A few hints to help those frustrated...
I always take an open-minded approach whenever a new game comes out in a series, knowing that the developers will get creative and come up with new ways to challenge us(or frustrate us). Before the flaming, I'm a 25 year old gamer with a job, over 200 games on just steam alone, and have been playing TW since Shogun 1 came out. I've played them all except Napoleon, even though I own it but have never found the time to download it on steam(it's like 30 gigs!!)
Like a lot of people, the graphics seemed very low res to me both on campaign map and the battle map despite the default for my computer being extreme. Creative Assembly posted that checking the unlimited memory in the graphics option might work as a fix. It sure did! My cpu and graphics card fans still get very loud while playing. I'll patiently wait for the patches to fix that but the game is still playable.
I did not play the prologue campaign. I opted to instead leave campaign and battle advice on high. I prefer the game teach me about things when I choose to do them(which it does a good job of emphasizing new features) rather than holding my hand through basics I already know like camera movement.
I'd like to post some helpful things I've discovered to help players understand the new interface and features so that they can enjoy this game as much as I am. I remember getting frustrated with some games as a kid until I read some guides that gave me new ideas and strategies to try out. I'll try to first address some major problems people have.
Public Order
Cities and towns are no longer lone entities.
1. Public order is shared between all cities in a province.
2. What you do with a city after you capture affects public order in all cities in that province.
3. Conquest creates an automatic lump negative amount in provincial public order, however it is only for 1 turn.
4. If a province reaches -100 public order, a rebellion occurs.
5. Having public order in the negative creates gradually worsening affects on growth rate and taxes. Having a high public order actually increases growth rate and taxes.
6. If you mouse over the public order bar in settlement details, it will tell you what is affecting it as well as how many turns you have until a rebellion at the current rate of decline. If public order is increasing or still, it will say public order is stable.
7. Culture plays a significant but balanced role. Buildings of a different culture will have a negative effect. To increase your culture, either build temples that promote your culture or send in the new dignitary unit. If you fully subvert an enemy province to your culture, you won't need much of a garrison army for long before public order starts going positive.
8. Do not add building slots to cities unless you have the funds to fill them. Empty building slots will always turn into slums which have a -6 food and -6 public order effect on the entire province. Slums cost 500 denarii to destroy, loss of a turn, plus whatever else you have to spend to fill that slot.
9. Carefully manage the amount of slaves in your empire. Slaves can significantly boost the wealth generated by your empire but at the cost of public order. I find the perfect balance is between 15%-20% of an economic bonus. For me that's currently enough to support an extra 20 stack army without the risk of a slave rebellion.
10. Political instability will be annoying until you capture all settlements in a province.
Agents
1. Agent abilities are highly useful. They can sabotage the baggage train, removing any weapon or armor bonuses. They can subvert morale, remove all the movement points, or take an enemy general out of action just before you attack.
2. Spies obviously make great scouts but fill the role of both spy and assassin in previous games. When attached to an army they help protect it from other agent attacks. I always have a spy with my popular generals as other houses often try to assassinate them.
3. Dignitaries increase your culture in a province but can be "deployed" in a friendly province to boost public order and tax income. You can also attach them to armies to reduce upkeep costs. I currently have one attached to a 20 stack army of almost all legionaries who reduces their upkeep cost by 20%! Add in the raiding stance for an even bigger reduction.(This should help you barbarian players).
4. Champions can help with public order when deployed in a province by instilling national fervor in the populace. When attached to armies, they actually add experience to all units in the army every turn which can be increased as he levels up. This is how I got an army with several units of legionaries with 3 gold chevrons earlier than I thought I would.
5. Agents can all attack each other through different means, but they have the highest chances of success when used in a rock-paper-scissors fashion. Champions kill spies who kill dignitaries who kill champions.
Battles
1. Holding control will always force a unit to walk as well as maintain formation if moving a group.
2. Units that are heavily disciplined will not automatically chase routing units. If given a choice between having my men break the line to chase routing enemies, opening themselves up to be flanked and slaughtered or catch their breath for the next wave of the assault, I'll choose the latter.
3. Town centers will no longer make units immune to routing and cause unrealistic fights to the last man. If you want to see a lot of casualties, put all your men close together in the town center and watch that massive ball of doom turn into a massive route and slaughter.
4. Use the new line of sight system!!! I can't stress this enough. It is so awesome. You can still use it to ambush enemies even inside of a town or city. The AI will pursue targets it sees as vulnerable. I've used tall grass to make the AI think one area of beach was safe to land, only to be met by a hail of javelins and a horde of war dogs when they disembarked.
I will add more tips and advice as more people whine about gameplay features they don't understand and as I discover them.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Nota'
Drink Whiskey and you'll feel better.
