Do you Control all Cities and/or Roleplay?

[Quickening]

I asked something similar to this a few months back but I don't think I quite explained what I mean very well.

Do you chose to control all your own cities and why? Do you have a particular way of roleplaying? Do you roleplay at all? If so, how do you?

Im very interested to hear if people have deep seated philosophies behind being able to control all their cities or not and what kind of roleplaying goes on.

See Im thinking that for my next game I'll only allow myself to control cities that my family members are in. Normally I love to build up all my settlements. This time though I going to be writing a blog for my game and each entry will be written from the perspective of the King of the time. Also the blogs will be written in character so if the current King is mad... well, should be interesting.
I also want to really look after my family members and make sure they all have fullfilling lives.

That's the plan anyway.

So, any great roleplay going on out there? Does not controlling cities play a part of that?

[ballaboy]

I tend to control all, as I think it's actually more realistic. All major cities would have had governors of some description who would have been answerable to the hierarchy.

I find the notion that with 6 major cities in Britain, for instance, people would just be allowed to develop them as they saw fit.

[Andres]

I'm afraid I'm a bit of a control freak. I micro-manage every settlement and feel pretty uncomfortable if I realise I forgot one after pushing the end turn button.

As for the roleplaying, I try to, but usually I end up executing my prisoners, sacking or exterminating conquered settlements, chasing every single unit of the battle map which gives my generals (well, at least those that are 'in the field' and not managing a settlement) alot of dread.

It must be my dark side that always takes over when playing TW games

[Caelus]

Well, I do control all settlements but only because if I don’t the AI will end up spending large amounts of money on buildings I didn’t authorize and destroy my economic plans, not fun!


I tend not to role-play much anymore because I started getting obsessive about my generals (sounds scary doesn’t it!).

[Quickening]

I don't want to change this into a debate on the subject but Ive been thinking lately about what is more realistic; full settlement control or only governed. I mena obviously a King could demand that a settlement grow in a certain way but I think this is represented well enough by the AI build policies where a foolish subject might piss the King off by spending too much money. Ive no idea if that ever happened but it sounds good

[dumas]

As I understand it, the whole feudal system is a bunch of lords with their own lands that pay taxes to the king and provide soldiers when in need. So if a lord wants to build himself a brothel because he's addicted to whores and booze (instead of the church that the king would like him to build with that money), I think he could. The king shouldn't have much control in what the lords build in their own fiefdom as long as they pay their taxes and send soldiers.

[JCoyote]

Unfortunately the growing nations of the era were losing trappings of the feudal system Dumas. That only applied at the earliest stages, and even then not entirely.

There are gaps there. Look at the system for raising longbowmen in england. That was a matter of royal directives that filtered all the way down to commoners. Kings DID have control over a lot, the only question was how they decided to use it.

[IrishArmenian]

I'm afraid I'm a bit of a control freak. I micro-manage every settlement and feel pretty uncomfortable if I realise I forgot one after pushing the end turn button.

That happens all the time to me.
I don't have a big problem with Chivalry, though. I do make sure to look over a general's/family member's traits before a battle, making sure I know how to fight with them.

[Memnoch]

I asked something similar to this a few months back but I don't think I quite explained what I mean very well.

Do you chose to control all your own cities and why? Do you have a particular way of roleplaying? Do you roleplay at all? If so, how do you?

Im very interested to hear if people have deep seated philosophies behind being able to control all their cities or not and what kind of roleplaying goes on.

See Im thinking that for my next game I'll only allow myself to control cities that my family members are in. Normally I love to build up all my settlements. This time though I going to be writing a blog for my game and each entry will be written from the perspective of the King of the time. Also the blogs will be written in character so if the current King is mad... well, should be interesting.
I also want to really look after my family members and make sure they all have fullfilling lives.

That's the plan anyway.

So, any great roleplay going on out there? Does not controlling cities play a part of that?

I control all cities and I roleplay - eg right now my Sultan of the Turkish Empire is a chivalrous, holy warrior of Islam. I release all prisoners (except name characters, who I ransom), I don't sack cities (even if it leads to unrest and revolt etc) and I try to be fair in my dealings with other peoples (eg I don't break alliances and I frequently send foreign aid to my allies and other Muslims). Unfortunately this behaviour is not returned and every war I have been involved in has been the result of someone attacking first; eg the Byzantines - destroyed them; the Egyptians - Muslim brothers, no less, destroyed them - the Sicilians - have them on the rack; the Portuguese (to be fair they weren't at war with me but a jihad was called on Lisbon and I considered it my holy duty to liberate it from the infidels); the Scots - have them on the rack; the Venetians - broke an alliance with me, perfidious scum - destroyed them; the Poles - also broke an alliance with me.

The funny thing is, I try to roleplay and live a life of chivalry, fairness and whatnot but somehow my reputation (in the diplomacy screens) is Deceitful! Why is that? I don't know what I did wrong.

[KHPike]

I control my cities manually. Don't want the AI building useless stuff and armies of trebuchet for me either. As for governors, they all show 'corruption the king can't control' by all becoming wildly extravagant. There should be an option somewhere to kill off useless bums like them.

As for roleplay, I usually try not to, since the unreasonable nature of the AI is cause for high blood pressure. And when I do I become an exceedingly ruthless monarch.

[Memnoch]

As for roleplay, I usually try not to, since the unreasonable nature of the AI is cause for high blood pressure. And when I do I become an exceedingly ruthless monarch.

Definitely easier to roleplay a brutal monarch - makes more sense. Act despicably and you get a despicable reputation. Act with honour and you still get a despicable reputation!

[KHPike]

Memnoch, in my opinion it isn't easy to keep rep high as a Muslim nation. With the AI diplomacy fix and playing a Catholic faction, maintaining alliances and keeping relations at very good and above will stay any wars the Catholic AI factions intitiate. As a result rep rises easily.

Muslim factions don't have that luxury. Even a trusted alliance will end up broken by the AI if the Pope declares a crusade on you. And considering that you take the rep hit even though you were the victim of a deceitful AI...it's frustrating.

When that happens, I repay such treachery with wanton slaughter, which keeps up my bad rep lol.

[Kraggenmor]

I control all cities because I don't trust the AI.

I don't role play much but, I do from time to time in regards to how I treat offers from other factions.

For instance, in my current Spanish campaign, the Pope had called a Crusade on Antioch. I had just finished expelling the Moors from Iberia and was not in good position to send a large force led by a meaningful general that far afield what with rebellious settlements, impending Moorish counter-attacks and long standing war with France to the north.


So, I decided to wait to the last moment to join the crusade and assemble a crusade army slowly. The turn I created the army, France was excommed. (huzzah!)

I loaded the crusading army, which included one of my best spys, a priest and a cardinal and a host of freshly purchased crusader units, onto boats to head off to Antioch. At the end of their first turn's movement the Crusader fleet was sunk by the French navy.

This act of heretical piracy has cost the Spanish crown the lives of hundreds of good Christian soldiers, thousands of Florins and a valued General. It has also earned the vile French the unending wrath of the Spanish people and we will not rest unditl they lay utterly ruined at our feet.

[Suraknar]

I think it depends from which angle you choose to portray yourself in any given campaign.

I really enjoy the Strategic and Tactical aspects of TW series. So when I assume the Role of Supreme commander of a given faction I want to know what is being built and when in every settlement, as it becomes like a chess game, move & counter move type of campaign.

Some times I just start Campaign where I let the AI manage to better represent the unnexpected.

In both cases I see it as role playing it just depends the role I choose to play as which determines wither I micro manage or try to macro manage.

It all about enjoyment anyways!

[Whacker]

My tactics:

1. I always manually control cities. That way I can decide what to build and when. The human mind is always going to be a better planner than the AI.

2. Manual control always extends to unit building as well. Generally, I'll maintain a requisite number of stacks at various points in my empire to at least ensure that I have defense as needed, and when I want to attack I'll start ramping up and build more stacks, or move my defensive ones into the areas I plan on taking. Further, unless I'm on a hard offense or someone caught me off guard and I'm scrambling to do damage control, I always give priority to funding things as follows:

1. Emergency defensive measures, such as city about to be attacked, or a city under attack.
2. Garrison units on understaffed cities/castles.
3. Teching up/building up my cities. <--- Usually this is where I start each turn if 1. or 2. don't apply.
4. Building more agents, like merchants or priests as needed.
5. Army maintenance/retraining, or defensive stack improvement.
6. Bribing, such as the Popester.

3. I don't roleplay, but I do get somewhat attached to my little pixelated characters. My wife sometimes comes in asking what I'm swearing loudly at, and I'm forced to explain to her that my trollop of a princess ran off with some idiot in the middle of an important mission. I don't understand why she gives me really weird looks when I tell her this.

Cheers!

[Razor1952]

I control all cities and I roleplay - eg right now my Sultan of the Turkish Empire is a chivalrous, holy warrior of Islam. I release all prisoners (except name characters, who I ransom), I don't sack cities (even if it leads to unrest and revolt etc) and I try to be fair in my dealings with other peoples (eg I don't break alliances and I frequently send foreign aid to my allies and other Muslims). Unfortunately this behaviour is not returned and every war I have been involved in has been the result of someone attacking first; eg the Byzantines - destroyed them; the Egyptians - Muslim brothers, no less, destroyed them - the Sicilians - have them on the rack; the Portuguese (to be fair they weren't at war with me but a jihad was called on Lisbon and I considered it my holy duty to liberate it from the infidels); the Scots - have them on the rack; the Venetians - broke an alliance with me, perfidious scum - destroyed them; the Poles - also broke an alliance with me.

The funny thing is, I try to roleplay and live a life of chivalry, fairness and whatnot but somehow my reputation (in the diplomacy screens) is Deceitful! Why is that? I don't know what I did wrong.

I play the same way. Using Lands to Conquer mod I had deceitful character but was able to get to very reliable , by only occupying and releasing. I think in Vanilla thats not possible. It doesn't always stop a war declaration but you can easily get ceasefire provided you don't attack.

[Werner]

The AI is still too flawed to effectively roleplay IMO. Nations randomly attack, offer treaties and then break them, send small numbers of troops to be masacered, build ineffectively...etc..etc..

Right now this game is packed with bugs and is in need of a big patch, whens the release date for that anyway?

[Quickening]

The AI is still too flawed to effectively roleplay IMO. Nations randomly attack, offer treaties and then break them, send small numbers of troops to be masacered, build ineffectively...etc..etc..

Right now this game is packed with bugs and is in need of a big patch, whens the release date for that anyway?

Any day now.

Although to be honest Im willing to bet that the diplomacy won't change much if at all with any future patches.

[TevashSzat]

The patch improvements does say that the ai will now conduct diplomacy better such as attack when they can actually do something instead of just blockading you with one ship

[Omisan]

I decided to play with the AI controlling the cities that have no Governor.

Big mistake.

No matter what priority I set for the cities, they won't stop wasting money on trebuchets, bombards and ballistas. It's very irritating. I have to click on each city and disband all the useless siege units every 2 or 3 turns to keep the upkeep fees down.


I wish I could change it in game.

[sbroadbent]

No matter what priority I set for the cities, they won't stop wasting money on trebuchets, bombards and ballistas. It's very irritating. I have to click on each city and disband all the useless siege units every 2 or 3 turns to keep the upkeep fees down.

That's the primary reason I would not let the AI control anything, except decide an autocalc...

Sometimes I wish I can hide certain buildings in the construction window so I don't waste time and money building something I don't plan to use.

Three reasons:

1. I don't want the buildings for siege equipment to be built when I have no plans to use siege equipment.

2. I don't want siege equipment to be built when i have no plans to use siege equipment, and

3. I don't want to waste even more money by forgetting to disband siege equipment.

Personally, spies have done a great job acting as my "siege" equipment when sieging a settlement. I prefer to play a more mobile field battle game in the real time battles... cavalry tends to be the unit I train most frequently. I've only started to train swords and spears on a more regular basis as I've found them necessary in some unfortunate battles.

As to roleplaying, I decided that my English Kings were taught to have no mercy for their enemies, therefore exterminate the little insects!

In my sicilian campaign though I'm considering another strategy. I'll choose to Occupy settlements that have a majority of catholics, sack primarily orthodox, and exterminate the infidels! I do notice that each time I exterminate a catholic settlement that my relations with the Pope drops by one cross each time.

[econ21]

I wish I could change it in game.

I thought you could turn off AI management of your cities during a campaign - try the options screen or editing your preferences file. I never use AI management (shudders at the thought), so I can't tell you exactly how. Maybe some kind soul can?

[Zoring]

Actually a real fun way to give RP'ing a go, is to radically change the way you play depending on who your king is, like once a new leader becomes the king, you look at his personality and try to play like he would.

An aggresive maniac you use to invade other countries a religious man you try to please the pope and so on, fun way to play.

[gardibolt]

I know you could turn off AI management of cities in RTW, but I haven't tried it in M2TW since after I figured that out I never let the AI manage my cities again. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a way to do it.

[Foz]

Yeah the option is there. You have to tick "manage all cities" or something like that when you first start-up the campaign, then basically all the cities always act like you have a governor there so you can manage them all.

I'd really like to see an in-between option where we could have the AI automatically build in ungoverned cities, but not automatically recruit units beyond the free militia garrisons. This is because the AI is ridiculous about the troops it chooses to recruit in unmanaged cities, and so at current actually allowing it to control all cities w/o governors is economic suicide. I'm actually a big fan of the auto-management build policies that we have available to use on cities (you can set it to manage building but not recruitment on a city by city basis). There are 5 or so policies you can have the game use to build, including economic, growth, and military, and my experience has been that the game is actually pretty decent at following them how you'd expect building to progress.

I'd also like to have a plain-text file that lays out the AI build and recruit policies so we could modify them (if I've just missed the appropriate file, someone let me know). It doesn't seem like it should be that difficult a thing to do, and it's the sort of thing that any substantial mod would pretty much require control over in order to make sure the AI builds its buildings and recruits its units smartly. Not to mention, of course, that it's the easiest way to give users finer control over what the AI is doing, particularly with this hideous recruiting it seems so fond of.

[vonsch]

Well, if you have the rgiht combination of settings and no governor in the city, you get two check boxes:

Construction

Recruitment

If you uncheck one, you can manage that one manually. If you leave them checked, the computer uses your build policy.

I never use them, but they are there. (I'm a control freak!)