I'm confident at this point that no position in a Total War game is truly impossible; I beat Barbarian Invasion as the Western Roman Empire on Very Hard/Very Hard and Medieval Total War as the Polish in the Late Period on Very Hard/Very Hard. It's all a matter of picking your fights, being efficient, and being an utterly irredeemable monster.
Hardest any Total War game got was RTW as Numidia. No money, no good units. If you can beat that, anything else is super easy.
Welp, Milan made the really bad decision to come out and fight me. Their King and their last surviving faction member both died in the first charge.
41:100% heroic victory and Milan iiiiis outta there, faction decimated. Netted me 15k in loots and, best of all, the Holy Roman Empire (allied to Milan) did the equivalent of "we never really liked them anyway", and ceased hostilities.
Now, if someone can just resist the urge to attack me for a few turns I can build up some proper economic strength again. Woo!
I love the Total War series, I have since Shogun. But the AI has always been atrocious. It is so bad I can't stand to even play vanilla Rome or MTW2. Mods for these games are pretty much required for me to get any enjoyment of them. Luckily they both have excellent modding communities. As others have said, Stainless steel is great. But really there are a lot of mods out there in all different flavors.
Flippy_D points out one of the most annoying quirks of the vanilla AI. Generals and family members will suicidally charge your army all by themselves. When they die, their army takes a huge morale hit and quickly routs. It's very stupid and not fun. Most of the major AI mods fix that and countless other dumb AI behaviors.
Here are some mods I can personally recommend:
MTW2:
Stainless Steel- Comprehensive overhaul of everything; new AI, factions, troops, map; includes many community mini-mods
Lands to Conquer- Revamped campaign AI and map
The Long Road- Considerably lengthens campaign for a more epic feel
Deus lo Vult- greatly expands the character trait system. Basically adds an RPG component
Rome TW:
Rome total realism- just like it sounds, realism from battles to troop recruitment
Europa Barbarorum- This is a beast. If you want a graduate seminar in Roman era history along with your game, try this. Really the hugest and best researched mod I have ever seen for any game.
SPQR- mod focusing on rome in expanded detail
But there are many more mods out there, from fantasy to napoleon.
I am having an excellent time with Stainless Steel! Playing as Lithuania, hardcore Pagan style. After a couple of friendly interactions with Kiev, they decided to ask me for an alliance that I gratefully accepted. Surprisingly to me (being used to vanilla Medieval 2) this gave me a reputation as reliable, and suddenly there was a rush of diplomats wanting to become allies to the honorable pagans of the north.
Now I am allied with Poland, Kiev, Spain, The Knight Templars, Genoa, and one or two others I can't recall the names of. Which has also raised my reputation all the way up to Trustworthy. Awesome!
My only problem is that the new huger campaign map is for some reason lagging my computer. It is not unbearable, but still annoying when coupled with the over one minute it takes for the AI turns.
I'm confident at this point that no position in a Total War game is truly impossible; I beat Barbarian Invasion as the Western Roman Empire on Very Hard/Very Hard and Medieval Total War as the Polish in the Late Period on Very Hard/Very Hard. It's all a matter of picking your fights, being efficient, and being an utterly irredeemable monster.
Hardest any Total War game got was RTW as Numidia. No money, no good units. If you can beat that, anything else is super easy.
Fair point, well made. Numidia is the worst.
Oh, and I forgot to add, you start off next to the fantasy faction, Egypt, with its unlimited supply of super broken units, and it goes after you after about 10 turns with full stacks.
I'm not sure I actually beat the game as Numidia. I think I just held on to Africa and a bit of Spain. Luckily for me, my best general held on to my eastern most city against maybe 10 full stacks of Egyptian scum.
And even talking about this shows RTW wasn't that bad, I had lots of fun playing as the weak factions. Spain too.
Personally, I could never dislike RTW after it let me sick dogs on French generals and have them tear them to pieces, all the while zooming in on the action.
lowlylowlycook on
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
During my France campaign, HRE attacked me unprovoked and was excommunicated for their efforts. However, I think warring with them somehow reduced my pope-o-meter. As the game progressed, more Catholic factions started shit with me, to the point where I was at war with nearly every one of them, despite never being the aggressor. Anyway, The Pope demanded a ceasefire between me and Denmark, so I obliged. Denmark could still apparently attack me though, so I said "fuck this!" and took an excommunication on the chin. Thus began my mission to kill off every single Catholic faction until I was the only one left, thus becoming the entirety of the Church. Lemme tell you, taking Rome is almost as much fun as having a Crusade called against it once you own it. For some reason, the Catholic nations thought it would be a good idea to declare war on the two strongest Citadels in my empire. It's pretty intense trying to fend off two full stacks of enemy troops, but cannon towers make it a lot easier. There's just something about seeing your two remaining units knee-high in corpses raise their pikes to the sky and cheer as Portugal's prince and Sicily's king flee the battlefield with a handful of the army they marched in with.
You know what though? Fuck the Mongols. Fuck them so hard. Jesus Christ, they're the one thing that makes a normal campaign challenging.
It seems like the farther the game progresses, the weaker your bloodline becomes. You never get any of the amazing conquerors of old, like Christophe the Scarred or Louis the Terrible.
You know what though? Fuck the Mongols. Fuck them so hard. Jesus Christ, they're the one thing that makes a normal campaign challenging.
I tried to take on Mongols once, at a river crossing. I figured, "hey, their AI will rush me, since they outnumber me 4 to 1, and while I won't win, I can take out a shitload before I go..."
...
You remember that scene from 300, where the sky is filled with arrows coming in towards the screen? That's exactly what it looked like, and that was all they needed to do...
The HRE are the most unscrupulous cunts in the 12th century.
I know you're spying on me, I saw him enter the town. And they have no hesitation to move in on your mercantile activities, either. Or dick around on your territory, with sizeable armies.
You know what though? Fuck the Mongols. Fuck them so hard. Jesus Christ, they're the one thing that makes a normal campaign challenging.
Dude, you ain't seen nothing yet. If you thought the Mongols were bad, wait until you fight the Timurids.
They are like the Mongols, only instead of horse archers they have Elephant Artillery.
I am finding Stainless steel to be very awesome, and quite challenging. My war of atrition against Norway and Denmark is finally starting to sway in my favor, and soon one of them will be wiped out. I only just realised that the Teutonic order was a "marauding" faction though. Having two full stacks of elite enemy units right smack bang in the middle of my undefended homelands is going to make things more interesting.
Edit: Also, I hate fucking AI merchants. When I want to seize the assets of an enemy merchant, I usually have like 50% chance with a slightly higher merchant. The AI players never ever fail though, which means my merchants rarely ever make up for their own cost before they die.
I sincerely hope that all the money gained from ransoming heretics will go towards building bigger pyres so we can burn more heretics at the same time.
Ransoming Heretics is never a good idea. You get a reputation of being soft, where if you brutally slaughtered them your General becomes increasingly psychotic as time goes on. I'm rooting for Hans; if he can find a good defensive position and let the Christ Knights sally out to murder the reinforcements, the battle can easily be won.
Ah, but on the other hand, a full coffer is necessary to do God's work.
I don't think things look to bad for Hans though. He has a solid army, and while this might be closer than previous battles, I think he will be able to cope.
Ah, but on the other hand, a full coffer is necessary to do God's work.
I don't think things look to bad for Hans though. He has a solid army, and while this might be closer than previous battles, I think he will be able to cope.
I'm mostly worried about fighting at that river crossing.
I hate river crossings. Mostly because the AI staunchly refuses to cross bridges themselves and that larger army is made up of larger than average numbers of archers and cavalry archers. But at least the reinforcements would appear on my side of the river so they could be dealt with separately.
I'm sure it's entirely doable, but river crossings suck something. Something bad. I don't know.
Unless I just sit and wait for them to attack Hans.
River crossings do indeed suck. Honestly, it might be an idea to shift a square to the S-E, and take Hrodna(If I correctly remember how movement works). it's poorly defended so it shouldn't be hard to take. Then you have the defensive advantage when it comes to facing the larger army. Alternatively do what you thought of and wait for them to take the offensive.
River crossings do indeed suck. Honestly, it might be an idea to shift a square to the S-E, and take Hrodna(If I correctly remember how movement works). it's poorly defended so it shouldn't be hard to take. Then you have the defensive advantage when it comes to facing the larger army. Alternatively do what you thought of and wait for them to take the offensive.
Dur. I always forget I can take a place without besieging it first if I have siege weapons.
It's always something of a pleasant surprise. Probably because I'm an idiot.
Unless I just sit and wait for them to attack Hans.
I would advise positioning Hans so that the Lithuanians have two choices; retreat back into Lithuanian territory or attack Hans. River crossings suck, but in that situation Hans would be defending. Just position everything out of range of the archers, wait until they start crossing and then charge. Break a unit or two utterly using the Christ Knights and the remaining army should flee.
River crossings do indeed suck. Honestly, it might be an idea to shift a square to the S-E, and take Hrodna(If I correctly remember how movement works). it's poorly defended so it shouldn't be hard to take. Then you have the defensive advantage when it comes to facing the larger army. Alternatively do what you thought of and wait for them to take the offensive.
Dur. I always forget I can take a place without besieging it first if I have siege weapons.
It's always something of a pleasant surprise. Probably because I'm an idiot.
I don't use siege weapons enough, so I keep forgetting as well. A pleasant surprise made of DEATH! And rotten cows!
One of the great improvements throughout the Total War series is the Characters. Adding traits and ancillary characters has been a nice touch that really makes them more unique. I can't wait to see what they do in Empire.
Don't want be a dick here, but I'd just like to remind people this is not warhammer. Playing the game and stuff is cool, but I find it sort of odd that people wish to roleplay the Teutonic butchering.
The thing with any Total War game is that on the harder campaigns you've got to be a total monster to succeed. Doing silly things like shouting "Burn the Heretic!" just makes it a bit more palatable and drives in the absurdity of the entire simulation. I'm fully, deeply aware that the Teutonic Order were cowards, thieves, and psychopaths of the highest order. Hell, the Battle of Grunwald occurred because the Teutonic Order had been so colossally cruel to the Polish.
Give you another example. I mentioned earlier that I finished Barbarian Invasion as the Western Roman Empire on Very Hard/Very Hard. To make it interesting, I wanted a Pagan Western Roman Empire, which required purging Christianity from my lands. This required engineering riots so that I could massacre entire populations, sending out Christian Generals into completely suicidal battles, and generally behaving like an utter monster. My Faction Leader was called Eutropius the Cruel after a certain point, until he became known as Eutropius the Killer. I made Julius Caesar's massacre of over a million Gauls seem like brief capital punishment compared to the barbarity I engaged in.
It's ultimately all a game. A highly abstract game that represents a brutal, unpleasant period of history. Just roll with it, have a laugh, make an inappropriate joke from time and time. It's far more enjoyable that way.
A very good LP, and one I will be eagerly following. It made me dish out my discs again.
Despite Hans' seeming numerical inferiority, with proper positioning in the battle as well as cutting down the reinforcement army with the knights, I think he can handle it. Teutonic infantry is better armed and armored, so it should be a piece of cake to mop up the poorly disciplined and equipped Lithuanian army, especially since it's a river crossing. It could be a bit close, but Hans can still deal a blow to the Lithuanian army while carving a path that can take him straight back to Marienburg.
As for strategic considerations, I'm gonna go on a weird suggestion here and say take Gotland to the north as early as possible before the Danes take it. It can become a mighty trade city considering its trade lane connections to the financially rich Republic of Novgorod. It's also a requirement to hold the city to form the Hanseatic League, and if you can deny Denmark from doing that, it makes fighting them later much easier.
And you have to think about the crusading nobles who will inevitably come to your land. Plan out a warpath for those English generals to conquer as early as now.
You know what though? Fuck the Mongols. Fuck them so hard. Jesus Christ, they're the one thing that makes a normal campaign challenging..
Mongols vs. Turks is some of the most epic battles ever. The sky is basically covered with arrows.
Mongols always show up at the same time, so you should just make sure your western borders are secure when you know they are getting ready to rape and pillage. And make sure you don't mind losing several stacks of troops.
Once they get a foot hold, its very hard to ferret them out. In my spanish game, the Major powers are me, with all of Spain, France, and Africa, vs. the Mongols, with all of the Middle East. They can't get to me, and I can't afford to send huge armies at them while still conquering the new world and defending my hold in Europe, so I ignore them. If you play Russia, Egypt, or Turkey, though, you are in for the best battles of the game.
I still remember my MTW 1 games, defending the bridge at Kiev against the mongols. My halberdiers were waist deep in bodies.
You know what though? Fuck the Mongols. Fuck them so hard. Jesus Christ, they're the one thing that makes a normal campaign challenging.
I tried to take on Mongols once, at a river crossing. I figured, "hey, their AI will rush me, since they outnumber me 4 to 1, and while I won't win, I can take out a shitload before I go..."
...
You remember that scene from 300, where the sky is filled with arrows coming in towards the screen? That's exactly what it looked like, and that was all they needed to do...
I had a full stack of troops and my King going up against a little under a full stack and some mid-level General. Although, you wouldn't know that from the ridiculous stats their commanders have. Anyway, I was playing on normal difficulty, where the AI is a little more than generous and I was used to 10:1 Kill/Death ratios at the least. All of a sudden someone turned the difficulty up to eleven. Their Heavy Calvary just ignore Spearmen. You need twice the troops you'd think you need to make it a clean victory most of the time.
Talking about ridiculous stats, I am not sure I like the changes to cavalry stainless steel introduced. Cavalry has been made more powerful, which is supposedly countered by spearmen being similarly improved against them. This means that even a light cavalry unit can usually rip apart archer and light infantry units with minimal losses, and makes General Bodyguard units insanely powerful against practically all infantry.
Totally surrounded I think the Danish king killed about 100 of my mixed heavy and light infantry before we got him down.
Posts
Fair point, well made. Numidia is the worst.
I think the next Total War is Napoleonic, right? So that's closer.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
They blocked my ports, went en route to attack Marsailles then got all uppity that I fought back.
I also drove the British out of Northern France and forced them to pay me a total of 9000 gold to allow them to ceasefire.
Joke's on them, I have no navy.
Also: sacking Genoa = awesome. 10000 florins!
41:100% heroic victory and Milan iiiiis outta there, faction decimated. Netted me 15k in loots and, best of all, the Holy Roman Empire (allied to Milan) did the equivalent of "we never really liked them anyway", and ceased hostilities.
Now, if someone can just resist the urge to attack me for a few turns I can build up some proper economic strength again. Woo!
Edit: Portugal what the fuck
Flippy_D points out one of the most annoying quirks of the vanilla AI. Generals and family members will suicidally charge your army all by themselves. When they die, their army takes a huge morale hit and quickly routs. It's very stupid and not fun. Most of the major AI mods fix that and countless other dumb AI behaviors.
Here are some mods I can personally recommend:
MTW2:
Lands to Conquer- Revamped campaign AI and map
The Long Road- Considerably lengthens campaign for a more epic feel
Deus lo Vult- greatly expands the character trait system. Basically adds an RPG component
Rome TW:
Europa Barbarorum- This is a beast. If you want a graduate seminar in Roman era history along with your game, try this. Really the hugest and best researched mod I have ever seen for any game.
SPQR- mod focusing on rome in expanded detail
Here are two websites for all your modding needs
http://www.twcenter.net/
http://www.totalwar.org/
EDIT: spoiler'd for length
Now I am allied with Poland, Kiev, Spain, The Knight Templars, Genoa, and one or two others I can't recall the names of. Which has also raised my reputation all the way up to Trustworthy. Awesome!
My only problem is that the new huger campaign map is for some reason lagging my computer. It is not unbearable, but still annoying when coupled with the over one minute it takes for the AI turns.
I guess my computer is just shit.
So why do people insist on fucking with me?
Portugal and HRE are attacking me entirely unprovoked once again. Ugh.
It's your ridiculous accents. They aren't going to put up with them anymore.
Oh, and I forgot to add, you start off next to the fantasy faction, Egypt, with its unlimited supply of super broken units, and it goes after you after about 10 turns with full stacks.
I'm not sure I actually beat the game as Numidia. I think I just held on to Africa and a bit of Spain. Luckily for me, my best general held on to my eastern most city against maybe 10 full stacks of Egyptian scum.
And even talking about this shows RTW wasn't that bad, I had lots of fun playing as the weak factions. Spain too.
Lithuania isn't doing so well.
Isn't it? I can't stand the minimalist HUD at all.
It seems more obstructive than the standard HUD. Or maybe I'm just not used to so much at the top. Or maybe it just looks like crap in widescreen.
I can't stand HUEG UIs filled with useless features that everyone uses hotkeys for anyway.
Fair enough. :P
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
You know what though? Fuck the Mongols. Fuck them so hard. Jesus Christ, they're the one thing that makes a normal campaign challenging.
It seems like the farther the game progresses, the weaker your bloodline becomes. You never get any of the amazing conquerors of old, like Christophe the Scarred or Louis the Terrible.
I tried to take on Mongols once, at a river crossing. I figured, "hey, their AI will rush me, since they outnumber me 4 to 1, and while I won't win, I can take out a shitload before I go..."
...
You remember that scene from 300, where the sky is filled with arrows coming in towards the screen? That's exactly what it looked like, and that was all they needed to do...
I know you're spying on me, I saw him enter the town. And they have no hesitation to move in on your mercantile activities, either. Or dick around on your territory, with sizeable armies.
Grr.
Dude, you ain't seen nothing yet. If you thought the Mongols were bad, wait until you fight the Timurids.
They are like the Mongols, only instead of horse archers they have Elephant Artillery.
I am finding Stainless steel to be very awesome, and quite challenging. My war of atrition against Norway and Denmark is finally starting to sway in my favor, and soon one of them will be wiped out. I only just realised that the Teutonic order was a "marauding" faction though. Having two full stacks of elite enemy units right smack bang in the middle of my undefended homelands is going to make things more interesting.
Edit: Also, I hate fucking AI merchants. When I want to seize the assets of an enemy merchant, I usually have like 50% chance with a slightly higher merchant. The AI players never ever fail though, which means my merchants rarely ever make up for their own cost before they die.
Furthermore; BURN THE HERETICS!
I don't think things look to bad for Hans though. He has a solid army, and while this might be closer than previous battles, I think he will be able to cope.
I'm mostly worried about fighting at that river crossing.
I hate river crossings. Mostly because the AI staunchly refuses to cross bridges themselves and that larger army is made up of larger than average numbers of archers and cavalry archers. But at least the reinforcements would appear on my side of the river so they could be dealt with separately.
I'm sure it's entirely doable, but river crossings suck something. Something bad. I don't know.
Unless I just sit and wait for them to attack Hans.
Dur. I always forget I can take a place without besieging it first if I have siege weapons.
It's always something of a pleasant surprise. Probably because I'm an idiot.
Also great update.
I would advise positioning Hans so that the Lithuanians have two choices; retreat back into Lithuanian territory or attack Hans. River crossings suck, but in that situation Hans would be defending. Just position everything out of range of the archers, wait until they start crossing and then charge. Break a unit or two utterly using the Christ Knights and the remaining army should flee.
I don't use siege weapons enough, so I keep forgetting as well. A pleasant surprise made of DEATH! And rotten cows!
One of the great improvements throughout the Total War series is the Characters. Adding traits and ancillary characters has been a nice touch that really makes them more unique. I can't wait to see what they do in Empire.
Don't want be a dick here, but I'd just like to remind people this is not warhammer. Playing the game and stuff is cool, but I find it sort of odd that people wish to roleplay the Teutonic butchering.
Give you another example. I mentioned earlier that I finished Barbarian Invasion as the Western Roman Empire on Very Hard/Very Hard. To make it interesting, I wanted a Pagan Western Roman Empire, which required purging Christianity from my lands. This required engineering riots so that I could massacre entire populations, sending out Christian Generals into completely suicidal battles, and generally behaving like an utter monster. My Faction Leader was called Eutropius the Cruel after a certain point, until he became known as Eutropius the Killer. I made Julius Caesar's massacre of over a million Gauls seem like brief capital punishment compared to the barbarity I engaged in.
It's ultimately all a game. A highly abstract game that represents a brutal, unpleasant period of history. Just roll with it, have a laugh, make an inappropriate joke from time and time. It's far more enjoyable that way.
Despite Hans' seeming numerical inferiority, with proper positioning in the battle as well as cutting down the reinforcement army with the knights, I think he can handle it. Teutonic infantry is better armed and armored, so it should be a piece of cake to mop up the poorly disciplined and equipped Lithuanian army, especially since it's a river crossing. It could be a bit close, but Hans can still deal a blow to the Lithuanian army while carving a path that can take him straight back to Marienburg.
As for strategic considerations, I'm gonna go on a weird suggestion here and say take Gotland to the north as early as possible before the Danes take it. It can become a mighty trade city considering its trade lane connections to the financially rich Republic of Novgorod. It's also a requirement to hold the city to form the Hanseatic League, and if you can deny Denmark from doing that, it makes fighting them later much easier.
And you have to think about the crusading nobles who will inevitably come to your land. Plan out a warpath for those English generals to conquer as early as now.
Mongols vs. Turks is some of the most epic battles ever. The sky is basically covered with arrows.
Mongols always show up at the same time, so you should just make sure your western borders are secure when you know they are getting ready to rape and pillage. And make sure you don't mind losing several stacks of troops.
Once they get a foot hold, its very hard to ferret them out. In my spanish game, the Major powers are me, with all of Spain, France, and Africa, vs. the Mongols, with all of the Middle East. They can't get to me, and I can't afford to send huge armies at them while still conquering the new world and defending my hold in Europe, so I ignore them. If you play Russia, Egypt, or Turkey, though, you are in for the best battles of the game.
I still remember my MTW 1 games, defending the bridge at Kiev against the mongols. My halberdiers were waist deep in bodies.
I had a full stack of troops and my King going up against a little under a full stack and some mid-level General. Although, you wouldn't know that from the ridiculous stats their commanders have. Anyway, I was playing on normal difficulty, where the AI is a little more than generous and I was used to 10:1 Kill/Death ratios at the least. All of a sudden someone turned the difficulty up to eleven. Their Heavy Calvary just ignore Spearmen. You need twice the troops you'd think you need to make it a clean victory most of the time.
Totally surrounded I think the Danish king killed about 100 of my mixed heavy and light infantry before we got him down.