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Thread: A way of nations, a crossroads, and a strange total war player

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    Dismounted Feudal Knight's Avatar my horse for a unicode
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    Default A way of nations, a crossroads, and a strange total war player

    This thread is part incoherent ramble, part describing a system, and part me deciding it's about time I stop keeping everything in my head and start distributing tidbits across the internet so my brain doesn't explode. With that in mind, lets begin, starting with the background.

    I've played every total war game from Shogun to Attila, after which I have given Warhammer an inglorious 50 hour peak and Warhammer 2 no peek at all. I've been warded away from Thrones of Britannia, because my perception of it from afar is a shallow game with nothing I cannot achieve using my style in Medieval 2's Britannia expansion or the CB mod. In the beginning, I played Total War quite normally. It was on Medieval 1 that I decided to throw some distinct roleplay elements in, as it was an engine I connected with and a period I could relate to. Rome 1 came, and with it, my forever prejudice against the basic gameplay of Total War. Allow me to explain.

    The difficulty of Total War in singleplayer comes not from out-thinking an opponent, but from giving the enemy cheats in stats, numbers, and general productivity to make it seem more difficult. This is what I call false difficulty. It exists in all of Total War, but over the years it has become increasingly obvious, culminating in the sheer unbalance of Rome 2's Levy Freemen against the clearly superior, though admittedly low end roman infantry. And you know what? A good total war player still wins. It was at a time when I was always in the shadows, rarely if ever interacting with people online. Perhaps a record in multiplayer would have changed me to be more competitive, more able to play as others do. But I developed in single player, and I was unwilling to indulge in either multiplayer or cheats for the AI to bring the balance to par. So I connected two pieces of my life together, and it was in Rome 1 where I truly began playing Total War unconventionally.

    When I began playing Medieval 2, I nurtured this system, and eventually, the difficulty was not from the enemy, but from me. I developed systems to make challenges come from myself, for myself. I looked for ways to steadily make it so my gameplay, while not necessarily incompetent, was about on par with the military strength of the AI. To the extent where special circumstances would be required for my faction to become a conqueror.

    And that is how my style of playing Medieval 2 Total War began. It was developed into how I played for over 5000 hours (I've long lost count, wouldn't be surprised if it's double, and yes I have a personal and work life), and it is how I still play today.

    Every nation has a story, and every nation is (attempted to be) played as the sum of its influences. There are many, many influences. I will just summarize them.

    Every turn consists of two parts; imagining the scenes involved as events go on, and playing the actual turn. Both are affected by multiple broad elements, which are the faction's generals/designated leaders (which can often involve agents of high skill that are rewarded with their own distinct influence and personality), the faction's society and culture (what the people would do and how that would influence events), and the variables tracked by the game, such as economy, foreign nations and their actions, what is visible on the map, and events in the world that would come to influence the faction being played. Note that I don't necessarily need to do this with one faction. I've often went insane and picked up clusters of factions, and when I feel particularly insane, I play every faction on the map and try to use this system. It can result in a surprising amount of diversity. Anyways, onto specific aspects.

    Imagining scenes in a turn is best accomplished with the narratives of four characters, at the minimum - usually more or less depending on the generals as they are the best fleshed characters in the game (and the traits system is immensely useful to be a system of modifiers for me). One entity, usually the faction leader, serves as the command narrative (again, changing up depending on the generals/family members involved); an agent serving as the intrigue narrative (often multiple. The state of espionage, religious conversion, merchant trade, diplomacy, etc); a single unit/imaginary person in a unit to carry on the narrative of the battlefields if applicable, or the home ground if there is no war of note going on; and finally, a less fleshed out but still important person of pure imagination that provides the narrative of the common folk. Again, the amount of narratives and roles change in number and complexity depending on what's going on in a faction.

    Playing the actual turn is a bit more of an involved process than the rather freeform system of ^, which is really just a contributor to the second part. Instead of going into every little thing (which changes by context anyways), I'll summarize behaviors. Note that everything has modifiers beyond what I describe (as I'll be mentioning many steps along the way >.>) and is all under the shroud of roleplay being involved.
    - How militaristic a turn and faction is played depends foremost onthe faces in control of the military structure. This is usually the family leader and any general with a majority of command stars. To compare between extremes, a faction with a very influential, high command general with traits that give the proper modifiers for behavior is almost certain to expand territory by military means when the opportunity arises. A deceptive and politically skilled faction leader is likely to include more than just raw force in his plans of conquest, making use of agents and diplomacy to weaken and isolate other factions. To go to the other extreme, a faction with a very passive military can arise from no skilled generals, a very influential priest with pacifist tendencies (the pope could do something similar), destabilized politics that come from the aforementioned scenes and result in an entirely simulated civil war (involving custom battles, unit disbandment and the occasional agent/character suicide to indicate their fall), and/or a very weak faction leader with weak officers. I have a perfect example going on a game right now where my Venice faction is pretty much stunted as far as effective military use is concerned, because all of the faction's administrators are bureaucrats and tradesmen - not warriors. There's literally a total lack of generals or militarily minded individuals. This is also in the Stainless Steel mod, so literally every general in Venice is administratively minded. The strongest characters are the faction leader and a merchant, neither of whom have any tendencies towards a war that isn't self defense. As a result, the faction is unlikely to make any military actions unless it is attacked or sufficiently influenced to action. It's also likely to make poor military decisions, because there's literally nobody who's in charge that's qualified to be a real general.
    - Buildings and general economy are handled at both a faction and a local level. Since faction money is everyone's money, the two cannot be truly independent in Medieval 2. However, a strong leader in a large province is likely to get what he wants built over the weak general in a minor province, so long as the Faction Leader doesn't have any real uses of the money for himself. The balance changes depending on how powerful each character is, how inclined they are to actually spend the money, and how well they spend the money. An excellent bureaucrat is going to make buildings with immediate and long term benefits to the settlement. An idiot with money or a slob is going to end up with no developments in his settlement, or bad investments that trash the faction's economy.
    - "Campaign" is my term for how I manage military affairs in Medieval 2. Most of the systems are worthless when handling real players, but fairly able against AI while maintaining the system of balance I reference above. Each 'campaign' is a military op, either against invaders or against foreign nations for expansionism/self defense/whatever reason. It usually consist of a single commanding general, who is the center of the operation with his primary stack of troops + supporting stacks (not necessarily a full stack). Campaigns typically draw from provinces outside of the lead general's control (but that isn't to say a provincial leader cannot launch his own campaign with his own men on his own accord!). The decisions made on the campaign depend on the leader, agents sent to lend weight to the campaign, and the influence resulting from having men that aren't your own in the army. The big thing to note about this is that the moment the campaign's leader dies, the campaign is a failure. All associated troops will fall back and/or scatter, depending on the defeat and if there's another general to take the reins. A campaign is smarter and more organized depending on the general's command skill (you can simplify it and say it goes off command stars, but there's also individual traits to consider here), the supporting forces (agents lend their own weight, ex, spies make for a more aware army, priests make a more chivalrous and perhaps spiritual group, merchants, uh, keep supply lines in top shape, etc) and the surrounding circumstances - for example, what the local people feel about the campaign, what the faction leader feels (or if he's in charge, what his generals say and do), and other variables that are considered if they manifest somehow in a campaign or in the scenes that I've mentioned.
    - Each settlement typically has a lord, who has his own little army. How a faction's military is composed can vary, but generally speaking, generals have their own relatively low number of troops (but never just planting the general in a settlement with no support) unless a Campaign is used to give them more than they'd usually control.
    - The average faction military is composed of militia and peasants. Basically, garbage units, and a variety of them. There is always a core of more able units, typically under the King, a castle with appropriate record for military strength, or an influential general. Again, it varies. But usually, an army is diverse, and kinda pathetic. Exceptions happen of course. That said, if a half stack of feudal knights is sent out and proceeds to be destroyed, then a faction will be destabilized for some time from the loss of sheer talent, leadership (they were nobles after all) and simulated public order from war fatigue.
    - Auto Resolve? Hell no. Every battle is fought, with competence depending on the general's own skills and any other appropriate variables. If I am playing against an army I also control, then generally speaking, I take possession of the more skilled commander/passionate force and play from there.

    There's more stuff, more mechanics, but I'll just leave those to direct inquiry as I know I'm getting quite rambly. Suffice to say, basically every mechanic in the game is considered.

    And that is what I like about Medieval 2 beyond any future entry. It provides a brilliant foundation for characters and easily compiled modifiers. It has just enough mechanics for me to build upon, without putting in too many mechanics to railroad me. I do not suffer from artificial balancing and difficulty and locks, such as building and army caps in future games. Armies are capped by circumstance. Sometimes, you just need to send a couple scout cavalry units out to see what's up. Sometimes you send in smaller forces to hold a line of combat. There are too many constantly shifting things to describe them all, and I think Medieval 2 hit the balance just right, which is why I've made this thread about Medieval 2 despite having systems in mind for some future games (most notably Rome 2).

    Then comes the complication. I was actually toying with the idea of posting the stories of some of my campaigns as they were created from the above. I think the trouble comes from my inability to put thoughts into words as I wish to, and the way I keep all of the above organized and sane. That's a lot of variables, a lot of characters, and a lot of campaigns. It is implausible to track everything. That is why I 'summarize' everything. Everything is not quite perfect in details because it must be summarized and streamlined while still keeping the heart of the ideas above.

    In effect, the following should be happening.
    - Enemies do not necessarily overwhelm the player, unless the player ends up with total inerts controlling every piece of the faction
    - Great generals and circumstances result in wars for the player
    - Medieval 2 factions are warlike enough to provide plenty of action, especially since there will be inevitable expansionists and kings who cause wars by their actions
    - Individual characters develop stories, personalities, and generally, a 'point' beyond just being pixels inside a metal box
    - Incompetent AI is no longer an issue, because you provide your own challenges based on what is reasonable to happen with your faction.

    Still with me? Good. I'm not sure why I rambled on like this. I suppose I needed to write today. In any case, there is a crossroads. There was a time I intended to do things in the Writing Center, as it seemed like a rather good place to go. That ended when I ended up giving myself too many projects, delving into too many pots as I always do, and found that thinking about things and having them all up in the noggin is way, way different from actually making them exist.

    The question becomes - what is to be done. Do I attempt to write the tales of nations, or simply write about philosophical and random things, or simply move on as I usually do. As someone with a billion things to say and think, I find myself frequently unable to settle on just a few of those things, or choosing just a few projects to invest in out of a great swarm of them to ensure that the entire lot doesn't fall to lack of interest or the apathy of time. Even when that decisiveness is the best possible course.

    If you somehow understood this, good, because I just read this, and I'm not sure what point I was trying to convey. A challenge for the inhabitants of the writing section, ei?
    With great power, comes great chonky dragons to feed enemies of the state. --Targaryens?
    Spoiler for wait what dragons?



  2. #2
    NorseThing's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: A way of nations, a crossroads, and a strange total war player

    My path is a bit different, but similar. I was into role play via D&D in the 1960's. A group of us would get together and one would be the 'guest' dungeon creator for the evening. We would often use our own continuing characters as well as introduce new characters for the night.

    I then began Total War with the beginning Shogun as well as Medieval II at the same time. There is a tie in to D&D, but I did not see the tie in for many years. I took TW literally and thought nothing of a quick conquest of the map. I was fascinated by the Askthepizzaguy and his take on blitzing via jihad with the Turks. Many have tried since and topped his first attempt. In some ways this meant my putting TW aside.

    Then I began reading the After Action Reports and saw what I should have seen from the beginning. This is really a role play game even if played as solitaire.


    Thanks for your post. It does indeed bring back some memories of why I still play M2TW!

  3. #3
    waveman's Avatar Decanus
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    Default Re: A way of nations, a crossroads, and a strange total war player

    I think that part of what the newer games problem is that they lack the personalized characters that Rome I (where I started) through Shogun II, albeit S2 to a lesser extent. You have a general who fights the Gauls for twenty-odd years? He hates Barbarians and maybe picks up a foreign lover and a drinking problem.

    But later games, in addition to losing that flexibility that is given by small armies, also become more about min-maxing the generals' traits which of course removes a lot of that characterization.

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