Glorious Achievements

[SaFe]

As it seems CA is watching these forums and the game is still work in progress i think it is now the time to ask for the inclusion of
Glorious Achievements.

To be honest it is getting lame to conquer 50 provinces or more in every Total War game.
At least include a option for Glorious Achievements. I think for the mentioned 10 playable factions it should not be to difficult to give them "realistic" victory conditions apart from conquering all.

Just compare Prussia and Britain.
Prussia is definately not in the position to embark on colonization, but their goals should rather be Poland, perhaps a kind of unification for the smaller german states, and so on while Britain's goals should include colonization of other parts of the known world.

I'm supporting Glorious achievements - more variety in victory conditions and no more the rather boring conquer all game

For those who like to conquer each province there could be a additional option.

[zerathule]

I'm with you :)
It would be great to have victory conditions according to your faction, and that it would be very challenging to achieve full success.
Full success should be like achieving what the RL faction all most achieved but failed, or just hold their empire in the end like it was at its peak in RL.
I would like it to be impossible (or allmost) to conquer the all map :)

[Zenicetus]

I don't know... I have mixed feelings about that. The other strategy game I play (off and on) is GalCiv2, which has something like this. You can win through military conquest, or cultural influence where planets will "flip" to your side, or you can win a diplomatic victory by getting an alliance with all factions you're not at war with. There's also a Tech victory where you research far enough down one part of the tech tree to basically reach God status and disappear, "poof!", from the universe.

It does add some complexity to strategy. You're not just thinking in military terms, although your faction won't last very long if you don't dedicate a good portion of your income to at least a defensive force. There is a nice interaction between cultural victory and conquest too. Since you only need to dominate 75% of the total planets with your cultural sphere to trigger that victory, the cultural win can kick in before the full conquest victory. It solves the problem at the end phase of games like this, where you're just doing a tedious mop-up of the remaining enemy territory, and they're too depleted to make it much fun. Of course if you do want total domination, you just turn cultural victories off before starting the game. It's a neat setup.

However, there is a downside if the alternate victories are turned on. You have to keep track of what the other factions are doing... what their goals are, and how far along they are, so you don't get suddenly surprised and lose the game. It's not that complicated in GalCiv2 because you usually play against just a few other races (I usually pick 4 or 5). With Empire we have, what, 50 factions? That's a lot to keep track of, even if you just focus on the major ones. As it is now, all you need to do is uncover the map to see who is holding territory and how well they're doing. You'd have to flood the map with spies to see what else they might be shooting for, if there are Great Achievements or whatever the equivalent would be in the new game.

And the other question is: are you okay with being on the losing side of something like this? Say you're mopping up the New World, building a vast empire on that side of the map. You're one province away from a conquest-based victory, when suddenly a screen pops up saying the Ottoman Empire has just achieved a cultural victory by building a massive library or something, and you lost the game. Is that okay with people who are in favor of alternate win conditions? That's where my mixed feelings come in, and it's why I usually turn off the Tech victory, and sometimes the Alliance victory condition in GalCiv2.

[Kings Hand]

I kinda like the idea of glorious achievements, especially if they are moddable.
Some examples which might be fun.
Cause 20 opponent cities to revolt/change religion - like cultural victory.
As france outlast the enemies of napoleon.
You could also have defeat XYZ and ABC to achieve vendetta victory( can't make peace)
Alliance victory keep an alliance with a neighbour for 100 turns (difficult if not impossible with old ai)
Aquire territory with every trade good in the game.

There is a lot of scope for glorious achievements but a lot will depend how the ai is handled, I also play GalCiv2 and there are lots that CA could and should admire about the diplomatic ai in that game, not to mention the way the ai will adapt to you fleet builds to annihilate you! it would be nice to see some adaptive ai in TW it really would make these games THE pinnacle of strategy gaming.

I would love to hear some of your ideas for glorious achievents!

[Trax]

I strongly support this idea.

And the other question is: are you okay with being on the losing side of something like this? Say you're mopping up the New World, building a vast empire on that side of the map. You're one province away from a conquest-based victory, when suddenly a screen pops up saying the Ottoman Empire has just achieved a cultural victory by building a massive library or something, and you lost the game. Is that okay with people who are in favor of alternate win conditions? That's where my mixed feelings come in, and it's why I usually turn off the Tech victory, and sometimes the Alliance victory condition in GalCiv2.
Today 00:06

IMHO it should be irrelavent what the other factions do, players victory or defeat should only depend of what the player achieves to do.

[lars573]

Glorious achievements sucked. A good idea haphazardly implemented. The only way to get ahead with them was to conquer. And it wasn't even. Some factions only had to conquer a few dozen provinces to won and others would have to conquer half the map to win.

GA is dead and needs to stay that way.

[Csargo]

I liked GA. It added somethings to do during the campaign other than conquering the whole map. Though lars has a point in wasn't very well balanced. It needs to be rebalanced and needs work. If it's implemented I'd like it, but if not I won't be disappointed.

[SaFe]

Conquer the whole map to win with 50 provinces becomes so lame after a while, fighting battle after battle to the point where you have to backstab your allies to win.
I can hear already the mob scream for better diplomacy - why i ask, if the only chance to win is total conquest.
Perhaps people with comments like GA sucks should think about that for a moment.
But as i can't talk for others i hoped for a option, total conquest(50 provinces) or GA. Players should have the option to choose before starting a campaign.

[pevergreen]

Remember it is total war. Not civ 4.

This is, primarily a war game. But yes, if balanced, GA would be incredible.

[NagatsukaShumi]

It may well be Total War, but the tedium of conquering everybody, everywhere, everytime grows quickly.

As one guy said, why care about better diplomacy when, to achieve the victory goals, you have to backstab your allies anyway or blitz the map immediately with non-stop war.

GA's wouldn't exactly stop the gamer who wants to go all out and conquer everything, but it'd atleast cater to those of us who like to take things at a pace and roleplay with the TW's a bit, it would also make any new AI Diplomacy meaningful.

[ninjahboy]

id like your influence and fame to actually mean something in this game rather than glorious achievements... (i guess this can be gained from glorious achievements though :D)

[upthehammers]

GA should def makes its way back into the series. That is what I miss the most from MTW. It changes the your entire outlook and a large part of the feel of the game. I understand if it is not your style to sit back more and build up slowly and achieve goals through other means than blitzing. But just like people have been saying, that gets old after awhile. CA tried to capture that different feel with the short campaigns but that only went so far.

For example, things like recreating the HRE, creating a dominating wool trade as the English, or building Notre Dame as the French. This gives the game a totally different option for players. I say forget the short campaigns and bring back GA.

On a somewhat related note, bring back different starting periods!!! Having to start at 1080 EVERYTIME with the same world setup EVERYTIME got really frustrating and probably the biggest overall drawback to the game (big picture wise). Having to play for hours until I could have access to certain units and buildings - not cool. We should be able to jump into certain time periods without having to log hours of gameplay to get there everytime we start with a new faction.


The setup of this new game sounds like it has a lot more room for winning through means other than warfare. I know - the title of the series is Total War. But, it is still a lot of fun to use diplomacy, economic warfare, etc. to win. And during the 1700-1800 period, we saw how nations used other means of establishing themselves of as world powers (Think British East India Company and the likes)

[lars573]

For example, things like recreating the HRE, creating a dominating wool trade as the English, or building Notre Dame as the French. This gives the game a totally different option for players. I say forget the short campaigns and bring back GA.

But even in GA mode you had to conquer. Mostly because "small" facrtions could get 3-5 points for taking one province. Where as "large" factions had to take 2 provinces to get 3 points, or 2 for 1. Or something equally stupid. You see GA were actually a trick to make you think you were winning without conquering. When it really mean't you don't have to conquer as much. To win GA mode instead of taking the whole fracking map (or 2/3) you took about 30 provinces. Hmmm. There is a reason CA dropped them for 50 or 15 provinces and missions you know.

[upthehammers]

Between the two, I would rather have GA over short campaigns. That's just me.

[TheImp]

I agree with GA being good if well balanced. Cause for instance, in MTW2, when u want to conquer quickly with a christian faction, u usually hand up being excomunicated a few times in a row.

The main problem with excomunication is not it is cumbersome, it's the opposite cause it doesn't change the situation at all. Neighbours don't come after you and even the papal states are lazy reacting against your faction.

Pointless.

[Daveybaby]

Between the two, I would rather have GA over short campaigns. That's just me.

The 'short game' option in M2TW is a simplified version of GA, IMO. I cant really see much difference except that there's a bit less variety in the goals.

The main problem with the short campaigns is that its so easy to blitz in M2TW, its almost impossible to lose unless you just sit there repeatedly clicking 'end turn'. Although that also applies to the long campaign too, i guess.

And as TheImp says, it would be nice if excommunication actually caused you significant problems at hard/very hard difficulty levels. I've had occasions where the pope has died and the game announces that i've been reconciled, and i've been surprised because i'd completely forgotten that i'd been excommunicated. Now i just make it a personal rule never to get excommed, just to try to make things a bit more challenging.

[Fisherking]

There is no reason not to have both!

It is a new engine you know!

[Darkarbiter]

There is no reason not to have both!

It is a new engine you know!

As an above person said "all it adds is variety you know"... thats what we are after. It's fun not having everything being about getting territory.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

They can rebalance the GA's to reduce the need for conquest. They're writing a new engine.

I support non-conquest methods for victory.

[Incongruous]

Well, Ga's could work in the same way as a missions, kinda.
Like, its you're goal to do this at the moment. Oh well you have completed that so now do this. Of course they would actually have to make sense, and the AI would have to recognize them properly.
eg.
So as Prussia it is you're goal to become the dominant millitary in Northern Germany, then in southern Germany. This may not entail all out conquest. But perhaps the acquirement of Silesia and either defeating all the other major states in war or forcing them into a military treaty.

[uanime5]

Letting a player win without blitzing sounds like a good idea. I find that once I've crushed a few factions the rest are too weak by comparison to put up any resistance (the never ally against me).

[alpaca]

Yeah I agree. CA should think of a sensible way to determine a game winner and get rid of the totally unrealistic and boring "conquer everything". The short victory conditions are a step into the right direction but they limit you too much on a certain strategy because you have to kill this and that faction in order to win.
The GA from MTW were also a bit dissatisfying but at least added a bit more thinking to the stuff.

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