Is there any way to make battles more strategically decisive?

**Sarkiss** · 08-09-2007, 15:03

Originally Posted by QwertyMIDX

If you smack them around but don't take any cities (or offer the cities you took back) they usually take a cease-fire.

yeah, for a turn or two, and then you face the very same problem again

the only solution that worked for me is an out most aggressive and brutal policy. destroy each army to the last soldier, restlessly push forward conquering their lands and thus reducing their treasury and recruiting pools. but even these dont help to the extend it should since AI gets population, mercenaries, money injections and on VH campaign is suicidally aggressive.

...never ending war.

**PenguinLobster** · 08-09-2007, 17:23

The only way your ever gonna stop the AI from mindlessly attacking you is to completely destroy them, just remember that every city you capture is one less place for them to recruit from and one more province they have to trek across to reach your important territories.

**MarcusAureliusAntoninus** · 08-09-2007, 21:48

You could try the 'force deplomacy' mod.

Also, when I face this kind of situation in campaigns that I'm not too serious about, I'll cheat. I usually hire an all merc army then march it into enemy territory using 'character_reset' and 'auto_win attacker' to kill ever single enemy army in sight. Once you destroy 90% of their army, they will give up and leave you alone for a decade or so. I always end my war with them (at least ignore them) until they rebuild so that I don't consider it too much cheating. But I only use this in campaigns that I would quit otherwise or I wasn't too serious about to begin with.

**PenguinLobster** · 08-09-2007, 23:59

The force diplomacy doesnt work, they'll just attack you again the next turn.

**NeoSpartan** · 08-10-2007, 00:16

how about this......

TRAIN 2 STACKS AND INVADE THE ROMANS!!!!

if thier cities are destroyed they can't send troops after you, plus you will get $$$ out of pillagin. If you don't want the cities you can give them to your allies, or leave a few leves in it while ur army sacks the other cities. THEN you pick up and leave, and let the cities rebel back. This will cut the "stack and after stack" issue by 80% for a few years. Eventually you WILL have to kill the Romans.

**NeoSpartan** · 08-10-2007, 00:22

Originally Posted by Sarkiss

yeah, for a turn or two, and then you face the very same problem again

the only solution that worked for me is an out most aggressive and brutal policy. destroy each army to the last soldier, restlessly push forward conquering their lands and thus reducing their treasury and recruiting pools. but even these dont help to the extend it should since AI gets population, mercenaries, money injections and on VH campaign is suicidally aggressive.

...never ending war.

naw dude... the war DOES end.

....as soon as you destroy the faction

one question though... Why is that so hard to do????????

**Megas Methuselah** · 08-10-2007, 02:19

What's this "force diplomacy" mod that was mentioned. Never heard of it, and it sounds quite useful.

Can anyone gimme some info? thx in advance.

**MarcusAureliusAntoninus** · 08-10-2007, 04:43

It adds a non-conflicting script that makes the AI accept your offers, no matter what.
Details and download here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=80763

**Zarax** · 08-10-2007, 17:15

It would be nice to open a discussion on the developer side on how to slow down the later development of both player and AI...
No matter what has been tried here or in other mods having a medium/large sized empire results in the ability of recovering quickly even from crushing defeats.

If you can recruit the equivalent of a professional (if not elite) army in 5 turns you will be never able to expect more than short term peace...

**NeoSpartan** · 08-10-2007, 19:44

Originally Posted by Zarax

It would be nice to open a discussion on the developer side on how to slow down the later development of both player and AI...
No matter what has been tried here or in other mods having a medium/large sized empire results in the ability of recovering quickly even from crushing defeats.

...

well..... isn't that what happens when you have a large empire??? The ability to raise large armies in a few turns. Besides, single desicive battles RARELY occur when a large empire is well managed. Battles became Decisive when the king was killed, or there the empire was already in the brink of collapse.

But.... I do agree that the late game needs to be worked out a little better, especially with Squalor, and the ever increasing populations that makes cities imposible to govern. All else, is fine in my book.

**Zarax** · 08-10-2007, 20:08

That was often the exception rather than the rule...

Historically:

- Achmeneid persia: 3 major battles to cripple decisively their army

- Seleucid Empire : A bit more comples, but Raphia and Magnesia were pretty bad hits and they never recovered from those

- Carthage: it was long but after the first punic war (in which after two major naval losses they capitulated) it took less than 10 losses (baecula, dertosa, ilipa, great plain, metaurus and zama, might be a couple more) to reduce them to little more than a city state

- Ptolemies: a long survivor but for the longest part of their history they were little more than a client state of Rome

The point is: even if you have a huge empire professional soldiers aren't going to be very abundant. You can recruit huge armies composed of levies but everybody knows what happens when levies faces veterans...

Rome was the exception mostly because they found a way to turn their levies into an effective fighting machine and had a more efficent training system.
This is especially true in our game timeframe, where Rome won more than a couple wars through attrition...