no worthy foe

[Vider]

I know this topic has been discussed before, but it's not like these boards are being spammed with a lot of new comments. Still, I'm having a lot of fun playing MTW after a long layoff and maybe this will spur some discussion.

I just completed a campaign as the Hungarians (unmodded VI, hard, early) and I found things to pretty easy compared to my other campaigns. Part of that I'm sure derives from the excellent unit roster Hungary has, but the thing that really stood out for me was no other nation developed superpower status. I've mostly played western factions, so usually it's Byzantium or Egypt, but when I've played eastern factions I usually see France or Spain take over.

This campaign was different. I personally wiped out just about every faction, and after the Mongol invasion just about every faction was still present. Byz had the provinces I left them after taking Constantinople, and Egypt still had their lands. Turkey was stuck in Syria but still hanging on. The Almohads had forced Spain into Portugal, but Aragon had Navarre and was blocking further expansion. England was largely intact but down to Anjou on the continent, having lost their other provinces to France. The HRE and Italians were also still around.

How often do you have campaigns where no AI faction rises to challenge your empire?

[Martok]

How often do you have campaigns where no AI faction rises to challenge your empire?

Not very often. In fact, I'm not sure that I've *ever* seen no one else become a major empire.

It's a rare campaign where I don't see at least 1-2 other factions (besides myself) become a superpower. I can usually -- depending on which version/mod I'm playing -- count on at least a couple of of the following factions to become pretty big: Almos, Byz, Danes, Eggies, French, Novgorod/Russians, Sicilians, and/or the Castille-Leonese (Spanish).

[caravel]

How often do you have campaigns where no AI faction rises to challenge your empire?

Never in the main campaign but a few times in the VI era campaign. Once playing as the Irish it was total peace, only the Vikings made war and then went bankrupt. About fifty years or so passed when finally I decided to stir things up and invaded Wales, after that all hell broke loose.

If you're playing the early era then you will notice often that the AI is slow to develop and often bankrupts itself. You will never really find a faction that is more advanced than yourself and posing a real threat, unless it's the Spanish who can often take off in big way. The solution to this is to mod the infrastructure and give the factions a few more starting buildings. This usually gets things moving a bit more quickly, or you can play the high or late eras.

[Caliburn]

In the last couple of campaigns (Hungarians Early, Russians Early and Aragonese High) no nation has risen into glory for long enough to pose a challenge later on. Mostly they've bickered amongst each other so that no one has had the chance to grow beyond 8 or so provinces.

The Aragonese campaign is a bit different (haven't finished it yet), and even quite funny: it has seen several superpowers emerge and then get torn apart by civil wars. I suspect the problem is that everyone of them has taken Constantinople, but have been unable to hold it for long. The French, with their strong starting position, fell pretty quickly. The Italians then challenged the world and grew into a formidable nation, but in a couple of years had lost most of its holdings, holding just Wessex, Venice and Tyrolia. Following the fall of Italy, the HRE held a huge empire for a couple of turns before excommunication breaks the empire apart, before the Sicilians tried to control the world. Now everyone's small, with a lot of rebel provinces with too strong garrisons for the factions to defeat...

It would seem that if the AI accidentally manages to build a goodly sized navy they get a chance to grow and a good income. Too bad they'll engage in a dozen brushfire wars and get their navies tangled and torn apart quickly, or Catholics attack Catholic nations and get excommunicated. Trying to develop a faction by "helping them" or making rebel provinces in order to help them expand doesn't work too well either.

I'd love to see a large Turkish empire in MTW, but it just doesn't happen. Squeezed between the Egyptians and the Byzantines and ravaged by the Mongols, they don't often have a chance. I've never seen them get big.

[Matrim]

I usually only play the Early period, so I can't say for sure...

I can guarantee that the Italians and Russians will do nothing. The French will defeat the English. The HRE will be eaten by Huns/Poles/Danes and maybe French. The Spanish will die alongside Aragon as Almos range into southern France. Egypt, Turks, and Byz will do a little dance and the Poles will forget why they came.

Or at least, that's what usually happens in my experiences. I'd say a good 60% of the time. Although, I haven't played in over 3 years. Until this week. Found the XL mod and started a Serb campaign. Very nice, very nice... I was going to do my first AAR on that, but the girlfriend thought my notes were trash. So I started a new one with Danes. Will begin posting it in a couple of days. I'll let you know if I see any superpowers there.

[caravel]

Matrim, welcome. Do you have the VI expansion as well? The scenario you describe is more like old MTW v1.1. In VI it's usually the case that the Spanish dominate rather than the Almohads.

[seireikhaan]

That seems most unusual to me; the AI usually will have someone else go crazy on the other side(or sometimes not) of me to give me a good run. Usually this involves making one or more other factions utterly collapse, leaving plenty of room for the other superpower to emerge. Depending on whether you play a mod or not, different factions are more inclined to become beastly. In P&M, its the Russians, Spanish, and Ottomans(though depending on the era you start in). In XL, it tends to be the Danes, French, Spanish, and the Byzantines, though the Byz sometimes will get dethroned by the Abbuyids or Seljuks.

[Matrim]

Matrim, welcome. Do you have the VI expansion as well? The scenario you describe is more like old MTW v1.1. In VI it's usually the case that the Spanish dominate rather than the Almohads.

No, I have the VI expansion. I'm currently playing with the XL mod (never played it before--tried BKB years ago, though). I'd say... VI vanilla, Almos win over Spanish 60% of the time, Spanish win 35%, and Aragon the other 5%. One time, and one time only, the Aragonese even went on to conquer Iberia, most of France, and several other areas. Really odd, that.

[Matrim]

That seems most unusual to me; the AI usually will have someone else go crazy on the other side(or sometimes not) of me to give me a good run. Usually this involves making one or more other factions utterly collapse, leaving plenty of room for the other superpower to emerge. Depending on whether you play a mod or not, different factions are more inclined to become beastly. In P&M, its the Russians, Spanish, and Ottomans(though depending on the era you start in). In XL, it tends to be the Danes, French, Spanish, and the Byzantines, though the Byz sometimes will get dethroned by the Abbuyids or Seljuks.

I've found in XL (in the one campaign I've played so far as the Serbians), that the Kievans went nuts, and the Almos (Almoravids in XL, instead of Almohads). The Kievans first took out the Cumans, the Volga-Bulgarians, then Seljuks, Egyptians, and then the Byz. Unstoppable. They were held in check by the Swedes who had dominated the Novgorods, northern Germany/Poland, and France. If I had not appeared on their border, they would have become huge as well.

The Almos proved the most dangerous in combat and naval voyages.

[professorspatula]

I think I've seen a similar thing myself. Not sure it was a normal campaign, or an XL one, but I know I've been playing for a while and building up a nice empire, then noticed there's not really much happening, then uncovered the map and looked around and realised there aren't any decent rival foes left - which was a major disappointment. If one faction doesn't build itself a strong position and there's just constant wars, then entire regions just get reduced back to the dark ages as all the infrastructure is destroyed. I think I just abandoned the campaign.

One thing you can do though if you're using the -ian switch, is to change control to another faction and let the AI take control of your much superior empire whilst you try transform your lowly new nation to something resembling greatness.

[caravel]

One thing you can do though if you're using the -ian switch, is to change control to another faction and let the AI take control of your much superior empire whilst you try transform your lowly new nation to something resembling greatness.

I've done this in the past. I remember once turning my huge Byzantine Empire over to the AI and taking over a smaller faction in the west (can't remember which), the result was interesting.

The AI controlled Byzantine faction immediately went berserk and blitzed most of the east, moved all of their fleets out of position, cutting off their trade routes and shipping lanes and lost half of their fleets in ill conceived attacks, then imploded leaving a huge mess of reappearing Turks and Egyptians.

The Hungarians also made inroads into the former Byzantine lands and eventually the once great empire was reduced to an army isolated on one of the islands in the Mediterranean slowly going bankrupt.

Other factions I've strengthened and handed over have faired much better. It's important not to hand over a major superpower because the AI simply can't handle them and gets itself drunk on power.

[professorspatula]

Yea I remember when I wasn't really clued up on the workings of the campaign, so I created a cheat campaign where I gave myself lots of gold and 1 turn building mode to ensure my Aragon faction was a massive gold armoured superpower. I got bored and started playing the game properly in new campaigns. A couple of years later I returned to the campaign and switched to another faction just to see what would happen. Just like what you said really, the AI went mad, instantly launching massive attacks everywhere, getting itself excommunicated and reorganising its fleets so it no longer had an unbroken chain of ships. Within the space of about 4 turns, much of the empire had fallen into civil war, and the faction itself became crippled with bankruptcy. They weren't helped when the Byzantines returned with 14 provinces automatically falling into their control! And another 4-5 factions all reappeared within the space of a couple of turns. The poor AI didn't know what hit it. From god-like power to a crumbling and spent force... (albeit still with dozens of gold armour/weapon upgraded lancers!) all within the space of a few short years.

[Matrim]

Hmm, I don't know any cheats except the .matteosartori. one to explore the entire map. Interesting. Never knew you could switch factions mid-campaign.

I do think the most fun I've had is when there are not just 2 superpowers, but 3 or 4. It has happened in the most recent campaign I played, as Byz. I dominated the mideast, the Polish dominated russia/central europe, the english had some of france and scandinavia, and the spanish had all of spain and much of north africa. It looked like I was going to end up facing 3 allied catholic factions and their evil crusades.

Luckily, the Mongols showed up and nearly castrated Poland before I came in and mopped them up. The English were excommed and Spain launched crusades at them instead of me, Poland disintegrated into civil war, popping up the HRE from Switzerland to Muscovy, only be destroyed as my veterans swept through the russian steppe into Brandenburg.

By the time I was the sole eastern superpower, Spain had knocked out England except in Scotland, and then we began duking it out. I've never been adept at fight AS the spanish, but have always found it difficult to defeat them when fighting AGAINST. Interesting. Tough jerks, I will tell you. Took me a full hundred years to finally defeat them, and by that time it was more attrition than anything else, as I took out their navy.