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[Lugotorix]

I believe we can all wait (albeit, perhaps not patiently )

It will be good to see you writing again!

Question for all you who have played Attila: How does one make the WRE Impossible? When I played BI it was significantly difficult to manage everything and try to keep the provinces I didn't sacrifice in-tact. It became a mass campaign of beautiful battles where I had to outmaneuver everyone. Anyway, are there any mods that put empathise on the difficulty of the WRE? Or improve it and such?



Its not that I find it easy, really, its just that I don't have the same feeling of risk and sacrifice. Let this province succumb to barbarians to protect this province etc.



Thanks

Tigellinus

I'm in the middle of a WRE game on Hard. A lot of the consequences I'm dealing with are from surrendering regions. I gave up Brittania, and now the Ebdani and Caledonians are after me in mainland Gaul, where they and the Alemanni have become a permanent force, and the Quadrians are taking settlements in Pannonia. Those that do settle, you have to prevent from becoming even more powerful. It's a survivor game, and you really feel the experience of your troops growing as they survive round after round of barbarians who are spilling over the borders. Radious give the WRE more endurance, but the vanilla version is a lot like what you're describing. It's about knocking out the contenders after they hurt you in one place and another. A lot of auto-resolves, but It's one of the funner campaigns I've played, because Stilicho is becoming stronger by the turn.

[Scottish King]

* Sits down* *Plays twenty turns as Prussia* *Realizes they're indeed still Protestant* *Rage quits* I know the feeling all too well. I felt like pulling my hair out when minor factions didn't have access to schools or tech trees in Empire

Lol! I almost gave up on Empire because the rebellions would keep me in a province for 10-15 turns. Took away all initiative, that is till I found a way to deal with them. Minor factions in the WW1 mod for NTW sometimes dont have access to schools (you build one you cant research anything) or no access to generals which is a big handicap in enemy territory.

[waveman]

I started a game as the Frank's with Radious and another mod that raised army caps, I believe. Long story short I quit because the WRE got overrun really fast. So a mod like that could increase the difficulty for you - you'd have access to the same army number scale, but since roman troops are so expensive rome is quite limited.

Another aproach to increasing the difficulty is to not strategically abandon anywher. Manage the Empire like you want to keep it all. That way you're forced to spread your armies thin

[Alwyn]

... Question for all you who have played Attila: How does one make the WRE Impossible? When I played BI it was significantly difficult to manage everything and try to keep the provinces I didn't sacrifice in-tact. It became a mass campaign of beautiful battles where I had to outmaneuver everyone. Anyway, are there any mods that put empathise on the difficulty of the WRE? ...

Tigellinus, are you thinking of writing an AAR about the fall of the Western Roman Empire? (I don't have Attila - I'm guessing that is what WRE stands for). If so, I look forward to reading it.

[Tigellinus]

Tigellinus, are you thinking of writing an AAR about the fall of the Western Roman Empire? (I don't have Attila - I'm guessing that is what WRE stands for). If so, I look forward to reading it.

You have a keen eye :3

Not so much planning to, just an idea. When playing BI I found it to be the most entertaining campaign I had ever played. For the sole reason that each battle I won felt exhilarating to eleven year old me. I liked the idea that I could lose instead of it feeling like Medieval 2 and Rome 2 where I just didn't have that same amount of risk.

Plus, I believe it will be entertaining to write a POV story from the views of a few prominent generals and politicians. The stories of how they and their families defend the borders of Rome, or fail to, and how they plot for political power within the Eternal city.
Because of my wish to possibly lose, I may only play the game and write the AAR until the point that Rome is either strong enough to conquer the ERE. (And thus have so much strength that couldn't possibly lose) or die.

But, it is just an idea bouncing around in my head, and one I don't intend to fully put to work until In the Light of Dusk is completed. (Which means you may ave to wait to read that AAR for a year or more, sorry!)

On that note, yesterday I found myself writing more chapters of In the Light of Dusk (which was a bad idea, as I have a pile of exams to prepare for.) Anyway, I didn't do it from the current chapter. (Nearly finished that eight thousand word monstrosity, thankfully.) But I ended up writing the end of In the Light of Dusk.I had known since the third chapter how it would all end, but actually writing it was so much fun! The idea that the characters had progressed to this point and seeing how far they had come, everything they had achieved and lost was astounding.

Have you guys ever done that? Ever wrote the end of your story before, well, its actually even half way complete? (We're nearly done with the first quarter.)

Thanks

Tigellinus

[Lugotorix]

You have a keen eye :3

Not so much planning to, just an idea. When playing BI I found it to be the most entertaining campaign I had ever played. For the sole reason that each battle I won felt exhilarating to eleven year old me. I liked the idea that I could lose instead of it feeling like Medieval 2 and Rome 2 where I just didn't have that same amount of risk.

Plus, I believe it will be entertaining to write a POV story from the views of a few prominent generals and politicians. The stories of how they and their families defend the borders of Rome, or fail to, and how they plot for political power within the Eternal city.
Because of my wish to possibly lose, I may only play the game and write the AAR until the point that Rome is either strong enough to conquer the ERE. (And thus have so much strength that couldn't possibly lose) or die.

But, it is just an idea bouncing around in my head, and one I don't intend to fully put to work until In the Light of Dusk is completed. (Which means you may ave to wait to read that AAR for a year or more, sorry!)

On that note, yesterday I found myself writing more chapters of In the Light of Dusk (which was a bad idea, as I have a pile of exams to prepare for.) Anyway, I didn't do it from the current chapter. (Nearly finished that eight thousand word monstrosity, thankfully.) But I ended up writing the end of In the Light of Dusk.I had known since the third chapter how it would all end, but actually writing it was so much fun! The idea that the characters had progressed to this point and seeing how far they had come, everything they had achieved and lost was astounding.

Have you guys ever done that? Ever wrote the end of your story before, well, its actually even half way complete? (We're nearly done with the first quarter.)

Thanks

Tigellinus

Great way of describing the pressure of losing that the WRE brings. I feel the same way. I'm on needles when I play as them, and I got a similar feeling when I was playing legendary early on. About your question, I felt that way with The Black Hearted Lords of Thrace. I have all of the replays I need, but they're on my old hard drive- along with all of my organized chapters from start to finish on a portable drive- Sitalces is the most interesting High King- ten star- long reign, all of that- kind of the pinnacle, and the end game is nearing- I need to come up with an ending, rather than drag it out all the way to the military victory- so the best course of action is to stage the needed battles on my new computer and end it with the victory over the Suebi and maybe through the Gallic wars. To find the motivation, I'd need all my records on hand.

As for now, it's kind of left in the air.

[waveman]

Have you guys ever done that? Ever wrote the end of your story before, well, its actually even half way complete? (We're nearly done with the first quarter.)

Thanks

Tigellinus

I'm only on my first aar (the second died a rather gruesome and frustrating death) but in both cases I had a few ideas as to how they might end. As my writing progresses I've narrowed it down to a few possibilities, but because The Tin Isles is so heavily influenced by the game (appearance of characters, whether or not they survive, etc) I pretty much can't pre-write the end, only try to shepherd my world towards one of the potential endings I've thought of.

You might also want to check out the mod imperiales oeconomiae. I'm pretty sure that when I played as rome with that and radious it was pretty difficult, but I haven't played as the WRE for a some time now

[Scottish King]

Have you guys ever done that? Ever wrote the end of your story before, well, its actually even half way complete? (We're nearly done with the first quarter.)

I haven't written out on paper but I have the ending for my AAR The White Horse already set. I just have to get there

[The_King]

Hello,

As you probably dont know, I wrote a few (probably terrible) AARs here a few years back. Well since then I have not really had the time or will to start up again. However now that I have more time on my hands, I decided to pick it up again. However instead of doing a TW AAR, I instead opted to go for a Dwarf Fortress* one. And instead of it being the usual AAR, which is driven by the writer, I have instead decided to have the community drive it by having them say how the fortress show be run. Thus it makes the AAR an interactive one. Now do any of you guys have advice for Interactive AARs or just AARs in general which will be useful for a returner like me. Finally what is the stance on directly porting an AAR from one forum to another (obviously in the other game AAR section), to allow for more readers.

Here is the link to a more indepth thread on this (highly recommended to read if you are interested.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=152037.0

*For those who dont know DF

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Dwarf Fortress (abbreviated to DF) is a free game which you can download, where you have to run a fortress for dwarves. The game is entirely free with no micro transactions or tha jazz. The game, however is rather daunting to the new player with its ASCII and it many different buttons. It is furthered by an almost constant source of FUN (aka complete destruction) by your dwarves, invaders, water, cats, magma, dwarves, you, which can lead to some early ends (frustrating for the new player). I highly recommend it if you can brave steepish learning curves and almost nonexsistant graphics (I always use the starter pack, makes it MUCH MUCH easier to look at and start off). http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

Thanks in advance

[Merchant of Venice]

I don't find myself so much writing the end of my AAR but I have planned a lot of the future story and I do know how its going to end. Like I have big plots I have planned out and have thought about major chapters in the future, I just find myself not able to write the current chapters I'm meant to be working on

[Lortano]

Too right Merchant. I find myself so strapped for ideas for chapters atm. Perhaps a few weeks in Somerset will do me good...

[Lugotorix]

As much as I'd like another tie. We only have three votes in the TotW, out of four entries. We can do better than that.

[Sir Adrian]

Greetings my fellow writers. I would like to bring to your attention that the site's biggest writing competition, The Scriptorium Writing Competition, is currently in the submission phase.
The Writer's Study has provided us with some of the best entries in the history of the competition and it would be our pleasure if some of you fine writing folk would grace our competition this time as well.

The theme of the competition is the space age (anything space related goes) but if you don't like it there is always the long/short category where everything goes. The submission period ends on august 16th at 23:59 gmt - 10 but we will probably be accepting entries until we set up the competition threads (~2-3 days tops). If you have any questions or would like to know more feel free to either ask me directly or visit this thread http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?693432-Summer-2015-Scriptorium-Writing-Competition

I look forward to reading the stories you guys send. Thank you for your time.

[Acamality]

Hey there everyone! A new forum member here, more or less, and I was told this would be a good spot to say hello. I originally made an account to download the Hyrule Total War mod here on my laptop, but after getting back into Vanilla M2TW on the laptop I'm stuck with for now I decided to take a more thorough look through the forums and, finally, decided to write my own AAR (Mostly because I was looking for somewhere to post a story that could be seen and give me feedback and such).

Every seems pretty friendly and there's definitely no shortage of things to read. Also seems pretty active despite how old the game is. Looking forward to getting to know things a bit better around here, either way.

[waveman]

Welcome then! Yes M2 is pretty active, probably because of all of the mods possible for it. Actually just went back to look at your aar again and you seem to have a lot of feedback and welcomes there. I actually went down a similar path- I came to twc for Rome mods, then M2, and at some point read some great AARS and while waiting for more to pop up I decided to write one. Anyways, I'm looking forward to hearing more from you

[Alwyn]

Hey Acamality! Yes, people are friendly here. I hope that the feedback you're getting is the kind of feedback you're looking for. I haven't played Medieval II - I should probably try it - does it work well in terms of providing things to write about? (Of course, you don't have to rely on the characters and events which occur in your campaign. It's quite common, for example, to have characters in an AAR which don't exist in the campaign, except as nameless soldiers or inhabitants of regions.) I'm wondering what could encourage more people to try writing an AAR - any ideas?

[waveman]

Part of what I love about M2 over later games (cough, cough, Rome 2) is the amount of material a player/writer is immediately given. Traits for the generals are developed over time, there are spies, diplomats, assassins and princesses. Every individual army be it 1 unit or 20 has a named captain, there is the family tree. I'd say empire is fairly similar in some respects. And then there are the mods...

Attila, at least, has returned some of this, and imo the game feels less arcadey than Rome 2, and thus I find myself writing about it.

[Acamality]

Like wavemen says, M2 gives a ton of options for writing. I have a bunch of ideas for possible AARs myself. From the life of an assassin or a noble to the reign of a nation or empire if you want. Not to mention the trait system gives tons of character outlines if you don't want to come up with them from scratch.
Or maybe you want to have a kingdom rebel against the pope and found their own religion. Easily done by going again the pope in the campaign and being excommunicated to make the rest of the Christian nations dislike you. Not to mention the Kingdoms expansions that only add more options. I plan on doing a Britannia AAR in the future, actually.

I haven't played any of the other Total War games unfortunately, but based on some research I'm definitely glad I picked M2 as my first.

[waveman]

It is an interesting division, the difference between handed characters with many of their traits given to you already and the necessity of developing them for yourself. Obviously you can twist the traits provided to suit your desires, but it is interesting to be handed a character who is chivalrous yet a bloody fighter who questions God but then gets sent on crusade and then has a Templar following him around, or given the trait to "hate pagans." On the other hand there is a great deal of freedom with the other games (or M2 if you just ignore that stuff), such as in my Sassanian writing all of the personalities come from me except for a few very, very vague traits. Personally, I enjoy both a great deal. I just miss the princesses, assassins, merchants and assorted other agents

[Alwyn]

I see why Medieval II is so popular with players and AAR writers alike, both in terms of providing ideas for characters and story-lines. Acamality, I look forward to reading your Britannia AAR, if you write one.

As you said, waveman, we have the freedom to make things up (I've done a lot of that with my previous and current AARs using Empire Total War), whether or not the game supplies them. I agree that agents can be a great resource for writers - obviously, we can make them up too. I guess, when agents are on the campaign map (as in Rome: Total War, Empire and presumably Medieval II), and then an AI agent suddenly appears, then that can inspire writers to work out (in relation to our plot and characters) why they are there.