Managing a Kingdom/Empire

[DensterNY]

High on my wish list for a new feature on MTW2 is some system to attach notation to your units and assets. I love that the game becomes more challenging as you progress but there's simply too much to handle or to keep track of after a few dozen turns. I find myself nearly every turn cycling through my cities and towns and my list of agents to micromanage everything that's going on. I don't auto-manage anything because the computer's decisions aren't always sound and usually not in line with my strategies.

I'd love to have a tool-tip pop up when I mouse over my cities and units to get a quick reminder of how they're serving my long term goals. For instance, its usually best to specialize in each castle one particular type of unit for a given area... say a castle maxed out on cavalry units, then a castle that's maxed out on archery. It'd be cool to just scroll over them and have a little note pop-up or a scroll bar on the bottom so I don't have to constantly look through menus looking at their assets to determine their function.

Seriously, after you move past one region things become a pain to manage and if you add in the dozens of agents that you'll likely have at your disposal I'm sure you'll agree a little notation system would be good. You might suggest I use paper and pencil but I think this would be cool and very useful.

[OMGLAZERS]

Perhaps just a pen + paper will do the trick.

[PseRamesses]

I always write a log when I´m playing with information relative to my kingdom like kings, generals stats, wars, conquests, loot´n´ransoms etc. I also have a strategy, not only with conquering, but also where to build what and where to have my castles, settlements and in which order to build things etc.

Ex: Spain; Usually I get Zaragoza and Valencia before engaging the Moors and, when I have to, the Portugese. IMO one only needs one castle in Spain = Toledo (same with the Brittish Isles) which means the rest must be converted to cities.
I also aim for getting merchants guild in Cordoba, Thieves in Léon, Assassins in Zaragoza, Theologicans in Valencia, Explorers in Lisbon etc. To obtain this I only produce each respektive unit in each city to obtain theese guilds. I always accept a temporary merchant guild in any other settlement but will raise it when all requirements are met to get a new one in the future.

When it comes to moving capitals I rarley do it unless I´m playing either the Turks or the Fatmids then I always, at some point, move my capitol to Jerusalem just to piss the catholics off, he he! I also frequently move the spanish one to Toledo just due to location. I would never move from London, Paris, Rome, Novgorod and Constantinople is untuchable no matter how my empire is looking.

[Dr_Who_Regen#4]

This is slightly off topic, but I wish you could see your general's statistics after a battle. I sometimes can't remember if they have a high dread or chivalry and hate when I choose to either execute or release prisoners and the other option could have been more helpful...

Off course the old Pen and paper as earlier suggested would help...

I do agree that perhaps it would be helpful if you could change your settlement names or give special titles to characters..

You could then say for Spy John Smith Title: spying on French Settlements..This would help to remind you what this person should be doing...

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

The degree of micro-managment has increased with each game with regard to the campaign map and some simple tools, common and in working order, on other games appear to have been entirely overlooked.

Why cant ships patrol an area? (HOI2 f.ex - multi-mode viability by sea "provinces" - engage enemy ships to X %, then return to base {refit})
Why cant assassins be told to kill any agent entering their province if the kill likelihood is over X %?
Why cant priests be told to move to a province with under 100% Catholicism when the province they are in reaches 100%?
Produce 10 priests in this town - then stop.
Diplomat - Find (search) factions without trade rights.
Merchant - keep at max of agent limit from this town only.
Assassin - keep sabotaging town buildings until % chance to fail = x%

and so on and so forth

simple scripting to relieve the ever burgeoning player micro-management burden.

The game has expanded but the player tools to manage the game has not kept pace...It needs to catch up.

In many cases the AI is already doing this for the AI, so why not allow it to do it also for the player when asked to?

40 priests, 20 assassins, 20 spies, 20 merchants, X princesses, X diplomats.... c'mon, that's not fun, its a chore..and its not half way through the game!

Give the player some tools so they can CHOSE to use the AI or not to micro-manage some features. Half the code is there already, just give us a GUI for it.

[Cowhead418]

I find that the single biggest factor that determines my interest later on in my campaigns is the level of micro-management and the length of each turn. This area is where I tend to lose my interest the fastest if it grows to be too large.