Two threads in one!

[Duguntz]

Greetings friends!

This is a two threads in one coz I hate filling the forum with threads that'll receive 6 answers at most! so as an econom myself, i'm saving space on the page!

first question : am i the only one who thinks that playing a "barbarian" faction is much funnier on large settings than huge? i mean, even historically, the Gauls or Germans or whoever rarely had the cities to muster a fighting force of 100,000. Let's face it, they were fighting with their neighbour for the smallest reasons. The grandfather of their step-cousin stole a donkey to a merchant was a reason good enough to muster the band and go hack n' smash the neighbour.

While, with more "civilized" factions, huge setting is more accurate, due to man powers they could call on duty... What do you think of this, and share wich settings you like for your favourites factions (can be more than one!)

Second question : is there here grand strategy amateurs? I mean, fighting and clubbing down romans is great, but even the campaing map offer a great deal of fun (for me at least!) Have anyone tried to play the souvereing (or senate), trying to EB stricly from a strategic point of view. Meaning that all... ALL your fight are done automaticly (as a king relying on his generals) and win or loose, you face the consequences and situation created by the success or mistakes of your generals and craft your strategy on it... i do think it's an interesting idea. Fopr example, playing as cartage, you could roleplay you're in the senate and issue orders to your general... auto-fight the battle and build your strategy following it's outcome. Of corse, you'll loose MUCH more battles (as you'd NOT use auto win!) but eh! wouldn't be an interesting game?

What are your opinions and share some tips to ameliorate the grand strategy roloe-play!

[Lazy O]

Since the AI is rigged doing all battles auto would be stupid unless you are on M difficulty, nice idea if you use aut_win on a 50% basis though

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Of topic, ROMAKOTOI REJOICE today is the 1600th anniversay of the sacking of Rome by the goths, someone posted on the twcenter forum

[Megas Methuselah]

Yo yo, you ma bro! 4 life! native pride!


1) I dunno, mane. Some of the "barbarians" were actually quite "civilized." Anyways, many of them were quite capable of mustering a large fighting force.


2) Sort of reminds of the Victoria: Revolutions, except on a simpler scale. It would make a good AAR, anyways.

[Lysimachos]

While usually tribal societies are indeed not as capable to field as large forces as more organized ones, we are talking about armies of a few thousand men at max in the game, which a dominant tribal confederacy (which you are playing) could realistically field without much trouble. Seeing that if you use a smaller unit size, civilized societies will also field smaller armies, I would say that if you want to reduce numbers, in my opinion the more accurate way would be using less unit slots.

[Megas Methuselah]

Please keep in mind that the Gallic Celts were an urbanized society, ok?

[Arjos]

1) As a "barbarian" I always assemble a fighting force before a campaign (according to the influence and ethnicity of the FM, I train different units and in different number), but after that I disband everyone...

2) Auto-win never, but sometimes I let the AI control the army except 1 or few units...

[Duguntz]

Yo yo, you ma bro! 4 life! native pride!


1) I dunno, mane. Some of the "barbarians" were actually quite "civilized." Anyways, many of them were quite capable of mustering a large fighting force.


2) Sort of reminds of the Victoria: Revolutions, except on a simpler scale. It would make a good AAR, anyways.

you're completly right brother, many "barbarians" were quiet civilized. I used the word only to make the difference between the cultures, not as a generic term or to label them, as "barbarian!" Then, most were capable of musering several thousands, i'm aware of that, but I wanted to make a difference of scale. They were not capable of mustering a number as large as 'let's say' Rome, or AS. It's all in thescale. in terms of sheer number. Lasimakos has a point that reducing the scale from huge to large affect also the "civilized" (again, using it only to make the difference between the cultures)...

i do believe it would make a good base for an aar. But to have a chance against the auto-calc battles, the campaing must be played on M\M to have a decent diplomacy and equal chances in battles...

[Ca Putt]

with the TOTAL WAR engine you don't really have the possibility to represent those little skirmishes against neighbours as the scale of the game is far too big for that thus you never actually have a local raiding party at your command but only those large alliance armies or huge masses of emigrants, looking for a better place to live. after all the idea of Total war does not at all fit for most of the factions featured in RTW(and EB) actually rome is the only one that I can think of, imagine carthage fighting a total war, ^^ same is for the "barbarian" civs.

on M/M it should be possible with a phalanx wielding faction otherwise you need to do pull through the initial phase fighting yourself or auto_win ing as AI generals do get boni, considering how difficult it is to get high command fms the ai has quite a lot of them ;)
-the phalanx thing is because it seems that phalanxes are favored in auto resolve, on the other hand it's not a good Idea to auto resolve with a HA army as they usually preform much worse than in real battle.