most enjoyable aspect of MTW

[gaijinalways]

I know I have seen some discussion in the past on what players enjoy about MTW, but I was just curious what most people find is the best;


battles (if so what kind)

managing the economy

managing　different types of buildings (which in turn can help with)

building troops

improving agents (spies, priests, emissaries)

improving royalty (king, princes)

improving your generals' traits

making GA goals

controlling your expansions and defending your borders through movement and balancing of troops in your territory

playing historical battles/campaigns

some other aspect not already mentioned


I think for myself, the battles are the most fun . I like defending and attacking. I personally find attacking or defending with quite a bit less units than the AI more interesting (challenging, though if not impossible sometimes). Also of course, sometimes after tough invasions with few reinforcements (if any), handling AI attempts to retake provinces can be a real juggling act with units fighting almost down to the last man to eliminate as many AI units before other units come forward within the same battles.

The battles are difficult to manage especially when the AI plays encircling attempts and does unusual (and smart) retreats into the forest, and also has units hidden that suddenly come into play.

Managing the economy is a secondary pleasure, as I enjoy playing some other business simulations (as well as Civ). Sometimes it is tricky balancing buildings that increase your economy as well as improving aspects of the troops and agents you must build to defend those buildings and take other territories.

[Scurvy]

multiplayer battles = by far the most enjoyable aspect

[doc_bean]

I really like the overall campaign. I know it's just an enhanced version of Risk, but for some reason i really love it.

Personally I think the battles can get a little frustrating/tedious because they usually involve multi stack armies clashing (sometimes several BIG fights per turn) that can take a long time, and when you've got your economy pimped up that don't always matter as much either.

I do like the early fights, when you're about equal in strength to your opponents and when a few extra losses do count. I've also enjoyed some custom battles, although I miss a purpose when fighting them.

[King Kurt]

The best part of the game is that it goes on so long. It is not a flash bang - how quick can you move your mouse and press some keys kind of a game. It allows you to play - in my case - the same campaign over many months, slowly developing a strategy, reacting to events and dealing with surprises. Even the battles have the benefit of the pause button to enable you to admire what is happening and plan your next move. Finally - any game where you can get excommed by the Pope has to be the greatest ever - an unpredictable influence on your game, what other game has that???

[rvg]

Risky Attack offensive battles and Last Stand defensive battles. Preferably of epic proportions, where you have 2000+ men and are still vastly outnumbered by the enemy.

[Martok]

The best part of the game is that it goes on so long. It is not a flash bang - how quick can you move your mouse and press some keys kind of a game. It allows you to play - in my case - the same campaign over many months, slowly developing a strategy, reacting to events and dealing with surprises. Even the battles have the benefit of the pause button to enable you to admire what is happening and plan your next move. Finally - any game where you can get excommed by the Pope has to be the greatest ever - an unpredictable influence on your game, what other game has that???

That sums up a lot of it for me as well. I like how religion has such a big influence on the campaigns; from excommunications, Inquisitions, & heresy trials, to Jihads & Crusades. I like that all factions can win the game, but that they provide varying levels of difficulty to challenge the player. I also absolutely love--along with many others here--Glorious Achievements mode. What a truly brilliant concept!

Of course the battles are definitely fun as well. However, I confess they've almost become a secondary feature for me; so much fun do I have in the campaign part of the game.

[caravel]

battles (if so what kind)

Any battles that require some thought or strategy which is why I prefer defensive. Though even my attacks are defensive, which is one of the reasons why I can't get on with RTW (He who rushes wins). If a battle turns into a messy slugfest with alot of casualties, I begin to lose interest very fast. I see these battles as a slur on my entire campaign, and they often cause me to abandon it.

improving agents (spies, priests, emissaries)

Training high valour spies and assassins from scratch can be satisfying and disappointing but always interesting. Training Inquisitors is not.

improving royalty (king, princes)

This can be a real challenge, especially for factions such as the Turks who start off with pretty hopeless royalty, and go downhill from there. It can be very satisfying to turn this situation around and end up with some superb royalty and generals.

controlling your expansions and defending your borders through movement and balancing of troops in your territory

Slow, defensive expansion, with occasional bursts of invasion, is the best part of this game. It's almost like a game of chess at times. The AI is not exactly clever but sometimes even they can cause your plans to come undone if they happen to invade when your armies are overstretched or snatch away a province that was an integral part of your expansion plans. If my faction has a civil war, I love it. An opportunity to reunify the kingdom, it breaks the stalemate and I may get a whole new royalty as well, with which to replace all of the inbred, perverted gluttons and cowards. This happened historically, so it feels right and works well.

[Roark]

1. What rvg said - Epic battles in tight circumstances.
2. Defending siege assaults!!!
3. Watching the rich and complex tapestry of each game unfold (which, of course, DOESN'T occur in those games where everyone is inexplicably peaceful).

[bamff]

Yeah, the battles can be rewarding - especially those where you go in massively outnumbered but somehow still carry the day...but for mine it is the making and breaking of alliances, the working on improving the loyalty and ability of one's own troops (yes I mean building armies of goldies), the building of empires and trade routes....

Roark makes a valid point - a great part of the attraction of this game is that all AI factions are not inexplicably peaceful, but I would add that neither are they all populated by berserkers determined to attack anything not of their own ilk as is in some other games.

Oh...and I have to add that I do love sending out my assassins and spies!

[Empirate]

The single most rewarding feature for me has been and still is the PAUSE button. Real-time battles? Oooo-kay... Pausable anytime, with commands given in paused mode? BEST IDEA EVER!
I just hate the kind of game that has "strategy" printed on the box, but feels like an action-game to me whenever I try to play it. Warcraft and the like do have their merits, but it's really way out there to call them strategy games. You could as well call tennis a strategy game! Turn-based strategy, OTOH, never seem to convey this sense of "in the middle of all the action" that a battle in M:TW brings across.

I also love the fact that battles are as much about positioning, timing and a general feel of "this is gonna work" as about building the most powerful units available. It's not only the stone-paper-scissors logic that drives all, it's more in the details of troops deployment and terrain usage that I'm engorged.

A final commendation goes to the blending of strategy and tactics on two distinct, yet mutually depending levels of play! I just love to build just the right army for a specific task (taking a heavily defended bridge; holding a desert province; fighting lots of knights...), then having to command this very army and seeing it all come together: "Yes, it was a good idea to bring lots of missile troops, but I could have used a little more anti-cav infantry... should have built that spearmaker instead of the farms a few turns back then."

Know what I mean?

[gaijinalways]

I like the interplay of the different units too, especially on different types of terrain. It's always interesting to see how the same battles with the same units turn out differently at times depending on the where you put units and the timing of when you throw units into the fray.

In defense of Warcraft, it does have some strategy as often within various modules (or quests) you have to decide the best way to approach your goal, and there is usually more than one way to win. The drawback of Warcraft is that the continuity from one quest to the next isn't there, something that does make MTW more enjoyable

[Zild]

@Gaijin - Odd that you lump battles in as one thing yet chop the strategy side of the game into some many sub-categories! I've always seen them as equally entertaining halves of the game (though I agree the strategy side breaks down more easily!)

@Empirate - I don't think the 'strategy' bit on the box refers to the real-time battles, just the campaign portion of the game! I personally never use the pause button as I think the battles should require some quick-thinking. Yet the take-your-time campaign seems to be just right for what it does. If anything, I'd rather see the battles expanded out a little more so that there are delays between given orders and them being carried out, as it takes time for the order to get passed along (especially over longer distances where riders might be required).


I do love the battles - lots of small ones with the occasional epic. Not so keen on having to defend against small rebel forces that you know you could massacre blindfolded, though... Defending sieges is probably my favourite. Attacking (normal and castle) I don't like doing because of the exra casualties on my side (and the relative uselessness of my Longbows!) Yet because I don't like doing it I seem to savour them that much more.

On the campaign map it's crusades, definitely crusades! I wonder if I'll enjoy Jihads as much (not played Muslim factions much at all...)

[CountMRVHS]

I find faction re-emergences help keep the map a bit less lonely.

[blahblahblah]

The campaign itself, great job and kudos to those people who designed it.

For battles, the great and legendary Longbow. Loved the Longbow in Age of Empires II, loved the Longbows here in MTW.

[Csargo]

I think its a combination of managing my economy, planning strategy on the Campaign map, and the Battles. I find all this very fun part of the game.

[Arciel]

For me, the best bit is the way your mighty empire crumbles at the last moment because of a civil war, just as you were planning on invading that juicy faction right next to you. Of course there are those epic defensive battles where you're vastly outnumbered but still manage to win(or take out most of the entire enemy army in a final blaze of glory!).

[Ciaran]

It´s the combination of the different aspects; the battles, the economy, diplomacy ect, it all depends on each other. I could say, battles are the best part, but after a few custom battles it gets dull, it´s the strategic importance of the battle outcome that makes them interesting, when you just must kill the enemy King on the field, because he´s the last, without heirs, it´s 1452 and you´re second only to this faction in glory points, but your only chance to surpass them is killing them off
But I don´t fight each and every battle myself, sometimes, progress on the campaign (and keeping in mind all the interwinding schemes for world domination) is more important that wiping out those measly rebels that inconveniently popped up out of the nowhere.

[gaijinalways]

I agree with letting some areas go. I am currently in a GA campaign where I have decided to voluntarily give up some territories to;

free up some border defense troops (to be moved for an attack in another area)

and grab some cash by razing the buildings there (that I earlier captured).

MTW is like that, your borders are sometimes fluid, depending on where your enemy is and what your goals are.

Odd that you lump battles in as one thing yet chop the strategy side of the game into some many sub-categories!

Yes as you opined, I thought it was difficult to list all those subcategories of battles, bridge, high terrain, woods, plains, mixed and also with intermixed ideas of outnumbered vs equal numbers or have majority, missile battles, all cav attacks/defenses, etc. I figured players would let me know. I like them all except sieges, that's usually the only part of the game I often autoresolve. As to nailing little rebels, sometimes it is nice to run them all down .

[Zild]

Heh. I like the sieges either for watching the enemy throw themselves against the walls of my fortresses, or when trying to take a castle myself with minimal losses. Such battles tend to be rather rare (the former as I start early and have a lot of building up (and dying and restarting!) to do first, the latter because I don't like the losses so the computer must really force my hand to make me assault a castle!

One other thing I absolutely love is the artillery (the bigger the better, and the Organ Gun above all else!) - especially against those massed rebellions and re-emerging factions!

[r johnson]

multiplayer battles = by far the most enjoyable aspect

Yes but i've never fought a multi battle but i'd love too. Two+ brains rather than a brain and an AI. But until that day i'd have to say battles, when i'm out number and have to use all my cunning it's alot of fun.

[Empirate]

Also, those tight moments in the campaign game are great, when you're all of a sudden attacked by a rather powerful nation you hadn't reckoned with, all your trade is disrupted and loyalty in the far-away provinces goes down because they have fleets everywhere. And all you can do is hold on teeth and nails, until a few turns later you can breather easier after winning a major battle that bound up a lot of their resources. You actually killed their king! They go into civil war, that settles it...
Then all of a sudden, you have just overstretched your armies a tiny bit too much to gobble up the now-rebel lands, and they get a loyalist revolt, rebels join them and are all turned loyal again! All of a sudden the war isn't over, not by a long shot, and you have to defeat them all over. Scrambling to hold everything together, you send one army against their richest, most well-defended province, cross your fingers and hope for luck... You win!
Then the Pope tells you to stop it, roll over and die, and you know your troubles have only begun.

This is the kind of game that makes my day, and I have never experienced anything like it. Not even in R:TW... "even"? Last of all in R:TW!

[Alexios]

The part I used to enjoy the most was being the defender during a huge battle when there is over 2 and a half stacks or so per side, and I have a lot of spear units mixed with missile units (I just love watching the AI get decimated by arrow fire ).

But now I've discovered I like being the attacker more then the defender. I like the strategy of maneuvering my army around and in behind the enemy, planting them firmly in between their mainline and reinforcements. Then I just slowly kill off the mainline while depriving them of fresh units. Once while using this strategy against the Italians, my army got caught up in a huge crossfire. I thought I was cooked, but was able to beat back their reinforcements while holding off their main force. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the AI started bring in mixed crap (peasants, UM, etc.) as reinforcements.

I think the thing I have a hard time with sometimes, however, is the length of the game and how much of your free time it will use up without you ever really realizing it. For example, I have been on the same campaign now for about five months or so. I don't have a lot of time to commit, so I end up playing only once per week for about 4 to 5 hours (usually on a Saturday morning while my wife is still sleeping ). And during the latter stages of the campaign, I'm finding one turn (1 year) can take as long as 3 hours! And I sometimes find myself almost dreading it when, after spending about an hour or so moving my forces around and planning out my attacks, the AI moves a large force into one of my other provinces and I end up having to play out the battle (because I just don't trust that sneaky AI on auto-pilot!).

But I guess that's just part of what make this game so unique and so challenging--its long and its unpredictable.

[gaijinalways]

True, at some stage MTW's micromanagement becomes tedious, though it is part of the game. Sometimes when your empire is unsteady, it takes a lot of juggling to defend your borders and keep all your provinces from revolting.

But, sometimes when you get attacked and are able to pull off a tough defense with minimal troops, it's awesome!

[yesdachi]

For me it is the strategy it takes on the campaign map. Battles are a pain, although I do enjoy some of the critical ones, but they usually are a tedious waste of time, that’s why I have those Jedi generals lead them for me.

[ajaxfetish]

I also love the fact that battles are as much about positioning, timing and a general feel of "this is gonna work" as about building the most powerful units available. It's not only the stone-paper-scissors logic that drives all, it's more in the details of troops deployment and terrain usage that I'm engorged.

This has got to be my single favorite thing about the game, and something I've found very rare in strategy games I've played (once I hear feedback from other players, this will pretty much be the determining factor in whether I buy the M2TW).

I also love that it feels like I'm playing a combination of chess and risk, two of my favorite board games. I feel like I'm in a chess game more on the battle maps, though there are elements in the campaign game, but the campaign is mostly risk for me. I'd long dreamed of a Risk game set entirely in Europe, and in the Middle Ages rather than Napoleonic times, with the map divided into kingdoms instead of continents and historic regions rather than territories, and even thought of making such a map myself to play on. In my wilder fantasies I envisioned a way to play out the battles tactically instead of relying on dice. When I stumbled upon the demo for MTW, it was as though someone had delved into my innermost desires and made them fact. There was a sense of wonder, awe, enlightenment, and almost a few tears of joy.



Ajax

[_Aetius_]

Civil wars, by far the most challenging part of the game, RTW really missed a trick by now having civil wars, they are usually hard fought extremely bloody affairs compared to regular wars.

The entire political landscape can change as a result, you can go from a superpower to a mere regional power or emerge as an energetic leader of your empire with a highly experienced army leading to greater expansion. It's also a realistic part of the game.

I also love the chess/risk combination, the campaign map is perfect and does alot to disguise faults in the AI, it is always a challenge, it takes careful planning and understanding of the consequences of a war before you begin a campaign anywhere.

In MTW minor wars have a habit of spiralling, a dispute over Croatia which is rebel territory between Byzantiumm and Hungary, who then go to war having invaded as the same time, Hungary is allied to the Italians who are at war with Sicily who are the allies of Poland who are therefore at war with Hungary as they are allies of Byzantium who are by extension at war with the Italians or something along those lines. It's brilliant the way it works, the network of alliances its pros and cons are well developed compared to RTW, where allies mean nothing, it adds to the realism of the game.

[Jxrc]

Most enjoyable aspects of MTW ?

- the first 150/200 years of the game before you become the only real superpower;
- battles that I have never planned to fight (ending up with an army of infantry against a horde of HA and not a tree around - repelling an invasion with whaterver crap units I have manage to scrap);
- the stress when you know that any faction could attack you, easily beat you and trigger all other factions to do the same (yep, you've guess right, I play the HRE quite a lot ...)
- butchering Heavy Cavalry with halbardiers in the woods (makes me feel good about myself ... how very sad ... );
- defeating a horde of peasants, spearmen and slav warrior with a few men-at-arms

Less enjoyable aspects ?

- arquebusiers shootings two hours and killing one man ...
- allies refusing in 99.9% of the cases to agree to a royal wedding and give you their princess ....
- Byzantines in the early period (too strong for the other AI factions)
- AI generals that would just not die ....
- 4 hours battles against the Horde in Khazar ...
- Almohad Urban Militia eating my spearmen alive ...
- the way the AI uses its Jinettes when faced with archers killing one spearman while being decimated by arrows and bolts ...
- the last AI ship that cannot be sinked and blocks my trade routes ...

[gaijinalways]

This sounds like another thread titled "MTW; what drives you crazy?"

[Matador]

I love the early part of the game. When you don't know what is going to happen and in every battle you have to conserve troops because you don't have the money to build new ones. Also battles between very comparable armies, when the ground you chose decides the battle. Those battles where your in a half circle on a hilltop, entire line is engaged, archers are out of ammo, your reserves have been used to plug holes and stop flank attacks, your men are wavering, and as a last resort you throw your general into the thickest fighting just to hold your line. Then where your general hits the enemy line breaks like a wave and you chase them off the field. Makes me smile just thinking about it.

[Weebeast]

Well I like the fact that I get to play a strategic game with a super cool real-time battle.