Total War: General discussion.

Bows have better range, rate of fire and shoot in arcs so you can keep them behind your front line with little issue. Guns deal more damage, ignore armour and hurt morale.

On a strict "getting kills in ideal circumstances" basis, guns blow bows out of the water, but need a lot more babying to actually get there. Depending on the enemy army composition and the terrain, they might not get to do anything at all. Bows are less impressive, but with some basic protection on the flanks will always be able to contribute significantly.

They also have a slower rate of fire, even if you research the tech that enables fire-by-rank.

Last page someone said Attila introduced the horde mechanic. I'm pretty sure that was Attila's spiritual predecessor Barbarian Invasion for Rome 1. As for Rome 2 creating the modern Total War, it depends on what we're talking about. A lot of the things people talk about were originally done in Empire, not Rome 2. Empire brought a lot of experimental stuff to the table that stuck, but people seem to shit all over it for some reason. Research, the lack of a singular rebel faction, ship combat. That all started with Empire. I'll grant you that Rome 2 introduced some stuff, like multiple leaders to choose from within the same faction, and having a central quest line for each nation. I still think Empire was too influential to ignore.

I can only speak for myself obviously (as I was the one who brought the argument in the first place), but I consider Rome 2 to be the beginning of modern Total War because that's when the games shifted to have armies requiring generals to recruit them as opposed to the previous training troops anywhere and not needing leaders. That, to me, is the core difference that affects the entire series going forward.

Aside from what Resileafs mentioned, Rome 2 is the first game to really go all out with the Loads And Loads Of Characters approach instead of having generic rebel factions or the like. While Shogun 2 preceded it, the lack of diversity didn’t allowed to make it notorious.

Having played Barbarian Invasion back in the day and Attila now, the Horde mechanic is completely different: In the former, hordes were basically armies filled with peasants and low tier soldiers that appeared once a faction started to move out, with them eventually taking territory to build up like always; the latter is about armies being mobile cities or settlements, with the means of production attached to each army and with the capability to thrive without taking settlements, not to mention armies have greater priority in keeping them alive.

Rome 2 also introduced politics and the pressure of having a successful general that’s not of your family, as well as a meaningful client state system instead of the token one we had before.

The reason Empire is not liked is because of Early-Installment Weirdness, many of the things it introduced like the research tree, naval combat, limited slots for construction and direct involvement with resource production like iron or copper were refined further in Napoleon and Shogun 2 and ultimately streamlined in Rome 2 and Attila.

There’s also the problem that Empire toyed with the idea of giant states that encouraged to take one capital city to take all resources like Spain, France and England, this in turn made things frustrating since taking minor places like ports or mines gave you no benefit beyond disrupting the enemy’s economy or recruitment pool.

Tellingly, the one mechanic that never came back from Empire was the one that allowed fleets to go to different, disjoint places in the world, something that I feel Paradox dealt with better in Eu 4 or CK 2 by having a complete, big map.

Edited by raziel365 on Nov 6th 2019 at 10:58:56 AM

I'm pretty sure the real reason Empire isn't popular is because it has a particular reputation for being (still) buggy. I didn't play it a ton, but the battle AI did seem particularly bad to me in the few times I played it.

Tellingly, the only competition for gunpowder warfare in TW, FotS, is more or less loved about as much as Shogun 2.

There's also Napoleon, but its campaign gameplay is kinda barebones and doesn't quite reflect the complexity of the setting. The battles are still some of the best-looking in the series, though.

Also, am trying out Fall of the Eagles + Europa Perdita for Attila. Having seen them compared to Divide et Impera for Rome II, I was rather disappointed by the new rosters. Both halves of the Roman Empire now have identical rosters, as do all of the Germanic factions and the Alans. And yeah, the base game had a lot of anachronistic/fantastical units like the Hetaireia Guards, but I'd hoped that the mods would be able to make up for it while being historically accurate-ish - something that DeI elegantly managed. The Garamantians are hit particularly hard: their new roster is positively tiny. On the plus side, the new unit models and textures are pretty lit. I'll give the campaign a try this weekend.

Good to know these things. I have a bunch of the newer ones, but hadn't really delved deep enough, or noticed enough about them, to realize what people even mean by modern total war as opposed to the middle range of games between Medieval 1 and Rome 2.

ETA: For the newbies who don't know about the two very old games, they were effectively games of Risk where the battles were 3D and fought with sprite characters. On the campaign map you moved your armies a province at a time no matter what.

Edited by Journeyman on Nov 6th 2019 at 3:20:43 PM

Grace posted on Reddit that the next 3K DLC has been delayed till the Lunar New Year.

Is that a delay or a 'delay'?

A how-to-not guide by our very own BrassShadows

Yeah, I had to make sure everyone could see you calling yourself out like that

(That was me in my first Kroq-gar campaign anyway)

-looks up from White Hun campaign on Fall of the Eagles/Europa Perdita- DID SOMEONE SAY CAVALRY

*Attila/Surtha Ek intensifies*

Edited by VutherA on Nov 10th 2019 at 9:17:10 AM

On a related note, Medieval Kingdoms 1212 AD's Mongol campaign is shaping up to be basically everything I've ever wanted from a Total War campaign.

13 years later and here's another way to cheese

I use artillery to batter down the gate, the towers, and the surrounding walls. Unless the enemy's packing a shit ton of artillery themselves, I could work around it.

You're not a dumb AI though.

Started a hard Seleucid campaign in Rome 1 yesterday after finishing a Brutii campaign (ridiculously easy with how wealthy the Balkans are). Seeing that I know what kind of fate awaits Seleucia if I let things happen naturally, I made the decision to immediately war on that Parthians and take their closest city of Susa to the east of Seleucia (the city, not the faction). Then I made a crapton of militia hoplite and skirmishers and parked them with a general in the mountain pass north of Seleucia (still the city), where they held off the advance of the scary cataphracts that tried to punish me.

I also allied with the egyptians on the first turn to delay their inevitable attack against me, which gave me enough turns to upgrade my military buildings and walls in Antioch (as they seem to prioritize attacking that city when they war against the Seleucids) to get a garrison powerful enough to drive back Egyptian troops.

I'm now taking over Asia Minor with a large but low-quality army in the region, and am creating a mid-tier army in the Caucasus mountains to take out Parthia and Armenia. I'm confident my Antioch army will be able to hold off the Egyptians indefinitely and when I've taken out all northern threats, I'll be able to sweep through the desert.

My current biggest problem is that a random rebel general has decided to lay siege on the city of Hatra, and I don't have enough money to bribe him to my side, and I think he's actually strong enough to prevent me from driving him back. I've never been threatened by rebels like that before. Even when they lay siege to a city, they'll usually break it after a turn or two, but he's determined to starve it out and force a sally out.

Edit: The rebel general misteriously turned into a horse archer when I started the battle. That's the weirdest glitch I've ever seen.

Edited by Resileafs on Nov 18th 2019 at 11:58:32 AM

I've recently completed my hard Seleucid campaign, and I've jumped to a Greek City States one, and I have to thank the S.P.Q.R. for making my job ridiculously easy on this campaign. After taking over Sicily, I was planning on wiping out the Scipii romans in Italy, and while I sent a diplomat to make contact with the Gauls, I noticed that the city of Rome was left completely undefended except for the Senate's faction leader. I of course immediately set out to see if indeed, the Senate doomstack was absent, and yes, they were nowhere to be found. I took a turn to siege Rome, still no S.P.Q.R. army, so I just took over the city with barely a fight.

Turns out the doomstack was in Julii territory, too far to contest my capture of Rome. I have no idea what they were doing over there, but I can only thank them for allowing me to capture Rome barely thirty turns into the campaign.

The Yellow Turban Rebellion DLC is officially called Mandate of Heaven, and the trailer is looking pretty lit. Gotta say that the monochrome filter reminds me a lot of Zhang Yimou's Shadow.

Some highlights from the FAQ:

• Since the chapter pack takes place right before the Grand Campaign, you can continue straight to it once you're done with the objectives.
• New playable characters include the Super Zhang Bros, Emperor Ling, Liu Chong (aka Prince Min) and Lu Zhi. You can also play as Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Sun Jian, Liu Biao, Dong Zhuo and Tao Qian (who will be available in the Grand Campaign as a free-LC).
  • From the Let's Play video, it looks like the Emperor will start with Yuan Shao and Kong Rong under him, plus He Jin.
• You can recruit units and retinues in non-hostile territory even if you don't hold any of your own, allowing for horde-lite gameplay.
• The video description promises new siege weapons and battlefield deployables (FINALLY).

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Dec 17th 2019 at 7:33:22 AM

The most important part of the trailer is the Big Dong before he was Big.

And look at the comments. CA pinned one. These guys are absolutely shameless. I love it.

Also here's the gameplay trailer.

Edited by Resileafs on Dec 17th 2019 at 10:58:59 AM

Oh yes, the Dong had quite the Heroic Build in those days.

Makes sense, as he was apparently much more chivalrous in his younger years.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Dec 17th 2019 at 6:12:29 PM

THIS SHOULD NOT EXPAND DONG

AND IT DOES

Edited by VutherA on Dec 17th 2019 at 12:52:51 PM

In Rome 1 just about any Greek style campaign is fairly easy. Your forces are a block of death pointed forward. I used to just set up a full box formation with my general and archers inside it, and let the enemies come at me. Even the Seleucids are doable with this, since they have a mix of spears and pikes.