Total War: General discussion.

A video that about repeats the news post I linked above, though it shows actual screenshots of factions' unique buildings and it does prove that all of these factions can in fact recruit the different regions' units - without even having to conquer them, alliances and vassalization are mentioned as options too! Wonder if that'll mean it's possible for non-Egyptian factions to recruit Egyptian regions' units too.

Epirus campaign complete on turn 80. Turns out the early game wasn't that hard because Macedon decided to ally with me against Athens when they decided to fight me themselves. Keeping the Macedonians from wanting me dead made the early game much, much easier than it could otherwise have been. My some weird twist of fate, the african elephant mercenary my main army started with was killed off in an auto-resolve in which I had the advantage at 95%, which in a way was lame because I hoped to use those elephants against Rome, but it really was a blessing in disguise because the upkeep on these mercenaries is ridiculous, especially for the early game.

In any case, the world evolved much differently than it usually does, because the Seleucid Empire thrived and grew rather than be wiped out by its neighbors (probably because the Egyptians got wiped by Kush), and they were friendly enough that they were happy to ally with me, Pergamon and Pontus. Later on, I also allied with Carthage, Masaesily and Massilia.

My war against Rome was relatively easy, it's when I got in Iberia that things got a bit tricky. The lack of sword units for Epirus makes them weaker than the majority of factions as they have a rather subpar roster because of it. Siege weapons and good use of terrain and bridge battles were needed to take out several dangerous Iberian tribes. I also fought against Cimmeria to relieve the pressure on Pontus and boost up my territorial numbers.

I'm now at the final faction of the Grand campaign, Pontus.

Problem is, I don't want to play as fucking Pontus!

More seriously though, I think this is probably going to go the same way as Pergamon, as starting in Asia Minor, close to the Seleucid Empire, I'm probably going to start conflict with them quickly and early and make friends with a lot of people (especially because I get a diplomatic bonus with hellenistic factions so should be able to make lots of treaties), though I have to fight off Cappadocia, Galatia and Cimmeria.

Roster-wise, Pontus has a pretty crap infantry, but quite good cavalry and archers, plus scythed chariots, so their army relies on specialists to win battles. Remains to be seen how much of the roster I'll see before I finish the campaign. Wish it wasn't just barbarians who got to use their top units before the very end of the tech tree.

Total War Center users died for this

Mentions of battle maps' having pre-set spots changing based on weather and the Ancient Legacy mechanic provides an option that you choose to grant methods for a specific style of campaign.

Holy shit you can bring Atenism back now that's really embracing TW's nigh-inevitability for Alternate History

So we can praise the sun?

#360NoShadow420PraiseIt

CK 2 Zun stans represent!

Things ended up going far differently than I expected, Pontus campaign complete after 90 turns.

The main difference here is that an unexpected faction grew to immense sizes, but one I could not interact diplomatically with. Cyprus, which is a satrapy of Egypt, was the vanguard of the fight against the Seleucids and had spread all the way into Arabia. Unfortunately, you cannot interact diplomatically with satrapies outside of getting trade agreement with them, which meant that they were holding a whole lot of territory that I needed but that I couldn't ally with. This meant that I had to fight them and break all alliances with the Egyptians.

I did manage to ally with most other Greek states though, most importantly Baktria who controlled the majority of the East. The Balkans were a safe area for me to assemble my armies into and get ready to fight Rome, who although they only had armies of hastati, were still a match for many of my units because Pontic swords are barely superior to the weakest Roman units. The final battle took place in Rome, which I did manually because the auto-resolve was weirdly doubtful of my chances.

And that's it, that's every single faction having completed the main campaign! I now move on to the DL Cs, starting with Ceasar in Gaul, but before that, I will do the historical battles. I'm looking forward to different campaign types, this took quite a while!

And the historical battles are done. Most battles ended in pyrrhic victories, with only barely a few units left by the end. Battle of Alesia was by far the toughest fight of the bunch, a little less than a full stack of Romans against nearly ten thousand Gallic warriors streaming in from every side, and Zama was a close second due to Carthage heavily outnumbering the Romans (wish the elephants could actually be made to run back into Carthage's ranks lol). Wish the battles all had ending cinematics like Teutoberg Forest though (although the cinematics in Teutoberg were all glitched out and could cause the screen to go completely black and make it virtually impossible to finish the fight so I had to skip them).

Officially starting on the Ceasar in Gaul campaign as the Nervii. The factions appear to have the same bonuses as they do in the main game, but the faction leaders all have special combat abilities (and turns don't equal years so leveling up generals is much more valuable). The Nervii's faction ability makes all units around the faction leader unbreakable, so he's definitely the type of guy you put in the middle of the action and hold the line with. Otherwise, the Nervii have the advantage of starting out of the way of the other major players and get to expand at their own leisure until they're ready to take on Rome.

Other mechanics that have changed in this campaign is that the tech trees were revamped. Some techs that used to be civil are now military, and vice-versa, but the most major change is that civil technologies cost money to research and only take one turn to complete, which means that military technologies take a bit longer to complete to balance it out. Imperium and politics have been greatly simplified as well, which makes me wonder if all growing in imperium does is lower your relationship with everyone around you and lower your tax rate or if something special happens when you max it out.

Holy crap you beat the historical battles I was wondering how Alesia was even possible

Good ballista shots will do the trick, most of the time, I think. And keeping the auxiliary cavalry healthy for the entire battle to get good charges in and kill ranged units is vital too. Being able to funnel the Gauls into blobs so they are easier to bombard and surround is extremely important too, it's how I managed to beat one of the last waves with only a few depleted legionaries.

So as it turns out, getting to the maximum imperium rank does actually do something.

It starts a fricking endgame crisis where six nearly full stacks of veteran legionaries spawn in Roman territory (and I assume that if you play as Rome, it will make Gallic armies spawn similarly).

I can't say that I was ready for them as far as number of armies go, but I have a lot of money and I'm able to turtle up until I'm ready to face the Romans directly. This should definitely be interesting.

Realm Divide 2: Electric Boogaloo?

I thought Rome 2 centered on whether or not you kept all of the families in line for whether or not people would rebel.

Resileafs is playing the Caesar in Gaul campaign, which is indeed different from the main game.

Ah, right.

So yeah, CiG pretty much does the S2 method for end-game

This is more the Medieval 2 method, though? Shogun 2 rallied all AI factions against you, but didn't just spawn a bunch of armies. This is closer to M2's Mongol and Timurid invasions.

Nervii campaign completed after 66 turns. Short and sweet campaign.

Ceasar in Gaul is a fun campaign, whole different vibe from the main campaign. It's easy to get carried away with expansion and confederation and gain too much territory too quickly, before you're ready to keep control of all that land, especially when the endgame crisis (the game calls it Roman escalation) triggers and you have to contend with elite armies that you may not have your own elites to deal with at this time. Winter is incredibly deadly in this campaign too, the attrition you receive is actually meaningful and can hurt you anywhere that isn't a road or a city, and the season lasts six whole turns, so doing any fighting during that time is extremely hazardous. The map is also so small (and campaign movement so high) that you can encounter enemy armies almost by surprise, so having spies ahead to keep an eye on enemy movement is also quite important.

I only ended up fighting Ceasar once. The Roman AI never put him back into an army. I guess because they never had to (or could) train another army after the Roman escalation began.

Next up will be the Arverni, led by Vercingetorix, whose unique ability allows him to slightly increase the attack of your entire army for a good length of time. Not extremely impactful, but can give them an edge when combat begins. The most important thing though is that the Arverni bonus to relationship with Gallic tribes means that they can make alliances extremely quickly... Which is both a blessing and a curse because the bonus encourages you to make good relations with your neighbors when it might be preferable to take them by force.

An important matter is that the Arverni also start much closer to Rome than the Nervii did, so that makes them quite a bit more vulnerable in the early game, when they don't have counters for the legionaries yet. Will probably have to make a beeline for that research.

Edited by Resileafs on Jul 23rd 2023 at 11:48:46 AM

Returning to the Koihime Musou mod for Three Kingdoms. This time I'll be playing as Touka (Liu Bei) on Legendary/Legendary difficulty.

Her starting situation is honestly quite difficult compared to Vanilla Liu Bei, because she is surrounded by two full stacks of hostile Han armies. Because the Han's armies are superior to what my army can become at the moment, I have to take advantage of the three sisters' Oathsworn buff and Oath of Peach Garden skill to carry the fight.

Triggered Realm Divide, realized that despite memes, yari ashigaru in spear wall still can't fight off multiple of their number in samurai. Tried again at an earlier save, learned that attacking Kyoto causes a second stack to literally spawn outside their castle. Had to remove it by bribing it with a metsuke. Also discovered that Realm Divide doesn't trigger upon attacking Kyoto (at least, I suppose not when you then autoresolve it within a single turn). I'm guessing I have 4 turns to take as much land as I want before the other clans wise up?

Currently sweeping up the Yamana as I await Chosokabe's inevitable betrayal, while there's a no-man's land of rebel provinces between Kyoto and Date/Satomi's lands. It's a little unfortunate though that I won't be able to get the Shimazu gunners in time to use.

Turns 8-14 of Touka's campaign.

As Touka and her sisters slowly expand to the south of the Xu Province, the Han Empire still has settlements up north, as well as two other full stacks armies. Luckily, Sei (Zhao Yun) joins soon afterward, and she single-handedly destroyed one of the two Han armies.

Gameplay showcase for Irsu, the Ravager. This dude sounds amazing (great work by the voice actor and modelers), and we otherwise have little snippets of some new stuff for Pharaoh, with highly customizable campaign features to make the game play the way you like and the Sea Peoples' early invasion before the full collapse.

So the sea people aren't an endgame crisis but a looter-type threat?

Yes, they've been described as a threat that gradually worsens as the Collapse progresses. Once the campaign world reaches full Collapse status, they launch a singular massive invasion that is intended to stretch your defenses to their breaking point. If you survive that, you can then help the world progress back into normality. You can even start training Sea Peoples units once they've settled various lands.

Edited by Resileafs on Jul 25th 2023 at 11:37:02 AM