Total War: General discussion.

I can haz advice?

Need help and advice on how to win in my first ever M 2 TW campaign. Am playing as the Holy Roman Empire on Easy/Easy (I said first ever campaign, all right?) and I'm at an utter loss for what to do next.

The Nitty Gritty

- I control the entirety of Central Europe, plus that bit of coastline opposite Italy, the Northern European landspit (where the Dans start out), and four provinces in the Holy Land (Crusading in turn 10 FTW!).

- I have an absolutely massive military force because my mouse actually welded to the recruit button, sporting Teutonic Knights and Feudal Knights alike.

- I have far too many alliances with other European factions left over from the early part of the game.

- I have destroyed the Milanese after those pricks killed my Emperor in a sneak attack. Their erstwhile allies Venice have been completely thrown off the mainland and only have Iraklion and that tiny island province north-east of it left. The Danes turned Rebels after I killed off their entire royal family and have been wiped out by now. Right now I have 2 obvious options:

- EITHER send upwards of two thousand men (ie all my spare troops) over to the Holy Land via my big-ass navy that I built up to take down those blockading enemy fleets;

- OR consolidate my grip there and turn against my fellow Europeans, meaning I will mop up the remainders of the Venetians, while sieging Rome (stupid victory conditions) and flipping off the Papacy. Also France is sandwiched between me and the invading English and looks pretty tasty.

If you have any ideas/advice/info requests, go ahead and ask.

EDIT: My computer ate my savegame data, corrupted itself and made me reinstall the whole program, and the CD drive commited suicide, so I won't be able to take your advice at all.

And I was only 5 provinces off the Long campaign goal (well, excluding Rome).

Gggggggggggggggggnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.

edited 31st May '10 9:22:05 PM by Iniquitus

Go after local targets first. A crusade is tempting and will probably succeed if you've got that many units and its easy, but you'll end up having to deal with ridiculous loyalty problems because of the religious differences and distance, and the two parts of your empire won't be able to support each other.

Knock the strongest faction out first. If you've got that much power you should beat them handily. Knock out France first and consolidate it, followed by Poland, Hungary, and then anyone else who looks like they could threaten you. You'll probably be excommunicated for all this, but consider bribing the pope. (Threats don't work too well in my experience.)

EDIT: As for alliances, your "allies" tend to turn against you when it is convenient. Might as well do it to them first.

Further EDIT: As for the blockading fleets, you might want to consider wrapping up the enemy navy, before splitting your big navy up and blockading THEM! Revenge is sweet.

edited 22nd May '10 9:35:36 AM by GameChainsaw

I have a small...problem in my current game. I am currently at war with practically every country surrounding mine. I'm holding my own, but Poland, Denmark, and Hungary are a bit of a problem. They've conquered a few of my northern cities and I'm having a hard time retaking them. It's extremely frustrating.

What faction are you? Whats your military situation, and is there anywhere you could score a quick kill?

In these situations, you have 2 options.

1) Go for a quick kill of a weaker enemy before switching back to deal with the more dangerous troublemakers.

2) Try to take back the cities and reestablish yourself, to stop your enemy from gaining strength at your expense.

I usually go for the quick kill, as it lets me transfer my forces back to the fight. But if you let one faction get too powerful, chances are the even if you conquer all your other enemies, you won't survive in the end. So try to keep all your enemies small.

I'm playing as the Holy Roman Empire. Last time I played them I managed to conquer most of Europe. I didn't have NEAR this much trouble last time. I have a number of different armies, but at the moment I'm trying to hold back too many enemies and I don't have enough to keep them all away. Any maneuver that I try gets foiled by someone else's navy.

edited 23rd May '10 5:58:22 PM by theLibrarian

Update!

Ok, so I went after the English island base (God bless the Pope and his willingness to call crusades on excommunicates) and tried to focus on the Egyptians for a while.

And then the computer decided to have some fun at my expense.

I took over the entire English part of Britain, began training up forces for the Epic Egypt Adventure...

...And have both Scotland AND Hungary (2 most powerful European nations bar me) gang up and ruin maybe a third of my fleet in a surprise attack, plus my outlying armies suffer MAJOR casualties due to ambushes.

And then when I'm about to go all Medieval on their asses, the Pope steps in and tells me to not kill them just yet pretty plz?

I accept this and begin recruitment in earnest...

...And they go on attacking.

I say to myself, "It's OK, they'll get excommunicated now, no big deal."

I check the mission log and messages as soon as my turn comes around.

Both Scotland and Hungary are still in the Pope's favour.

And the enforced truce still stands.

...

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Librarian, pick a target and crush it. Concentrate your forces and march after one target, leaving only enough resistance in other areas to slow your enemies down. Once you've crushed one enemy, move onto the next one. Keep going until all threats are done away with.

Iniquitus, sounds like you need to improve your relations with the Pope. Consider a bribe...

edited 24th May '10 4:52:26 AM by GameChainsaw

Really, here's a little tip in the start (I have only Rome and Empire, but it might work in other TW games):

In the first turns, build better military buildings in the frontier provinces and economic buildings in the cores. If you have a large city, you should ASAP build a better military building that gives you a strong unit to give you a major edge. Make sure you have at least +1000 in balance each turn.

Case in point: My Carthage game, v 1.5.

Carthage starts with lousy infantry but good cavalry, opposite to Rome. As with the Holy Roman Empire, I start with potential conflicts on multiple fronts (and the fronts are isolated by a varying degree, to). The city of Carthage is a large city, so I build an improved stable to give me access to Elephants and Long Shield Cavalry, which I can then ship to my frontier in Sicily. I construct a stable elsewhere to - no other factions that borders me outside of Numidia can build good mounted units (until the Roman get their reforms).

What if a enemy comes with a huge army and attacks a not so important and weakly fortified town/city? Harass him and his army. If you have a general in that town, make sure you kill off as many missile troops as you can in a suicide sally (and burn every single little building of worth beforehand). Try to split the army and make the parts chase you if you have a fast one in the battlefield. Then, after you've harassed him long enough, gather your troops and crush it. Sure, you might have effectively destroyed your town, but your enemy has payed a bitter price and will be weakened (unless you have also been fatally weakened to).

Example: Again, my Carthage game. I was attacked in Sardinia by a huge Roman army which took the town. Then they went to Palma (Balearic Islands) and besieged it. I went on a suicide sally against 2400 men with a general and two Balearic Slinger units. The general killed off a huge amount of Velites (skirmishers) and archers before dying fighting their general while the slingers weakened their infantry for a while until they ran out of ammo. Result? I lost the town, but killed off 1000 men, which the AI doesn't retrain at all.

So now, I'm in this situation: I control my two North African provinces I started with, the three cities of Sicily, Sardinia (I retook it), two cities in Southern Italy and two provinces of Southern Iberia (three soon if I capture Portugal). So these tactics work - at least in Rome. Dunno about any other TW games.

I'm already done with Sicily, but everyone I'm fighting against seems to be in alliance with one another. The Papal States aren't doing anything (I think I've been excommunicated and he's still screwing with me, telling me not to attack people and not punishing them when they go after me) but I've basically secured Italy. Now I'm just trying to defend everything north of the Alps. I'm in control of Tunis and am trying to expand my domain in Africa, but nobody's helping me. The Mongols are here...maybe I should try and make an alliance with them...

Wouldn't rely on allies, they're notoriously unreliable. You can trust allies about as far as you can throw them.

Well, now that Shogun 2 has been announced, I was wondering what the original was like. Did it have those hilarious traits or did those come later?

Those came later. Shogun 1 was really basic. You didn't have upgrades to units, you just had the basic units and building better dojos gave you honour (experience) bonuses. Equally, you didn't have traits or any stats beyond command. There were still assassins (ninjas) and spies (Shinobi). Equally, trade was a simple matter of a straight 200 koku for every alliance and for every port.

edited 3rd Jun '10 2:19:02 PM by GameChainsaw

Wow, Total War has come a long way. I do hope the traits come back after Empire and Napoleon deemphasized them. Oh and speeches are back!

I didn't put one part very well. You did have weapon and, in the right regions, armour upgrades. But there were no class bandings, that is, you didn't get hastati, principes and triiari or militia, standard units and elites, you just got Ashigaru (peasant spears) Yari Samurai (Samurai spears) No-dachi Samurai (Two Handed Swordsmen) Samurai Archers (Archers) Mounted Archers (Just that) Yari Cavalry (Light Cavalry) Heavy Cavalry (Again, says it on the tin) Naginata (Heavy Spearmen) and a few odd units like Kensai (Sword saints is the translation) and battlefield ninja.

Oh, and you did get bandings in Ashigaru hand-cannoneers and musketeers. Musketeers are better than hand-cannoneers.

edited 3rd Jun '10 4:52:08 PM by GameChainsaw

I've been playing Empire quite a bit lately, and I can't really get the hang of Europe. It seems like after a few years, it's such a clusterfuck of intertwined alliances that you can't invade anyone, lest you find yourself at war with half the continent. Am I missing something, or do you just have to accept that if you want to keep expanding, sooner or later, you're going to end up fighting a war on multiple fronts?

edited 12th Jun '10 9:46:46 AM by SuperDimensionman

I've played M2, and have Empire, but haven't played it. Why does everyone hate it? I also have Stainless Steel 4.1, which is fun with its extra factions and provinces, but does have massive problems. The stats for units has been heavily reduced, while cavalry charges were made stronger, and now they're even more overpowered. And while countries are less likely to attack you for no reason, for some reason they keep losing they're own provinces, e.g. Hungary lost Budapest; Milan lost Vienna, Venice and Marseilles; and the Pope lost Rome. It can't be due to religious problems, I never had spy infestations myself, so i don't know. As for the Third Age mod, does one need Kingdoms for it?

edited 14th Jun '10 12:40:26 AM by tussl12

Playing Napoleon right now. The AI is horrible but I like seeing hundreds of muskets go off. :graphicswh*re:

On a more serious note, Went back to Shogun and Med I, love those two, especially the feel of shogun, hope they don't screw up Shogun 2.

Thinking of replaying Europa Barbarorum, maybe when I have time.

@tussl 12:

1) Yes, Third Age requires Kingdoms.

2) I'm not sure, but at least some of your problems may be remedied by updating your Stainless Steel installation to version 6.1 (which, incidentally, also requires the Kingdoms expansion). From what I remember playing the 6.1 version, the cavalry was indeed quite strong, but it was balanced by their extreme cost and low availability (slow replenishment rates).

edited 14th Jun '10 9:42:57 AM by C-Person

What version of Rome Total War does the Gold edition use? 1.5 or 1.3?

Gold installs 1.5 if I remember correctly.

Yeah, it does, found out on the options screen. The reason I needed to know is that I'm installing EB as mentioned. Hopefully it'll work this time and I won't have to end up uninstalling everything related to Rome again.

Ok, I downloaded versions 1.1 and 1.2, but the icon on the desktop for installing EB never appeared, and a ton of files were missing. Whats going on?

So, I'd like to get into this series but I don't know what game to begin with. I'm pretty experienced with tactics games overall, but the combat appears to be somewhat more complex.

Where to begin?

edited 4th Jul '10 6:43:14 AM by TomJ.S.

@Game Chainsaw:

Are you sure you set your desktop as the download location?

If you can't find them on your computer, I'd say re-download (and this time make sure you specify the download location). If still encountering problems after this, I'd suggest you check the forums (both the official one and the one on on twcenter have extensive help sections. At the time of this posting twcenter server seems to be down, but it should be up some time soon).

edited 4th Jul '10 6:45:48 AM by C-Person

Thanks. Having another go now.

EDIT: I need to start reading what people are saying.

edited 4th Jul '10 6:54:40 AM by GameChainsaw