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Thread: Ever since Rome 2, Total War suffers from a very weird paradox...

  1. #1
    RedGuard's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Ever since Rome 2, Total War suffers from a very weird paradox...

    the paradox that somehow small countries are difficult to defeat, but very large ones are very easy to defeat.

    Its weird, and I suspect it has to do with the way armies are capped by both number and money for the ai.
    Though I don't really know if thats completely it. For instance, in my first game which I am still playing as Cao Cao, I have a third of china under my control and two emperor seats. Wu in the south is led by Jian, and they control another third. Ive invaded it and have yet to meet any resistance at all since I defeated a single army. All of thier garrisons have like 400 men and my 6 doomstacks of 1500-2500 man armies are just steamrolling, stopped only by my food count or PO.

    yet my war with Yuan Shao was much more difficult, yet he only controlled like 3 commandarys but had about 4 allies. There was actually a point in that war where I was losing.

    I realize in real life a larger area is also harder to control, but it shouldn't be this easy to defeat what is essentially the end game boss.

    also before anyone says anything, I realize Cao Cao is easy. But midway in the campaign the game asked me if I wanted to increase the difficulty and I did to very hard. Its not just this campaign either as Ive experienced the same thing in other total wars (though its worse in this one since the factions naturally coalesce around turn 80)
    Last edited by RedGuard; June 13, 2019 at 09:37 PM.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Ever since Rome 2, Total War suffers from a very weird paradox...

    I know what you mean, the smaller factions seem to agree to declare war on you one after the other(when they smell supposed weakness I guess), while the ones further away will offer you coalitions ^^

    Then you head into their territory, defeat one smaller faction's stacks, after which suddenly one of their buddies show up with 2 more stacks, you deal with those and a third shows up with 2 more >.<

    if you've managed to deal with all of those, the first faction is coming for you again and the cycle continues

    The reason it's much harder than the endgame imo is because you are also much more limited financially, and you simply can not keep up with the tag-teaming be it due to financial woes or you needing a million turns to gather a fully healed army.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Ever since Rome 2, Total War suffers from a very weird paradox...

    Not sure about the role the army cap plays, but the financial system is certainly a significant factor. The profits are accumulated when the income of taxation, which mainly depends on the size of the empire, is added to less dynamic sorts of income, like trade or king's purse. Meanwhile, growth means more expenses, as corruption increases, while you also need to garisson an extended front. The result is that smaller factions can afford disproportionately larger armies, which makes empires extremely vulnerable to aggressive coalitions composed of minor factors. At a certain extent, this is an accurate reflection of how economy works and ideally could provide the player with an enjoyable late-game challenge.

    The problem is that, since Shogun II and Rome II, the AI really fails at economy, because it's incapable of correctly handling the limited building slots, which means that the few benefits of controlling many provinces are almost completely negated by corruption. Therefore, either its economy is surprisingly fragile or its armies can recruit nothing better than ill-trained militias. Meanwhile, the higher the difficulty is the weaker empires become, because of the enormous gifts the AI receives. This leads to the standard income, regardless of military expansion, being more significant than any fiscal revenue, so larger states have almost zero chances against a unified attack by minor parties.

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