How will players be challenged after their empires get too big? Mid/End game discussion.

[BunnyPoopCereal]

This article HERE says that internal fighting will be like the new realm divide and that you will feel AI factions taking notice of you. “They’ll be driven by the politics system. As you’re expanding, as a general rule, you will make a lot of enemies. Rather than Shogun 2’s very binary approach of Realm Divide, you’ll more feel like the world is starting to turn against you." This is a very broad statement that could really be interpreted in so many ways. It tells us what will happen as you expand your empire but it doesn't not explain how it affects you.

This is pretty much all that has been said to my limited understanding. It's a month until release and we are still not sure how the end game will play out. Will it be just like Shogun2's endgame? I found myself automatically resolving most battles just so I could bomb rush the last objectives. In my opinion FOTS had realistic winning conditions for minimum requirements, whereas Shogun 2's objectives required you to take 25 provinces! If I ever had that many provinces I would have too much money, power, and units for it to even be a challenge of any sort. Which is why I found myself auto resolving battles and spamming armies just to bomb rush settlements and this was in legendary difficulty.

Roma Surrectum mod has an interesting way of limiting the player for having too much power because those guys (the modders) know that once you reach a certain size there is nothing that can stop you. The RS team decided that if you get to an x amount of money in your treasury it will trigger a script that heavily reduces your per turn income (I may be wrong but that is the general idea). This to me was good for balance reasons. The most limiting factor for any Total War in general is money. Lets face it, money buys armies and without armies you can't win battles.

In recent news we learned of unit limits per faction and how our influence/traits determine how many units we can have. Even this has not been fully explained. Are the number of units available for recruitment limited by faction influence? Are armies limited by food? If you run low on food will your units leave your army? Are the number of armies allowed limited by certain factors like trigger events or Tech tree advancements?

[Revan The Great]

Well, one thing to consider is that the amount of armies you can have is apparently limited. I can't remember exactly how right now, but the number of armies you have is finite. So I suppose it's not like you can just spam a dozen stacks and go on a world conquest - for all we know you might only be able to have 1-2 stacks available to fight in a given region at any one time.

[Rasic]

I'm expecting a slightly more dynamic realm divide from what we've seen thus far. The relations penalty for expansion combined with "trading with enemy" type penalties will eventually turn all the AI's against you. Some will stay loyal if you haven't screwed them over in the past and they have places to expand besides your territory, but most will eventually hate you just for having a big empire. Then we have civil wars, limited amounts of armies, and I'm sure some kind of "distance from the capital" type modifiers that should in theory make it hard to maintain an empire late game.

How this all relates to what we'll actually experience in game who know's.

[jsully16]

Well, one thing to consider is that the amount of armies you can have is apparently limited. I can't remember exactly how right now, but the number of armies you have is finite. So I suppose it's not like you can just spam a dozen stacks and go on a world conquest - for all we know you might only be able to have 1-2 stacks available to fight in a given region at any one time.

But part of the Military Victory is to have at least 90 units.

That's 4+ full stack armies. I never won a Shogun 2 campaign with more than 4 full stack armies + garrisons in cities. That's with Realm Divide, too.

That'd be so sweet. My ideal is that superstar generals/political figures should be a double edged sword. It'd be awesome if one of your leading generals decides to go rogue and takes up a province of his own to start his own kingdom.

This happened to me in a Date campaign. I hated it at first, and was ready to quit the campaign, but decided against that. I had my main army led by my daimyo's brother, and didn't fight a single battle with my daimyo. His brother was a 5-star general with my strongest veteran army and was all the way down in Hojo lands when he took most my army and rebelled, killing the rest of the army. So I had to marshal up an army (at that point wasn't too hard, master weaponsmith + Date No-dachi and katana samurai) and have an epic showdown between brothers. Made for an interesting pre-RD scenario.

In short, that'd be pretty cool in Rome 2 as well.

[Revan The Great]

But part of the Military Victory is to have at least 90 units.

That's 4+ full stack armies. I never won a Shogun 2 campaign with more than 4 full stack armies + garrisons in cities. That's with Realm Divide, too.

Yeah, but say that you're playing as the Romans and you have an empire that corresponds somewhat to their historical empire - Italy, Africa, Gaul, Greece/Macedonia, Asia Minor, maybe Iberia. And you have four stacks to divide across three continents. It's a little different in Shogun where Japan is basically long and thin, meaning your empire spreads from the Northern to Southern coast of Japan and then you only really need to worry about attacks from, at worst, two directions. Plus in Shogun, every province has what's likely a very defensible castle. In Rome, only 1 in 4 provinces will even have the capability of being defended in a siege battle, so keeping 'defensive' armies around will be more vital.

Not to say that it still won't have a point where it gets too easy for the player, it just seems like that point will take longer to reach. Limited armies, and the lack of besiegable settlements will pose a big challenge to expanding empires, I predict.

[Spartacus041]

This happened to me in a Date campaign. I hated it at first, and was ready to quit the campaign, but decided against that. I had my main army led by my daimyo's brother, and didn't fight a single battle with my daimyo. His brother was a 5-star general with my strongest veteran army and was all the way down in Hojo lands when he took most my army and rebelled, killing the rest of the army. So I had to marshal up an army (at that point wasn't too hard, master weaponsmith + Date No-dachi and katana samurai) and have an epic showdown between brothers. Made for an interesting pre-RD scenario.

In short, that'd be pretty cool in Rome 2 as well.

Nice. Could you imagine two muscular well-oiled Parthian princes just wrestling over their family's kingdom, muscles glistening in the hot Median sun as they huff and puff and try to overpower each other - figuratively of course. Imagine this. You sent your fellow prince to supress a revolt, instead he changed flags and declared himself part of the minor faction and took up arms against you - guess his muscular glutes wants it's own throne to sit on. But you won't let that stand, he's been a bad boy and he has to be punished. So you take down your army of flexible and agile horse archers - suave and cool under pressure - their tactical edge in making the parthian shot is complemented by their attractive stylish silk shirts from China - benefits of the silk road - that comfortably form around their broad shoulders. At the center they are reassured by confident and masculine cataphract warriors in the prime of their testosterone-addled youth, they are ready to charge deep into the enemy formation at the ruling Surena clan's command - over and over and over again, till the enemy is broken. How will this battle go? Who knows. All we know is that it's a fight between real men and it's gonna get dirty.

That would be a most satisfying mid-game scenario. Definitely.

[Ahiga]

Well, one thing to consider is that the amount of armies you can have is apparently limited. I can't remember exactly how right now, but the number of armies you have is finite. So I suppose it's not like you can just spam a dozen stacks and go on a world conquest - for all we know you might only be able to have 1-2 stacks available to fight in a given region at any one time.

Come to think of it that's actually a great potential change. It used to be in realm divide that you were often strong enough that you could easily fight everyone. With armies limited you will feel more of a pinch - imagine having the Roman empire in scope but only being able to field 6 armies.

I hope that it will be a realm divide modeled after FOTS rather than the original Shogun 2. The Boshin war mechanic was far more realistic to international politics - if there is a big dog power then people will either bandwagon with that big dog or they will rally together into an opposition. Realm divide as it was in the original was terrible as it arbitrarily went with "Everyone will hate you and continue to hate you forever" - even if you were best allies previously.

[Sun Jetzu]

I think if you made it so theres internal fighting like revolutions and civil wars. and if some of the similiar factions either connected by trade, ethnicity or alliances would coalate against you. That might make it real interesting.

[The Useless Member]

So... Rome and carthage might have a civil war. What will parthia have? Parthia seems like the only faction that isn't a part of a DLC which seems to "add" more. They just seem like a one-region faction with little possibilities of a political system. Oh, and Parthia is different from Barbarians because you're "supposed" to unite tribes. MAYBE Pathia will be similar, but I still see very little possibilities to Parthia.

[Larkin]

1. Making it hard for the player to churn out limitless armies. A diverse economical management system where intelligent choices have to be made and balanced with cultural, military and happiness production - all of which cost money - to prevent the player from being able to reach an economic foundation off a small number of regions and blitz everything.

2. Making the AI genuinely good, obviously. If the AI spies your weaknesses and hits you where it hurts, resorts to guerilla warfare when they can't fight you in the open field and launching actual invasions, proper diplomacy to form alliances to stop you, blocks your trade, sabotages your cities - it would create a real challenge.

3. Having to manage your empire once it is a decent size. Generals needing attention or they'll lose loyalty and revolt. Making education (or indoctrination) to train governors to be loyal servants to the cause a priority or they may desert and take regions and large armies with them.

4. Allowing resurgance of factions in the form of rebel hordes in their native regions if the region isn't happy enough or has too many memories of their original culture. A balance between changing culture and avoiding revolt by not trying to change it too quickly. If the rebels capture the regional capital, the faction blossoms back as a major threat.

5. Civil War mechanics. Wars between two sons of an emperor, between an upstart son and his father.

6. Rationing. Not being able to just set your armies on a 20 year march across the steppes with no mechanics of supply and demand. Needing to have logistical chains from camps to your armies, via land or sea - that can also be added to diplomacy if you go through foreign territory - and having to manage food across your empire. What if there's not enough food for your cities and your armies? Decide where the food goes - risk soldiers deserting or people rioting.

7. A vast improvement on the "dilemmas" system of Shogun 2 and the government system of Empire/Napoleon to make those choices have genuine effects - for dilemmas to be major and minor and for the effects to be apparent and appropriate, for government elected officials to have personalities that can affect everyone and everything - in the same way the trait system should allow for very individual, diverse governors/generals/family members.

[fenianmenace]

6. Rationing. Not being able to just set your armies on a 20 year march across the steppes with no mechanics of supply and demand. Needing to have logistical chains from camps to your armies, via land or sea - that can also be added to diplomacy if you go through foreign territory - and having to manage food across your empire. What if there's not enough food for your cities and your armies? Decide where the food goes - risk soldiers deserting or people rioting.

This.

Also a feature I've always felt should be in Total War is that the loyalty of each of your generals should be recalculated each time your faction leader changes, giving an in game representation of the regime change.

[Spartacus041]

Can someone explain what Realm divide exactly is?

Also, to me the most awesome thing for late game dynamics was already done in Barbarian Invasions. And that was the concept of a breakaway rebel faction arising from your empire. Ie the Western Roman Empire would have provinces suddenly rebel and become "Western Empire Rebels" and you'd have to suppress the usurpers.

[Tankhive]

Can someone explain what Realm divide exactly is?

Also, to me the most awesome thing for late game dynamics was already done in Barbarian Invasions. And that was the concept of a breakaway rebel faction arising from your empire. Ie the Western Roman Empire would have provinces suddenly rebel and become "Western Empire Rebels" and you'd have to suppress the usurpers.

In Shogun 2 basically after a certain point every nation bands together and only fight you. Makes the late game a little harder, but also kills any diplomacy/role playing.

[Spartacus041]

In Shogun 2 basically after a certain point every nation bands together and only fight you. Makes the late game a little harder, but also kills any diplomacy/role playing.

I'd hate that for R2TW. That concept actually makes sense for Japan or any TW game based in one cultural zone. It simulates a civil war in essence.

In the Roman era that makes no sense. There was so much ethnic, cultural and civilizational divisions that nations generally did not band together to that extent to fight an ascendant empire.

[The Useless Member]

In Shogun 2 basically after a certain point every nation bands together and only fight you. Makes the late game a little harder, but also kills any diplomacy/role playing.

Realm divide was ing awful in s2. Up to a certain point it was just constant auto-resolving. It became easy when you owned half of Japan and a few other factions owned the other half.

[fenianmenace]

Can someone explain what Realm divide exactly is?

In Shogun 2, once your faction reached a certain level of "fame" (acquired by capturing settlements, building legendary buildings, etc.) a script ran that caused a massive penalty to your diplomatic relations with all other factions. This penalty increased over time.

[vietanh797]

Can someone explain what Realm divide exactly is?

it is something like this

[Sharpe]

I will probably stop playing and start a new campaign.

Can't beat that new campaign smell.

[DogSoldierSPQR]

Can't beat that new campaign smell.

Ahh...Isn't it just lovely?

On topic: Campaigns do get dull after a certain amount of time. For example, I went through about 160 turns into Roma Surrectum 2.5's campaign as the Romans. Before I get into it, those 160 turns were LOOOOONG!!!! So do not have any worries about Rome 2's 300 turns...believe me! Anyway, several factions had disappeared and all that really remains is constant battles with another massive faction. Which gets boring and repetitive so quickly you would'nt believe.

I can see this being a little different with Rome 2 because of the army cap. Would make things more strategic instead of two 50 minute-long battles right after each other which never meant much anyway because the next army you're going to fight will be out of recruitment in the next turn. I just hope that CA have a long-term plan for the campaign and not just short term. CA already knows via stats from Steam that most people restart the campaign when they reach the point of steam-rolling, which Bunny pointed.

[AngryTitusPullo]

I guess the longer the game gpes the more we'll see rogue general taking their whole army to rebel and up until it become civil war on large scale.