Anyone Else Feel Rushed in the Campaign?

[Quickening]

I have no idea how some folk manage to complete a long campaign in the time they are given. Im playing a short campaign right now and I'll be lucky if I manage that in the timeframe.

That aside, I don't like to feel rushed in a game so I think I'll be playing with the 0.5 timescale from now on.

Anyone else feel rushed in the campaign at standard?

[guyfawkes5]

No, but I can understand where you're coming from. If you like to turtle and upgrade your forces fully before sending them out, you may find yourself in a losing battle against time. Certainly mod the game, the reason CA made the files so accessible was so that people could enjoy it as they saw fit. :)

[rvg]

I use the 1ypt time scale, and that gives me WAY too many turns to finish the campaign even if I take it really slow.

[Quickening]

And it's not just the pace of the campaign either. To me, six months per turn makes far more sense when it comes to building times and movement.

[dumas]

I play pretty fast, because it's easier to blitzkrieg and roll over a faction in a few turns rather than giving it time to build up again for more fair battles. It's not at all historical and maybe it can even be seen as a mild exploit against the AI, but I just don't have the patience and it's certainly easier. If you have the patience, more power to you: I'm sure your games are more interesting than mine.

[Carl]

I too prefer a slower campaign, my average "grab rate" is about 1 settelment every 5 turns. The biggest issue is that it takes forever to get to gunpowder and the New World...

[caius britannicus]

I felt rushed in vanilla. I like to take it slow. For instance in my vanilla sicily campaign I held only 8 settlements when gunpower arrived. Why? because I like to give the AI a chance to fight back. I only attack new settlements with full armies and a general. If I have no general to lead the army I don't send it. So I was always always rushed in the vanilla campaign near the end. Now however I use LTC or 1 turn per year and I'm not rushed at all. at 1 turn per year I have played about 140 turns and am making good progress not feeling rushed and thoroughly enjoying the campaign.

[Whacker]

I never played vanilla, I always modded my game to 2TPY. When you mean rushed, do you mean that in general you feel rushed to meet your goals, or rushed in that the AI keeps harrying you? As for the first, I've never felt that because I play a 900 turn game. As to the second, I'd have to say it depends honestly. Playing at my own pace and selectively going to war with certain factions works out fine and I can progress at my own pace. However, there have been a few instances where I bit off more than I can chew, and I start a war with a neighbor (or vica versa) and the others smell blood and all jump me. In that case, yes I'm hard pressed to fight or maintain several fronts. Invariably when I start winning, I have to make the choice of whether or not to expand and if so where, and along what fronts. Given the right opportunity it's very easy to overextend yourself.

Cheers

[Quickening]

I never played vanilla, I always modded my game to 2TPY. When you mean rushed, do you mean that in general you feel rushed to meet your goals, or rushed in that the AI keeps harrying you? As for the first, I've never felt that because I play a 900 turn game. As to the second, I'd have to say it depends honestly. Playing at my own pace and selectively going to war with certain factions works out fine and I can progress at my own pace. However, there have been a few instances where I bit off more than I can chew, and I start a war with a neighbor (or vica versa) and the others smell blood and all jump me. In that case, yes I'm hard pressed to fight or maintain several fronts. Invariably when I start winning, I have to make the choice of whether or not to expand and if so where, and along what fronts. Given the right opportunity it's very easy to overextend yourself.

Cheers

Yeah I meant rushed to meet my goals. I'll soon be joining you on your timescale and I'll be glad. I like to take time to manage my empire and have the right men for any given job. I like to develop my cities into lovely places. I just love to savour every aspect of the game.
With the default timescale it just seems you have to just keep on attacking as relentlessly as possible. I know this is Total War not Europa Universalis but still, I enjoy empire building as much as conquering.

[Whacker]

Yeah I meant rushed to meet my goals. I'll soon be joining you on your timescale and I'll be glad. I like to take time to manage my empire and have the right men for any given job. I like to develop my cities into lovely places. I just love to savour every aspect of the game.
With the default timescale it just seems you have to just keep on attacking as relentlessly as possible. I know this is Total War not Europa Universalis but still, I enjoy empire building as much as conquering.

Join the crowd, I like taking my time and building up a big high tech empire too. I seem to recall reading somewhere that CA stated they aimed to make it 2YPT to aim this at the (supposedly) larger audience that wants a quick fix and "more action". There was a poll back when M2 was released asking how many TPY folks use, 1 and 2TPY took the lions share by a long shot, hardly anyone played at the default.

[Derfasciti]

I at first felt that way and then decided to mod it to 1 year= 1 turn. It took a lot of pressure off me.

[RoadKill]

I myself felt rushed when i started off with the 2 year per turn timescale but i hanged it to 0.5 years per turn time scale and I found that i could take my time destroying other factions lmfao

[Foz]

I have to admit I've been a bit torn on this issue since the beginning. On the one hand, yes it starts to seem very pressing as you get further into a campaign. You look at a maybe 20-ish province empire on turn 100, and it looks like it will be very difficult if even possible to complete the objectives. When I thought about it, though, I discovered that the little edge of anxiousness that I was feeling about the time limit lurking on the horizon was actually a very positive thing. It was pushing me to manage the empire better, to learn more effective strategies. It made me keep on top of everything, and coordinate multiple simultaneous attacks in order to make better progress. This made me feel very uncomfortable at first, as it felt like the game was demanding too much from me. Over time that's changed though: I've become a lot better and more comfortable at managing things and making good progress, and feel like I've grown as a commander and empire manager as a result. It's grown on me so much that though I know I can sometimes appreciate the merits of a slower game, I will likewise miss the edge-of-a-knife drive that a fairly demanding time limit lends to the game.

[TevashSzat]

In the beginning it may be slow going to gain territories, but your territories will expand exponentially as your economy becomes better and you are allowed to field multiple armies. Other than that, it is just dependent on play style. I am more of a blitz player and thus has never finished a campaign after 75 turns. I continually blitz through the whole campaign fueled by either mercs or crusades with funds gained from sacking. Occasionally once I get about 30 regions or so around turn 40 I will just stop and build up and wait until gunpowder, but it never lasts since all of my neighboring factions are just begging to be whiped out and before I know it, I have all of Europe

[sapi]

I've got the opposite problem - thanks to non-existant diplomacy, everyone declares war with me and thus i have to fight them.

Though it takes some skill on the battlefield (more in army composition than anything else) it's perfectly reasonable to be at war with denmark, milan, venice, sicily, the papacy, france, england, scotland, russia, poland and hungary at once and win.

I may just lack the ability to play a totally defensive game, but i tend to complete games before i get a chance to use gunpowder :(

[Koval]

Personally, i feel that I am constantly pressured to speed up and capture provinces due to squalor. It seems that any time a wall or castle upgrade is possible, I am forced to upgrade, even if i can't afford it, or suffer repercussions later on.
Sometimes, I don't want every single one of my cities to be super huge, yet have no worthwhile buildings. Squalor has been nothing but a pain ever since it was implemented.

[Foz]

Sometimes, I don't want every single one of my cities to be super huge, yet have no worthwhile buildings. Squalor has been nothing but a pain ever since it was implemented.

Welcome to the everyday problems of every single government in existence.

[pat the magnificent]

yeah, medieval city life pretty much was the definition of squalor. the game would be silly with out it

[Marquis of Roland]

The problem I have is I want to fight the late-period troops of other factions and the the default amount of turns does not let the AI tech up enough for that to happen. Part of it comes from the AI not having enough money to upgrade their settlements to to the highest level, due to the fact that most of them are constantly fighting other AI factions with a bunch of crappy troop stacks and/or mercs that drain their economy when they're better off recruiting a few stacks of good-quality troops (which is why fighting Mongols and Timurids is the best part of the game).

I've been giving away all of my excess money (I try to keep it under 50k) to weaker factions in my game (such as HRE, who got whooped by about 5 different factions at the same time all across their borders, or France, which bascially gets whooped by 5 other factions from all sides), but instead of manning up and building up their military, they became vassals of Hungary or some crap, and then you have Hungary (who hasn't teched up but now has an instant infusion of hundreds of thousands of cash) instantly recruiting another 3 or 4 full stacks of crossbow militia and FFK, it gets a little boring wiping out these kinds of inferior stacks after awhile. I mean, its past 1400 and you're coming at me with FFK and crossbow militia.....c'mon.

[Carl]

I've been giving away all of my excess money (I try to keep it under 50k) to weaker factions in my game (such as HRE, who got whooped by about 5 different factions at the same time all across their borders, or France, which bascially gets whooped by 5 other factions from all sides), but instead of manning up and building up their military, they became vassals of Hungary or some crap, and then you have Hungary (who hasn't teched up but now has an instant infusion of hundreds of thousands of cash) instantly recruiting another 3 or 4 full stacks of crossbow militia and FFK, it gets a little boring wiping out these kinds of inferior stacks after awhile. I mean, its past 1400 and you're coming at me with FFK and crossbow militia.....c'mon.

What are FFK?

Persnolly I find the only way to get the AI to stop recruiting low level Militia is to reduce the amount they can recruit once they get acess to better units. In my current V1.14 BETA i've seen Milanisse stakes composed of a mix of Italian Spear Militia, Genose Crossbow Militia, Armoured Seargents, Dismounted MAA, and Famiale Ducal, with over a quater of it being Familae Ducal. In a Normal game that stack would have mostly been Genosse crossbow Militia, Ballistae, and Italian Militia instead.

[dumas]

Persnolly I find the only way to get the AI to stop recruiting low level Militia is to reduce the amount they can recruit once they get acess to better units.

This is off-topic, but I have a question somewhat related to what you just said. Is there a way to control what the pope automatically builds when you give him land? It seems that every time I do, he builds a bunch of siege stuff and a few to no infantry--and loses that land in a few turns. For example, I gave him Paris after my crusade there(and after repairing everything for him) and this is what he decided to generate:



Next time, I should try destroying the siege building before gifting and see if that makes any difference.

[JCoyote]

Actually Dumas, that's a flaw in the city-handover mechanic, not the way the AI builds things. When a city is turned over, the receiving faction is given an occupying force there. The problem is, that force is often mostly one kind of unit. I have quite often received all-siege armies when I've gotten provinces from diplomacy.

[Marquis of Roland]

What are FFK?

Persnolly I find the only way to get the AI to stop recruiting low level Militia is to reduce the amount they can recruit once they get acess to better units. In my current V1.14 BETA i've seen Milanisse stakes composed of a mix of Italian Spear Militia, Genose Crossbow Militia, Armoured Seargents, Dismounted MAA, and Famiale Ducal, with over a quater of it being Familae Ducal. In a Normal game that stack would have mostly been Genosse crossbow Militia, Ballistae, and Italian Militia instead.

FFK = feudal foot knights.

Whoops, that was medieval 1 terminology, in M2TW that would be dismounted feudal knights

[Carl]

Thanks.

For what it's worth DFK are pretty far up the tech tree, normally only 2-Handers, Dismounted Chivalric Knights and their equivelents are higher. occassionly pike or Halberds as well. In fact your doing well to see DFK in vanillia, and overall they are fairly far up the tech tree strictly speaking, only a couple of units are above them, and all need the top level Castle Barracks to get.

[Foz]

That is a decent point in favor of using a slower-than-standard timescale: it will affect army composition. Not in and of itself, of course: there's no relationship in the code between the two. But certainly if you can play the game at a somewhat slower pace and not be rushing around like mad to conquer the entire known world, then it gives at least some of the AI nations a chance to tech up to a reasonable level, and that means you start seeing armies that are closer to what you yourself would build, including some higher level units and a better mix in general. It seems the AI is not nearly as efficient at getting up the tech tree as we players are, so the slower play style lends itself to giving the AI a fighting chance, and the better competition that results seems to make the game more enjoyable for the majority of players.

I also observe one big theme running through this thread: players come in many types, and some play styles are better matches for certain types of players. If you haven't tried playing the game at different time scales, you should: it makes more of a difference than you would think at first, and you may find the game more to your liking at a different speed.

[Razor1952]

I've got the opposite problem - thanks to non-existant diplomacy, everyone declares war with me and thus i have to fight them.

:(

I find that hard to reconcile, my personal experience is that diplomacy works if you cultivate your friends. As Venice I was able to go from deceitful where lots of factions declared on me to reliable where everyone wants to be my friend. Of course I bribe the pope(100x100) and did the same for Milan and france and Hre early on till I made the mistake of travelling through HRE territory without consent. I never had to fight a catholic army which was not excommed.

Pretty much all catholic factions are so-so or above relations(except Milan which I had to take out the local cities to stategically leave with a few choke points to defend if necessary(after they were excommed of course). Even HRE now at peace and amiable.

Now 30 provinces and the mongols have arrived and Jerusalem and most of nearby provinces are heavily defended and upgraded. Only the Turks and Moors are at war with me (aside from a crippled Milan) and everyone else is happy with me.

I turned my young doge +8 dread down to +2 dread only in about 20 turns. he's still in his 40's. That probably did more for my reputation than anything else.

Unfortunately even playing to preserve reputation and relations my game could easily be over before gunpowder.

[nekrotyrael]

in 3 vh/vh long campaigns i haven't got to gunpowder yet ;(

[Foz]

I find that hard to reconcile, my personal experience is that diplomacy works if you cultivate your friends. As Venice I was able to go from deceitful where lots of factions declared on me to reliable where everyone wants to be my friend. Of course I bribe the pope(100x100) and did the same for Milan and france and Hre early on till I made the mistake of travelling through HRE territory without consent. I never had to fight a catholic army which was not excommed.

Pretty much all catholic factions are so-so or above relations(except Milan which I had to take out the local cities to stategically leave with a few choke points to defend if necessary(after they were excommed of course). Even HRE now at peace and amiable.

Now 30 provinces and the mongols have arrived and Jerusalem and most of nearby provinces are heavily defended and upgraded. Only the Turks and Moors are at war with me (aside from a crippled Milan) and everyone else is happy with me.

I turned my young doge +8 dread down to +2 dread only in about 20 turns. he's still in his 40's. That probably did more for my reputation than anything else.

Unfortunately even playing to preserve reputation and relations my game could easily be over before gunpowder.

Unless you've enabled the diplomacy variables, what you've described is not due to diplomacy working correctly. The variables control at what level of reputation and relationship the AI factions will trust you and thus respect your alliance with them, and are set by default so they never will. If you haven't enabled diplomacy, then any experiences of the AI seeming to keep alliances are typically due to your overall military presence being so great that they fear to attack you, or that you have a strong enough military border presence against any given faction that they do not feel they can successfully attack.

While I understand that the AI does not really feel things, of course, what I am talking about are the various triggers in descr_campaign_ai_db.xml that tell the AI when and how to attack. One of the primary conditions is to check military strength nationally and locally of the target, to gauge if a war could be profitable or winnable. If you have a strong enough military presence, it would essentially make the AI understand that it could never win, and thus not attack. The fact that you say your game could still be over before gunpowder indicates that you probably have a very large military, or you'd not have amassed territory so quickly... which of course makes it all the more likely that your power is the factor staving off the AI aggression as opposed to anything else. In my experience w/ diplomacy disabled (i.e. out of the box game) your border defense is the single biggest factor that determines whether you keep peace with any given AI faction.

[Razor1952]

While I understand that the AI does not really feel things, of course, what I am talking about are the various triggers in descr_campaign_ai_db.xml that tell the AI when and how to attack. One of the primary conditions is to check military strength nationally and locally of the target, to gauge if a war could be profitable or winnable. If you have a strong enough military presence, it would essentially make the AI understand that it could never win, and thus not attack. The fact that you say your game could still be over before gunpowder indicates that you probably have a very large military, or you'd not have amassed territory so quickly... which of course makes it all the more likely that your power is the factor staving off the AI aggression as opposed to anything else. In my experience w/ diplomacy disabled (i.e. out of the box game) your border defense is the single biggest factor that determines whether you keep peace with any given AI faction.

Thank you Foz.

I should have mentioned I'm playing L to C 2.1 which I think includes an ai trigger, but I havn't looked deeply into whats happening there. Nevertheless it seemed the ai was behaving what I thought was properly, albeit as I approach target province number(35 for Venice) I guess ?tall poppy triggers should be enabled if they not in this mod.

Certainly in this incarnation diplomacy seemed work, when I was despicable everyone( alot anyway) declared against me , when it improved I was able to get a reasonable peace(albiet with a bit of persistence and bribery). BTW I only had Pope as ally , except Turks , who subsequently attacked because of Jihad called. I was able to largely keep fellow catholics happy , whilst attacking Islamist and orthodox states. My goal is of course to get 35 provinces almost exclusively from these stated only.

The turks btw seem to have no trouble continuing their war against me, and I intentionally have not taken the eastern and NE provinces, as I presume they will take the brunt of the mongols first.

[KHPike]

Well, I also feel rushed because once you've destroyed another faction, another faction/factions steps in to fill in the gap of war.