Comments & Suggestions.

[Monk]

Have some comments or suggestions? Feel free to post them here.

[Monk]

Feel free to post your own strategies and guides for the factions in question in their respective threads.

[PanzerJaeger]

Nice writeup, Monk. Appreciated the screenshots as well.

[Polemists]

So if this is the area only for faction guides is there going to be a seperate area for Economic Guides, Diplomatic Guides, and Trade Theatre guides?

or are we just going to lump them all in here?

[Monk]

So if this is the area only for faction guides is there going to be a seperate area for Economic Guides, Diplomatic Guides, and Trade Theatre guides?

or are we just going to lump them all in here?

First, please familiarize yourself with the Rules/Table of Contents thread.

The ETW guides section is intended to house all guides that are related to ETW. However, writing a guide takes serious dedication. If someone would like to begin compiling information and piecing together a guide, then they are more than welcome to post it in Parliament as they work on and progress their guide.

As their work grows, becoming a well researched and comprehensive piece, it can then be considered for a move here.

[Polemists]

Thanks monk that clears it up, I have almost no intention to write any, i just wanted to know where the other guides would go when they are done .

[Monk]

For all who were complaining about not being able to edit posts, you should be able to edit to your heart's content now.

[Major Robert Dump]

Hmmm, can't choose difficulty settings for the US episode 4 campaign. And it's only 27 years long.

[pevergreen]

RtI is locked difficulty, but you can presume its either M/M or H/H.

Its only meant to be 27 years long. Having the USA form at 1700 would be a bit weird.

[Monk]

RtI is locked difficulty, but you can presume its either M/M or H/H.

Its only meant to be 27 years long. Having the USA form at 1700 would be a bit weird.

I'm of the opinion that it is M/M myself, either that or the AI in the first two chapters is seriously scaled back.

[Thermal]

As a suggestions thread maybe we could have faction threads on minor factions, not all obviously, not straight away at least as it would take to long but the really interesting minor factions (like portugal, italian provinces, persia etc.) should get a thread perhaps? I've heard that most people are already able to unlock the minor factions (via modding), if this is the case then people will have played these factions aswell.

[Monk]

As a suggestions thread maybe we could have faction threads on minor factions, not all obviously, not straight away at least as it would take to long but the really interesting minor factions (like portugal, italian provinces, persia etc.) should get a thread perhaps? I've heard that most people are already able to unlock the minor factions (via modding), if this is the case then people will have played these factions aswell.

Short answer? No.

Long answer? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Okay okay, kidding aside now.

I've been thinking about this question since ETW hit and quite frankly, i agree, there's no way that we could support every single minor faction. The sheer magnitude means that we'd be looking at 40+ threads, many may never even see a single post. It was because of this and with no clear way to unlock the factions at release that we opted not to support them.

However, I understand that minor factions are now unlockable, but that just raises the question of which ones will be supported? Who makes that choice? You have to understand that since ETW covers a period of time where many modern factions exist, to exclude one minor while including another may be perceived as an insult by someone against their nation. I would rather not go down that road.

Then there comes the question of just how these factions are unlocked? The method would need to be described in every thread where a minor faction was concerned, and while easy as a copy paste, what is the method of unlocking? Is it a simple text edit? A mod that people have trouble with? I fear that if the method were far too elaborate people would try to get technical help in the faction guide thread, rather than turning to the appropriate areas. This is not the appropriate area.

If we could come to an understanding of these questions I have, we may (and i use that term cautiously) be able to support some minor factions. But I would then return to my first point, where is the line drawn?

[gollum]

Welcome to the org Joe_B_Me - nice entry.

[Joe_B_Me]

Welcome to the org Joe_B_Me - nice entry.

Thanks.

I'd edit my first post, but I don't see the edit button. : /

I've been using brute force as my main strategy. Which if done correctly can be used to start a very effective blitzkrieg. I find that it is easier to control the lower masses if you wipe out a faction in a single turn, or as quickly as possible. If I didn't do this, I'd would end up having to exempt taxes in a newly acquired region and keep a full army in the region capital for a good 4-5 turns while I wait for things to settle down. I had this problem against Spain and France. But when I attacked Austria, I was able to take over all five or so of their regions in two turns. Sure, it took me awhile to build the forces to do such an operation, but I was quickly able to move those armies out of their former cities and move westward very quickly.

On a sad note. Because I don't focus on navies whatsoever. I had a lot of motivation to quickly wipe out the Ottoman Empire because they had a good 5-6 medium sized navies blockading my trade routes. I found it easier to just destroy their nation (which removes all of their navies/armies) instead of waiting 20 turns to make a decent navy from the few ports Russia can get early in the game.

Speaking of trade. Wiping out the Ottoman empire not only gives you a good portion of the Mediterranean Sea to yourself, but a couple sources of cotton also (which can yield up to 80 bales if I recall).

[gollum]

Hello Joe_B_Me,
you have to wait until becoming a full member to get edit capabilities unlocked. Junior Members cannot edit posts. It is however just a formality, its only purpose is to discourage spammers, trolls and the like registering multiple accounts and the like... The staff will (silently) take notice of you and soon you ll be a full member, given full access to all sub-forums and be able to edit.

[Monk]

Sorry I haven't commented in this thread until now. My sleeping schedule is a bit crazy right now, onto a few points:

Just make a "Minor factions guides" topic, with link to specific factions threads. Sticky it, and tadam, you're done.

If a faction has no guide or is not regularly updated, its topic will not appear on the forum (though still existing) and if someone actually makes a guide, well, that's fine and dandy.

I believe that would be far too cluttered. The current organizational styling of the guides forum is very neat and very easy to navigate. If we suddenly threw up a single thread and expected people to use that thread for 40 different factions, we'd quickly find the effort we put into the format was for naught. When someone needs gameplay tips on a faction they don't like to look too hard for it, speaking from exprience here!

Our main goal in the guides forum is keeping information up front and easy to find.

How about a sub-forum for the Minor Factions?

That might work, actually. But I'm not sure if we would need a sub forum. We've still got plenty of room for more threads here, it's just a matter of not putting up so many that we create a wall of threads!

If I recall correctly, there are several mods over at the TWC that have unlocked all the playable minor factions, so that one doesn't have to download a hex editor him/herself. In the minor faction guide threads, we could provide a link to one of these mods, or if we don't want to risk "playing favorites" by picking only one, we could instead give a link to the mod sub-forum over at TWC and give a few examples.

Indeed. The only problem is the conflicting reports I keep hearing, some say that the mods are buggy while others report they work like a charm. I'm gonna play around with a few, now that I have time to devote to the game again, but that doesn't mean what works for me will work for someone else. I've never seen a game so finicky about what systems it will run on than ETW is. We'll see.

I'd also like to remind everyone that feedback is very important. If you run mods such as this, that allow you to unlock all factions, please send your opinions of it to either myself or Quintus.JC. Before we can support telling Orgahs to use a certain mod we need to know how it runs. If an unlocker mod as too many complications it is out of the question.

Hello Mr Monk,

very nice work in the whole guides section, well done.

We strive for excellence here. Sometimes we succeed.

[lenin96]

A sub forum sounds like a good idea but some of the more major non-playable factions deserve a spot here, factions such as the Mughals, maybe Portugal and possibly Persia.

[DeborahBentz56]

it s very simpel :)