Overeasy access to wealth hurts game

[Durruti]

I am making this brief as I have lost 2 previous posts. MTW is the best game.

However, too much $$ leads to enormous several stack armies & quantity defeats strategy. While I understand that most patrons like large armies & attractive battles, I prefer historically correct smaller European armies. During the middle-ages Europeans rarely raised large armies.

The Hojo Hoard (Shogun) syndrom ruins the Viking expansion for me. My Viking ancestors mostly raided & rarely warred. It is unfortunate that there is not a CHOICE where some can choose to play STRATEGICALLY with Spartan access to wealth, smaller armies & concentrate on winning thru glorious achievements. In MTW one can build any & every expansion. I would prefer having to make hard choices of what I can and can't produce-even a guns versus butter choice.

In some ways the game is too easy. I prefer a strategic game with some eye-candy battles. The a1 large armies are often unbalanced. Larger is not always better.

[Durruti]

Quote[/b] (Durruti @ Mar. 28 2004,17:45)]I am making this brief as I have lost 2 previous posts. MTW is the best game.

However, too much $$ leads to enormous several stack armies & quantity defeats strategy. While I understand that most patrons like large armies & attractive battles, I prefer historically correct smaller European armies. During the middle-ages Europeans rarely raised large armies.

The Hojo Hoard (Shogun) syndrom ruins the Viking expansion for me. My Viking ancestors mostly raided & rarely warred. It is unfortunate that there is not a CHOICE where some can choose to play STRATEGICALLY with Spartan access to wealth, smaller armies & concentrate on winning thru glorious achievements. In MTW one can build any & every expansion. I would prefer having to make hard choices of what I can and can't produce-even a guns versus butter choice.

In some ways the game is too easy. I prefer a strategic game with some eye-candy battles. The a1 large armies are often unbalanced. Larger is not always better.

[QUOTE] A single dream is worth a thousand realities. - Tolkien

[son of spam]

It's easy to fix

Go into the options menu/game options and change unit size to tiny or small or something.

Have fun with your new 30 men units lol.

[katank]

I would usually disagree with you due to me always having a larger army and outproducing my opponents in which case I say more is better.

In a Turkish High game, I took out the byz and eggy only to have a little war with the hungairans which I kept defensive for an interesting game only to have the horde pop up.

I completely forgot about them and got roughly 20k horde steamrollign through my rear provinces.

Not even my 9* general with massed archers was able to stop them.

He was gallantly cut down in a last stand in Egypt against a 7k horde and the rest of the army melted away. GG

I took out the rest of the horde and maintain very good kill ratios but was finally overwhelmed.

Darn lack of bridges. Random rant.

Now I wish the horde was smaller. Next time they ought to give a 5 year to horde warning or something.

Dammit.

[Lord Ovaat]

Downloading the lates version of Med Mod will help if you're playing VI.

[Accounting Troll]

[It is unfortunate that there is not a CHOICE where some can choose to play STRATEGICALLY with Spartan access to wealth, smaller armies & concentrate on winning thru glorious achievements./QUOTE]

You can reduce income by modding the one of the startpos files. Trade goods and mines available in each region have to be declared thus:

SetResources:: ID_NORTH_UMBRIA COPPER
SetTradableGoods:: ID_NORTH_UMBRIA WOOL

If you delete both these lines then when you start a new game Northumbria has no wool to trade or copper deposits to mine, and thus its potential income is lowered. Make sure you delete any merchants or mines present in Northumbria to avoid confusing the game.

Delete all the other delerations of trade goods and deposits of gold, silver, copper and salt. You can also reduce farm income if this isn't enough. There are a couple of good FAQs available for modding the startpos files.

When you start a new game, factions will find it harder to raise the money to fund the invasion of a neighbouring province.

[Gregoshi]

Greetings Accounting Troll and welcome to the Org.

As an accounting type troll, don't you think it is a bit unethical to alter the books in order to achieve the results you want? Just trying to ask the hard-hitting questions on everyone's mind. ...or not.

[Durruti]

Thanks for the helpful responses. I am not up to changing the resource files for every province in the game.

I have played the Total War games since they came out. After a while they get a tad repetitious (what game dosen't?). I have uninstalled MTW. I will be on line to purchase RTW the day it appears at the local stores.

Europa, a game with far less eyecandy is similarly uninstalled. Civ 3 is beneath contempt (I was able to buy it for $15 & return it for same-it helps to know the EBX manager). The Talonsoft games were beautiful, but mostly unprogrammed (ai dead from neck up).

My point is that the Total War developers are the best & along with the AOE developers have produced the most quality pc games (the games work well, are easy to look at-enjoy, and fairly priced). Did I mention Chessmaster 5000? I eagerly look for better games coming from the best developers. Imagine; my only major criticism of MTW is about the easy accumulation of wealth. All the rest works beautifully.

I have been reading these forums for years & with your permission will continue to participate while waiting for RTW.

A single dream is worth a thousand realities. - Tolkien

[Accounting Troll]

[As an accounting type troll, don't you think it is a bit unethical to alter the books in order to achieve the results you want?/QUOTE]

Only if you get caught. Enron was only the tip of a very large iceberg. The global financial system depends on the honesty of the main accounting firms, who are not subject to any kind of effective audit themselves.

In this case, I've started modding the early campaign to make it harder, so far I have done the following:-

All provinces are now slightly more rebellious
Farm income in each province has been reduced by 40%
All gold, silver, copper and salt deposits have been removed
Most trade goods have been removed - a few were left because of the trade related GG objectives.
All rebel provinces have had their defending army doubled in size

This should make it far harder for me to raise an army capable of conquering and controlling a neighbouring province.

[Durruti]

Accounting Troll,

If there was a way for you to offer your finished product as a (I guess you would call it a mod & not a custom campaign?) - I would love to try it-as I am sure are many others.

Another suggestion would be if you could make it take longer to build improvements-updates. The dual effect of less wealth being available & slower accrual of improvements (much more historically accurate) should make MTW into a very different game where careful strategy is king.

You might become famous & even be knighted by the Queen (hey anything can happen). I would even be willing to hang your picture up in by living room.

Quote: A single dream is worth a thousand realities. Tolkien

[Loki]

Greetings Durriti

I strongly recommend you re-install MTW+VI and then add MedMod. It will be a new game to you. as really new as waiting for RTW.

For various reasons (some others have outlined above) your army sizes will be smaller and more varied. ( of course this doesn't even begin to describe the fun as AI's will now ally and gang up on you)

Remember the warm fuzzy enthusiasm you had when you first got the game and were learning to play? Multiply that enthusiasm by a few time once you have MedMod.

MedMod has another very interesting affect. Whatever faction you like to play the most, will be even more fun and personalized because of the loving detail that WesW has put into the mod. It will also make fighting your favorite hated enemy alot more interesting, because they won't show up with hordes and hordes of generic foot-soldiers.

[Durruti]

[QUOTE] I strongly recommend you re-install MTW+VI and then add MedMod. It will be a new game to you. as really new as waiting for RTW.

Loki, I followed your suggestion. The first thing I noticed while playing the Med Mod - Byzantines in the High era on only Hard, was a great imbalance against the human (I have some elements of human in me).

My Kataphracts attacking Turkish infantry (archers)- downhill only broke about even. Later, the Italians sent a Crusade of some 1600 fascists against my Livonia (in the north) while I was preparing to save Europe from the Mongol Hord. Oh come on I control-alt-deleted to end the pain.

The Med Mod is interseting, and the modding - campaign efforts of the MTW fanatics are highly creative & help to maintain interest in the game. However, I find that the original (what you guys call Vanilla MTW) is the most balanced. There is still too much $cash available in the Med Mod & the the new available categories of soldiers makes an already detailed game, unnecessarily more so.

On the positive, the Med Mod is impressive, loaded easily & played smoothely. I'll try more of the Mod later, after I play Cossacks for some fast killing & some pretty city building.

*Couldn't figure out how to drag-Quote the way it is done on the forum.

[mfberg]

If you need to reduce cash flow in your game then play on Huge unit size (if you weren't already). The provinces produce the same income and buildings cost the same, but the unit costs/upkeep are dependant upon unit size.

(I made a mistake and made the Royal guard unit size scalable, the Danes/Aragonne were impoverished after a couple of sons.)

mfberg