Total War: General discussion.

Well, at least there's a minor chance that the noble you work under might be a genuine good guy.

Anyone else feels like the 3K peasant economy doesn't scale too well? Maxing out your farming income requires a high population, which puts a strain on your public order and doesn't go down when you upgrade your cities. Industry and commerce buildings seem much more profitable in the late game, provided that you have at least one county in the province for mining, toolmaking, silk or spice. Earlier in the campaign, I was excited by the prospect of gaming the diplomacy by hoarding a large food surplus and selling it to other factions, but it gets harder and harder to do profitably with your late-game diplomatic penalties - especially if you've stacked up a negative trustworthiness rating from annexing your vassals.

Warpath campaign in Empire as the Iroquois on hard...

It turns out that the US are hard-coded to declare war on the first turn. Then France, Spain and the Dutch follow up with war declarations of their own in the following turns, and the British refuse to help for anything else than the Americans. I've restarted the campaign three or four times now, trying to find some way to stay afloat, but I'm drawing a bit of a blank.

WHEEEEEEEOOOOOOOO LOOK AT THEM PATCH NOTES

LOOK AT THEM BATTLE AI CHANGES

LOOK AT THEM DIPLOMACY CHANGES

These changes do like they're supposed to and 3K will certainly be the best overall TW yet.

Yeah, and going for the food markets means less big cities and definitely risking things going haywire if one of your far-more-vital breadbaskets commanderies get lost unless you start demolishing your cities. Not to mention public order is really only an issue in the game if: 1. Enemies on your land. 2. High population.

It's probably only worth building for it in a province with inherent peasantry income so I guess just the places with livestock or lumber.

Edited by VutherA on Jun 13th 2019 at 10:21:26 AM

I'm beginning to think I'm maybe just not that good a player. Having trouble in a hard campaign on Medieval 2 as well. I mean, I suppose Venice just doesn't start in a good place at all, but I'd think I could at least handle the early game. On turn 50, I'm being swamped with enemies coming from everywhere and I can't handle all of them fast enough. Maybe I'm just not being aggressive enough in my early expansion? I was focusing on the Byzantines, but maybe I should try to get control of all of Italy instead?

You may want to at least get rid of Milan. Milan are a bunch of dicks, and have a nasty tendency to drag friend and foe alike into all kinds of stupid wars. Once Milan is taken care of, your only neighbours are the Papal states, the HRE and France. The Papal States are entirely passive and won't bother you, while the HRE and France usually keep each other in check.

So kill Milan, and work your way through the Byzantines at your leisure.

It's actually Sicily that screwed me over. I was handling Milan easily (Because Venice is probably the easiest city to defend in the game) and although the HRE declared war on me, they kind of just stayed where they were. I was locked in war with the Byzantines and Hungary, not having too much trouble against either because their forces aren't that strong against Venetian militia, but then Sicily decided to attack a random, mostly unguarded castle with two general units in it (Raguza, I think?). It's way behind my lines, and I don't have much to stop them from tearing into the rest of my lands except by pulling back my conquering troops.

Actually, maybe I should convert all the castles I get into cities? Castle units seem rather poor until you get access to Venetian heavy infantry, and I like being able to have upkeep-free units in my cities since they are more than strong enough to stop most invasions.

Edited by Resileafs on Jun 18th 2019 at 12:08:58 PM

Oh yeah, Italian city states love their militia. They are not quite as good as their castle counterparts, but they'll do the job just fine. You'll still want a couple of castles to churn out more elite units for your armies, but Italians don't mind having big cities on the edge of their empire quite as much as other factions.

Well, at least in early game, the units I get from my cities are by far superior to what I can get in castles. You'd think that peasant archers and crossbowmen would be hired from a city and the pavise crossbowmen from the castle, but it's the other way around here.

I usually play Milan if I go for an Italian game, so I wouldn't know. Milan recruits their (ridiculously good) Genoese Crossbowmen from the castles, though they can also recruit the (slightly) lesser Genoese Militia from cities.

And, of course, you're going to need some actual heavy infantry, which you can only get from the castles as well, so there's that.

Ah, I see. I had expected the Italian factions to be similar enough, but those are some differences. Venice's best ranged units (pavise crossbowmen, gunpowder units, etc) are in their normal cities, and they even get an okay cavalry unit from their cities.

It turns out that yes, being aggressive does help in getting a better start. Also getting an alliance with your neighbors so they take longer to decide they want to attack you.

You know what doesn't help? Picking a short campaign by mistake. Oh well, it's not like I can't do a long campaign in the same playthrough afterwards.

Edited by Resileafs on Jun 18th 2019 at 12:35:54 PM

Speaking of updates, I wonder if Attila will have another patch or even a new expansion at some point. I mean, if Rome 2 got two expansions years after launch, maybe there’s still hope?

An optimisation patch is pretty long overdue at this point.

CA: "China will run thick with the blood (and limbs) of your enemies in the new Reign of Blood Effects Pack for Total War: THREE KINGDOMS."

Me: "Oh how witty, how very, very witty!"

Well, someone got inspired by Mortal Kombat.

T E S T Y O U R M I G H T

I finished my Liu Bei game with Sun Ren now being Empress of all of China.

Starting a Zheng Jiang game. The "Very Hard" difficulty is apt, the only battles I've fought where I had more troops than the enemy is the starting one and hitting undefended towns.

Edited by VutherA on Jun 22nd 2019 at 8:09:57 AM

New patch out.

Prepare for your siege defences to be a lot more difficult, get testy as the AI kites more from being likely to suicide their cavalry on your polearms, despair as they scale the walls and link-up with reinforcements with their several-times-as-many troops, and cry as the AI uses flaming rounds against your units.

Ah, at least they didn't nerf Sun Jian's hilariously OP mercenary units.

In my experience, the AI hasn't been a ton better in town attacks.

...I am suspecting that the autoresolve just undervalues flaming ammunition and trebuchets are that good.

Well, I found a new way to cheese sieges with trebuchets.

First, attack them. If they sally out to get your trebuchets, obviously you're probably already able to win this and you don't need me to explain more. If they don't, now you can just fire off all of your trebuchet ammunition before ordering your army to retreat. And now you can rinse, attack again, and repeat since your retreat will be considered a draw that doesn't end the siege and it doesn't require more movement for you to attack a place you're already sieging.

Edited by VutherA on Jun 26th 2019 at 4:48:33 AM

A little showcase of Reign of Blood, as it turns out the amount of blood and gore is customizable. You can go from bloodless carnage to 'The human body has 200% its own volume in blood'.

Oh that's nice. I'd like some blood effects, but I wouldn't want the entire field covered in gunk as soon as the first engagement starts.

Mod tools and workshop out for 3K

CA's highlights from them after a day.

Edited by VutherA on Jul 5th 2019 at 1:27:24 PM

New DLC for 3K! This one takes place a century after the main campaign, during the War of the Eight Princes and the fall of the Western Jin dynasty founded by Sima Yi's descendants.

Gotta say that I know basically nothing about this period, certainly far less than any other historical setting covered in the series, but I'm looking forward to learning more as the details are announced.

Very interesting. Even Dynasty Warriors doesn't go that far into the post-Three Kingdoms era, so I'm looking forward to learning more about that period.

Also, beautiful song they use in the soundtrack.

Edited by Resileafs on Jul 16th 2019 at 10:51:31 AM