Originally Posted by
Aradan
Here are some questions aimed to help us understand how players play and like their campaigns and what expectations they have of them. Feel free to add anything you consider relevant to the topic, it will help us design an interesting and challenging campaign for DoM. The questions pertain to vanilla RTW, released FATW modules and any other TW mod you have played.
I think I added some stuff long long ago, like back in 2010. Now it's sadly been more than a year since I last played RTW in any form.
And any TW game at all, never really liked any of the new ones.....
Q1: Have you ever faced a significant setback in your campaign, where your faction became significantly weaker/smaller at some point than it was previously in the same campaign? If yes, how did it happen? Was it sudden or a gradual process? Did settlements revolt? Did you suffer military defeats? Did you abandon indefensible settlements? Some other reason?
Not at such no, I'm a very methodical player and tend to play to economical game, making me have problems early on but then outgrowing my opponents by stronger economy and higher tier units. It's a hard struggle in the early portions of the game and then fun in the mid-part when you can finally go on the offensive.
And then shortly after that it gets boring because the enemy can no longer resist you.
The only "setback" is when another faction finally works their way up to you, since the AI in this game is all about total war. Meaning it's you against everyone else. As soon as an AI-faction that isn't hardcoded to be in alliance with you gains a border with you, he will concentrate totally on you and create a ceasefire with everyone else (and those factions will respect that if they also share a border with me).
One such example is Ithilien.
Haradrim works their way up from the south and starts fighting with Adunabar. But if you, as RK, take adunabar, then the feud between Adunabar and Haradrim will immediately stop and they'll suddenly be best friends in their attempts at wiping you out.
But that is so predictable that you have to plan for it, so it isn't a "setback" as such.
Q2: What reasons would you consider acceptable causes for campaign setbacks? Would, for example, an artificial revolt when your faction reaches a certain threshold be considered fair/enjoyable or a cheap trick? Would a weak faction leader negatively affecting all other characters be considered a fair cause?
I hate artificially created things like that, that I have no control over. I would consider that a cheap trick employed to mask a flawed AI that can't otherwise compete.
See tv-tropes "the AI is a cheating bastard" page.
A weak faction leader negatively affecting other characters would be fair though, since that is a mechanism that I can see and control (usually by having said weak leader have an accident).
Q3: Do you enjoy suffering setbacks during a campaign or do you want to always make forward progress, either slowly or rapidly?
I enjoy hardships as long as they aren't artificially created to compensate for a weakness in making the AI competitive. I enjoy picking a weaker faction and fighting against the odds, where the AIs bonuses lies in him simply having more and larger cities, better units etc, rather than artifical difficulty created by giving it "invisible" bonuses that for example will make a considerably weaker unit win over my much more powerful unit in a straight fight.
Some setbacks, such as suddenly facing a new enemy, is enjoyable.
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Q4: Have you ever lost a campaign? If so, why did it happen? Did you face a much stronger/larger faction that was impossible to defeat? Did multiple factions gang up on you? Was the campaign set up in a way that it made victory impossible (eg starting you in huge debt next to strong enemies)? Did the AI receive very large bonuses? Did the AI outsmart you (j/k)? Did you fail to manage your economy properly? Did you make avoidable tactical/strategic errors?
Yes. Usually because of bad luck, bad moves, failure to realize the opponents plan etc. Usually when I start a new faction and am not sure what the enemy will do. Their behaviour is greatly influenced by what faction you are playing, since they will always concentrate on you.
If you play RK, then Dunland will come swarming in from the mountain pass in the north and go all out for you. But if you play as Rohan, then they'll never go south of the mountains, instead always going east to attack you.
All AI factions have the player as the main target and other AI factions will only be fought against if they don't share a border with the player.
With TNS, all factions are winnable, at least on normal difficulty.
And I severly hate playing at harder difficulty, where the AI just blatantly cheats. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing your MaA get slaughtered by a unit of adunabar swordsmen in a one on one fight on a wall.
Q5: Would you accept that certain factions simply have little chances of victory due to their starting position or their maximum possible development level or would you expect every faction to have at least a moderate chance of victory? Would you consider the AI receiving significant financial/military bonuses fair or unbalancing?
Most definetly acceptable that some factions are weaker than others. Playing them gives more of a challenge, especially since it mean you can get a hard game without giving the AI unfair bonuses. And in the same manner, I find AI-specific bonuses to be distasteful and a sign that the AI is severly lacking in the I-part.
I very much prefer if the AI instead gets starting bonuses, like more cash, more population, more advanced cities etc.
Q6: Do you enjoy there being a real chance of defeat in a campaign or do you prefer knowing you will eventually win, even if there are setbacks in the process?
If there isn't a risk, then there isn't any fun. If I always want to win then I might as well just change the text files and give me unbeatable units. The fun lies in fighting the odds. If I want an easy fight, I will pick an easy faction.
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Q7: How many settlements/armies do you usually need to control in order to reach 'critical mass', ie the point in the game where it becomes impossible to lose without trying to?
Depends on what faction I'm playing. Sometimes I don't need to control any more cities than what I start with in order to reach that point, as long as I can develop those cities while the AI isn't developing his. I particularly hated this in RTW: Vanilla, where the AI would recruit low tier militia units and send them at you in large enemies, while I struggled to defend my cities and build them up. Then once I got some higher tier units and attacked the AI, his cities are at the same level as when they started. The AI had spent all his money on recruiting units and those units had sucked up all his population which decreased his tax base and trade incomes, making him even poorer, and with a decreasing population due to recruitment his population growth became lower and it goes into a vicious circle and the AI factions (especially the ones starting with a border to you) will have an economy that is weaker than what he started with, despite not losing any cities.
Q8: Do you actively try to slow down your own progress or otherwise handicap yourself (eg with house-rules) in order to give AI factions a chance to develop?
I tend to tinker with the text files so as to suit me, one good example I have found is to turn off spies, diplomats and assassins. The AI can't use them properly anyways and it stops him from spending money on them. Another thing, which works due to the problem stated in Q7, is to actually increase the recruitment time for low-tier units.
That means the AI can't recruit crap units as quick, giving his population a chance to grow and have more cash over to build up his cities with, which actually makes him more of a challenge.
But yes, I tend to follow some rules, such as not to exploit the AIs stupidity in battles too much, especially in sieges (I once earlier asked for all cities to have perfectly square walls, with a tower in each corner (meaning the entire wall setup is a square, with 4 long straight walls and 90 degree angles in the 4 corners, just because anything harder than that and the AI becomes confused).
Q9: Do you continue to play a campaign after you have reached 'critical mass'? if so, at which point do you stop playing?
I have never, in any TW game, actually won a campaign. I reach the point where I can just outproduce my opponent, send an army and use auto-resolve, build another and send it, and another.
And somewhere there, when there is no longer any resistance, there is no longer any fun.
My greatest gripe about RTW, in all the forms that I have played it, is that it's hard (and enjoyable) early on, and then it just becomes too easy because the AI doesn't keep up in the technology race. He just goes in for low-tier units and hopes that sending hordes of crap at me will help him win, when it should be clear to him after the first couple of failed tries that that tactic isn't going to work.
Ironically,that means that the best campaigns are usually those where I'm separated from my foremost enemy by another faction that fights solely against me and ignores the other faction which can build up in peace and then eat his way through an undefended back when he is strong enough to take me on, which have been hampered in my build-up by being constantly under attack from an opponent that hasn't evolved his tech or economy but spent all his resources on a futile offensive against me.