Total War: General discussion.

True.

I have Medieval II and Empire. I play MTW II every so often. My most successful English game saw conquest of the entirety of Western, Central, and Southern Europe (Except Hungary), and West North Africa. The Mongols, Danish, and Poles came to be a royal pain in the butt eventually.

edited 30th Nov '10 10:38:52 AM by Shichibukai

Recently got Empire and Napoleon: Total War. I'm assuming that since Napoleon is supposed to be an expansion for Empire that it's going to be more difficult to start out with, but I've also heard that the gameplay is somewhat different, so it wouldn't matter much about which one I begin playing with.

Anyone have suggestions for where to start?

P.S. This would be the first game in the Total War series that I have ever played, so keep that in mind!

Alright, is Empire still bugged up the ass? I bought it on launch day, uninstalled it the same day (that was on my old, crappy computer that couldn't run it at all), and haven't bothered reinstalling it.

Also, what Empire/Medieval 2 mods should I get?

Not really, at least in my opinion. Sometimes the online thing kicks me out of battles, but other than that it's pretty good.

Was thinking of trying this. Any suggestions for a starter game off steam?

Any of them, but my personal favourite was Medieval II.

I just really liked the combat there for some reason. Possibly because I like cavalry and the cavalry in Medieval II are awesome.

EDIT: If you wanna try it out, I'd go for Shogun or Medieval 1. Mainly because they'll be on the cheap and you can get a taste for it. You can go for the more advanced ones if you like the general style.

edited 8th Dec '10 4:14:05 AM by GameChainsaw

Bump.

Hmm, I seem to have lost my knack for Medieval II. Either that or the game is a lot harder than how I remember it.

Also, winning as Lithuania in the Teutonic expansion on Very Hard is hard. I beat the order, but then Poland and the Mongols attack you while you're weakened from stomping them. (and the Teutonic Order is no slouch either.) And Polands cavalry are simply better.

Playing as the Teutonics is gloriously fun, straight up Evil Is Cool.

... Say, is there any faction or unit you can think of that works under Crazy Awesome?

Hernan Cortez' bodyguard in the Americas campaign. I've seen that unit go through two units of native warriors followed by six units of archers and a unit of arrow warriors, though that did wipe the unit down to Cortez alone. This didn't stop Cortez from, on his lonesome and already badly wounded, from singlehandedly wiping out a squadron of 15 eagle warriors. After personally dealing the coup de grace to said arrow warriors and a few straggling archers. Being shot at the whole time.

...just don't ask him to do anything else afterwards, I found out where his limit was to my cost. This was on medium by the way, not on easy.

EDIT: And then you have the cannon elephants.

Further EDIT: Bodyguard units in general are capable of wiping out multiple low level infantry armies backed up by the occasional squadron of mailed knights if you know what you are doing.

edited 27th Dec '10 2:21:40 PM by GameChainsaw

Would the Britannian head-throwers count?

Mayan hornet throwers come to mind as well.

Restarted my game in Medieval II, now playing as Denmark. Going really well. I'm at war with two people, but they're fairly weak and the two times I've fought the Holy Roman Empire in open combat it's been a Curb-Stomp Battle. I haven't gone into debt once, I'm one of the highest-ranked factions with the pope (I had a Danish pope for a bit, but he died soon after being elected and the Venetians have more cardinals than I do) and basically, everything's going VERY well.

Hehe, think I've got the knack for this again. Took the whole of northern France, Wales, Ireland and England, as well as eastern and western France as the English, without fighting a single war. I've got a strong alliance with France and am about to take Milan and Genoa. And I've set all my taxes to low and still have enough coming in to ensure enough money comes in to have non-stop building work in every city.

BOW BEFORE MY POLITICKING!

Only downside is France has dragged me into a war with Milan, but thats ok, they're at war with half the planet and its a good opportunity to grab a chunk of Italy. Now I just need to deal with my pirate problem. I've managed to avoid France stabbing me in the back so far (militias keep mysteriously appearing any time they get interested in my northern territories.) Only problem is I have a number of very far-flung possessions (I have Oslo and will soon have Stockholm, thankfully my relations with the Danes are good, and I also have Bern and Metz, placing me in the uncomfortable border regions between Milan, Germany and France, who controls my ability to reinforce the region (We share military access, a necessity for France if they want to get to Germany or Spain as I control Aquitane as well as my middling possessions.) I've made an effort to make the regions self sufficient (I have a castle in Bern that is developing.)

My real fear is France and Germany attacking me at the same time. It means Bern and Metz are going to have to hold out against two big civilisations until I can kick the French out of the game. Losing the territories wouldn't be such a blow, but it'd be an annoying setback. On the other hand, they're also my gateway to seizing Milan and Genoa, as I'm at war with the Milanese and, next to the Venetians, have the best shot at taking the two cities. And if I can do that, I'll be rolling in money from my little mini-empire.

Best part of this is all my commitment to building and development has flooded my nation in small churches and chapels, which in this early era is enough to convince the pope that I am awesome. I do however have a small pirate problem...

edited 29th Dec '10 11:42:23 AM by GameChainsaw

...

"MINI-empire?"

On the other hand, wow. That is pretty efficient. Also props for being one of those people that can't stand nothing to be built.

In other news, I have restrated my Total War liveblog, though unfortunetely not in the form of my Rome game - save file issues erased that game. The link's in my signature if you're interested.

I'm so loooooonelyyyyy....

I've taken Milan, but now the Venetians and Germans have teamed up to fight me... thankfully my alliance with France is holding and the Pope is on my side... so far. I was actually going to attack the Germans in support of my allies, the Danes, but the Germans did me the favour of attacking and getting the bad rep themselves, keeping France on my side and the Pope happy with me. They then fell gracefully into my trap when I hid a stack behind a castle during a truce. The Germans promptly besieged it and got excommunicated, and their army badly bloodied and driven off to boot, allowing me to get a complete sweep of northern Italy. Meanwhile I sail south and attack the Moors, again on the behest of allies Portugal. (I'm focussing on being a good ally, because I do NOT want to fight the French and Danes in addition to my other woes, and there's always the possibility of the Scots getting bored with being good neighbours and going after York or Dublin, in which case I'll have to raise taxes and an army sharpish.)

However... all isn't perfect. I have little power projection at the moment against either the HRE or Venice (I've taken Venice itself but that still leaves the Venetian possessions in the Balkans) as my militia armies in Italy (led by Robert, who I've made into a superb general who took the last Milanese city via crusade) are tied up in Venice and the German city in the region due to unrest, I'm struggling to defend Milan as it is against incursions from the north, and Bern can't field decent infantry yet, so I've nothing to assault the German settlements yet. And with my English forces off conquering the Moors, that military access agreement with France isn't doing me much good at the moment.

Its temporary though. The moment I get some decent power projection I'll be able to snap up the western and southern portions of Germany, hopefully before a Papal ceasefire, and if a ceasefire is called, I can turn east to Venices last remaining major settlement (Ragusa) and snatch it off them, removing them as an effective power. At that point it would take an alliance of nations to even threaten me. (I've reached fortress level in Nottingham and all my taxes are still at low. I'm still fighting with both hands behind my back, and neighbours do not want the velvet gloves to come off as England is far more ready for full-scale war than any of its neighbours. Do you know any nations which get access to fortresses in the early game? Spain maybe...)

In other news, and while we're on the subject, I'll be restarting my liveblog for the fourth time in a row... new computer means Mago and company sail into the sea of lost savegames for the first and last time. I'll miss the guys, they were the first relatively functional group of characters I've ever liveblogged. I'll put up a liveblog with a note on the upcoming blog shortly.

Liveblogs up. May the world tremble at my approach... next week. They're safe for now...

edited 4th Jan '11 6:56:08 AM by GameChainsaw

This has fallen a page, so I guess I'll need a bump.

Well, empire is... overwhelming. Line and column battles mean my familiarity with shock and flank tactics is now absolutely useless... where are the cavalry when you need them? Reduced to a mere sideshow, thats what. And artillery, which I've never been good with, are now centre stage. On top of that I've got an entirely new building system to work with with no idea where to start...

Help?

Don't ask me, mate, I don't have the game myself. Sorry.

Although, a new computer, plus a neat bit of money saved up is awfully tempting... NO. I don't need another thing to eat up my time, especially now as I've already got the first few turns of my liveblog all up and ready for posting for a while now. ^^;

With enough practice in Quick Battle mode, you should eventually get the hang of things.

Also: close range battle, cavalry charges, and bayonet charges are still pretty important in the early era. It's in the late era, with mortars & howitzers + explosives, better accuracy, etc. that you really need to start micro-ing your artillery.

When I'm playing Rome I hardly ever need anything besides my trusty Heavy Infantry (hastati, princeps, triarii, legons). This goes double when I play the Julii, since those stinking Gauls just CAN'T beat my armies.

Personally, I'm glad they overpowered cavalry the way they did in Medieval 2 - it changed the focus of battles away from infantry beating the crap out of each other.

Oooh, how about a challenge - play a game (on E/E) as any one of the Roman factions, using peasants only.

I have Rome Total War and Medieval Total War I. I used to have Shogun Total War but that got completely fucked up in a shitstorm when my desk decided to collapse and Shogun Total War along with Civilization II were broke into two pieces. That was my old computer which ran Win 2000 Pro, and I had XP on the other.

I'll start with Medieval I because it's my favorite of all Total War games. I always start in the Early Period.

I either start with Hungary or France. With Hungary, I take every troop possible and take Serbia and Moldavia. I build improvements in Hungary to start at getting Halbardiers (sp.?). As soon as I can train Militia Sergeants in Hungary, I do. While this is going on, I build AS FAST AS I CAN fucking Avar Nobles!!! Here's their approximate stats:

• May Charge Without Orders
• Irresistable— Hmmm... —Charge
• Very Heavily Armoured
• Very Good Moral
• Very Good Defense
• Good Attack

In case you didn't know, you can only build Avar Nobles in Moldavia, so I just crank them out every single turn, from start to finish. Not even kidding.

After I've built up a decent amount of Avar Nobles and Militia Sergeants, I go after the Byzantines. I make sure I've got at least 10 units of each.

I capture a province (maybe two) from the Byzantines almost every turn. I usually go at a pattern where I'll take two provinces consecutively, one turn after another, and if borders allow it, I'll split an army and take two. In one mostly maxed army I usually have:

• 1 General
• 4 units of Militia Sergeants/Halbardiers
• 4 units of Avar Nobles
• 2 units of Horse Archers

Once I take over a faction entirely, I'll spend 10 turns rebuilding and getting settled in. After the Byzantines are dead, I go after Poland and Prussia. That doesn't take much longer than 5 turns, and then I build.

A lot.

After 20 turns of settling in that, I have:

• Halbardiers being trained in Hungary
• Avar Nobles being trained in Moldavia
• Heavy infantry being trained in Constantinople
• I choose two random provinces and have halbardiers being pumped out of there.
• I choose a random coastal province and pump out a navy.

So now, Germany, France, and Italy all have their oh-so huge, impressive armies filled with such elite units like peasants, urban militia, and archers.

I take out all the rebel provinces in modern-day Russia since the Russia back then refuses to expand at all because the Czar doesn't feel like it. I don't kill much, I bribe the rebels. I have a big-ass army trailing the diplomats shoving money in everyone's pockets. Then I take out Russia in one turn.

Then, since none of my armies have been disturbed, I'll probably go for the Middle East and North Africa because I don't want to get ex-communicated. The Turks aren't that hard, but they're not a piece of cake either. The Egyptians can sometimes fuck with you, but not too bad if you take out Egypt's capital via navy. The Almonhads are what fuck you up the most. Almonhad Urban Militia is a troop that they can build IMMEDIATELY and it's AWESOME:

• Good Attack
• Good Defense
• Armoured

So, yeah. It's basically a walkthrough, just bored at 1 AM on a Saturday night. I have a life!

edited 15th Jan '11 11:22:26 PM by Netsocrempy

Unfortunately, I only get about a tenth of that, because I don't actually have Medieval 1 - just 2.

Regardless, it's always good to have a tactic set out for the game. Me? I have this crazy idea of trying to turtle as Milan in 2 - you know, the guys who are number one on the hitlist of the Germans, French, Venetians, Papacy, and Sicily?

Edit: Erm, that would put you squarely on the West Coast? I don't 'do' timezones...

edited 15th Jan '11 11:47:53 PM by IniquitusTheThird

I want to get Medieval II. But I only speak RTW and MTW 1. So, yeah.

But you get the basic idea, right? I play as Hungary. I take Moldavia. It's right next to me. It's the only province anyone can train Avar Nobles (heavy cavalry) in. And with Halbardiers, it kicks ass.

In non-gamer language, I have people who are really hard to kill with big axes and shields. I also have people on horses who are also really hard to kill will this really long spear and they never run away.

It puts me in central time.

EDIT: In MTW 1, playing as "Italy" means you have Milan, Tuscany, Genoa, Venice, Sardinia, and Corsica, but I take over Sicily in 2 turns via navy so I surround the port and satisfy my OCD with controlling as much as modern Italy as I can get close to happen.

edited 16th Jan '11 12:18:31 AM by Netsocrempy

Argh. Toldya I suck at timezoning.

Well, if you like that kind of lack of floweryness, I got a comedy liveblog going on. Link's in my sig.

I think I am going to enjoy MTW II over the predecessor. God does diplomacy SUCK. By about halfway through the game I am permenantly entrenched in war with all factions still on the face of the earth. Any that come back are only a handful of turns away from invading me.

That and it takes literally longer then the entire game to upgrade 1 or 2 cities to fortresses that can produce top quality units.