Roleplaying

[Eques]

Hi.
This may be somekind of dumb question im afraid. Well, i wanna play in 2 diferent styles: good and evil. I mean, play a faction being loyal to the pope, doing all crusades, releasing all prisioners etc etc. Also being very bad (using another faction), killing all prisioners, using very high taxes, murdering princessess and so on. So i wanna ask you 2 things.
Wich faction wold you choose for the good stye and wich one for the bad?

Does anyone wanna share how to roleplay in total war games?

[Faenaris]

Hiya, Eques. If you are looking for a "good" style, try Poland. They have just recently (gamewise) become Christian and as such, would be trying to show how faithful they are.

If you want a "bad" choice, well, everything goes. Just pick one and imagine they are all nasty people.

And regarding the role-playing: The key-word is "Immersion". Just try to imagine you are "there" and that you can see the characters and talk to them. Then start role-playing. For example, you have a Faction leader who has the nickname "The Mad". He could for example order a general to go on a boat and start attacking the Pope on his own! Or build a huge army of peasants and ship them off on a crusade! In other words, take a look at the traits of the chars and then start playing in accordance to those characters. If the mad leader has a smart son, you may even "role-play" a rebellion by putting your leader on a boat and then dropping him off in hostile territory ("By orders of your son, Prince ..., we leave you here to combat the enemy or perish. May God have mercy on your soul, for we do not.")

Also, take a look at some AAR's, some of them are really well role-played and they might give you some inspiration.

[kvbrock82]

sorry to seem like the local cheesecake but what is an AAR?

i too have trouble roleplaying in medieval games... i always seem to remember the names of my generals up to turn 10 but then every one of them goes anonymous to me..

i find it hard to belive that players can do a whole campaign knowing every generals names/skill/retinue offhand.. am i doing something wrong? is there an easier way to do it besides memorizing? its easy at the start but the amount of characters builds up VERY fast

[Hengist]

AAR = After Action Report.

[kvbrock82]

AAR = After Action Report.

you mean after a battle? after a turn?

[Ludivico Sforza]

i too have trouble roleplaying in medieval games... i always seem to remember the names of my generals up to turn 10 but then every one of them goes anonymous to me..

i find it hard to belive that players can do a whole campaign knowing every generals names/skill/retinue offhand.. am i doing something wrong? is there an easier way to do it besides memorizing? its easy at the start but the amount of characters builds up VERY fast

I keep a little notepad next to the keyboard and jot down a few notes every couple of turns.

[kvbrock82]

I keep a little notepad next to the keyboard and jot down a few notes every couple of turns.

ye ive thought about it before... ill start doing that and see how it goes

[Daveybaby]

you mean after a battle? after a turn?

Or after an entire game, or a bit of a game, or whatever you like. Have a look at beefeater's vignettes (I, II, III) for an example of it done really well.

He also roleplays his games - but he doesnt do it as a faction, rather, he roleplays each of his generals, so he can be both nice and nasty in the same game.

[kvbrock82]

Or after an entire game, or a bit of a game, or whatever you like. Have a look at beefeater's vignettes (I, II, III) for an example of it done really well.

He also roleplays his games - but he doesnt do it as a faction, rather, he roleplays each of his generals, so he can be both nice and nasty in the same game.

is this common? do most of you guys play like this?

ive been playing total war games since shogun and ive never come across it before

everytime i start a game ill be telling myself that im really going to pay attention to whats going on an and treat my generals as family and all but the role-play factor doesnt hold for long.

ill try jotting notes as Ludivico Sforza mentioned and hopefully will help my cause, except that im not really sure what im gonna write. i guess ill have to see what to jot down as i go along

[Kobal2fr]

I've used the Hungarians successfully as my "evil" faction. One reason is that with horse archers friendly firing each other your commanders will almost always get "Victory First, +1 dread". The other reason is that although they were very pious, very "we're the new christians so we'll be extra-faithfull", taking the brunt of the Turkish for so long turned them very, very brutal over time (think Vlad Tepes (Dracula) mad).

The French campaign I just started was supposed to go the other way, la fille aînée de l'Eglise and all, but the starting Prince has 4 Dread to the 4 or 5 Chivalry of his father, so I prefered to roleplay the shift in power - King Philip was a gentle ruler, with moderate taxes, ordering his generals to free prisonners, pay tithe to the Pope, build Churches extensively, join the First Crusade (and eventually win it) etc...
His son (by then 8 Dread, 1 Piety) has now been crowned king, and already the realm is... different. There's assassins and spies everywhere, by and odd twist of fate there are also two inquisitors roaming Belgium and Provence (thankfully only killing priests, not generals - the new Pope loves me still ). Taxes have been cranked to the max. The plans for an early Notre Dame cathedral in Paris have been scrapped. There's a backstab invasion of England in his mind. And the new King really, really wished his nobler crusading brother had not made peace with the Egyptians nor kept any Muslim alive in Antioch, so he's sent some cronies over there to muck things up

In the end, roleplaying the king + heirs rather than the kingdom has been much fun for me, even though I'm not on Beefeater's level yet, roleplaying every single general and their conflicting agendas

[Ulug Beg]

I used to make notes of key events in the history of my Kingdom when playing M1TW – births, deaths, marriages etc, plus when I got invaded or captured new provinces. I would also play each king according to his character traits, so if one were into trade and philanthropy he could spend his whole reign just developing his kingdom and only fighting to defend his lands, but if the King were an ‘unhinged loon’ then neighbours had better watch out.

Didn’t do it with RTW because the new Family Tree view kept a track of a lot of the info, but think I may tray again with my next M2TW campaign. For me it adds a sense of history when you can look back after a long campaign game and see how long Kings reigned and what they achieved.

[Quickening]

I used to make notes of key events in the history of my Kingdom when playing M1TW – births, deaths, marriages etc, plus when I got invaded or captured new provinces. I would also play each king according to his character traits, so if one were into trade and philanthropy he could spend his whole reign just developing his kingdom and only fighting to defend his lands, but if the King were an ‘unhinged loon’ then neighbours had better watch out.

Nice idea

"Hmm, now what would King Geofrey the Insane do in this tight situation?"

[melvinio]

I would suggest the French as the 'goodies'. Mr. Kobal makes a good point about Louis, (he ran around keeping nobles 'in check' - i.e. breaking their castles) but 12th century France was 'where it was at' for noble deeds and scholarly thinking. This is how the Franks saw themselves. They also saw themselves as fierce warriors, leaders of the First Crusade, which meant some knights did a few less-than-noble deeds. Little bit of a contradiction, but I'm not gonna argue with the man with the broadsword...

[Grimmy]

Stuff that helps me rp my "kingdom" is to try to recall what it must have been like in those days.

Death was common and always close by. When someone died, there was no coroner's office to come pick up the remains and no mortician to clean and dress and make the corps ready for disposial. The immediate family did those tasks. Child mortality was high. Simple infections could kill and injuries that would be fully healable today would be crippling back then.

All this means that people had a different psychological relationship to the idea of personal mortality than is the usual today.

Also, it was often the case where any kindness or "leniency" from a ruler or lord was viewed as weakness and weakness was something to be exploited and exploited weaknesses meant that entire families and social networks got slaughtered. Cruelity was often seen as a sort of virtue. Fear helped keep your loved ones alive and safe.

Loyalty worked differently in some ways back then too. Peasants weren't loyal as such. They'd pay their taxes or get killed/imprisoned or driven off their lands. They'd answer a lord's summons to battle for much the same reasons. National loyalty wasnt much of a concept. People would be "loyal" to their nearest large town/city because that's where their livelihood originated and where their safety from ravaging/pilaging/marading armies/bands was found. A person that would betray their city was the person that would open the gates to the invader and cause the blood of everyone he knew to flow down the streets.

Anyway, how ever inaccurate the above may be, this is what I tend to keep in mind when making some of the decisons on "what would a king do" as they come up in my games.

I have also found that this game system lends itself well to this sort of play and is probably why I get a year or more replayability out of each of the TW games I've purchased. There's always a slightly different way to approach a problem or issue that can be tried out that can lead to very different end results.

I've done the "power game" thing long ago with TW and found that once you figure the "best of breed" approach the game loses all shine and becomes just another bunch of buttons to push for predictable outcomes. That will always be the case with power gaming and strat games. No AI will ever be so well designed that it can not be "patterned" and predicted.

[IrishArmenian]

If you want to play from the Bad (Kekvit Irae, please work your ridiculous magic)'s standpoint pick the HRE! That, or anyone else close to Rome so you can take Rome as soon as he excommunicates you.

[kvbrock82]

thanks for the advice... was playing as england and captured the british isles, france and normandy so wasnt doing bad. but over the past 20/30 turns it has become dragging now the game has turned into a battle-retrain-battle-retrain cycle with portugal/ HRE/ denmark over the same 3 chokepoints. With absolutely no trace of roleplay left it's becoming very monotonous, very fast.

I think ill start a new campaign and follow your advise.. roleplaying by the general's/kings attributes and jotting down all the important information.

Is it best to go for a short campaign or a long one? a long one would probably be too much to keep track of after turn 100

[KARTLOS]

on an only mildly related point - i think it would be good if you could get a rview of your campagin like you can in some versions of civilization if you retire.
in civ it plays an animation of the map filling up as new cities are built or conquered - it was just a nice way to rreview what had happened

a similar feature would be amazing for total medieval. you could watch each faction spread out over the map and maybe key battles could be highlighted.

i think that would be quite useful for roleplayers.

another nice feature might be to give you leaders a log book of thier achievements that you could see. something simple like which cities they conqured, rival generals killed or captured and maybe signifigant buildings built.

[kvbrock82]

on an only mildly related point - i think it would be good if you could get a rview of your campagin like you can in some versions of civilization if you retire.
in civ it plays an animation of the map filling up as new cities are built or conquered - it was just a nice way to rreview what had happened

a similar feature would be amazing for total medieval. you could watch each faction spread out over the map and maybe key battles could be highlighted.

i think that would be quite useful for roleplayers.

another nice feature might be to give you leaders a log book of thier achievements that you could see. something simple like which cities they conqured, rival generals killed or captured and maybe signifigant buildings built.

i agree completely, some userfriendly summarized screen of the generals with a big pic/attributes for each one would work wonders in keeping track of your generals and developing a slightly more 'personal' relationship with them.