Total War: General discussion.

Fucking hated chariots.

Nothing a line of javelin throwers can't fix, really. Just front them with mercenary hoplites so the spears do some damage and it isn't your own guys doing most of the dying.

Don't give the AI ideas! I'm busy enjoying dominating these so-called civilized people with my overwhelming numbers of general chariots.

It's funny how the AI does completely unexpected things on the campaign map. In my Briton campaign, the Scipii have taken over southern Greece, taking over the Brutii as the dominating force in the Balkans. Furthermore, Pontus is looking like they're going to be the dominating power in their region, having taken over the Caucasian mountains and Parthian lands in the region. Remains to be seen how Egypt will react to that.

Edited by Resileafs on Feb 13th 2020 at 9:15:39 AM

Also I think the Dacians have claimed the Brutii as a client kingdom, something I've never seen happen to a Roman faction before.

I am seriously in awe, considering how OP the Roman factions are it's really impressive that the Brutii AI managed to mess up so thoroughly. :O

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 13th 2020 at 9:02:45 AM

I wonder if it's a consequence of playing a 'Barbarian' faction that messes up the AI's actions. Or even if the AI works differently depending on the faction you personally play. After all, the Julii usually wipe out the Gauls early, or at least steamroll through Gaul easily, but during this Briton campaign I'm doing, they never even declared war on the Gauls, instead waiting for me to reach the southern coast of France so they could disembark an army and start attacking me, even though they could have gotten to fighting me much earlier if they had taken the lands south of the Alps and then taken Massilia.

AI v. AI fights are just RNG, aren't they? Ergo, it should be quite conceivable that the Brutii AI did not have the favour of the Gods.

It's RNG, but it's RNG affected by auto-resolve calculations, and some factions are heavily favored by the auto-resolve. Romans, because of the sheer strength of their basic infantry compared to that of other factions, tends to get the advantage in any situation unless extremely outnumbered. The Egyptians, who also dominate their region, do not get an auto-resolve advantage from basic units, but they tech up incredibly quickly because of the ridiculous growth of the cities bordering the Nile river, allowing them to churn out their most powerful units before their rivals, especially the Seleucids (whose elite units can easily match any other faction, if they ever survived that long), can ever hope to contest them.

Chariots tend to dominate the auto-resolve results too, which not only helps Egypt even more, but also helps the Britons and their OP generals wipe out Germania, making them unable to survive into the late game to use their own powerful units.

Add to that city growth, which severely hampers the barbarian factions when they face the Romans because they cannot tech up, and will eventually run out of people to train into soldiers.

Yet another unusual happenstance in my Rome 1 Briton campaign.

I'm pretty sure my faction leader is secretly a Bretonnian Grail Knight because he's still alive at 105 years old. I have no idea if it's a glitch or if generals can actually live that long, but he's outlived every single one of his children and he might very well live to see the end of my campaign.

Edited by Resileafs on Feb 19th 2020 at 9:15:27 AM

Say, did he get a secret brew from a certain pair of Gallic warriors beforehand?

So waifu got me Total War: Three Kingdoms for Valentine's, and this being my first Total War game, I was not prepared.

I think I'm kind of getting what I'm supposed to do now...10 hours into the game.

That's how they are xD I myself need to get back into Three Kingdoms, but Warhammer keeps pulling me back in.

Give us a rundown, maybe we can provide a suggestion

So I'm playing in Records mode as Cao Cao (because waifu really likes JJ Lin and he has a 2006 hit single titled "Cao Cao"). I think I'm getting the hang of commanderies, and figuring out how far my doods can walk around on the main map while still having enough action points left for ambushes. Took over a couple of lands, and I think I have a decent plan for the next couple of turns.

My economy isn't particularly stable thus far, though, and I've been needing to expand in order to have money to do stuff. I think I may need to disband some armies, but I don't know the extent to which I need to always be keeping generals and their full stacks of troops on the main map, or guarding my faction capital.

I'm also never sure the extent to which I actually need the number of guys that I do (currently I have 5 generals and about 16 or so stacks total), or whether I can just send some of them home, or the "breakpoint" at which I'll want better units at the cost of losing their current experience levels, or how strong the generals are actually supposed to be.

Also kinda wish that walk speed was default, and also that the fast forward option would advance time faster than it does.

I haven't played Three Kingdoms myself, but going by what I learned from other TW games:

• Do your job with as few armies as you can get away with. If you recruit an army "just in case" and said case never comes up, you end up paying a lot of money every turn doing absolutely nothing. Do not recruit further armies if you don't have a specific purpose in mind.
• Upgrade your units as soon as you can afford to. That way they get experience sooner, letting you stay ahead of your opponents in troop quality. But do keep the increased upkeep in mind when calculating whether you can afford to.

Mengde has really strong diplomacy game through his influence mechanic. Use it to secure non-aggression pacts with your neighbours so that you'll only have to fight in one direction at a time. His farms (green settlements) also get special upgrades which turn them into outright fortresses (check out the "Convert" tab if it's not showing up).

On the economic side, you'll want to match your city upgrades with the surrounding settlements. Farms get boosts from the Government Support building in the green tree, allowing you to keep a food surplus to sell to your neighbours. Labour buildings on the grey tree boost industry income from mining and workshop settlements, while Private Workshops boost industry and commerce (from blue trading ports). Markets and Inns on the blue tree give large boosts to commerce as well. On the yellow tree, you'll want to build Courts in select commanderies, since they cut down corruption in their surrounding.

Generally, you'll want to move your economy away from farming towards industry and commerce as the game goes on. Food sales get harder to negotiate over time, and the population growth needed for farming is a double-edged sword: it makes the people unhappy in the long run and forces you to upgrade your cities, which consumes a lot of food. And do keep an eye out for special resources: copper mines reduce corruption, silk and spice supercharge your commerce, and horse breeders lower your cavalry upkeep (capture all five and you'll pretty much have free cav). Corruption is a huge problem in the late game, so you'll also want to keep some officers with anti-corruption traits and keep them assigned to your highest-GDP commanderies.

On the visual end, I'd recommend Historic weapon model, Alternative Faction Flags & Colours and Make Them Unique.

Oh, and do keep the redeployment mechanic in mind. As your empire grows, it gets more tedious to march an army from one border to another. Recalling the officers and redeploying them on the new spot (after a 1-turn cooldown) is much faster. Redeployment bonuses on the red research tree helps cut down the cost, helping you save money versus if you'd marched them manually and paid their upkeep every turn.

Also, don't forget the most important part:

KILL.

YUAN.

SHAO.

I've completed my Briton campaign. My faction leader, the one you start the campaign with, survived until the end (although I cheated a bit, restarting a battle after he died in it), so I continued skipping turns until he finally died. In the end, he lived to the ridiculous age of 110.

Edited by Resileafs on Feb 19th 2020 at 12:32:08 PM

Liu Chong went and took my starting city while I was off kicking Tao Qian's teeth in and also taking over Donghai (serves me right for assuming that since the only reason he declared war was because of an accidental trespassing, and then nothing ever happened for like 20 turns, I'd be fine leaving the border open). But I am part of Yuan Shao's coalition, so I asked him to help me fight the guy (which also conveniently causes him to border Yuan Shu), and now they're at it.

Funny thing happened in battle, though. Liu somehow managed to die before my turn, and his wife succeeded his faction. Then when my army caught up to hers, and I was waiting to maneuver my reinforced army over...somehow she managed to die and it seems like her units are fighting each other. Is this just a thing that happens on occasion? Or should I take this to mean that Yuan Shao is building his spy network?

Also, is there any way to make the "awaiting reinforcements" phase of battles less painful? I end up wanting to walk them since there's no point in getting units tired, but it just takes so long even on fast forward.

Welp, I'm now happily expanding and awaiting Sun Ce's sister to come of age so Cao Ren can tap that sweet Southern booty. In wackier news, Liu Bei has become allies with Dong Zhuo of all people. I've currently instigated a proxy war between him and Yuan Shao. Debating who I want to tackle now, I have Sun Ce to my south, Liu Bei to my north, and what used to be Liu Biao and Yuan Shu to my west except that thanks to Yuan Shao's assistance against Liu Chong, now he's a thin buffer between me and Shu. I *could* access Liu Biao, but at the same time I'm debating the potential to make him and Sun Ce fight each other.

How exactly does "capturing towers" work? Is there a difference between the ones that are on the ground vs the ones that are on top of towers?

It will never stop be hillarious that people keep their generals single just for the chance of marrying them to Sun Ren.

Big-ear Liu doesn't deserve her.

(I'd link San Three Kingdoms Comic here but unfortunately it seems to have become lost to the void; its author does have another very infrequently updated series called Baozi Comics though)

Also, in early-ish game at least, is it more worth it to have armies of less generals but more stacks, or max generals with less stacks each? I find that I'm tending to not field the full 6 units in the retinue due to upkeep costs as I'm marching around assimilating the remaining Han loyalists.

Edited by PRC4Eva on Feb 21st 2020 at 10:25:41 AM

The higher towers are just tougher and longer ranged I think, though I never bothered to feel out if either one is more lethal. Nonetheless, the smaller towers on the ground are generally more likely to be avoidable due to their shorter range so if you're worried about running out of flaming arrows for them you may be able to maneuver away from them.

Zheng Jiang is best waifu and the second-highest bracket of Infamy is just everyone who serves her realizing this, making them Unbreakable.

I don't actually know, I didn't play Liu Bei a second time or really make much use of his confederation feature. At least, I guess the most cost-efficient way to go about it would be to raise a general (and only a general) if you want to confederate a place and then recall them after you get it, but I doubt I was ever in a place to have enough Unity to expect to be able to do that much before I was already basically Emperor.

Alright, the Yuan brothers have finally started fighting each other.

Lady Sun's alliance is a little more trouble than it's worth right now. She keeps wanting me to fight Liu Bei because Liu's allied with Yuan Shu, which is convenient since I'm the one who shares a border with him. She's also expanding like crazy since there's no one to the south of her for some reason. Starting to think she just wants me as a buffer. Anyways, points and developments:

1. Fuck Yuan Shao, he vassalized this one guy that I was intending to vassalize as soon as I made marquis.

2. Is it not possible to attack a city that someone else is already besieging? Said guy moved north on Liu Bei's capital and actually took it down, and now I'm trying to send someone after it but it doesn't seem to let me attack that city.

3. How exactly is "attitude" meant to affect diplomatic decisions? Kept trying to get Lady Wu to declare war against Yuan Shao, burned two "manipulate" abilities to get her to -2, but the "opposition to the idea" still doesn't shift at all. Starting to think I should have just saved up my credibility points to get Yuan Shao to declare war on her so I can drag her into the faction war.

4. When doing trades, does giving more generous terms actually improve attitude at all? Or should I just go all in as long as the "propose deal" counter is at 0.0?

5. When building out commanderis, is the intention to build the same kind of building as the surrounding areas, or build the kind of buildings that those surrounding areas support? Like, if it's all farmland and livestock farms, am I meant to build mostly military buildings (because farms make them cheaper to build), school buildings (because they make agri cheaper to build), or more agriculture buildings (to maximize agricultural production)? Come to think of it, do buildings inside the commandery capital apply their discounts to the other settlements inside the commandery?

6. Should there be a way to check what exactly is causing dissatisfaction in a commandery? One of mine keep dropping. Is it just a straight up public order stat or are there meant to be other things I can be doing?

7. Wars are expensive. I have like no income now that I'm fighting along my entire northern border (come to think of it, proxy warring Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao would have also been a great use of those credibility points), and poor Dian Wei might starve to death in the trecherous wastelands of southern Fujian as I attempt to set up an outpost to check Wu's expansion.

8. In general, does "manipulate attitude" for +/- 30 attitude points actually do much, or do I really just want the ability to get two factions to proxy war?