oh no... is it really this easy?

[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.

[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 :(

[Garvanko]

I tried posting this on the Franks Guide thread, but the thread doesn't work for some reason. Mods?

Wow! My franks campaign has turned into a real dogfight. The Saxons have been throwing stack after stack at me with no end in sight, and all their armies have units full of 6xp infantry and sea raiders. Battles have been fun, but the balance has been tipped by my newly acquired noble cavalry and heerben infantry.

The Lombardi have broken alliance and attacked Vikus Franki. Full stack. My garrison is full of 3xp peasants, so I hope it can hold in case they attack next turn before my big army can arrive to support.

toggle_fow has revealed a roman empire crumbling in the face of huge vandal and hunnic hordes. The ERE has been kicked off Greece, and are heavily involved in a murder-death-kill scrap with the Sassanids. The WRE can't seem to stop the tide of Berbers, Vandals and just about everyone else. Indeed, all the barbarian factions seem to be doing well and expanding, which should make the later game very interesting. The Vandals look like they'll be passing my way in about ten years. Unfortunately, Im piss-poor, and in no proper shape to take them on alongside the Saxons, WRE and the Lombardi.

Bring it on.

[Captain Fishpants]

<snip>

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.

Here's a thing. We had hoped that people would find it interesting to have different experiences when playing the game. *sigh* With RTW we were beaten with sticks because it was all too static, now we're in danger of being beaten with sticks because things are unpredictable.

Hordes generally go for the richest and least defended nearby target - quite reasonable behaviour, if you think about it. However, the AI does know which regions are on its 'victory conditions' list and will aim towards those areas, given a chance.

There's more randomness in the campaign because the horde factions may 'cascade' across the map with a domino effect - one horde triggers another and so on. Taking an attractive settlement may well trigger the appearance of a new horde, which will head off *away* from the aggressor. However, it's equally possible that the AI might decide that a settlement is just a bit too well defended and bypass it in search of richer pickings. In this second case, the first domino never falls.

On the other hand - as people are starting to realise - BI does not repay a passive strategy, either with a victory or as a gaming experience. Then again - strategy games aren't really supposed to do that, are they? You need to get out there and take the sword and fire to your enemies!

[Zatoichi]

Hey Cap'n! I'm loving the 'randomness' - like Kraxis I thought I'd got my ERE campaign settled and was gearing up for a push on Rome, when a combination of Hordes, Eastern Roman Rebels and religious unrest conspired to whack me back on all fronts. I think that's great, and a vast improvement on the RTW dynamic!

Kudos to you and the rest of the team!

[Jambo]

Here's a thing. We had hoped that people would find it interesting to have different experiences when playing the game. *sigh* With RTW we were beaten with sticks because it was all too static, now we're in danger of being beaten with sticks because things are unpredictable.

Well, I for one, absolutely love the increased randomness of the campaign! I've lost my first two campaigns which to my knowledge has never happened to me before with any other TW title. I've also been playing on only H/H instead of my standard VH/H just to allow me some space to get to grips with the intricacies of the new campaign. So, kudos to CA for BI.

However, it would have been even more excellent had some of the fantastic BI features been backward-compatible with the original Imperial Campaign. I would loved to have experienced the randomness of hordes, rebellions and atmospheric night battles in 1.3... alas.

[Doug-Thompson]

Capt'n;

We've had our disagreements before, but this is not one of them.

The hordes do inject a very much needed dose of danger and impredictibility in the game. In fact, I'll gladly find the quote from before BI came out where I said that, hopefully, hordes will put back the "creative chaos" that Crusades brought to M:TW.

They have. With a vengence. I'm about to win the most interesting campaign I've ever waged in the Total War series, where I'll emerge victorious after being soundly beaten in every battle but one, and can thank my victory to the vital role of the ERE navy.

Also, the quote from me has an omitted word. That was corrected after Grifman caught it and pointed it out. It should read:

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

This corrected quote and the reply from Tincow was also in froggies "So ..." thread, where I put:

To clarify, I'm not complaining about inpredictability per se.

The game would have a lot of replay value if you never know when a horde will hit. The trick is to have hordes hit often enough that no faction can safely ignore them.

[SpencerH]

Here's a thing. We had hoped that people would find it interesting to have different experiences when playing the game. *sigh* With RTW we were beaten with sticks because it was all too static, now we're in danger of being beaten with sticks because things are unpredictable.

It wasnt being too static that caused the 'beatings' it was the direction the game had taken away from the previous TW games.

I havent bought or played BI yet, but from my reading here the unpredictability of the gameplay has been seen as a very welcome addition. The problems have come from experienced TW players who are looking for more difficulty but are 'unlucky' enough to have easy campaign starts.

[a_b_danner]

The problems have come from experienced TW players who are looking for more difficulty but are 'unlucky' enough to have easy campaign starts.

I haven't had an 'easy' campaign yet, and i used to mod the Bouies ROMA mod because it was to easy. Vanilla economy is a real bitch on VH. Battles are reasonably hard (on VH). Hordes are an awesome feature, especially because they are completely modable - some factions can keep a strong army through multiple hordes, and others can be modded to weaken substantially after the first horde. Modders will be able to put this to excellent use for a long time.

[Garvanko]

Very impressive TinCow.

[Kraxis]

I had a similar battle just on a smaller scale against the Slavs. It was brutal... Even a unit of PLumbatarii that sarted out at 16 (and ended with 16) men managed to kill more than 60 enemies.

ButI found a way to counter units coming out of towers, if you have a unit with pila or plumbata, just stand a short distance away and let them chuck spears at them. I had a depleted unit of Plumbatarii suppoed to block a tower full of Chosen Steppe Swordsmen. No chance! So I moved them out of the way so I didn't risk my men getting pushed over the side. When the Chosens rushed out they ran into a hail of plumbata, and my unit managed to deplete them enough to be able to win in the melee. Sure, some Steppe Horde Spearmen also rushed up the tower, but they were no match for my victorious Plumbatarii.

[Grifman]

Here's a thing. We had hoped that people would find it interesting to have different experiences when playing the game. *sigh* With RTW we were beaten with sticks because it was all too static, now we're in danger of being beaten with sticks because things are unpredictable.

Captain, I just want to say that this is a great "expansion", IMO the equivalent of a whole new game with the same engine. And more on point, the unpredictability of the hordes is great. Just when you think you may have things under control, a horde is thrown across your borders due to one tribe pushing another out. I can only imagine how hard this was to pull off effectively, but it appears CA has done it. Great game so far, so much more than the usual buildup and conquer mode of most 4X games.

[Havard]

Here's a thing. We had hoped that people would find it interesting to have different experiences when playing the game. *sigh* With RTW we were beaten with sticks because it was all too static, now we're in danger of being beaten with sticks because things are unpredictable.

I, for one, love the randomness and unpredictability.

[Prodigal]

The unpredicability factors a hoot, I keep on trying to work out a strategy based on my last defeat, put it into action in a new game, then something goes horribly wrong...They weren't supposed to do that!

[TinCow]

I just had the most intense and critical battle of any TW campaign I've ever played.

After finally taking back Burdigala after a long campaign, the Vandals horded again and went south into Iberia. They beseiged a WRE Rebel city, which went gray Rebel after several turns. The Vandals then turned right around and marched back to Burdigala with their four remaining stacks.

I had since built stone walls and the city was garrisoned by my reconstituted frontier legion which was a medium-size, high quality force. I sent three heavy Sarmation cavalry units and a very good general to help in whatever way they could. These units came from a northern Gaul town I had conquered several turns before and they left that town with only a weak defensive force. The turn after my cavalry reinforcements left the town, the Franks declared war and beseiged it. At the same time, my allies the Goths turned on me and attacked my cavalry force in the field. I withdrew, but they pursued and slaughtered all four units to the last man. I now had three enemies with a total of seven strong stacks in Gaul, and the only sizable military force I had in the area was the one being beseiged by the Vandals. With attacks in Africa by the Berbers and around the Danube by the Allemani (they moved east) it would have been impossible to rebuild a new Gaulic Legion and send reinforcements to these two other fronts as well. Losing Burdigala would probably mean losing all four of my cities in Gaul, which would essentially have erased 2/3 of my gains since the start of the game.

The assault came after two turns of siege, and once again I faced four stacks at once. It was my force of 1834 Romans against 7473 Vandals and I was playing a campaign with no time limit in battles.



When the battle started, I saw to my horror that the Vandals had been busy while they were in camp. They came with two rams, two towers and worst of all, four unburnable ladders. The arrangement was, ram in on the door, two ladders on each side of the ram, one tower on each side after the ladders and the second ram preparing to make a dash for a second gate Notice where all four armies entered from on the minimap.



I positioned my three archer units so that one could target the main ram, one could target the east tower and one could target the west tower. I placed ALL of my infantry in front of the four ladders. I didn't feel that I had enough units to cover six wall entry points, so I gambled on the archers being able to burn the towers. I had three generals and a light cavalry unit available to defend the door in the unlikely chance the ram did not burn. However, this would be a suicide force, since a breach of the door would allow all 22 enemy cavalry units to storm the city, a force that I could never have countered. I had to stop the enemy on the walls or the army, the city, and all of Gaul was lost. I hope you see now why it was an intense battle.

It started predictably enough, both rams went up in flames quickly, but to my dismay the towers closed on the wall without igniting. All the infantry units on the entire map now closed on the ladder area. The ones that had to run around the walls took about 1/4 to 1/3 casualties from towers, but most of the other three armies were cavalry heavy anyway, so this didn't help much. The 22 cavalry remained stationary waiting for the gates to open.

I was annoyed with the towers getting to the wall on the flanks of my infantry that was now heavily engaged at every point along the wall with thousands of Vandals pouring up the ladders. I expected everything to be alright though, since I had placed my anti-tower archers so that they could continue to hit the towers while they loaded up. The infantry were barely holding on the wall and in a few points gaps opened in my units. At one point I had three groups of 40+ enemies grouped in different areas of the wall, having split my units apart. I orded all infantry units into the wall battle to push back the ladder climbers, not imagining that my archers could fail against the towers. Yet, volley after volley of fire arrows failed to burn them. Eventually the towers disgorged their troops on both my flanks at once. At this point, the I knew the town was lost. Half of the tower units were now on the walls at my flanks and more were ready to climb and reinforce the flankers once the first units were clear of the tower.

Then, the miracle happened. Both of my archer units were on their very last volleys. I paused the game in despair to watch the western unit loose its last shot, taking all hopes of victory along with it. The arrows flew, hit, and went out. I turned back to look at the front, wondering how long it would take until my men finally failed. When I turned back to the western tower, it was smoking! The last volley had ignited it! It burned quickly and collapsed, killing the 1/3 of the unit that remained inside. I could hardly believe my luck. I paused the game again and looked at my eastern flank. I checked the minimap because I thought I was looking in the wrong place... the eastern tower had burned and collapsed as well! Both archer units had burned their towers ON THEIR VERY LAST VOLLEYS. While I had a 2/3 strength Chosen Swordsmen unit on each of my flanks, the threat of further flanking reinforcements was gone.

All was not safe though, my infantry were making headway on the ladder hordes, but they would need several minutes to secure the area before the outermost units could turn and engage the flankers. I charged my arrowless archers into the flankers, hoping that they would die slowly enough to stall them. At the same time, I took my light cavalry and stormed out the front gate, hoping they could cut down some of the men at the bases of the ladders. This turned out to be pointless, since my unit refused to engage any unit that had at least one man on a ladder. They reacted like the men were inaccessible. The main army cavalry came after this expeditionary unit and destroyed them, though losing a substantial number of their own to the wall towers.

The a couple minutes passed and my archers died quickly, but their fight to the death lasted long enough for me to defeat enough of the ladder climbers to allow me to disengage the units on the ends of my line and turn them on the flankers. Slowly, ever so slowly, the flankers were themselves flanked and eliminated. After a while, the stream of men up the ladders began to dissipate. Eventually I watched in disbelief as the last enemy infantryman climbed to the top of his ladder and was dispatched by the waiting legionary. With this, the 22 enemy cavalry units turned and retreated, having no possible way to enter the city. I had lost half my army, but I had prevailed and my forces would survive to be refitted. I now had a chance to deal with the Goths and Franks and save my Gaulic provinces.

The end results show the absolute carnage that my infantry had to endure on the Wall of Slaughter. I was reminded of the speech line, "tomorrow, our sword arms will ache from overuse!"




Now THAT, ladies and gentlemen, was a battle! I love this game.

[Doug-Thompson]

I see they didn't name the general "Marcus the Gambler" for nothing.

That's incredible. How many stacks did 5,668 men make?

Five units with more than 500 kills apiece. Two more with more than 100 kills.

All I can say is, thank CA that barbarians can't sap.