Worst disappointment playing the game?

[Don Corleone]

Mine just happened, hence the title. I'm playing as the Italians, starting from Early. I was allied with the Byzantines, and was beating the snot out of the Turks (I launched successful crusades against Nicea and Anatolia in successive turns). I let the Byantines take Trebizinoid and even married off a princess to their heir, even though I had better uses for her. How do they thank me? They cut into my fleet line at Crete

That's not the whine. My general rule is when a neutral party attacks me, I take one of their provinces I want most as punishment. If they're allied, I take two. So I took Crete and Greece, to make sure I didn't get split in the Mediteranean again. I sue for peace, clearly outnumbering the Byzantines but not wanting to start into a full fledged war just yet, and they turn me down. Surprisingly stupid AI, but so be it.

Here's the whine. I spent about 8 turns building an artillery corps of about 12 catapults. I build a decent, but not overwhelming, army up and invade Constantinople. I'm all excited, thinking how great this battle is going to be... and the wusses abandon not just the province, they flee the citadel, the greatest fortress in the world Talk about disappointment Why would they be such punks? If somebody had invaded Venice, I'd defend it to the last man... I mean, that's your historical/cultural seat of power. Can't be good to lose that....

Anyway, what was all of your most disappointing moments?

[Lord Ovaat]

I can understand your disappointment, Don Corleone, but the AI does some pretty odd stuff. Must have thought it couldn't beat you. AI is usually eager to retreat. I on the other hand will fight to the death if there's even a glimmer of a chance to win. Not that I'm sadistic or crazy. The reason is simply that by occupying my province, even for one turn, they will cost me a lot of time and money by losing improvements. You know, rape & pillage, rape & pillage. The AI doesn't seem to see it that way. If you watch them through the turns, they will attack, withdraw, attack, withdraw until they wear ME out watching them. They must actually fight at some point, 'cause we all see their partial units, but mostly it's hop-scotch until someone abandons a province. Their willingness to skedaddle is one of the reasons they never seem to manage the improvements we take for granted. But the bright side is, you get a valuable piece of dirt and it cost you nothing

[Agravain of Orkney]

8 players pick armies in a multi-player 4v4 game, deploy troops, battle starts and they march to the enemy, getting into postion, pav war begins and skirmishes start......

And the Gamespy server drops a player from the game.

[dragonchr15]

Quote[/b] (Lord Ovaat @ Mar. 27 2004,12:55)]...the AI does some pretty odd stuff. Must have thought it couldn't beat you. AI is usually eager to retreat.

While we are on this topic, I was wondering, when you attack a province, does the AI autoresolve or do anything secretly to see if it has any chance of winning before it retreats? In other words, If the computer stays to defend the province, does that mean that it thinks it can beat you?

[Mouzafphaerre]

Quote[/b] (Don Corleone @ Mar. 27 2004,20:31)]Anyway, what was all of your most disappointing moments?

-
CTD after a hard won battle. Yes, again
_

[Lacker]

My worst moment was about a week ago. I had 2 provinces to defeat for total victory, and out breaks a civil war, the Egyptians, French, Almohads, Byzantines, and Germans reappeared, and to top it off, my daughter was assasinated.....in one year. When it rains it pours...

On the flip side though, I was about to wage an apparently lengthy and costly battle against the Turks who were the last real force left on the map about a month ago. They invaded Greece and I set up in the trees. There was a small clearing just back from the main tree line so I set up 6....count them 6 catapults in the clearing. The rest of my troops I deployed just back from the trees with my general, a row of archers, and one line of peasents in the open. Naturally they lead with their general, who just so happened to be their Sultan. I have the grouped catapult cursor over his unit, he moves into range...and one volley cuts him down. The turks fled the field less than a minute later......

When it rains....it pours.

[Lacker]

I should have added that he had no heirs, so his faction splintered and was bought off at bargain rates..... You know you're doing something right when you purchase Constantinople (which with one of my 5 accumen generals as governor generates 13,000 florins/year) for 5,000 florins.

[Lord Ovaat]

Kinda forgot in my reply above to add my most frustrating disappointment so far. English Channel, British, Med Mod, early fifteenth century. Had a stack of 14 caracks led by a four star admiral. Sitting in the water beside it was a nuisance stack of about six longboats with a two star in command. At that point, my Brits were dominant on land in Eastern Europe and into Morocco, but not to 60% yet. Not being at war with the Danes, and not even worrying a little about their little paddle stack, I ended the year. To my horror, this huge, ugly, glaring image came on the screen:
English Channel, DEFEAT, enemy ships sunk-0, own ships lost-14. I almost hurt myself.
:embarrassed:

I understand the AI favors the underdog when it AIN'T human, but that was absurd. That effectively ended the game for me. The Danish ships were so numerous throughout the northern seas, that it made it impossible to get more boats in the water. Once that little two star sunk my main fleet, he had like 6 stars and systematically snuffed all my other boats. So, I possessed Europe and the Brit homelands, but my king was stuck in Wessex. Ever try puting one boat at a time into water occupied by enemy fleets? It's a no-can-do. It didn't take long for the rabble on the mainland to realize my king could never come visit. It was an awe-inspiring French re-emergence

[son of spam]

@ lord ovaat

Ouch, I had the same thing happen to me when playing medmod. Except I'm cheap and I reload. And I attacked their ships first

must be a medmod thing.

[The Tuffen]

Graphics card going strange after about 2 1/2-3 hours battle against the GH

[Knight of Ni]

I build a decent, but not overwhelming, army up and invade Constantinople. I'm all excited, thinking how great this battle is going to be... and the wusses abandon not just the province, they flee the citadel, the greatest fortress in the world

I have a theory on why this may have happened, and it leads directly to a major pet peeve of my own. I have captured Constantinople in the same way, in the following circumstance: the Byzantine emperor was in the province and my army was huge, compared to his wee one. I think the AI knew that if it had fought a field battle and lost, the emperor would be (IF I had allowed him to survive, muahahaha) trapped in the citadel, therefore cutting him off from the rest of the empire. In order to avoid this, it abandoned the province to me. Same thing if it had retreated to the citadel. I agree that it's a frustrating and rather stupid behavior, but I think that's why the AI does it.

My own gripe is directly related - when you retreat to a castle, you don't get to decide who goes in and who leaves the province. It's always your best units, including your faction leader, if he's there, that end up besieged. Who in his or her right mind would want to do this unless there is no other province available? In this sort of situation, historically, the whole purpose of a fortress was to serve as a (literally) last-ditch defense for an overwhelmed area until help could be sent. Given a choice, no king or general would hole up in a castle and tell his subordinates to go and bring the army. A castle should be a place where you can leave a bunch of crap troops to stall the enemy advance until you can muster the reserves.

[Lord Ovaat]

Tuffen;

Check to see if you're building up heat around the card. Does it have a separate fan? Try removing the side of the case to let air in. Might help. Maybe it's just tired.

[Axeknight]

Ni, you're right. No fortress can hold out indefinately, so its wrong to imagine them as 'Defensive' structures. The idea was to tie up the enemy so he had to stand around for months or years one end, while you mustered the forces to kick his armoured behind back out of your region

My gripe is the same but different to many expressed here. Tactically withdrawing from a province is okayish, but why doesn't the AI then concentrate his troops into 'strong points' - provinces where he keeps many stacks so you can't attack without a huge army, and have to defend all the provinces around for counterattack? The AI seems to think its OK just to retreat indefinately without ever putting up a fight.

[mbrasher1]

My gripes:

-- Trading is a pain when you have to move 25 fleets along one sea area at a time. I wish you could link them and pull them along a chain. It would reduce the tedium.

-- When you get a decent general, and then you commit him to battle. He flees and becomes a good runner. That is devastating when you fight another day. Then you have a good runner/good general forever.

[PseRamesses]

Lost my HRE empire because my king died heirless which is a bit odd since the HRE emperor is elected amongst the generals.

[Ulair]

Quote[/b] (Lord Ovaat @ Mar. 28 2004,16:43)]To my horror, this huge, ugly, glaring image came on the screen:
English Channel, DEFEAT, enemy ships sunk-0, own ships lost-14. I almost hurt myself.

Now that really sucks - that's fist through the monitor stuff. I'd disagree with son of spam: I'd say reloading after that is not cheap; that's just a broken piece of the game.

General quessie: from posts I've seen here it seems the naval battle model is indeed highly suspect, although it's been OK for me in play. Never seen a partial victory, though - seems to be all or nothing... Is naval warfare just broken in MTW?

[Lord Ovaat]

ULAIR, I've seen partial victories, IE, sunk-4, lost-1, etc., but I don't think it's a matter of the naval being broken so much as it was never given much emphases. It's all auto-resolve, and pretty haphazard, at that. I think the development's money was spent in the other areas of the game. It's sad, because the naval aspect is really quite important for economic & military interests. But, if the naval was as detailed as the land battle maps, how long would it have taken CA to complete it? How much would it have cost? And perhaps, most importantly, would the average computer out there be able to handle it? Oh well, we can't have everything. We wouldn't have anything to gripe about.

[BalkanTourist]

Yesterday I was playing the Italians. I read some strategies here, so I decided to give them a try. I rushed Naples the very first turn. Then offered ceize fire to the Byz emperor. He accepted but attacked me at see the very same turn (weird) So I took Rhodes as a punishment. I finally managed to get a peace treaty with him and prepared to invade Sicily (my next target for a prosperous economy ( hey correct me if I am wrong, but Sicily being so rich in the game looks shady to me)). The Sicilians attacked me before I did, so I was like: Great now I won't have to worry about the Pope I waited for them to get excommunicated. Normally I'd hit right back (that's why I don't like playing Catholic fractions). I don't understand why everyone stresses how important it is not to get excommunicated. If you have many armies what is to worry about? It's just the same as playing Egypt or the Byz. They get crusaded too, right? So anyways, I waited, and waited, and waited. Meanwhile, my fleet was disappearing before my eyes and I was getting really pissed. Then I decided to attack Sicily (after all that's all I wanted, didn't care much about Malta). And guess what?? Surprise, Surprise, I get a warning from the Pope. I really wanted to bitch slap that mofo. But I stormed the castle in Sicily and that was that. Then all was going really well for a long time there was peace and prosperity for the Italian nation. I had castles or higher everywhere and tons of cash. The French were acting like bullies, as usual. I don't know why, but in my games it always happens the same thing (boring), the Spanish beat the Almohads easily. The Byz do the same with Egypt and the Turks, and France rocks Europe. They eventually beat the Spanish too. Anyway, I was getting kinda worried. So, when the French got excomm. I launched a crusade against Flanders (another misteriously rich land). I meant to get richer and help the poor Germans, who were getting their arse kicked surrounded in Tyrolia. So I pass thru Tyrolia to get some additional troops for my crusade. And then the Pope dies The French are no longer excomm and there is no need for a crusade any longer. Well, I ended up with a civil war? And on top was at war with the most powerful fraction. Needless to say, it ruined my game

[jimmy]

if you knew the game was going to do this then half the fun is taken out off it because you be able to counter this.it aint perfect but its the best RTS out there bar none you can save games regular then build up up your save games[same faction] but each one slightly differant. build differnt buildings/units invade various countries try various routes concentate on more trade/or be more agressive. there are 99 save game slots but most off all enjoy it. as for RTW whos to say it wont be modded to the middle ages look what people have done with MTW/STW.the chances are people are already looking to do this

[The Tuffen]

Quote[/b] ]Tuffen;

Check to see if you're building up heat around the card. Does it have a separate fan? Try removing the side of the case to let air in. Might help. Maybe it's just tired.

I was running it on my laptop - i've stopped playing M:TW on it now cos of other crashes and annoyances - It happened again after i rebooted my machine so ended up giving up playing the battle and just used auto-calc.

[Ulair]

Quote[/b] (Lord Ovaat @ Mar. 31 2004,13:23)]ULAIR, I've seen partial victories, IE, sunk-4, lost-1, etc., but I don't think it's a matter of the naval being broken so much as it was never given much emphases. It's all auto-resolve, and pretty haphazard, at that. I think the development's money was spent in the other areas of the game. It's sad, because the naval aspect is really quite important for economic & military interests. But, if the naval was as detailed as the land battle maps, how long would it have taken CA to complete it? How much would it have cost? And perhaps, most importantly, would the average computer out there be able to handle it? Oh well, we can't have everything. We wouldn't have anything to gripe about.

Hi Lord Ovaat,

Ooh, full RTS for naval battles - now that would be nice

No, I wouldn't expect that but I would hope for a decent auto-resolve model because, as you say, control of the seas is darn important in the game. Your comment about partial victories reduces my worry some, but even so the odds against a 14 - 0 scoreline in the original scenario must be astronomical.

Just a few more parameters for boats and a simple lookup-based resolution (like the old GDW Imperium tabletop game ) would do me. I really worry it's too simple and allows these pathological cases to arise too frequently.

Sorry, off-topic some. Normal service...

My biggest peeve is planning and fighting a carefully arranged battle, out-manouevering and out-fighting your foe, reducing him to a handful of rabble and then losing or nearly losing becuase of some insanely-powerful Jedi general. But I've whinged elsewhere on this, so I'll shut up

Cheers,
Ulair

[Durruti]

You buy Switzerland & wait for some great mountain battles. The Germans rarely try to get it back. As England you take Flanders; the French counterattack, but against Billmen & Longbows they get slaughtered. The Danes take Swabia; after several years, the Germans make peace. I fall asleep in my comfortable swivel computor chair.

[Bhruic]

Ok, biggest annoyance/disappointment playing just happened. Like the original poster, I was playing Italians in early. Hadn't done much, scooped up the most of present day Italy, leaving one province for his holiness, conquered Egypt with a crusade, took a province or two along the southern European coastline. Was playing turtle style. Part of that required a fairly large army to keep the northern Europeans from invading.

So two stupid things happen. First, the Germans are at war with the French. The French are slowly winning, taking the northern German provinces. So what do the Germans do to fight back? Invade me, of course. Not that they won, I fought them off without too many loses, but what kind of strategy is that? How about fighting back instead of starting a new war?

Then, the French come up on top in the battle vs the Germans. Not a big surprise, considering the German strategy. The French launch a crusade against the Turks, who beat the Byzantines and are fighting the Egyptians. It gets to Tripoli, wins, is swarmed by the Turks, and the French lose the province. So they launch another crusade. This one proceeds to move east, then south, then walk through almost all of my provinces stealing guys, while moving AWAY from Tripoli. Now, I'm not a newbie, I know they can do this, but every time I see it, it cheeses me off. I mean, if they were to take the long route, and hit one of my provinces, that'd be one thing. But moving away from their objective while hitting all of mine and stealing my units is just plain annoying.

At that point, I quit playing. Maybe it's time to go back to a non-Catholic faction again. Stupid crusades.

Oh, and during the same game, I had an interesting bug show up. I sent a daughter to the Germans to make an alliance (this was earlier, before they attacked me). It said it was successful, but the alliance didn't show up for me. I could still send my emissary to offer an alliance. Then, we both invaded a neutral province, and they showed up as allies. I looked again, and although they weren't my allies, apparently I was theirs. Never seen a uni-directional alliance before.

Bh

[Lord Ovaat]

Crusades Yeah, lots of gripes. Crusades were rare, because they financially devasted the country of origin and siphoned off the best troops. There were NO freebie troops, minimal expense, nor high success rate. And they were years in completion. As far as pillaging goes, yeah it happened. But the only time I've been pillaged (Byzantines) was by a crusade with about 200 troops loafing in Georgia where I had FOUR stacks waiting for the Horde. No retribution possible. Could they have pillaged? Yep. Would they have lived to enjoy it? Nope.

However, back to the topic. I had a nasty experience last night that tops the above sea battle, but I can't blame anyone but myself. Got home from work, raining, wife not home. Started new Italian campaign. Played off & on until about 1 AM. Got tired. Hit escape after probably fifty moves. Instead of clicking save game, I clicked quit. Are you sure you want to quit without saving? Crack-brained clicked yes. I really hope I was just tired and not getting senile.

BTW, Med Mod addresses and fixes most of the crusade & Jihad issues.

[Lord Xelous]

I am generally really peeved with the lack of pay back when you honour alliances. You march in, leave hordes of valliant dead to the cuase and you get.. Thanks very much in the mail.... but you can't corss their territory, if you send a Jihad or Crusade you can't corss their territory, as they ask permission to cross yours... it just stinks a little of being incomplete.

That and the lack of more detailed naval engagements, I know it's a land baded game, but it would have been nice to see a little more, maybe a kind of cargo ship or two.

Modders.... Idea there for you


Lord Xelous

[Bigwig]

The pope was holed up in a castle under siege by the Italians, and me being the goody two shoes king of Spain, I declare war on the them and attack some of Italy's territories. I got a warning from the pope next turn.

I'm really, really hoping there's going to be at least a rudimentary diplomacy system in Rome. I can't take much more of this

[Bhruic]

Yay, a new worst disappointment. :)

Was playing the Almohad, controlled all of Spain, all of North Africa, and most of the Middle East. The Byzantine controlled all of their starting territory, all of the north, and had expanded a bit to the west. The rest of the factions were pretty weak. The year is 1208. The Byzantines outnumber me, although I think I have the superior troops. They do have a lot of good generals, however. I'm hoping to hold on to neutrality until the Mongols show up and distract the Byzantines.

Alas, it is not to be. The Byzantines raid my ships, and the war begins. They had a tendancy to win most of the naval battles because they had a lot of +star ships, and I didn't. Still, the biggest threat came from a huge 9 stack army they moved to my frontier in the east. Yikes I was cut off navally from that province, so did the best I could to reinforce it from its neighbours. I managed to get about 1900+ troops in the province. The next turn, they attacked with 7900+. Well, I've faced long odds before.

They had a 7 star general, I luckily had a 9 star general, so had a slight advantage. The battle starts, and lasts about 2 hours. I killed their general in the first wave, so successive waves were a lot easier - the main problem was my units were getting too tired to chase the attackers.

Anyway, I finally won the battle killing 4500+ troops, and losing around 600. A great start to an epic war.

Except that not only did I kill their Emperor, I killed all his heirs, so the whole territory went neutral. Now the only real challenge left will be defeating the horde when they show up, but even that will have lost the spark. Why, oh why did the Byzantines commit their entire royal family to the conflict?

Bh

[BalkanTourist]

Well, I'll disagree on that one. I think you did GREAT. I really wish I had seen that battle. You should be proud of yourself. And don't worry, if you don't take all of the rebel provinces, the Byz will reappear soon enough. I'd try to take them though, or maybe leave the ones that will get directly hit by the Horde. Talking about the GH. I read in one of the threads before about having a greating delegation for His Majesty the Khan with like 50 assasins. I tried that. I had more than 50 and when he showed up I sent them all after him. I killed him with the first one to attack him And he was like a 1* assasin So they turned rebels and since I had over 1 mln florins, I could affort to buy them all and send them fight the Spanish.

[Bhruic]

Oh, I'm not at all disappointed in the battle. My only concern there was that I'd have a power failure or something right at the end. The battle actually went a lot better than I expected, mainly because I made a point of not eliminating units. I'd leave one or two guys and force them to flee the battle. This kept the incoming waves to about 4-5 units at a time, which I could handle pretty easily.

No, the disappointment was with the Byzantines folding after the fight. But what has happened after has been somewhat entertaining. The Byzantines had wiped out the Novogorod, so after the Byzantines were gone, the Novos popped back up. They took about 5 provinces before their leader died - you guessed it, without an heir. After that, the Egyptians popped back up, then finally the Byzantines popped back, reclaiming all of their former territory that hadn't been claimed. But, of course, they no longer had ships, so plenty of their territory promptly spawned rebellions. And to top it off, the horde shows up (and promptly wipes out the Egyptians). So right now the east is pretty much a stalemate, and I'm free to campaign as much as I want in the west. I'll probably just chock this up to a win though, as I could easily take all of Europe without weakening my eastern defenses. I've never been a fan of the mop up stage.

I really have to plug the Almohad Urban Militia tho', those guys were the backbone of my army the entire game, and stood up to pretty much everything I sent them against. Only the Varangian Guard gave them any trouble, and I'd have been disappointed if they didn't.

Bh

[Durruti]

The Hojo hoard syndrom plagues the strategic aspects of the game. Access to $wealth is too easy in the game. North & West Europe did not even have their own currency. Large armies were rare. Only the asian & African states-empires still raised large armies & $$ during the muddle ages (with some exceptions-such as some crusades).

Incidentally, I played a rare hand of Shogun, & as the Green guys, met up with the Usegis in the middle of the board-all other factions had been eliminated- & saw a Usegi (sp) hoard that exceeded the Golden Hoard. I exited the game.

Being swarmed in MTW-Viking by enormous a1 armies limits the winning by fullfilling objectives aspect of the game. It is numbers that count & the game picks up some of the aspects of an RTS click fest.

However, I enjoy MTW, playing opening-move half-games; & when I achieve set objectives (unify all British isles & Flanders, Rebuild the old East Roman Empire, Survive & expand as the Sicilians, bribe the German garrison of Switzerland, & build a mountain empire with the backbone of the Swiss Halberds (one of the 3 best units in the game), I enjoy. Try that last sentence on your English professor.