Lands to Conquer House Rules

[Lusted]

Here are some of the House Rules i like to play by to make sure i get the best experience with the mod.

1. Do not blitz

I can't emphasis enough how important this is. If you rush your camapign early on and go on a conquering spree and finish the campaign in 50 turns you are only hurting yourself. Build up slowly at first, only get into a war with one other faction in the first 50 turns for instance. If you give the ai the time it needs to build up you will see it become much more of a challenge, and you will see the armies i have seen from the test campaigns.

2. Do not exploit the passive ai bugs

If these happen don't exploit them. If you get the passive ai bug in battles stop using your missile troops and attack. If you get the passive siege ai bug as well, try rushing the enemy. I know you might lose if you follow this, but you might have anyway if the bug hadn't happened. Your only hurting the ai by exploiting it.

3. Do not just build all elite armies

The ai will very rarely build them, if you give it enough time it will produce armies with a mix of elite and lower tier units in them. If you do the same you will have a much more fun campaign.

[Korinthos Hoplites]

Well, is there no way to correct bugs/tweak the mod in order to make such exploits/game strategies impossible?

[Lusted]

Well, is there no way to correct bugs/tweak the mod in order to make such exploits/game strategies impossible?

I can't stop people from rushing, without a hell of a lot of scripting (to give the ai huge armies early on etc) that would slow the game down. The passive ai bug can only be fixed partly by modding, most of the problems with it seem to be hardcoded. As for the 3rd the recruitment system in LTC is the closest i'll get to it.

[Ludicus]

A garrison script is the profilaxy of the disease called "blietzkrieg",I think.

[johnhughthom]

In my games I always try to get the nearby rebel settlements as quickly as possible, then consolidate, but I don't attack other factions. For example in my last game as the Sicilians I immediately went for Corsica, Sardinia and the region where Carthage was, and captured it all in 3 turns. Would this be considered blitzing?

[Black Francis]

In my games I always try to get the nearby rebel settlements as quickly as possible, then consolidate, but I don't attack other factions. For example in my last game as the Sicilians I immediately went for Corsica, Sardinia and the region where Carthage was, and captured it all in 3 turns. Would this be considered blitzing?

I do the same. Rebel settlements are fine IMO.

What I do do is fight short wars with other factions. For example, if HRE declares war on me rather than fighting them to annihilation I will defeat them in battle (God Willing) and I will send them a diplomat. After a few turns of being threatened with a big army they will willingly give tribute or even a settlement if you are lucky. I may also add that this is a much more Historical way to play.

The only variant on this is when I embark on a "grand campaign". This will be when my mad French king decides it is time to bring the sons of William the Conqueror into line and claim England for the French crown. They (the Anglo-Norman dynasty) are my vassals after all and should be my subjects.

[Becephalus]

autocalcing all battles hamstrings the player quite nicely I find If you see and interesting battle, save it and fight it later. No more unrealistic slaughtering of AI armies. In fact depending on the faction you can even play on H/M or H/H autocalcing all the battles and still have a challenging game.

Fighting the battles I could probably never lose regardless of how much you help the ai...

Of course I have always seen the TW series as two games awkwardly crammed together. An above average strategic game, and an above average tactical battle simulator.

[Lusted]

In my games I always try to get the nearby rebel settlements as quickly as possible, then consolidate, but I don't attack other factions. For example in my last game as the Sicilians I immediately went for Corsica, Sardinia and the region where Carthage was, and captured it all in 3 turns. Would this be considered blitzing?

Rebel settlements are fine, its when you blitz other factions that you start to ruin things.

[Americanus Supremus]

I found a garrison script in the hardgame mod. Havent looked at it much but was wondering how hard it would be to add it to your mod. Which at present is the only mod I have time to play. Thanks again for the great mod.

HC

[jegui]

A garrison script would definitely stop rushing/blitzing from players... SPQR mod uses it very nicely and the spawn of units is proportional to the city/castle level... some early M2TW minimods have already implemented light versions of garrison script... however it requires lots of scripting to implement and test a proper garrison script for every single faction and settlement in the map but I think it's worth every minute ;-)

[Arksa]

It's hard to NOT exploit the passive ai bug if i have 4 units of spearmen + 4 archers + 4 missile cavarly and the enemy has 3 dism.feudal knights + 6 italian militia + 2 pavise crossbowmen.

[caralampio]

I use these house rules in the mod and vanilla as well. I want to get to the late period and see the Aztecs while I still have a moderately sized country and challenging opposition. Empires become so unwieldy to manage.

(BTW I haven't seen the Aztecs yet. Early game is the most fun for me and it seems I'm always starting a new game... )

[Arksa]

(BTW I haven't seen the Aztecs yet. Early game is the most fun for me and it seems I'm always starting a new game... )

Boy...you took the words out of my mouth

[johnhughthom]

Never mind the Aztecs, I haven't even seen the Mongols or Timurids yet.

[caralampio]

Never mind the Aztecs, I haven't even seen the Mongols or Timurids yet.

It is better that you don't see them!

[Lusted]

Blitz means you play aggressively form the off. Build up an army in the first few turns, take a province, move onto the next and never stop. So you win ithin 60 turns or so.

[Vhagar]

I'm now 73 turns into a french campaign. I'm the dominant power in the world by quite a bit, 24 regions controlled, including Jerusulem/Acre/Gaza/Alexandria, all of France/part of Germany, and England minus Dublin. It's still not easy, It's been quite a struggle to consolidate the holy land, and Egypts still got some beef yet. I'm not gonna lose, but I'm gonna continue to max produce troops down there. I had to send a stack and a half by boat from france a few turns ago. It's gonna be a couple turns of buildup to finally finish off scotland.

Obviously I'm in control and slowly rolling towards world domination. I haven't been threatened for quite a long time.

However, this campaign would have been oodles more challenging if I hadn't gotten hugely lucky very early on. Right after I grabbed a couple rebel settlements in France at the start, England pulled ALL of their troops out of London. They had none. I wouldn't have seen it, but I got a mission from the nobles telling me to take London.

I just so happened to have a couple boats newly made, and an army nearby. So I moved them onto the boats, and the next turn landed and grabbed London. I didn't do it all in one turn, they left London free for a complete turn. This allowed me to get quite a bit of income going, crippled my chief rival, and from there I sort of continued a blitz over England and the other french rebels.

If it hadn't been for that, I'd be 70 turns in and not near as far along. I have no doubt I'd still be kicking ass, but it would have been an even more fulfilling campaign. When 2.2 comes out, I'm gonna be playing as a smaller faction to start, really sticking to the No Blitzing rule, and I can't wait.

[NefariousWolf]

I just found out about this thread from that interview Lusted did with the Eagle Standard. I didn't know about the blitzing rule, but that does explain a good deal.

Playing as Scotland, England was first on my list. After consolidating the unification of all of Scotland and Ireland, I marched south with a rather large army headed by my heir. Just as I was about to lay siege to Nottingham, the diplomat whom I had sent to London heralding the arrival of England's impending doom reported back to me that London was unoccupied.

The heir to the throne, who was leading the assault on Nottingham, called his horse together and sent them on a mad gallop to the gates of London. They arrived in London just as my army seized Nottingham, effectively eliminating the English faction in a single turn.

Long story short, the AI seems to leave cities open and undefended. Or at least London.

Also, after destroying the English, their heir and his army became rebels. It would have been really neat to see the rebels march on London, retake it, and start up the English faction again. But that probably gets into stuff that's hardcoded.

[Arksa]

Long story short, the AI seems to leave cities open and undefended. Or at least London.

AI keeps every city undefended except Capitals...

[Turbo]

AI keeps every city undefended except Capitals...

Use Klinks garrison script. It only spawns garrisons for AI factions and not the slave faction. Player = no garrison spawn.