Clockwork

[Gilrandir]

I changed my settings so my gametime is not limited. I believe playing for time contradicts the principles of chivalry I try to follow when playing. I mean when you won the battle just because you outstayed your enemy on the battlefield, you victory is "shorn of renown". And if you lost because of the same reason - actually, you did not. Well, at least it is how I see it. So, I would like to ask, do you like to play with the clock ticking?

[gollum]

The clock is best always turned off. The AI otherwise tries to win battles by the clock in defence ie by retreting and these retreats acn easily turn into routs. When the Ai attacks with superior force it is extremely cheesy to beat him to a unit or two that run around, especially if you play in low unit size settings that have tons of reinforcements.

[gaijinalways]

But sadly, reality often intrudes, and much as I do sometimes enjoy 3 hour battles (as long as the PC doesn't crash), I sometimes need to try and finish campaigns more quickly.

Of course, the big equalizer is auto-resolving, but I really do enjoy doing battles.

[vanitas]

I usually play with the clock turned off as it makes the battles more interesting, and longer..Was always irritated in my early MTW days, playing with the clock on, and having to chase the AI across the battlefield to eliminate that last surviving unit and especialy when the time run out on you.

[Prince Cobra]

I changed my settings so my gametime is not limited. I believe playing for time contradicts the principles of chivalry I try to follow when playing. I mean when you won the battle just because you outstayed your enemy on the battlefield, you victory is "shorn of renown". And if you lost because of the same reason - actually, you did not. Well, at least it is how I see it. So, I would like to ask, do you like to play with the clock ticking?

Actually, it is more historically acurate to have the clock on. Most campaigns could not fulfil their purpose because the militarily stronger side had problems in supplying their lines. Since there is no supply feature in MTW, this works as a perfect replacement. In addition, the clock time is enough both for you and the AI to finish the business properly.

Sometimes the AI tends to hide some small units, which can be a bit annoying but is also some fun to clean the province of any opposition.

The last but not the least... you usually do not have the whole day to spend on 2 game years, right?

[gollum]

Its true that there is a practical problem with long battles in MTW for normal unit settings if the clock is turned off. I play in huge where this problem does not exist mostly as each stack has more men and so costs more to maintain and therefore there are less stacks. I intensely dislike battles with more than 1 stack of reinforcements - excluding of course the GH where ther is nothing to be done. This could be also solved for normal unit settings by analogically increasing the /training and maintenance costs to have less stacks as in huge but with normal unit settings (scale costs relative to the unit size scaling).

I don't find that the clock is historically accurate in MTW - nothing historically accurate about winning an invasion or defence of invasion that can happen over a year because you repulsed one wave of enemy while his second one did not have time to sweep you off the field. There was some semblance of simulating weather effects in STW that had seasonal turns, but even that was extrapolated, as you had 3 months to effectuate that invasion and hence more than one battles in practice and the Ai in any case did not understood the clock effect in deciding how to commit forces. In the end, its a matter of convention and as such, and gross historical implausibilities aside, what is best for gameplay takes precedence in my eyes at least.

Force deployments to battle are calculated by the AI in terms of where, when and how to commit to battle relative to the force that invades or defends in a province. By cutting short the time to deploy those, the calculations on which force eployment is based by the AI are rendered useless, to the player's favor most of the time. The AI should be able to make full use of his invading forces in an offensive as also the player should, within a year or within a season.

[Gilrandir]

IMO, the only occasion when the presence of the clock can be justified by historic accuraccy is sieges (I don't mean storming castles nor repulsing the attack from within the castle, but siege as it is, that is sitting and waiting as The Beginner's guide to MTW puts it) when time was crucial. But that is done in MTW not in battles but in campaigns when you get messages about the possible endurance of the besieged garrison.

[Gilrandir]

One more change I introduced into the default settings of the battle map is cancellation of the camera movement limitations, so now my eye can wander at will detecting the enemy. It may seem unfair to acquire such an advantage, but here we can also speak of historical accuracy, I guess. I believe medieval generals did not make any decisive step without having scouts dispatched everywhere to study the lay of the land and the intentions of the enemy.
Do you still keep you camera chained to your troops' location?

[Stazi]

I use -ian command so the camera is unlocked by default. Anyway, it doesn't make a big difference cause maps are rather small.

[Axalon]

For me, that damned clock has been turned off ever since STW. Losing a battle because
of the clock sucks – winning it because of the clock sucks. In short, I hate it…. :)

- A

[gollum]

Best off it is indeed. Welcome back Axalon.

[Axalon]

Hello Gollum,

Well, I am back for a while at least before I will disappear into the void again – as always it is Redux-stuff that make me come back here for various reasons. These days I rarely visit the Main Hall at all as I usually have little time for it. The fact that raw MTW and all stuff built upon it barely concerns me anyway (due to differences to Redux, excluding all hardcoded stuff) - does not help much either. I essentially play and work with Redux and thus any stuff for raw MTW and the like is not as interesting for me as it obviously is to people that really do play such stuff – which probably are most people that regularly visit this hall.

Anyway, if people want to use that damn clock – it is their headache and privilege – if they must… All I can say is that I personally don’t understand it, but then again that circumstance is hardly the first time around here…

- A