How do you guys play EB ?

[scorepio]

I started a new campaign 10 days ago.I play every battle myself and don't reload savegames .
It took me about 10 days to advance from 271 Bc to 243 Bc. ( 1 a 2 h per day )
So , I realized it will take me a very long time to finish my campaign.

How do you play and how long does it take to end a campaign?

[Hooahguy]

same things as you, but i only reload if i accidentaly messed up my strategy...

[Xurr]

I used to play every battle. I don't any more. I auto resolve all battles with rebel or barbarian spawns. I also auto resolve battles where I have a giant numerical superiority. This I find tends to give your troops and generals more experience than if you play them out.

I do save often, but only reload older saves when I get a save game that crashes and can't get passed it.

[barabinni]

Until a ctd stops me. Then i most often do some other campaign.

[Jaume]

Same approximately. I do reload games and play difficult battles by myself (you know, those in which you're not very sure of the efficiency of your AI). There are some days I don't play at all, and others (such as Sundays) in which I can play three or four hours.

Ah! Campaign difficulty on Medium, and Battles on Hard.

[konny]

I play every battle. I love these small engagements, 3 vs. 3 units against rebells for example.

[Senshi]

Same as everyone else here, with a small change in the campaign to reduce the rebel/brigand spawn rate drastically. This "all the time rebels everywhere" is the main reason which stopped me from continuing my campaigns when my realms incorporate many provinces. Having mutlitple rebels spawning all over the area every season sucks and makes every turn take very, very long. In return I made small adjustements which cause my population to be more picky and rebellious in not-native realms so I have to keep more garnison to equalize the effects. The pirate spawn value has also been lowered marginally as I often have the problem that the pirates have ultimate sea superiority after about ten years and have crushed all armadas of every single nation, blocking efficiently every avaible sea route or trading ports...They still are a serious problem, but you at least have chance to get some decent nation vs nation sea battles (even destroyed Makedonia this way in my current KH campaign, they had their last leader fleeing via boat to Mytilene and I managed to intercept them accidently...)

I usually play all battles for myself, simply for the reason that auto-calc usually sucks and causes relatively great losses. Only if there is once more a small AI reinforcement army with 2 skirmishers standing in the way of my rolling 2000 men army, I autocalc...as konny stated, having small 1:1 battle situations can be quite thrilling, as you have to rely more on tactics...

[LorDBulA]

I play every battle. I love these small engagements, 3 vs. 3 units against rebells for example.

You masochist.

I play only large meaningful battles. Others I used to resolve with auto_win cheat (if I was sure of victory ), I fought only if victory was doubtful.
Now i play Ptolemoi on Medium so I can fairly auto resolve battles.
I am thinking about limiting myself to play only battles fought by King and Heir but I am not sure if I will go with it.

Other then that I dont load games if something goes bad ( ok sometimes when I missclick on campaign map I cant stop myself from reloading, but this is very, very rare )

And I play battles with "General Camera", very cool.

[Maion Maroneios]

I started a new campaign 10 days ago.I play every battle myself and don't reload savegames .
It took me about 10 days to advance from 271 Bc to 243 Bc. ( 1 a 2 h per day )
So , I realized it will take me a very long time to finish my campaign.

How do you play and how long does it take to end a campaign?

Same as you, but my play hours vary. They can be, like, 1-2h to even 4h if I'm REALLY bored. Butnot every day, it again depends.

[konny]

You masochist.

No, really - from the pure fun effect I find small engagements better than huge battles, in particular when the AI gets its "five minutes" and runs around like crazy with all twenty units. In small battles it usually keeps its position and allows for a real frontal battle where the better soldiers win and not a tricky player against the CPU stupidity.

[d'Arthez]

I agree with Konny. Especially if you have an interesting combination of units involved.

[Theodotos I]

I don't play every day, I've got too many other things to do. But I typically fight all factional battles, only fighting the rebels if they're too powerful. I save every turn and before every battle to ward off ctd's and rarely reload. My longest campaign was in 1.0 as the Pahlava. I started it back in February and was still playing when EB 1.1 came out. I played until like 143 BC. Good luck with your campaign.

[Korlon]

I typically play out every battle. To make it interesting, I purposefully leave behind units to make those smaller engagements more exciting. My favorite battles are when I have just one cataphract family member and it's against a couple units of infantry and archers. Pure fun.

Having a small stack, mine, versus a larger stack, enemy's, is very fun.

[Ayce]

I play out most battles because I can't trust the auto-calc.

[Jolt]

I don't play at all. (Lawlz.)

[The General]

All too irregularly these days. It can take even weeks before I continue my games.

[socal_infidel]

I've been in all EB-all-the-time mode lately.

With Pahlava, you have to play out every battle or you'll get screwed on auto-calc. And there are a lot of battles. Usually, they consist of nothing more than getting two-unit teams of horse archers to empty their quivers and withdraw. But on some turns, I'll end up doing this four or so times.

If I'm playing the Maks, Ptolemies or AS, I tend not to fight sieges. Sieges bore me. The good thing about those factions is they tend to get quite rich, so oftentimes I can simply wait out the siege for the 8 turns or so without taking a hit to the coffers and without having to fight a siege.

I only reload if my characters take some weird-ass path to their destination. Happened a couple times already with Pahlava. The movement points tell me my army can attack the AS, but I click on it to attack and they go around the mountains when the army is right in front of them . Stupid.

[Cartaphilus]

If I'm playing the Maks, Ptolemies or AS, I tend not to fight sieges. Sieges bore me. The good thing about those factions is they tend to get quite rich, so oftentimes I can simply wait out the siege for the 8 turns or so without taking a hit to the coffers and without having to fight a siege.

Yes, I do not usually fight sieges too.

I tend to fight all battles (except sieges) in the early part of the campaign, but when it progresses I try the auto-calc for minor battles (more losses but it saves time).

[Irishmafia2020]

I use auto-calc on all of the battles that I have a 2-1 ratio in, and sometimes when I am dramatically outnumbered (one unit vs a stack). Even with 2-1, or 3-1 odds on my side I lose occasionally. I like that... I keep those losses and don't go back to a recent save because I don't think that every army wins in every engagement, although I am much more likely to win if I am personally in control of the army. In my current Baktria campaign, after thirty land battles (no fleet) I had 21 wins, and 9 losses. That is more realistic than running the table and going 30 - 0 or 100 - 0 as some players would do if they fought every single battle... To be fair, if its is a strategic battle that I simply must win, I won't risk auto-calc, the a.i has got to beat me instead.
I also refuse to destroy any faction, as I would rather defeat them and place them in a one province "reservation" instead. This substantially increases my difficulty level. If possible I attempt to assist other factions that are on the verge of being wiped out. My unwritten victory condition is "all factions must survive" - that makes for quite a challenge and gives me an excuse to meddle in everyone else's affairs. I play H/M BI.exe, and rarely use force-diplomacy (mostly for giving gifts). I don't worry about historical simulation at all, I just treat the EB world as my sandbox. That's how I play EB....

[Gaias]

I tend to play with fog of war toggled off, as spies are rather useless gamewise. I have been using move_character command alot lately as it allows me to move armies on the strat that the AI doesn't use (for whatever reason). Also I tend to give money to factions that I am at war with if I know that I will have little or no trouble defeating. I use to use forced diplomacy for various thing, but have limited to peace treaties and settlements.

[Dhampir]

How do you play and how long does it take to end a campaign?

I cheat early and cheat often. I have never actually finished a campaign, I lose interest after my empire gets fairly large and restart.

[V.T. Marvin]

I use auto-calc on all of the battles that I have a 2-1 ratio in, and sometimes when I am dramatically outnumbered (one unit vs a stack). Even with 2-1, or 3-1 odds on my side I lose occasionally. I like that... I keep those losses and don't go back to a recent save because I don't think that every army wins in every engagement, although I am much more likely to win if I am personally in control of the army. In my current Baktria campaign, after thirty land battles (no fleet) I had 21 wins, and 9 losses. That is more realistic than running the table and going 30 - 0 or 100 - 0 as some players would do if they fought every single battle... To be fair, if its is a strategic battle that I simply must win, I won't risk auto-calc, the a.i has got to beat me instead.
I also refuse to destroy any faction, as I would rather defeat them and place them in a one province "reservation" instead. This substantially increases my difficulty level. If possible I attempt to assist other factions that are on the verge of being wiped out. My unwritten victory condition is "all factions must survive" - that makes for quite a challenge and gives me an excuse to meddle in everyone else's affairs. I play H/M BI.exe, and rarely use force-diplomacy (mostly for giving gifts). I don't worry about historical simulation at all, I just treat the EB world as my sandbox. That's how I play EB....

I play in almost identical manner as Irishmafia2020 does, except on H/H BI.exe. Losing sometimes an auto-calc battle seems perfectly O.K. to me. The revenge will be sweet anyway...

[ForVictory]

Why would someone playing total war game play all his battle on auto resolve? The gameplay on the campaign map isnt all that interesting especially when compated to more indeph strat games like those of paradox.
Its the battles that shines out about total war, and withouth it would be a real stupid simple game.

[socal_infidel]

Why would someone playing total war game play all his battle on auto resolve? The gameplay on the campaign map isnt all that interesting especially when compated to more indeph strat games like those of paradox.
Its the battles that shines out about total war, and withouth it would be a real stupid simple game.

If you get any kind of substantial empire going, it can be tedious to fight multiple battles each turn. And sometimes you're more interested in the larger strategy of an invasion or a war on a particular front (getting armies into position, fresh recruits to the front, etc) than on fighting multiple battles every turn.

Plus, for experienced gamers, it's harder to lose if you're fighting every battle. With auto-calc you'll lose every once in awhile. Which makes for better story if you're roleplaying or such.

[Dhampir]

Why would someone playing total war game play all his battle on auto resolve? The gameplay on the campaign map isnt all that interesting especially when compated to more indeph strat games like those of paradox.
Its the battles that shines out about total war, and withouth it would be a real stupid simple game.

So that when it turns out that those brigands you're going after with heavy infantry are skirmishers, a battle can actually happen as opposed to your infantry chasing theirs around the map for half an hour.

[DeathEmperor]

I usually fight most of my battles in the early and mid-game, but later on when my empire is quite large and powerful I usually use auto-calc as it's easier to recoup my losses and I'm usually more focuses on planning campaigns and managing multiple battle fronts. I don't reload unless I forget to move an army (sometimes the general leading the army is "pessimistic" so I don't make him use up all his movement points) or I missed destroying a government building.

I also used force-diplomacy to make the ai agree to ceasfires when it really should. Usually when I've got a full stack besieging their capital or I've wiped out most of their armies.

[craziii]

I play every single battle in the first 100 turns. after that, auto resolve all small scale battles where the adds are in my favorite. by 100+ turn, I would have the money + manpower to waste away. don't need to be careful anymore, as armies can be replace.

[Red_Russian13]

I play most battles unless they're hugely insignificant. I've been burned by the auto-calc a few times and I don't like it. Especially though if my army is far from home and I cannot retrain or train a replacement unit.

The following is the only times I auto-calc:

I will often auto-calc if I'm being sieged and sometimes I even hope I lose so as to reconquer the territory.

I will frequently auto-calc if presented with a battle that would be pointless. For example, a full stack sieging vs. a client ruler and two garrison units. I know I can inflict massive damage on the AI, but sometimes it's not worth it. And usually, the auto-calc gives me a ton of kills in this case.

If I am fighting three battles during the AI's turn, I will auto-calc subsequent battles because I have frequently gotten CTDs after three or more battles.

[Jurdagat]

I don't rush, and I guess I'm quite a slow player.
202 in my current Hayasdan campaign and I own 10 provinces or something. :)
But started with sweeping towards Persepolis now.

But had some hans in helping out the AS by recapturing their lost settlement, and then selling them back to them.
Just to help me keep the Ptolemids at bay.

So far I've played all the bigger battels myself, only autocalculating small "useless" engangements.
Not to forget that I never reload, if something goes horribly wrong. :)

[Spartan198]

Subjective. Sometimes I'll play for 5 to 6 hours at a time, but sometimes I won't play for days or weeks at a time, though.

I play most battles except sieges (I'm horrible at defending and taking cities), which I always auto_win.