The comprehensive guide to hotseat play

[Cecil XIX]

This is an excellent guide Myth, and I'd say it should either be stickied or added to one of the existing sticky threads. (hint hint phonics )

[phonicsmonkey]

Interesting thread over at TWC about managing the economy in a hotseat

[Domen]

Very nice guide, thanks mate!

It was a very interesting read - I already knew much of this stuff, but I've learned also some new things.

The three most common banned exploits are:


- Loading Never load a game unless you've miss-clicked or you got a crash to desktop (CTD). It's unfair, and especially so if you do it to discover where the enemy is deployed under the fog of war (FOW), to change the outcome of a random % action like spying or assassinating a character, or to win a battle via stacking more troops there or leading it until you get a lucky break. However I do advise saving the game when you win a massive battle in a LB game, least you get a crash in the next one and have to replay it.

The way loading works as related to the chance-based abilities is such: Let's say you have an assassin who has a 15% chance to kill an enemy general. You try and fail. You load, move another unit by one hex, then try again. This time you'll get a different result, because the random seed for the game has been changed by the other action you took. This might also influence the outcome of an AR battle to some extent (my experience is that winning another battle before trying the problematic one gives you better odds).

So that's why we want you to try your assassination attempt at the very start of your turn, before you do anything else.

I'm from the Polish total war community. We play our campaigns (on our forums) with loading allowed.

We know that this rule favours the attacker (for he is the one who can load and save), but it also decreases the imbalance of power between factions (i.e. factions which have weaker units are not in such a hopeless position as in case if loading / saving of AR battles is not allowed).

Regarding loading to get a different result of a battle - it is impossible to get a different result (by different result I mean for example "Average Defeat" instead of "Clear Defeat", etc. - I do not mean slightly different number of casualties, like for example 640 dead instead of 680) if you just normally load the game and immediately after loading it for the first time auto-resolve the same battle again. To get various results you need to load the game (from save before the battle was AR), then SAVE IT AGAIN (!) - and only then load it again - and AR the battle again. If you just load and immediately AR the battle again - you will get the same result as last time (the only possible difference are slightly different casualties - but often even casualties are exactly the same). Only this kind of loading when you load, save again, load again - and only then AR again - can change the result.

But there still is, of course, a limited number of possible results for a particular battle - even if using this method of loading/saving.

For example you will never get a victory (even a close one) in a battle in which balance of power is for example 1:6 in favour of the enemy. In such battle the only possible thing is to get for example a "Clear Defeat" instead of "Crushing Defeat" after some attempts.

In fact, in land battles it is very hard if not impossible (but this depends also on army compositions) to get a victory even with 1:2 disadvantage. On the other hand, sea battles are more unpredictable - it is often possible to win them even at 1:3 ratio after enough attempts.

But as I wrote - the number of possible results for a particular battle is clearly limited - and after some number of attempts, you start to get the same results as you had in the very first attempts. And it seems to either gradually improve, or get worse (for example if the very first result was "Crushing Defeat", you will start to get gradually better results, but only up to some point - up to "Average Defeat" at most in this case) - and then comes again to the starting point. I explained this more extensively in this thread on TW center forums:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=491865

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Edit:

Do I get 5 spear militia units in an AR game? Well do I need them right now to survive or do I just see them and have nothing else to recruit? 5 spear militia units with stats 3/9 for attack/defence and 150 men per unit, these cost me 125 gold/turn each, or 375 gold/turn total.

Well, spear militia will cost you 0 gold/turn as long as you keep it in town / city which supports free upkeep militia. ;)

Also note that SS 6.4 actually builds stone forts when assaulted, and those are tricky to get when defended with archers.

I also noticed that archers are good in defending stone forts / stone cities / castles. In Kingdoms: Crusades Hotseat, Turkish forces couldn't capture my city of Antioch despite having 5:3 superiority in balance of power and even bigger in numbers (and he already has good units - for example Dismounted Hashams). I had a full stack with good general (but not as good as Turkish generals who besieged me), many (like 11) dismounted knights, 1 Hospitaller crossbowmen, 1 ballista, 2 Sodeer Archers and some other units (including 4 Syrian militia and 2 or 3 sergeant spearmen & / or squires of Edessa, IIRC). He was suffering like 2000 casualties when he attempted to assault, while I lost only about 200. I suspected that ballista + crossbows + archers could help me in this battle, because although I had very good infantry inside as well (9 - 10 dismounted knights of Antioch, 1 unit of Unhorsed Knights), he also had a lot of heavy infantry (Dismounted Hashams), which has only slightly worse stats than my heavy infantry.

But I'm not sure what should be the ratio of heavy infantry to archers when he comes again (he surely will).

At this point, I reinforced Antioch with even more units of heavy infantry, I replaced ballista with mangonel and I left only 1 unit of Sodeer Archers inside (as well as that 1 unit of Hospitaller Crossbowmen), moving the other unit of Sodeer Archers to reinforce a nearby fort.

[Myth]

Hello @Domen and welcome to the Throne Room! Thank you for your input. Allow me to elaborate:

1. Loading is not allowed because we (usually) play for fun here. Our player base is all above 20 years of age (with several above 30) and as such they lack the time to meticulously load a save to get the perfect results for their turn. There is one game currently on that allows loading - Europa I, but that's a lead battles game anyway. For me, the worst things from loading are getting more scouting information (loading to move agents and armies in different spots, spying on army compositions, checking out forests and choke points etc.), trying to AR a fight to see what happens then deciding not to do it, getting a Heroic Victory at sea and at the very last spot - reloading an AR fight on land.

Sea battles are very quirky. Attacking 5 cogs with 3 cogs can get you a Clear Victory but can also get you a Clear Defeat, and anything in between. It's possible to beat 10 ships with 6 of your own via Heroic Victory. I've actually had a Heroic Victory in a HS game at sea and reloaded it because I knew the player would suspect me of loading to get one, and I felt he had to win the naval engagement there due to having two more boats than myself. Overall though, naval shenanigans will quickly get one discovered, because our players are experienced enough to gauge more or less adequately on how powerful a given fleet is. Hence, naval engagements are usually not close battles but overwhelming massacres, since the enemy usually flees or disregards the navy if he sees he cannot compete.

As for fought battles - archers can help, yes. Especially in SS where the AI gets bonuses. However, you'd be surprised at what other human players can do with their armies. You haven't played HS until you've left a full stack besieging Silver's fort or in reach of Monkey's HA's and jav-cav, and then suddenly, the next day, the only thing that remains of your full stack are two crossed swords marking a year...

BTW which community is that you speak of? (the Polish one) Do you want to invite your buddies over for a big HS game? Perhaps a team game?

[phonicsmonkey]

A belated welcome to the Throne Room @Domen and thanks for your comments on the guide!

I follow with interest the development of hotseats in which reloading is allowed. I don't like it myself but that's because I'm one of the old fogeys Myth mentioned who doesn't have time for it. Also I tend to prefer games where it is permitted to fight battles so reloading would be really against the spirit of those.

I'm also interested in your observations about the usefulness of archers in siege defense. I assume you mean in an auto-resolved battle? Have you observed this elsewhere or is it a quirk of the Crusades campaign?

[Myth]

I think he was talking about LB. For AR, archers are absolute fodder unless it's KGCM+HS patch or SS 6.4.

[Domen]

The Polish TW community I was talking about, is this forum (below I give the link to "Online Campaigns" - "Kampanie Online" - subforum):

http://forum.totalwar.org.pl/viewforum.php?f=434

Our player base is also mostly above 20. But there are some younger (15 - 19) players as well. And a few "veterans" above 30. Unless you are very stubborn to get a perfect result (if there is such thing), loading doesn't take so much time. ;) Having a short password (and such one which can be typed with just one hand) helps very much when you play with loading allowed. ;) But everything has pros and cons.

I've just finished (well, Turkey & Egypt finished me) my first HS campaign (a few other are in progress and I do much better there):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0PevXMuWW8

It was a Kingdoms Crusades campaign. We started this campaign in late December 2011. On our forums we play campaigns on Kingdoms expansion and various Mods (Broken Crescent, Third Age, etc.) - including a Polish WWmwE Mod version 2.02b (specially adapted for Hotseat).

There is also one campaign on Vanilla M2TW going on, IIRC. And there were some more in the past.

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PS: This inter-forum hotseat campaign is a good idea!