Total War Discussion

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Isn't that usually Pamplona that the Portugese get? Usually it's the Spanish that lay claim to Zaragoza.

 

Zaragoza is the one immediately to the southeast of the Portugese' only starting fortress, so they typically lay siege to it on the first turn of the game. (In fact, if I were playing the Portugese that would be my first target.) Like I said, the only reason I took it was because I got a mission from the Council, and 2500 florins in the early game is a significant enough incentive for me to do it. Strategically, it's a rather poor choice, as it can be circumvented completely during an invasion. Toulouse is the key settlement to hold, as I've said before. You can hold off the entire Iberian Peninsula if you take that settlement, or conversely, hold off all of Europe if you happen to be on the Iberian Peninsula.

Anyway, the only settlements I took last night were Hamburg, and Jerusalem. I tried to placate the pope by joining the Crusade. I sent a suck general, a unit of mailed knights, 3 units of peasant archers, and 3 units of spear militia on the crusade, and sent them by boat to Jerusalem. I also waited until the last possible turn to join the Crusade. I never actually intended to be the first Catholic faction to get there, and I certainly didn't intend to be able to take the city. So I got there, it was owned by the Egyptians, and the only thing in the city was an Egyptian family member, and a unit of spear militia. So I took it - what the heck.

Currently at war with the HRE (inevitable), Milan, Denmark and Egypt. The HRE actually have several small armies all over the place, many of them in my territory. The Milanese got a full stack laying siege to Marseilles, and I may lose it for a turn. I had an army nearby, so the turn they laid siege I sent an army down, and it was just short on movement points, so it couldn't attack the enemy army. It might be close enough that I can join the fight if they attack the settlement, and if that happens, I'll hold the settlement. If not, the only thing inside is a few units of town militia, so I'm screwed, and I'll have to take it back the following turn.

 

I believe if your army is anywhere next to your settlement, you'll be able to let them join the fight. Otherwise you're not so lucky.

As you might recall, the Venetians were besieging Milan with nearly a full stack of mostly spear men and three generals. One sallying forth and there were 4 generals less - unfortunately my general died as well. Then Venice lost Venice and the pope gave me a cease and desist for that.

Then the Spanish decided to attack Ajaccio out of the blue. Then they wanted peace again, but I couldn't manage to get a good offer, so I refused their ceasefire offer. Apparently getting Valencia from them was too much and I didn't have enough money then to sweeten the deal.

Because I got Tunis and Tripoli from Sicily, I decided to move against the Moors, so I've now got quite a sizable army moving for Algiers.

On the way of ferrying some units to the islands and towards Africa, I scared off a couple of ships from the Spanish with about a half stack army on it that was about to land on Ajaccio, which netted me another cease and desist from the pope. Annoyingly, that fleet came back and is now besieging Ajaccio again and if I sally forth, chances are I'll get excommunicated for defending myself.

In the mean time, the HRE decided to block one of my ports, effectively declaring war. So I took Bologna from them. That was apparently a bit too much for them, so they offered me a ceasefire and I could get them to offer me Innsbruck for it, with a little extra money thrown into the deal. So I now have already three out of twelve settlements through ceasefire settlements. Amazing.

The pope thought it was a bit too much, though - me taking Bologna, that is - so I got a third cease and desist for it.

It seems that excommunication at this point is highly likely. I don't really care, though. If I do get excommunicated, I will expand aggressively, take the rest of current day Italy, take whatever the Venetians have left on the mainland (Ragusa and Zagreb) and possibly also send off an army to deal with the Spanish.

 

You'll never get excommunicated from sallying forth from a settlement. I've done that numerous times in many games and it doesn't happen. The game tells you prior to confirming the attack if you will get excommunicated. It directly says: "This act will result in excommunication!" Then there's a green check mark to proceed anyway, and a red X for cancel. In fact, not only will you not get excommunicated for sallying forth from your settlement, you won't get excommunicated if you attack an enemy that's anywhere within your borders. It's not like you have to wait and have them attack you first.

See? I told you it wasn't that hard. I get settlements in exchange for cease fires every game. I have found that offering trade rights as part of the package also helps sweeten the deal.

Given what I already said though, it's entirely up to you whether or not to get excommunicated, as you are given a warning prior to being excommunicated. The only exception to this warning is if you directly attack the Papal States, or fail in an assassination attempt of one of that faction's characters. That's insta-excommunication with no warning.

Didn't play much last night, although now England is at war with me as well. I took Caen, which boots them off the mainland, and I seriously doubt I'll be invading England anytime soon.Also took Staufen. From what I have seen, in appears that the HRE has a lot of troops, they just don't have very many good troops. They have multiple half stack or better armies on the board, but they mostly consist of peasants and town militia.

 

That's good to know, though I've had the pope give me cease and desists just for sallying forth. I let them come to me anyway. They had something like 3-4 units of mailed knights and something similar of Jinetes, and only a single spear militia unit against my two units of spear militia and two units of crossbow militia. Basically, waiting for them to come to me was the sensible thing to do (though that's definitely not a guarantee I will do that - I hate to lose the building progress while a settlement is besieged), as I would've gotten mauled by the cavalry out in the open.

Now I just had to wait for them to come through the gate, making their cavalry largely ineffective. They routed without a problem and lost about 80% of their troops before they were out of the way. Funnily enough, if you lose a siege fight on an island, your units have nowhere to go and apparently just disappear.

Spain got excommunicated for it, too, and then found themselves at war with the papal states right away too. I guess the army that was marching that way decided to take the opportunity. I don't really want the papal states to expand that way, though, so I'll move against the Moors more quickly now, before the papal states start taking their territories and start limiting my expansion ability in that direction.

Perhaps, but it still doesn't happen to me often that they even offer a ceasefire. In my games with the HRE and the Moors, the only offers I ever got were of the usual kind - "pay us lot's of money so we don't have to worry about you steamrolling us anymore".

 

Yeah, I always take the opportunity when one of my cities comes under siege to attack, just to see what their unit composition is. The decision of whether or not to sally forth is largely based on that information. Generally speaking, the more missile units I have, the less likely I am to sally forth, and the more artillery they have, the more likely I am to sally forth.

 

I'm currently using a lot of my free time on Shogun 2 with the unit DLC included, and basically I'm beginning to think that what influences the game most is whether you are playing a short game (25 provinces, incl. Kyoto) or a longer one (40/60, including Kyoto). In a short one, you can have a reasonably short period of time after the RD to get to the target, especially if you make vassals (who then can attack other provinces and add to your total number without needing you to dedicate more troops to that. Vassals provide part of their income and can be traded with, so that's good. The major problem with pre-RD vassals is that relationships with them are soured by the RD; post-RD vassals don't have that issue and will likely stay with you. Of course, the "aggression" modifier you get when conquering provinces is pretty big at that point, and you will still have that to deal with.

I've basicallly tried a few factions to a point shortly before the RD, now I'm trying the Date. They get a charge bonus, which seems somewhat underwhelming, and better no dachi samurai, which previously I've almost never used. Actually, I'm still not too keen on them - they have a significant charge modifier, but are much more vulnerable to arrows (poor armor) and in melee their high offense is mitigated by poor defense. Overall, I'd rather not use them to supplant katana samurai, although a few (i.e. 2) can be useful in a stack. I'm thinking they would be an assault unit like a cavalry, only with more people (thus punch) and no option to disengage and charge again. Oh, and slower, of course. They eventually get a "Banzai" warcry that should make them better, which I intend to get after finally getting the horsemanship research the game makes you take "on the side" when going for swords or bows. The Sengoku unit pack adds a more interesting unit - the "bulletproof" samurai, basically very heavy spearmen without the yari samurai speed burst. They can be built from the starting yari dojo if you have the armoury (the encampment upgrade, not the armourer you can get in a province), which means they will get a further armor boost. Overall they are handy, and make choosing a research path between offense and defense a bit harder. What is fun is that they get a bonus chevron on every level of yari dojo, AND a lot of yari research adds a further XP level on all yari/naginata units - ashigaru, spears, naginata monks (not sure about the nuns though, they are another new unit in the Sengoku pack), or naginata samurai. So a yari master dojo (not the legendary one) should add about +4 XP to them from the start, on top of making them take only one turn to produce. Then again, at those levels they have to contend with the nearly as well-armored naginata samurai, who get only one XP less and less anti-cavalry goodness, but are iirc cheaper and more capable against other targets (i.e. infantry).

Strategically, the Date suffer from being far away from most trade routes (though they have one right on their doorstep - trading Iron with the Ainu) and Kyoto; I'm currently a few provinces away from a RD and at least 4-5 provinces from the capital. On the other hand, there are quite a few nice things in nearby provinces - blacksmith in the starting one, stones (cheaper buildings) in the nearby Mogami one, temple (bonus to monk agent and unit XP and possibly to the morale of all units) in the other mogami one, and Iron (all units are cheaper) in the last neighboring province; by the way, most near-starting provinces have fertile soil, which means pretty decent agricultural income. Some distance away you can find a second temple, library (bonus to all research and metsuke XP, possibly population happiness), artisans (trade and accuracy bonuses), lumber (cheaper ships) and so on. Rushing Kyoto is not an option, but I think I could build up a pretty decent powerbase before the RD hits.

Basically I've managed to cut a good part of the right end of the map for myself, expanding "down" and into Hojo territory. Just finished those slobs up, but now the Oda decided to drop in - or rather, attack an ally I'd rather keep. I've beaten back some of their units and intend to go back and personally play a costly win I had over one of their high-ranking generals (Mr. Nobunaga himself, currently still a heir). Uesugi are mostly in my camp (allies with trade routes), the Takeda are all but wiped out, the Imagawa/Tokugawa are no more, and more to the left the Hattori used to be big but now the remnants of a minor clan they almost wiped out are kicking their ninja-loving butt. For some reason, my research is going pretty poorly, and I think I may be playing on hard - there used to be a 25% bonus I'm not seeing. Ah well, things are shaping up, let's see if I can make a victory too before I try the last clan I haven't sunk my teeth into - the Uesugi. I think they might actually benefit a lot from a start in chi research, focus on monks and whatnot, although getting naginata research, encampments and possibly at least the 3rd level of archers and/or cavalry can't hurt.

Edit: the bulletproof samurai actually DO have the speed burst ability. Quite nice.

 

To go back to Rome, the best way to fight squalor is to not upgrade the farms much. Your cities grow fast enough as it is and it tends to be the extra growth from farm upgrades that creates all the extra squalor.

 

Wow, joac... that just makes sense thanks mate I'll restart the current game and try it

 

There is a downside to consider with this approach, which is that in settlements where farming is underdeveloped, generals that are stationed there are liable to develop bad farming traits, which will lower farming income for any settlement that they are in charge of.

 

It seems I'm the main Shogun 2 fan here, eh?

 

Well, I didn't get much further in my game with Milan, though I did take Algiers, Granada and Cordoba from the Moors. The papal states took Zaragoza from Spain, so I'm thinking to move against the Spanish first now, before the papal states take more settlements here and become a major thorn in my side.

Predictably, the French attacked me too, after marching their armies through my areas all the time. Do they get a poor reputation for this too, because I know that if I'd done the same, my reputation would be rock bottom by now. Surprisingly, they went for Milan, even though I have Dijon as a much more likely target for them too. Well, better expand as much as I can at their cost before I get a cease and desist from the great meddler again.

Actually, I'm noticing that I'm getting bored with this game. This is not so much because of the Milanese - they're great and their militia units make every siege a walk in the park - but more because I'm trying to stay in the good graces with the pope - and it's chafing. I think I'm just going to go all out and screw the consequences. Kick the pope off of the Iberian peninsula and out of Italy too, because he annoys me.

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I don't have Shogun 2, so I'm afraid I can't discuss tactics and faction much with you You're welcome to join me and Aldeth in our Medieval 2 discussions, though

 

I have Shogun 2, played two games but what made me love Rome and M2 was the diversity of factions. All factions played completely different. Except for geographic location the Shogun factions are more or less identical which was also my biggest peeve with Empire. Good games but lack the re-playability of Rome and M2.

 

The Shogun factions are close, true (even with the units DLC which adds some of its own); the Ikko-Ikki and converting to Christianity make the biggest changes and even they aren't that big (ok, Ikko-Ikki makes a fairly big change). OTOH, it's yet to bother me all that much, and I must have already put in 50+ hours in the game. It helps with unit balance, too .

By the way, my campaign with the Date is going mostly ok, as I've managed to take over the entire northern half of Japan, though I've made a few vassals along the way. However, after taking Kyoto I started getting a "realm divide" penalty to my relationship with them, too. I'm not sure if it's meant to be a bug - probably it does, but it's also one of my pet peeves that you keep the Realm Divide penalty even after you are named as the Shogun. You are the authority now, for crying out loud.

 

I don't even own any of the Shogun games. Also, from comments such as joa's I'm unlikely to ever own them.

They should - you can check the reputation of everyone in the game from the diplomacy tab (which is right next to the tab you click on to ask the pope for a crusade). If they did that several times, it should be untrustworthy, but they probably haven't done enough for despicable.

I don't know why, but the AI has a hard on for Milan. When you own Milan, all of the neighbors always seem to attack that particular city. I have no explanation for this.

I haven't played much of well, anything for the last few days - M2 or otherwise. I'll get back to it sooner than later though.

 

Wrapping up my HRE game. Am loath to take Rome as the Pope is mine and all but two cardinals so in all ways that matter I already control Rome. If any faction as much as look funny at me the Pope excommunicates them which is handy. My only peeve now is that the AI keeps fielding bum armies made up halfway with artillery which does not stand up well against knights. The Timurids settled in Kiev and I am toying with the idea to take them on. Dispatch 3-4 full stacks of high quality troops each led by full star generals and see what I can do. Serpentines should do short work of the elephants and I hope that reiters can stand up to timurid horse archers. My biggest problem with high tech armies is that tehy are a pain to resupply. I hate to go into combat with worn down units, I want fully healed units every fight and it is rare that you have all the structures needed to retrain your armies near the front.

 

Load up Rome with 3 or 4 spies and have a few assassins hang around to destroy order and happiness buildings. After a while they should rebel to the point that the papal states would be thrown out of Rome. It's then a rebel settlement and yours for the taking if you're quick enough.

I don't really have a problem with worn down troops, as the fewer soldiers are in a unit, the quicker they gain experience. But perhaps less than ideal when taking on the Timurids. Reiters should be able to deal with them quite handily, I expect, as long as you make sure you don't get into a melee (though reiters should be able to handle that as well) and make sure you don't try to take on archery infantry. Everything else should be easy pickings.

 

Thanks for that point henkie.

I usually use spies to see what kind of armies other factions have and to open the gates for an army of mine that is attacking a city but I don't really know how to take advantage of their ability to stir up rebellions. Do you just have to have them in another faction's city? Do you need multiple spies to have an effect? Do you need to give the any sort of specific order or do they do it automatically?

Also I've used assassins to damage buildings in another faction's city before but the buildings are always damaged and not destroyed/removed from the city (even if the damage is 100%). Does this really have that much of an effect or am I missing something here too.

Granted I play Rome & Barbarian Invasion but I figure the spies and assassins in those two games should function similar enough to the other total war games that there isn't much of a difference in how one uses them.

 

Spies you just load in, each spy give some amount of unhappiness but I think there is a limit. Buildings can always be repaired but if they are damaged they won't function and it costs money to rebuild same as when you take cities.

 

If you don't want to conquer it, why not just purchase or trade for it? I can't tell you how many games I won by purchasing Jerusalem at the end. The AI will usually sell it straight up for around 50,000 florins, or if you are willing to trade two settlements for one. However, that assumes that the Papal States occupy at least one other settlement on the map. You cannot buy or acquire in a trade the last settlement a faction controls. So if they only own Rome, you may have to gift them a settlement of two before you do the trade.

They do and they will. Elephants are a pain in the ass to take down with anything in close quarters. Knights don't do well, infantry doesn't do well, and even pikes don't do well, which is kind of what you'd expect. The issue is that most units in the game have one hitpoint. Meaning if a successful hit gets past their armor, they die. There are a few exceptions to this, most notably that general body guard units have 2 hitpoints. Elephants have 6 hitpoints, so anything close up isn't going to go well - they just take too much punishment.

That's why "marks of war" line of traits are such good traits to get - it gives you hitpoints. Oh what the hell, here's the line:

Marks of War - +1 Authority, +2 to general's hitpoints - Has a few scars to prove he's been in proper battle, where his life was clearly at risk.
Scarred - +1 Authority, +4 to general's hitpoints - Bears many scars of war, a sign of courage and, by nature of the fact that he's still alive, very capable.
Terribly Scarred - +2 Authority, +6 to general's hitpoints - Some of this man's war wounds are difficult to look at. His ability to continue battling though such injuries is astounding.
Brutally Scarred - +2 Authority, +8 to general's hitpoints, Title Given: "The Scarred" (he's basically immortal - hell he can take more punishment than an elephant. Especially if you happen to also have "healthy" and "fine armor") - Brutally scarred so as people do not know which way to look when addressing him. Can any mortal blow fell him?

Anyway, I'm no expert with the Timurids, but on the rare occasions I've fought them, it seems that artillery pieces - even things like bombards and catapults - make short work of them - so I certainly can't see how serpentines wouldn't do the same. They might have a lot of hitpoints, but a cannon ball to the skull kills them, just like every other unit. Reiters are super effective against anything, but I will caution that the range on the firearm isn't quite as large as the range on the arrow. If you have the high ground you're fine, but on flat ground they can hit you before you can hit them. They can't really kite you, as the difference in range isn't great, but they will get a volley off before you can return fire.

I too hate that. It's one of the reason that even my high tech armies typically have some old units in them. In almost every game I play, I'll still have a few units of mailed knights in my armies - they are all gold chevroned knights by then, and if they take a few losses they can be easily retrained at any castle. But the larger point is correct: Newly conquered castles - even ones that are fairly well developed - rarely have all the structures you need to retrain your army.