oh no... is it really this easy?

[parcelt]

Let me start with a little disclaimer: I'm a big fan of the series, having played everyting from the original STW including all XPs and a number of mods. And although I have my gripes with RTW, including BI (see below), I continue to play it every chance I get.

Having said that, BI (after a weekend's almost non-stop playing), has dissappointed me. I agree that many things have improved - graphics far better and smoother, tactical AI noticably better - but the campaign is key for me, and it simply sucks. I tried 3 campaigns (all vh/h), and all three made me quit feeling dissappointed.

First with the ERE. A total cakewalk where all you need to do is be consistent on religion (replaced everyting pagan for churches) and build up trade. Attacks are few and weak. In fact, all that ever happens is the blue guys from the east (what's their name?) attack Antioch every 3-4 turns or so with a bunch of skirmishers and the occasional heavy cavalry. They are easily repelled with my much smaller garrison of mediocre troops. The hunnic horde paid a visit to Constantinople but after 7-8 battles (all virtually identical) where I sallied from the city to attack the single stack he had sieging me, while the rest was standing around aimlessly. Once that was over, nothing really happened and I quit after about 60 turns. Of course, I could have taken the fight to them, but aren't the Barbarian Invasions supposed to make me shudder and fight against impossible odds to hold on to at least some of my empire? Well, not in this campaign.
On a side note, the WRE did even better then me, its AI did not seem to have any problems in over 60 turns with either rebellions nor barbarians coming in. It was just one campaign, I know, but still it was on VH and I expected the romans having to fight a little harder.

So, I then tried the WRE (again vh/h), since it is supposed to be the hardest faction. Yawn again. As described in other threads, it really is just a matter of organization. Loot and give up on a few outlying cities, consolidate your holdings, built up trade where you can, and you'll be fine. Again, the supposedly ferocious barbarian hordes didn't really hurt me. Their actions seem uncoordinated and they hardly ever make use of their advantage in numbers. Quit the campaign after about 45 turns.

Ok, I thought, let's try a barbarian campaign then. So I picked the Allemani, who start out with a single settlement in the middle of the map, right above the alpes. I figured that with such a central location they were bound to get into trouble. Actually I did have to fight quite a couple of opening battles. Unfortunately, the WRE armies that were close were really no match. My spearmen can hold the line against pretty much anything and a few units of cavalry or fast nightraiders are enough to flank and kill. So I quickly conquered the two closest roman settlements (one south and one to the north-west), then moved on the roman town just south of the alps. Again, hardly any resistance. I began to wonder what the WRE was up to (they sure weren't too concerned about me picking off their cities one by one), so I lifted the FOW. Turned out they had more than 4 full stacks busy conquering the rebel towns in the north-west of europe..... those stacks could have easily turned on my homelands and crushed me forever. So much for strategic AI. I then conquered the last city before Rome itself, again way too easy. Interestingly, I then saw movement coming from the east, with the ERE sending two full stacks (no family members though), apparently to help defend Rome. Too bad they almost completely consisted of archers and eastern archers, and were easily dispatched. So, I am about 20 turns into this campaign which starts you as a lowely barbarian tribe without any holdings to speak of, and taking Rome (almost no garrison at all) is just a formality. Oh, and the hordes coming from the east apparently like me because I had a few passing through my lands but all chose to leave my lightly defended cities alone. Again, yawn and quit.

Well, not sure what my point is..... just that having played 3 campaigns with different factions I had to quit each time because of pure boredom. That didn't happen (so fast) with RTW. Surely, unless this was a bad twist of randomness and in my next try (again, I am playing on VH mind you) I will be utterly crushed on the campaign map, what is the point of the expansion? The (free) patch itself would have sufficed.

[caesar44]

What they are doing there at CA ? Damn !!!

[Bob the Insane]

I don't know what to say but I am having a pretty cool campaign as WRE. I managed to keep the empire together by mainting the exsisting religion of the provinces. I defeated the couple of revolts that appeared and managed to balance the books to start making money and being able to rebuild.

The campaign became a little quiet at that point. Lots of building up and slowly developing a couple of legions for defence and dealing with rebels. A lot of monitoring the seetles to keep public order in chack and keep the taxes flowing.

The years have flowed by pretty quick and the empire is growing strong again. Harassment from the Berbers and the Celts have been dealt and the ERE have broken their alliance with us and attacked. They have been thrown from the wall a couple of times with no shortage of luck involved.

Recently the Vandels have turned up, overrun a small army I had defending the Danube crossing and attacked a walled city. Dispite my preperation the city fell to an assault and that was pretty exciting (god I wish you could save campaign battles).

Personally I find the BI campaign starts with a bang and then going quiet for a while and then the real fun kicks of... Just my experience so far. The the ERE armies that attacked me? Archers, legionaries, cavalry and generals (sometimes)... I have only survived by destroying their siege equipment...

SOrry, should have said this is Hard/Hard...

[Doug-Thompson]

parcelt

Play the Huns and tell me what to do here. Tactcially, they're simplistic, but I'm befuddled over where and when to settle down.

As for the rest, I have to say that my "blitz" style of playing Total War games is completely shot. Eliminate a rival faction in the opening moves and they turn into a horde.

[Conqueror]

As for the rest, I have to say that my "blitz" style of playing Total War games is completely shot. Eliminate a rival faction in the opening moves and they turn into a horde.

Isn't the horde supposed to head *away* from the faction that gave them the kicking, though? So they would be sent rampaging through other peoples lands. I don't really know how it works since I'm waiting for my copy.

[Doug-Thompson]

Isn't the horde supposed to head *away* from the faction that gave them the kicking, though? So they would be sent rampaging through other peoples lands. I don't really know how it works since I'm waiting for my copy.

Maybe it depends on whether they have somewhere to run. I conquered a city that was one faction's last remaining settlement, and they took it back the next turn with a horde.

[TinCow]

Well, it's probably just chance but I've been struggling for the first time ever in RTW on my current WRE VH/VH campaign. I abandoned about half my territories on the second turn when I realized they were all going to revolt. After contracting and spending some time getting my finances back into the black, I managed to assemble three operational armies. My main army is defending northern Italy and is composed of the finest troops I can recruit. My second army is in southern Gaul acting as defense against the WRE Rebels and to grab territories when able. My third is a purely defensive force holding Carthage for trade purposes.

While the WRE Rebels haven't done much to me since my raze and flee decisions left them with nothing to build but peasants, the Hordes have been a major pain. So far I've had three in the area. The Sarmatians arrived very early with a four stack horde in Northern Italy. They attacked, I defended and after several battles (some won, some lost) I managed to whittle their forces down and finished them via family death. This gobbled up a large amount of my reserve finances though and crippled my Northern Italy army for a while. The second horde was the Goths, who came with a massive six stack army and marched right through Northern Italy again. I was so depleted from the Sarmatians that I gambled on letting them walk through. It worked and they went through the western Alps and took a WRE Rebel city for their new homeland. I signed an Alliance with them to keep them away from me.

When the Goths moved in I took advantage of the WRE Rebel defeat in the area to recapture a city I had abandoned to them earlier. This I did with ease with my frontier army which I kept in the city on garrison duty along with my second best general and another family member. About 3-4 turns later, the Vandal horde arrived five stacks and laid siege to this city. I beat off the first assault by a single stack, but it vastly depleated my garrison and I was beseiged again before I could repair my walls and reinforce my units. Two turns later, I was assaulted by all four remaining stacks at once. They didn't even use reinforcements, all four stacks entered the battle at once, with city completely surrounded on three sides and five breaches in the wall from the first battle. I did my best, but I was slaughtered to the last man. This coincided with the death of my Emperor to the plague and since he had superb management and influence, I went into about 5-6 years of debt. I just got back into the black and am currently scrambling to rebuild my second army because I cannot sufficiently protect all my territories in Europe with one force. If another horde comes through or the Vandals press their assault on my other cities (they have not done this so far) within the next 10 turns I may well lose this game.

While the battle AI is still easy to beat in 1:1 or 2:1 odds, I simply cannot field enough of a force as the WRE to withstand multiple hordes of chosen horde swordsmen, horde spearmen and horde horse archers. I've pulled off some miracles with my small force in Carthage, but I've had several battles with major armies in Europe where I knew I would lose and my goal was simply to whittle the enemy forces down as much as possible. I've never had this happen to me in RTW before.

[Doug-Thompson]

Wait a minute.

Parcelt, if there weren't any hordes attacking you and your empire was stabilized, why weren't you well on your way to meeting the victory conditions and winning the game after 45 turns?

Yes, I understand you were bored at that point, but going over to the offensive is not as trouble-free in BI as defense.

[Orda Khan]

I am in a Hun campaign like Doug and my hordes have yet to settle too. I just sacked Constantinople and a few other nearby ERE cities, mainly because I needed the plunder. I will probably take Constantinople from the rebels and settle there to see what happens next. During these early years I have attacked the Goths, Vandals, Roxolanni and Longobards, sending them all in search of a new homeland. The Alemanni attacked me and were destroyed. There have been many rebellions reported in both WRE and ERE and all this is on medium settings.
Incidentally, how do you activate FOW? I have never done this and I am curious now to find out what the AI is doing

.....Orda

[parcelt]

To Doug-Thompson:

I probably was well on my way towards meeting victory conditions, but didn't even check (also not sure on the exact amount of turns played). Also, I was attacked (somewhat) by hordes, but nothing that would bring me in real trouble. I don't really care about winning the campaign, I care about having difficulties just surviving, in other words, a good challenge.

But I must say Tincow's reply gives me some new hope: although I was never attacked like that (4 stacks at once, now we're talking!), apparently it is possible. Hopefully I was just 'lucky' in the one campaign as WRE I played. Perhaps other factions suffered the full power of the hordes before they got to me, or something like that. I think I'll try again.

Still, I continue a bit worried. Three campaigns (my first three!) should not have been so easy.

On the positive side, I also experienced some of the improvements in battle AI reported elsewhere on the forum. Had one great battle where I let the AI control my reinforcements. The enemy was a single army but somewhat larger than my total forces (me barbarian, them romans). Through some heavy manouvering by my AI general the enemy eventually split its forces. It split its army into two, more or less similar and both quite balanced, mini-armies. Not a bad move. It left one half parked on a small hill with flanks covered by forest, and went hunting for my AI archers with the other half. The two forces soon engaged in full battle and I only saved the day by running my own general and two units of nightraiders over just in time, my AI's first spear unit had already routed. After that, it was easy enough to kill the other half on the hill. Btw, no suicidal generals on either side in this battle!

Aahh, have to back playing now. thanks guys, just talking about it makes me feel good about the game again!

[[DnC]]

Orda Khan,

Press ` (tilde) and type in toggle_fow to activate and deactivate FOW.

[gardibolt]

Is the toggle of FOW unlimited under 1.3?

[[DnC]]

Don't think so. I've used toggle_fow several times in the same gamesession.

[Doug-Thompson]

I probably was well on my way towards meeting victory conditions, but didn't even check (also not sure on the exact amount of turns played). Also, I was attacked (somewhat) by hordes, but nothing that would bring me in real trouble. I don't really care about winning the campaign, I care about having difficulties just surviving, in other words, a good challenge.

But I must say Tincow's reply gives me some new hope: although I was never attacked like that (4 stacks at once, now we're talking!), apparently it is possible. Hopefully I was just 'lucky' in the one campaign as WRE I played. Perhaps other factions suffered the full power of the hordes before they got to me, or something like that. I think I'll try again.

After re-reading this thread topic and frogbeategg's very unhappy initial experience, I think this game does have a significant issue:

You might get a good fight for survival. You might not.

More precisely, your fight for survival might come early, it might come later, it might come too late to be a serious threat or it might not come at all.

I don't see any way to account for the very wide variety of experiences people are reporting with the strategy game.

Hordes are wild. Crusades in M:TW were usually focused on the Levant provinces. If not, they had a specific region as a goal.

Hordes are just looking for a home. They might attack your province. They might not.

[TinCow]

Hordes are wild. Crusades in M:TW were usually focused on the Levant provinces. If not, they had a specific region as a goal.

Hordes are just looking for a home. They might attack your province. They might not.

Exactly. I can tell you for a FACT that if the second horde (Goth) hadn't just walked peacfully through my territory I would have lost that game right there and that was only about 20 turns in. At the same time, if neither of my two horde fights had occurred, I would be sitting pretty with half my abandoned territory reclaimed already. I must say though, hordes seem far more threatening when they're wandering. After taking one homeland, they don't move anywhere near as much even if they have several full stacks left.

[Orda Khan]

Well I took Constantinople and then another town ( Carnulicum? SP ) My family member in that town died and I was booted out within 3 turns...so things are not easy here

......Orda

p.s. Thanks [DnC] I will give the ` a try

[Kraxis]

p.s. Thanks [DnC] I will give the ` a try

Because that key is to the rleft of bckspace on my keyboard I just want to say you need to hit the key to the left of 1 and below Esc.

[Grifman]

I don't see any way to account for the very wide variety of experiences people are reporting with the strategy game.

Actually, it's quite easy and you explain it yourself below:

Hordes are wild. Crusades in M:TW were usually focused on the Levant provinces. If not, they had a specific region as a goal.

Hordes are just looking for a home. They might attack your province. They might not.

You explained it quite well :)

There's inevitably going to be a certain bit, indeed, perhaps major bit of randomness. Who do the Huns attack first? How well does that attack go? Where does that tribe go next? Do they attack another tribe or invade the empire? Which of your cities will revolt due to various circumstances - I've had different ones each game. That's not scripted I'm certain, there's randomness in all that.

I thought things were going well, I was making 5,000+ per turn as the WRE, then I get the Vandals, Goths and Huns all heading for Illyricum/Pannonia/N Italy. That was a bitch.

[Doug-Thompson]

Well, Grifman, all I can say is "Oops. Good catch."

Obviously, that sentence ought to read: "I don't see any other way to account for the very wide variety of experiences people are reporting with the strategy game."

[Grifman]

Well, Grifman, all I can say is "Oops. Good catch."

Obviously, that sentence ought to read: "I don't see any other way to account for the very wide variety of experiences people are reporting with the strategy game."

Ah, I thought you were too smart for your own good there :)

That said, I love the unpredictability ao far, though I wish there was more action on the Rhine frontier. That seemed to be a pretty big problem for the Romans, but that area seems quiet compared with the Danube. But that may just be this game - but it seems like the impact of the Huns is rather limited in the NE of the empire.

[Grimmy]

I saw it happen. With my very own newbie eyeballs. I was playin ERE on med/med (yep, I'm weak that way) and not long into the game I saw the hunn get the wood layed to em good by those folk just north of my northern Greek-land cities (old northern macedonia area I believe).

The Hunn popped up with mass stacks and got me all in a tizzy but they went for the other guy's town first and I watched 4 of their stacks reduced to not much left at all. They didnt manage to take the city but did start a siege... then who shows up? but the Vandals also in hord mode. The Hunn and the Vandels go roundy round for a couple turns till both were bascially cut down to approx 1/3 of their original strengths. The Hunn never got that city btw.

[Orda Khan]

Yes it does appear that the Huns are less of a threat than expected. They remind me of the weak Golden Horde of MTW

.....Orda

[Puzz3D]

There's inevitably going to be a certain bit, indeed, perhaps major bit of randomness.

Well it's no surprise. MikeB already said the BI campaign had a lot of randomness designed into it.

[parcelt]

Ok, I just edited the title to reflect the fact that I now seem to be appropriately crushed - as it should be - after starting a new WRE campaign. The financial problems faced by that faction are not as bad as they seem: consolidate your holdings and disband most of those 300+/turn upkeep garrison troops, and your boats. Build some peasants instead (As a sidenote: a good Ironman rule would be not to allow that. Greatly increases WRE's difficulty as you get hammered between a need for garrisons to quell unrests, yet cannot afford them. I am currently restricting myself to 1 peasant unit per city).

But even if that makes your financial problems go away (I made 1k-2k after turn 4), it leaves you weakened. And unlike in my previous campaign, now the hordes hit in full force. It was the Gothes that killed my best remaining troops (remaining after the purging of turn 1, reminded me a bit of what Stalin did right before WWII.... but I'm digressing), after I was so stupid to meet them in the field instead of hiding behind my walls. There is now almost nothing left between them and Rome itself.... great!

I think all this is further proof of the point made above - that BI contains a very high degree of randomness. I am not sure yet whether this in the end will be a good or bad thing: may improve longevity of the game, but can also sometimes lead to boring campaigns. Time (and playing a hell of a lot of campaigns!) will tell.

[Malcolm Big Head]

Randomness

Perhaps I should try the sarmatians again to see If I can hold my initial homeland. Last time the huns sent me packing and when I settled in a rebel territory I realized that I should have scouted the area better because the vandals wanted to stop in for a drink.

[TinCow]

The best way I've found to deal with the Horde stacks is to engage them in night battles in the field. Letting them siege you is dangerous if you can't beat them in a sally, since their multiple stacks can renew the siege before you can repair and refit even if you do beat them. Engaging them in the field without night battles is dangerous since they usually cluster so closely that you have to fight at least two stacks at a time. Thus, attack a night and eliminate on stack at a time.

[Geoffrey S]

An awful lot of people seem to be having easy first campaigns; is there a chance CA built in some kind of difficulty increase after, say, two started campaigns? It just strikes me a lot of people say their first campaigns are walkovers, then start a new one and get thrashed.

Of course, it could just as easily be the random nature of the hordes.

[Kraxis]

An awful lot of people seem to be having easy first campaigns; is there a chance CA built in some kind of difficulty increase after, say, two started campaigns? It just strikes me a lot of people say their first campaigns are walkovers, then start a new one and get thrashed.

Of course, it could just as easily be the random nature of the hordes.

Most people that have a nice campaign don't say much, they just love to play it. Those that experiences a bad one will of course come here to vent their sadness. I believe it is the random factor playing in.

[Conqueror]

Well I just got started on my first campaign (Sassanids). I've only played for a few years, so not far into the game yet. My faction starts in a location where there aren't any barbarians nearby, only the ERE, and I got my back comfortably secured by the map edge to boot. The ERE hasn't attacked me yet and I'm not strong enough to attack them either, so it's been just skirmishes with pesky rebels so far. But those romans are massing their troops near my borders, so I guess it's just a matter of time now. They even made peace with Sarmatians and haven't been attacked by barbarians yet making me their sole enemy for the time being.

[GFX707]

Randomness

Perhaps I should try the sarmatians again to see If I can hold my initial homeland. Last time the huns sent me packing and when I settled in a rebel territory I realized that I should have scouted the area better because the vandals wanted to stop in for a drink.

My first campaign was as the Sarmatians....after thinking it was going to be just like RTW Vanilla I started building up my initial city, ignoring the warnings about the Hun hordes (couldn't see anything on my map after all) and before I knew it there were 6 stacks sieging my city! With only a wooden stockade I managed to hold out for around 10 turns and with my half-stack that was defending the city I must have taken out 2 full stacks....I will tell you though I was pretty impressed with the sheer amount of troops they sent (my first battle was a night battle with 3 full Hun stacks on the map!!!!) and soon I was overwhelmed....uh oh, I thought, game over....but then I got my own horde! Foolishly I used it to fight the Huns in the field (although I eventually beat them) and on bridges and wasted a lot of troops instead of heading West....and I ended up with 2 settlements, one stone walled city (Sirmium) and that other Sarmatae one (Campus Sarmatae I think it was called) and I couldn't get out of debt and had full ERE stacks sieging me every turn....

My second campaign (as Sarmatia again) has gone much more smoothly....I simply uprooted first turn and went straight for Constantinople which I took, then lost, then took again and now (in a cunningly synchronised "settling" maneouvre with which I used 3 horde stacks to take 3 cities at once) I have added a few walled cities to my fledgling nation.....I suppose hindsight like that is cheating though :(