It's just not fun to be in constant war all the time

[PseRamesses]

Personally I don´t mind the "total war" feature, however unrealistic it seems after all its the battles I love. Last night Wurttemberg declared war on me, Spain, with 45 provinces, more ships than the rest of the world combined and 12 standing elite stacks ready to go, sigh! WHY???
Now here comes the real bugger. I park my best stack outside Frankfurt? and let their puny stack of 7 crappy units attack me. I win ofcourse and only one badly hurt militia escapes to the settlement. Thay have no more troops, anywere! I offer them a blank peace - NO! I, just for fun, offer them Westphalia, Flanders and Netherlands....aaaand 100.000 cash, what do they reply? Yes, you already guessed it - NO! OMG, pissed I assaulted Frankfurt and gifted it to Bavaria. No more Wurttemberg.

This is not the first time this happens. It happens EVERY time. CA/ SEGA should send some trainees over to Paradox and learn how to script realistic diplomatic AI behaviour.

[Matteo123]

After the Paradox incident, I decided to give EUIII a try. If you want a game that is a sandbox of the time period, give that a try.

While people say that Total War is about war, that does not only mean warfare. Warfare is only partially based on battles, you also need to consider supply lines, production ability, alliances, popular support, internal politics, etc.

Even if we accept as true the premise that TW games are ONLY about war and not about the techs or diplomacy, fighting battles is not TOTAL war.

I think that EU does a better job simulating all of the aspects of warfare, in comparison to the TW franchise.

Finally, in an unrelated note, the fact that CA has given up on naval realism takes things even further from the warfare sandbox they promised. If they are worried about naval warfare balancing, why not include giant kracken or maybe flying dragons to deal with ships of the line if they are too powerful. If ships of the line are too powerful, make them more expensive (look at the historic cost of a 1st rate vs. a two deck ship). A ship with 18s must have a longer range than a ship with 15s. Like everyone else on the forums, I agree this game can only be solved by unpaid modders.

[Quickening]

After the Paradox incident, I decided to give EUIII a try. If you want a game that is a sandbox of the time period, give that a try.

While people say that Total War is about war, that does not only mean warfare. Warfare is only partially based on battles, you also need to consider supply lines, production ability, alliances, popular support, internal politics, etc.

Even if we accept as true the premise that TW games are ONLY about war and not about the techs or diplomacy, fighting battles is not TOTAL war.

I think that EU does a better job simulating all of the aspects of warfare, in comparison to the TW franchise.

Finally, in an unrelated note, the fact that CA has given up on naval realism takes things even further from the warfare sandbox they promised. If they are worried about naval warfare balancing, why not include giant kracken or maybe flying dragons to deal with ships of the line if they are too powerful. If ships of the line are too powerful, make them more expensive (look at the historic cost of a 1st rate vs. a two deck ship). A ship with 18s must have a longer range than a ship with 15s. Like everyone else on the forums, I agree this game can only be solved by unpaid modders.

The EU games are superior to the Total War games in my opinion and the reason for that if you ask me is simply the fact that Paradox are catering purely for their niche market whereas CA are trying to please everyone and end up pleasing no-one. Paradox have a more pure vision basically. Imagine what would happen to the EU games if Paradox decided they wanted to appeal to the casual gamer. The complexity would be out the window in favour of streamlined gameplay and sparkly graphics because that's what sells tragically.
The magic in the Total War games for me is in neither the campaign map nor the battles but rather the relationship between the two. Most of all I love the characters and their personalities and the influence they have on the game, something which has sadly been pushed to the back in Empire.
I'm not complaining, even if CA never make another Total War game that I like, I can't see myself ever stopping playing Medieval 2 so I'm happy.

[Prodigal]

the fact that CA has given up on naval realism takes things even further from the warfare sandbox they promised. If they are worried about naval warfare balancing, why not include giant kracken or maybe flying dragons to deal with ships of the line if they are too powerful.

M8 wait for 1.5, if by that time they've not decided to add in submarines run by ninja bears with jet packs that fire lasers from their eyes I'll eat my wig.

[Didz]

I don't really understand this sentiment. What's the point of fighting some sort of infinite war? Because grind is fun? If I wanted pointless grind, I would be playing WOW.

And its inaccurate anyway. Spartan did not mention Totalwar in the title, and it was possible to complete the Shogun version without declaring war on anyone. This is just the standard not interested response from people who don't really give a damn but feel the need to comment.

[Alexander XXI]

I agree, I hate it when some country comes along and declares war on you, bring their allies with them, for no real apparent reason. I prefer to take the long road and only go to war for strategic reasons, and end the war when my objectives have been achieved, not just demanding peace because I don't have a big enough army in place.

[Yun Dog]

Personally I don´t mind the "total war" feature, however unrealistic it seems after all its the battles I love. Last night Wurttemberg declared war on me, Spain, with 45 provinces, more ships than the rest of the world combined and 12 standing elite stacks ready to go, sigh! WHY???
Now here comes the real bugger. I park my best stack outside Frankfurt? and let their puny stack of 7 crappy units attack me. I win ofcourse and only one badly hurt militia escapes to the settlement. Thay have no more troops, anywere! I offer them a blank peace - NO! I, just for fun, offer them Westphalia, Flanders and Netherlands....aaaand 100.000 cash, what do they reply? Yes, you already guessed it - NO! OMG, pissed I assaulted Frankfurt and gifted it to Bavaria. No more Wurttemberg.

This is not the first time this happens. It happens EVERY time. CA/ SEGA should send some trainees over to Paradox and learn how to script realistic diplomatic AI behaviour.

PseRamesses, its the battles I love too but not these sorts of battles, the sort of battle you mention sounds really boring and a foregone conclusion, I wouldve auto resolved it - its these sorts of battles I hate, its these sorts of battles that make the 'Total War' a boring grind of hundreds of pissy little battles that remove any sort of immersion in the game and are meaningless.

The annoying thing is the game wasnt doing this initially, this has been 'fixed' by CA to make the game more M2TW like - this is the exact reason I hated M2TW - wars without context - stupid AI pattern wars - faction A shares border with B - WAR, or launch naval invasion - spain to wales - scotland to norway.

Im sure the more aggressive AI Total WAR crowd will be happy to play 1 or 2 campaigns - which they prolly wont finish and put the game away and be happy with the value they got out of the game - but for me Im looking at the replayability of this game, and CA has killed the game. I think the real reason Ive started ranting about it is because I want to play this game now but wont because of the terrible CAI, and even if they fix it. By that time I will probably have moved on out of frustration or not be able to go back to playing it because I will still see the patterned M2TW AI behaviours - the immersion has been hit by a full volley at close range - and I dont think I will be able to get it back.

What happened to the EPIC battles? - CA have lost them somewhere between MTW and here, and theyve lost me until they get them back.

[Servius]

I agree with the OP's statement that it's not fun to be at war all the time. I do not think there should be a built-in preference in the DAI that forces at least 1 AI nation to be at war with the player at all times. I'm not sure if there is such a preference, but I know some here believe there is, and the pattern of DOWs in my games doesn't refute that theory. AI nations should only declare war on me if
A) I have something they really, really want
B) They currently have the military might to challenge me and potentially get the object of their desire
C) We're not on friendly terms

If we're on friendly terms, they should have to request the object of their desire in diplomacy first, and offer a fair trade. If I reject their terms, they can threaten me with war if I don't give in. When they issue that threat through the diplomacy system, our relations should instantly move to the negative. If I still refuse, then they can break existing agreements and declare war. I'm just sick of having allies for many turns declare war on me for (apparently) no good reason. Their ability to wage war is an entirely differnet problem.

[miotas]

I look at this as it meant to be being a strategy game, like a four X game, Xpand Xplore Xploit and whatever the fourth one is.

I agree. The AI definatley seems like it's drunk.

[antisocialmunky]

TW isn't pure 4x. Its more of a formation combat simulator with a 4x fascade nailed on. When was the popular 4x with a combat simulation part as detailed as TW(Besides SoSE, MoO2 had a good one as well)?

[miotas]

XXXX, pronounced "four x" is an australian beer. I don't know what you think you're going on about

[Durallan]

very good one miotas I would definetly agree :P

umm well, a 4x game is still a 4x game, no matter how complicated the combat, your still expanding and conquering and trading and going through the diplomacy to get there unless you just play the start a new quick battle in which case you aren't playing a 4x game...

[Matteo123]

Does it count as 4x if 3 of the x's don't work? Does simply claiming to make a 4x game count as having made a 4x game? If I sell you a 85' civic but claim it is a new car, does it count as a new car just because I say so?

[antisocialmunky]

Does it count as 4x if 3 of the x's don't work? Does simply claiming to make a 4x game count as having made a 4x game? If I sell you a 85' civic but claim it is a new car, does it count as a new car just because I say so?

THIS.

TW was never about 4x or atleast not any sort of traditional 4x. To be honest, the closest to 4x that TW has ever come to was STW. You had clear variables(resources, man power, production) and were able to plan around them. That's the defining trait of a 4x is that you can actually plan, optimize, and execute massive overarching strategies, etc.

You didn't have to worry about all these extra doodads that were added to artificially make TW feel more organic. You don't have these purposely obfusicated resource models etc.

I mean, seriously do you even have ANY idea how much income you're going to get or how fast its going to increase after building something? Its been like that since rtw with squalor and corruption and all sorts of crap. There's too many weird little variables to keep track of and the game is TOO RANDOM with the AI war declarations and other crap. And ontop of all this weirdness, things haven't been reported accurately since MIITW.

All the strategy in TW is build tons of eco, try to gauge out how much is enough, build units, attack. Build more eco if you eco starts to slip, build more armies, more eco, more armies until you get bored and quit. THAT is all the game there is.

EDIT: I just realized that that's exactly how the TW AI works. :-p

[resonantblue]

I have an Austrian campaign going at the moment on VH/H, 1760s and I'm at peace with every single one of my neighbors. The only nation I'm at war with are the Barbary pirates.

State gifts to keep relations high means very few declarations of war. I do get a lot of requests from neighboring states to trade one of my territories that they want for one of theirs. Which would be cool if they didn't always ask for 200,000 on top of offering an inferior province.

[hoof]

Ok, I'm done. Until CA fixes this ridiculous AI DoW logic, I'm done.

Here's the latest scenario. I found out how to modify various diplomacy and war&peace settings in the database, including the % ratio between the AI and it's prospective opponent for war. That's cranked up to 200%, meaning a faction should normally require 200% of the military that the target has before considering war (if I understand the parameters right). In addition, the thresholds for "hostile/unfriendly" were cranked up significantly, so no one actually hated me. The theory was to persuade the AI to not declare war unless they had a sizable military advantage over the enemy. So much for theory.

So I'm playing the Ottomans, actually having fun for a change. The trick/challenge with the Ottomons is to not be at war with all your neighbors simultaneously. Austria, for example, tends to have other worries (hated potential enemies on all sides). So Persia attacks early. No problem, I have it under control. I'm about 10 years into it, and the Prussians, Austrians and Polish/Lithuanians are in a free-for-all. So here you have three large powerful factions going at it. So my Austrian/Polish border should be safe? Nope. In *the same turn*, both Poland and Austria declare war on me. I checked their situation, they each are at war with multiple factions (in addition to each other). So yes, I have war on every front. Yes, Austria and Poland simultaneously declared war, because, you know, why not have another powerful enemy on your war list? My armies were quite sizable because of the Russian Front, fending off the Persians, and because Venice decides to declare war despite having only 4 land units in the territory next to mine. I had ammassed six line infantry and was sieging their city, along with about 2 other nearly-full stacks elsewhere when the other two factions "decided" that their mutual armageddon wasn't enough, why not harass the Ottomans while they're at it? Sheer idiocy, and no resemblance to anything rational.

So I'm done. When 1.4 comes out, I'll give it another try, at least if the fix-list includes some diplomacy changes. But I really tried to make it work this time, and am very frustrated. It's just not worth it in it's current state.