Riots, rebellions and executions.

[ArtistofWarfare]

I don't think the M2TW campaign was too short. Of course if the AI was better and diplomacy was useable beyond the tenth turn, then of course a longer campaign would be nice.

But I find that even as a 'turtler' I own half the map not long after turn 100, and after I fight a WW2 style war of attrition against the Mongols and Timurids I am able to spam full stack armies and conquer the last half of the map and the Americas with about twenty turns to spare.

Hopefully of course with better diplomacy and a smarter AI we will need longer campaigns...

Yeah see, you would know much better than I would about how the number of turns in M2TW works out. I've played a couple handfuls worth of hours on M2TW and it was on this current PC- So quite limitedly. Again, I'll start finding out in a few days

Let me just ask you (and sorry to OP for straying topic with this turns discussion, I'll cease after this)- I obviously intend on using Huge (largest) unit sizes with M2TW and Kingdoms. Wouldn't things work out better for me with 1 turn = 1 year anyway?

How viable is switching your M2 files from 2.00 to 1.00 basically...?

Edit: Were you talking about even in a VH campaign? This was my concern...as expressed in the depths of the MTW:VI forums.

[Rhyfelwyr]

The issue over turn length is basically up to you, depending on how you want to play. I've never changed the turn lenght myself, although I have modded other things and it is very easy to edit if you are worried about that.

I'm also been guilty of spending far too much time here considering how little I used to play the game seriously, I'm just playing my way through each team hoping to have caught up to a respectable level by the time ETW comes out (5 campaigns, nearly 6 done so far).

As for the campaign difficulty, I play on M/VH. I set the campaign to Medium because basically all the difficulty setting affects is diplomacy. On Easy, your relations with factions and your reputation automatically improve. While on Hard/Very Hard, they automatically decline. Medium is the level playing field in this respect, and you really can't play above Medium if you want to enjoy any kind of diplomacy withouth crazy micromanagement with diplomats etc. As for the battle difficulty, I play Very Hard, otherwise your units get a morale and stamina bonus IIRC. VH is the level playing field for battles. Not taking into account AI stupidity obviously.

The campaign difficulty setting is irrelevant to how difficult the campaign really is and the competence of the AI, so I recommend playing on 'Normal' to allow some diplomacy in the early game.

In RTW it was the other way around, VH campaign difficulty and M battle difficulty were the 'fair' settings. So in my first M2TW campaign, as the Scots, I wondered why everyone hated me from the start but when they actually fought me in battle routed as soon as they got an arrow stuck in one of their men.

[ArtistofWarfare]

Thanks Caledonian...

I did some research on the subject myself:

1) I can confirm the accuracy of your campaign difficulty information. The actual "difficulty" of the campaign seems quite random...sometimes a cakewalk, usually "not too hard", and on a handful of occasions, a brain buster. This, however, is not in any way shape or form related to the difficulty setting you choose. Random. Your explanation on how difficulty settings effect diplomacy (and that they only effect diplomacy) goes completely hand in hand with my findings. (for anyone reading this back log)

2) It doesn't seem that choosing anything less than VH battle difficulty gives YOUR troops various bonuses. This is the only thing you wrote that conflicts with what I've read.

Easy- Gives your troops bonuses...

Normal/Hard/Very Hard- Strictly strategic upgrades regarding AI. The information I've found (source: http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic...ame-Fixes.html) states that (and upon further research this source has evidence to back it up) there are no AI bonuses at any level. Increasing the difficulty only makes the AI "smarter". Bonuses per difficulty did not carry over from RTW to M2TW. The player on the other hand- Doesn't receive bonuses unless they choose the easy setting. Medium/Hard/VH don't yield any bonuses to either side. Further, the big difference at H and VH is supposedly in morale/fatigue management of one's own troops. Terrain/Fatigue/Morale/etc are more closely tied together and your army is more "fragile" and needs to be more carefully managed. It looks as if this system has replaced the old one...of simply handing out bonuses to the AI as the user hikes up the difficulty.

Now of course, I've yet to have the experience to know personally. I'm also just clarifying/questioning rather than changing your original suggestion. This only makes VH more viable with M2TW indeed. On Rome, VH gave totally unrealistic bonuses to the AI...and therefore was unviable, as was anything less than VH due to the insta-rout of the AI.

I would suppose that I would start the game on M/H for the first go and then move up to M/VH after I have finished a campaign.

Regarding Turns- I think I too will leave it at the standard 2 years per turn- at least for the first several campaigns I do. a) I'd like to meet victory conditions on the level playing field a few times before changing anything myself and b) It seems as if changing the dates to 1.00 (1 turn= 1 year) or 0.50 (1 turn= 6 months) would require the changing of build times and some event's arrivals in order to scale appropriately. I don't want to get into that until I have quite a bit of experience with the game and at least have my own opinions on how I'd like to tailor things. Keep it simple stupid, right?

I have one last question- Promise- What about unit sizes? I am going to use Huge unit sizes. No question about it. Am I really getting myself into a population and recruitment pool issue by using the largest units I can? I could not find any information about this anywhere. Just a few people asking about it as I am followed by no response heh.

Thanks

[Rhyfelwyr]

You are probably right about the battle difficulty settings. Maybe it was just the passive AI bug in the Scots campaign (the one I did on M battle difficulty) that made it seem so easy, since I was playing without a patch then.

Also I agree you are best just not complicating things and using vanilla till you play the game a bit. Don't do what I did and get bogged down in modding, it is an addiction, no wonder EB is so amazing.

Also IIRC recruitment now has no affect on a settlement's population, unlike in RTW. And I don't think it affects the recruitment pool either, I always have plenty of units to recruit on the Huge setting.

[ArtistofWarfare]

Good stuff...Thanks again.

I'll probably start it with M/H as said. Maybe even M/M just to get going. That way I can get an idea of where to go from there.

That's good news about the recruitment pools/population on Huge too. I didn't want this to be a problem as I'm very much looking forward to getting a LOT of troops on screen.

Ok- I'm all done...once again, apologies for straying off topic

[Rhyfelwyr]

Even if as you have shown it doesn't make a huge difference, I think you should make it at least M/VH.

My 10 year old brother as decided to hijack my PC and play M2TW non-stop, and he conquered all of Europe as the HRE by turn 100. He then got bored with them, and started a campaign as the Moors. By turn 12 he had all of Iberia (if it was up to me that should be an achievement taking a whole campaign), and had won the short campaign by turn 25. He had no TW expereince at all prior to this.

Admittedly that was on E/E, but he said he'll try N/N next time and I bet he'll still steamroller the world.

[ArtistofWarfare]

Even if as you have shown it doesn't make a huge difference, I think you should make it at least M/VH.

My 10 year old brother as decided to hijack my PC and play M2TW non-stop, and he conquered all of Europe as the HRE by turn 100. He then got bored with them, and started a campaign as the Moors. By turn 12 he had all of Iberia (if it was up to me that should be an achievement taking a whole campaign), and had won the short campaign by turn 25. He had no TW expereince at all prior to this.

Admittedly that was on E/E, but he said he'll try N/N next time and I bet he'll still steamroller the world.

Well, as you said: He was on Easy/Easy.

Maybe have him try M/H next and see what he does...just out of curiosity heh.

I don't understand why the campaign is apparently so easy though. I just don't see the point behind that development decision. There are varying difficulties...and M/VH or H/VH should be just as challenging as an MTW:VI campaign.

[rajpoot]

Also IIRC recruitment now has no affect on a settlement's population, unlike in RTW. And I don't think it affects the recruitment pool either, I always have plenty of units to recruit on the Huge setting.

?????!!! Really? If it's true, then it sucks! That'll be so unreal, and without any apparent reason too...........that is what I do to keep the peasants under control, no wonder I'm unsuccessful most of the times.........


And speaking on topic, it's not as if M2TW does not have legal executions......we have Inquisitors burning our Generals, we have our Priests doing it to the Heretics, we can even execute the captured armies, the only gaping hole that should be filled in the future title is execution of rebels and those who disrupt law and order should be an option too.