Total War Series?

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IMO, the Mongols are just not fair when they first invade. Their heavy cavalry has the arrow firing ability of longbowmen, and the melee combat power of a general's body guard unit. They also have things like rockets and other gunpowder based units that you don't have access to when they first invade. If I get unlucky and the Mongols come south, I'm just going to have to take my lumps and lose a few cities to them. You can eventually wear them down, and when you do, you can beat them, but you sort of have to resign yourself to losing three or four cities before you start clawing your way back.

In my game the Mongols haven't got there yet, and I'm currently at war with Egypt and the Byzantines, which someone limits the effectiveness of my missile cavalry, as both factions have similar units. In fact, the Egyptian Malmuks are probably superior to my horse archers.

 

I played the short campaign with Venice and now I'm playing the long one with England. Basically I've wiped everyone off the map except the Egyptians, Mongolians and Turks. The Hungarians have one last settlement I'm on the way to sack and so do the Byzantines.

Does anyone know where the Timurids start invading from? The last time, they first declared war with Russia so I'm assuming they come from the Northwest or Northeast? Are they even stronger than the Mongols? Because in my short campaign, I took Turkey's lands fairly quickly and the Mongols crushed me. This time though since I took the whole west first, I'm only about to start fighting the Mongols now as I invade the east.

Also, how do you play this game without getting excommunicated early on? A Christian nation attacks you and once you repel and go on the offensive, the pope steps in? F that.

 

That, Enagonios, is the reason I like mods - most of them take out getting ex-communicated for counter-attacking, much less defending yourself, as well as the timed attacks (every 15-20 rounds you aren't actively fighting a non-rebel, as I recall).

In the vanilla game, to prevent ex-communication, is to break off your attack once you are threatened - any offensive actions will get you ex-communicated, then wait 5 turns, and try again. Other than that, you can get your bishop/priest elected as pope, which helps, or give money to the Papal States until your relations with them is Perfect. The key is to keep your relations with the Papal States high while attacking nations with low relations with the Papal States. Or non-Catholic nations.

The Timurids start invading toward the beginning of the late period (campaign) near Baghdad. The Timurids are also considered the strongest faction - elephants with guns!

Once you start looking at the files, it's fun to switch country locations around. Move the Byzantines to England, England to Greece. A whole new set of challenges for both factions, though gives England an easier time of expansion without having to worry about Papal interference.

 

First off, I love Total War!

With regards to M2 Total War, I've gotten to the place that I can't play it without mods. If you're new to the game, it's probably best to play unmodded until you learn the game. If you want a long campaign, play the primary "Grand Campaign." If you want a smaller, more focused campaign, any of the sub campaigns from the Kingdoms Expansion are fun. I particularly enjoyed playing as New Spain in the Americas campaign.

Once you're ready for mods, I HIGHLY recommend downloading Stainless Steel, by King Kong. It basically builds on the grand campaign concept, except it gives a much larger and more interesting map, several new factions, and a whole host of improvements, bug fixes and other great stuff. This makes the game a good deal harder due to improved AI, reduced money, and a lot of other things that really improve the game.

If you're a Lord of the Rings fan, you could do a lot worse than to download and play the Third Age Total War mod, also by King Kong. There are a number of factions, good and evil, and countless man hours have been put into making this total conversion feel like a true journey into Middle earth.

If you want to play Total War on an updated engine, and have fun using cannons, muskets, and fighting fully rendered naval battles, Empire Total War is incredibly fun. I like to play it with Darthmod installed.

I've not played Rome, M1, or Shogun, so I can't comment on those.

 

The Timurids invade in the same spot as the mongols, ie they can appear in three different spots and can have three different targets: Antioch, Constantinople or Kiev.

In my Turk game I had purposefully not taken Antioch but let the mongols have it, lost my Eastern cities but as soon as the mongols are settled they are just as easy to take out as any other faction. Timurids are trickier but any city with ballista or cannon walls can decimate or even defeat a full Timurid stack if it is full of Saracen militia.

As for Empire, I was very disapointed. Every faction is identical, the game is horribly slow no matter what kind of computer you have. I also didnt like how they expanded the size of all regions so you can take all of France in one battle more or less.

 

I wouldn't agree that "every" faction is identical. The Maratha Confederacy is very different from the Ottomans who are very different from most the rest of the playable factions (who are, admittedly, pretty similar to one another). That said, there are still differences, and this was a period where armies tended to be more uniform than they had been in previous eras (guns being the great equalizer, and all that). There are mods, like darthmod, that add further differentiation across factions.

The game actually ran pretty fast on my computer, even during naval battles. I had more problems with crashing, but that improved significantly with patches.

Regarding France, yeah, especially if you take it very early, you get an incredible reward for your efforts. I guess the idea is that if you crush the monarchy, France is yours. On the other hand, that reward will come with a lot of headache, and unless you are extremely vigilant, you will lose it. I guess I have always been vigilant, as I've never lost it personally. I eliminate taxes, leave a huge garrison in place, and even if there are a couple of rebellions, I crush them before they become a true threat. It takes a very long time before I can earn a profit off captured France, but once I can, boy does the $$ start flowing in. At least France also has Alsace Lorraine, so they're not completely destroyed by taking a single "region."

 

How do you guys think it would go if you tried to do this scenario...

Start as Turks. Send all your starting troops into a boat and set them going all the way around Europe, to land on the western England. Neglect your Turkish lands completely, and see if you can completely switch which side of the map you start on. As soon as you land, you can begin taking England and Scotland, and use that as your base of operations.

Can anyone see anything glaring that would feck this up?

 

It is quite easy to transplant your starting location. I have moved the Poles to England and I think I once moved the English to the Middle East. You lose a few starting rounds but the AI is so stupid that you catch up soon enough.

 

Yeah, the transplanting thing is done fairly commonly by players. Like the faction? Don't like the starting location? Simply pick the location you like, and take it by force. The AI, generally speaking, will be completely unprepared for your fully massed army. Historically accurate? No. Fun for the player? If yes, than that's all that should really matter.

 

Heh, I meant changing the starting position before you even play your first turn. That way you don't essentially wipe a faction out when transplanting.

Barmy, that wouldn't mess anything up except your starting economy. Keep in mind that you do need to keep one region until you have successfully captured another otherwise you will lose. It's too bad that there aren't any other pagan factions beyond the ones that spawn. Starting in the Americas would be entertaining, not to mention more difficult to expand your empire due to the difficulties religion and distance from your capital the captured European/African regions would be, causing great public discontent.

If you start with the second Medieval: Total War, Rome and the first Medieval aren't nearly as good, even if the second Medieval is more buggy than either, due to it being more polished in overall GUI feel. For whatever strange reason, Rome doesn't work on my computer. The first Medieval is pretty good. I have never played Empire, however the people at TWCenter were pretty disappointed with it on the whole.

Stainless Steel is an excellent mod, I agree, and so is Deus Lo Vult. Both of those mods change the game pretty drastically. If you only want minor changes, Lands to Conquer is your best bet.

 

Of course this is possible, with some basic modding skills-- since that's what this would be, a mod.

 

Rome: Total War

I got free copies(from my brother, not pirated!) of Rome:Total War and it's expansion, Barbarian Invasion. How is this game compared to Shogun and Medieval Total War?

 

All things considered I hold Rome: Total War as my favourite. I much prefer ancient units over medieval ones. Did not enjoy barbarian invasions though and one general problem with Rome is that the factions are not really balanced but you won't care about that until after 50-60 hours of playing.

Medieval II is more polished and more balanced but in the end it is the same game as Rome with different factions and different units. I like legions and hoplites more than knights and longbowmen.

 

The latest in the Total War series was recently released, Napolean Total War. It looks to be a build on Empire Total War, with a campaign that is focused on the exploits and rise to power of Napolean.

Based on what I've read, there are 3 mini-campaigns (including the tutorial) that are highly scripted and allow you take Napolean from a lowly soldier to the emperor of France. The final, grand campaign allows you to play as a different faction in attempt to take Napolean down. This campaign is much more open ended than the first three, but comparitively narrow in focus to other grand campaigns.

Looks interesting, though I think I'll wait a while to pick this one up.

 

So I picked up Napoleon Total War about a week ago, and have to say that all and all it's a great game. Although it's marketed as a standalone game, it really feels like something between an expansion to Empire Total War and a new game. I think of it as Empire-as-it-should-have-been, with all of the polish and extra features that give NTW a personality and quality that ETW was never quite able to attain. I sped my way through the Italian and Middle Eastern Campaigns, since to me they felt more like elaborate tutorials than full blown campaigns, and frankly I got bored with those pretty quickly. I'm now playing the European campaign as France on hard/medium, which has thus far been a great experience.

Here are some of the things I enjoy about NTW:

--It's stable!!!! After numerous hours playing I haven't encountered a single crash or bug! Although the predecessor ETW still crashes on me after like 5 patches... Creative Assembly has truly fixed the engine in NTW.
--Improved Graphics - The graphics overhaul is quite pleasing visually, and really adds to the immersion factor. It it truly a sight to see a man get blown off his horse by a cannonball and fly 10 feet backward... and then watch his confused horse run off in a panic!
--Naval Repairs -- How cool that during a naval battle, you can order a ship's crew to perform repairs to their ship! Just make sure to protect that ship with the rest of your fleet, because it will be a sitting duck.
--Technologically Advanced - It always kind of bothered me in ETW that it took so long to get light infantry, advanced naval vessels, etc. I rarely played long enough to see these things, since I'd usually get bored due to becoming the preeminent world power long before this all was available. In NTW, which begins roughly 100 years later than ETW did, you can train light infantry right from the start. As France you start with a First Rate ship of the line as well as several Third Rates. You can't train new ones until you build up your ports, but at least you'll get to have plenty of play time with the hulking First Rate! Don't lose it!
--Improved Diplomacy – There are a lot of new diplomacy options that I’ve wished to see in previous games, like requesting another nation to institute a trade embargo against another nation, or requesting that a nation call a ceasefire (or declare war) on another nation.

There’s actually quite a bit more, but those are some highlights. The AI is improved from previous games, but could still be better. I'm hopeful that modders will work some magic in that regard, and make the game an even better experience. I miss being able to visit Africa, India, the Middle East and America in the grand campaign, but the European map so far is offering plenty to keep me busy and entertained.

I’m still relatively early in my campaign. If anyone is interested, I’d be happy to post periodic updates in this thread on how the campaign unfolds.