STW gripes, are the newer games any better?

[Triggaaar]

Well I've just completed my first full campaign in STW, and I really enjoyed it. There were a few things I didn't like though, and I wondered if these have been addressed either in the more recent games, or in mods. Here's the first few issues that spring to mind:

1) The AI cheats - if your army invades an AI province, the AI may move the army you are attacking and attack you somewhere else. Thus evading your attack, and making an attack of it's own. You are not able to do this, if the AI invades you, you either fight or simply retreat to a province not of your choosing.
I found this irritating, as when planning an attack I found I had to keep a substantial army in surrounding territories, in case the enemy evaded my attack and hit me where I was weak.

2) When attacking a province accross a river, you would start on one side, the opponent on the other - fine so far - but re-inforcement units could appear on either side. Also, if you attack the opponent from provinces either side of the river, your army would mirraculously be united on the same side, so you'd still have to cross the river with all units.

3) It's almost impossible to destroy enemy cavalry archers. You charge them with a stronger unit, they cry a bit and run away, and no matter how fresh or fast your unit is (fresh Yari cavalry), the enemy run away quicker. Now this isn't too bad the first time it happens (although humans running for their lives is one thing, but I'm not sure horses run any quicker when the rider is scared), but the enemy rallies shortly after, and starts firing at you again. You charge, they rout, you halt, they fire - wow it's irritating. Especially after a few times, when you introduce a new, fresh cavalry unit, that is also incapable of catching the enemy arches who just continue to rout, halt, fire.

For the most part, I understand that the AI is more capable in STW (perhaps because it's simpler), so are things any better in the newer games?

[Xerrop]

I´ll try to answer, as far as I know:

1.) this problem remains also in the following games. It has to do with the turn based campaign style. The AI decides her moves without considering your decision in the current turn.

2.) Don´t know exactly about MTW yet (haven´t played it very much recently), but from Rome onwards it´s definitely solved. There are no longer the risk-style provinces, instead they are free walkable, and therefore the units appear exactly on the right side (according to the campaign map positions)

3.) Horse Archers are deadly - I have the same problems in my various Rome-campaigns. It seems you can only stop them, when using Horse Archers on your own, but other cavalry (light or heavy) never reaches them.

[Martok]

1) The AI cheats - if your army invades an AI province, the AI may move the army you are attacking and attack you somewhere else. Thus evading your attack, and making an attack of it's own. You are not able to do this, if the AI invades you, you either fight or simply retreat to a province not of your choosing.
I found this irritating, as when planning an attack I found I had to keep a substantial army in surrounding territories, in case the enemy evaded my attack and hit me where I was weak.

As Xerrop said, this is an advantage the AI has in all the TW games. It's probably the worst in Shogun, however; even in MTW, it's usually not as bad in that respect.

2) When attacking a province accross a river, you would start on one side, the opponent on the other - fine so far - but re-inforcement units could appear on either side. Also, if you attack the opponent from provinces either side of the river, your army would mirraculously be united on the same side, so you'd still have to cross the river with all units.

It's only a problem in Shogun, fortunately. The other games (including MTW) have reinforcements appear on the proper side of the battlefield.

3) It's almost impossible to destroy enemy cavalry archers. You charge them with a stronger unit, they cry a bit and run away, and no matter how fresh or fast your unit is (fresh Yari cavalry), the enemy run away quicker. Now this isn't too bad the first time it happens (although humans running for their lives is one thing, but I'm not sure horses run any quicker when the rider is scared), but the enemy rallies shortly after, and starts firing at you again. You charge, they rout, you halt, they fire - wow it's irritating. Especially after a few times, when you introduce a new, fresh cavalry unit, that is also incapable of catching the enemy arches who just continue to rout, halt, fire.

Cavalry archers -- or just about any other mounted missile unit in *any* of the Total War games, for that matter -- are admittedly something of a pain to deal with. There are two primary ways to deal with them:

1.) Foot archers: On a per-unit basis, regular foot archers will nearly always beat horse archers. They have better range and cost less to recruit & maintain on a per capita basis than just about any missile cavalry unit. In addition, they can line up in just 2-3 ranks, thus maximizing their firepower -- unlike horse archers, for whom it's not really practical to do the same thing.

2.) Fast cavalry: Dispatch 2-3 units of your own light cavalry and catch the enemy horse archers in a pincer movement between them, where you can then engage them in hand-to-hand combat. As most missile cavalry units don't fight well in melee, they'll quickly succumb.


So in your particular case, the best way to deal with Cavalry Archers (CA) is to either employ Samurai Archers, Yari Cavalry (which are fast enough to catch CA), or some combination of both. I hope that helps a little.

For the most part, I understand that the AI is more capable in STW (perhaps because it's simpler), so are things any better in the newer games?

From an AI standpoint? No, not really; Shogun's about as good as it gets (although MTW comes in a close second in this regard).

Otherwise, though, it depends on how you define "better". Certainly there are any number of interesting/cool features in the newer games which Shogun lacks, but your mileage may vary as to whether or not you'd like them.

[Triggaaar]

Thanks for the replies

1.) this problem remains also in the following games. It has to do with the turn based campaign style. The AI decides her moves without considering your decision in the current turn.

Mmm, I'm not sure you're right. Because my game crashes, I save before and after every end turn, and so when I noticed the AI do something sneaky, which didn't seem right, I tried reloading and moving my troups differently, and the AI did something different (suggesting they do consider your decisions). Now if we and the AI take it in turns, it's fair that they see our moves, and react, but it doesn't seem fair if they do this with units you are attacking, as we can't do the same.

Cavalry archers -- or just about any other mounted missile unit in *any* of the Total War games, for that matter -- are admittedly something of a pain to deal with. There are two primary ways to deal with them:

1.) Foot archers: On a per-unit basis, regular foot archers will nearly always beat horse archers. They have better range and cost less to recruit & maintain on a per capita basis than just about any missile cavalry unit. In addition, they can line up in just 2-3 ranks, thus maximizing their firepower -- unlike horse archers, for whom it's not really practical to do the same thing.

2.) Fast cavalry: Dispatch 2-3 units of your own light cavalry and catch the enemy horse archers in a pincer movement between them, where you can then engage them in hand-to-hand combat. As most missile cavalry units don't fight well in melee, they'll quickly succumb.

During a battle, I'm having no problem with enemy cav archers. But if I've had 16 units against even more enemy AI, and after the battle I still have 16 units vs the AI's 1 cavalry unit, I have to chase it arround the battlefield, knowing there's a bug (IMO) that allows it to run away, even though it must be totally exhausted. And if I don't get rid of it in time, I lose the battle (which given that I've routed the rest of their army off the field, is ridiculous). Even when you surround them and attack from both sides (a fight you will easily win), once they rout, they are allowed to get away, and the 5 that are left come back to take on your entire army.

[Martok]

Ah. See now, I play with the battle timer disabled, so I don't have to worry about things like that. There are admittedly fewer things more irritating than losing a battle because you ran out of time before you could capture/kill that one last guy hiding in the woods somewhere....

[Triggaaar]

Good point, maybe I'll disable it for my next campaign. Now to search the forum for advice on which clan to go for, presumably on the toughest setting.

[Triggaaar]

Ok, gripe number
4) If you want a unit to charge the opponent, and you want them to get on with it, instead of being shot with arrows, your best to get them to quick march until they're next to the enemy, and then ask them to charge, because if you ask them to charge from a couple of hundred metres, they'll slow march for most of it. It also seems that enemy missile units don't pay much attention to units that are quick marching towards them (which is a bit daft) so it's a useful way to catch them.

[Axalon]

Ok, more stuff for you Triggaaar....


Gripe 1.
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All AI’s cheats! It is the most common way to make an AI work – this is the way I understand it at least. Yes, it is annoying at times but rest assured all TW-games AI’s cheats their little pixeled hearts out as soon as they got the chance. STW is a more avid cheater than MTW at least. In RTW there are plenty of bonuses left and right as well I believe, however that is another story for another place....

Gripe 3.
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Yes, the Creative Assembly (CA) fascination for the horsearchers I never truly understood. Actually the Yari-cav is slightly faster than the horsearchers (not much, but still). Thus that is a big fat exception for any other TW-game. Usually CA seems to believe that as soon as a horseman pic up a bow - the horse immediately grow some rocket–thrusters making it always faster than almost every other cavalry-unit. Personally I find this to be pretty ridiculous. Sure, lighter cavalry should have it easier to move faster due to the lack of heavy equipment and so forth.... However, you can also have fast horses and not so fast horses as well - as in diffrent breeds of horses (slightly reflected in the original game, steppe cav). Personally I regard the circumstances concerning regular horsearchers as a general flaw in their design of the original combat system. ....And, In answer if any mod has done anything about that – probably....

As far as STW goes, you can change that on your own. For instance, by slowing down the horsearchers a bit if you want that. Simply decrease the movement values and you are in business. Look for your “TroopStats.txt”-file in your STW-gamefolder, search for the 5th entry/row; “CavalryArchers” – 3rd number is walk-speed, 4th number is run-speed, 5th number is charge-speed. Change to whatever feels more right for you (do make a backup-copy before you do any of this).

As far as MTW goes, it appears that I am the only modder/designer that ever bothered to address these issues on a major mod as far as I can tell. None of the other MTW- medieval themed mods have done anything about this – to my knowledge. In MTW-redux there are differences in speed and capacities of light, regular and heavy cavalry and that on a far more detailed and diverse level than ever found in the original game. There are several high-speed cavalry troops (“royal-lancers” for instance) available in that mod and all you need to do is to give them their charge orders and they will hunt down and destroy all regular enemy horsearchers at will essentially – all this under the assumption that they unhindered to do so of course (it might not be the case, usually it is a bit more to it then just that). Now, since every other MTW-mod seems to be based on that CA battle-system that problem probably remains in all of them – I have yet to see something that suggests otherwise.

As far as RTW goes (and the rest), well I don’t bother much with RTW etc. – besides it is the wrong section for such related stuff anyhow so you better turn to the right sections for that....

Gripe 4.
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Well, a charge will only go so far... Otherwise use run, this is how things work in TW-games, utterly regardless what game it is I think. As for the ranged units, they only move out of the way or react to anything first when the foe is deemed to be too close for them – otherwise you will have too move them around manually.


Ok, hopefully some of that was interesting and useful info for you here.... Oh, and don’t bother with the eggclock in battle just as Martok says, shut the darn thing off and do yourself a favour. After all since when was any battle ever determined by an eggclock? Nah, it’s just ridiculous....

- Cheers
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If I missed anything by all means post a reminder here....

[Triggaaar]

Thanks for the reply.

All AI’s cheats!

I understand that in order to compete, the AI needs some advantages, particularly as you increase the difficulty level, but some cheats seem fairer (and fit with the game better) than others. Like building units cheaper seems a fairly easy and obvious way to help the AI cheat.

Yes, the Creative Assembly (CA) fascination for the horsearchers I never truly understood. Actually the Yari-cav is slightly faster than the horsearchers (not much, but still).

As far as STW goes, you can change that on your own. For instance, by slowing down the horsearchers a bit if you want that. Simply decrease the movement values and you are in business. Look for your “TroopStats.txt”-file in your STW-gamefolder, search for the 5th entry/row; “CavalryArchers” – 3rd number is walk-speed, 4th number is run-speed, 5th number is charge-speed.

It's the run away crying speed I'd like to change. I don't mind cavalry archers being quick, it's the fact that they can repeatedly runaway (routing, not quick marching), then turn and shoot, that I find unrealistic. In reality I imagine rallying took a bit of time before the unit was organised, and a unit wouldn't be able to rally several times in quick succession.

Oh, and don’t bother with the eggclock in battle just as Martok says, shut the darn thing off and do yourself a favour. After all since when was any battle ever determined by an eggclock? Nah, it’s just ridiculous....

I didn't actually mind the clock, obviously real battles would be stopped by the falling sun. And given the fact you can only field 16 units in STW, having no clock could see opponent re-inforcements constantly arriving. Probably better without the clock on balance though, so I'll try without.