Something is wrong with the campaign design of this mod (and recent historical TW in general)

[Fraxinicus]

Playing my first campaign, normal difficulty, as Armenia. 25 turns in, and half my time has been sitting on my ass waiting for numbers to get out of the red. I've had to reload an old save 10 turns back 3 times in a row, because without following an exact sequence of building, governor shuffling, and a few other tricks, I am unable to avoid an unstoppable downspiral of rebellious population that sends me into bankruptcy, which itself prevents me from raising troops or building buildings that could increase public order. Governors get random traits sabotaging public order (also a problem in vanilla, but mods should fix it). Native discontent keeps rising with no short-term ways to reduce it, and my own culture keeps falling because somehow Armenians love to LARP as Macedonians due to Seleucid culture propagation despite 99% of the population living under the Seleucids IRL kept their native Persian or Median or Syriac culture for the entire span of the dynasty. I don't see how the future of this campaign is going to be any more active, at least not until I have the economic base of the Seleucids do now, which at this pace will likely be 150 turns in. This isn't fun.

I don't see how most of the new campaign mechanics added in AE make for a more interesting or fun game, and they don't seem particularly realistic either. It just looks like a more complicated version of vanilla Attila mechanics - give us a bunch of numbers to arithmetic out of the red, but few meaningful and interesting strategic choices. I really like the new battles. I really like the attention to detail on the units and the battle maps. This could be a great mod, but most of your time in a TW game is spent on the campaign map, and if anything the campaign experience has deteriorated in comparison to Attila, just as Attila was a deterioration of Rome II (which, despite being bland, at the very least didn't give us a bunch of spreadsheet calculations and pretend it was deeper gameplay). Perhaps things work out differently as big factions like the Romans or Seleucids, but at best I don't see how the new mechanics are going to add fun to them - they just won't get in the way as much as with a smaller faction like Armenia.

I don't want to be hard on the mod team - the original problem is CA's poor design of Attila's campaign mechanics, and overall AE is a hugely impressive achievement. But the broken Attila campaign mechanics needed a fundamental rework away from the direction of vanilla Atilla, not to go further down the same mistaken path.

[stevehoos]

If anything, it needs to be more difficult. Play through more campaigns with different factions. If this is your first play through, it's very likely you are not getting the gist of the mechanics.

[Jakoporeeno]

Have you tried the softcore sub-mod?

[Anibal at portas]

to say that a total war game,including a mod is complicated is laughable,i think that you are not used to playing deeper and more immersive games, you must have patience and calculate your actions well, what this quality has given to this mod is that they are implying deep insights and i hope that they will continue implementing new ones and improving those already implemented.
If you come from an age of the empires style game, it is normal for you to have difficulties and find this complex.
armenia is a weaker faction with more complications is designed for veteran players and players who like history and not for novice players who can choose more powerful factions and easy to play.
this mod respects the history and armenian did not expand as the kingdom of pontus or parthia and comes to represent that difficulty of armenia to expand,this is not to arrive and invade other factions,here we have to manage and think,in a slow campaign,to some immersive, deep and realistic based on history for veterans of high strategy games.

[Fraxinicus]

I have thousands of hours in Total War games. Almost 700 in Attila alone. I'm no novice. I won't play Rome or another large faction because large faction starts in TW games are boring (and in AE, none of them interest me all that much, as I'm tired of the big boys like Rome, Carthage, and Greeks by now).

I was looking for a difficult start, but resolving difficult situations needs to be fun. Difficult battles are fun because they require skill and tactical planning to succeed. Huge public order penalties and bankruptcy spirals are not fun. They prevent you from playing the game, and the solution to them is, essentially, to just sit and wait. Sitting and waiting is not fun. Games are supposed to be fun. If I wanted to sit and wait and look at a map and see my borders expand slowly over 50 years, I'd play a Paradox game. That's what Paradox games are for. It's not what Total War games are for.

The Parthians expanded like wildfire during this exact time period. Rapid expansion in this part of the map in this period is perfectly reasonable and realistic, especially for countries that are part of the wider Iranian cultural world expanding into the Iranian heartland at the expense of the Seleucids. And to the extent that it's less plausible for Armenia to expand than Parthia... who cares? It's still well within the bounds of plausibility that Armenia could have expanded beyond its historical borders if it had great leadership and never lost a battle. The player can do that, and "wait 50 turns for PO to stabilize" barriers being placed in front of the player are not realistic or fun. The AI for its part will never violate history, because Armenia is a tributary of the Seleucids.

I also fail to see how the same campaign mechanics preventing me from expanding, or fighting, or doing anything but sitting on my ass as Armenia would not also apply to the Parthians. They have no modifiers for cultural unrest, and in fact have modifiers that will give them more unrest and less tax than Armenia. Mass conquests that happened in real life would be impossible in this mod (or vanilla Attila - again, the mod inherits problems from CA).

[marklar93]

My two cents:

I had the same issues when starting the campaign with this mod (playing as Armenia). I took the time to really learn the mechanics (influence, politics, etc...) and now it is quite easy for me. I am expanding and getting a little bored because I am kind of just steam rolling at this point, although I have not yet challenged my masters, the Seleucids.

[Sagat]

It's going to take you multiple failed campaigns to get a grasp of this mod, yes it's in beta and will go through some changes but there's nothing "wrong" with it like you said.

I have 1200 hours in Rome 2, and 900 hours in Attila, various mods, etc.... and I've always played Very Hard / Very Hard, and I've gone through about 10 failed Ancient Empires campaigns on Very Hard as Macedon, just to figure out how to control Native discontent, and I still have to figure out how to chain buildings for recruitment, etc....

My new campaign now I'm 50 turns in as Rome on Very Hard and I'm making 20-30k per turn, so I had to quit that since it's too easy, looking for a new challenge and reading what you wrote makes me want to fire up a Very Hard Armenia campaign

[Fraxinicus]

"I have 1200 hours in Rome 2, and 900 hours in Attila, various mods, etc.... and I've always played Very Hard / Very Hard, and I've gone through about 10 failed Ancient Empires campaigns"

The mere fact that it takes 10 failed campaigns before figuring out how to play the game is a failure of game design. Attila is still a horribly optimized game, and most people don't have the time or patience to run 10 failed campaigns just to learn how the game works.

At the very least, the manual needs to be more in depth, and explain ideal opening moves for the weaker starts. It would probably take me several restarts (read: a bunch of wasted time) to figure out the building program that Marus recommends for myself.

"I disagree I have to employ hours to manage my Imperium Cause every step is devisive and I love how it makes me feel the deepness of the game "

All aspects of management in Attila, and derivatives of Attila's systems, are just spreadsheet problems. After I've decided what I want a province to do (money, research, recruitment, or food), it's all just a bunch of arithmetic to make sure that the green numbers are high and the red numbers are low. Complexity (e.g. inter-province culture propagation) just adds more arithmetic. Math homework is not gameplay, and deciding which digit to carry is not a meaningful choice.

[armen]

I brought this up in another thread about Armenia, but there is the foreign cultures group that is just on the rise like crazy. Armenian culture keeps falling no matter what I build. Every building that is suppose to help with public order gives a huge negative to native discontent. Its not like you conquered a foreign land and need some time to deal with native discontent, you're in your native homeland and the entire time there is huge native discontent with "foreign cultures" (what is that exactly I dont know) rising as your own culture falls rapidly no matter if you build temples or other public order buildings

PS

Will beinng a tributary to the Seleucids cause this rise in "foreign cultures" ?

[Mithrillian]

Armenia is one of the easiest starts right now. You have a starting gold resource and many neighbors that all like you, so this will bring in a lot of money quickly. For your starting province make sure you build an artisan workshop and a quarry. This will bring in a ton of money. Also build two farms and a couple cultural buildings to fight of the makedonian corruption. You'll want to take out the orange faction first (can't remember the spelling) as they hold silver and won't build an army until a while. From there you should be pretty good to expand on any direction you want.

I brought this up in another thread about Armenia, but there is the foreign cultures group that is just on the rise like crazy. Armenian culture keeps falling no matter what I build. Every building that is suppose to help with public order gives a huge negative to native discontent. Its not like you conquered a foreign land and need some time to deal with native discontent, you're in your native homeland and the entire time there is huge native discontent with "foreign cultures" (what is that exactly I dont know) rising as your own culture falls rapidly no matter if you build temples or other public order buildings

PS

Will beinng a tributary to the Seleucids cause this rise in "foreign cultures" ?

Culture is indenpendant of PO. Try looking for buildings that give bonuses to your cultures influence. For Rome the biggest are Town Centers and temples.

[armen]

Culture is indenpendant of PO. Try looking for buildings that give bonuses to your cultures influence. For Rome the biggest are Town Centers and temples.

I do I build up the Town Centers to level 4 Armenian culture keeps falling give this faction a try maybe there is something different you have to do with Armenia I dont know

[TSD]

Culture is indenpendant of PO. Try looking for buildings that give bonuses to your cultures influence. For Rome the biggest are Town Centers and temples.

When you say culture influence, do you mean state influence? I am playing pergamon and looked at every possible building and see nothing in regard to increasing cultural influence, the only thing I've seen is state influence.

[Mithrillian]

"I have 1200 hours in Rome 2, and 900 hours in Attila, various mods, etc.... and I've always played Very Hard / Very Hard, and I've gone through about 10 failed Ancient Empires campaigns"

The mere fact that it takes 10 failed campaigns before figuring out how to play the game is a failure of game design. Attila is still a horribly optimized game, and most people don't have the time or patience to run 10 failed campaigns just to learn how the game works.

At the very least, the manual needs to be more in depth, and explain ideal opening moves for the weaker starts. It would probably take me several restarts (read: a bunch of wasted time) to figure out the building program that Marus recommends for myself.

"I disagree I have to employ hours to manage my Imperium Cause every step is devisive and I love how it makes me feel the deepness of the game "

All aspects of management in Attila, and derivatives of Attila's systems, are just spreadsheet problems. After I've decided what I want a province to do (money, research, recruitment, or food), it's all just a bunch of arithmetic to make sure that the green numbers are high and the red numbers are low. Complexity (e.g. inter-province culture propagation) just adds more arithmetic. Math homework is not gameplay, and deciding which digit to carry is not a meaningful choice.

I fail to see how any of this is a problem with the mod more so than it is a problem with Atilla's hardcodig and core game mehanics. Strategy like this ultimately always devolves into a spreadsheet.

[denzo]

"I have 1200 hours in Rome 2, and 900 hours in Attila, various mods, etc.... and I've always played Very Hard / Very Hard, and I've gone through about 10 failed Ancient Empires campaigns"

The mere fact that it takes 10 failed campaigns before figuring out how to play the game is a failure of game design. Attila is still a horribly optimized game, and most people don't have the time or patience to run 10 failed campaigns just to learn how the game works.

At the very least, the manual needs to be more in depth, and explain ideal opening moves for the weaker starts. It would probably take me several restarts (read: a bunch of wasted time) to figure out the building program that Marus recommends for myself.

"I disagree I have to employ hours to manage my Imperium Cause every step is devisive and I love how it makes me feel the deepness of the game "

All aspects of management in Attila, and derivatives of Attila's systems, are just spreadsheet problems. After I've decided what I want a province to do (money, research, recruitment, or food), it's all just a bunch of arithmetic to make sure that the green numbers are high and the red numbers are low. Complexity (e.g. inter-province culture propagation) just adds more arithmetic. Math homework is not gameplay, and deciding which digit to carry is not a meaningful choice.

I strongly strongly disagree. I absolutely love going through failed campaigns and optimizing my strategy/economics. I don't see the math as a chore whatsoever, in fact that's probably my favorite part of these types of games. Sure, you could break out your spreadsheet but the challenge is doing all the complex calculations in your head and trying to balance them. The more complexities, the bigger the challenge, and more fun. That's why it's called a strategy game. Just because you choose the same min maxing strategy every single campaign doesn't mean the developers have to cater to you by making it simpler to pursue that strategy. If they did, i would probably stop playing. Half the people on this website are here because CA oversimplified their game. It baffles me that you want the manual to tell you which strategy to pursue.

[Julio-Claudian]

I strongly strongly disagree. I absolutely love going through failed campaigns and optimizing my strategy/economics. I don't see the math as a chore whatsoever, in fact that's probably my favorite part of these types of games. Sure, you could break out your spreadsheet but the challenge is doing all the complex calculations in your head and trying to balance them. The more complexities, the bigger the challenge, and more fun. That's why it's called a strategy game. Just because you choose the same min maxing strategy every single campaign doesn't mean the developers have to cater to you by making it simpler to pursue that strategy. If they did, i would probably stop playing. Half the people on this website are here because CA oversimplified their game. It baffles me that you want the manual to tell you which strategy to pursue.

This.

[Fraxinicus]

It's alright if you enjoy math, but math isn't strategy. There are no choices in math. There are no tradeoffs. Anyone can do math at any time with a pen and a piece of paper. You don't need a Total War game for it, and Total War needs actual strategic choices more. And once we have something like deep strategy, why do we still need math homework in game to provide the illusion of depth?

EDIT: Randomness isn't the answer either. A little bit of randomness is good, to require the player to keep their plans flexible. But randomness is not an end in and of itself.

EDITEDIT: Upon following a better building scheme, I've basically got infinite money despite having only 4 regions and one whole province. Simply by altering the buildings I built, the game went from unplayable to a cakewalk. That's what I mean about there not being strategic depth. I didn't play the game any more skillfully, or make any meaningful choices, in order to do better in my second run. I just casually clicked icons in the right order.

[stevehoos]

It's alright if you enjoy math, but math isn't strategy. There are no choices in math. There are no tradeoffs. Anyone can do math at any time with a pen and a piece of paper. You don't need a Total War game for it, and Total War needs actual strategic choices more. And once we have something like deep strategy, why do we still need math homework in game to provide the illusion of depth?

Of course math is strategy. In World War 2, The Battle Of The Atlantic was a tonnage war, the U.K. had a finite number of industrial/military goods and a finite capacity to produce them. The Axis attempted to stem the flow of merchant ships to Britain from America. Both sides new how much supplies Britain needed to continue to fight. Germany was acutely aware of the mathematical certainties on land, sea, and air.

Everything aside from the metaphysical is math, the table that you used to type your post here is composed of hundreds of millions of atoms.

[Nihahs]

I strongly strongly disagree. I absolutely love going through failed campaigns and optimizing my strategy/economics. I don't see the math as a chore whatsoever, in fact that's probably my favorite part of these types of games. Sure, you could break out your spreadsheet but the challenge is doing all the complex calculations in your head and trying to balance them. The more complexities, the bigger the challenge, and more fun. That's why it's called a strategy game. Just because you choose the same min maxing strategy every single campaign doesn't mean the developers have to cater to you by making it simpler to pursue that strategy. If they did, i would probably stop playing. Half the people on this website are here because CA oversimplified their game. It baffles me that you want the manual to tell you which strategy to pursue.

Excatly.

[Colest]

The mere fact that it takes 10 failed campaigns before figuring out how to play the game is a failure of game design. Attila is still a horribly optimized game, and most people don't have the time or patience to run 10 failed campaigns just to learn how the game works.

How can a game be difficult without a threat of failure? I don't disagree with the premise that PO and culture management in this game is not engaging but that's a different argument from the difficulty associated with a campaign. If anything, I would argue modern total war titles have the issue of no real threat of failure being present during most, if not all, of the campaign, barring really dumb diplomatic decisions on the player's end.

Whether its moddable or not, a city planner UI option that can show projected PO and income rates based on current modifiers and the buildings currently in queue for production would do wonders to combat this management as you're often trying to hit a sweet spot for PO with provinces that is difficult to track with 3+ buildings being built.

[stevehoos]

I am a making around 7,000 per season with Armenia. Trade that gold.