The new objective is to eliminate all factions by a certain turn/date and reduce the size of your own empire to one province, while holding no more than X number of provinces. The goal being to promote religious freedom, regional autonomy, eliminate dictatorship/monarchy/aristocratic governments, and end all wars.
I want the rebels, independents, and heretics to win the game. No more Pope, no more forced conversions, no more exterminations, sackings, or long term occupations of non-native lands. No Mongols, no Timurids, no factions remaining, no royalty of any kind.
All provinces will be autonomous states with their own laws and freedoms. I will bring about the liberation of the world!
Game: Lands to Conquer, or Vanilla (any versions) M2TW
Rules:
1. No killing of Heretics.
2. No recruiting of Priests/Imams.
3. No usage of Assassins for assassination missions. Sabotage of buildings is ok. Except churches.
4. No crusades or jihads.
5. No sacking, pillaging, or exterminating. You are here to free people, not slay them or steal from them.
6. No killing of prisoners. Remember, many are forced to fight for tyrants. They are not your enemy. Tyranny itself is the enemy.
7. Destroy Mongols, Timurids, and all other factions, except the Papal States since they cannot be destroyed.
8. Reduce the size of your empire to one province by the end of the game.
9. No more than 10 provinces at a given time with a SINGLE military unit garrisoned. This means you MUST attempt to let the eleventh province rebel by removing all troops.
10. You must destroy all nations by a certain date. *to be determined by my first play through to ensure realism*
11. If a province does not wish to rebel, then they are voluntarily part of your nation. However, you may never garrison it or raise taxes.
12. You must lower taxes to minimum after your tenth province is taken.
13. Your 'nation' throughout most of the game will be ten provinces at most. All others are independent colonies which are allied with you but provide no military assistance and can leave at any time.
14. You must help bring about religious freedom by encouraging heresy, but not necessarily killing priests. That is also forbidden. Religious freedom means exactly that.
15. You must eventually allow your own nation to gain independence by eliminating military and taxes from all ten provinces, excepting basic militia in your capital for defense, in order to meet victory conditions.
16. No state religion means no building of churches. You may allow existing churches to continue, but you cannot build them.
17. Since the Papal States cannot be eliminated, and killing the Pope violates religious freedom, you may allow Rome to remain the Papal State, as long as the Pope does not invade other lands. If he does, you must reclaim it for the rebels. No Papal empire.
18. You may not modify the game, use codes, or otherwise act unsportsmanlike towards the AI, you know what I mean. Play fairly or don't play. Use your discretion as to what constitutes unfair play.
19. In order to make it even more challenging, you do not have until time expires to meet these victory conditions. As stated before, a certain turn or year is the deadline. A good deadline would be 20 turns after the Timurids arrive. Unless of course I cannot meet such a deadline myself.
HINT: you might want to migrate your nation towards the Timurid/Mongol area to provide a stable base to fight them off by the victory deadline.
The toughest part of this challenge is fielding enough liberator troops to defy the Mongols without an empire of your own, after having liberated the entire world. Money and troops will be scarce.
HINT: Pick a faction which starts in a good strategic position.
20. Meet these special victory conditions by the deadline, save the screenshot, and post it here, along with a screenshot of the faction info screen which shows turn number, regions held, battles won/lost, etc. If playing victory conditions by a certain date, you do not have to eliminate the Aztecs.
21. This post will be updated when I meet victory conditions to give a definite realistic target date. I trust you will abide by the rules....
22. Finally, be sure to post which version of what game. No mods besides Lands to Conquer.
After playing the ruthless murdering blitzkrieg god, I have now decided to become the champion of the people. I hereby renounce my dastardly ways.
....for now.
__________________
Easy rules:
You have until the time limit expires. No deadlines. But, you MUST kill the Aztecs as well.
Last edited by Askthepizzaguy; 01-08-2008 at 02:50.
Oh, nice plan. But it seems that it will take more time than till the arrival of timurids, to make this real.
So, the main task is to make all map into rebel lands, isn't it? However, it will be required to set taxes to very high for a short time, to make the province rebel.
I am not sure that I agree with all points, but I like the main idea, and I might try it.
I also like to set rules for myself, when playing total war games, but usually they are some minor ones like "never use mercenaries". Or, for example, I release all my prisoners in kingdoms Britannia campaign - fight your enemy, but respect him, and be honorable.
In Rome: Total war, playing as Greeks, I took only settlements, which were owned by Greece historically, like Athens, and then stopped expanding (why should I take lands, which are not mine?) and only fought defensive battles.
All of that makes the game more challenging and interesting.
18. You may not modify the game, use codes, or otherwise act unsportsmanlike towards the AI, you know what I mean. Play fairly or don't play. Use your discretion as to what constitutes unfair play.
that's a good statement
"War is not so much a matter of weapons as of money" Thucydides
What about capturing rebel provinces? You didn't mention it (maybe because it was too obvious to you). They are already liberated and should therefore be off limits.
11. If a province does not wish to rebel, then they are voluntarily part of your nation. However, you may never garrison it or raise taxes.
Just to clarify: i am required to remove garrison and raise taxes to max to encourage a rebellion, but if the province still won't rebel, I cannot use that to my advantage by raising taxes. Did I get that correct? What if one of the local murderous tyrants is trying to capture the city and massacre the freedom-loving masses, must I leave the innocent undefended?
14. You must help bring about religious freedom by encouraging heresy, but not necessarily killing priests. That is also forbidden. Religious freedom means exactly that.
I disagree with this point. Priests are agents of tyranny, their only purpose to bolster the hegemony of their evil masters by brainwashing the masses who have already chosen their preferred method of worship. The masses are to be given religious freedom, their tyrannical masters are not to be given freedom to impose their belief system upon others.
Along the same vein:
4. No crusades or jihads.
Understood, but should I stand idly by while others set out half way across the world to impose their religion upon unwilling innocents? Perhaps (non-excommunicated) Catholic factions should be required to make a whole-hearted effort to take the Crusade target first (using a non-crusading army) in order to end the Crusade, and likewise for Muslim factions and Jihads. This may be difficult but it should be attempted. If taking the target is not feasable, every effort should be made to hinder the movement of the marauding Crusaders/Mujahedin when they pass through your lands.
What about capturing rebel provinces? You didn't mention it (maybe because it was too obvious to you). They are already liberated and should therefore be off limits.
11. If a province does not wish to rebel, then they are voluntarily part of your nation. However, you may never garrison it or raise taxes.
Just to clarify: i am required to remove garrison and raise taxes to max to encourage a rebellion, but if the province still won't rebel, I cannot use that to my advantage by raising taxes. Did I get that correct? What if one of the local murderous tyrants is trying to capture the city and massacre the freedom-loving masses, must I leave the innocent undefended?
14. You must help bring about religious freedom by encouraging heresy, but not necessarily killing priests. That is also forbidden. Religious freedom means exactly that.
I disagree with this point. Priests are agents of tyranny, their only purpose to bolster the hegemony of their evil masters by brainwashing the masses who have already chosen their preferred method of worship. The masses are to be given religious freedom, their tyrannical masters are not to be given freedom to impose their belief system upon others.
Along the same vein:
4. No crusades or jihads.
Understood, but should I stand idly by while others set out half way across the world to impose their religion upon unwilling innocents? Perhaps (non-excommunicated) Catholic factions should be required to make a whole-hearted effort to take the Crusade target first (using a non-crusading army) in order to end the Crusade, and likewise for Muslim factions and Jihads. This may be difficult but it should be attempted. If taking the target is not feasable, every effort should be made to hinder the movement of the marauding Crusaders/Mujahedin when they pass through your lands.
After taking your tenth province, you must lower taxes to minimum in all provinces. if provinces do not rebel with no garrison, then you are not supposed to be the evil conqueror by raising taxes and destroying public order buildings. That's for occupiers, not liberators.
Consider each province that does not rebel with zero troops to be a voluntary ally in your liberation campaign. After all, you have no military presence in their homeland. They were instructed when you took the town that they were now free of being the slaves of any faction. If they should choose to thank you with a mere pittance of taxes (lowest possible) then consider it a thank you.
Eventually, with no garrison or taxes, the province will grow and grow more restless, and then declare its independence.
As to the point about not killing priests: The philosophical reasons are my own. See spoiler for details.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
It is true that I personally do not believe in the message they spread. I am a Deist, meaning a non-affiliated believer in a kind of god. I have no church or holy book and consider 'revealed' religions to be the fiction of man. However, due to my belief that morality and righteousness is hard coded into the universe by a universal objective standard of logic, reason, and justice, one cannot simply kill everyone one disagrees with.
However, a people oppressed by a tyrant king forced to labor and even kill in his name, those are a people enslaved who wish to be free.
Incidentally I dont believe in offensive warfare either, but this is just a game and I am taking dramatic liscence.
This is why the liberators of the world cannot simply crucify all the priests. It turns one into the enforcer of atheism, much like an Inquisition, which is precisely the sort of crime that the fundamentalists commit and is the very reason I oppose religious hegemony.
That said, they are free to speak their faith and spread it, but I will not help or hinder their progress. People are free to choose for themselves. Hence, freedom of religion. Logic and science happen to be the main component of my religion, and I encourage people to voluntarily reject superstitions. But I am not the master of the universe nor do I have all the answers, therefore enforcing MY viewpoint at the point of a sword would be equally ridiculous and immoral.
I consider Scientology, for example, to be the finest example of a brainwashing, ruthlessly cynical, dangerously corrupt cult. However, that is my OPINION and I cannot force it on others.
No offense meant to practicing Scientologists themselves. It is the message I consider invalid, not the people who spread it.
No crusades of jihads means we do not believe in anything remotely resembling a Holy Land. All lands are equally holy to the native peoples of that land.
No land should be conquered by invaders, but you cannot stop that from happening in this game, it is impossible. But yes, if you see a crusading army attacking a land that was not theirs to begin with (in other words, the only valid crusade is a defensive crusade... Cordoba for example should rightfully be retaken by the Catholics, but by that point in history, Jerusalem had been Muslim for generations and is no longer a Catholic state, therefore it would be like Great Britain retaking India simply because it once owned it... stupid).
If you see an offensive crusade or jihad against a neutral party, you could make an effort to stop the invaders if possible, or liberate that territory before they conquer it. Thus, causing a war with your nation for attacking your protectorate states. Be liberators and defenders if possible. Or let it rebel and let the rebels fight for their own homelands, and assist them if possible (a better idea).
_________________________
The rules for the war for independence are in the original post. What precedes was my philosophical reasoning behind the campaign, which no one is required to agree with.
Last edited by Askthepizzaguy; 01-08-2008 at 16:40.
I think you should include a landing on the moon as a necessary victory condition.
What means this? You think the victory conditions I laid out are impossible?
Ramses and I are well on our way to disproving that theory. It was my idea and he's making more progress than me.
Originally Posted by Ramses II CP
The only problem would be the sheer number of turns you have to click through to get there. I already can't imagine clicking through to the Timurids, much less the Aztecs.
edit: 'There' being, obviously, the moon launch.
I admit I am not looking forward to fighting the Timurids, especially with the sheer amount of heresy by then draining my cities.
Still... challenging!!! It's what I need to stay interested in the game.
I've NEVER had the HRE give me so much trouble before.
Playing using this style has taught me an invaluable method of seige warfare!
I have just discovered how to take by force a city with a garrison of equal strength as my own, on LTC vh/vh.
A crucial weakness in the strategy of the AI is abandoning the walls early. They seem to rely on the strength of the city center for unlimited morale.
The problem: Not every soldier in a massive stack can fit inside the city center.
Solution for the attacker:
Take the walls quickly with seige towers and ladders. Massive infantry is required. The enemy will be overwhelmed, at least in that confined area. Next, take your generals and heavy cavalry and storm the broken gates, forcing anyone in the vicinity to rout. If you need infantry support, send them through first.
Rout anything you can, and slay them before they get to the city center. You will now have a slight numbers advantage (crucial).
Next, You must position your forces in guard mode outside the city center and attack them with arrows and crossbow bolts (and artillery, if applicable).
They will sally forward to attack you, putting you in the superior defensive position. With their backs to the wall and getting picked off by force, they must attack or die without a fight. They cannot conquer your forces in the tight city streets with your forces on guard mode and your general safely behind them. It is impossible. Rally constantly and you cannot fail unless your general dies.
Slaying their general with heavy spearmen is a moderate priority with a detachment of expendable forces for that mission. If you can, the enemy will break easier and tire from it. Returning to the city center under fire over and over....
You must have more archers and heavy infantry to win, and keep your general alive. Since your forces were equal to begin with, make sure you slay enough infantry/archers on the walls first.
You can defeat superior garrisons in this way as well, if you are brilliant.
I now know what I must do to take the world with my inferior Sicilian militia forces... since I will never be able to greatly overwhelm my foe as I always have, I have removed the most critical trump card from my own arsenal. This playing style has forced my generalship skills to vastly improve.
Beware, for askthepizzaguy has truly become a fearsome seige expert. None can stop me now, except conceivably a brilliant human player of equal strength in a superior tactical position. Bwahaha!
Seriously, try this War for Independence challenge. You will be FORCED to improve your game. I highly recommend it.
Last edited by Askthepizzaguy; 01-21-2008 at 19:19.
This brings up a good point, BTW, in that I wasn't using LTC either, and I think Lusted tried to tune up the strategic AI in LTC. You probably aren't seeing the strangely foolish AI behavior I see on the strategy map, where I can leave just captured cities entirely open and an AI army will often march right past them trying to reach cities that are still in their hands. I only had two or possibly three cities recaptured in my whole campaign, Jerusalem and Prague.
I'm still working on this, off and on, and I managed to get a 'Victory Imminent, Faction: Rebels' warning that I need to post a screenshot of sometime. I imagine I may be the first person ever to see that particular warning in the actual game.
This brings up a good point, BTW, in that I wasn't using LTC either, and I think Lusted tried to tune up the strategic AI in LTC. You probably aren't seeing the strangely foolish AI behavior I see on the strategy map, where I can leave just captured cities entirely open and an AI army will often march right past them trying to reach cities that are still in their hands. I only had two or possibly three cities recaptured in my whole campaign, Jerusalem and Prague.
I'm still working on this, off and on, and I managed to get a 'Victory Imminent, Faction: Rebels' warning that I need to post a screenshot of sometime. I imagine I may be the first person ever to see that particular warning in the actual game.
I did not know the rebels had a victory condition!
Ignore that warning. You can play past a victory or loss condition. So long as you meet the criteria for the house rules, you're a winner in my book.
PS My NEW Sicilian Campaign on LTC VH-VH is going SWIMMINGLY.
I have decided to ally myself temporarily with the imperial powers, hoping that I can influence them politically to change their dastardly ways. I've also accepted campaign contributions to liberate people from backstabbing Imperialists.
I have still followed all the campaign rules and I have even devised new methods for taking cities that I havent done before. Kudos to the rest of you probably for figuring it out sooner but I've never really needed good seige skills I always, always, always had overwhelming force due to my good campaign map skills.
Now that my campaign is hindered, I am finally developing new battlemap skills.
It's only early yet, but I have 7 allies and mucho florino to assist in my liberation of the map.
My allies, the Venetians, backstabbed me, but were driven away and their capital was taken. The FOOLS!!!
The HRE is crumbling before my eyes and the Venetians as well. I was about to wipe out Milan but the Venetians decided they wanted to die first.
The Pope is still liking me. When I no longer have his support and my reputation is gone, so shall he be.
Medieval 2: Total War for Independence
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by ReiseReise
Bookmarks