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I havent played the game for a while and im getting started playing it again, just wondering if anyone can answer a few questions about the golden horde?
About what time do they arrive?
Which provinces do they usually take?
What kind of troops do they bring?
How many (usually)?
Also, which buildings do i need to make spys again?:dizzy2: :wall:
(im playing xl mod) - always start in early era
I dont have XL mod installed, but I suppose there's no difference.
They arrive between 1230-34 and take Khazar (always) and often Georgia.
The amount of their troops depends on amount of troops in the province they're attacking, but you can expect al least 10 full stacks in Khazar.
Their armies are composed of Mongol heavy cav, Mongol horse archers, Urban militia, Mongol warriors (foot archers with good melee stats), Spearmen and catapults.
To build spies you need Brothel (Castle and Tavern required).
Just to add, I have the XL mod and Knight Templar is correct - though I believe the Horde invariably appears in 1230. They can also appear in Armenia as well as Georgia and Khazar, and just the once I saw them come in Volga-Bulgaria as well (province only in XL, I think).
As for troop types, as noted but you may also find Korean Spearmen and Korean Skirmishers.
I'm not sure what determines the size of the invasion force but it can be very, very big. ~:eek:
Thanks, ill guess ill put a huge army in Khazar in about 1225 just to be safe :)
Actually, using a large garisson will just increase the size of rebellions (and the Mongol invasion is basically a preprogrammed faction emergence). The Mongols always invades Khazar in 1230, but sometimes stacks will also appear in other nearby provinces, and some rebel provinces may go over to the Horde. Prepare for some long battles, as the Mongol cavalry is both strong and fast.Quote:
Originally Posted by Total War Merc
Big armies are fun to manipulate into fighting the enemy.
Yes, the Horde invariably arrives in 1230, so that your first battles with them shall be fought in 1231.
Volga-Bulgaria is the original province from the vanilla MTW. Located north of Khazar, east of Ryazan and south of Muscovy.
Back in vanilla MTW times they were pitiful - just two stacks of units, and no more than 16 MHA units. Now, things have changed drastically - 10 stacks full of assorted troops (composition as noted by Knight Templar and Haruchai) is a minimum; if you see nothing more than this, consider yourself lucky.
Where they strike is actually a mystery for me. Sometimes they go south, wreaking havoc amongst the Asia Minor and Levant provinces. Other times they go straight west, painting half of the Europe with that damn mustard-brownish colour...
Have a mix of heavy cavalry, armour piercing troops (Halberdiers preferably), foot missiles, solid spears and fast cavalry. And have lots of it. Use them accordingly against each of the Horde units (refer to Frogbeastegg's TW Unit Guide for more info). Use bribery whenever possible - a lot of Horde lesser khans are loyal only to the highest bidder, and since you start on Early, money is not an issue in High anymore, unless you totally screwed up your economics - in which case you'd be dead already by then. Your armies should be massed at least some 2 provinces away, ideally in coastal provinces; with your fleet in place, you can then throw anything including the kitchen sink at the Mongols (except Volga-Bulgaria, all provinces usually invaded are coastal).
Good luck and have fun repelling the Horde ~:)
I had an interesting experience with the Mongols playing the turks on high, expert. I has been kicking the Byzantines of the mainland and had taken Bulgaria, Constantinople and relieved the byzs of all their provinces except Khazar and the one to the south of it (Georgia?). Their back was broken, but they had a few decent troops left. As I was fighting off Italian, German and English crusades to Bulgaria and Constantinople I decided to leave the Byzs as a buffer between me an the Mongol invasion buying me a few turns extra to balance my troops defending east and west.
The turn in which the mongols arrived the byz emperor died whithout an heir and their provinces went straight over to the Mongols! I've seen "a number of rebel provinces have joined them", but never a faction dying out in the same turn going over. They gained a whole bunch of horse archers and byz cav, assorted infantry and even some VG.
I was looking forward to a good fight but, unfortunately, the golden horde made their usual mistake of spreading their forces too thin attcking the Russians, Poles and me and they were easily wiped out in about 15 years :no:
Playing as the Brits, I have the Isles, France, Northern Germany, Denmark, Spain and North Italy, which adds up to 43 regions. The Pope commissioned a crusade for Jerusalem, and, recognizing my luck, quickly fielded a 20-unit army of crusader sergeants, armored swordsmen and Hospitaller knights, then set off for Jerusalem. I planned to conquer Antioch then head south and take Jerusalem, as Antioch was very lightly defended. I conquered Antioch with ease and prepared to move on to Jerusalem. Then, suddenly, 6 Golden Horde units invaded Antioch region and besieged the city. Even when my general turned on night mode, I was still outnumbered around 5 to 1. Obviously, my outmatched and outnumbered troops were completely massacred (though I did manage to inflict around 900 casualties). Just an account on how :furious3: annoying the GH is. TWO REGIONS AWAY FROM VICTORY!!! :furious3: :furious3: :skull:
Totally off topic: I love the smileys in your sig, antisocialmunky. ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by antisocialmunky
I'd suggest letting them take Khazar , let them spread out and then counterattack - unless you can field an immense army you'll lose anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Total War Merc
Depending on who you are, I would advise completely forfeiting Khazar and pulling back to Kiev. Invading Kiev from the east results in a bridge battle, essentially nullifying the Mongol's greatest strength, pure mobility.
To defend, use lots and lots of halberds and arbs. Halberds can hold the bridge(especially helps if you can get them extra morale) and the arbs waste the mongols as they're stuck on the bridge. If you don't have halberds, than a good spear like saracens or chiv. seargeants will do the job. If you don't have arbs, well that tough, regular archers just aren't nearly as good for this situation. If you are the bizz or someone who conquered the bizz(like Egypt or Turkey) then you're just going to whittle them down in attrition, or hopefully kill off the Khaan early in an early battle. Just make sure to have lots of anticav units handy and also some light cav of your own to deal w/ the mongol warriors.
I'm playing in VI and the Horde also has several mortars and an organ gun :skull:Quote:
Originally Posted by Knight Templar
I'm all for letting other factions spread out in the far east and having them deal with the Horde (or vice versa) to begin with. If you are having problems with a powerful Byzantine, Turkish or Egyptian faction, just gear yourself for the changes that 1230 will bring to the map of Europe.
Check out the thread titled "How does one deal with the Mongols" for various strategies once you are at war with them.
The Horde always take Khazar and keep their main army there when they do. They'll also occasionally attack Georgia, Volga-Bulgaria and Armenia. For me, they once attacked in 1227, with, if I recall correctly, 4000 soldiers in Volga-Bulgaria and 12,000 in Khazar.
I purposely had 1 byzantine infantryman stationed in Volga-Bulgaria at the time. When the Horde appeared, I made him withdraw into the fort. Meanwhile, in Khazar, I almost entirely destroyed the invading army with a defending force of 8000 steppe cavalry, byzantine infantry and a range of peasants.
After I had almost entirely wiped out the invaders in Khazar, I moved my surviving 3500 soldiers from that province into Volga-Bulgaria, where they had taken the castle (that poor, valiant infantryman died...). In the next year I easily destroyed the remaining Horde soldiers.
I defeated them in a matter of three years.
Of course, I'd been building my war-machine for about 30 years, with every steppe province training soldiers.
Actually, if I recall, I had about three hundred kataphraktoi as well, brought up from Constantinople about 10 years before the Horde hit. They were definitely important in the defeat of Batu Khan.
The horde cannot appear before or after 1230, it is a hardcoded event.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Cazaric
An unusual force. In my experience the Horde would steamroll such an army with ease. Byzantine Infanty being a basic sword infantry that are vulberable to cavarly charges and partially vulnerable to missiles, as well as peasants that are really a none entity. Steppe Cavalry wouldn't be a match for Mongol Heavy Cavalry, and would be vulnerable to the missiles of the Mongol Horse Archers. Besides an army of light cavalry, with no polearms, spears or missiles of any kind is extremely poor defensively.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Cazaric
With Byzantine Infantry, Peasants and Steppe Cavalry - oh and your 300 Kataphraktoi vs the Horde's 10,000 MHC?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Cazaric
This reminds me of that time when I faced and utterly defeated the 50,000 strong Horde with 2,000 camels in one year... oh and I did bring along 200 peasants as well, I almost forgot. :wink3:
Now we see what's all about those camels! :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
Lord Cazaric, I apologize for sounding skeptical, but how *did* you manage to defeat the Mongols with an army made up of mostly SHC, Byz Infantry, and peasants? I have a hard time seeing how that would be possible, unless you auto-calced the battle (and even then I don't think one could win). On what difficulty level were you playing?
Don't laugh, it was an epic battle! :inquisitive:Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
On a more serious note, it is possible that Lord Cazaric managed to pull it off. He may have hidden his entire force in the woods and waited for the time to run out?
Ok I'll get my coat... :shame:
OK, this makes me think. Has anyone has had a battle with, let's say, you have one cavalry unit and your opponent has two or three good anticav infantry units. Meaning you couldn't really fight them, but... could run around them long enough a time to win with the clock?Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
Just being curious, I never tried that, but I wonder if someone did?
Sorry for the slight off-topic stuff!!! :oops:
After a time, the constant retreat would probably cause them to rout.
AAGH (posting problems). What I was saying. I tried it in Vanilla with three mercenary Turcoman to see if the Parthian shot worked. After a fashion it did, but like Cambyses said, eventually they routed BADLY. Into an enemy armenian heavy cavalry
Ew. routing there was a bad idea!Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unknown Guy
Thanks for the input! ~:cheers:
I do not think you run around all battle long, but I have done it for half a battle with a depleted unit of RKs. It was a bridge battle, the enemy managed to make it through the bridge as it outnumbered me badly but only had slow heavy spear infantry (Rus Spearmen I think) and I just marched from one end of the map to another. It worked because my unit had high morale - it was the general and I think he had developped captured or some such vice that actually helped a lot in this case. Their units were completely exhausted too, so they could not "march quickly", which gave me enough time. But it felt like an AI exploit at the end and quite unfair. At the same time I have had time running out on me when attacking through bridges, so it tends to even out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
Yeah, a unit can usually retreat for only so long before the Benny Hill code kicks in and causes them to flee. It's kind of a pity in a way, but it does admittedly help in preventing the player from exploiting that sort of tactic.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unknown Guy
Yes, you have a point there. It would be "too easy" and turn some battles into some sort of pacman game...Quote:
Originally Posted by Martok
If you periodically order them to attack then just continue running around it resets the Benny Hill code and prevents them routing. Personally though I would just withdraw from such a battle.
Yes, who wants to wait that long for such a smell battle... I wonder because I started something like this once (with kerns rushed by two huscarles), but I got bored... The only case where I see some use to it is if you make some mistake and are attacked in a vital province (the on producing your best unit or something like this...) you need to keepQuote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
I've had the AI do this to me in a very small battle - I think they had one unit of HA's and I had a couple of spear units. I cornered them eventually though and they routed (it was more like playing chess with a pawn and a king vs a king than anything else!)
I'm surprised to hear that so many here play with the timer running. I feel like I'm cheating if I use it on defense. Plus, I'm such a slow attacker that it really hurts me on offense.
I managed to destroy the Mongol army by hitting them with the hundred Byzantine cavalry I commanded and then withdrawing, hitting then withdrawing etc. as the Horde approached my force.
After that I charged some kataphraktoi forward, devastating their foot soldiers and waited for them to reach me. When they did, I got my woodsmen and urban militia to fight them (remember their anti-armour bonus)while steppe cavalry and kataphraktoi flanked their force and cut them down. After that, bringing down their reinforcements was a simple task, and so the Byzantine Empire managed to hold Khazar against the Mongols.
In Volga-Bulgaria, the lone defender (for the purpose of this post, we'll call him Harold Bunshwun-Nobvaikulingson) was not so fortunate and Volga-Bulgaria was lost for a very short time!
My sentiments exactly. :bow: I've said it before and I'll say it again: Any battle that I win by running out the clock just doesn't feel like a true victory. I'm by no means criticizing those that do play with the clock on; I myself just prefer to do without it.Quote:
Originally Posted by gunslinger
Oh, and I also don't care for the time limit on offensive battles, either. It's very frustrating to lose simply because I couldn't locate the enemy's last two men that are hiding in the woods somewhere. :wall:
Quote:
Originally Posted by gunslinger
For the sake of marriage if nothing else i have to use the timer otherwise I can't imagine how much time I'd spend playing! At least now I can say i'll be finished in an hour.......I agree that epic no-timer battles are more enjoyable but sometimes real life does get in the way.
I had a similar problem a few nights ago, I remember shouting, well I had imbibed somewhat if I recall, anway I do remember saying, something to the effect of:Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Esteban
"for gods sake woman!!! don't you realise there's a war on???!!"
I was lucky not to spend the night in the garden... :no:
Despite this I still don't use the timer. If I think a long drawn out battle is coming up, I save the game and call it a day, or even autocalc if it's yet another me vs the horde scenario for the millionth time. :dizzy2:
you were very lucky to get away with that one :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
As my wife is Spanish and has a typically Latin disposition I think the computer would have been thrown out of the window as well.......my next game would have been DIVORCE: TOTAL WAR
I'm actually considering puting the timer off myself. Because I won't play any attacking battles involving reinforcements because I fear that I would loose a battle because I'm not rushing enough...Quote:
Originally Posted by gunslinger
Outch... Well, you could still pause the game and resume it later? My girl descending from the vikings, I wouldn't try such things to check if I get a two handed battleaxe through my skull or not. But she finds it funny to see me all excited about ordering little computer thinggies into disembowelling each other. As long as there's a balance between computer games and real life, it's no problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
Well I am in the same (latin disposition) situation as the Don above. I may find myself, and the PC, outside rather too quickly... :sweatdrop:Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
I cannot recommend enough disabling the timer, there are many more pros than cons, for example. Aside from Martok's primary points about winning cheaply on time when defending and losing when attacking trying to hunt down two men in a wood, realism is another, though lesser, factor in this. You can hardly imagine a battle in those days, stopping because it ran out of time?!
"I'm afraid that's all the slaughter we've got time for today! :beam: "
Being french and having a part of italian blood, I'm the latin disposed there! :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
Well, yes, and no. I'm not that sure about it, but didn't the medieval battles stop at night? I'm not certain about this, but I'm certain that loosing a battle because of thre peasant hidden trembling in a wood is not fair....Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
This last "gaming argument" associated with the "run to win on defense" one incite me to toggle the timer off...
Ooooh, wasn't I supposed to start a VI campaign tonight? Time to test this!!! :beam:
Both sides would often withdraw to avoid fighting in the dark. They would then camp out and presumably resume when it was light enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
Yup, that's what I was thinking....Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
...
...
What about a battle system representing this. After a time out, all units withdraw, but the battle restarts, with "fresher" troops (I'll say that they should start with one less bar), deployment, change of weather and all, with the oportunity for the attacker to withdraw?
Sheesh, guys. You and your women.... ~D
I do this as well. I usually auto-calc the larger battles if I'm reasonably confident of victory; otherwise I'll just save the game if it's getting close to my bedtime. I generally enjoy the longer battles that MTW offers, but I don't care to stay up until dawn fighting them. :sweatdrop:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
I remember once trying to explain to my wife that you cannot save during a battle, so it was absolutely impossible for me to leave it. She just didn't get it, so I went over it again in a very patronising tone... the spare room was pretty cold that night if IIRC. :embarassed:Quote:
Originally Posted by Martok
I have had that discussion, pretty much the same results. :no:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
Well, hopefully, if you have the VI extension, you can quick-save before each battle, now! :beam:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
(now being the devil: if the spareroom is cold, why not heat it up with, say, a computer with MTW:VI installed? :sweatdrop: )
Doesn´t warm up çuickly enough. tried it
Agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Martok
Everyone should be playing with the green_generals tag too.
What does this tag do?Quote:
Originally Posted by Roark
Basically with green_generals, when your generals die of old age, they aren't replaced by a clone but with a general of lesser stats. Personally I don't use it as I find that it hurts the AI more than it hurts me. In about 50 years the AI end up with virtually no decent generals at all (the Ai has a tendency to send it's generals to their deaths - the player takes greater care of his), whereas I can still turn out my 4 and 5 star generals and beat the AI quite easily. I rarely train up 6/7/8/9 star generals anyway and tend to make use of a very wide range of 2 - 4 star and a few 5 and 6 star generals than to use one or two 8 or 9 stars to fight most battles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
The same goes for expert difficulty - I hate that with a vengeance though. All it does is give the AI a big morale bonus, which means that you get situations where you can score massive numbers of kills against the enemy's low quality armies without them routing too soon (this valours up your men a lot more than killing routers) or you have the other scenario where you just cannot rout the enemy, even in a stupid situation where they should be running for their lives. This results in many more AI Jedi generals in my experience, as well as frustrating battles where you know in the back of your mind that the AI is simply cheating.
Ok thank you! I was a few trains late (english expression?) on this. I was actually surprised to see those 'your general is dead' messages and never seing my good generals disappear (the "good general" being "this stack with 6 stars over there"): as I don't keep track of the names of all the guys, I didn't knew what happened when one was dying: will he be replaced by another guy with just the same stats and vice/virtues, but another name? Oh, I'm a bit like you regarding the generals, a lot of 2-4 stars and 3-4 better generals (5+ stars).Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
Yup, looks anoying. I was glad to see that with the "hard" level, the AI starts to think a bit on the field (tries to flank efficiently, hides from arrows, etc...), but the cheating part can make people angry: how can we know up to which point it will cheat? So we can't really measure the risks...Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
Yes when a general dies he is simply renamed, and that's it. Nothing else to it. With green_generals he is replaced by a general with lower stats.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
You mentioned all of the messages showing generals dying? It seems like you may have "Display non critical messages" enabled. This suits some players and not others, though I reccomend turning it off. To do this you need to click the slide out menu at the top of the screen, the right border of the minimap, and uncheck that option. With this disabled you will no longer see the "you have finished building the <whatever>" messages, or the "your assassin failed in his mission and was killed" followed by the now infamous "whip - whip -whip - *frying sound* ARGHHHHHH". Eventually it gets rather dull clicking all of those off after every turn, and disabling "Display non critical messages" is the way to fix it. With this disabled you will only see a list of agents and whether or not they succeeded in their missions, and a list of the buildings you've built, not a separate parchment for each one. Alot cleaner. Some of the other options I disable are "follow AI movement", "autosave" and "tooltips", though you may want to leave some of these enabled.
Oooooo. Having just a list for buildings and agents is a very good idea! I'll do that very soon. Those parchments were taking so long that I usually click very quickly without really paying attention! :sweatdrop:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
That's the most annoying thing about them. You get good at it though after a while and only hear the first millisecond of the sound effect. :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
Caravel or someone else will correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC the AI gets the following penalties/bonuses (numbers may not be exact):Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
Easy: Human player's troops get a +4 morale bonus in battles. AI tactics are minimal & simplistic: doesn't skirmish or flank very well, does not scout for hidden units, etc.
Normal: No bonuses for human or AI, so both sides are even stat-wise. The AI employs intermediate tactics: scouting for hidden units, setting up ambushes in woods, standard flanking maneuvers, etc.
Hard: AI's troops get a slight valour bonus (+0.3 valour?? best not to quote me on that). AI employs advanced tactics: improved flanking & envelopment, feigned retreats, etc.
Expert: Essentially the same as on Hard, except that the AI's soldiers also receive a +4 morale bonus.
There's a more extensive list of all the differences somewhere, but those are it in a nutshell.
It's a morale bonus and not a valour bonus, and there is no morale bonus whatsoever for either the player or the AI on the hard difficulty setting. Expert enables the +4 morale bonus for the AI which makes a big difference as far as AI units routing is concerned, but doesn't make them any more effective as fighters.Quote:
Originally Posted by Martok
There are supposed to be very small AI valour increases for each difficulty level but i have never noticed it myself nor seen it confirmed anywhere. There could well be.
:bow:
I've never had the AI fight better on hard as opposed to medium in concern to the actual combat. Of course, I also almost never fight battles I don't think I have a pretty good chance of winning, so I've never actually tried being vastly outnumbered and outcommanded(statwise).
I can relate, I hate losing to but where is the challenge? Doesn't it just get boring if you know you're going to win? Besides you'll never get better if you don't make it hard on yourself.
Put simply: No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peasant Phill
Not that I've actually read any Sun Tzu but, I gather, one of his sayings is that, if you don't think you're going to win, you shouldn't be attacking in the first place. Or, if defending and outnumbered, then withdraw, concede the territory, come back later with enough men to win. Otherwise you'll lose a lot of lives unnecessarily and the territory and will have to wait even longer to win it back, in any case.
In short, no-one in their right mind goes to war unless they think they can win beforehand.
If you, personally, find it that gets boring, perhaps set about winning stylishly or pride yourself on inflicting/suffering minimal casualties in the process of winning. The ultimate victory is a bloodless one (Sun Tzu, again).
Put yourself in the footsoldier's place, for a second. If you heard your general using talk like that (your life, for his 'practice'), how would your morale be?Quote:
Besides you'll never get better if you don't make it hard on yourself.
First, great to have you back EYG. Your opinion was and is very respected around here.
About your comment: I'm aware of Sun Tzu's teachings and I more or less use them. For some reason I thought that greaterkhaan auto-calced the battles he taught he would lose. Reading his post again I can see that that was probably not what he mend.
Like I said before, I'm somewhat familiar with a few of Sun Tzu's teachings. And again, I use them quite extensively but more than not I find that I don't want to give up a province without fighting. I'm a turtler so I don't steamroll my neighbors. This means that most of the time, every province I own is priceless to me. Losing a province means a halt to my development for dozens of years, be it economical, military or other. It's not that hard to see that in such cases a general/king/khan/emperor won't just give up a region without a fight if their is a chance, even the littlest, to stop the enemy.
Besides even when an invaded province is not crucial, I still tend to try to kill some invaders before 'legging it'. See it as the Welsh harassing the English on their march to fight the Welsh army. I position my troops where they can get some decent kills but can flee before they get bogged down.
This is always my goal once I go into battle, with changing results BTW, I'm rather a perfectionist when it comes to games. (Besides, MTW is the first game I could live with my mistakes without wanting to do it again)Quote:
If you, personally, find it that gets boring, perhaps set about winning stylishly or pride yourself on inflicting/suffering minimal casualties in the process of winning. The ultimate victory is a bloodless one (Sun Tzu, again).
The truth is, my footsoldiers will never hear me say those words as they are just made up of 1's and 0's. MTW is a game and so is supposed to be fun (not a responsibility of some sort). IMO, a challenge and successfully dealing with this challenge is the biggest source of this fun.Quote:
Put yourself in the footsoldier's place, for a second. If you heard your general using talk like that (your life, for his 'practice'), how would your morale be?
I sometimes did defend a province on a battle which I sure to loose, for two reasons
1/ Staying in the province and loosing "soldier's lives" will usually lead to a siege, during which the enemy will not benefit from the province
2/ I try to give the AI a "pyrrhic victory" (EDITED: if I understand the term, it is a victory for which you had many LESS (that's the edit) casualties than your foe ). and I usually save the game, autocalc it, to see what the computer would bring, and then my challenge appears: to do better.
I did that while playing mercians agaisnt the saxons at the beginning of a viking campaign: killng 500 and loosing 200 instead of killinge 350 and loosing 350 did change the outcoming of the war, the armies being not so big: this led the saxon into a fast civil war!
But of course, EYG, you're right, what's the point of attacking, if your defeat is certain? If an attack turns bad (loads of reinforcments), I usually withdraw.
A Pyrrhic victory has its name after king Pyrrhus of Epirus who fought against the Romans in Southern Italy at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. He managed to inflict several defeats on the already renowned Roman army, but his own losses were so catastrophic that he allegedly remarked himself: "One more such victory, and we are done for." Thus, a Pyrrhic victory is one in which the enemy has been beaten, yes, but at a horrible and strategically significant cost.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
Thanks Deus Ret! :2thumbsup: Now, I Know!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Deus ret.
In general conversation, the terms "Pyrrhic victory" and "hollow victory" are taken to be equivalent - summed up as "winning the battle but losing the war".
In politics, for instance, it could be that group A wins a particular battle of rhetoric against group B but this does nothing to change their overall standing in the greater scheme of things. Such as where group B are the currently elected people in power and group A are the opposition. If the rhetorical argument itself does not succeed in swaying the electorate at the next election, then winning it achieved little.
This aspect of actually being set back by the victory itself is new to me (so I'm glad Deus Ret answered before I did, his knowledge of the history being more thourough than mine) and, when people use the phrase "Pyrrhic victory", they probably don't intend this part of the meaning. Just the part about a victory which had no long-term significance.
Hi Phill. Glad to be back, thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peasant Phill
Actually, I must admit that I'm just as much of a turtle-er and equally as protective of my holdings as yourself. I'm still kicking myself for letting go of Burgundy without a fight, a few sessions ago and it now has 8 stacks of HRE in it, pinning me in four, understaffed, provinces. That'll teach me. <g> (This isn't even a mod, either!)
The thing is, I'm even more cautious of the fact that, if I fall back AND have lost a big chunk of what was defending the lost province, then I'm at immediate risk of losing the next one in line as well, not to mention more time and expense in recruiting replacements and the take-back force. Perhaps I'm forgetting that the whole point of the sieges is to stop excessively rapid expansions of this kind?
Quote:
The truth is, my footsoldiers will never hear me say those words as they are just made up of 1's and 0's. MTW is a game and so is supposed to be fun (not a responsibility of some sort). IMO, a challenge and successfully dealing with this challenge is the biggest source of this fun.
I find that a certain level of 'role-play' actually adds to the immersion factor. I still realise that it's only a game and still have fun but I'm probably more of a fantasist than most and the 'responsibility' is part and parcel of that.
There may even have been some double meaning in what I was saying in that post. I probably had the TV on in the background while I was typing and one ear was subconsciously taking in news about Iraq...
:oops: :focus:
If I know I'm going to lose a battle, most of the time I'll retreat to the stronghold so I can attack next turn in greater numbers and not lose any improvements. But if I'm on the back foot against an enemy and need every man, I might 'fall back' to pool my forces in a province further back.
Last night I had a tricky scenario while fighting the Spanish as the HRE. I attacked them in Anjou where their main force was. Their strength suprised me though and I got walloped :embarassed:. That turn they created a crusade in Brittany (iirc) - I pulled all my troops out of Normandy to avoid them getting rounded up, so they then strolled in and my 200 leftovers retreated to the castle.
The next turn I've attacked Anjou and imposed a Pyrrhic victory on them - they held on but lost 880 against my 80. With those losses and with the men they've lost to their own crusade, I should now be able to take back Normandy and take Anjou too... :2thumbsup: The only sad thing is that I might lose those sacrificial lambs in the Normandy castle if I can't get there this turn due to crusade evasion :no:
I think that what EYG was getting at here, was that a pyrrhic victory, that is a victorious battle when you're losing the war is often not worth it. Retreating to the castle or even abandoning the province can be a better move, allowing your forces to regroup, come back and hit the enemy hard another day. This all depends on the situation of course and a desperate slast stand is not always a matter of choice, it is more so a matter of necessity.
A tactical victory, that is a victory whereby you lose the battle but seriously damage the enemy in the process inflicting many more losses on them than they inflict on your forces, can be a very viable strategy, but the MTW game engine doesn't allow for it.
For me, I don't observe Sun Tzu's art of war, when playing Medieval battles. When playing Shogun I do try to stick to it. With Medieval (engaging in a bit of role play here!) I try to put myself in the position of a King, Sultan, Khalifa, Khan or Emperor. These people are not often totally in touch with the man on the ground. They make decisions based on things such as wealth, religion, precieved slights or grievances. So both on the campaign map and within battles I observe this type of strategy. As a Catholic faction, I tend to be much more rash and "chivalrous", often taking risks. I will fight out many last stands, and take on those risky attacks. As the Muslims and Orthodox I opt for a much more methodical approach, only attacking when ready and not overstretching too much.
:bow:
I think that part of the problem is found on the way the logistic/financial model of the game works in the vanilla version as well as in various mods.Quote:
Originally posted by Caravel
A tactical victory, that is a victory whereby you lose the battle but seriously damage the enemy in the process inflicting many more losses on them than they inflict on your forces, can be a very viable strategy, but the MTW game engine doesn't allow for it.
To explain my self, it is far too easy to:
1.Conquer a province without creating too much contempt in the people for the change in leadership (low rebelliousness)
2.Conquer a province without creating contempt in the people for the change in religion (as religion change rates are very high IMO)
3.The absence of home provinces (even in the mods that this is provided they are generally more than 10 provinces per faction, be it empires like HRE or Byzantium or smaller kingdoms)
4.The very high margin of profits that can be made of naval trade. I made some experiments on that, and my results show that even with boat maintenance set to 4droupled almost all factions that have access to naval trade routes can still make decent profits.
5.The fact that the main trade routes are not separated by deep sea regions. Thus if someone starts dominatingthe seas and the trade its nigh to impossible to alter the situation.
6.The heavy maintenance cost of bodyguard units that the Ai factions cannot balance since they cannot disband and they get them without their will.
All these lead to the very first 30-40 challenging turns and subsequently, once you conquer your local opponent the game is blown out of proportion: rich factions get much richer and poor factions get eliminated. To keep up, the player is forced to expand as much as he/she can in order to avoid fighting with a superempire forming somewhere ie he tries to be himself superempire (20 provinces +).
This has a detrimental effect on battle gameplay as you are either forced to fight against superior troops and numbers or with superior troops and numbers. Conversely you either win or lose on the logistics past the early stage as much (if not more) that you win or lose on the battlefield.
Tactical victories like the one described in Caravel's post matter little if the opponents or yourself can top up losses in no time or if they cannot top up at all.
The Horde however is an exceptional case as it packs a huge punch till it is exausted and later on its not even half as dangerous as that.
There are ways to balance out the game in those terms by fiddling with certain values, but i am not sure how popular these will be among players who wish to conquer half the map eventually.
The limiting number of provinces also contributes to reducing tactical victories of this sort - Conquering Denmark amounts to taking a single province out that can be done very quickly as the vanilla game and most mods currently stand.
You mentioned some good points, although I don't quite agree with all of them.
Of course the situation doesn't stay like in the early stages for most of the game - that's because it evolves. As empires grow, other factors have to be taken in, you already mentioned logistics as one of the most important. Well - why not? The action on the battlefield remains pretty decisive as well. Besides, shifting the focus away from the pivotal battles in the early stages of a campaign (where almost every battle is such a pivotal one) may add more value to the game for players who usually aren't that great on the tactical map - like myself - and instead are more skilled in marshalling other than the immediate military aspects of the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noir
In addition, the later stages of a campaign most often are exactly the ones where you can decide most freely what kind of battle you'd like to fight - whether you want to overpower your opponent as you described or you don't bring everything you have in order to make the battle more tantalizing. Of course, provided your position is more or less secure, but that's something I definitely like about MTW: Its ability to initiate a compete wrap-around on the strategic map even far into the game. In RTW (and most other strat games), empires never collapse on their own, instead they have to be ground into the dust stack by stack, city by city. MTW has civil wars and reappearances which may cause serious trouble to an already more than well-established empire, turning the time back if you want. The Horde also is such a device in its essence, "rejuvenating" and shaking up part of the map upon its arrival.
Edit: Oh my, I suppose this was completely off-topic....sorry!
To start with, thanks for disagreeing, i can only wonder how boring everything would be if we'd all agree on everything. In any case this is the way i enjoy the game better and it doesn't have to please everyone else as well.
Quote:
Originally posted by Deus ret.
Of course the situation doesn't stay like in the early stages for most of the game - that's because it evolves. As empires grow, other factors have to be taken in, you already mentioned logistics as one of the most important. Well - why not? The action on the battlefield remains pretty decisive as well.
Because as you say you can choose your fights, this actually means that you are in a position of strength and thus you can do so. Loss is a very unlikely option once that stage is reached. You are stable as a rock and sooner or later bound to deny anyone. At that point the game loses interest for me which is why i play a personal - let's say alteration - of MedMod IV which incorporates the features i mention above.Quote:
In addition, the later stages of a campaign most often are exactly the ones where you can decide most freely what kind of battle you'd like to fight - whether you want to overpower your opponent as you described or you don't bring everything you have in order to make the battle more tantalizing.
This came as a result of campaigns i played some time ago now in which i've let the AI to control all builds and taxes and i was just managing troops and agents i was given and getting on the battlefield. I had the chance to observe first hand how and why the AI is "digging his grave" if you like, and what can be done to provide a more competitive course of development for him, without turning him into a superempire that gulps down the remains of everyone else.
The result was a situation that reaches the middle game - that is you can get well established (about 10 provinces) but much slower than in every other version of the game i've played, but you can just as easily slide down from that point resulting to lost battles, much like in the early game.
The late phase is almost denied as the other factions fill up their resources almost always at a reasonable pace remaining competive and dangerous at almost all times resulting in a constant war making of forces of equal magnitude over vital trade routes and provinces. Establishing survival is counted as success and most factions either stay to the end or reappear repeatedly.
Strict home provinces and relaying of the trade routes also help with that.
Reappearances, rebelions and civil wars happen much more often as i've incresed the rebelliousness and decreased loyalties and the conversion rates: it now takes about 30 turns to get an ex Muslim province to 60% catholic with a bunch of priests, in my alteration. In those you are bound to get a religious saracen army or two at your door.
I have quit playing RTW after almost a year and a half of playing various mods and i don't plan to play it again - for me the MTW/STW map/engine is more than satisfactory.
Please accept my apologies too as this is as OT as the above i guess
This for me is what makes the difference between a strategy game and a great strategy game - how it handles this inherent challenge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noir
I'm not sure if everyone here remembers the 80s and the first computer games well, but I remember playing this game that, at the time, blew my mind. It was 20 white dots on a black screen with numbers next to them. The numbers were the number of troops you had, and one of the dots was your planet. The goal was to take over the universe (the other 19 dots). It was brilliant because I hadn't seen anything like that before.
But it had the same challenge as every other strategy game I've seen since - how does it maintain gameplay once the human gets to the point Noir described above.
IMO MTW does this better than anything I've played. Reappearances, rebellions, civil wars and the likelihood of another superpower maintain the gameplay for quite a while. Also, there's enough value in the diplomacy side to make it more than just pushing numbers around the screen.
And this IMO is what makes it the best strategy I've played - there's enough flexibility for you to be able to play a wide range of game styles depending on your idea of gameplay. And by and large it's comparitively very well balanced. Most problems I've seen in MTW can be overcome by self-imposed rules. Now I'll also apologise for my part in taking this further OT. :shame:
Not even mentioning the thril of a battle when you face an army of better troops and now that it's possible, with very god tactics, to win this batle and change the issue of the campaign, by provocating a civil war or something similar: I'm not sure, but loosing a battle when you had the numbers, the iron and the quality costs you a lot. I did throw a great enemy into civil war thanks to two battles only, and on the campaign map, I could've been seen as the looser (less money, less troops, but approximately the same quality)
A crippler for the small and poor income factions. There is nothing worse than struggling to boost your income only to see an heir come of age the next year and wipe it all out again. For the player it's an annoyance at best, for the AI it's a killer. This is why you see bankrupted Danes and Aragonese.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noir
The solution would be to have very low support costs for bodyguard units. This would work well for the Catholic and Muslim factions but would soup up the Byzantines and Russians/Novgorod somewhat. The answer to this would be to make "Royal" Boyars, "Royal" Sipahi of the Porte and "Royal" Kataphraktoi in smaller 20 man units (possibly scalable to improve game balance and survivability on the larger units size settings) also with the low support costs. These would be non retrainable, raising extra units or retraining them would be impossible. The AI doesn't retrain it's bodyguard units, so the player shouldn't be able to either.
Troop losses effect loyalty within the army (generals). If you win a battle but lose thousands more men than the AI, and your faction leader is not the most influential of men, then civil war is possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caerfanan
Interesting. Do you know if it only affects the general, or the unit leaders (generals to be) as well? does it affect all your generals, or only the ones involved (or all but the ones involved)... I'll try to look at this closely when I start my next campaign!!! (I'm piling 125 things to look after...)Quote:
Originally Posted by Caravel
Are you sure? I thought what counted was the outcome of the battle - i.e. who wins and who loses, and not the margins involved therein.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caravel
If it is as you stated, the game would actually allow for indirect 'tactical victories': by killing off large amounts of enemy troops before retreating, the antagonist faction would plunge into civil war sooner or later despite winning almost all battles....would be quite weird but that's the way it would be!
Thinking about it, the gain in influence for all those territories acquired through this series of battles would probably outweigh the loss inflicted by Pyrrhic victories.
The Golden Horde usually attack the provinces of Khazar, Volga-Bulgaria, and Georgia (when they first appear). Once, I was playing with the Russians (MTW1 on high period). I had built up armies of boyars, halbrediers, and steppe cavalry. When the GH first attacked, I sent an army about 4500 strong to Volg-Bulgaria.
Then, I sent an army of about 9000 cavalry (mostly boyars and steppe cavalry) to Khazar. Since they only had about 5000 Mongol cavalry in Khazar, it was fairly easy to win it.
That year they also attacked Georgia, but only a few thousand strong. It only took about 2500 infantry to win Georgia.
In about 2-3 years I had killed the Khan.
My experience playing Russia and facing the Horde was a happy one too. I held the provinces in which they appeared, and when they did I consolidated the majority of my troops in, iirc, Georgia. I expected them to attack my less-defended provinces, but to my surprise/delight, they attacked Georgia. Not only that, but it was a bridge battle and I had archers/catapults to spare. Not only that - but they sent their king on a raid and he was surrounded and killed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Voivode of Romania
1 year - horde turned to rebels.
Next year they attacked as rebels. But this battle was not a bridge battle, and although heavily outnumbered I managed to wipe out most of their army. I used HA/steppe cav/boyar combos to good effect in drawing individual units out of the line and then destroying them. :beam:
They can also appear in Armenia. In fact it can be a good thing to have them appear in Armenia and Khazar but not Georgia. If you can win the defence of Georgia outright to prevent them linking up with the main force in Khazar, the army will be cut off and offered in it's entirety for ransom. It is important to hold Georgia though because if that goes under siege, their armies can push onward to link up with the Armenian Horde and then spread out into your central provinces such as Rum and Syria, causing a lot of damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Voivode of Romania
I'd say you're either mistaken about the province being Georgia or the battle being a bridge battle. There are no waterways between Georgia/Trebizond, Georgia/Armenia or Georgia/Khazar (where I assume the battle took place?).Quote:
Originally Posted by General Dazza
Georgia is probably the best province to defend against the Khanate of the Golden Horde particularly when you're playing Byzantine, Egyptians or Turks and haven't yet expanded into the Steppes. The Horde will quite often go for Georgia regardless of the defensive garrison you have in place there.
I am curious about the effect that having custom MP maps (like "mappack3") installed on your system might have on the game.
The thing is, I can't find anything in the SetBorderInfo: entries which defines the "armies meeting here" message (as opposed to border-crossing), on the province info parchment, comes from.
Could it be that the game selects a map at random, on these occasions?
I'm not sure what you're asking, but I'll have a shot at answering?Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
This sets the type of terrain and the presence of any waterways for the border crossing. Armies attacking from the Sahara into Tunisia will encounter hills, armies attacking from the other direction will not.Code:SetBorderInfo:: ID_AFRICA ID_TUNISIA 0 0 0 ROCK_DESERT AT_ISLAMIC INLAND HILLY NO_RIVER
SetBorderInfo:: ID_TUNISIA ID_AFRICA 0 0 0 SAND_DESERT AT_ISLAMIC INLAND FLAT NO_RIVER
To get your custom maps used they have to be named correctly. It is the naming of the map that gives it a chance of being selected by the game engine. I can't remember the exact naming convention for the maps, but the name generally signifies the type of terrain. Specific maps for provinces tend to be the castle maps only IIRC. You can't set a specific map for a particular border crossing.
Pretty much 99% certain. I've actually won battles a few times in the past where I've taken far more casualties than the enemy, as soon as the battle finished I was taken straight to the civil war parchment. The win usually counterbalances the effects. Also the provinces get upset by many troop losses. Happiness can plummet in such cases. It doesn't allow for a tactical victory of any kind, it allows for a kind of a pyrrhic victory whereby you lose but cause the enemy all kinds of problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by Deus ret.