RS 2.6 Feedback - Too Easy?

[Medieval Knight]

Hello Roma Surrectum community!!

I want to give some Feedback based on my Campaign i'm playing right now. I play Total War games for some years already but i guess on RSII i have rather medium playing experience. Playing as Rome, 0 Turn, Hard Campaign Difficulty, Medium Battle Difficulty, Alexander Exe, no steam version, RS 2.6 version, no garrison script.


Ok so here the report:

First of as Rome i get the Carthagians out of Italy and also get the cities back from the Roman rebels. Right after that the next step was to conquer Northern Italy. Then i went to Macedonia and right now i have 3 cities conquered.
The thing which annoys me is why is there barely any resistance? Especially from Macedonians i expected some resistance when there is a faction trying to conquer their homelands. Yeah sure, i turned of the garrison script but i mean it's 0 turn. So i expected actually some stack spam towards me. Macedonia has some stacks, true. But they are only to slow down the conquering and not to fight me back.
It seems the neighbours of the player in the early game stage do not have a chance to develop. When looking at rankings, you can see only the seleucid and greek city states are represented adequately in their military strength to their possession of territories. The other factions are a lot weaker. Playing as Rome as in my example, you can easily raise loads of more troops without getting into money struggles. That means that rome (the player) has lots of reserves for a long war. So even if Macedonia showed more resistance, i could sent even more troops against them. The player has so much money reserves because of the following i think:

It is inteded as far as i know that the player gets only little amounts of bonuses and lots of penalties with most buildings. But if i avoid to build most buildings and only concentrate on a few necessary like a temple and military buildings then you can avoid to get those penalties and save a lot of money at the same time. And that's what i did in this campaign so far. Of course i use governors to increase the income and try to set the taxes on High. Well and the money seems to explode.


Would be nice if others can make a statement about this and what they experienced in RS 2.6 so far concerning this topic.

[The_Judge]

If you want a heavy campaign, play SPQR mod (as Rome of course). Even at easy/easy it may be quite difficult to survive the first turns.

[est Dudus]

Try 1 turn roman and use a bit of house rules....even without the house rules it is tough.... I have played ever total war and this is one of the hardest I have done. If you don't exploit and never load a save---like if disaster strikes, one turn is very, very, very challenging....I play hard/hard.

[ferike_2007]

Yeah sure, i turned of the garrison script but i mean it's 0 turn.

There is only one thing you can do: delete your saves and restart the campaign with garrison script. As Ant909 says try 1-turn if the 0-turn battles are too much for you.

Regarding the gameplay, I usually take Massalia and made it quickly a bridgehead for further expansion in gauls territories, I take Segestica also and made it also a military settlement for further expansion in south direction, toward Macedon and Greece.

In my last campaign I managed to keep even Emporiae but was a logistic nightmare to replenish it with troops until I reached the level I was able to create proper troops here. I fought a lot of brutal battles with the allied(!) Gallaeci-Carthagian armies.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

1 turn - full garrison script.......... H/M is very good, often extremely good, but you could try H battles for 'harder'.

The one restraint you should impose on yourself, however, is not to 'blitz'. Anything else is to taste.

[Medieval Knight]

Thanks for your opinions so far, but 1 turn doesn't need to be harder than 0 turn. In 1 turn the fights are even more decisive, which means if i beat the enemy once they get signifcantly more weaker than on 0 turn. With Blitz you mean probably to go very fast forward in conquering, right? But why shouldn't i do it when i have the money for such a war? i think the problem is the money and the economy is too easy for the player. if the economy situation would be harder it is also harder to go for fast conquering. I hope that in future patches the player has less money.

About garrison script: It's also easy to avoid the garrison script. Use spies and siege weaponry and you can directly attack a city without any garrisons spawning.

[Alavaria]

Thanks for your opinions so far, but 1 turn doesn't need to be harder than 0 turn. In 1 turn the fights are even more decisive, which means if i beat the enemy once they get signifcantly more weaker than on 0 turn. With Blitz you mean probably to go very fast forward in conquering, right? But why shouldn't i do it when i have the money for such a war? i think the problem is the money and the economy is too easy for the player. if the economy situation would be harder it is also harder to go for fast conquering. I hope that in future patches the player has less money.

Check the thread about the economy that's stickied.

Basically from your initial post, you figured out or stumbled upon the strategy that nearly "breaks" the game. Most people don't handle the economy in that manner (I myself just love building heh). Actually for Rome 0-turn especially, many people have issues supporting the troops they need.

[kyrkac]

i don´t understand,you are complaining about how easy this mod is and if people give you adice you come whit that: About garrison script: It's also easy to avoid the garrison script. Use spies and siege weaponry and you can directly attack a city without any garrisons spawning. ??? i don´t get it

so again 1. garrison script
2. house rules
3. have a good game

[Medieval Knight]

Ok sorry for all misunderstanding. i meant when you activate the garrison script that it won't work if you still use mechanics like spies and siege weaponry. If you have it enabled and use spies or siege weaponry (onagers) you can attack in the same turn as you go to siege a settlement. In this case there will be no garrisons, despite you enabled this option. If you don't use spies and siege weaponry then of course the garrison script works, because you have to wait at least 1 turn until the siege equipment (ladders for example) is ready. 1 turn is needed that the garrison spawns in a settlement. i hope i said it better now what i mean

2. Ok with House rules you mean that you do not use spies in your game for example?


Thanks for all feedback so far!

[Medieval Knight]

@Alavaria: i guess you mean this thread: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ations-elusive

well i know this one! great explanations about how the economy works.
[e.g.: Tax bonus based buildings don't help in most cases because of the many tax penalty based buildings and so on]

And yes after reading it i figured out about the strategy how to get much money. As said i barely build buildings and don't get into trouble. Even the opposite is the case, i go better without building them, because of the little bonuses you get. The result is swimming in money. This leads to loads of armies and that's why the player is too powerful as i wrote above. In the economic thread i read you do build non-stop. But why? Those small bonuses aren't worth it in my opinion. Okay some military buildings and public order but that's it. It needs to be siginificantly important to build more buildings, so the player's wealth gets back down to normal conditions. In your case: what is the use to build more? tell me please!

0 turn: as in my case macedonia doesn't force me into a shortage of troops. i think that's because of the economic superiority of the player (playing as Rome).

[Thasildur]

If you find normal RS2 too easy and you like playing Rome, you can always try the "Five Good Emperors" submod. On hard campaign and hard battles, with some house rules like never retrain troops (this way you will rarely get more than 2 silver chevron units), it will be changeling even for experienced players.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Firstly consider a 'house rule' on spies - only use them to 'Spy' out the land - forward watch towers, effectively. Don't use them to open settlement gates.

Secondly, make sure that you stick to the 45min timer. Then yes, if you slow your advance and take siege equipment with you, you do have the option to attack immediately. But the timer will help increase the risk that, unless you attack at 3:1 odds (palisade, can be higher with actual walls), you risk not winning. Then you can, instead, settle down to a siege and wait them out, when indeed the garrison script will fire.

1-turn also slows your own building, which is very effective at slowing you down, whilst not really disadvantaging the AI.

Play to some home rules and make it a bit more realistic - and enjoy. Lose an army in 1-turn and see the effect.......

[Medieval Knight]

Okay yeah that's some cool suggestions how you can get a more challenging game. It's just that you have to limit yourself on the abilites how to play with those house rules. Would be great if the game itself is hard enough so you don't need those house rules. That's why i hope that in future patches, the economic situation for the player gets harder For example that there is more a reason to build those buildings, because i don't see why i should build most of them.

Well, Garrison script. I just dislike the fact that they get an army for free and out of nowhere. Yeah i know about Five Great Emperors mod, great one! But the mod is only for the 1 turn campaign in RS2 right? I like to play 1 and 0 turn, that's not the question here. I just want the harder challenge. In 0 turn for example retraining isn't that much useful because it's probably faster to muster a new army instead of sending your old army back to home regions, retrain them and send them back to the front.

[Ovidius Empiricus]

Well, Garrison script. I just dislike the fact that they get an army for free and out of nowhere.

The point is that the faction-recruited armies aren't enough for guaranteeing they have a somewhat realistic defense in place, given the minimal time to muster it from the people living there (at least for the major settlements). In a few turns, those faction-recruited armies get whiddled away or turned in crazy directions to fight some pointless battle where they aren't really needed. And they're replaced by armies with a composition that is often very far from optimal. Whatever might happen, there is no "AI" that this game could possibly have to match what any human strategist can do with the campaign map. For that matter, no game is like that, nor will there be one any time in the near future. So, that is where human-devised scripting comes into play, to try to make up for that fact. It makes sure the "AI" can't simply ignore the threat you're posing by taking its territories, since those are vastly more important for it strategically than some random field battle elsewhere that it might prioritize. That is how it gets its troops and the money to support its troops -- it is top priority that it not lose a single settlement but only gains them, but of course you'll notice that doesn't generally happen for the AI factions even with the garrison script.

It comes "out of nowhere" in more or less the same way an army comes "out of nowhere" when it is recruited. The place where it comes is exactly the city that is meant to be defending, which is why it is there.

And if they weren't "for "free," you would have to ask for even less (non-building-related) economic support as the player to even the score some more, since you already believe there is too much player money with the sort of army-focused, no-construction, 0-turn blitz campaign that you think you want to play. They should apparently have more money relative to you, but they're not expected to see those benefits in the form of a scripted garrison, nor should they build anything. They should play like you and only make big armies that sit at home, waiting for you to attack. But the biggest reason your strategy works has to do with the timing: it's not a sound plan in the long term, to raise a huge and expensive army that will just sit there and defend, while not spending a large part of your income on economic development (however minor that development may be). At the beginning it works okay, but the bills pile up over time. But if you also want less base income for the player (again, not accounting for buildings, which require a lot of time), that will make the beginning of the campaign impossible as well.

One thing you should also keep in mind is your (possible) decision to exterminate a population when conquering it. (Did that money for you come out of nowhere? If not, then whence the money? It's not for winning the battle.) That generates a huge amount of income, just for clicking a particular button after having won an invasion battle, each and every time you do it. If you chose not to do that, for example, (1) you wouldn't get that money for doing nothing, (2) you would have to find other sources of income like taxes and trade and mining and farming, (3) the population would be higher so public order would suffer, therefore (4) you would not be able to blitz on to the next region quite so easily. That's because your taxes would need to be lower to avoid revolt (or bad governor traits), and you would need larger garrisons to keep things in check. You would then have to admit that many buildings actually do many useful things for you all at once, despite the fact that they don't come directly and obviously in the form of an immediate paycheck. Such building projects are money well-spent, and you probably earned it almost-honorably, at least without looting from civilians and so forth. I don't play 0-turn, but refraining from that kind of exploit is a house rule that you should consider either way, if things are too easy. If you don't count it as an exploit, it's a game mechanic that shouldn't have been there, if the goal of the game is to challenge the player and not punish the AI (which never does use it), so just don't use it yourself.

In 0 turn for example retraining isn't that much useful because it's probably faster to muster a new army instead of sending your old army back to home regions, retrain them and send them back to the front.

This is another house rule. Do it anyway. Rationalize it as "role-playing" or something. Your armies do need to be retrained and resupplied, etc. Keep them together, and make them spend the time going all the way back and waiting a season for retraining. You're focused on blitzing and moving too fast for the "AI" to keep up, but that's not the only or best or most fun/challenging/interesting way to win. Make your moves more slow and deliberate, make it slightly more challenging for you (it really can become a logistical nightmare, which honestly is part of the fun for me on the campaign map), and try to make the game a bit more realistic, all at the same time. Why not do that? The game shouldn't have to force you, along with everyone else, to play that way. That's up to you, not the game.

[dvk901]

I understand what the OP is talking about, and I know players have developed various ways to get around this essential 'bug' in any version of RTW with a mod, or Vanilla itself. The weaker factions just can't compete with the powerhouse ones...especially if you just gang tackle them right off the bat. Historically, Macedon was just a 'shadow' of itself at this time in history. In fact, ALL of the Greek states except Pergamon were in decline because of endless in-fighting, population losses, and outside pressures on their kingdoms. We attempted to help this situation by creating a trait system that raise 'emergency levy armies'....but I think this is often too late in many cases. You could essentially 'gut' a faction before the traits clear and the armies are actually raised..and by then they are on the verge of dying anyway.

In the next version of RS after 2.8, when we start working on individual campaigns, I'm hoping we can do some things differently. One of them that I have found interesting is that tying a faction's 'emergency levies' to the number of regions they hold (through scripting), and raising armies immediately and yes, somewhat profusely, has helped factions survive that were going down the drain fast. For example, I did a lot of testing with Seleucid, and found that between Parthia, Armenia, Pontus, the Ptolemies, and Pergamon...it was just too much for them to beat them all off. They were always getting hammered quickly. So I wrote a script where, if they held less than a certain number of regions, they not only got money, but full stack armies in several cities. This way, if they lost one of the cites, they would still get the armies in the others...at no cost, and with no population penalty. With this type of setup, Seleucid has survived a long time, and looks much like the historical Seleucid that gradually caved in, rather than folding in a few years.

For 0-turn, this could be a much better way to handle this....and in one-turn, a dumbed down version of the same. I also did this for Carthage, which was getting its butt kicked by the Gallacei all the time, and they also are putting up a much better fight. In fact, I tried to attack Carthage, and got driven out of Africa!

[ferike_2007]

I also did this for Carthage, which was getting its butt kicked by the Gallacei all the time, and they also are putting up a much better fight. In fact, I tried to attack Carthage, and got driven out of Africa!

Oh, thats a great news, a stronger Carthage will be a greater challenge. Honestly, taking Carthago and generally North-Africa was a cake-walk untill now. I even noticed they defend better and eagerly their Iberian cities than the African ones.

[fableofsea]

Oh, thats a great news, a stronger Carthage will be a greater challenge. Honestly, taking Carthago and generally North-Africa was a cake-walk untill now. I even noticed they defend better and eagerly their Iberian cities than the African ones.

I actually have to do the same thing as playing Carthage. I'm currently defending from the Gallacei and have to defend with one full stack against three. It's going to be a fun time.

[Alavaria]

I understand what the OP is talking about, and I know players have developed various ways to get around this essential 'bug' in any version of RTW with a mod, or Vanilla itself. The weaker factions just can't compete with the powerhouse ones...especially if you just gang tackle them right off the bat. Historically, Macedon was just a 'shadow' of itself at this time in history. In fact, ALL of the Greek states except Pergamon were in decline because of endless in-fighting, population losses, and outside pressures on their kingdoms. We attempted to help this situation by creating a trait system that raise 'emergency levy armies'....but I think this is often too late in many cases. You could essentially 'gut' a faction before the traits clear and the armies are actually raised..and by then they are on the verge of dying anyway.

Really, the real reason some people (heh) can just endlessly roll and others can't is because of AI. Campaign AI needs to get units to where they are useful. Now yes, garrison script puts them in the settlement. Putting aside artillery (very very high strategic value), the battle AI is pretty ok on field, but it is really bad in settlement defending.

In the next version of RS after 2.8, when we start working on individual campaigns, I'm hoping we can do some things differently. One of them that I have found interesting is that tying a faction's 'emergency levies' to the number of regions they hold (through scripting), and raising armies immediately and yes, somewhat profusely, has helped factions survive that were going down the drain fast. For example, I did a lot of testing with Seleucid, and found that between Parthia, Armenia, Pontus, the Ptolemies, and Pergamon...it was just too much for them to beat them all off. They were always getting hammered quickly. So I wrote a script where, if they held less than a certain number of regions, they not only got money, but full stack armies in several cities. This way, if they lost one of the cites, they would still get the armies in the others...at no cost, and with no population penalty. With this type of setup, Seleucid has survived a long time, and looks much like the historical Seleucid that gradually caved in, rather than folding in a few years.

For 0-turn, this could be a much better way to handle this....and in one-turn, a dumbed down version of the same. I also did this for Carthage, which was getting its butt kicked by the Gallacei all the time, and they also are putting up a much better fight. In fact, I tried to attack Carthage, and got driven out of Africa!

Hmm, I'm interested in seeing how much this will turn around this for Rome.

[Medieval Knight]

Okay interesting. Great to hear that changes are coming in future patches If i got it right, that additional armies is like the garrison script but a second garrison script beside the regular one. Okay, well i would prefer a economical solution, because when the player only can conquer that fast as his economy allows him, the AI factions can better compete. I am thinking with that about more harsh penalties for conquered settlements and especially of course the purpose of constructing the buildings as said above.

[dvk901]

the reason an 'economical solution' doesn't work in these situations is because of how the AI works. Given TIME, yes, an economical solution can help any faction. But the problem is that players have a different concept of 'time' than the AI does.
For example, herein lies the fault of the AI's concept of 'time', coupled with its perception of 'threat', and the loss of a city it owned. You march into an AI faction's territory, siege a city, and immediately choose to assault it. You take the city. The AI had no 'time' to stop that (unless you use a garrison script). First of all, the 'threat' part of the AI's workings is gone. You aren't a 'threat' now, but you have one of its cities. It wants it back...by default, but that may not be its biggest priority. It may now be interested in taking a 'slave' city. It may be under attack elsewhere. It may be short of money and\or troops and needs a few turns to acquire one or the other. There are a lot of things that essentially 'distract' the AI from dealing with YOU, so its response is always going to be chaotic and random.

In the mean time...you the player, who are focused on what you want to do, march an army over to a second AI city, assault and take that. The process is repeated...a 'threat' the AI has no time to respond to, and a city gone that takes away their income and ability to recruit. This is why 'blitzing' of any kind....even if you are just a 'mild blitzer', basically ties the hands of the AI and forces it into an untenable situation that it can almost never recover from. So the best two solutions...I feel...to this problem are first, to 'turtle' in your campaigns for a good long time. Built up your own forces and cities. Only attack to defend yourself, or at the most, simply take a given number of 'key' regions from the Free People and then consolidate. This alone will almost always result is campaigns that are more challenging IMHO.

The second thing, which I am proposing to add at some point, is a more 'instantaneous' way for the AI to respond to losing any of its 'core' regions. So let's say Macedon, for example, starts with 8 regions. At the point where it loses two of them to anyone (except for islands, where troops are bound to get stranded), it will start spitting out armies from a few cities until it gets back to '7' of them....and they will continue spitting out those armies until they either do get back to seven, or they are defeated. This is what I did with Carthage and Seleucid in my test campaign. Both factions have less than the number of regions they should have, and both spit out free armies that have allowed them to survive the assaults on them for a long time. Now, they do have to pay the maintenance on those armies...but I even give them money if they get below a certain amount.

I like to call this a 'Hornet's Nest' AI. You may take one its cities easily, but the next and the next will get harder and harder.