Micromanaging?

[avesta]

In RTW I got very bored with stacking units, moving them around, choosing what buildings to construct etc. I just want to fight the battles - large ones though.
However, when I used automanagement, my empire would slowly fall apart due to bad decisions by the AI.
Ideally, I want an intelligent system whereby one can choose a general range of what units should be built and what structures - economic or military, and let the computer do pretty much everything else.
Has there been any mention of improvements to the auto managing of the AI?

[Giurza]

custom battles then is the right thingy for you... but me personnaly I think it is a great stepback if you don't manage your empire, you loose 80% of the gamefun ...

[0ldboy]

Try the SPQR mod. That gives you large and lengthy battles.

[avesta]

Try the SPQR mod. That gives you large and lengthy battles.

that's for RTW, I'm talking about MTW2.

It's not that I hate managing , I just feel that it's quite tedious sometimes and I just want to go out there and kill my enemies!

[Markas]

If anything I'd increase the amount of options to manage. I mean, it wouldn't be mandatory but you could 'switch off' all the elements if you don't want to manage your empire down to the last peasant.

I suppose it depends on your gaming background. People that play RTS's may want to play battles mostly whereas strategy gamers may want lots of management. Personally I'm the latter as I hark back to the days of Colonization, Panzer General etc

Note- My differentiation between RTS's and strategy games is deliberate!

[Giurza]

Markas, you beat me to it! do you have to be so right all the time? he he he
but indeed it is the question of preferences. and btw I do understand why you differentiate between RTS and strategy... you take it in a more military differentiation fashion:
tactical level - RTS
operational level
strategical level - strategy games
political level

[Markas]

Markas, you beat me to it! do you have to be so right all the time? he he he
but indeed it is the question of preferences. and btw I do understand why you differentiate between RTS and strategy... you take it in a more military differentiation fashion:
tactical level - RTS
operational level
strategical level - strategy games
political level

Thankyou yes. If clicking on a barracks building and having XXXX uber units trash the enemy and calling it strategy then I reserve the right to call myself Jesus of Nazareth. A fundamental element of startegy are decisions based on terrain, potential losses/gains, leadership, force composition etc. If you can't decide any of those things it ain't strategy GRRRRRR must calm down....

Back on topic, it annoyed me about RTW was the stuff they took out of MTW that gave it flavour, e.g add-ons for fortifications etc. RTW seemed thinner as a result but I suppose it was the first time the 3d campaign system was used.

EDIT- Damn just got told off by the boss for wasting company time. Giurza, I may need your 'force grip' ability....

[Giurza]

it is quite too early to ask for advice on M2TW isn't it? or you have a bloody demo on your hands???!!! ah? he? he?
... alright I'm not spaming anymore... but seriously how on earth can you ask advice on a game that has no demo yet???

[Giurza]

he he he... quite right there... tell your boss that I will reach him and grab his throat with my Force!!! (after that he should let you chat as long as you want)
and yes I agree, my comparising of strategic levels with games is lame, but only due to shalow developing of those games... but that has been discussed maaaaany times over and over again...

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU my english friend

[avesta]

...you guys are losing it
I was just asking if there had been any info released on micromanagement.

[Sponge]

You can change if the AI spends all the money you make or save it , in the campaign click on your faction icon at the bottom right then at the bottom of the panel that appeared will say if the AI should spend or save :happy0144

[Lord Janos]

I'm sure that there will be options available for those who don't wish to micromanage their empire and who primarily want to fight large battles (don't know why you'd want to play the campaign if that's all you like doing in the game though).

Myself, i hope for a lot more micromanagement options - mandatory training/conscription regimes in my empire perhaps, the ability to oversee what my trade network is producing, a more in-depth spy network (something like the spy networks used in Raymond E. Feist's Empire series - lots of spies work independently as normal men in their daily lives, whilst providing information for a spy master to co-ordinate and relate back to the Lord of Lady - it's nice but not necessary... i just find it unrealistic that an empire potentially only has 2 or 3 spies operating for them, when in fact they'd have lots), i'd like to see titles back in as well like we had in Medieval 1. Just little things like that which increase immersion and playing time.

[avesta]

I'm sure that there will be options available for those who don't wish to micromanage their empire and who primarily want to fight large battles (don't know why you'd want to play the campaign if that's all you like doing in the game though).

I think it's because in RTW, it's very difficult and tedious to manage everything. For example, I'd often forget to move my spies/diplomats because the game didn't automatically prompt me to do so; I'd have to remember to go into the Agents Manager screen and choose each one individually, one after another. I'd also have no efficient way of moving all my army stacks one after another, since the Army Manager screen would show all the units in the game, even ones fortified inside a settlement.

I remember when I used to play Civ3, I could zip by a turn in a matter of 45 seconds since everything was so efficient and it prompted me to move every unit one after another. I just hope MTW2 will make it easier and more efficient, WITH LESS MOUSE CLICKS.

[mark0701]

I carve the game up into two parts:

1) Military

This is both strategic (what units to build where, what composition I want for which army, where to place my armies to get the maximum use out of them) and tactical (killing as many of the other guys forces as possible with the least losses to my own forces).

I also think this would include which buildings to build and setting of tax levels as these all dictate the forces available to you.

As you can't have "peaceful expansion" this is a core element of the game and I never get bored of this part of the game

2) Optional extras (or micromanagement hell as I prefer to call it)

Spies, Priests, assassins, marriages, titles, diplomacy are the things that get on my nerves once I've reached the half way stage of the game and that have minimal impact on the core game and can basically be ignored IMO.

I'd love to have an option to automate my agents as most of the time I just forget they are there until they die!

[Dave of the West]

If anything, I've always found Rome to be far more streamlined than Civ, especially when managing settlements.

[Lord Janos]

Managing settlements in Civ is a lot more complex than Rome. There's nothing to manage in Rome! All you do is decide which units you're going to train/re-train, which building to build next, and how high you want the taxes to be. In Civ you have all that, as well as specialists, research, culture, etc. to deal with, as well as having to decide carefully which buildings to build in each city due to them having to be specialised to be competitive. To be honest, i'd prefer a good game of Medieval to a game of Civ, but there are a lot of turn-based aspects of Civ that CA could learn from and build upon.

[Scarlett Letterman]

I've been playing Hearts of Iron 2 for the past few months and I'm starting to worry how I'll ever go back to the total war series! There's so much micromanaging in HOI2 that I fear M2TW will bore me. Not to mention its AI is so friggin good, I pray M2TW won't be a huge step down.

So I say more micromanaging! Its the best part of the game.

[avesta]

Managing settlements in Civ is a lot more complex than Rome. There's nothing to manage in Rome! All you do is decide which units you're going to train/re-train, which building to build next, and how high you want the taxes to be. In Civ you have all that, as well as specialists, research, culture, etc. to deal with, as well as having to decide carefully which buildings to build in each city due to them having to be specialised to be competitive. To be honest, i'd prefer a good game of Medieval to a game of Civ, but there are a lot of turn-based aspects of Civ that CA could learn from and build upon.

It's true that there's more to manage in Civ as you said, but somehow it felt like less work. Maybe just the unit moving thing in rome that I mentioned makes it more tedious.

[Beiss]

It'd be pretty nice to have some kind of central government in M2TW, so that when your empire grows too large to care care of every settlement individually, you can just set up some general guidelines for your governors. I also hope that M2TW will not ask of you to conquer half of the world. I'd prefer to be challenged by conquering a small number of settlements than fighting 50 cakewalk battles and end up having to bother with micro-managing things.

Also, what you said about micro-managing settlements is true for battles as well - if you let the AI fight the battle for you, you always end up with more casualties than if you'd fought the battle yourself. You also end up killing less enemies, and your units receive less valor points. In short, letting the AI do things for you in RTW is a possible, but not viable option.

[Barbarian-Bob]

I kinda agree with OP. It just got too boring in the end-games. If you have 50-60 provinces, why go on? You know you're gonna win anyway, and if that wasn't enough, it was boring as hell building the same buildings over and over, killing the same annoying rebels over and over, (who you KNEW you were gonna beat anyway) killing the endless hordes of stupid AI units over and over. Don't get me wrong, I loved RTW (still do) but you just don't care in the end. I still felt the same way after playing SPQR mod. Very fun beginning, lots of stuff happening, much uncertainty, then you get the steamroller effect, and everything turns into a micromanaging and boring nightmare.