AI wins in early game: is this good or bad?

[diotavelli]

Background: Playing as Apache on M/M with short victory conditions, I suffer an initial setback as my heir rebels. This means I don't expand as fast as I'd like but I still feel I'm doing OK. I've taken the two rebel settlements to the south and am mopping up the remaining ones both east and west.

Situation: Around turn 18, I receive a message saying the Txallacans are close to victory. This doesn't worry me unduly, as I've seen similar before and the other factions have done enough to restore the balance of power; in this case, they're at war with two neighbouring factions and there's no reason to believe things will be any different from usual.

My response It does occur to me briefly to intervene against them but, due to earlier circumstances, I have only one, general-less, three-quarter stack in my southern territories. To move a large number of troops, recruit another stack or send a general to hire lots of mercenaries would take ages (at least five or six turns, probably more) and seriously derail my plans, so I don't bother.

Outcome: Around turn 25, the French have just landed and I'm preparing for some fun duking it out with them and getting hold of mounted and firearm troops. Suddenly, I receive a message informing me the Txallacans have won: apparently, I've been conquered!

The question: Does this strike you as good or bad?

I don't border the Txallacans and my only interaction with them has been to get trade rights. Effectively, they've done their thing and I've done mine - but I've lost to them. Is this what we want from a TW game?

Now, if they'd been my neighbours and I'd done something weird by ignoring them and focusing on an entirely different part of the map, I would agree that losing to them was logical. But that's not what happened.

I don't even need to fight the Txallacans to win the game (or they me, clearly!). Realistically, there's no way I could have prevented them winning in the time between notification of their imminent victory and its achievement. So, unless I'd had FOW switched off or been psychic, there's no way I could have known that I needed to intervene earlier and no obvious rationale for doing so (the Chichimecs and Tarascans are far more likely opponents, as I'd have to cross their territories to fight anyone else).

I'm in two minds. The fact that the game didn't something so unexpected makes it more interesting and means I'll probably think carefully in future before simply adopting the most obvious gameplan. On the other hand, I'm not sure how happy I'd be if I regularly lost due to circumstances arguably beyond my control.

Any similar experiences? Any thoughts?

[Ramses II CP]

Well, I've never had this happen, but the victory screen isn't all that impressive anyway. Don't you get an option to continue playing and ignore the victory conditions?

[vallu751]

I for one am happy that the AI is capable of winning.

You got a message that the AI was close to winning, you chose to ignore it and then the AI won. Isn't that how the game is supposed to go?

I wish games nowadays were harder... we might actually have to consider utilizing strategies when playing if we faced a challenge. Finding a way to stop another faction from winning while they are situated very far from your own empire is a good challenge. Just doing your own thing every game, regardless of what the others are up to, is not.

[Jason X]

it's perfectly reasonable. if you don't want to rush to victory (i never do), play a long campaign

[diotavelli]

Well, I've never had this happen, but the victory screen isn't all that impressive anyway. Don't you get an option to continue playing and ignore the victory conditions?

You do get the opportunity to continue playing but the chance to 'win' has gone. Debatable whether this makes a difference but I'd rather achieve the victory conditions than not.

I for one am happy that the AI is capable of winning.

You got a message that the AI was close to winning, you chose to ignore it and then the AI won. Isn't that how the game is supposed to go?

I too am happy that the AI is capable of winning. I don't accept that I simply ignored the message that the AI was close to winning; as I wrote in my original post: "Realistically, there's no way I could have prevented them winning in the time between notification of their imminent victory and its achievement."

That's the point: between being told that a distant faction is close to winning and their ultimate victory, you tend to only have a few turns. If they'd be a close neighbour or I'd had a navy and been able to reduce the travel time by sea, I might have been able to intervene. As Apache against one of the southern factions, that's not the case: by the time I knew anything about it, it was too late. Is that how the game is supposed to go?

Finding a way to stop another faction from winning while they are situated very far from your own empire is a good challenge. Just doing your own thing every game, regardless of what the others are up to, is not.

It is only a good challenge if it's an achievable challenge. I didn't do my own thing "regardless of what others are up to" - I realised that there was no practicable way I could intervene successfully. I didn't intervene earlier because I had no idea they were doing so well.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing for situations like this to occur but I think you're missing the point if you believe I could have responded to this "challenge" in the time available.

The only way I could have prevented the Txallacan victory would have been to intervene far, far earlier - but then it could have been the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Spanish or any other faction who expanded. Can anyone seriously intervene to prevent expansion by all other factions, whilst building their own economy and expanding into their 'natural' territories?

It makes the game far more interesting but doesn't it also make it a lottery?

[diotavelli]

it's perfectly reasonable. if you don't want to rush to victory (i never do), play a long campaign

As stated earlier, the time available to me between notification that I was about to lose and actually losing was too short for me to intervene successfully. Are you sure you believe that to be "reasonable"? It means that the game is designed in such a way that you can lose due to causes that are beyond your ability to respond.

[Jason X]

that's an argument for judging the success of a short campaign solely on the human player's goals. i play exactly one short campaign per TW title - the first one - and i don't really care about the game's victory conditions anyway, but one would have the same issue with a "glorious achievements" kind of victory condition - some far away faction could achieve it without you really affecting the outcome.

[part_time_player]

This reminds me of a MTW(1) campaign I played a couple of years ago. I was playing as Denmark as I liked the forced slow start it gave you. I'd built up to about four or five provinces and I don't believe I could have expanded much quicker. To the South was the HRE but I could only see the provinces I bordered as I had not developed much of a spy or ship network at that point.

All of a sudden, Five stacks of Spanish troops conquered a HRE province next to me. Stunned by their sudden appearance I removed the fog of war and found that they managed to blitz all of the Spanish Peninsula, North Africa and Western Europe. They were already pushing into England and the five stacks on my border were the tip of the iceberg of what I was about to face.

I quit the campaign as I didn't have a hope of winning against such a juggernaut but I thought it was fantastic that the AI was capable under the right conditions of stealing such a victory. There was nothing I could have done to prevent there build up although if I had built up quicker it may have turned into some sort of clash of the titans.

Now, every time I build a mighty empire and have to spend the entire late game mopping up all the little ones that are left, I find myself thinking of that day.

[marrow]

Short campaigns generally suck, I fail to see the point. In RTW on VH/M, playing as Julii I realised that chances of beating Egypt to it are very slim indeed. I never went as far as actually testing it extensively, but two short campaigns (Julii and Brutii) were enough to discourage me from ever trying again.
Then M2TW came out, tried a short campaign as France on H/VH and was astounded to find that Hungary and Milan were light years ahead by turn 60 in every term compared to me. I just gave up.
I fail to see the point, really.
Remember MTW's GAs? For some reason I loved that system, it was quite refreshing (if buggy at times...) and gave alternative to territorial conquest which (as any TW fan will attest) became seriously tedious and automated since the dawn of RTW era. I reckon short campaign only ever makes sense if victory conditions apply excusively to player faction. Otherwise it's almost impossible to succeed as, say, Portugal, or Denmark. Thoughts?

[diotavelli]

Short campaigns generally suck, I fail to see the point.

territorial conquest which (as any TW fan will attest) became seriously tedious and automated since the dawn of RTW era.

Well, here's a problem. Short campaigns can be problematic but at least they don't involve "tedious" hours of land grabbing, frequently against factions too punch-drunk to properly resist.

I've always preferred short campaigns as I simply don't get that much chance to play TW and don't have the patience to keep playing the same campaign for months at a time - which is often the case when I only get in one or two hours a week.

Also, I'm a bit of a stickler for historical accuracy. It's one thing England conquering half or even the whole of France but Spain, Italy, Germany, the Balkans and North Africa too? At least short campaigns don't regularly pit the Scots against the Egyptians or similar idiocy.

But this whole issue of losing on terms that I am unable (unable, note, not unwilling) to respond to is worrying. I like a challenge but I don't like a fait accompli.

[DVX BELLORVM]

Personally, I couldn't care less for the victory conditions. The situation described by the OP never happened to me, and I never lost a campaign, but even if it did, I'd continue to play as long as i chose to (unless, ofc, someone actually conquers me )

[marrow]

Ha ha, true, "what if" scenarios in TW can be a bit toe-curling sometimes.
That's exactly why I loved GAs so much - you didn't have to swallow the world to win, at the later stages of the game there would still have been 2 - 4 strong factions to contend with, maybe more so the competition was still pretty fierce and the game was generally gripping.
As it stands short capmaigns are blitz fests to me, because unless you've actually won, you won't know how close your opponents are behind you (don't even mention the graphs) and thus you very little idea how much time you have left. Or perhaps I'm just oblivious to more elaborate mechanics of the short campaign and my approach to it is wrong? Any ideas?

[vallu751]

I too am happy that the AI is capable of winning. I don't accept that I simply ignored the message that the AI was close to winning; as I wrote in my original post: "Realistically, there's no way I could have prevented them winning in the time between notification of their imminent victory and its achievement."

I'll have to take your word for it, since I haven't seen the actual game. And since you were unable to respond to the threat, I can see the source of your frustration. Losing because of things you can't affect isn't fun.

I still think this is how everything is supposed to go, though. I often play games against human opponents and in those games I believe it's even more common to have someone "lose your game for you" or provide someone else with an easier victory. As an example, in a Napoleonic strategy game you might be playing Prussia. For arguments sake, let's say that the only realistic way of surviving a rush attack by France is to ally with Austria and the same goes for them. However, the French player talks Austria out of supporting you, kicks your ass, and then proceeds to kick Austrian ass. The actions of the Austrian player caused you to lose your game (and his own), no matter how optimally you managed your own army.

In a way I feel that the question comes down to whether single player computer games should be more human centric, with the player only losing if he plays poorly. This kind of asymmetry is already present in many game types (adventure games, FPS, many RTS single player campaigns, etc.). In this contest, my vote goes to Total War games and how they function now.