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  1. #1
    Member Member FetalPig's Avatar
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    Default Re: How is your campaign going?

    With the Reich at war against three opponents, prosecuting one enemy to the bitter end proved a difficult task. I found myself constantly strapped for cash and faced with a surly populace. It seemed like every time I could mount a respectable stack, some tragedy or another would come to snatch victory away before swords were ever crossed. I lost count of the number of family members and agents who were purged by (un)holy fire, but suffice it to say that if I could've afforded the hit to population contentment excommunication entails (I THINK that's what happens), I would have carried out my desire to crucify the Pope and his Italian and Scandinavian lackeys with little regret.

    Sadly, loyalty to the glorious empire was always fleeting. For example, I once lost half a stack of Teutonic and mailed knights with multiple silver chevrons (hooray for retraining!) to a captain who didn't have his priorities straight. On top of this, it seemed that every time I would take the upper hand against one foe or another, the Pope would call me off. Even ceding a blood soaked Ragusa to him proved too little to gain his lasting affection (not to mention that Popes who favored the HRE seemed prone to fatal maladies). Struggling to make my forces meet every threat, the Reich was forced to rely on mercenaries. Untold numbers of expensive crossbowmen and papier mache spearmen were enlisted, and they performed as well as could be expected. I managed to get a few units of mercenaries to high levels of experience. Of course, the tradeoff for this military success (more properly: equilibrium) was that I had a hard time getting ahead financially. It wasn't until I finally pushed the Venetians back to their holdout in Iraklion that I could gain the upper hand.

    Of course, all this sounds like warmongering, but it was through no intent of my own. I tried to make peace with each and every one of my foes at favorable times, but they would never listen to reason. Apparently the diplomats of the Holy Roman Empire were higly flatulent irrascible bastards as no one seemed prone to accepting even the most lucrative offers for peace. NOt even soundly defeating armies that outnumbered my own 3:1 was enough to convince my enemies that their resistance was only prolonging the inevitable.

    However, in the end, the joke was on them. After I pushed the Venetians off the continent proper, reduced the Sicilians to impotent paupers, and showed the Danes the folly of sending militia to face the might of the Teutons, my victory was inevitable.

    To cap my ultimate triumph, I decided to finish the Ventians off with an amphibious invasion. It isn't too often I taunt my computer, but when I crushed the Doge and his family on a battle on a Cretan hillside, I found myself mocking the computer's feeble defense. I was all too happy to show the Venetians the scientific advances that had been made while they were away from Europe proper, and nothing was quite as sweet as dropping a flaming cannonball on hi face before parading my armoured sergeants through his town.

    .........................................................................................

    Sorry if my posts were rambling comma-ridden exercises in boredom, I had a hard time deciding what sort of perspective I wanted to relate my tale through; as my retelling was spur of the moment and after the fact, some of the more interesting details have been lost. Next game I play, I'll make things a little more cohesive and keep track of the cooler bits better. For example, I just remembered that I took Venice TWICE, once in a Crusade. I still had a unit of Crusader Sergeants last me almost thirty turns after that, marching up and down the Balkans gutting Venetian dogs...ahh the memories.

    In sum, if you want an exciting game, I think the HRE is where it be at. Just remember that you have way too many castles and way too many enemies to afford making units out of all of them--and don't even THINK about keeping them all upgraded to the latest tier of goody (or even about keeping them all AS castles).

  2. #2
    Member Member Rothe's Avatar
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    Default My Venice campaign

    My campaign as Venice is going pretty swell now.

    I am playing H/VH grand campaign, which seems to be the best settings for my style. I really have to work on diplomacy to keep a few allies/neutrals so that I have only 1-2 fronts. I just tackled HRE in the south europe provinces and now I am getting ready to take Constantinopole as it is my grand campaign specific goal. I currently control 21 provinces and my economy gives me about 20 000florins per turn excess funds. I have about 4 good professional armies (=one and half stacks full of experienced knights, PXB's and Pikemen) plus some nice garrison troops and a few places hold some cavalry to control rebels and surprises by enemy troops.

    I really find that even italian militias are not so great as spears in MTW1. Pikemen seem to suit the role of line infantry for me much better.

    My timescale is 0.5, and it seems OK. I still would like to play 1 year per turn to get some history progression during the entire campaign. Now it seems I might win before the mongols show up, which is maybe good as I have no idea how to contain them and I have to control Constantinopole to win...

    I recommend 0.5 timescale if you do not want to worry about conquering a province every 2 turns. I find that it is nice to play along with the pope's demands and keep peace with some of the catholic nations. I have taken up a principle that I will not get excommunicated or otherwise upset the pope, sort of imitating the sorely missed glorious achievements. I think missions are not a complete replacements for GA's but they help.

    My only complaints are that the tech tree seems a bit messy as Men at arms seem to be obsolete once I get to build them. Feudal Knights are better in almost every regard with the same upkeep cost. I guess MP could get use out of MAA as they are relatively cheap to build, but upkeep in the campaign is prohibitive.
    Total war games played so far:
    STW, MTW, MTW:VI, RTW, MTW2, ETW, STW2

  3. #3
    I wanna be a real boy! Member chunkynut's Avatar
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    Default Re: How is your campaign going?

    I'm on my third long campaign, my first was England and that was a Victory, my second and third are Spain and Denmark respectively, but I've not completed those yet, I'm just the dominant power at the time in both.

    Totally love this game, it was the only thing that stopped me playing Viva Piniata this weekend (don't play Viva Piniata if you wish to continue a TW campaign!!!!).

    I'll be playing this until the next one comes out! No where near needing an expansion pack, but we all know that one's probably just round the corner.

  4. #4
    Member Member tenkesh's Avatar
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    Default Re: How is your campaign going?

    My campaign is going better than I was expecting.

    I'm on my 110th turn right now and expanding as hell.
    I started with England and it's actually my first Total War game. Haven't played the previous ones for some reason (as it appears, missed out on some quality time). Anyways, after kicking some rebel ass and married my princess to the French and becoming their ally, I sent an army to conquer Caen and Rennes, which was held by french rebels. Succeeded on that and next thing I know, French stab me in the back and holding siege on my army in Caen. Needless to say I got pretty pissed at them. I was just about to kick some french ass, and the Danes started to harass me heavily. I fought hard on two fronts and even managed to go on with a crusade to Turkey, which I didn't finish, but since my army was on the Turkish grounds, proceeded to take some lands and sacking the Cities over there and leaving them to rot. My general got massacred by French on the way back. I was really craving for some payback.

    As the time went on, I managed to fight back the Danes and finally they got excommunicated. I took some of their cities and they didn't bother me anymore. I also managed to train two excellent assassins, teamed them up with some crafty spyes and proceeded to take care of the French. I literally massacred their family line turn after turn and took their cities with only their captains defending them. The Pope was pretty pissed at me and I didn't quite know where to give money to please him so I was on the brink of excommunication myself. But when I found out I just have to give some 300 £ to Pope to keep him happy, things turned out much better. He is my pet now and eating out of my palm. I was all like: "Hey, Pope, here's your daily allowance, now buy yourself something nifty, go to your room and be a good boy!"

    By the 82nd turn my map looked like this:


    In the mean time the Cities on the Turkish soil did fine, nobody seemed to want them so I trained some units and buildings there aswell to keep the rising population happy.

    So I went on with getting rid of the leftovers from the France, constatnly getting warnings from Pope to leave them alone and constantly ingoring them. As I terminated the French, Portugal attacked me. Well, as they soon found out, that was not their brightest idea. I kicked them in the nuts, took their regions and leaving them with only one city (where the Portugal is located nowadays). They are throwing diplomats at me, trying to get Ceasefire from me, but I just keep knocking them over the fence with a message: "Don't start that what you can't finish."

    So the Spain decided that they could take me on. And boy did they thought wrong. I already had some bloodshed with their armies and took some Cities aswell. They are tougher than Portuguese but not tough enough. I am planning to wipe them out in a matter of 5-8 turns.

    I also exterminated the Danes and ordered a crusade on that my general easily undertook and won. I gave the sacked city to Poland with some money to buy him into alliance, since he was getting bigger by the turn and I rather have an ally between me and Russia.

    So this is my situation now.



    I have made 110 turns. I own about 31 regions. My economy is prospering and I live of the fat of the land. With several big armies and constant building up, I still manage to get 10-40k of money per turn. I have a big family tree, Pope thinks of me as his master. I'm about to kick the Spain and Portugal back to Stone Age and when I have no threats from the west, I'll turn my forces to the east and take whatever gets in my way. I'm pretty sure that I will complete the criterias of this campaign without too much trouble.

    All and all not too shabby for the first game, huh?
    I had my first attempt of cybersex recently. It was horrible!
    I electricuted my testicles and soiled a perfectly good computer beyond repair.

  5. #5
    Member Member Rothe's Avatar
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    Default Re: How is your campaign going?

    Pretty good going for a first campaign.

    Still, it is a good idea to also post your difficulty ratings so others can give you some general advice etc. easier.

    And the general format is: Campaign difficulty / Battle difficulty.

    I am personally playing a H/VH (hard/very hard) game and it seems like a decent challenge, although I can see myself winning without much challenge in my beforementioned Venice campaign unless the mongols screw me over.
    Total war games played so far:
    STW, MTW, MTW:VI, RTW, MTW2, ETW, STW2

  6. #6
    Guardian of the Fleet Senior Member Shahed's Avatar
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    Default Re: How is your campaign going?

    Sorry for the OT, but just a personal observation to share.

    Actually it isn't hard to blitz, on H/VH, it's even easier on VH/VH.
    It's harder to snail on any difficulty level, it gives the AI time to build.

    I did a few turns as HRE with automanage everything, all I did was fight from turn one, and keep fighting. In 15 turns, no more Danes, no more Milan no more Venice (reduced to one province in Balkans), Poles badly mauled beyond repair etc... piece of cake.

    If you give the AI time to tech up and build, then it gets harder. It also gets harder if you manage everything yourself because you increase your chance of error.

    At least that's the way it has been harder for me.
    If you remember me from M:TW days add me on Steam, do mention your org name.

    http://www.steamcommunity.com/id/__shak

  7. #7
    <Insert Custom User Title> Member Dan.o6's Avatar
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    Default Re: How is your campaign going?

    But a harder game is a more enjoyable game. I could blitz the whole map from the off but I don't want to, it would just get tedious.

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