Is there any way to have actual fun with this mod on singleplayer?

[Schittzo]

Am I doing something wrong? Because every single campaign I've played on this game has been completely ruined by doomstacks launching into my factions and completely ruining the game for me. Here are my examples.

As the Kingdom of Denmark I moved quickly to secure the parts of Scandinavia I could before Norway could seize them. There I realized that the Norwegian starting castle is much more leveled than the Danish one and they were putting out better heavy infantry compared to my trash light inf. I managed to keep a firm grip on my settlements and was even beginning to take a few of their own. During this time I had tried repeatedly to secure an alliance with either the HRE or Poland but neither faction would have none of it, despite the diplomacy menu telling me the offers were very generous. They kept giving the same, we do not want an alliance with you at this time, message. Keep in mind this isn't the savage AI this is just the lusted AI. Pretty soon I was fighting on two fronts as a Norwegian stack were threatening my northern front while a full HRE stack and half of another one were about to take Arhus which had as big of a garrison as I could manage in the game. If I had continued my eco would've tanked and I probably would have been unable to support the little army I had left from constant fighting with the Norwegians.

The second attempt was as Novgorod, as I wanted to see how the Russian factions had changed. I was pretty much double teamed by the Cuman Khanate with full two stacks and the Kievan Rus who yet again had refused all offers of alliance no matter how generous. Literally the Cuman stacks were nothing but Penchengs or whatever they were called, which was very obnoxious to fight and was mostly my reason for giving up that one. Funny thing I noticed how the Cumans were completely safe in their huge empire against any invasions and could use as many stacks as they needed to against me. The AI just does not fight against itself sometimes. Which opens them up to steamrolling you since they can use their huge armies at will.

Finally I decided to play as the Kingdom of Sicily and tried to retake the Roman homeland. I was doing pretty well and stomping the Moors and Spanish in north africa which of course resulted in my excommunication because the pope is completely biased against you and will even excommunicate you for trying to defend yourself against an aggressor. I was doing well, until the Pope himself invades northern Sicily with a full stack of Italian cities units and even mailed knights which I have no idea how he got. It numbered 3000 and I had only a few garrisons along the coast because at no point did I expect the pope himself to decide to invade me.Along with another half stack by a family member and my relations with every single Christian faction dropped to their lowest point despite a couple of marriage alliances I had. Soon enough Venice began invading Sicily and I just gave up at that point. All of my armies were in North Africa and even if I got back in time I couldn't fend off several faction full stacks attacking me at once.

Seriously? I mean I get the fun of fighting against a strong enemy and beating a superior force but this is just insane. The AI will not have any alliances with you, will not negotiate, and will not fight against itself. Literally the entire world is ganging up on you and your feeble settlements and you are pretty much forced to take as much land as you can from the get go or otherwise get curb stomped by doom stacks.

I'm not really having fun with this. I get the concessions they've had to make with the horrendous AI but this is just overkill. So I repeat my question. What am I doing wrong? Are these just bad factions? What can I do to have fun with this game? I like challenge, and I like this mod a lot, I really want to have a long interesting campaign with it but it keeps literally just stomping on everything I had been working on and sends deathstacks at me like it's the Mongols.

[reaper101]

Huh. What difficulty? Playing Hard/Hard as HRE, and haven't had any problems.
If you're playing VH/VH, I recall deathstacks being a major nuisance. Mostly because it was French stacks, and with the power of cavalry here, would lose despite much better infantry and missiles....
My recommendation is to play the central factions: HRE, England, France, etc., and fight from there. Still quite a lot of challenge.
Or, if you want fun, try Scotland as a late era campaign. Wallace insta-army spawn will help you wreck the English

[MWY]

Stackspam is something which also annoyed me playing vanilla SS. Still you should probably consider that invading spanish territories should be punished by the pope. Why the hell not? You can try to secure alliances BEFORE going to war, and expand slower. And yes, usually the AI fights against itself.

If you want to try something different, try SSHIP. We tried to reduce stackspam as much as possible while still being a challenge to the player. We also overhauled the AI quite a bit (besides a lot of other changes).

[Schittzo]

Tried it. Aragon would have none of it. They invaded the eastern half of the Moors while I invaded the west. We were actually allies but they backstabbed me for my territories in the west. I had to retreat since I couldn't beat their stack at the time but when I returned and laid siege I get an instant papal warning which honestly I really have to call that out. The pope simply does not work well in this game, not just in SS but in vanilla as well. I get the idea and I appreciate it but it simply kills the pacing of this game where you are forced to wait seven turns to sit around or just fight anyway and get excommunicated. It's nice for some players but it just seems unnecessary and boring to me. And the AI fights against itself very rarely, and it usually only last five or so turns before they ceasefire, which is literally impossible to do even with factions where you are clearly beating them in the war.

[Påsan]

Am I doing something wrong? Because every single campaign I've played on this game has been completely ruined by doomstacks launching into my factions and completely ruining the game for me. Here are my examples.

As the Kingdom of Denmark I moved quickly to secure the parts of Scandinavia I could before Norway could seize them. There I realized that the Norwegian starting castle is much more leveled than the Danish one and they were putting out better heavy infantry compared to my trash light inf. I managed to keep a firm grip on my settlements and was even beginning to take a few of their own. During this time I had tried repeatedly to secure an alliance with either the HRE or Poland but neither faction would have none of it, despite the diplomacy menu telling me the offers were very generous. They kept giving the same, we do not want an alliance with you at this time, message. Keep in mind this isn't the savage AI this is just the lusted AI. Pretty soon I was fighting on two fronts as a Norwegian stack were threatening my northern front while a full HRE stack and half of another one were about to take Arhus which had as big of a garrison as I could manage in the game. If I had continued my eco would've tanked and I probably would have been unable to support the little army I had left from constant fighting with the Norwegians.

Denmark should be a relatively easy campaign. Granted I generally play as the Norwegians over the Danes for obvious self-indulgent reasons but getting an Alliance with them is generally not too hard even on Gracul. The Norwegians also generally field the same stuff as you and with some minor strategical planning you should be able to defeat them within 20 turns, and then from there on out you're practically safe up in Scandinavia. HRE and Poland dont want an Alliance because they really want to invade you. Try allying with the French or Lithuanians instead. Or if HRE and Poland is at war, you could ally with either.

The second attempt was as Novgorod, as I wanted to see how the Russian factions had changed. I was pretty much double teamed by the Cuman Khanate with full two stacks and the Kievan Rus who yet again had refused all offers of alliance no matter how generous. Literally the Cuman stacks were nothing but Penchengs or whatever they were called, which was very obnoxious to fight and was mostly my reason for giving up that one. Funny thing I noticed how the Cumans were completely safe in their huge empire against any invasions and could use as many stacks as they needed to against me. The AI just does not fight against itself sometimes. Which opens them up to steamrolling you since they can use their huge armies at will.

Russian campaign can be a bit annoying since there's so much land to cover. But there's plenty of ways to fight horse archers. Chokepoint them and they die in droves. City battles they are useless, bridge battles they are useless etc. Pretty much the only thing they do is annoy you in land battles. Foot archers and light cav can deal with them easily enough.

Finally I decided to play as the Kingdom of Sicily and tried to retake the Roman homeland. I was doing pretty well and stomping the Moors and Spanish in north africa which of course resulted in my excommunication because the pope is completely biased against you and will even excommunicate you for trying to defend yourself against an aggressor. I was doing well, until the Pope himself invades northern Sicily with a full stack of Italian cities units and even mailed knights which I have no idea how he got. It numbered 3000 and I had only a few garrisons along the coast because at no point did I expect the pope himself to decide to invade me.Along with another half stack by a family member and my relations with every single Christian faction dropped to their lowest point despite a couple of marriage alliances I had. Soon enough Venice began invading Sicily and I just gave up at that point. All of my armies were in North Africa and even if I got back in time I couldn't fend off several faction full stacks attacking me at once.

Ok its obvius you are not very good at Total War since mailed knights is one of the most basic units. And you are surprised the pope of all people could get some. You get them at every stone castle. Just be glad the were mailed knights and not knights templar. You get penalties hen you start and continue war with christian nations. Try not getting excommunicated, the pope in all Medieval 2 based games is an evil sociopath and would like nothing more than go on a rampage across half the world with his unbreakable pope's guard stacks of doom. I actually lost full stack battles against him and I'm no bad player. Dont give him the chance. If you get a warning, stop invading. You dont get penalties for defending.

Seriously? I mean I get the fun of fighting against a strong enemy and beating a superior force but this is just insane. The AI will not have any alliances with you, will not negotiate, and will not fight against itself. Literally the entire world is ganging up on you and your feeble settlements and you are pretty much forced to take as much land as you can from the get go or otherwise get curb stomped by doom stacks.

Its not that bad. If you are new, go early England or something to get a feel for the game. When you get the hang of it, Try Gracul AI with late campaign Byzantium.

I'm not really having fun with this. I get the concessions they've had to make with the horrendous AI but this is just overkill. So I repeat my question. What am I doing wrong? Are these just bad factions? What can I do to have fun with this game? I like challenge, and I like this mod a lot, I really want to have a long interesting campaign with it but it keeps literally just stomping on everything I had been working on and sends deathstacks at me like it's the Mongols.

Pick an easy faction with an advantageous Start Position. Then choose your battles, be strategical, use merchants all the time, build roads to start etc etc. Also if you want to finish a faction fast, bring some artillery and dont be afraid of siege battles. I think I've never waited out a settlement since I bought it at release day

[Schittzo]

I'm not new, I've played this game for years. My biggest gripe across all three which seemingly seems to be a problem only I had is that no one under any circumstances would ally with me. I have no idea how you are getting alliances with these factions so early on. Also for the pope thing. I didn't know he had captured a castle, which that explains the knights which is my fault. The problem I had was just that he had over 4000 men and I didn't even have the economy to muster that much even with all my settlements, whereas he only had two tops.

And the pope is not fun, in fact he's always been the biggest problem I've had playing this game. It's basically this. You move and attack a christian settlement. The pope tells you to wait. You can either, attack anyway and risk excommunication, or wait and do nothing for seven turns. It's just a pacing killer and it's horrendously boring to wait to boot. I almost always attack anyway because you're usually locked in the war with whoever you're attacking anyway.

Also I got bored with this and went to play XCOM 2.

[Dunedain Ranger]

And the pope is not fun, in fact he's always been the biggest problem I've had playing this game. It's basically this. You move and attack a christian settlement. The pope tells you to wait. You can either, attack anyway and risk excommunication, or wait and do nothing for seven turns. It's just a pacing killer and it's horrendously boring to wait to boot. I almost always attack anyway because you're usually locked in the war with whoever you're attacking anyway.

This is annoying, but there's a trick. Look at your reputation at the Pope. If it isn't high, gift him some money. After you have done this, you can attack at your pleasure. You might get a warning, but you won't get excommunicated at once. After you have failed the Pope's mission not to attack any christian factions, you can start gifting him some money again. From here, it's just repeating all the steps until you feel strong to not care anymore about the Pope and fight the whole world.

[Balor]

Must say that i have picked up playing this game again recently and am surprised how engrossing it still is. Playing as Scotland Late Era at the minute, Campaign VH and Battles H.

Didn't actually get the William Wallace pop up army but had a great time outfoxing the English. I think the Pope adds to the strategy of the game immensely and affects how the other factions act as well.

Also love settlement battles since I developed a system of massacring the enemy, both in city and castle. Never messed around with gunpowder units before and I'm enjoying that too.

Sounds like your AI is a bit aggressive though - I picked the one described as having factions generally stick to alliances. Good alliances early on will help you a lot.

Anyway, it's a pity not more people are active on this anymore - the Post Your Empires forum was very enjoyable.

[HauptmanT]

toying with rome and empire for years, I finally broke down and had steam reinstall ths game agan after so many years, fired up SS and wow, so much more epic than the newer games.

Now having said all that. I'm on my third play through... well kinda. Did 260 turns as the HRE, then tried a spain game, then back to the HRE once I got the settings I wanted all worked in... it's been so long I needed to relearn a few things... The spain game taught me that.

Once i moved the levels back to vh/h for spain... I got humbled pretty quick. I was slowly pushing the moors back, but the Jihad was just too much for toledo... so i realized I had to play smarter on vh. And I restarted a HRE game after that humbling.

Now my advice is... if you are really having trouble simply beating armies... you are doing it wrong. Beating an army should be second nature to you... before you even think about a real campaign. It's the campaign game that can be trouble. Endless deathstacks, though tiresome, shouldnt be a real threat unless they simply never stop coming (like the jihad against me had them all lined up) and slowly wear you down. But the real danger is simply not having money. Money makes the world go round.

So my advice to you, is a little different from others I've read here. Giving money away for a worthless alliance is simply a waste. All an alliance is worth is a temporary reprieve from a front. Never count on an ally for any help what so ever... they are only good for not invading you. Maybe they dissuade random DoWs but never a determined enemy (read as neighbor). Every single early game cent needs to be spent on making more money. Important money buildings are priority. Roads farms and markets. Taking more land cost money, so dont do it unless you can afford it. Never take something you dont need it it adds another defensive point... your goal in a hard fight game is to REDUCE defensive points. Pouring every cent you earn to defend one single city is so much easier than having to split up armies to fight on multiple fronts. So leave rebels n between you and a known future enemy... the Al only takes neighbor (or coastal towns when no land connection is possible). So that should be where you look to make allies, then use those allies to maintain cities on fronts you dont want to guard... so as Denmark, give the Norweigian coastal cities to an ally england, then you may focus on Novgorod for example. Once one front s freed up, then you can turn on an ally to retake stuff you gave away.

You have 200+ turns before this game even gets remotely intresting... so dont be in an all fired up rush to expand too fast and invite attacks. Leave other nations alive to attack your enemies and they'll be too busy to attack you. Spend money only on making money, until money is never again an issue. As the HRE on VH, I had to use smart allies, and even rebel "free" cities as buffers until could afford to defend another city. Hell my openng move is to sell off balogna to venice for cash and an alliance. Last thng you want to do s border the pope, until he ether loves you or is too afraid of you to dare attack.

Now on the subject of battles...

Knights are king of the battle field, but if you are fighting in the field you better already be the master of the region. Never willingly meet an enemy on the field. Castle walls and sneaky use of them can turn the tide against the most powerful of foes. I've destroyed 2000 man armies with a single knight unit (60 horesmen on huge) because l used my own walls against the Al. So be aware that all those spear malitia you are wasting money on can easily be wiped off the map with a couple good knights or body guards... the only way to kill knights safely, is with arrows. Archers are your primary defense, infantry's only job is to protect the archers long enough for them to rack up enough kills to route the enemy (usually by killing the general). Walls are the best way to protect archers, but in the field, keep them safe in the rear while your cavalry defends the flanks. Once enemy flankers have been shot down then you can use your cavalry to flank and clear up the infantry line. But again, you want to avoid field battles if at all possible. Because city walls remove the enemies ability to flank at all... and arrow towers never run out of ammo. So sally forth before they can assault and lure them into range with that one single presious knight, and when he racks up 900 kills in one battle as the enemy waits for it's own death... then you have graduated to raising the difficulty on SS.

[Balor]

I would agree that money is hugely important but I would reiterate that alliances are crucial - and I've never paid money for an alliance.

It's about analyzing your greatest threats at the time and also thinking about where you see yourself expanding. For example as Scotland I took the rebel settlements of Galway and Wales and allied myself with England (they have more advanced armies early on and two fortresses to churn out better soldiers and cavalry so I didn't want to face them immediately).

This allowed me to work on my finances and advance my barracks, while also taking rebel Groningen and that island in the Baltic.

I also allied myself with Norway to ensure my homeland would not get invaded.

Then, when i felt like it was time for war I married my Princess to the French, thus creating a temporary peace between them and the English. This was of course eventually broken and I abandoned my English alliance. But now I was prepared. From then on it was all out war with the English who were now fighting two fronts (against the French also).

This is just an example of how to use alliances to create an immersive strategic experience. If I had not played this so wisely I could not have defeated the much stronger English with all out war from the start.

Also, at least on the version I'm playing, with a bit of care you can cultivate an alliance that lasts the whole game (my aim in the game is never to complete the winning requirements but to create an interesting, believable empire).

This applies anywhere on the game map, of this I am confident.

God I love this game.

EDIT: HauptmanT - if you are still playing we should share our empires and stories! I'm downloading the Titanium Sub Mod if you want to join me?

[Dekhatres]

can you have fun ? if you like overpowered cav then yes, open battles are basically cav or gtfo, infantry is just "more shiet for cav to kill" so i think you should definetly give SSHIP another try, it fixes pretty much everything

diplomacy wise i think you are doing something wrong, http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...cussion/page88 look at all the screenshots there's one where a guy show how many alliances it's possible to get

[Diocle]

You should have a religious policy playing any Italian (or European) faction, you should have priests, a lot of them, and bishops, and cardinals and then .. you could even try to control the Pope's policy .. remember, you are Italian and European, so, you are Catholic, this can be annoying but it also opens a lot of strategic and political opportunities ..

Anyway, also for me XCOM 2 is a great game!

[Schittzo]

Bleh. That's just not fun dude. That's just my personal taste but it's just lame micromanaging you have to do. I'd rather not, I'd rather just have him removed from the game or replaced with something more interesting and with more options. But don't get me wrong, the mod is still awesome, and I had fun with what little I could do. It was just frustrating to see the AI get so many cheats and so many doomstacks.

[HauptmanT]

The AI needs the cheats or it simply wouldnt be able to put up a fight.

Fight them at castle walls, or river crossings. Heck l just killed five thousand scottsmen and lost about two hundred of my own men on a river crossing. Imagine how ridiculously easy this game would be if l could match Al army sizes.

[Schittzo]

The AI needs the cheats or it simply wouldnt be able to put up a fight.

Fight them at castle walls, or river crossings. Heck l just killed five thousand scottsmen and lost about two hundred of my own men on a river crossing. Imagine how ridiculously easy this game would be if l could match Al army sizes.

This is a problem I've seen with every strategy game I've played ever almost, with few exceptions. Why? Why not make better AI? I know it's probably not possible to do that with M2TW but in future games, make the AI better. Don't give it concessions that are so easy to see through. If you cannot make good AI, then there's really no strategy. You simply find exploits in the cheap AI and take advantage, with little varying results. So you have to give the AI more and more and more to put up a remotely decent challenge. Which even then is still easy to exploit. No. I don't want to fight the millionth river battle just to watch the AI sling their entire army right into a spear wall and get slaughtered time and time again. It's dull, it's stupid and really indicative of how badly these games need good AI. Not cheating AI. But good AI. I am willing to sacrifice graphics, factions, units, anything. Anything that needs to be done just so I can get some GOOD AI in these games, that actually fights and uses tactics, which is always going to be more interesting than a brute force AI that slings stack after stack against you so you have to figure out which exploit to do in order to destroy them all.

[aaronishappy]

This is a problem I've seen with every strategy game I've played ever almost, with few exceptions. Why? Why not make better AI? I know it's probably not possible to do that with M2TW but in future games, make the AI better. Don't give it concessions that are so easy to see through. If you cannot make good AI, then there's really no strategy. You simply find exploits in the cheap AI and take advantage, with little varying results. So you have to give the AI more and more and more to put up a remotely decent challenge. Which even then is still easy to exploit. No. I don't want to fight the millionth river battle just to watch the AI sling their entire army right into a spear wall and get slaughtered time and time again. It's dull, it's stupid and really indicative of how badly these games need good AI. Not cheating AI. But good AI. I am willing to sacrifice graphics, factions, units, anything. Anything that needs to be done just so I can get some GOOD AI in these games, that actually fights and uses tactics, which is always going to be more interesting than a brute force AI that slings stack after stack against you so you have to figure out which exploit to do in order to destroy them all.

Nobody is forcing you to play the game. First you complain that the AI is overpowered and not fun to play to against, then you claim that the AI is too easily exploited, stupid and not good. I don't know what you're expecting. Designing artificial intelligence ready to challenge you on a level of human capacity isn't exactly easy - I'm sure if it was as easy as you make it out to be then developers would be developing such an AI.

Play with what you have, make the most of it. Don't like it? Don't play it.

[Schittzo]

Nobody is forcing you to play the game. First you complain that the AI is overpowered and not fun to play to against, then you claim that the AI is too easily exploited, stupid and not good. I don't know what you're expecting. Designing artificial intelligence ready to challenge you on a level of human capacity isn't exactly easy - I'm sure if it was as easy as you make it out to be then developers would be developing such an AI.

Play with what you have, make the most of it. Don't like it? Don't play it.

At what point did I say I didn't like this game? Where did this come from? Obviously no. Developing a good AI is not easy, that's a given. I never even said it was easy. I like this game, I've sunk 500 hours in it. And all these comments that just say yur bad hurrr are kind of confusing. Can no one ask questions about what's better for this game, or a game like this? Are you content to accept that the toughest situation in this entire game, you can simply hide your army behind a bridge, and win. Guaranteed even with low numbers. Now you are right. I did not make it clear what I am saying about the AI. The AI was at no point, difficult. It does cheat, which pretty much makes you cheat against it. You will never be outsmarted or tactically defeated by the AI, you will just simply not be able to muster as much manpower as the AI can and you will lose as a result.

At the beginning of this thread I was pretty annoyed at how many poor games I was getting with this mod. At the end of the thread, all I've gotten in response is you're bad, or you obviously don't know what to do. Neither of these are true, no matter how much you infer this. The AI is bad. It is simply a flaw of this game, which does indeed bring it down. Still a great game, but we live in a world with shades of gray. So things can be good, but flawed. The AI cheats, you hide behind a bridge and the campaign continues. The AI spawns armies out of thin air, to compensate for it's complete lack of strategy.

Now imagine. A FPS game, with enemies that had no ability to shoot. It was simply not in their ai. So you just get armed baddies with no ability to shoot. It's still fun in some other way somehow, but you're kind of a bit bummed out that you're shooting at bad guys who cannot comprehend the ability of shooting back. There's thousands of them, and they still kill you through simply spamming grenades or trapping you with numbers or stuff like that. But you can pull through by just hiding in a corner and gunning them down, since they won't shoot back.

Wouldn't it be kind of nice if they could shoot back?

If that rustles your jimmies so much then guys I can't believe you really like RTSes.

[Lifthrasir]

Now imagine. A FPS game, with enemies that had no ability to shoot. It was simply not in their ai. So you just get armed baddies with no ability to shoot. It's still fun in some other way somehow, but you're kind of a bit bummed out that you're shooting at bad guys who cannot comprehend the ability of shooting back. There's thousands of them, and they still kill you through simply spamming grenades or trapping you with numbers or stuff like that. But you can pull through by just hiding in a corner and gunning them down, since they won't shoot back.

Wouldn't it be kind of nice if they could shoot back?

Have you ever tried to play a FPS, like FEAR for instance, in multiplayer and without any weapons? I can tell you, that's a great fun
Sorry for the "off-topic" but I couldn't resist

[KmanBEAST]

An OP AI is better than a horrible AI.

If you think DENMARK is hard try doing the khwarezmians late period my goodness...

[Yoboii17]

HauptmanT is right