M2TW : Strategy game or Tactics game?

[tallstark]

Just a personal opinion question, how many of you spend most of your time on the campaign map versus in the battles? I find myself auto-resolving about 75% of the battles, even tho I know I could do a better job in person, just to keep the game moving along.

For me the alliances, economy, what building to build, what province to attack or reinforce is most interesting. From what I read, a lot of people really enjoy the tactics in winning a battle. I guess thats where bugs drive me the most crazy so instead of getting mad I turn it in to a strategy map game and have a blast doing it.

[N3rull]

tallstark: M2TW : Strategy game or Tactics game?
N3rull: The worst joke of creative assembly, ever.
(that was for you, Handsolo )

Now being serious, I don't think M2 would deserve half of its credit if it was void of real-time battles. Your great, strategical plans' final test and judgement takes place on the battlefield. What exactly are you making good units for, if you autoresolve? What point is in making balanced, well-fixed and flexible armies if you let the PC count the men and roll a die to see who wins? And if you count that in, just how deep and interesting does the game become when you just keep spewing high numbers of crap (or one kind of unit that is most efficient in cost/power statistics) to keep the numbers on your side, so the autoresolve makes you the winner?

I strongly believe tactical battles are a very important, non-negligible part of the whole strategical depth of the game. Besides, having all the AI idiocies popping up here and there, dropping the battles too would make it all turn into something I'd gladly trade for HOMM2.

As for the original question in the topic - Medieval 2 if only it wasnt so retardedly bugged everywhere is a game that stands up to the highest standards in deep strategy gaming, and every battle is a respectable tactical challenge if not... same story.

[Valbruch]

I usually autoresolve only battles I consider insignificant or the ones where winner is known even before the battle itself takes place - like besieging a city garrisoned by 2 units with a full stack or fighting brigands. But all the big battles I fight myself.
I find the strategic part very enjoyable as well, but I have to admit that campaign AI can be quite retarded indeed. Facing a stack full of catapults may be funny at first, but after defeating 5 such armies it becomes annoying. And the diplomacy is chaotic at best.

[NobleNick]

I usually autoresolve only battles I consider insignificant or the ones where winner is known even before the battle itself takes place - like besieging a city garrisoned by 2 units with a full stack or fighting brigands. But all the big battles I fight myself...

I'm like Valbruch on this. I autoresolve perhaps 5% to 10% of my land battles.

[tallstark]

Hmmm, I was under the impression that auto-resolve took in to account the compostions of the relative stacks? I fight if it looks close or I am undermanned but if I outnumber and have better units I get lazy and want to see what happens next turn, and next, etc...til its getting wayyyy to late and I try to get some sleep!

[Ambiorix_thijs]

I only autoresolve vs rebels or when the siege is to easy like 100 vs 1000 man.

[Harry Lime]

I never auto-resolve. The battles are the best part of the game & I really, really love it if I lose a battle, mind you that only happens when I'm playing DLV..

[pwijnands]

Hmmm, I was under the impression that auto-resolve took in to account the compostions of the relative stacks? I fight if it looks close or I am undermanned but if I outnumber and have better units I get lazy and want to see what happens next turn, and next, etc...til its getting wayyyy to late and I try to get some sleep!

Auto-resolving takes a unit's strength (attack, defense) into account when calculating odds. When I occasionally make some uber-units my battle odds are always out of balance. I then have to resort to means to circumvent this by making the arrows my archers fire body piercing and giving my cavalry a large mass (you can get some crazy charges by doing this) etc. The only problem-cases are infantry, I haven't found out any tricks for these yet.

On topic:
I fight battles myself, but only to prevent unnecessary losses. In the case of rebels I typically move all the rebel armies in my empire into a small area and attack them then. This way I only have to fight one or two battles instead of 8 or 10. But turns do take increasingly longer the further I go into a campaign. It get's even worse when I'm going for a high global reputation (extra fights due to released prisoners).

[Ambiorix_thijs]

haha, yup, releasing prisoners = alot more battles.

I hate siege battles though, when i am certain to win it, i will resolve it. The loadingtimes just take to long in MEDII even on my pc at home which is verypowerfull it takes to long.

[loquar]

Since playing shogun total war and all of the rest of the series I have never auto resolved a battle.

[Vor]

I do prefer the strat map, but I play most battles.

[Cyrus Spitama]

I have the temptation to autoresolve some battles when I'm sieging a badly garrisoned settlement because I know I'll probably get less casualties for not having the computer take into account the settlement defences, but I kind of consider that a cheat, so I just play all of them really.

[Ambiorix_thijs]

The loading times of sieges take way to long to kill 80 people for instance.

[Vor]

Loading times are practically zero, for me anyway. But I do agree with your point about small battles.

[Ambiorix_thijs]

wow zero loading times, are there any tricks or upgrades to slow that down?

[Vor]

Well, zero was an exaggeration but maybe 5-10 seconds at most. I don't know if its the mod I play, or my comp, or both.

[Erwin Rommel]

I love battles over strat map.......hell there was one time SWORE i WONT AUTO RESOLVE NO MATTER HOW INSIGNIFICANT THE BATTLE IS..........then the rebels got the batter of me and those ridiculous last stands in sieges

[Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh]

For me, it depends how late it is. For the first 3-5 hours of playing, I play almost all battles ('cept large(me)VS really small) but when I am still going at midnight, I am usually resolving all but a handful of battles.

[Sargon-1]

It's both really. Some people might prefer startegy over tactical battles, but the game is actually pretty well balance between the two - a major reason for the series' success, I think.

The important question is, in my mind, just how much strategy, how smart and AI, do we need or want? The AI in MTW2 obviously isn't Deep-Blue, it's not even Deep Blue's third retarded cousin's brain-dead son, and there is a good reason for it:

1)The less retarded the AI, the more resources it takes to calculate. I'm not sure how resource-intensive, for example , perfect patth-finding would be, but it obviously took more than your average computer at the time MTW2 was released. We'll know for sure with Empire, but I'm betting it would take more than most people have today.

2)Much like tallstark (thanks, good topic BTW!) I prefer stratigic elements of the game and a better AI make those elements and the game that much harder. I for one would love a more complex, super-chess, finely tuned strategy where the AI doesn't make completely hopeless last-stand boring sieges, but burns the town down and retreats, for example. But I'm not all that sure most people share my opinion, just as most people wouldn't want to play chess against Deep Blue.

A question: looking at mods like EB, PDER, LR etc, just how far do you think one can take MTW2? CA's goal wasn't to maximize, but to balance. So what if your goal was to actually maximize the AI and other factors for the hard-core fan? Do you think we've reached the modding limit yet?

[miccofl]

Well, to answer the original question of Strategy game or Tactics game my answer is both; that's what makes the game. If it was just strategy or just tactics it is unlikely that it would hold any allure for me (which probably explains why Civ4 and CoH sit around taking up space on my hard drive.) It's that best of both worlds that makes the game great.