Does this game wear you out?

[Didz]

Probably, a bit of a weird question. But does anyone else find this game mentally exhausting.

I played a full Imperial Roman campaign in vanilla before loading this mod and would sit for hours going through turn after turn with no real breaks except to make a cup of tea. But with this mod I find one or two major battles and I'm mentally drained and have to take a break.

[ReD_OcToBeR]

I find I get the drain during mid-campaign when you are large enough to have many enemies combined with the settlement upkeep. It's kinda like EB in that you must carefully develop each settlement to get the most out of it. I make it even worse on myself because I try and keep track of my "family" members, and allow them to rule around where their father or relatives rule when they come of age, etc etc. Not trying to babble on too much, but fighting stack after stack for myself never gets that old, it just the settlements and role-playing that bogs me down the most.

[Didz]

Yeah! the city development issues are still causing me to scratch my head every turn and I'd dearly love someone to produce a guide on the best approach.

But I find the battles are the real drain for me. I'm currently playing Rome and invading Gaul to subjurgate the Arverni and so often my legions are up against one or two full stacks of barbarian's, often in thick forest. I just find the concentration involved in monitoring and timing the movement of cohorts really tires me out.

I usually deploy in the classic 'triplex acies' formation recommended by the legion guide with my velites deployed in advance to trigger the hidden warbands. But generally the barbarians deploy on a much wider front and so once the first line is in contact one is constantly having to monitor both flanks to watch for barbarian warbands trying to envelop your line and timing the movement of the reserve cohorts to counter them. Then your having to monitor the fatigue of the first line to time the replacement of tired and exhausted cohorts with the second line, and on top of that the barbarians tend to have these fast moving missile cavalry that are constantly hovering around your flanks and have to be monitored and driven off by short controlled charges by my equites.

The added complication in forests is that often the barbarians haven't shown their full hand and so even when it looks like you have them under control and locked down you're never really sure if another warband or two isn't going to suddenly rise out of the undergrowth and pounce on an unsuspecting unit. I had a shock the other night where I was fighting a barbarian army which had deployed with its lightly armed warbands in the centre and its heavily armoured units on the flanks.

Naturally, the centre of my line was victorious first and the exhausted cohorts were withdrawn and replaced with fresh ones from the second line which then swung left and right to bring pressure to bear on the flanks of the barbarians still engaged on each flank. No sooner had they down so when three fresh barbarian heavy spear units rose out of the undergrowth and charged into the gap in the centre of my line, straight into the exhausted cohorts I had just pulled out of the line.

That was touch a go for a few minutes as my only fresh reserves were the velites who had thrown all their javelins and had been pulled back behind the lines. They managed to sacrifice themselves by harrassing the flanks of the new attack long enough for me to extract my fresh units from the fight on the flanks and move them back to the centre. But I've learnt the hard way that just because the barbarians are running doesn't mean the battles won.

[military tribune]

I usually deploy in the classic 'triplex acies' formation recommended by the legion guide with my velites deployed in advance to trigger the hidden warbands. But generally the barbarians deploy on a much wider front and so once the first line is in contact one is constantly having to monitor both flanks to watch for barbarian warbands trying to envelop your line and timing the movement of the reserve cohorts to counter them. Then your having to monitor the fatigue of the first line to time the replacement of tired and exhausted cohorts with the second line, and on top of that the barbarians tend to have these fast moving missile cavalry that are constantly hovering around your flanks and have to be monitored and driven off by short controlled charges by my equites.

I never in battle replace an entire engaged line with fresh troops. Only severely depleted units in that line are replaced. The reason why I do this is due to my observation that pulling units out from fighting causes extra casualties among them than letting me stayed in.

My battle front spans wide so as to limit enemy's flanking movement. Even if they can flank my lines, they only touch the edges of the flanks but never get around to my back.

I understand everyone has his own style of fighting. but I still suggest at least not to pull engaged units out, especially if they at the same time are under missle fire.

[Didz]

I never in battle replace an entire engaged line with fresh troops. Only severely depleted units in that line are replaced. The reason why I do this is due to my observation that pulling units out from fighting causes extra casualties among them than letting me stayed in.

I can't say I've noticed this, and I have been looking for it as it would seem logical that it would. I just concluded that as the kill rate in RS2 was much lower than in vanilla the frontline were able to disengage without losing a lot of men.

Not sure they would be able to do that in real life, but it seems to work in RS2, and the sudden impact of fresh warriors against exhausted ones is usually decisive.

I understand everyone has his own style of fighting. but I still suggest at least not to pull engaged units out, especially if they at the same time are under missle fire.

I've never noticed that either. Unlike ETW and NTW it seems the 'Fire at Will' button worked in RTW so troops that are engaged don't come under missile fire, at least not from the AI, and I never force my missile troops to fire into melee's unless they are attacking form the enemies rear. In which case a sudden volley of pila is usually enough to cause panic even before my men charge home.

[Visarion]

well when I played it for three or four hours I took two or three hours and sometimes a night to find the best solutions for campaign and battle strategy!

[DarthLazy]

Not when youre blasting your way through Seleucia its not.

Not when 5 units conquer greece its not.

Not when the greatest general of all time dies in 5 minutes its not.

Not when Rome is conquered its definately not

[Didz]

Not what?

[NerZhulen]

Probably, a bit of a weird question. But does anyone else find this game mentally exhausting.

I played a full Imperial Roman campaign in vanilla before loading this mod and would sit for hours going through turn after turn with no real breaks except to make a cup of tea. But with this mod I find one or two major battles and I'm mentally drained and have to take a break.

I solve this by autoresolving battles, but yes when Im in position where I cannot afford autoresolve than 2-3 battles and I have to take a pause...
I wont call it mental exhaustion but repetitive boredom, battles just become a drill you have to go throu.

[SimpleCourage47]

Not what?

Mentally exhausting

[NightEye]

Probably, a bit of a weird question. But does anyone else find this game mentally exhausting.

I played a full Imperial Roman campaign in vanilla before loading this mod and would sit for hours going through turn after turn with no real breaks except to make a cup of tea. But with this mod I find one or two major battles and I'm mentally drained and have to take a break.

Nope. I have the same reasons as Lazyo plus I diversity army compositions keep things fresh.

[Ferdiad]

Sometimes I auto_win because I know I'm gonna win, I'm not trying to sound like a dick here but if your a bit experienced with Total War you can win 999/1000 battles even outnumbered 2/1 or 3/1, eventually all that interests me is the strategical map and the RP.What I found helps is to do a Ai campaign every so often, It's very relaxing watchng the world unfold while drinking your cuppa.

[Vice]

Sometimes I auto_win because I know I'm gonna win, I'm not trying to sound like a dick here but if your a bit experienced with Total War you can win 999/1000 battles even outnumbered 2/1 or 3/1, eventually all that interests me is the strategical map and the RP.What I found helps is to do a Ai campaign every so often, It's very relaxing watchng the world unfold while drinking your cuppa.

I have to say for the most part I always auto/win against rebels(that are in my lands messing up my roads!) or sometimes ship battles since you cannot partake in them...

[RebelCub]

Sometimes I auto_win because I know I'm gonna win, I'm not trying to sound like a dick here but if your a bit experienced with Total War you can win 999/1000 battles even outnumbered 2/1 or 3/1, eventually all that interests me is the strategical map and the RP.What I found helps is to do a Ai campaign every so often, It's very relaxing watchng the world unfold while drinking your cuppa.

You got that right, I generally always know I'm going to win even on Very Hard. I REALLY wish that Battles were more decisive in this game. It's a chore having to deal with stack after stack of the enemy. But, I suppose although it seems unrealistic how many battles you fight, it probably isn't when you consider that every turn is six months. Fighting a battle once a year or so is probably realistic for an army.

Also, what do you mean AI campaign?

[Ferdiad]

You got that right, I generally always know I'm going to win even on Very Hard. I REALLY wish that Battles were more decisive in this game. It's a chore having to deal with stack after stack of the enemy. But, I suppose although it seems unrealistic how many battles you fight, it probably isn't when you consider that every turn is six months. Fighting a battle once a year or so is probably realistic for an army.

Also, what do you mean AI campaign?

Tyhe AI does everything, to do one put this in your RS II launcher

-show_err -nm -movie_cam -ai
It's good for balancing ,but beware your faction dosn't get AI bonuses from the script or from difficulty.

[RebelCub]

Tyhe AI does everything, to do one put this in your RS II launcher

-show_err -nm -movie_cam -ai
It's good for balancing ,but beware your faction dosn't get AI bonuses from the script or from difficulty.

So what's the point? Do you still play battles?

[Ferdiad]

So what's the point? Do you still play battles?

Nope, total AI control.

[Kritic]

Probably, a bit of a weird question. But does anyone else find this game mentally exhausting.

I played a full Imperial Roman campaign in vanilla before loading this mod and would sit for hours going through turn after turn with no real breaks except to make a cup of tea. But with this mod I find one or two major battles and I'm mentally drained and have to take a break.

I don't play these mods like that anymore.I play a lot of them so I don't have time for all that.I give myself lot's of money and go from there.Have a couple serious campaigns saved but mostly I just like to look at the eye-candy and have battles.Guess that's kind of Heresy here but that's the way I do it.

[Visarion]

it's mentaly exhausting because you like to relive what you played and you day dream!

[Trajan]

The bridge defenses today against the Carthaginians definitely wore me out. I had to defend this bridge in Spain against multiple stacks. The last defense was against two full stacks and that lasted close to two hours.