my fears confirmed, looks like this will be Total war: Total devesatation

[RedGuard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sADM88GxjKQ

at 10:00 , listen to Sun Jetsu explain it. Hopefully they will tone down the amount of desolation in the Beta build. Because I don't want to have to crawl back after losing cities to have to rebuild everything that I took a dozen turns to build. Imagine if the Huns decided to devastate Constantinople if they couldn't hold it. Basically say good bye to the ERE. I mentioned this in the thread here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...highlight=nuke

I hope this mechanic is planned out good, but to me it looks like the Rome 2 total starve problem we had in the first couple patches of Rome 2

otherwise I'm actually really digging the darker look and the new features on the campaign map (and Im glad the civies are back walking around, looks like they even have the same animation from Rome 1) and I think Attila will be much better polished than Rome 2 was until the EE.

[Tripledot]

If you let Constantinople get pillaged you deserve to lose the game . It certainly brings in a cool mechanic that will be of great use for mods (especially if provinces can be pre-set as desolate). AI rates to razing cities should probably be tweaked, though.

[RedGuard]

If you let Constantinople get pillaged you deserve to lose the game . It certainly brings in a cool mechanic that will be of great use for mods (especially if provinces can be pre-set as desolate). AI rates to razing cities should probably be tweaked, though.

im actually more worried about the AI letting Constantinople get pillaged, not the player. Any rational player would not let a barbarian army within a thousand leagues of the city, but the AI is known for leaving its cities wide open to attack. And if the goths happen to take it and sack it, the sassinids could easily wipe out the whole ERE because the ERE's economy would be crippled.

[NostalgiaFan]

I really hope this feature is never in another total war title. It just screams broken and seems like something the A.I. is just not capable of handling without it being overdone.
It has some reason to be in this game( I am being very kind to it right now) but if it were in say, China or Medieval 3, it would ruin a lot of the fun in conquering because you would be stuck rebuilding the newly conquered cites like Rome, Constantinople, Paris, London, Venice, Novgorod, ect. from the ground up after the other guy went Hiroshima on its ass which is tedious and and annoying.

[Achilles Lacedaemon]

The map doesnt have enough cities and villages to work out properly with this feature.

[Aenima]

Hmm, looks like we were all right about siege escalation taking place even if you didn't have siege engines in your army, since there are holes in the walls Constantinople when he assaults it despite a lack of artillery. Colour me surprised.

[Humble Warrior]

Hmm, looks like we were all right about siege escalation taking place even if you didn't have siege engines in your army, since there are holes in the walls Constantinople when he assaults it despite a lack of artillery. Colour me surprised.

So this is another `AI workaround` to avoid doing actual AI work? TW is a history of lazy work arounds.

CA needs to make AI a priority for a change. It`s one of the most important parts of TW games yet is treated as the least important. People need to complain more about a functioning `smart` AI and less about how burnt the ground is or unit colours or they`ll produce crap again.

[Sebor]

Hmm, looks like we were all right about siege escalation taking place even if you didn't have siege engines in your army, since there are holes in the walls Constantinople when he assaults it despite a lack of artillery. Colour me surprised.

Walls could be sapped like in the original Rome. That could explain it.

I did notice some settlements could take 16 turns to surrender

[Aenima]

Walls could be sapped like in the original Rome. That could explain it.

I did notice some settlements could take 16 turns to surrender

Yes, because the Goths, Franks and the Huns were renowned for their brilliance at siege warfare.

Unfortunately it's a work-around. It's either that and/or just an attempt to add in a cool "apocalyptic" feature just for the sake of itself.

[Butan]

Siege escalation is a bummer, but razing down settlements is a good feature. Like Tripledot said, if you dont defend important settlements accordingly and let them get razed, its your own damn fault!

But as RedGuard rightly said, it must be very tightly balanced, so hard the impact is on the game. If movement is too big, you could blitzkrieg with multiple armies and raze down very important places, it would be quite . Also if siege escalation is "too easy", the big walls that are supposed to protect important settlements will not have as much use, thus easing the razing scenario too much. If walls/towers/gates can be too easily put down by siege engines/torches, then it also works toward less defensive advantages for standing armies inside important settlements.

I dont fear that it will be ones of the things that can be modded, but I fear for vanilla users.

[geala]

Does someone really play vanilla TW games? Last time I did was M2TW if I remember correctly until I stopped because I hated the battlefield-cruising trebuchets.

[Riekopo]

The problem I see with the Raze mechanic and climate change "Winter is Coming" effect is how it will work with the way regions and provinces are setup. CA has created a region and province system that is highly (and I would say arbitrarily) interconnected and dependent so I have doubts that it will work well with Raze and the climate change in the game.

[Sebor]

Actually the climate change and Raze option works nicely together. If you have Hordes coming your way and you raze settlements and they are on those barrens lands in winter they will gain cold attrition as well as food shortage attrition.

[NostalgiaFan]

Actually the climate change and Raze option works nicely together. If you have Hordes coming your way and you raze settlements and they are on those barrens lands in winter they will gain cold attrition as well as food shortage attrition.

But that leaves out the problem of leaving most of the map barren along with the frustration of building it up which will take a while with how much it costs just to start a new settlement. I really hope they work on this to make it less overpowered and less likely to happen so it won't just pop up everywhere.

[Lionheart11]

The whole game is built around chasing after the crazy Ai burning everything with torches and fixing everything, how is that going to be fun?.

Not to mention the nuke animation

[DeliCiousTZM]

You think this is bad for the AI? I will have to live with this feature in Multiplayer campaign. Friendships will be broken.

[ShadowMassa]

Maybe the Raze option should be activated every 20 turns (5 years) or 40 turns (10 years) after the last razing. This way it will perhaps keep the AI from demolishing every city on the map.

[Butan]

It will most likely follow your predictions ShadowMassa, else it will be patched in fast after release, so obvious the problems related to a near instantaneous region nuking is, relative to its effects and the unability of the AI (and players too) to protect every settlements accordingly; especially when you take into account the recent "only general leads armies" rule, which makes it so that it is very hard to defend your faction (even taking into account the limited pathways on the campaign map).