How to improve the mid/late game

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.