chain didnt like the new friendships or hatreds.

during all this time several factions were wiped out. the turks are gone, the byzantines, the italians and i just recently got rid of the danes. however, much to my delight and advantage, several of these factions are showing up again and causing havoc or at least a little grief to the other dominating powers. the egyptians have had to contend with the turks and the byzantines. the sicilians also had to contend with the byzantines. the germans had the italians show up again on their unprotected back door. the hungarians have recently been wiped out by the sicilians and all of this is leading to a shift in power.

the germans are quite strong, but are now at war with 3 other major powers and getting thier butts kicked on at least one front. another front is stalemated and a third front is developing as well. i've made several new alliances and when the germans and french finally couldnt stand each other any longer, i sided with the french, who were also allied to many of my other alliances. and, to top that off, the germans just got excommunicated. lol.

this is utterly enjoyable. little by little, with careful manipulations here and there, i've managed to build england up, build my networks up, harrass the germans without going to war with them, get rid of the pesky danes through an assassination i pulled off, and build my trade routes up to where i've gotten the 'richest faction' message once.

with the germans now quite vulnerable to a crusade, it's about time to go to war :) if i dont post again, it prolly means i lost ;)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[insolent1]

lol Krae the recluse http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif
I tried the recluse approach with the danes. I took saxony, sweden & norway. I put a small(keep costs down) army in saxony built an inn & just built up a trading empire. The danes get longboats cheap so thats handy. After I took saxony no one invaded it for 150+ years. Just as I started making about 10000 a year, it crashed to desktop. I haven't gone back to the game since I don't think I would have been able to finish the game from the position I was in. But it was dam hard trying to save money at the start before I got the trading empire going. I must have had about 100+ plus years of a profit of just 100 or 200 & having to save for 2-3 years just to build a longboat http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif I wasn't able to tech up for about 70-80 years. lol i only had 1 army of 500-600 men & a 100 pesants in each province & a few heirs. I think i actually only built 3-4 units I used the inn. The diplomacy is insuffectient to be able to make any real allies in the game eg lifting seige for ally 3 times then 4 turns later he attacks me. Maybe if you could bolster alliances with money or land or by making war on their enemies the diplomacy would be more enjoyable. I much prefer to be in a position to take advantage of opportunities when they arise like in my new campaign HRE & the Italians had civil wars now they only have 1 province each. I've been having great fun with crusades in my latest game i've launched about 15 so far all sucess's apart from 1. I launched it at palestine & the Italians launched one aswell to go syria so both crusades ended up going together the whole way down it was pretty funny every battle I had an ally so it was a good laugh until near the end when we only had about 200 troops between us and we got thrashed by a massive jihad. I was going mad becuase I put a 6star general in the crusade and at the end he was a 8star, but it was funny

[Kraellin]

insolent,

yeah, i've seen things that i'd like to be able to do diplomatically too and frankly, i'm still debating the wisdom of such. i played europa universalis I and it was pretty good, then EU2 came along and the complexity was such that it bogged down in a hurry and i lost interest. there's something to be said for keeping it somewhat simple. so, for me, the debate is still open. there are certainly times i'd like to sweeten the deal of an alliance with a bribe or when a rebel is 'too loyal' be able to sweeten it on the spot. and one that i'd really like to see is the infiltrator, the mole. this unit, if successful, would worm his way into an enemy army or into the enemy royal court and act as an advisor, feed the enemy false information, be able to do third party actions like foment war between two rival factions and nice little undercover actions like that. but again, too much complexity and things begin to bog down, so i dunno.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[insolent1]

Yeah you are right it would make it more complicated & I like the wormtongue idea. I do still think some small refinements in diplomacy would make for a more enjoyable game.

The way alliances are done is probably like a points system where every faction gets a set amount of points to start with lets say "10". When they break an alliance they loose a point or 2 which makes u/them less worthy of an alliance but with a small refinement you could also score points for lets say length of time in alliance 1/10 of a point for every year, attackin with an ally 1 point, lifting seige for ally 1 point & so on so it could get to the point where you would be able to leave your border(if u had one with the ally) not guarded. Allies should also be able to ask for assitance either financial, military aid http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif or land, they would only be able to ask for this once they had hit a set level of points eg 100+ years in alliance. this could all be done with the parchments listing the amount of money/province thats been attacked. I also think there should be a bank in the game so you could get long term loans based on influence, land military strength etc.....anywayz enough of the waffle

[insolent1]

lol u could have the pope as the bank & send your emissary begging for money to build churchs & pray to god every few years & have the amount he gives u based on your kings vices i'd like to see how much he would give me incest/secret killer/butcher/unhinged loon http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Enigma]

I am playing the English on Expert and it has been an enjoyable game so far. I invaded Scotland on the 2nd turn and bribed the Welsh (wanted those longbowmen). I should note that on two consecutive turns the Pope awarded me 1000 florins for "Good Works". The French invaded and took Aragon in 1097. I attacked the French in Flanders and the Spanish attacked in Aragon. I took Flanders and Brittany (The Pope did not intervene because the French were Ex-Communicated because of Aragon). At this time I also brided the guy in Sweden. Two units of Vikings held off 3 rebellions (the Earl of Sweden is an Expert Defender and Expert Last Stand). I attacked in Il De France and killed the French King in battle. He had no heirs and the faction fell apart. I quickly took the rest of France and Navarre. I am playing a GA campaign so I started teching up and getting ready for my Crusade to Palestine. Shortly after I lauched my Crusade through Germany (the strongest army and economy) the Spanish attacked me in Aquitaine. I barely won the battle and counterattacked. I did an amphibious assault into Castile and attacked Aragon. Castile was ungarrisoned and in Aragon I fought a battle and won and they retreated to their castle. The next year the Spanish had a Bandit revolt in Portugal and the Aragon faction returned in Aragon. They had a huge army so I retreated out of Aragon and made them an ally. The Spanish counter-attacked into Castile and it was 4300 of their troops vs. 2100 of mine. Thankyou Longbowmen and Billmen. I won the battle (killed 1200 captured 500 and lost only 330 men), and captured their King. The ransom was 20,000 florins! Well the Spanish have been knocked back to Morocco and I am trying to make peace. I need to send another crusade. My first got chewed up by the Byzantines in Bulgaria. But first I have to take out the Pope, I was excommunicated for defending myself (aggressively) against the Spanish. Great game!

[Kraellin]

ah, someone else remembers 'wormtongue' :) i always thought that would make a good online name ;)

isnt there a feature now for borrowing money from other countries? i'll have to look again. borrowing from the pope...hmmm, no doubt that would raise your brown-nosed king's piety but might well make him a secret heretic ;)

enigma,
yup. sounds like a fun one. your 'aggressive' defense, was that one of those he attacks a province of yours, drives you into the castle (thus giving him ownershop of the province) and then you send in re-inforcements to the province and get excommunicated for attacking him, even though your men are under siege? this is one situation that i feel the pope shld not intervene on you, but on the original aggressor.

and yes, great game :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Enigma]

I have had the Pope excommunicate me for defending my own province. I think the the problem is that even though you are being besieged the game considers the province to belong to the invader. Hope that is it fixed. but my aggressive defense was taking Valencia and Leon and not concluding the sieges quick enough. I was warned - but did not act fast enough. What ticked me off is that they started it! I am just going to finish it.

[Wavesword]

What Hiro said, but in the meantime.. I take it the differences between difficulty levels are in terms of the ai's intelligence rather than it's building capability? Has anyone done extensive spying on how the ai manages its economy- ie no cheats for it?

[insolent1]

Krae,
Have you seen the picture on the parchment when a spy is telling you about a factions plans?
Looks like there is a wormtongue http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Wavesworld,
I've had a bishop in every province on the map in expert and it ain't a pretty site. I've mainly watched European feactions and they have no real building strategy eg they build a lot of royal courts/barronial estates which cost a lot of money early in the game. They also build a lot of farmland in provinces that aren't worth it. They also buid a lot of inns and they never use them. The funniest of all is the fleet placements they don't seem to be able to build up proper trade routes. the Italians in one of my games had a lot of ships they where doing a lot of sea invasions but had maybe 7 ships in the Adriatic sea when you only need one. They also seemed unable to leave the Med. But mostly the AI can't really tech well becuase of the amount of building destruction done when the province is invaded. The AI can't manage its ecomony becuase it can't spealise its building strategy it also uses the auto tax method that the player can use to tax all their provinces but on hard or expert its a lot harder to keep loyalty high. On hard or expert at the start and near the ned of your campaign you need to pay a lot of attention to every province. I use 100's of bishops & cardinals to get and keep all provinces 90%+ catholic and loyalty at 200%. I garrison 200-400 pesants in every province apart from troop production provinces. I also put 2-3 spy on every province depending on their valour. A really good way to train spys is to send about 20+ into another factions province. They will cause a rebellion & gain 1 valour, do this 5-6 times & u will end up with a 15 or so 5 star spys. You loose 1 spy every turn in a province with a watchtower if there is other enemey spys you might loose 2. These spys kick ass the can get almost anyone for treason & will have a better chance at ending seiges.

[insolent1]

I've also noticed on expert you get very few good ship captains. I've built about 16 ships and I still don't have a 2 star captain. This is the second campaign on expert i've noticed this. Has anyone else noticed this?

[insolent1]

whoops i also meant to say that i've lost a lot more ships in storms on expert.

[Annapolis]

bravo!
I wanna thank all the people that posted well thought out and articulate replys. It was a joy reading this thread. I was going to buy it already, but this made me want it even more.

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"Onward Chrisitan soldiers, marching as to war,
With the Cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ the royal Master leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see his banners go!"
S. Baring-Goul

[insolent1]

dam I now have 40+ plus ships & only 1 2 star captain he got that sinking a turkish fleet. I ve also noticed a lot more assassinations on my emissaries & i've lost a lot of generals through inquistors and your royal blood has a tendency to be useless. I now have 5 heirs all below rank 2 with some bad vices. I actually had one heir that when he came of age he was a coward. I think there is going to be a civil war lead by my ambitious 7 star general his loyalty is down to 5 shields so I might strip him of his titles & see if I can get him to lead a civil war.

[SKD_Navy]

you can demote generals? wow thats cool!

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Proud Leader of the SKD Clan.

[Kraellin]

wavesword,
i've heard some others in here complain that the ai is economy cheating, but my personal experience doesnt really show it. i'm not really looking for it though, so i cant really say one way or the other. i havent seen any great unnatural 'hojo hordes' though.

insolent,
yes, i've seen the 'wormtongue' pic. in fact, if you look in the mod forum under my new mtw icons thread you'll see i did one of him :)

i havent really done the old shinobi trick with the spies. i'm playing a more traditional approach for now. i'm using all of the various networks; i'm not doing the whole mass spy invasion thing...yet.

i find it interesting to keep a variety of agrent spread around and am still experimenting with their capabilites on a small scale. the most massive agent attack i've pulled is about 4 assassins on 1 german general. love that one :)

in my current english isolationist game i'm finally a big enough faction that i've taken advantage of germany's aggressive war strategy. he's lost all of his alliances, been excommunicated and is fighting on 3 fronts. he was actually holding his own and driving the french to near extinction before i stepped in with a crusade and then a subsequent invasion of his sea lands from 3 locations. now, this was quite good on the part of the ai. knowing that i was coming with a crusade, and knowing that they were ex-comm'ed, and knowing that i would be invading, the germans killed off their own king. the ex-comm goes extinct and i cant raise another one against them. pretty cagey. i did manage to get one province out of the crusade, but now it's just a regular army sucking up my resources and somewhat vulnerable to a counter-attack. i was impressed with that one.

the germans then raised their own crusade against the egyptians, but it was really too late. i had beach fronts on 3 provinces, one to the north, the west and the southwest. and my little 4 man assassin team, ranks 2-4, were eating their southern generals. meanwhile the sicilians are now in on the war, attacking from the south and south east.

finally, the germans started getting some massive revolts and i was able to take a number of them. they also left flanders unprotected and i made a 4th beachhead with my main army...2600 men. their navy is gone and they only have one seaport down south to make any new ships and i've got that one covered also.

now, one thing i'd like to see in the game is the exchange or loan of troops from friendlies. this was actually a fairly common practice. for instance, in my current game i was allied to the polish and the novgorods. when i went to war with the germans the polish did some attacking of their own, but the novgorods were incapable of doing so because the polish block access for them to the germans. the nov's had no shipping, so they had no sea lane or land route to the germans. what i've been looking at is the possibility of a blocked faction that is an ally to help out regardless of being able to directly attack.

here's my solution. we have crusades, but perhaps a similar thing to a crusade could be done with an allied army sending a special military envoy/army to you through the lands of another friendly or willing faction's lands. it would use a similar routing procedure as a crusade. it would have no ability to attack until it reached its destination province and once there, would fall under your temporary command.

many possible deals could be done using this. one could pay the supporting faction for the use of its troops, or perhaps it simply gifts them to you on a temp basis, or if they dont wish to actually send troops, perhaps they could send money instead as a way to help and show support. this military envoy would pretty much follow the same rules as a crusade. it could be challenged by whatever lands it was crossing and if barred, it could then fight. one big difference is that it does NOT pick up strength and men as it goes. if anything, it might dwindle a bit as it moved. at the end of its journey it surrenders itself to your control for your use. it would NOT need the sanction of the pope to be done either. a country is sympathetic to you and sends help. i suppose their might be some risk to the supporting faction of being ex-commed if the pope has also excommed you, but otherwise it's somewhat beneath the pope's concern.

i have had the ship running away bug happen a bit, but i find that the solution for me is to put ships where the enemy ship is running TO. i think the original idea behind the ship running back and forth is that he's running to safe ground because he fears he cant win the fight. you chase, he moves again. if you simply 'blockade' his moves by putting ships in all of his possible escape exits i dont get the little bouncing ball effect. he just dies in 2 or 3 turns.

and here's another interesting occurrence. the germans attacked me in sweden. they had norway and whereas i was bracing sweden up figuring the germans would do this, i lost the battle when they did and retreated to the castle. since it was a castle and not a keep or a fort, i had a fairly decent force holed up there, but the germans had a decent force and a much better general. while they are laying siege, i'm gathering forces to lift the siege and in the meantime, the danes re-spawn IN norway and IN sweden! lol. now that put an interesting twist on the siege. who's fighting whom here? so, just to make it interesting i decide to send in the reinforcements. the germans are caught in a bad place. they own the province, since they are sieging, the danes are pissed with the owner, not me, since i'm in the castle. i attack, the danes withdraw figuring they cant win the simple battle with the germans, i end up fighting the germans and win, and the danes get norway! lol. this was hilarious. talk about timing is everything.

this is what i like about this campaign game. it's unpredictable. or at least, it's unpredictable enough to make it fun. yet, it's predictable enough to be able to control your own destiny, if you play it right. it's got a very good balance on those factors. many times i've been forced into trusting an ally not to attack my exposed borders so that i can move men 'to the front'. MOST of the time this works, but i've also been backstabbed enough to warrant my own v&v of paranoid. in my current game i have 3 very exposed provinces to allies. so far they are holding the trust, but i have caught the nov's killing some of my agents lately...in their lands. and when an ally starts assasinating your agents, particularly agents in your own territory, it's usually time to start protecting borders again. so, you do seem to get some warning of an alliance starting to break down...if yer payin attention.

thus, with the german strength now cut in half, me having taken all their sea provinces, and the egyptians now being reported as having the largest military and the pope now calling for crusades on egypt, it may be time to make peace with the germans, consolidate my wins and start busting up the egyptians.

the ebb and flow of this game is quite good. you also start to get to know how each faction 'thinks', though it's a LOT harder than shogun ever was. the germans are aggressive militarists. the sicilians are careful opportunists. the almohads are patient semi-peaceful, opportunists. the nov's, i havent got a real good handle on yet, but seem to be quiet, semi-paranoid, opportunists. the aragons are cowardly, desparate, backstabbers. the byzantines seem to be semi-aggressive expansionists, but not nearly as bad as the germans.

my view on those factions is prolly not completely accurate, since so much can affect how each faction will respond and operate. the point is, it's interesting and fun, particularly at expert level. i'll not be going back to normal or even hard. i can even see an arguement for making it a bit tougher :)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[hiver77]

The sicilians are definitely backstabbing bastard. ^_^

Overall in expert level I found that alliances almost means nothing. If you leave a border province undefended, you can guarantee your ally going to grab it. Maybe because I'm playing orthodox faction; all the catholics are ganging up on me.

One thing I also notice is once the AI perceive that you are in trouble (like suddenly having thousands of Mongol hordes showing up in your border), it'll join in the party (attack you). I've had 3 nations suddenly attacked me for no reason 1-2 turn after the horde appeared.

I'd wish CA can make it easy to get ceasefire / alliance after the midgame though. I found that unless the AI offers it first, it'll never work.

[insolent1]

lol Krae, sounds exactly like the same HRE i'm facing at moment. That troop borrowing idea sounds good i've often wanted to bolster my weak allies with some of my elite troops so they would actually stand a chance.
I'm playing the French & removed the English from France in 4 years. The English attacked flanders 4 years in a row I was able to kill off all his heirs & then finally in the last battle he got wedged in between 2 or my spearmen units. So he died a glourious death at the hands of my 6 star general. Since then have been keeping away from war building up my trade & teching as quick as I can for chivaliric footknights (using the mod) I wanna see how good they are as I found the feudal foot knights to be nothing more the expensive cannon fodder. The HRE killed off the Danish & Italians then went to war with the Polish. I haven't been allied to the HRE yet but I have noticed that they sure do have a lot civil wars they must be on their econd in this game & its only 1180. I was about to launch a crusade aginst them when the excommunicated for attacking the Italians but the emperor died. Both the Italians & Danish are back now with a little help from 2 of my 4 star spys. The Turks have elimated both the Egyptians & the Byzantines but both have come back a few times & will come back even more now that my spys have found more relatives of the last kings of their empires. The Turks are in the balkans warring on my hungarians friends so I have 3 crusdae waiting to be launched all I need now are some good generals and playing on expert it is quite hard to get them at themoment I only have 2 7star generals & I got them at the start. There has been peace for 100 years in the Iberian pennisula as both the almohads & spainish have big stacks of pesants have just been sitting there movin them from province to province.
Krae whats your royal line like in your recluse game as any game i've played as english or french on expert the royal line becomes useless in combat.

[Kraellin]

insolent,

my royal line sucks big rocks. my current king has little more than 2 in anything except influence, where he has a 4 in that, i think. my princes are pretty weak too unless i take them into battle and build them up. i dont pay a lot of attention to the royal line except to check on the number of heirs from time to time. it would be interesting to see if it's possible to breed better princes though.

i've just come across another somewhat odd feature. the danes, who only exist because they re-spawned in norway and only have that one province with about 400 men, 1 king and 2 princes, one of which is a 4 star general, were something of a nuisance in previous games and backstabbed me a lot. so this time, with them being so poor and neighboring my back yard, i finally decided to simply get rid of them. i attacked and lost and got messages from 2 of my allies saying that they were dissolving the alliance between them and me. this was the nov's and the almohads. hmmm, i had previously thought that when things like this happened that the dissolution would be with the danes and not me, because my observations had led me to believe that factions would almost always side with the stronger ally. seems this isnt the case. now, i dont know if this was because i was the aggressor or because i was committing genocide on the danish faction. it did surprise me however.

i made reference to this in another thread, but i'll mention it again here. the germans are at war with the egyptians. i'm at war with the germans and allied to the egyptians. the german king died, leaving the new king no longer excommunicated and back in good favor with the pope. the pope recently called for a crusade against the egyptians, who are now the strongest military faction. ok. no big problem there.

but, the germans decide to raise a crusade on the egyptians. they raise it in that province that is directly south of flanders. i hold flanders with about 2000 men. the egyptians are south east of us...the german crusade goes north into flanders! wtf? the germans have no sea route there any more. i took that away from them. i get asked whether i will allow them in or not and i say ok. the germans also send in a normal army to attack me. the germans then decide they cant win the battle and retreat. the crusade stays in flanders. on the next turn the crusade moves back south to the german province and on the next turn it pulls the same thing again! it's back in flanders! it is sucking my troops up like a haywire hoover and on the next turn moves back onto german soil. this has got to be a bug.

i think what may be happening is somehow the germans ai thinks it still owns a seaport or something. they dont. or, because it moved normal troops in to attack it's counting that province as already owned before it is. or, this is just a bad legitimate route. the german crusade is destined for venice. it has no sea route up north. it's only move shld be to stand still or move southwest, south, or southeast...or maybe east and even more remotely, west, but directly north? i dont think so, tim.

anyways, with flanders being sucked down the drain by the german crusade, i'm having to consolidate and build to make up for those large losses. i'm also trying to regain my alliances with the nov's and alm's. but, to counter the german crusade i may have to send a crusade of my own against the egyptians and route it through the germans :) heh, that'll teach em!

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.