Golden Horde!

[Lord Cazaric]

I managed to destroy the Mongol army by hitting them with the hundred Byzantine cavalry I commanded and then withdrawing, hitting then withdrawing etc. as the Horde approached my force.

After that I charged some kataphraktoi forward, devastating their foot soldiers and waited for them to reach me. When they did, I got my woodsmen and urban militia to fight them (remember their anti-armour bonus)while steppe cavalry and kataphraktoi flanked their force and cut them down. After that, bringing down their reinforcements was a simple task, and so the Byzantine Empire managed to hold Khazar against the Mongols.

In Volga-Bulgaria, the lone defender (for the purpose of this post, we'll call him Harold Bunshwun-Nobvaikulingson) was not so fortunate and Volga-Bulgaria was lost for a very short time!

[Martok]

I'm surprised to hear that so many here play with the timer running. I feel like I'm cheating if I use it on defense.

My sentiments exactly. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Any battle that I win by running out the clock just doesn't feel like a true victory. I'm by no means criticizing those that do play with the clock on; I myself just prefer to do without it.

Oh, and I also don't care for the time limit on offensive battles, either. It's very frustrating to lose simply because I couldn't locate the enemy's last two men that are hiding in the woods somewhere.

[Don Esteban]

I'm surprised to hear that so many here play with the timer running. I feel like I'm cheating if I use it on defense. Plus, I'm such a slow attacker that it really hurts me on offense.

For the sake of marriage if nothing else i have to use the timer otherwise I can't imagine how much time I'd spend playing! At least now I can say i'll be finished in an hour.......I agree that epic no-timer battles are more enjoyable but sometimes real life does get in the way.

[caravel]

For the sake of marriage if nothing else i have to use the timer otherwise I can't imagine how much time I'd spend playing! At least now I can say i'll be finished in an hour.......I agree that epic no-timer battles are more enjoyable but sometimes real life does get in the way.

I had a similar problem a few nights ago, I remember shouting, well I had imbibed somewhat if I recall, anway I do remember saying, something to the effect of:

"for gods sake woman!!! don't you realise there's a war on???!!"

I was lucky not to spend the night in the garden...

Despite this I still don't use the timer. If I think a long drawn out battle is coming up, I save the game and call it a day, or even autocalc if it's yet another me vs the horde scenario for the millionth time.

[Don Esteban]

I had a similar problem a few nights ago, I remember shouting, well I had imbibed somewhat if I recall, anway I do remember saying, something to the effect of:

"for gods sake woman!!! don't you realise there's a war on???!!"

I was lucky not to spend the night in the garden...

Despite this I still don't use the timer. If I think a long drawn out battle is coming up, I save the game and call it a day, or even autocalc if it's yet another me vs the horde scenario for the millionth time.

you were very lucky to get away with that one

As my wife is Spanish and has a typically Latin disposition I think the computer would have been thrown out of the window as well.......my next game would have been DIVORCE: TOTAL WAR

[Caerfanan]

I'm surprised to hear that so many here play with the timer running. I feel like I'm cheating if I use it on defense. Plus, I'm such a slow attacker that it really hurts me on offense.

I'm actually considering puting the timer off myself. Because I won't play any attacking battles involving reinforcements because I fear that I would loose a battle because I'm not rushing enough...

[Caerfanan]

I had a similar problem a few nights ago, I remember shouting, well I had imbibed somewhat if I recall, anway I do remember saying, something to the effect of:

"for gods sake woman!!! don't you realise there's a war on???!!"

I was lucky not to spend the night in the garden...

Despite this I still don't use the timer. If I think a long drawn out battle is coming up, I save the game and call it a day, or even autocalc if it's yet another me vs the horde scenario for the millionth time.

Outch... Well, you could still pause the game and resume it later? My girl descending from the vikings, I wouldn't try such things to check if I get a two handed battleaxe through my skull or not. But she finds it funny to see me all excited about ordering little computer thinggies into disembowelling each other. As long as there's a balance between computer games and real life, it's no problem.

[caravel]

Outch... Well, you could still pause the game and resume it later? My girl descending from the vikings, I wouldn't try such things to check if I get a two handed battleaxe through my skull or not. But she finds it funny to see me all excited about ordering little computer thinggies into disembowelling each other. As long as there's a balance between computer games and real life, it's no problem.

Well I am in the same (latin disposition) situation as the Don above. I may find myself, and the PC, outside rather too quickly...

I cannot recommend enough disabling the timer, there are many more pros than cons, for example. Aside from Martok's primary points about winning cheaply on time when defending and losing when attacking trying to hunt down two men in a wood, realism is another, though lesser, factor in this. You can hardly imagine a battle in those days, stopping because it ran out of time?!

"I'm afraid that's all the slaughter we've got time for today! "

[Caerfanan]

Well I am in the same (latin disposition) situation as the Don above. I may find myself, and the PC, outside rather too quickly...

Being french and having a part of italian blood, I'm the latin disposed there!

I cannot recommend enough disabling the timer, there are many more pros than cons, for example. Aside from Martok's primary points about winning cheaply on time when defending and losing when attacking trying to hunt down two men in a wood, realism is another, though lesser, factor in this. You can hardly imagine a battle in those days, stopping because it ran out of time?!

"I'm afraid that's all the slaughter we've got time for today! "

Well, yes, and no. I'm not that sure about it, but didn't the medieval battles stop at night? I'm not certain about this, but I'm certain that loosing a battle because of thre peasant hidden trembling in a wood is not fair....

This last "gaming argument" associated with the "run to win on defense" one incite me to toggle the timer off...

Ooooh, wasn't I supposed to start a VI campaign tonight? Time to test this!!!

[caravel]

Well, yes, and no. I'm not that sure about it, but didn't the medieval battles stop at night?

Both sides would often withdraw to avoid fighting in the dark. They would then camp out and presumably resume when it was light enough.

[Caerfanan]

Both sides would often withdraw to avoid fighting in the dark. They would then camp out and presumably resume when it was light enough.

Yup, that's what I was thinking....

...

...

What about a battle system representing this. After a time out, all units withdraw, but the battle restarts, with "fresher" troops (I'll say that they should start with one less bar), deployment, change of weather and all, with the oportunity for the attacker to withdraw?

[Martok]

Sheesh, guys. You and your women....

Despite this I still don't use the timer. If I think a long drawn out battle is coming up, I save the game and call it a day, or even autocalc if it's yet another me vs the horde scenario for the millionth time.

I do this as well. I usually auto-calc the larger battles if I'm reasonably confident of victory; otherwise I'll just save the game if it's getting close to my bedtime. I generally enjoy the longer battles that MTW offers, but I don't care to stay up until dawn fighting them.

[caravel]

Sheesh, guys. You and your women....

I remember once trying to explain to my wife that you cannot save during a battle, so it was absolutely impossible for me to leave it. She just didn't get it, so I went over it again in a very patronising tone... the spare room was pretty cold that night if IIRC.

[drone]

I remember once trying to explain to my wife that you cannot save during a battle, so it was absolutely impossible for me to leave it. She just didn't get it, so I went over it again in a very patronising tone... the spare room was pretty cold that night if IIRC.

I have had that discussion, pretty much the same results.

[Caerfanan]

I remember once trying to explain to my wife that you cannot save during a battle, so it was absolutely impossible for me to leave it. She just didn't get it, so I went over it again in a very patronising tone... the spare room was pretty cold that night if IIRC.

Well, hopefully, if you have the VI extension, you can quick-save before each battle, now!

(now being the devil: if the spareroom is cold, why not heat it up with, say, a computer with MTW:VI installed? )

[The Unknown Guy]

Doesn´t warm up çuickly enough. tried it

[Roark]

My sentiments exactly. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Any battle that I win by running out the clock just doesn't feel like a true victory.

Agreed.

Everyone should be playing with the green_generals tag too.

[Caerfanan]

Agreed.

Everyone should be playing with the green_generals tag too.

What does this tag do?

[caravel]

What does this tag do?

Basically with green_generals, when your generals die of old age, they aren't replaced by a clone but with a general of lesser stats. Personally I don't use it as I find that it hurts the AI more than it hurts me. In about 50 years the AI end up with virtually no decent generals at all (the Ai has a tendency to send it's generals to their deaths - the player takes greater care of his), whereas I can still turn out my 4 and 5 star generals and beat the AI quite easily. I rarely train up 6/7/8/9 star generals anyway and tend to make use of a very wide range of 2 - 4 star and a few 5 and 6 star generals than to use one or two 8 or 9 stars to fight most battles.

The same goes for expert difficulty - I hate that with a vengeance though. All it does is give the AI a big morale bonus, which means that you get situations where you can score massive numbers of kills against the enemy's low quality armies without them routing too soon (this valours up your men a lot more than killing routers) or you have the other scenario where you just cannot rout the enemy, even in a stupid situation where they should be running for their lives. This results in many more AI Jedi generals in my experience, as well as frustrating battles where you know in the back of your mind that the AI is simply cheating.

[Caerfanan]

Basically with green_generals, when your generals die of old age, they aren't replaced by a clone but with a general of lesser stats. Personally I don't use it as I find that it hurts the AI more than it hurts me. In about 50 years the AI end up with virtually no decent generals at all (the Ai has a tendency to send it's generals to their deaths - the player takes greater care of his), whereas I can still turn out my 4 and 5 star generals and beat the AI quite easily. I rarely train up 6/7/8/9 star generals anyway and tend to make use of a very wide range of 2 - 4 star and a few 5 and 6 star generals than to use one or two 8 or 9 stars to fight most battles.

Ok thank you! I was a few trains late (english expression?) on this. I was actually surprised to see those 'your general is dead' messages and never seing my good generals disappear (the "good general" being "this stack with 6 stars over there"): as I don't keep track of the names of all the guys, I didn't knew what happened when one was dying: will he be replaced by another guy with just the same stats and vice/virtues, but another name? Oh, I'm a bit like you regarding the generals, a lot of 2-4 stars and 3-4 better generals (5+ stars).

The same goes for expert difficulty - I hate that with a vengeance though. All it does is give the AI a big morale bonus, which means that you get situations where you can score massive numbers of kills against the enemy's low quality armies without them routing too soon (this valours up your men a lot more than killing routers) or you have the other scenario where you just cannot rout the enemy, even in a stupid situation where they should be running for their lives. This results in many more AI Jedi generals in my experience, as well as frustrating battles where you know in the back of your mind that the AI is simply cheating.

Yup, looks anoying. I was glad to see that with the "hard" level, the AI starts to think a bit on the field (tries to flank efficiently, hides from arrows, etc...), but the cheating part can make people angry: how can we know up to which point it will cheat? So we can't really measure the risks...

[caravel]

I was actually surprised to see those 'your general is dead' messages and never seing my good generals disappear (the "good general" being "this stack with 6 stars over there"): as I don't keep track of the names of all the guys, I didn't knew what happened when one was dying: will he be replaced by another guy with just the same stats and vice/virtues, but another name?

Yes when a general dies he is simply renamed, and that's it. Nothing else to it. With green_generals he is replaced by a general with lower stats.

You mentioned all of the messages showing generals dying? It seems like you may have "Display non critical messages" enabled. This suits some players and not others, though I reccomend turning it off. To do this you need to click the slide out menu at the top of the screen, the right border of the minimap, and uncheck that option. With this disabled you will no longer see the "you have finished building the <whatever>" messages, or the "your assassin failed in his mission and was killed" followed by the now infamous "whip - whip -whip - *frying sound* ARGHHHHHH". Eventually it gets rather dull clicking all of those off after every turn, and disabling "Display non critical messages" is the way to fix it. With this disabled you will only see a list of agents and whether or not they succeeded in their missions, and a list of the buildings you've built, not a separate parchment for each one. Alot cleaner. Some of the other options I disable are "follow AI movement", "autosave" and "tooltips", though you may want to leave some of these enabled.

[Caerfanan]

Yes when a general dies he is simply renamed, and that's it. Nothing else to it. With green_generals he is replaced by a general with lower stats.

You mentioned all of the messages showing generals dying? It seems like you may have "Display non critical messages" enabled. This suits some players and not others, though I reccomend turning it off. To do this you need to click the slide out menu at the top of the screen, the right border of the minimap, and uncheck that option. With this disabled you will no longer see the "you have finished building the <whatever>" messages, or the "your assassin failed in his mission and was killed" followed by the now infamous "whip - whip -whip - *frying sound* ARGHHHHHH". Eventually it gets rather dull clicking all of those off after every turn, and disabling "Display non critical messages" is the way to fix it. With this disabled you will only see a list of agents and whether or not they succeeded in their missions, and a list of the buildings you've built, not a separate parchment for each one. Alot cleaner. Some of the other options I disable are "follow AI movement", "autosave" and "tooltips", though you may want to leave some of these enabled.

Oooooo. Having just a list for buildings and agents is a very good idea! I'll do that very soon. Those parchments were taking so long that I usually click very quickly without really paying attention!

[caravel]

Oooooo. Having just a list for buildings and agents is a very good idea! I'll do that very soon. Those parchments were taking so long that I usually click very quickly without really paying attention!

That's the most annoying thing about them. You get good at it though after a while and only hear the first millisecond of the sound effect.

[Martok]

Yup, looks anoying. I was glad to see that with the "hard" level, the AI starts to think a bit on the field (tries to flank efficiently, hides from arrows, etc...), but the cheating part can make people angry: how can we know up to which point it will cheat? So we can't really measure the risks...

Caravel or someone else will correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC the AI gets the following penalties/bonuses (numbers may not be exact):

Easy: Human player's troops get a +4 morale bonus in battles. AI tactics are minimal & simplistic: doesn't skirmish or flank very well, does not scout for hidden units, etc.

Normal: No bonuses for human or AI, so both sides are even stat-wise. The AI employs intermediate tactics: scouting for hidden units, setting up ambushes in woods, standard flanking maneuvers, etc.

Hard: AI's troops get a slight valour bonus (+0.3 valour?? best not to quote me on that). AI employs advanced tactics: improved flanking & envelopment, feigned retreats, etc.

Expert: Essentially the same as on Hard, except that the AI's soldiers also receive a +4 morale bonus.


There's a more extensive list of all the differences somewhere, but those are it in a nutshell.

[caravel]

Hard: AI's troops get a slight valour bonus (+0.3 valour?? best not to quote me on that).

It's a morale bonus and not a valour bonus, and there is no morale bonus whatsoever for either the player or the AI on the hard difficulty setting. Expert enables the +4 morale bonus for the AI which makes a big difference as far as AI units routing is concerned, but doesn't make them any more effective as fighters.

There are supposed to be very small AI valour increases for each difficulty level but i have never noticed it myself nor seen it confirmed anywhere. There could well be.

[seireikhaan]

I've never had the AI fight better on hard as opposed to medium in concern to the actual combat. Of course, I also almost never fight battles I don't think I have a pretty good chance of winning, so I've never actually tried being vastly outnumbered and outcommanded(statwise).

[Peasant Phill]

I can relate, I hate losing to but where is the challenge? Doesn't it just get boring if you know you're going to win? Besides you'll never get better if you don't make it hard on yourself.

[EatYerGreens]

I can relate, I hate losing to but where is the challenge? Doesn't it just get boring if you know you're going to win?

Put simply: No.

Not that I've actually read any Sun Tzu but, I gather, one of his sayings is that, if you don't think you're going to win, you shouldn't be attacking in the first place. Or, if defending and outnumbered, then withdraw, concede the territory, come back later with enough men to win. Otherwise you'll lose a lot of lives unnecessarily and the territory and will have to wait even longer to win it back, in any case.

In short, no-one in their right mind goes to war unless they think they can win beforehand.

If you, personally, find it that gets boring, perhaps set about winning stylishly or pride yourself on inflicting/suffering minimal casualties in the process of winning. The ultimate victory is a bloodless one (Sun Tzu, again).

Besides you'll never get better if you don't make it hard on yourself.

Put yourself in the footsoldier's place, for a second. If you heard your general using talk like that (your life, for his 'practice'), how would your morale be?

[Peasant Phill]

First, great to have you back EYG. Your opinion was and is very respected around here.

About your comment: I'm aware of Sun Tzu's teachings and I more or less use them. For some reason I thought that greaterkhaan auto-calced the battles he taught he would lose. Reading his post again I can see that that was probably not what he mend.

Like I said before, I'm somewhat familiar with a few of Sun Tzu's teachings. And again, I use them quite extensively but more than not I find that I don't want to give up a province without fighting. I'm a turtler so I don't steamroll my neighbors. This means that most of the time, every province I own is priceless to me. Losing a province means a halt to my development for dozens of years, be it economical, military or other. It's not that hard to see that in such cases a general/king/khan/emperor won't just give up a region without a fight if their is a chance, even the littlest, to stop the enemy.
Besides even when an invaded province is not crucial, I still tend to try to kill some invaders before 'legging it'. See it as the Welsh harassing the English on their march to fight the Welsh army. I position my troops where they can get some decent kills but can flee before they get bogged down.

If you, personally, find it that gets boring, perhaps set about winning stylishly or pride yourself on inflicting/suffering minimal casualties in the process of winning. The ultimate victory is a bloodless one (Sun Tzu, again).

This is always my goal once I go into battle, with changing results BTW, I'm rather a perfectionist when it comes to games. (Besides, MTW is the first game I could live with my mistakes without wanting to do it again)

Put yourself in the footsoldier's place, for a second. If you heard your general using talk like that (your life, for his 'practice'), how would your morale be?

The truth is, my footsoldiers will never hear me say those words as they are just made up of 1's and 0's. MTW is a game and so is supposed to be fun (not a responsibility of some sort). IMO, a challenge and successfully dealing with this challenge is the biggest source of this fun.

[Caerfanan]

I sometimes did defend a province on a battle which I sure to loose, for two reasons

1/ Staying in the province and loosing "soldier's lives" will usually lead to a siege, during which the enemy will not benefit from the province
2/ I try to give the AI a "pyrrhic victory" (EDITED: if I understand the term, it is a victory for which you had many LESS (that's the edit) casualties than your foe ). and I usually save the game, autocalc it, to see what the computer would bring, and then my challenge appears: to do better.

I did that while playing mercians agaisnt the saxons at the beginning of a viking campaign: killng 500 and loosing 200 instead of killinge 350 and loosing 350 did change the outcoming of the war, the armies being not so big: this led the saxon into a fast civil war!

But of course, EYG, you're right, what's the point of attacking, if your defeat is certain? If an attack turns bad (loads of reinforcments), I usually withdraw.