Not enough Threads

[St.Jimmy]

I Agree Insane. Iv never completed a long campaign on M2TW. Or been to America. I was determind to do it this time with the English but im already looking for a new faction to start with.

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

I just bought Kingdoms yesterday, i cant even get through the first 5 turns with any faction in Brittania without my economy going down, i started to play as Ireland, my Scandanavian campaign hadnt gone very well, and i lloked at the unit the had originally been camped there, to find it had grown by 5 times the size of the original garrison. I find this very stupid, as how do they got more troops than me??? Why is this so unfair!

[phonicsmonkey]

you have brains, the AI has money and troops

that's how the playing field is levelled

as for no new threads, I have to admit I have pretty much run out of things to say about M2TW single-player

now if I play SP I play a mod like Broken Crescent (or EB for RTW)

and I spend all of my time in the Throne Room talking about hotseats

hotseats are the way forward! the current BC hotseat (which I started ) is my all-time favourite gaming experience, and that includes my years playing table-top wargames and RPGs

[Galain_Ironhide]

I am getting distressed that every time i come onto this site there are only 3 or 4 new posts, and most of them are on the countless threads i have added, now either start posting more, people who are viewing the forums but havent made an account, make an account, because these forums are starting to become boring because there is nothing new, im starting to slip back into RTW, and that isnt normal!

Now can you please start making some more threads, posting a little more, posibly even inviting your friends to join the org, or i might have to convert to twcentre, and i dislike twcentre greatly....

As for newbies, i find great enjoyment in answering your queries, as atleast something new is coming to these forums, i have nothing else to do but play M2TW, RTW, so please ask away, im on most of the day everyday, apart from school and tommorrow, so please post and ask to your hearts content

The game is no longer new, not as many people are playing any more and the variety of posts as a result is drying up. Nature of the beast really, especially if you look at the MTW and RTW chat rooms.

A shame I know, because I take a look at the Citadel probably at least 8-10 times a day. It will have its busy periods though.

Also it is great to see quite a few new members sign up recently. Welcome to all!

[Ratwar]

Also it is great to see quite a few new members sign up recently. Welcome to all!

Wow, a welcome, I'm not sure how to deal with that on the internet ;).

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

Youll find many welcomes in the enterance hall
Thanks for signing up, always nice to see some new faces around here!

[PBI]

I think the late-game becoming absurdly easy and descending into tedious micromanagement is a general problem that I've found in all the TW games, and for that matter every similar strategy game I can think of. It's kind of unavoidable, since as all factions start with a roughly level playing field, your advantage inevitably increases as you expand to the point where your empire becomes unstoppable. RTW and M2TW try to offset this somewhat by having the Roman Civil War and the Mongol and Timurid invasions, respectively. The problem is that much of the interesting stuff in M2TW isn't available until the late game, by which time you're already bored. I've offset this slightly in my current modded version by giving every faction a fully-upgraded citadel and huge city. Fighting an army of spammed Spanish Dragoons at least makes a change from spammed militia.

As for the number of threads, I would agree that there really only is so much to say about the singleplayer game, especially since I don't think we're really supposed to discuss mods and modding here (although that seems to be mostly all I end up talking about here ). But I would say that I prefer it when there are just a few threads with good, long, interesting discussions than when there are hundreds with just a couple of one-line questions and answers.

[CynicalP]

Been lurking on these boards for quite a while. I been reading these boards since Shogun warlords edition ( off and on ). So I figured WTH give a shout out to the good folks here at Totalwar.org.

Just started to playing MTW2 and already abandoned the vanilla campaign to play the Lands to Conquer 3.1 mod. Once again I find myself addicted to yet another total war game.

Per Insane834's request, I'm slinking out of the shadows to offer a salute and extend a hello to all the resident posters!

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

Greetings CynicalP, we are not worthy of thee...

I just tend to get bored when other empires stop my advance, and then bleed both empires dry... Also i hate it when they ally with one of your personal allies, like my enemy England allied with Spain, and launched a series of assasults on Angers

[Martok]

Welcome to the Org, CynicalP. Glad to have you here.


Poor Bloody Infantry has a valid point. A lot of epic strategy games (Total War, Galactic Civilizations, etc.) have the same problem where the late-game phase becomes tedious and/or boring, simply by virtue of the fact that you've often reached "critical mass" by that point where you can no longer really be stopped. It's one reason that I'm grateful that a lot of these games have come to include lesser victory conditions that don't require you to conquer the entire map. I can almost never make myself get the 100% victory -- I simply lack the patience more often that not.

[Gaiseric]

I agree with Martok and Poor Bloody Infantry.

Most strategy games do have setbacks when world conquest is concerned. It's fun to get big and fight for your survival, but once your too big, you become unstopable. Basically its fun to have a challange not a cake walk. At least mtw2 adds the mongol and timurid invasions. Distance to capital penalty, and religious differances also play a part to increase the late game challange.

It would be nice if rebels were active and related to these penalties. This would seem to add to the challange of maintaining a large empire, but maybe it would just add more unwanted micromanagement. The problem in mtw2 is not so much the lack of challange as it is the scope of world conquest, which can be a very long task. Its made longer for me because I don't use auto-calc for battles. In most of my late games, there are still battles to be won, lands to be conquered. I just don't have the time to do it all.

Lack of time, lack of intrest, lack of challange, and game frustations, are the reasons I have never completed a campaign. They are the same reasons I abandon my campaign, the game, and these forums. I get bored with other games too, and thats why I am back into mtw2 trying to finish a campaign by conquering the world.

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

I agree, i prefur to weak and on the verge of destruction, than conquering everything in sight, killing everyone, it does get a little tedious.

[CynicalP]

Thanks for the welcome.

I havent play Rome and I only halfway through my first grand campaign in MTW2 but I played many games of MTW/vikings and shogun and I didn't mind their end game experience that much. Nothing like the tedious end game grind of Civilization where half of hour is spent managing polution/barbarian invasions/tons of city production queues. Civilization is a mirco managers wet dream!

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

Ive seen that in the shops, just looks like a Caesar game to me, just organising cities and samll armies, nothing like the true conquest of M2TW!

[CynicalP]

Civilization is a very addicting game, and very much like the empire building game similiar to total war series except there is no real time component. Howeve,r most folks who are fans of RTS games find the gameplay of Civ little slow and boring. Since I am old fart I was weened on turn based strategy games so I love those types of games.

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

I agree with that accusation, however empire building games can be interesting, if it is simular to Caesar, i got addicted to that game, playing the same map for over 7 hours solid

[CynicalP]

LOL, I can't remember if I played Ceasar I or II, But I choose the maps with the military conflicts. I used to wall up the sides of the screen to slow down Hannibals elephants so I could get my armies in place to meet them.
I think I stopped at the final map. I couldn't produce enough luxary areas or something to complete it and I just became bored with the game. Haven't touch another city builder game since.

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

I had a city with 'slums' on my file, i didnt likea wierd questor level, in a desert, i demolished my whole town becuase i couldnt get the food to the people and the houses were all little huts... very annoying. Also pottery is impossible to get a hold of in Questor, i had to stop selling Weaponry and that was my most valuable source of income

[Martok]

In the interests of full disclosure, I will admit I do tend play through the late-game in Shogun Total War. It feels more realistic to do so, since your goal (after all) is to unite Japan. With most games it doesn't feel right, though -- conquering all of Europe just doesn't seem like a feasible (or even desirable) goal.

[Rhyfelwyr]

In the interests of full disclosure, I will admit I do tend play through the late-game in Shogun Total War. It feels more realistic to do so, since your goal (after all) is to unite Japan. With most games it doesn't feel right, though -- conquering all of Europe just doesn't seem like a feasible (or even desirable) goal.

It felt OK as the Romans in RTW, but I agree on the whole, I now own 80-something provinces as the HRE and am fighting a war of attrition against the Timurids and the Mongols who managed for once to established themselves. It just doesn't feel realistic at all. I'm just sticking it out to see Reiters and Serpentines in the New World.

[PBI]

I suppose that's why the long campaign goals are only to acquire 40ish provinces out of the total 108. Maybe it would be a bit more sensible to conquer the whole map if other factions were more willing to become vassals once you are the pre-eminent power, even if they hate you. That way you could amass a huge empire on paper without actually having to physically conquer such a huge expanse. As I understand it this was how most empires were built.

[CynicalP]

That would definately be not only more realistic but less tedious to manage as well.

[Andres]

Not enough Threads?

There's not a problem Andres can't fix...

Badabing!



Et voilà:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Thank you, thank you!

And before I grab my coat: a warm welcome to our newest junior members

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

I thought you actually had a solution not a picture of threads... lol, well tell me if you do!

[Pater Familias]

With most games it doesn't feel right, though -- conquering all of Europe just doesn't seem like a feasible (or even desirable) goal.

I often don't finish games where it's a matter of grinding through 25 or even 50 more turns to get to the requisite number of territories. The payoff screens in TW aren't as compelling as in Civ (full replay, Hall of Fame, etc.) so it doesn't seem as worth it.

My last game, though, I quit about 1/3 of the way through. As Sicily, I had built a vast trade network, had taken all of North Africa from the Moors and all of Northern Italy except Venice. I had a defensive wall along the Alps and a cadre of assassins (hey, it is Sicily ... and I had a Master Assassins' Guild) to ensure nobody took down any of my merchants.

I had made peace with everyone left alive (in an effort to isolate the Moors, mainly). I was the Pope's favorite (and owned over half of the college of cardinals) and had even made a lasting peace w/ Egypt after taking Alexandria in a crusade.

It was so nicely balanced a scenario and I had worked so hard to establish all the diplomatic efforts I just couldn't bring myself to throw it away by rubbing out faction after faction. Given the massive financial lead I had, nobody was ever going to catch me anyway, so in that alternative history, the Pax Sicilianum will last forever.

Although if I was going to crush somebody, I was going to start w/ those annoying little Portuguese, who kept invading Corsica, then running away when they saw how big a stack I had there ...

[Quickening]

Got to agree with the majority here in that the endgame of Total War tends to be very dull. Not only that, but there is so much more to keep track of and I find that if Im deep into a campaign and I leave it for a day or two then when I get back Ive lost the "feel" for it and want to start again.
Martok mentioned Gal Civ 2, at least in that game you have mega events to turn the Galaxy on it's head. Not really an option in the Total War series unless you want to totally throw history to the dogs.
This is one of the many reasons I really love the Kingdoms expansion. Just nice little mini campaigns and it also feels more believable than say, conquering all of Europe as Sicily.

As for Rome versus Med 2, it's a tough one. In fact today I was switching between Rome and Med 2 Kingdoms. For me Rome has a far more epic feel thanks in a large part to the presense of Rome itself and the music. It is also the far more polished game. However Med 2 is basically Rome + in Medieval times which is just awesome.
I just can't decide. Ive got no interest in the time period or the planned features in Empire so I'll be playing Rome and Med 2 for a long time to come yet.

[Gaiseric]

I liked RTW battles better than MTW2. In rtw units tended to stay in formation and not go blindly charging, and get spread out across half the map. World conquest was not as fun for me in rtw, however, unless I played a civilized nation with better building options. Spreading barbarian culture and squalor didn't appeal to me. It's more fun to play the barbarions defensivly and fend off attacks from armoured and disaplined troops.

Micromanagement is one of the reasons I am attracted to strategy games. I like to improve my empire and economy. The TW Series are the best strategy games in terms of letting me defend the factions, empires, and economies that I develop. In similar strategy games, all my time spent on micromanagement can be lost in a dice roll. I gave up the Civ series because I cant control the defense of my cities. Too much micromangement and not enough control.

Still, there are many things in mtw2, that drive me nuts because I don't have control over them. Controling population/squalor, generals traits, diplomacy, naval battles, agent sucess chances, rebels, etc.

I hope that Empires allows more economic options. Then instead of world conquest, my game goals could be to become self sufficient and just defend my boarders from the enemy. I could use diplamacy(warscore) to bring peace instead of having to invade and elimanante all my neighbors. Its much more fun to stay small and fight off larger enemies, then to be large and fight smaller enemies.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I just tonight finished playing to domination (112 regions) as the HRE. And I have to say, it was horifically dull by the end. The Timurids flung armies at Bulgar, my Fortress, and I fought them the first couple of times and defeated them comfortably, but after that I resorted to using 'auto_win defender', something I've never done before, because I just couldn't take fighting them turn after turn (auto resolve didn't give fair results). I kept going to fight the Aztecs and test my Reiters on them, which proved to be an enjoyable experiment. If if wasn't for the Americas I would have won 40 turns ago, having owned all of the Old World for quite a while.

[Iñnsomñni]

Although i agree with you Gaiseric, i believe people are putting their expectations too high for Empires, they cant take into consideration everybodys wants, they will just throw in a few things to keep us happy, and i dont think that Empires will greatly vary from the exsisting TW series, i think it will be relatively the same, with only a few tweaks

[Gaiseric]

@Caledonian Rhyfelwyr: Congrats on the World Conquest!!!


Iñnsomñni

Although i agree with you Gaiseric, i believe people are putting their expectations too high for Empires, they cant take into consideration everybodys wants, they will just throw in a few things to keep us happy, and i dont think that Empires will greatly vary from the exsisting TW series, i think it will be relatively the same, with only a few tweaks

Thats too bad. I will probably still buy it though the day it gets released. I can sit here and complain about the tw series, but, of all my games, its the tw series that have given me the most enjoyment for the amount of time I spend playing them. When I get bored/frustrated with empires I can wait for a patch or play a mod.