How to watch total war factions duke it out alone?

[carto738]

So, on Mount & Blade: Warband (A game in which have a deep, dark passionate feeling for) I made a save where I just used infinite camp and watched the factions duke it out without the players (my) intervention. I did this because I like seeing how things will turn out in such a game if the player did not help said factions destroy another said faction.

I got interesting results aswell (I did this twice, but I stopped usually after a few years in game) and the results were similar yet different at the same time. For example, in both playthrough the Khergit Khanate was quickly eliminated, although in one game, the swadians were eliminated while in the other game the swadians thrived. In one game the Vaigers made a vast empire but soon collaped to the Sarranids, while in the other game the Vaigers were the most powerful faction.

I love this quite dearly, and it is quite the time waster. Is there anyway I could bring this to the total war series? I would prefer it for Medieval 2 and Napoleon Total War. (Both because of mods ) I've seen some very, very interesting videos on youtube that bring this laid back viewing type of playing a lot on a game called Europa IV. Especially if you put in the forever war mod or something like that.

Anyways, any idea on how to do this? I tried googling but to no avail.

[Abdülmecid I]

I'm not sure if it could work in Steam games, but that's what I did in R1 and M2: You just need to edit the name of your shortcut and add "-ai". For example:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Total War\Rome Total War\RomeTW.exe" -ai

Also, you could add "-ne", so you could get the game into windowed mode and use your PC for something else, like browsing the Internet, while the AI is busy expanding.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Total War\Rome Total War\RomeTW.exe" -ne -ai

It's a useful way to see how appropriately you balanced the factions in a modded game.

[carto738]

When I do this I get a fatal error.

CA_LIBS

Medieval II suffered a fatal error and will now exit.

I tried :p

[Abdülmecid I]

Hmm, that's strange. Unfortunately I currently don't have access to the PC where I installed R1 and M2, so I can't test it myself. Is your M2 game a digital copy on your steam library? Also, you coulld try a different shortcut name, like not adding any space, before "-".

[carto738]

Ya, I forgot to say it was a steam version :p . Sorry to waste your time. I tried many different ways, I even tried to add it in via launch options. All well.

[cenkiss]

Play as rebels by changing the descr.strat file. At some point only the cities in america will be left to you. You can just end turn constantly, you will even continue with no cities or units. You can change the pirate and rebel rate to something like 999 if you don't want something spawning every turn from that same file.

[Abdülmecid I]

Ya, I forgot to say it was a steam version :p . Sorry to waste your time. I tried many different ways, I even tried to add it in via launch options. All well.

No worries, my friend, but cenkiss may have a point. Rebels are basically an inactive fraction, busy with spamming low-tier units behind your front, to make your life harder. Brigands tend to focus on the towers you may have built in the provinces they spawned, but that's all. The already existing rebels are more active, trying to attack you, if one of your armies invades their territory, but they're always defensive, no imperialist megalomaniac plans here, so I think his suggestion is pretty clever.

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

There is a way with M2TW it requires kingdoms, basically start a hotseat but only play as one faction, don't disable the console, and using the console '~' type in control 'faction' to switch your ai control. for example playing as England type in control england. If you want to jump back into the campaign after a couple turns just type in control england again. using toggle_fow you can see the entire progression of the game.

For RTW just put -ai in the command line options.

Interesting note is that in RTW I find Britannia and Egypt conquer everything. In Barbarian Invasion the ERE pretty much conquers the map. In M2TW sometimes the pope goes warmongering on fellow catholics, and the timurids can overrun the map if they settle down quickly. Poland also always does well early game, but Russia tends to gain the upperhand in late game. HRE gets chewed up from all sides, and france tends to have a serious milanese problem.

[Abdülmecid I]

Yeah, Egypt and the Britons always blitz the map. Probably it has something to do with the wealth of Egypt and the advantages of chariots in auto-resolving. Only once, the Greek Cities, owning only Pergamon, manage to conquer everything from Libya to Caucasus. In BI, on the other hand, it's usually the Sassanids that steamroll everyone, thanks to their protected starting position.