Don't care about winning.

[Wesleyan]

I've been playing ETW for a few months now, and I've reached the point at which I no longer care about winning.

I've won 1750 campaign games as Austria and the UP, and the reward is getting to watch a smug video clip about how wonderful I now am.

Far too often I've abandoned games because I could not see myself winning. I have objectives, but sometimes they just seem so hard. Right now I am playing as Russia, and am eating the Persians. Doing so will not bring victory in the game, BUT IT FEELS GOOD.

[Geuvesa]

Wait you mean you actually follow the goals? I have won like 5 campaigns ever in all the total war games I have played (all except shogun, never owned it but played it) and thats to unlock all the factions. (plus one as austria but I actually did it on accident following my own agenda) I like to approach TW goals like this, it is my country and I shall run it as I see fit!

[EmberFlame]

I only care about winning when they give me a challenge. Like trying to conquer southern india from an orange-death Marthas, or taking flanders from Spain as france.

[Prince of Darkness]

The point of TW is not about objectives, is about the fun to conquer and smash the cheating AI's armies while defending yourselves from the Maratha and Pirate hordes.

[♔Mandelus♔]

Well,
I give a crap on the winning conditions always and this since RTW. They destroy the game at least in my eyes, because if the player is trying to reach them, he smashed the AI only and also some guys with their behaviour to reach the goal in a new record time (and their proudness about) have at least no game fun.
I have played more than 2.100 hours ETW in sum until now and Steam tells me that i have reached 7 times the campaign goal with the winning condition and all 7 cases were only chance and not forced to reach!
I play the first 20 to 30 game years very moderate, for example as British only fighting in America and also here moderate and letting the 13 colonies as long as possible existing. In this time the AI will raise and become more an enemy in Europe with always 1 to 3 big AI nations overrunning Europe. These are then for the rest of the game my main enemies and it is really fun to play this ... until i decide when the campaign is over and won!

[The Despondent Mind]

I never payed attention to the goals,except when i first time played RTW,i wanted to unlock new factions.

[Prince of Darkness]

I really think CA should add more winning objectives like Civ...
e.g. an Economic Victory (occupy all trade posts), diplomatic victory (friendly terms with everyone) etc.

[Yin]

I don't think anyone gives a crap about ETW objective. I own all of America and half of India and have 10 armies preparing to take Europe with 15m in the treasury and they tell me that I lost? Nonsense.

Plus, I'm a cautious player. I like to be ready militarily to attack and defend and financially to be able to go on fighting if somehow my incomes turns to 0 per turn for an x number of turns. The objectives to me seems rushed, and the majority of the region have no military importance, and pretty much a money vacuum to defend if you don't take the surrounding areas.

[eregost]

I like going for the objectives as I find they tend to be challenging and historic locations. I never go for world domination as I find the game is too easy if you can take what you want. But hey thats just me

[Centaur]

I find the game to be most fun when running it your own way and RPing your Empire. There's nothing more challenging than doing something YOU actually don't want to do, but you do it anyways to keep the feel of your RP alive