Am I The Only One ?

[Peasant Phill]

I purely play for the battles. I'll quit far faster because I'm sure I'll win the campaign than because the battles become to tedious.

[Gregoshi]

I'm with you econ - the campaign gives the battles meaning. Now that you mention it, I should try that slow mod too. The too-fast combat has been my major gripe with the TW series since RTW. TWS2 seems not as fast as I remember RTW, but still to fast for my taste. I'll have to load that slow mod and see if the enjoyment of the battles returns.

[Nowake]

The autoresolve in STW2 is very tempting though - it seems far more favorable to the player than the punitive ones in previous titles.

Mmm, it's so so really. The calculator weighs the value of samurai over ashigaru very well. And there are no penalties for assaulting a fortress. Thus, you're safe to autoresolve mere garrisons and you'll be much better off than if you'd have gone to the field personally -- or at least you save a TON of time by skipping the shooting of the garrison into the ground with archers in case of a small one. However, against samurai, the army setup does not matter, you will take heavy losses or even lose, even if he has nineteen units of samurai archers which would be scattered away before routing even one of your Yari Ashigaru units from your half Ashigaru half Katana Samurai force. Also, against an all Yari Ashigaru corps (more or less) equal in numbers to yours (say 3000 against 3000), without a general, your six star general with the above mentioned half Ashigaru half Katana setup will still take about 700-800 losses before winning, though it will inflict more casualties (unless you use your general's cavalry unit really well in the chase yourself). I believe it is because the AI calculates the point of rout a bit farther down the timeline than it would happen on the field. So, unless you don't care to keep your army more or less intact, even those engagements must be fought manually.

I should try that slower speed mod, I guess, although it will make archers even more powerful than they already are.
(...)
Now that you mention it, I should try that slow mod too.

You two must know better, but I thought "the slow mod" only affects movement speed, not killing rates? It would be quite great if it would be as you say though, as much as I dislike mods in general.

[TheLastDays]

You two must know better, but I thought "the slow mod" only affects movement speed, not killing rates? It would be quite great if it would be as you say though, as much as I dislike mods in general.

Afaik there is one that is dealing with the animations and would thus slow down the kill rates. I could be wrong though.

I agree that campaing map play is more important for me than the battles but I still play most of the battles myself. Both together make the TW experience for me.

[Nowake]

Hmm, I got off my ass and searched for it.
The mod I had read about was THIS one I believe. But if you chaps know of any other, do point a fellow taisho in the right direction please

[xploring]

Hmm, I got off my ass and searched for it.
The mod I had read about was THIS one I believe. But if you chaps know of any other, do point a fellow taisho in the right direction please

You can use mods which bump up units' defense and armour stats to make battles last longer. Radious allows player to pick and choose so you can choose only the ones you like. There are other ones for unit stats but they are usually lumped with a lot of other changes.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=440856

[Madae]

It really depends for me, and is entirely situational.

If I'm marching around some gigantic army and I happen across a pitiful group of units, mostly small armies or a collection of crap, I tend to auto-resolve the fight because I know it will be a victory, and it's likely auto-resolve will keep me from losing more units than necessary (it just feels like it does sometimes, though thats not always the case), and more often than not, I won't lose anything at all.

Alternatively, if it's a large group of units, either with a bunch of annoying units (like a dozen archers) or somewhat (or straight) threatening (with experience or a variety that will cause issues), I like to fight the battles. Where auto-resolve works on small groups, it tends to fail (for me) in large battles, or causes far to many losses for my liking.

Even battles I like to fight, small or large, because that could go either way, and I would prefer that it be a win. I will also occassionally fight battles where I will certainly lose the fight. I like to rack up enough kills to have made their victory not really worth the effort/money/men spent to get it. And sometimes, and surprisingly, I'll actually win those fights even though I was grossly outnumbered. Valiant defeats are also very satisfying, regardless of the outcome.

Most of the time when I'm fighting really difficult battles, I lose a lot of the "experience" for the sake of doing it right. I'm not really paying attention to how cool the battle looks - I'm focusing directly on how my units are standing up and whether or not they need reinforcements. A lot of the times, I will fight these battles on half-speed, just so I can react quickly enough to holes in my defense or to reinforce a morale-failing unit. This is probably the only time that my enjoyment of battles starts to waver, because it's becoming more of a chore/job than it is just cool to watch. Winning is simply the priority. Still, some of these battles can be fun, especially when it's so close you just know you barely pulled it off.

I'm split on preference, overall. I like the campaign map more for the gameplay, but battles are sometimes really fun, and I like setting my gigantic army in formation, having them walk towards the enemy and just looking at all of them moving in unison or slowly popping out of a forest for dramatic effect. Seeing the screen shake because 2000 men are all walking together is pretty neat, and its really cool to move down the line close up and see them all marching.