How long to finish SP campaign?

[Inigo Montoya]

What's the fastest time you've ever achieved domination?

I think my game has gotten to the "it's just a matter of time" point. I've been offered the lesser victory but have decided to go on for complete domination, just as my Hun forefathers would have wished it. It's currently 1216 and I think this game has so far taken me about 22 years real-time to play (but that's just a rough estimate). I can build a bunch of chivalric units, but I already have enormous armies of feudal units that no one else can stand against, so I probably won't bother with those except as replacements.

I started on Normal/Early as the English. I think I could have gone a lot faster, but I wasted a lot of time building everything and putting together big armies. Plus, I tend to micro-manage almost everything which means every turn takes approximately 8 weeks real-time (again a rough estimate) for me to complete. All of this has actually resulted in the game being LESS fun because no one will stand up and fight me any more and turns take too long.

[Monk]

heres a bit of advice to help with making it a bit more fun,

1. try hard next time, the AI tends to stand and fight alote more

2. automate taxes and title grants, it can help with time saving (although i never do it anymore)

3. just wait untill 1230, you'll see what im talking about

now for your question, ive always tried to prolong my games getting the most out of them before i finish, therefore the fastest i have beaten a Full europe campaign is about 219 turns on hard as the Turkish, for the VI campaign i beat it in 81 turns.

[jLan]

I won early/hard in about 130 years as the French.. Was a walk in the park really - My full stacks of Chivalric knights mowed down everthing (dismounted some when facing infantry or cavalry) with their 9 star commanders

[Mount Suribachi]

I've yet to finish the full campaign (and I bought MTW on the day of release). After about 100 years the game just gets to big and slow and unwieldy. Perhaps I should play in high or late rather than early...

I finished VI in about 2 weeks.

[frogbeastegg]

Well in my experience both the VI and Shogun campaigns can be finished in just over a week. The main MTW campaign is closer to a month I've never finished a turn in less than 10 minutes, even at the start. Using auto tax etc does help a little but not too much, I usually leave taxes on medium when I can afford it to avoid the nasty vices which seem more common with high taxes.

I've only finished one full MTW campaign (Spanish, early, 60% victory - I couldn't take the tedium any longer) but I've started around 20 more which I gave up because they got boring or I had work to do. I've decided to stop playing the main campaign, it's just not fun anymore. Thank the maker for Shogun and the Vikings

[Brother Derfel]

If you want a more interesting game, forget Hard and use expert. I find this is the only way I can have fun with SP now.

[Old Bald Guy]

Try MedMod and hard. Hang on, cause it's going to be a bumpy ride. You might even LOSE Make it even more difficult, using the above and starting High, which is where I start most games.

If you do the same thing over and over, you'll lose interest pretty fast. But, if you play High and Late, then MedMod, and GA you can make it a different game, which should keep your interest for a bit longer.

ps--always take the 60%. Nothing will change after that.

[Inigo Montoya]

OBG - Yeah, I was starting to get the feeling that the 60% would have been the better choice, but I wanted to stick around and check out the Horde. However, my encounters with them were underwhelming, at most - so that ended up being a bit of a disappointment. In my first encounter, I had 7000 troops available (I like to pick and choose which troops I use) and they attacked with 3500. I lost 1 man and killed about 50 of them and the rest all ran away (mainly because I happened to get a great defensive position with a cliff protecting me along one side).

I strung the game out a lot longer than I had to just to check out some of the new troops. Next time I'll take the 60% or play GA. I've also looked at MedMod, but since this is the first time I've played the game, I wanted to wait a while. How much does MedMod change the game?

[jas]

Quote[/b] (Inigo Montoya @ Aug. 03 2003,08:03)]OBG - Yeah, I was starting to get the feeling that the 60% would have been the better choice, but I wanted to stick around and check out the Horde. However, my encounters with them were underwhelming, at most - so that ended up being a bit of a disappointment. In my first encounter, I had 7000 troops available (I like to pick and choose which troops I use) and they attacked with 3500. I lost 1 man and killed about 50 of them and the rest all ran away (mainly because I happened to get a great defensive position with a cliff protecting me along one side).

I strung the game out a lot longer than I had to just to check out some of the new troops. Next time I'll take the 60% or play GA. I've also looked at MedMod, but since this is the first time I've played the game, I wanted to wait a while. How much does MedMod change the game?

Well, well, I guess the Horde don't like being outnumbered Taste of their own medicine for 'em, know what I'm saying ..

Ah, the MedMod. I've only played 1.84 (before VI), and since I missed 2 I'm waiting for 3 (IIRC how the numbers are going). 1.84 is great - the AI has a much better economy overall and thus has the materiel to really give you problems. There's much less collapse of AI empires, thus avoiding so much rebel territory during the mid/end games. I will be eagerly installing it once it is available. If you're uncertain about it you can always install it in a different directory and keep your original VI, then you can play whichever you like. That's what I did with 1.1/1.84 (and then never played 1.1 again since the MedMod 1.84 was so excellent).

[jLan]

Inigo Montoya are you patched? Or do you have VI? Those horde numbers seem a bit small... They're usually 10.000+ when they attack me

Medmod is very nice indeed. It also seems to not make it one or two AI factions like the original, but rather most factions stay untill the end. It makes it a lot more interesting, since there's a fat chance you'll be backstabbed while taking another guy down

[Inigo Montoya]

Quote[/b] ]Inigo Montoya are you patched? Or do you have VI? Those horde numbers seem a bit small... They're usually 10.000+ when they attack me

Yep - I'm patched. They sent part of their army one way towards the remnants of the Spanish, and part of it South towards Antioch and me. Since this was my first time, I held a line a few provinces away from Khazar just so I could see what they would do.

[jLan]

Ah.. It's a lot worse if you hold Khazar, and it's the only province attacked

[Aelwyn]

I have yet to finish either a MTW or VI campaign. Of course, I'm more of a MP person, but I've seriously started around 30 or so campaigns. I usually start in early, and I think the farthest I've made it was around 1300 or so on expert. I dominated most of Europe, but didn't quite make it to 60 %. I just got tired of using the same faction all the time, so started a new one. But thats what playing MP does to you.

[Hurin_Rules]

I have to say that without a doubt the worst thing about this otherwise fantastic game is the amount of time it takes to finish a game.

A possible solution would be to have a mod that allowed you to pick the number of opponents, kind of like Civ3. The real reason it takes to long is because there are too many factions. Now, that's fine for when you have a month to play and want a full campaing. But it would be a lot better if they could reduce the number of opponents you have to defeat.

[jLan]

Heh, I think it's more because the map is so big Would be better - and more historically correct - if they made for instance 3 different maps for RTW. Just include less of an area in each one.

[Hurin_Rules]

Ya, that would work too.

I heard somewhere that RTW will have some smaller campaigns in addition to the main one, so maybe CA has recognized this as well.

[Mechstra]

Yeah, Rome is having mini-campaigns following things like Hannibal's crossing of the Alps, Scipio's conquests, Caesar's campaigns, etc...

[BDC]

Ahh good mini-campaigns sound like a good idea. I have had MTW ages and have finished it maybe 3 times. All as Byzantine...

[Crash]

There's a lot variety left in this game, if this is just your first time. Try playing a campaign game starting in the Late Age, with a weak faction. You may get pounded and lose the game quick. There are more different types of units, and the other factions have well developed provinces already, so it's a pretty different game.

[Satyr]

I finished my last VI campaign in 2 nights (about 7 hours) but I did settle for a 60% win and I did play as the Saxons.

If you want to get beat, try to play as the Poles or Russians in Late, there is just about enough time to win if nothing goes wrong. Of course, something will go wrong and you will lose. But it is a great challenge to try.

[Nigel]

I've had this game for perhaps two month now and am still on my first Campaign (have to say that I have not installed the patch yet). Well, by now I have reached the point of "only a matter of time" and I am tempted to just abandon this game and start a new one on higher difficulty, with the patch, at a different period or perhaps move on to MP.

This is a great game until you reach the point where you dominate the rest of the world, and as it seems, most of the older players contnd themselves with a 60% victory.

Having a variety of smaller campaign maps to choose from would definitely be a good idea for R:TW

[Inigo Montoya]

Well, I finished the game with complete domination late 2 nights ago - or early yesterday morning, if you prefer. I had built up such enormous armies that I literally auto-resolved every encounter after I finished off the Mongols. The only one that would have even been a bit of a challenge was the Byzantines, who I had isolated on one island where they proceeded to build up Kataphraktoi units exclusively. But since I'd already had plenty of battles against the Mongol heavies, that battle held little interest for me. So I waited until the last and sent all 20,000 of my troops there and auto'ed it out. I have to say that the last 1/3 of the game was exceedingly boring - I enjoyed the battles and the campaign strategy up to a point, but I can see how people would start a lot of campaigns without ever finishing any of them.

Anyway, in the words of the immortal James Cameron (who is excused from foisting Titanic on us ONLY because he also gave us Terminator, Aliens and True Lies):

"I'm King of the World"

[Kalt]

heheh. With the turks in early on expert I got to the early win on turn 40 (1127). I attacked west to cordoba early on then swept around to nail Poland/Hungary on the other side. My armies are pretty much entirely made up of saracen infantry, which are godly in the early game, with thousands of spearmen and peasants coming in behind to shore up happiness. I also have Imams in every province in the game with about a dozen being produced every turn, and 4 provinces producing baggala ships.

I wanted to produce more spies but they just take too long to tech up to, and Constantinople which was really my only shot at getting them early on got stuck on ship-producing duty.

I don't know how much longer it would take to finish off the rest of the world but I would guess maybe 20 more turns.

[Jazzman]

Just finished my first full MTW campaign to 100% domination, it took me about 6 months and it does get a bit tedious after the 60% mark, but it was nice to have that finality and the little speil at the end about how great my dynasty was. Having done it once, prob will stop at 60%in future if do full campaign. i just got VI and it appears there is mini-MTW campaigns as part of that package, 100 year war, Barbarossa, etc., so that might be cool option for shorter time. Also, VI itself is shorter. also looking forward to trying some high or late period campaigns, different factions, GA mode etc., and maybe try out medmod. is Wes's new medmod going to be compatible with VI (include the yet to arrive patch?). great that there is a lot of variety out there.