The Huns and the Campaign

[AnonMilwaukean]

First off, I really enjoy the Huns. There's a real challenge when you can lose, essentially, a whole city even when you are the aggressor; every army is also, economics-wise, a city. And having mechanics that discourage just throwing all the armies together is well-thought-out.

But one problem: the whole campaign map comes after me no matter where I am. I was playing just on Hard as the Huns in one of my first real attempts to get through a campaign, and I noticed that factions from across the world would declare war on me. Well, no big deal, right? Especially because many of those factions (Egypt, for one), were at war with factions much closer to them than me. Right?

Wrong. There's nothing as funny and depressing at the same time as when Iberia, Egypt, the Visigoths, the Sassanids, and the Franks all have a full-stack army magically converging on you near modern-day Moscow, where your last two armies withdrew to after two others were ganged up on in Iberia by everyone for 400 miles. I mean, seriously, I expected to have a few factions chasing me, as at least the Franks were at war with no one else but me, the Huns. But, just, come on: for one, I pulled back into the forests at the northern edge of the steppe, so my armies should be invisible. But, secondly, the Sassanids are still at war with the ERE, which shares a border with them while I am much further north, while Egypt is also at war with the ERE.

I mean, congratulations on getting the AI factions to actually work cooperatively (all armies arrived in the same 2-3 turns, coming from different directions and boxing me in), but would it be too much to expect that once I go down 25 spots in terms of power that maybe the AI starts worrying about the people literally across the border from them.

I haven't played enough to see if this is just a Hun thing, or if it happens with other player-controlled factions as well, but when I play as the Huns, I get dog-piled in surprising fashion even after I'm no longer as much a threat. Worse, though, is that I can go into the middle of nowhere and get hidden in a forest and these strangely persistent factions still can find me as though they have GPS and my address is 100 Main Street.

Honestly, anyone else experienced this?

And if this is happening because I am on Hard, then they really, really amped up the difficulty level. Because Hard on R2 was not nearly this merciless.

[Lugotorix]

I'm playing on Hard as the Ostrogoths. Picts, Caledonians, Burgundians, Alamans, Bastarnians, Abasgians, they all travel across the world to hunt what remains of my forces after the Huns wrought destruction on my great kingdom. They betrayed me, and most of us were allies against the Huns. Except for the Abasgians, they were the villains of history, spearheading Hunnic attacks in the old kingdom.

[AnonMilwaukean]

Well, then it sounds like it isn't just playing as the Huns, then.

Funny thing is, Abasgians attacked me in my campaign as well... and as I already said, I was playing as the Huns! So, maybe they just made the gap between Normal and Hard a lot bigger, this time. Also, I find it encouraging that Picts and Caledonians attacked you, because that means Britannia actually is involved in the game, now. In R2, the Britannic Tribes virtually never came onto the continent in my campaigns... so, if they actually send armies out, that's a good sign of sorts. But, yes, still troubling that peoples from northern Britannia were seeking you out in what was probably the area of Macedonia/Thrace (depending where you settled).

But yeah, from what you wrote, sounds like Hard has been ramped up a notch from the Hard of R2...

[Lugotorix]

Well, then it sounds like it isn't just playing as the Huns, then.

Funny thing is, Abasgians attacked me in my campaign as well... and as I already said, I was playing as the Huns! So, maybe they just made the gap between Normal and Hard a lot bigger, this time. Also, I find it encouraging that Picts and Caledonians attacked you, because that means Britannia actually is involved in the game, now. In R2, the Britannic Tribes virtually never came onto the continent in my campaigns... so, if they actually send armies out, that's a good sign of sorts. But, yes, still troubling that peoples from northern Britannia were seeking you out in what was probably the area of Macedonia/Thrace (depending where you settled).

But yeah, from what you wrote, sounds like Hard has been ramped up a notch from the Hard of R2...

They're all the way down in Spain now. I've been at war with the British factions for years now, and they always send expeditions wherever their enemies are. The Irish (Ebdani) kept demanding wives (they're the only faction that was doing this), and then went to war with me when one of their allies made them choose anyways.

[Yerevan]

But one problem: the whole campaign map comes after me no matter where I am. I was playing just on Hard as the Huns in one of my first real attempts to get through a campaign, and I noticed that factions from across the world would declare war on me. Well, no big deal, right? Especially because many of those factions (Egypt, for one), were at war with factions much closer to them than me. Right?

The same happeened to me in Normal difficulty. At one point I decided to run back to the north of the black sea to punish one of my first puppet state who had betray me and grow big and fast killing my allies, etc.. My surprise, arriving in Cherssonessos has been to see 5 armies on my back (Ostrogoths, ERE, Bastarnae) and coming in the same time from the east, 3 sassanid armies. Ere and Sasasnids, I was at war with but had no time to burn one of their cities.

[the_mango55]

I'm playing the Huns and I don't know if I'm having a bug or if this is intended.

I have two Heirs as the huns. One is Attila and the other is the Kan's son. I had the same issue before the Last Kan died, when Attila and the current Kan were both heirs, and the other guy got it when the king died. Maybe it went by age, but the new heir is ALSO older than Attila, so I don't want him to miss out on leadership again.

Is assassination the only way to ensure that Attila gets the crown when the current guy dies?