Total War: Do not cycle charge Lu Bu!

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Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Question for anyone in the know: If I get the Wrath of Sparta pack, will any of the mods available for unlocking minor factions still work? I'm worried they might crash the game due to intervening updates/patches etc. Secondly, is playing as a minor faction worth it? Or is there a lot of special events, unique tech trees etc that I wouldn't get compared to the base 4 factions? Thanks.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2017 19:52

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 03:32

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

ZearothK posted:

Where are those DLC impressions, my goons, I see it's on top 3 for global sales on Steam, don't tell me none of those are you.

I started as the Alani, seems like a slight upgrade on Rome 2, politics, character skills and such have had a nice overhaul. Somewhat shocking coming back to the battles after improved Attila and warhammer games - dudes kill each other with friendly fire often and the skirmish movement is pretty awkward/inconsistent.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2017 01:15

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Does anyone know of a mod to stop AI aggressive agent actions which still works with the new Rome 2 DLC?

Arcsquad12 posted:

I love the one hit KO rules with Attila's javelin units. Watching a frontline evaporate under a hail of spears is glorious.

It's costing me a lot of horse archers in Empire Divided as well. Skirmishing always lets infantry into javelin range (even when it doesn't crap out entirely and let them charge the horse archers) and casualties are appalling.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2017 12:38

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Fangz posted:

I played a bunch of Thrones of Britannia, ask me anything

Can troops attack walls with ladders as standard (like warhammer) or do you need to build ladders for certain units to carry in the campaign map (like previous historical titles)?

Do factions get proper navies and what are they like?

# ¿ Apr 14, 2018 16:43

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Fangz posted:

You have to build siege stuff to get on to walls. I couldn't climb them.

There's longboats and stuff. I didn't do a lot of naval combat.

It felt less tedious than Attila but I dunno, I never got very far with it.

Thanks. Shame you can�t launch a daring escalade immediately, I think that�s a pretty cool way of representing attacking a town in an era that mostly lacked sophisticated siege equipment. I�m still definitely playing as sea vikings though.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2018 12:30

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Plucky Brit posted:

The Troy film is worth watching just for the scene where Brendan Gleeson (Menelaus) beats the poo poo out of Orlando Bloom (Paris).

I am a huge Menelaus fan and it's one of my favourite bits in the Iliad ("Zeus, grant me vengeance against this man who wronged me while he ate my salt and slept beneath my roof!"). You can imagine my dismay as the movie makes him into a bit of a dick, my enjoyment of him thrashing the worthless Paris, and finally my horror as Hector loving kills him. I'm not spoilering it, it's not bloody true anyway.

Majorian posted:

That movie was such a shame. A lot of good actors giving good performances, but the script was complete rear end. You don't take the gods out of the Iliad, you dunces.

(fake edit: lol David Benioff wrote it, what a surprise!)

I agree a bad wasted opportunity. So much of the production values were good.

Holy poo poo I did not know that about the writing. God drat. Lightning does strike twice! And so does David Benioff, the hack.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2020 17:23

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

So I am playing the most recent saga game, Troy. It's interesting. Alongside the usual proliferation of campaign bonuses and +3% modifiers to things, which I find rather irritating (the interface and all its various panels cover half the screen, so you can't properly look at the map) it does introduce some cool stuff.

I enjoy the wood/bronze/food/stone/gold resource split. Makes economic costs more engaging. Favour of the gods I'm less impressed with. It seems like a nice idea but they make it a lot of active busy work to keep up gods' favour ratings.

The combat I find good, with its focus on infantry flanking, but I had a couple questions:

What are the strategies for using your Heroes and neutralising enemy heroes? I feel like they're all very tough but not too punchy. The leading enemy hero always snags up a couple of my frontline units as I try to overwhelm the enemy, then as I'm trying to exploit a collapse in the enemy line my guys are stuck in combat. An elite combat unit will eventually take out a Hero, but it will go on for ages. A cheaper line unit will probably run away from the casualties the hero inflicts, before the hero breaks. What can I do about this?

How are people dealing with enemy missile units? I don't have chariots yet to chase down light troops. Can particularly fast infantry, e.g. Light Spear Runners, catch them?

A constant issue for me in modern TW games is destroying (not just defeating) enemy armies in the field. Back in Rome 2, I could chase every fleeing enemy down with cavalry and usually destroy an enemy force, or at least all their infantry, completely with a decisive victory. With the modern hitpoints system, it seems like loads of enemies get away. Does the game kill a notional amount of the enemy if you 'End Battle' as soon as they break? Or does doing so let them off scot-free? Don't know if I should sit there watching my men chase them every time.

Finally, is there any particularly strong economic strategy in Troy? I find I am barely able to sustain a single full stack (Menelaus, normal difficulty, around turn 20) and many elite units are punishingly expensive. Perhaps provinces with 4 settlements are exponentially more valuable due to the resource system?

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 11:30

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Eimi posted:

Though speaking of dudes with spears, it was a shame in Troy that there actually were not enough dudes with spears where top tier units more often had anything but a spear. Look Troy is the one time I actually want 90% various types of spearmanii with different spears, that's the appeal of the setting and what's cool drat it!

I had a great time playing Troy, but yeah, this really bugged me. No one would show up to a bronze age aegean battle without a spear. Two-handed axes? WTF is this bullshit? All part of the anti-spear agenda where 'big sword' with its monopoly on leadership symbolism has played dirty.

On the plus side, that game has great flanking mechanics and as Menelaus I did still manage to use spears for every melee unit. Shielded or Armoured Spearmen as a battle line, Light Spear Runners for flanking/exploitation. All you need really.

# ¿ May 3, 2021 09:49

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

I really enjoyed Troy due to its general Homeric trappings and the focus on using different types of infantry (and very occasionally chariots) with an emphasis on flanking and the usual rock/paper/scissors weapon types. I didn't really use the mythic units. But I agree that tonally they ended up satisfying neither the history nor mythology enthusiasts.

I've not played 3K, but surely that allows you to switch between Romance mode [dynasty warriors generals] and Records mode [block of heavy cav generals]. You'd think they'd have done the same with Troy: one campaign mode where you genuinely can recruit a horde of cyclops, and one where they are only referred to in flavour text. Not the weird halfway house.

# ¿ May 18, 2021 01:04

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

PerilPastry posted:

Man, for a game that places such an emphasis on "character" how the hell did they manage to give everyone such interchangeably generic barks? Even back in the original Rome they knew to tailor speeches to your generals' traits

This was the best drat thing in Rome and Medieval (the first ones) and I can't believe they removed it. I remember my general with the 'mad' trait going on about how the enemy were little spiders and ought to be drowned as such, or most generals insulting the nationality of the opposing army. Great stuff.

# ¿ May 25, 2021 09:50

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Thanks for the link - truly a thing of beauty. I get this sort of content is probably quite intensive to put in for a touch which doesn't affect gameplay. Paying voice actors etc. But think of how good this would be for Troy - they've obviously got the tech to customise it to the enemy faction, leading heroes, and even unit composition.

# ¿ May 25, 2021 16:27

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Dramicus posted:

Sounds like another reason to separate the historical and mythical side of things.

They should have just gotten rid of the middle option imho. But I guess it's there for legal reasons. I'm sure there's at least one person who would likes the fence-sitting "it's mythical but not really" mode.

I really welcome this release as I would far rather play the non-mythical side. It's a paid expansion pack - does anyone know if we will get a free update and a choice between the full-realism and semi-mythical choices for the base game? Or do you need to buy the Mythos pack to access the fully non-mythical stuff?

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

I kinda wish they'd gone a completely different mythological route with Troy. Larger than life heroes and divine intervention are what the Iliad was about, not minotaurs smacking down the gates of Troy. Mythological creatures show up in bit parts in the Odyssey. I'd rather they lean into more appropriate homeric stuff than Percy Jackson meets Warhammer.

Can't agree with this enough. Minotaurs and Harpies have eff-all to do with the Trojan War. No idea why they insisted on shoe-horning them in really. A surprise as so many of the faction mechanics like Achilles' rage were so well done.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2021 22:43

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Koramei posted:

Wow this took a bizarrely hostile turn. The Illiad and Odyssey and frankly all later Greek mythology are essentially a merged entity in modern culture and there's nothing weird whatsoever about them sticking it all in what's likely to be the only ever Ancient Greek game about the most famous event in Ancient Greek history. Maybe it's not a 1:1 recreation of the Illiad but I expect the people with an understanding of what that even would be are vanishingly few.

Sorry if it came off as hostile or angry, I just enjoy nitpicking about this kind of thing. I'm not sure that they are completely merged though, even if someone doesn't know the Iliad well, they would associate the Trojan War with heroes and maybe overlooking gods, not with a bevy of monsters.

Communist Thoughts posted:

I didn't see, do I get this update on EGS for free if I have it on there already?

This was my question as well, I bestirred myself to google and found the FAQ articles on the TW blog. Yes, there will be a free update at the same time as the DLC release (2 Sep 21) which will make historical mode available to all owners of the game.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2021 15:11

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Captain Beans posted:

The next time they do a full on historical game is 100% going to be Medieval 3. There is nothing else they could do that would have even close to the draw of Med3. Warhammer was so incredibly successfully there is no way they are going to focus on a historical game that isn't also going to be hugely successful.

That said I don't think we will see Medieval 3 for a while. We might see a few saga games between. Or really they might release no full games and just ride the Warhammer 3 dlc train to the bank for like 4 years.

I would go ballistic for Medieval 3. I like warhammer, I found Shogun, Empire/Napoleon and 3 Kingdoms interesting ideas that didn't quite hit for me. Very keen on Troy, Britannia. But the ones I've truly played to death have been Medieval and Rome (inc Med2 Kingdoms and Barbarian Invasion, Attila etc). Call me a raving Eurocentric wanker if you want. I just like knights.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2021 17:39

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Arc Hammer posted:

You can spread plague by sending infected spies into enemy settlements.

You can mass recruit armies of peasants and move them to new territories where you disband them to resettle populations either as punishment for a troublesome region or to jumpstart development in your new region.

God, that takes me back! Recruiting mass mobs of 4800 peasants from home cities and moving them into others to get them over the threshold for a main-building upgrade. Or doing it just to reduce the population while increasing the garrison, to suppress dissent. Those were the days before multi-region provinces, or limited building slots per city. Indeed, you didn't need generals to move armies, you could just spread troops around in little detachments.

I still think the jankiest thing was bribing armies with diplomats. If they had a character, it would flip them to your side, which sounds great but was very expensive, especially for faction heirs and other family members. But if the AI sent an army without a general character, the bribe option just paid them to disband, and it was much cheaper. I still remember playing as the Seleucids, obviously fighting on multiple fronts, and my strategy to hold the Ptolemies at bay was just 'pay each successive invasion force to gently caress off'.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2022 17:48

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Communist Thoughts posted:

Giant post coz someone was asking for dei advice a while back and the mod is awesome but took me a while to figure out. This is gonna be a big one.

Firstly there's a good submod called dei softcore that smooths a lot of the rough edges while you're learning, that's a good'n

Starting out you want to make sure you're not garrisoning any armies inside your cities, cities don't like having armies inside them in Dei,
stick any stack outside the city and set it to patrol stance for a PO boost and to reduce the food and cash upkeep, an army in patrol stance will be auto ambushed if attacked so only do this when safe but it can also be a good way to bait the AI to attack you especially with horse archer stacks.

Otoh putting a single general on his own in each settlement is a good idea once you can afford it, it increases PO (depending on their traits) and generates a very good amount of exp for the general. Remember you have a separate allowance for navy generals so this is a good use for them too.
I usually have a couple generals in cities taking the PO, food and tax rate skills. This is pretty essential on higher difficulties. Then I'll have another one who is learning military skills.

Speaking of military skills I always go for the yellow line first to get one or two points in +replenishment.
Then specialise into infantry, missile or cavalry in the red and blue trees or go for morale buffs and debuffs in the pink tree iirc. There's also night battles somewhere which is lightning strike.

The AI is a lot more aggressive than most of the modern games so you can easily bait them into favourable battles, particularly I basically never fight a seige, if you besiege a town they almost always sally out next turn. As in all TWs you can guarantee a good battle by putting your good stack in ambush stance just behind a tiny stack to force the AI to attack it and then reinforce the small stack.

Diplomacy is as bad as its ever been and is pretty much entirely random, you are given a fat stack at the beginning of each campaign and it's meant to be for bribing the AI, personally I always just use it to blitzkreig anything I want from turn 2 instead by recruiting as many units as I can in the first turn and buying all the mercs that are available. Allies are usually a massive liability and will turn on you anyway when the rng rolls a 1.

Agent wise I like the civil agents who get +growth, PO and food skills. Generally as you grow your money making buildings and town buildings will start giving huge maluses to food and PO so it's important to keep on top, I'll just keep these deployed in my richest province.
one thing to note that's really dumb is each agent has hidden traits you won't see until you've bought them by mousing over the icon on their panel, check you haven't just recruited a civil agent who has a huge malus to growth since that defeats the point entirely and is really common, you just gotta dismiss him and buy another, it sucks but it only costs you some money and time.
once you get REALLY big you start taking maintenance or corruption debuffs to your income and these guys also help with that. For armies spies increase movement and ambush chance and champions give exp and stat buffs so pick your poison.

For buildings generally speaking you'll need at least one military building for troops, barbs often need two, some factions get their good troops from the main settlement and don't need any. Stick the military building ideally in a minor settlement with no resource, since major settlements get unique buildings you wanna use and you also will want resource buildings for fat cash.
After the military and resource buildings in your minors you want farms/fisheries for food and yellow PO buildings, or pink religion buildings if its a conquered territory to convert it to your culture.
In your main settlement you'll generally want to find your cultures +growth buildings, as barbs toilets will help you conquer the world and as Romans its fountains and aqueducts. You can also usually get some pretty hefty +cash Buildings in majors too.

You will want to rush the technology that allows you to upgrade your main settlement ASAP, I only don't go for it first if I'm playing a faction whose good troops are locked behind higher tier military buildings, usually barbs. The third tier main settlement upgrades give you HUGE amounts of money. Always pick the one that gives the most income. This is usually rhe point where you start getting real strong and can afford multiple good stacks.

In terms of armies and battles, phalanxes rule the world of infantry, which is why Rome has teething problems against epirus. They won't kill much but they are like cement blocks and even militia hoplites will be a great anvil against the most elite non-formation infantry in a frontal fight. Pikes are even moreso like this but killier, unlike hoplites they take a lot of damage from missiles and the AI likes to focus them. There's a good phalanx submod that balances them better but also makes them behave more like normal infantry so it's kind of a personal taste thing.

Speaking of missiles, balance varies wildly from patch to patch but theyr usually very weak against shielded infantry unless firing into the back or unshielded side of them and are best used to kill other missiles, cav or especially elephants.

Speaking of, balance varies even more wildly for cav but they are generally either a decent or insanely good hammer. They slaughter missile troops too so I tend to value them over having lots of my own missile troops. When theyr in ascendancy good shock cavalry own really hard.

Elephants are the ultimate hammer and by abusing micro and just repeatedly spamming attack commands and running them through giant blobs they will kill hundreds if not over a thousand. Theyre extremely easy to deal with when the AI has them by just focusing them with missiles, particularly fire.

Horse archers probably deserve their own section, they have the strengths of both missile and cavalry and the factions that can spam them are really strong if micro heavy. A full stack of garbage tier scythian horse archers is probably the strongest starting stack in the game, though they struggle vs elite hoplite heavy armies. But you can just kite them til you run out of ammo, rear charging the stragglers then withdraw from the battle and do it again with ammo replenished.

In terms of fun factions you've obviously got Rome, who get a huge roster that evolves over time and loads of powerful auxiliaries, the main issue is that you don't have a Rome to fight and its unlikely anyone else will threaten you once you've dealt with epirus and maybe carthage.
Carthage is all about mercenaries and auxiliaries so you get varied armies and you also get to fight Rome. Also get really good ships.
Sparta really shows off the population system, your citizens are a tiny minority compared to your slaves and allied tribes and you have awful cavalry. Otoh your starting hoplites will dumpster everyone else cause they have very good stamina from all their nude calisthenics, its just hard to replace them and you'll end up being begrudgingly carried by your subject peoples while pampering your stacks of actual spartiates.
Macedonia has hoplites that are almost as good but easier to recruit and amazing sarissa cavalry, the double size general unit of shock cav is probably the strongest starting unit in the game. Theyr a really good faction for blitzing Greece asap. Both Sparta and Macedonia will eventually be declared on and invaded by Rome no matter what you do so prepare!
Scythia or Parthia are both great horse archer factions who can stomp all over everyone else in the region by amassing cheap horse cav, but have a very micro heavy battle playstyle. Parthia in particular are interesting cause their roster gets massive upgrades over time and by the final reforms they go from all light units to the heaviest units in the game.
Sweboz is a good barb faction cause iirc they get pike phalanxes which own all other barbarian rabble but they also get the good rabble units.
A personal favourite of mine is Medewi, theyr a unique African faction with their own roster that all look absolutely amazing, lots of powerful lightly armoured but killly infantry with javelins and cheap elephants to smash hoplites with. Theyr next to axum who have gold and Egypt who have the Nile so you can conquer them and become rich as hell, Egypt is a fun starting challenge and once you've got them you're in the Mediterranean and extremely rich.

Honorable mentions to Pergamon who are the best looking faction,
Maurya who are a unique Indian faction with loads of flashy shock infantry, big units of longbows and the biggest elephants,
Thracia who get the giant falx swords of death,
Syracuse who get crossbows and unique marines and end up halfway between Greek and roman,
Selucids who have access to the best Syrian archers and elephants and excellent phalanxes but have to deal with a big civil war,
Armenia for starting out with crap and ending up with a very different roster and the best heavy infantry in the game,
Rhodes for their slingers and fun position as an island between Asia and Europe,
The Arab factions for their hybrid armies of archer spearmen especially the heavy infantry noble archers that Saba gets.
and Belgae who have been reworked I think but used to have some of the scariest infantry in the game in the nude, nearly unbreakable skirmishers who fight like lions and scare everyone else.

Rando tips:
Always occupy settlements of your culture and always raze one's that aren't your culture if you rely on your own cultures troops. (some factions don't care and some provinces like Syria or Syracuse you probably want the local troops anyway) A razed settlements population will start low but grow mostly people of your culture whereas a foreign conquered settlement will make way fewer until you convert it.
if you're short on food go stand or raid in other ais territory, that way they have to pay your food upkeep not you.

Phew! That's not even everything but that will start you off.

This is awesome man, thanks. Is DEI on the Steam Workshop and do I need any other dependent mods or anything to make it work?

# ¿ Jan 1, 2023 22:21

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Agean90 posted:

Sun Ces campaign is one of the best in a total war game, anything that forces players to actually take risks is extremely good.

Also the ai is strictly superior from the perspective of having fun since in 3K they'll pick fights with even forces and even show some cockiness every once in a while so you can style on an army in a field battle that's near even instead of constant sieges because the ai saw 1 extra unit and withered

A thousand times this. I like warhammer in terms of concept and style, but the battles to me never felt as good as Attila, Rome 2, even Medieval 2. As well as the constant unfun sieges (can't believe they've doubled down on remorseless turret fire as a defensive advantage umpteen times) I think the HP of units vs actual casualties always feels wonky. Call me a powergamer who just wants to clown on the AI, but I remember one of the most fun bits of historical battles was breaking the enemy quickly so your light cavalry could sweep them from the field, totally destroying them in a rout. In warhammer, your guys just chase after them flailing away, barely any additional casualties happen and then you have to fight all over again, probably by attacking a walled town.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2023 23:50

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

I have a question about Rome 2 (just about to start up a Seleucid campaign): do the military buildings affect ships or are the trees completely separate? I remember it being a big thing to have dedicated economic and military provinces, was wondering if I had to plan the latter to incorporate military ports.

If anyone has a good guide on the buildings, specifically relevant to the hellenic factions and/or Seleucids, that would be super helpful.

# ¿ May 10, 2023 14:53

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

So I had a successful campaign as the Seleucids in Rome 2. Easy stuff really, I took out most of Egypt by turn 10 and then had another 15-20 turns hunting down their remnants and conquering all those annoying little factions in Arabia, dealing with constant re-rebellions and slave uprisings. One good thing was I managed to keep Cyrenaica, Kush and Aksum, so everyone south and west of Egypt, onside as non-aggressors. But by Turn 30 I was taking in big money from Syria, Cilicia and Egypt, among other provinces, so I was in position to start conquering Asia Minor, finish off in Arabia and send my armies into the East, directly annexing former Satrapies that had rebelled, and for good measure also annexing the ones that had stayed loyal - sorry guys!

Right now it's around Turn 70 and I'm definitely past the point where anyone can challenge me. 7 full armies and a couple fleets, I am just taking the last Baktrian cities and one settlement in the Caucasus and that basically makes me master of Asia, covering the full stretch of Alexander's conquests there.

The only bit I don't like about this play through, and I think this would be the case with most Rome 2 games, unless you play a small faction with a very rocky start, is that the research tree constrains access to high tier buildings and military units. I've got a massive empire and I still can't build the top tier units like silver shields or companion cavalry. I also would like a mechanic to upgrade units more readily. Like in a way it's nice that my victorious armies on the far Eastern map edge are just a load of highly experienced levy pikemen and eastern slingers, all recruited before turn 10. But ideally, for a substantial gold cost, I could send that army to a province with a high level barracks and retrain the levy pikemen as professionals, keeping their experience. I seem to recall Attila has more of that sort of thing.

I am going to move on to Attila next with either the Alans or Burgundians.

I have one question about settling hordes in Attila - can you do it in two locations? I was wondering about moving half the Alans to western Europe and half to the eastern steppes, and running two separate states - is it even possible to have one settlement and another horde faction? I suppose if settling a first settlement stops you being a horde, it just converts your other horde onto a field army, and you could still conquer a settlement with that army normally.

# ¿ May 13, 2023 21:05

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 03:32

Genghis Cohen: Jun 29, 2013

Azran posted:

IIRC once you settle down then your horde becomes a regular army yeah

Yeah I suppose I will settle a western European province first (perhaps Londinium) and then use my other army to just conquer somewhere in the steppes.

# ¿ May 14, 2023 06:09

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Total War: Do not cycle charge Lu Bu!