How to improve the mid/late game

[Mount Suribachi]

How many TW campaigns have you finished? Played through till you have 100% of the map or run out of time. I've only ever done it twice.

Once on Shogun where I had half the map, Hojo had the other. I got very tired very quickly of fighting stack after stack of peasant armies, so I sent Geishas out to eliminate the Hojo royal family, turned their lands to Ronin then autoresolved every battle to completion.

Second time was on VI as the Mercians, and the hardest part about that was the (&^(^(***(&&!!! Vikings.

Why only 2? Because, no matter who you play as, no matter which TW game, you reach a certain point in the game where you achieve a critical mass and you become unstoppable. Yet historically this never happened. No-one has ever controlled the entire MTW/RTW world. Why is this? And why can't we replicate this in the TW world to add intrest and difficulty to the mid-late game?

1) Communication & distance. In the pre-industrial age communication was slow, especially so with the far-flyng provinces of your empire, and they were less likely to feel part of your empire. RTW does have an unrest feature which increases the further a province is from your capital, but IMO it is nowhere near punitive enough. I would like to see this greatly increased, make it really tough to control Finland from your capital in Alexandria, just like it should be

2) Integration. One of the great successes of Greek and Roman culture was the way they integrated peoples from all over the world into their cultures, but this took time. The Romans were clever with the way they used their language and citizenship to encourage "assimilation" and especially clever with the way they avoided religious unrest by co-opting other nations Gods. RTR simulates this with its auxilia line of buildings, and a great idea it is too, but again it is too quick and too cheap IMO. Faction re-emergences should be more frequent, they should be a continous threat - even false pretenders to the throne if need be.

MTW had the different religions, but again religious unrest was nowhere near as bad as it should be to make the game realistic and challenging. Build a church, plant a bishop, and a few turns later a 100% Muslim province is 100% Christian. If only it were that easy

Changing a provinces religion should be really hard. It should take a loooooooong time, it should cost a fortune, and it should be really, really painful.

3) Civil Wars. These don't happen anywhere near enough. Relatives trying to grab the throne, power struggles, wars over succession to the throne, these things are at the centre of medieval history. Any time your king dies you should be holding your breath to see if a brother, uncle or son is going to challenge you for the throne. Playing as the Turks a civil war should be mandatory any time your Sultan dies

So to sum up - provinces harder to control and integrate, more rebellions and civil wars. Of course, this is all relative to the playing difficulty, and the AI doesn't suffer the same penalties as the player.

[Servius]

Well, one thing to remember is that, if you just make it harder to control far-flung provinces, or those that are culturally different, people will just stop playing once they hit that point.

A few people might be encouraged to press on just to overcome the increased difficulty, it think you might be missing the whole point of playing, which is to have fun. I think you need a solution that make it FUN to press on. To some extent, it's fun to overcome obsticles, but if those obsticles are dumb friction (higher unrest), it won't be fun. The solution to the increased difficulty needs to be creativity or skill, not just greater and greater investments of time and/or garrison troops. IMO at least, it has to be a puzzle to solve, not a grind to get through.

One suggestion I have is, rather than increasing the difficulty of holding what you've taken (the unrest problem), perhaps the difficulty should come from you being attacked by coalitions of smaller nations. And not the headless stacks like in RTW, but I'm talking battles where you have been attacked by 2-3 actual armies at the same time, in the same battle. Using MTW as an example, if I am the English and I hold Flanders, the Germans, French, and Danes should ally against me, and then attack me all in the same year, so that my stack in Flanders faces three armies in battle. THAT would be a tough fight.

Another way to make it more fun and interesting would be to have different nations actually field armies of different kinds of units, and use them in different ways. If the same army and tactics I used to crush the Germans won't work against the Polish or the Italians, that will encourage me to overcome that obsticle and beat them.

But again, I suggest these because overcoming challenges with my mind is what makes these kinds of games fun for me, while overcoming them through patience or just more of the same is not fun for me. Other people may have different motivations.

[Batory]

Very good ideas guys....

They should also increase the number of rebellions within your empire(the bigger empire the more often a rebellion), that would certainly keep players busy...

[cegman]

No that would be bad. The reason I quit is because the rebellions are stupid and I am sick of dealing with them.

[econ21]

No that would be bad. The reason I quit is because the rebellions are stupid and I am sick of dealing with them.

Depends what you mean by a rebellion. If you mean, the vanilla RTW bandits, I agree - they are a right royal pain in the you know what. I have played so many Roman vanilla/RTR/EB campaigns where about 100+ battles were trivial affairs with a handful of rebels. The 1.5 patch allowing you to cut their spawn rate was a life-saver for me.

But the MTW rebellions - entire provinces errupting in disloyalty, often respawning dead factions - were great and really helped kept the mid/late game alive. I remember one Almo PBM, where I instantly lost 10 provinces on becoming king because I did not have the influence of my deceased father - it was an exhilarating opening to a mid-game reign.

BI went some way to getting these back with Romans having loyalty stats and the rebel factions. However, I don't think they went far enough - as WRE, I never see the WRE rebels, nor lose a single general to disloyalty. It's too easy to manage loyalty and unrest once you know how it works.

[Hochmeister]

I agree that the mid/late game can get repetitive.

Rebellions are part of the answer but as mentioned the main reason people dont finish a campaign once the "critical mass" is reached is that it is no longer fun.

I think it just needs some variety in there, some random thoughts:

Interesting late game units that take a lot of teching up to reach.
Rebellions/Faction reemergence (decent sized ones not the RTW type)
An expansion on the jihad/crusade/pope situation which may change late game??
Unlock units/attributes/factions after a campaign is completed.
Have an epic high quality end game clip when total domination is reached!

[GFX707]

I actually managed to LOSE a campaign once in VI as the Scots....it was one of the most memorable campaigns I have ever had....I think it was my first campaign in VI and I didn't realise how tough they made the Vikings or really how to play the game....in true Scottish style I conquered half of England before being pushed back (I think I got stabbed in the back by an ally, can't remember) and fought a glorious last stand with a good old highland charge.

Those are the campaigns you remember....not the ones where you finish off your neighbour in a few turns, build a fleet and take Rome in 260BC.

[The Wizard]

I never really had a problem with the no-finish syndrome, to be perfectly honest. However, I'm all for taking the campaign, as it was found in MTW, to a new level at last.

In MTW and Shoggy it was possible to lose, now and then... and almost always there was a period where the going got tough. RTW lacked this. It's time to take a hike back to where we took the wrong turn, and then take that part of the fork in the road we didn't choose back then...

[Dave1984]

I think the best way of keeping interest throughout the game is the more imaginative "Glorious Achievements" from MTW and that's something I'd really loved to have seen in RTW and really hope is in M2TW.

Knowing you have the objectives to shape your strategy around, and not being forced to win by unrealistically conquering the whole of Europe, and then introducing new ones progressively through the game- the idea is in my eyes unbeatable and the way of turning the mid to late parts of the total war games.

Of course it seemed like the GAs in Medieval were sometimes rushed in- homelands only and that, but there were some crackers in there.

[Barbarossa82]

I think the best way of keeping interest throughout the game is the more imaginative "Glorious Achievements" from MTW and that's something I'd really loved to have seen in RTW and really hope is in M2TW.

Knowing you have the objectives to shape your strategy around, and not being forced to win by unrealistically conquering the whole of Europe, and then introducing new ones progressively through the game- the idea is in my eyes unbeatable and the way of turning the mid to late parts of the total war games.

Of course it seemed like the GAs in Medieval were sometimes rushed in- homelands only and that, but there were some crackers in there.

I totally agree, GA mode made the game far more interesting and gave you a sense of setting for the inevitable wars - after all you have to have something to fight for, and your homeland's a lot more characterful if you're, say, building the Jagellonian University!
Loyalty amongst characters is another thing that can make the late game interesting - successful generals with large armies should take a loyalty drop from being far away from the King or from the faction's homelands. An English general who's just conquered Constantinople should be much more tempted to set himself up as a king in his own right than one who's garrisoning Normandy.
Faction re-emergences are another dynamic which keeps the game interesting, as long as they are handled realistically so that they require a substantial level of disloyalty in provinces which are their traditional homelands before they can re-emerge.
Another great addition would be succession disputes, a reality of medieval court politics.

[screwtype]

Mount Suri - love your suggestions. Particularly the ones about the problems controlling farflung provinces, and the threat of civil war. If civil wars broke out frequently on the death of a faction leader, it could make the game very interesting!

I wouldn't support it though, if it was like the "faction reappears" mechanic of MTW where factions would miraculously reappear with incredibly powerful armies that far outstripped the available province infrastructure. Civil wars instead should divide your existing army up into different factions, with you choosing to back one or the other.

[screwtype]

No that would be bad. The reason I quit is because the rebellions are stupid and I am sick of dealing with them.

The rebellions are certainly stupid in RTW because of the way they are handled. A handful of units randomly appearing in a province somewhere just becomes a nuisance.

It would be different though, if the rebellions started from within your cities, so that you actually lost provinces and had to retake them. I also think that in a rebellion, some or all of your existing troops in that province should defect to the rebels.

Mind you, I think it would be difficult to get the balance right for such rebellions. It all depends on how well the mechanic is implemented. Too weak rebellions and you've just got a nuisance value again. Too strong and it's a disincentive to play. You've got to get the balance right.

[poo_for_brains]

I like the idea of powerful generals setting up their own rule once they come into possession of a powerful distant province. It would mean you'd always have to be careful when sending your best general and his army into important lands, lest you lose all your best troops, and your best generals.

[Satyr]

While I have only ever finished one MTW campaign (100%) I have finished many VI campaigns with at least a couple wins for each faction. These got especially challenging after the Beefy Vikings mod came out. Having said that, I still agree that there needs to be some change to make the game more challenging in the later parts. My choice would be to have a coalition of smaller factions join as allies so that if you attack one of them they all attack back. It would just have to be pretty common for smaller factions to form large alliances for it to work. This sort of thing is implemented in Civ4 but it is so rare for factions to form large coalitions that it isn't something you need to routinely worry about.

As for random rebellions, I would hate that. There needs to be certain criteria that one can avoid, just as there was in MTW, so that with care and skill you can have a peaceful empire. You also have to be careful that you don't weaken the stronger AI factions with rebellions because you know that they won't be programmed well enough to avoid them later in the game. This is already a problem in MTW and I would hate to see it made even worse in M2TW.

[ShadesWolf]

With MTW I found a lot depended on what level you played the game on, Easy, mid or hard.

Tactics seemed to work ok on med and easy but they needed changing on hard.

Many a game as HRE on hard I found provinces would rebel, so it made it much harder to achieve global domination.

I would like to see more provinces, and make it harder to capture them. Taking the hundred years war as an example, England historically controlled large areas of France, but not all the towns and cities.

So for me the more provinces the better this would allow for smaller factions thus it would take more time. for example, using the hundrd years war again, sorry but its a very good example, Brittany and Flanders would be smaller independant kingdoms, or serfdoms, if you like. Only controlling a few provinces, where as France would be a massive country of loads of provinces.

For what I can see from the Campaign map of MTW2, Northern France is five provinces which have a city in Brittany either Rennes or Nantes I guess, Caen in Normandy, Bruges in Flanders, Paris in Ile-de-France and Reims in I guess champagne. So this means we have no Rouen, Calais or probably no Orleans. This looks like one provinces even 100 miles or so.

The only way to stop the world empire would be, using France again, change this from 3 northern coast provinces to say 6. Two in Brittany, Two in Normandy, one in Picardy/ Artois and one in Flanders. Three hundred miles should take a long time to march. It we copied this across the entire map, we find that it becomes harder, more provinces, loads of small little states. It would take a lot more time to conquer and you might find that it was almost impossible to take more than about 1/4 to 1/2.

[screwtype]

As for random rebellions, I would hate that. There needs to be certain criteria that one can avoid, just as there was in MTW, so that with care and skill you can have a peaceful empire.

Actually, that's a very good point. I agree that pure randomness in crucial game mechanics sucks. A good game always gives you some sort of opportunity to influence events by your own actions.

So perhaps rebellions could be triggered by a gradual increase in general's disloyalty or something - some sort of factor that you might be able to control with a little care. Or it might be that you can vary the pay rate of troops to try and avoid rebellions.

Yes, it would be better if rebellions weren't purely random, but based at least in part on your skill and vigilance as a player.

You also have to be careful that you don't weaken the stronger AI factions with rebellions because you know that they won't be programmed well enough to avoid them later in the game. This is already a problem in MTW and I would hate to see it made even worse in M2TW.

I see no need to make AI factions subject to rebellions at all, or at least, only subject to relatively rare rebellion events. The AI needs all the help it can get, one doesn't need to introduce game mechanics to make the AI's task even harder.

[Peasant Phill]

For what I can see from the Campaign map of MTW2, Northern France is five provinces which have a city in Brittany either Rennes or Nantes I guess, Caen in Normandy, Bruges in Flanders, Paris in Ile-de-France and Reims in I guess champagne. So this means we have no Rouen, Calais or probably no Orleans. This looks like one provinces even 100 miles or so.

I think I saw more cities in a single province in one of the newest sreenshots. You could see Flanders (or at least a part of it) on the campaign map. It had 2 cities: Bruges and Antwerp. Furthermore, I suspect that Ghent will be included to as it was more important than Antwerp.

[Duke John]

No, they are in separate regions. You can see a coloured border between them.

Lots of regions (more than R:TW) would IMO only work if CA ditched their current recruitment system. I have no intention in playing a game in which I need to manage 30 regions to raise units and then to merge them into armies.

I would rather see a system in which the player could only raise a couple of armies (1 to 4 at the max depending on size and layout of the kingdom). These armies would be filled automatically (in a single turn) by selecting which regions/nobles need to supply troops. Perhaps loyalty and unrest can provide some randomness in wether the units actually show up. Left over units can be used for garrison of their home region. Just a few armies would make it easier to code the AI (or would make the flaws and bugs much more apparent) and would introduce many strategic challenges for the player to make. This system would represent the medieval way of raising armies more realistic without taking away any gameplay. I even think it would add more gameplay and take away the tediousness of babysitting all your cities and units to be able to wage war. But then TW wouldn't really fit anymore in the RTS mould of techtrees and unit/building queues.

[IceTorque]

I would rather see a system in which the player could only raise a couple of armies (1 to 4 at the max depending on size and layout of the kingdom). These armies would be filled automatically (in a single turn) by selecting which regions/nobles need to supply troops. Perhaps loyalty and unrest can provide some randomness in wether the units actually show up. Left over units can be used for garrison of their home region. Just a few armies would make it easier to code the AI (or would make the flaws and bugs much more apparent) and would introduce many strategic challenges for the player to make. This system would represent the medieval way of raising armies more realistic without taking away any gameplay. I even think it would add more gameplay and take away the tediousness of babysitting all your cities and units to be able to wage war. But then TW wouldn't really fit anymore in the RTS mould of techtrees and unit/building queues.

What you have outlined would IMO be a vast improvement to gameplay. I always play with auto manage on, but the need to visit each settlement and click on the recruit queue, then assemble all the units, then march em around all over the map, combined with the need to command each and every major battle makes the game seem abstract and is hard to get immersed into the role of a Caesar or Alexander etc. Also there is no attachment to your armies, if you lose a stack or two the feeling is so what, I'll make more.

I would like to roleplay with one army, with upgrades ( loot the dead ), new units and reinforcements/replenishments being an auto thing depending on battles won and territories owned. With garrisons being ordered to go to their destination and NOT having to manually move em there, if an outlying settlement is besieged I want to find out about it from a messenger and not watch from space view, with the option to march to their aid with my army, or dispatch an army with a simple mouse click/order.

It is possible to walk from one side of the strat map to the other all on the battle map, why not utilize this ? would'nt it be cool to select marching formations and explore conquer the world all from a commanders perspective ? Would'nt it be cool to make realistic decisions and react to threats/army needs, ambushes, build forts/camps all in realtime ? why not get rid of the strat map mode altogether ? Give me back the throne room/field HQ to view and plan my conquests, and perhaps to end turn. with all management of my Empire being in a more realistic form. i.e. interactive characters in my court.

I could go on for ever but I won't, I guess I'm just getting tired of playing what is essentially the same game as shogun but is becoming more bogged down with new features, that to me just mean more tedious micro-management. I hope that the next TW game after MTW II uses a completely different method to string together the battles. I loved AOE I and II but I can't stand III coz it's too similar, been there done that.

[The Wizard]

I would rather see a system in which the player could only raise a couple of armies (1 to 4 at the max depending on size and layout of the kingdom). These armies would be filled automatically (in a single turn) by selecting which regions/nobles need to supply troops. Perhaps loyalty and unrest can provide some randomness in wether the units actually show up. Left over units can be used for garrison of their home region. Just a few armies would make it easier to code the AI (or would make the flaws and bugs much more apparent) and would introduce many strategic challenges for the player to make. This system would represent the medieval way of raising armies more realistic without taking away any gameplay. I even think it would add more gameplay and take away the tediousness of babysitting all your cities and units to be able to wage war. But then TW wouldn't really fit anymore in the RTS mould of techtrees and unit/building queues.

Quite a brilliant suggestion. If it could be tied to a system reminiscient to that of WesW's homelands in the MedMod series, it would introduce an entirely new slew of strategic considerations for you (and the AI) to make.

So -- you conquered North Africa as Spain? That's great for loot, booty and income, my friend, but you're gonna have to defend it with troops from your heartland -- Castille, Léon, etc. Such considerations would lend a whole new dimension to the idea of empire-building.

[JFC]

Hi all,

A fantastic amount of suggestions here, that in no doubt would add great realism and a sense of actually 'feeling' part of the chosen faction, instead of merely being a numb controller of it.

Having said that, this could in some instances actually dissuade a vigourous attempt at waging "Total War" due to the restrictions placed on creating Armies, Certain troop types, etc.

Perhaps if when starting a campaign of ritual conquest and slaughter you are asked for certain criteria at game start which would lay out the ground rules. i.e. tiered selection systems, such as Easy, Moderate, Realistic, Hard, Knightmare (excuse pun) with regards to Loyalty, Population Growth, Wealth, Armed Forces, Research (Will we be able to control research?-I dunno) and I'm sure there are loads more. You could have a list of them to select your desired options, then you begin. This in turn could then vary the game play to the wider audience.

I think most people would choose realistic, which would could mean we are only able to recruit from certain areas like in RTR, but 'hard' could then be the way Duke John has stated, with 'easy' meaning all conquered provinces able to recruit all units.

Or am I talking rubbish 'cos that would mean 4 DVDs worth of programming?

[sunsmountain]

1) Communication & distance.

It's not so much distance, or public order problems, though those should become restrictive. It's more that money becomes a non-issue, and therefore distance becomes a non-issue at well. This can almost not be countered (since money growing linearly or even as a root function is a problem in any strategy game), unless you simply want to halt player expansion after a certain number of provinces (which sucks if you can't get your goal, and if you can what is the point?). That is not cool.

Note that CA are trying to simulate distance by restricting cities to money, and castles to troop building. But distance will only delay the inevitable, unless attrition due to travel is high enough. And both make the mid/endgame only more tiresome, instead thrilling and fast like it should be.

2) Integration.

Is nice, and adds flavor, but if you have 50 provinces, and you have to perform action X or Y to assimilate the population, that means a lot lot lot of micromanagement. That is not cool.

3) Civil Wars.

That IS cool and MTW kind of had these with Factions re-emerging. Imagine a faction re-emerging while half of your empire is turning rebel. Each rebel province has a chance of joining the re-emerging faction. Suddenly its the England-France 100 years war all over again!* Hurrah!!

* You do want to eventually win though, so Civil Wars should be dependent on chance. Sometimes they happen, sometimes they don't.

I would rather see a system in which the player could only raise a couple of armies (1 to 4 at the max depending on size and layout of the kingdom).

This idea is used in Shogun the boardgame:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/221

And it places restrictions on the number of units you can put in 1 province, unless (one of your 4) an army is there. It would greatly improve the campaign map AI, and greatly reduce micro-management. But at the cost of freedom. I cannot see CA doing that, even if i like the idea.

But then TW wouldn't really fit anymore in the RTS mould of techtrees and unit/building queues.

Sure it would. The recruitment system would change however, to one of recruiting at one central place (the army level) instead of recruiting at each individual city. See for example Heroes of Might and Magic, where armies can drain a city of all its troops. They still have to visit all your cities though, which should be replaced by a reinforcements system: Everything you buy is simply sent to your army without appearing on the map. The time it takes should increase with distance, up to a maximum. That would reduce micro-management lots, but also reduce realism. I'm afraid you can't have both.

CA's distinction into city/castle already makes an attempt to reduce the number of spots where you can/have to recruit from.

May I add:

4) Being able to start in a mid/late era, reducing time and provinces while increasing tech.

CA have already added:

5) Protectorates. Hate them you may, but these babies do speed up the mid/end game, meaning you'll actually finish. Though I think protectorates should be more definite, actually handing full control to the conqueror.

[Horatius]

My idea for solving late game dullness of being #1 is simple.

Every faction should have a set of homeland provinces, and empire provinces.

Your homeland provinces are loyal to you, and your nation and so are going to be your base of support, however if you expand from there you have an empire, and an empire is repressive. The Empire Provinces will be very prone to siding with a pretender to the throne, or conspiring to join a new faction, or joining with your enemies, banditry and piracy should also be high in empire provinces so not only will you need to deal with your empire provinces pretenders to the throne, but the bandits as well.

Civil Wars should also be with new factions like in RTW BI, not with simple rebels.

This will make it much funner to maintain an empire, since you will be busy, not with pesky peasant stacks and random rebellions, but with other factions, conspiracies to dethrone you, and conspiracy to hand over your land to someone else.

The penalty for empire rather then homeland provinces will go both ways though, so you will be able to easier get back your homeland provinces with less military involvement in reconquest, and it will also make wars much funner.

[4th Dimension]

5) Protectorates. Hate them you may, but these babies do speed up the mid/end game, meaning you'll actually finish. Though I think protectorates should be more definite, actually handing full control to the conqueror.

Yeah that would make them realy useful. Now you would realy be able to form a diverse army, and would think twice about destroying a faction which may provide you with some troops that would fit perfectl in your type of play.

[Mount Suribachi]

Some great suggestions here, and an interesting discussion :)

But the MTW rebellions - entire provinces errupting in disloyalty, often respawning dead factions - were great and really helped kept the mid/late game alive. I remember one Almo PBM, where I instantly lost 10 provinces on becoming king because I did not have the influence of my deceased father - it was an exhilarating opening to a mid-game reign

Ah, I remember that one well. I was the previous player (Caliph Ismail I). IIRC the problem was that we were playing before the 2.01 patch, so my Caliph died at 56. Problem was that his second to last turn he got besieged in castle in Italy which caused an ENORMOUS happiness drop across the empire, peasant & religious revolts galore and a huge Italian re-emergence. On top of that I'd just fought long and exhausting wars against England, France & HRE, and an absolutley epic slugging match with the Papacy leaving my armies stripped to the bone.

Then you came to the throne

That was a fun game, especially those papal wars (I kept on killing the pope and getting nasty papal re-emergences . Possibly my favourite ever TW experience.