Tambarskjelve>>> I do of course admit that my friend isnt the "average player", but as I mentioned, I dont believe this game is directed to the average joe.

His military experience of course helped, but c'mon, this isnt rocket science... "You mean archers should be BEHIND the spears when horses are about to charge?". You could basicly get the level of tactics needed to win from reading 3$ pocket fantasy books on sale...


hisn00bness>>> I know about houserules and modding to make game better or more enjoyable, but that wasnt the point of this thread. My next campaign, I plan to conquer almost the whole world, and then give ALL of it except the brittish islands to the only other remaining faction, and then go to war... should be massive


Didz>>> He kind of blizzed yeah, but note that almost EVERY player ever play the game in the way the game points them. Basicly you stick to what seems to be working when you first get a new game... So if he blizzed, it was because the game taught him to do so.

I do like your suggestions a lot, but they are problematic as it would make the learning curve of the game significantly steeper. Newer and younger players wouldn't touch the game (it allready takes a lot to get started).


diotavelli>>> He won just about every battle, not every battle... Of course he sometimes was simply overrun, but he rarely if ever moved anything but full stacks, and a full stack of good ol' scandinavian berserkers with 2h axes can beat pretty much anything...

Oh, and BTW... he did something I VERY rarely do, namely "withdraw from battle", that is, the option you have when you also decide to auto-attack or controll the battle...

I almost never use this option, but it didnt seem to give him many if any negative traits.

His stand on merchants and princesses was "I'll use them when I need them", and he never needed them...

And yes of COURSE someone with a different approach would look at the game with another perspective... But the point is that this playstyle is what new players learn FROM the game... New players dont learn (from playing) they need merchants to win, they learn that the micro-management needed for controlling, say, merchants isnt worth it as you can beat the game regardless... And games ARE about winning, and having fun.

At least for me.... Sure I like to have fun, but I do have fun when I win... see my point? I'm not bashing the game, I have several hundreds of hours invested in different total war games, so obviosly the game has some sort of charm

And yes, most games have tricks you can learn to win... But you can not honestly say that most games can be beaten on the hardest settings first time you give them a go.... I know it takes me a bit of time in any other game to start winning against "hard" or "brutal" AI or whatever...

My friend agreed to play on VH/VH cause I said it was an experiment, to see how a new player did against the hardest AI. We challenge each other now and then, nothing mysterious about it really...

I did not in any way before or after talk about the game at all.... Nothing about blitzing, diplomacy or anything... So I did in no way suggest "blitz through and dont care about politics", for all he knew, politics might have been the only way to beat the game, by say assassination or marrying into families (as it says on the back of the gamebox)...

He did some diplomacy, but found AI to irrational to bother (kingdoms randomly blockading your ports, anyone?).

I must admit I challenged him to do it (we often do), and therefore he probably spent more energy on doing planning and testing than most inital players... Also, as usual the winner of the challenge got a beer... So of course this means any sane person would do his very best to win!




I'm not saying test is perfect, but it at least hints towards the problems...

I mean, I dare anyone to call the game challenging without house rules... when was the last time any of you guys lost a campaign?



Thanx for all the replys! I got to say this is the best forum I've ever been on.