|
Plan Z posted:It took a while, but Napoleon is finally clicking with me. What I'm enjoying is that it's not as much of a slave to troop quality as some of the games. If I play militia well, i can destroy elite armies even when the auto-resolve is heavily in favor of the AI. drat, I could work with line infantry, but I always felt that militia were just disposable meatbags. They don't get any upgrades from tech besides militia-specific ones, so they end up pretty far outclassed by mid-game.
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 09:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 10:02 |
|
|
I'm exaggerating, but not by much. One tip I got from a friend was to use zig-zagging lines. It tends to confuse the AI, but it also creates a situation where you have very few dead zones. If one of my units gets bayonet charged, it's usually disrupted by the wonky formation and the enemy is under flank attacks by a zagging friendly unit. Empire is kind of eh, but Napoleon is really awesome for me especially with realistic smoke and gunfire sound mods.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 09:59
|
|
|
Was taking a building ever worth it in napoleon? I always put militia in it, then put actually good troops aiming at the entrances to shoot the enemy when they would inevitably try to clear the house with the worthless troops in it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 11:37
|
|
|
If you want a game that really flips the bird at troop quality it's Shogun, where properly used levies can mulch samurai
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 13:03
|
|
|
dogstile posted:Was taking a building ever worth it in napoleon? I always put militia in it, then put actually good troops aiming at the entrances to shoot the enemy when they would inevitably try to clear the house with the worthless troops in it. Sort of. I agree in that they mostly seem like death traps. The only times they were useful to me were when the enemy would have had to go past a nearby infantry unit in order to storm the building. In those cases, it was useful because I could fire over friendly troops in a 360 degree radius. Even then, 95% of the time it was easier to hang in outskirts and force the enemy to charge you using artillery. So, Ancient Empires was not on my radar until I saw footage recently, and I'm genuinely amazed at how good the visual design of the units are. It actually blows Rome II out of the water from what I've seen. Plan Z fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Sep 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 13:15
|
|
|
I've won a few defensive no level fortress sieges with an army is that is at least half militia. The trick really is using terrain and the half assed housing placement of those 'urban' sections of that map and trying to pick off or pin down the AI's army piece meal. It's honestly pretty cool, even when you lose as you've killed hundreds. Very Napoleonic Spanish.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 15:01
|
|
|
StashAugustine posted:If you want a game that really flips the bird at troop quality it's Shogun, where properly used levies can mulch samurai Shogun 2 is the best balanced TW game for this reason. Not only is everyone using the same units (except for the unique units per clan in that one DLC, some of which are pretty powerful, but 90% of your army is going to be normal dudes), but all of those units remain useful throughout the whole game. In Warhammer the lower tier units aren't total garbage (except for Undead where they're kind of supposed to be since you can poo poo out a whole stack of them in a turn), but for the most part they still get outclassed by the later ones. I prefer Shogun 2's design because it means that winning battles isn't just a matter of racing to the top of the tech tree and building a single uber-army of high tier units. I mean that will still work pretty well in S2, but you don't HAVE to do it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 15:11
|
|
|
The Cheshire Cat posted:Shogun 2 is the best balanced TW game for this reason. Not only is everyone using the same units (except for the unique units per clan in that one DLC, some of which are pretty powerful, but 90% of your army is going to be normal dudes), but all of those units remain useful throughout the whole game. In Warhammer the lower tier units aren't total garbage (except for Undead where they're kind of supposed to be since you can poo poo out a whole stack of them in a turn), but for the most part they still get outclassed by the later ones. I prefer Shogun 2's design because it means that winning battles isn't just a matter of racing to the top of the tech tree and building a single uber-army of high tier units. I mean that will still work pretty well in S2, but you don't HAVE to do it. Actually a mod that retooled the unit rosters of Warhammer to be more like Shogun's would be pretty cool, the overall design philosphy should be that every unit has a purpose in that army and is not rendered obsolete by elite units.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 15:26
|
|
|
Randarkman posted:Actually a mod that retooled the unit rosters of Warhammer to be more like Shogun's would be pretty cool, the overall design philosphy should be that every unit has a purpose in that army and is not rendered obsolete by elite units. I don't know how easily you could manage that while maintaining the radical differences between factions. In Shogun 2 it worked because you had two triangles working in tandem to balance units, monk/samurai/ashigaru, and the classic spear/cavalry/archer triangle. In Warhammer in general you'll have factions that leave out an entire third or more of both triangles in order to focus on their strengths. Just as a mental exercise, consider Dwarfs. How would you make sure that your standard Warriors aren't purely outclassed by Longbeards, and that Longbeards aren't purely outclassed by Hammerers or Ironbreakers?
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 16:30
|
|
|
Triskelli posted:I don't know how easily you could manage that while maintaining the radical differences between factions. In Shogun 2 it worked because you had two triangles working in tandem to balance units, monk/samurai/ashigaru, and the classic spear/cavalry/archer triangle. In Warhammer in general you'll have factions that leave out an entire third or more of both triangles in order to focus on their strengths. It'd probably be a challenge of course, but I guess the first thing you'd have to try to do is make all those elite units more specialized in some way, such as weapons and battlefield role and such. e: Off the top off my head I would probably start by taking out many of the slight unit variations such as Dwarf Warriors (Great Weapons) and such. Dwarf Warriors are now solely axe and shield mainline infantry. Use only the blasting charge version of miners, removing the cheaper one, to make miners servea as a kind of armor-piercing can-opener unit combined as a skirmisher/flanker with the blasting charges. Slayers stay in their role of fast anti-large, though I understand that at the moment they might be a bit too vulnerable to be worth it. Longbeards get a bit tough, but I think you could solve them by using only the great weapon type and reducing their numbers compared to ordinary dwarf warriors, they would be harder hitting and more vulnerable and their role as a morale boosting platform should be further emphasised, they are there to strengthen the line not replace basic warriors. Hammerers should be a dedicated armor piercing, damage dealing melee unit with a focus on charging, but should also be specced to be ill-suited to serve as mainline infantry. Ironbreakers are pretty hard, as they are essentially just souped up Dwarf Warriors, cost would have to be the way to deal with them, in single player they should also perhaps have higher upkeep than is strictly fair and/or require quite a lot of inftrastructure to train and this should perhaps take 3 or 4 turns (so with the investment in time and resources you'd be better off just using basic Dwarf Warriors especially if pressed for time). The role of missile units, artillery and other specialists seems fine to me. e2: In general I think it would be to the campaign's advantage to remove most of the unit tier progression. Identify most of the roster as a kind of "core" and make all of that basically available for recruitment either through the standard settlement buildings, with the capital perhaps giving a greater variety, and make the military buildings instead focused on providing experience levels and other boosts to locally trained units with some specialized, rare (in the lore) or very powerful units only buildable towards the end of select building chains (and combinations of them). A faction should have access to most of the units that define their playstyle from the beginning I think, rather than have to spend the time to access them and make do with a make-shift cheaper version in the meantime (Empire in the beginning without access to cavalry, artillery and handgunners without spending some time teching seems especially stricken by this I feel). Randarkman fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Sep 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 16:45
|
|
|
Shogun 2 didn't click with me like the other games. I think it's because the battles felt very samey. It usually came down to me baiting the enemy with artillery or arrows into a spear wall followed by rear line units. The whole parity of the units probably helped with that, not to mention the AI was pretty stupid and was really suicidal with its cav. I regularly saw them turn around and try to counter-charge spear units and get destroyed. FotS was a little better, but it did eventually turn into more AI suicide charges once you got cannons. I guess the biggest thing I miss in TW is how in R1 and M2, a winning unit would physically push back and envelope a losing one. It not only looked cool, but it actually had some application. I just don't like the static fronline duels that have been in since I guess Empire.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 22:00
|
|
|
Every TW game feels like that for me after a while. I always hammer & anvil but on the other hand, I wouldn't be smart enough to use any actual tactics if the game required them. Also for some reason, I can watch enemies run into my line infantry in gunpowder games way longer before I get bored of it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 22:04
|
|
|
The scale and symmetry of engagements in the series, plus player (relative) omniscience and reliable command/control, significantly restrict what can be done to emulate strategy and tactics of actual warfare, historical or otherwise. Hence the games do all end up same-y, even if some have more hats and sashes than others. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with playing the "line pretty mans up and watch
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 22:22
|
|
|
I think part of the reason people feel S2 was samey is that the humble pike levy is the most cost-efficient unit all game and while you can mix up those tactics it takes a long time in research and development to actually get there, so even deciding to go for a monks and heavy cav army with ninja support or something ridiculous like that is much more time-consuming and strategically tricky to pull off.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 22:30
|
|
|
I never did figure out how to use ninjas effectively. They seem like they could do a lot of damage in theory, especially during a siege battle where you could sneak them in and take out the general, but in practice they just get seen and swarmed by the entire garrison before getting anywhere close.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 22:34
|
|
|
The Cheshire Cat posted:I never did figure out how to use ninjas effectively. They seem like they could do a lot of damage in theory, especially during a siege battle where you could sneak them in and take out the general, but in practice they just get seen and swarmed by the entire garrison before getting anywhere close. I had good success using them as part of the second wave over the walls. Let your first group start engaging the infantry and archers, then zip up the ninjas on whatever side seems best and start hucking flash grenades.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 22:40
|
|
|
StashAugustine posted:I think part of the reason people feel S2 was samey is that the humble pike levy is the most cost-efficient unit all game and while you can mix up those tactics it takes a long time in research and development to actually get there, so even deciding to go for a monks and heavy cav army with ninja support or something ridiculous like that is much more time-consuming and strategically tricky to pull off. Yeah, I definitely feel the tech progression did that. Most Shogun 2 campaigns I was just piling up spears and bows for about 80% of the game, then getting interesting fun units for realm divide and stuff. I'm probably in the minority in that I find Attila's battles to be among the best in the series, though I'm not a fan of things like the stat systems pitting two heavy infantry units against each other and one clearly wins hard. I did like how powerful things like shield walls and testudos could be, though. Plan Z fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Sep 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2016 23:01
|
|
|
Spiderfist Island posted:Are there any TW:Attila scenario mods that just replace East and West Rome with their breakaway states (Britain, Italy, Macedonia, etc.)? there's the Terminus mod but i think the recent Slav patch broke it. It split the empires into regional actors, with the city of Rome being the sole remnant of the WRE, with the barbarian kingdoms being settled all over the place in established kingdoms. He also added the mongols (so three nomad hordes roaming around) and a lost legion in the middle of Persian land at war versus all zoroastrian kingdoms and in desperate need to return to friendly lands (which will soon be less friendly since they're still a horde)
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 00:47
|
|
|
So I'm actually launching Rome 2 and what the gently caress is up with the graphics? Max settings, and everything is disturbingly jagged, and grass looks godawful no matter what I do. I hate to bitch about graphical quality, but god this looks like some Greenlight Unity project in some cases.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 05:56
|
|
|
Uh your poo poo is broke. R2 holds up pretty well as long as you're down with the bright color palette
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 08:40
|
|
|
I mean I can run Warhammer on mostly ultra settings with smooth frames no problem, but I had to go into Nvidia Control Panel and turn on extra AA effects cause it was jaggy as hell (I'm not a picky graphics whore, it just looked like the in-game AA wasn't working). Also, I think some maps don't work well with that experimental foliage thing, because the first map looked like 2d grass sprites cross-hatched across the map and the draw distance was like 5m around the camera origin point. So it looked like if they wanted to see the proper rendered grass, I would have to look straight down, satellite-style, which made the cross-hatching more apparent. It's just a handful of maps though, while most other maps look just fine. Beyond that, I'm enjoying Rome II. I don't quite get the people who rage over the fact that the newer games are more usable, but it's getting harder and harder to go back to R1 or M2.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 11:13
|
|
|
I tried opening Medieval 2 a while back and just turned it off screaming after two turns. I think Napoleon is the oldest I can go without being constantly annoyed with the lack of things I got used to from the newer games.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 11:38
|
|
|
I can do Rome 1 if I remember to launch it once in a while, but I just forgot how so much of Medieval 2 worked. I think I tried to load a copy of Shogun 1 out curiosity and just no.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 11:54
|
|
|
I like how in Napoleon cannons can actually deny an area immediately in front of them to some degree when loaded with canister shot, and absolutely wreck multiple infantry units that blunder in front of them. They can even break cavalry pretty much instantly that are foolish enough try and attack head on. I had a great river battle once where I was badly outnumbered and a single battery ended up with something stupid like 300+ kills after mowing down wave after wave of French mans and horses. Granted the idiotic AI made that a lot easier than it should have been, but it was still cool to see my entire firing line either getting charged or engaged in desperate firefights with massed enemy blobs, while there were these roughly V-shaped gaps in front of the cannons where nothing living could be found. Makes me wish for special munitions for the cannons in Warhammer (maybe in a DLC?)
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 13:21
|
|
|
At least have the one cannon of renown fire horseshoes like in the lore.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 13:26
|
|
|
canyoneer posted:I had good success using them as part of the second wave over the walls. Let your first group start engaging the infantry and archers, then zip up the ninjas on whatever side seems best and start hucking flash grenades. This is correct. I had two in every army I used and would just use them as huge force multipliers where needed. Section of the line getting hit by elite units? Bomb the gently caress out of them then charge them from behind! Line saved!
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 13:38
|
|
|
ZearothK posted:I tried opening Medieval 2 a while back and just turned it off screaming after two turns. I think Napoleon is the oldest I can go without being constantly annoyed with the lack of things I got used to from the newer games. Yeah, I played Medieval 2 for a hundred or so turns, messed around with mods (which mostly ended up crashing a few turns in) but couldn't stick with it for how janky it is. By far the most frustrating aspect was unit movement; entire regiments getting stuck on cactuses, cavalry turning 180 degrees on a dime, start-and-stop charges, etc. Been slowly playing a FOTS campaign and its like night and day wrt to responsiveness, and that's leaving aside the metagame improvements. And I'm kind of waiting for TW:W's DLC cycle to wrap up before I buy, but I'm really looking forward to getting lost in the Old World.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 15:15
|
|
|
Mordja posted:Yeah, I played Medieval 2 for a hundred or so turns, messed around with mods (which mostly ended up crashing a few turns in) but couldn't stick with it for how janky it is. By far the most frustrating aspect was unit movement; entire regiments getting stuck on cactuses, cavalry turning 180 degrees on a dime, start-and-stop charges, etc. Been slowly playing a FOTS campaign and its like night and day wrt to responsiveness, and that's leaving aside the metagame improvements. And I'm kind of waiting for TW:W's DLC cycle to wrap up before I buy, but I'm really looking forward to getting lost in the Old World. You might be waiting a while for that - they're planning on two major expansions (about the same in terms of scope as the base release) on top of the smaller DLC releases so it's going to be at least a few years before TW:W is actually "finished".
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 19:12
|
|
|
The Cheshire Cat posted:You might be waiting a while for that - they're planning on two major expansions (about the same in terms of scope as the base release) on top of the smaller DLC releases so it's going to be at least a few years before TW:W is actually "finished". I'm talking specifically about the "first" game and even then I'll probably bite the bullet if it goes on a good sale come winter. From what I understand, the big expansions are pretty much entirely new games anyway, with hooks for the the original's grand campaign.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 19:24
|
|
|
Supposedly there are a bunch of different teams. Some working on Warhammer content, one working on a proper historical TW game, and others working on the mobile/F2P games. So I guess I'm not being historical in my Rome II campaign. I wanted to take Sardinia without having to fight Carthage because I was going through Gaul at the time, so I forced a rebellion to take it, then took it from the Rebels. Carthage ended up being rad with that and now we're homies. Plan Z fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Sep 30, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 20:59
|
|
|
Don't hold your breath though, my bet is on them loving up the feel of Medieval 3 the same way they did for Rome 1 - > 2 because of hype/pressure. Shogun 2 will always be the last paragon of Total War games. Nippon Banzai. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 00:29
|
|
|
What are the go-to mods for Rome 2 grand campaign if I want to keep it on the light side? I'd like to avoid the Radious style CHANGE EVERYTHING style, but I know there are some aspects of the game people suggest be changed (like food, building upgrades, politics ect).
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 01:20
|
|
|
StarMinstrel posted:Don't hold your breath though, my bet is on them loving up the feel of Medieval 3 the same way they did for Rome 1 - > 2 because of hype/pressure. Shogun 2 will always be the last paragon of Total War games. Nippon Banzai. I liked Attila a lot except for the campaign map bloat and the AI cheats. It had easily my favorite historical battles in the series right behind Rome 1 Plan Z fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Oct 1, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 01:24
|
|
|
I started the series with Shogun 2 and FOTS and it's really hard for me to get into Rome 2 now. Everything in the Shogun games just makes sense.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 14:35
|
|
|
StarMinstrel posted:Don't hold your breath though, my bet is on them loving up the feel of Medieval 3 the same way they did for Rome 1 - > 2 because of hype/pressure. Shogun 2 will always be the last paragon of Total War games. Nippon Banzai. I think Shogun is kind of the beautiful pinnacle of pure, distilled TW battle design, but Total Warhammer (now that we're past the traditional modern Total War launch period of the game being hosed) is way, way more fun in just a sense of spectacle and cool battle mechanics. Which wins it big points in my book because fuuuuuuuuck the strategic portion of TW.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 15:02
|
|
|
Orv posted:I think Shogun is kind of the beautiful pinnacle of pure, distilled TW battle design, but Total Warhammer (now that we're past the traditional modern Total War launch period of the game being hosed) is way, way more fun in just a sense of spectacle and cool battle mechanics. Which wins it big points in my book because fuuuuuuuuck the strategic portion of TW. Yeah, it's really nice to see units clashing and reacting to each other the way they do now. The only thing I'd really like to come back to TW is that cool thing from Rome 1 where a winning unit would start to envelope and push back a losing unit. I'm not a fan of this "front line where everyone takes their turn to walk up" feature, and it made Shogun 2 kind of especially un-engaging to watch.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 17:42
|
|
Orv posted:I think Shogun is kind of the beautiful pinnacle of pure, distilled TW battle design, but Total Warhammer (now that we're past the traditional modern Total War launch period of the game being hosed) is way, way more fun in just a sense of spectacle and cool battle mechanics. Which wins it big points in my book because fuuuuuuuuck the strategic portion of TW. Until they can poke the AI into actually understanding the basics it makes more sense to do this.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 17:56
|
|
|
ZearothK posted:I tried opening Medieval 2 a while back and just turned it off screaming after two turns. I think Napoleon is the oldest I can go without being constantly annoyed with the lack of things I got used to from the newer games. having to move your diplomats around to make deals and the AI breaking long lasting alliances by blocking your ports for one turn made me go crazy.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2016 23:26
|
|
|
I remember using the extra diplomats to scout the map, forgetting about them when something important happened. Then being reminded of them when they died a few decades later. SeanBeansShako fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Oct 5, 2016 |
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2016 23:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 10:02 |
|
|
Tried launching Attila again to use the Ancient Empires preview. gently caress this horribly unoptimized game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2016 19:05
|
|