Best TW diplomacy / Faction management of all TW games - why so little traction?

[alhoon]

Honestly, I have been pleasantly surprised by the diplomacy in 3KTW. Having played a great many Total War games, I can say that this game's diplomacy is the best I have seen. Makes sense and all.
Furthermore, faction management with the who likes you and who doesn't is IMO better done than in R2TW and Attila although that's personal taste.
Another thing... the art. I like the art. The map, the design of the units, the event cards, the portraits.
I find positive the mechanic of officers-with-retinue and that different characters have access to different retinues.
I like the way food and cities interact.
I love that my vassals have to ask me to go to war. I love that my allies (so far) do not attack my allies.
I very much like the mechanics of the coalition before the alliance so that you're kinda-friends instead of allies. You help each other towards a goal but you are not dragged in randomly in everyone's war. I love that if you go to an alliance you VOTE for whether to go to war or not and you either all go to war or none goes to war.
I very much like that each playable faction has different, unique mechanics!
I like that you can hire turncoats from other factions as spies.
Another positive is that you kinda make personal connections to some characters in ways that I haven't "felt" in most of Total War games. Well, not with generals anyway. I did feel kinship towards some spies and champions etc in S2TW, R2TW and Attila and some generals in RTW and M2TW.

What is IMO the best (and I think it carries on in WH3) is that vassals, despite what you see on the internet, absolutely make sense. Honestly, with trade agreement and the 20% tax, you are better off giving some commanderies (prefectures in R2TW) to a new vassal.
A new faction has the equivalent of M2TW "king's purse" (I don't recall how it was called in newer games) of 1000/turn. From that, you are entitled 20% as a liege. So, a vassal is automatically 200 coins / turn + whatever you make from trade + 20% of the commandery. Commanderies that make you 400-500/ turn are better off given as vassals.

The list of positives goes on. So, I will ask with the question I was meant to do:

OMG, why so few mods?!
With the tons of things that this game does (and most they do well BTW), the potential for mods is huge.
Steam Workshop has a lot of mods but nothing too ambitious. I have a mod that changes AI behavior and that may be the reason the CAI and BAI make so much sense, BTW. But it works. Whether it simply improves an already good CAI/Diplomacy or fixes what is broken I don't know, but I know that similar mods in Attila or R2TW didn't produce such good results.

I don't know if this game is the best TW game ever, but it is certainly the best I have played so far. I prefer it from WH2 as it has in my opinion significantly better mechanics.
I haven't played WH3 yet, but I honestly hope they used the mechanics from 3KTW there, at least on diplomacy and vassals.


And now, the other thing:
I really, REALLY think the mechanics of this game would work better on S3TW (yes, that's not a typo) than in 3KTW.
For starters we have a very very realistic realm divide. The Emperor (captive of a faction that practically acts as Shogun) goes "that guy is enemy of the Han!" and that guy gets a big and significant diplomatic penalty with Han factions. The Emperor likes you? Significant bonus to stability AND the Emperor sends me help ALL THE TIME. I love that guy. I mean, I was struggling against the Yellow Turbans. They wiped an army composed by 3 stacks. Emperor goes "Don't worry, buddy. Here's a 30% reduction to unit prices and upkeep, here's a +5% replenishment and here's a faster mustering of your forces by 2 turns"
O_O Thank you dear Emperor, may you live forever! (Or may your successor loves me as much as you do). I had my army back at 7 armies in -3 turns-.

The Emperor doesn't like you? Penalty to stability, increased corruption - not sure if the Emperor will apply other penalties on you.

PS. Like in Britania, you hire forces and auto-appear. However they are at 25% of numbers and need time to replenish. As long as you don't move your general, they replenish fast (in 4-5 turns and there are 5 turns/year so I would say in 2 R2TW turns). But if the Emperor goes "Help this guy make an army" he shaves a couple of turns and you can spam armies.
Honestly, the current Emperor rocks. EVERY time I have a problem, he steps in. Food down for a season? Here's 10 food. Army crushed? Here's a boost. I want to save the guy but the faction that holds him is: 1. Very strong. 2. In my coalition. 3. The only people that seriously fight the Yellow Turbans along with me.

PPS. There are five seasons per year. I have been at the campaign for several hours and my faction leader is still alive.

PPPS. I love vassals. Based on what I have seen on the net, I am loath to make too many vassals as I am "low" on rank yet and I have read that when you proclaim yourself emperor, all hell breaks loose. Which could mean your vassals turn on you, I don't know.


Why the mechanics would work so well for S3TW:
- Remember the settlements of S2TW and their little towns? Similar to ETW towns but resources? Well, they are minor settlements in this game.
- At least in Mandate of Heaven, you start as part of the Empire, which works similar to a coalition but you can kinda declare war or others. Think a weak central government (which is exactly what it is).
- Once we go to the Romance part of the game, past Mandate of Heaven, there is a faction that holds the Emperor. Once the Emperor becomes an adult, that faction acts more or less like a Shogun should act. They "guard" the Emperor, and he does his thing under their supervision.
- The coalitions and vassalage system would work very well on S2TW.
- Realm Divide is there, in multiple tiers. First we have the bonuses/maluses if the Emperor likes you. Then the boosts the Emperor gives. Then the "Enemy of the Han!" thing and the -70 to diplomacy it gives (you can survive that, I guess, but it will certainly make things more difficult). Finally, once you make a kingdom and go for the throne, those that don't support your claim attack you.
- Personal relations with your generals (and their relations with each other) play an important role which would make sense in a civil war environment like S2TW.
- If you are big and scary, people start to somewhat dislike you, but not TOO much.
- Once you are both powerful AND threaten the throne, those that are not supporting your claim to the throne attack you. Which is how RD should be, IMO. Those that DO support your claim are helping you.
- You have minister-equivalents like in E2TW. The higher your "rank" (which is closely tied to how big and developed your faction is) the more positions. And you also choose how to form your government, opening more positions or focusing on trade, spies, etc.
- Factions have unique mechanics!!!!


Another game I would like to see, again based on 3KTW mechanics is the big civil war of the Roman Empire. You know, the Empire Divided thing. With these mechanics.

All in all, any game with a big civil war with several factions involved in the dissolution of a big Empire would work.




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TL;DR: This game made me fall in love with total war games after so many years. I look forward to getting back from work to play a few turns of this.

But the game lacks ambitious mods. There's no place better to host mods than TWC as it has forums etc and not a bazillion mods with pages that because steam works as it works, don't allow for a meaningful discussion.
We need ambitious mods that take advantage of the insane number of present mechanics in the game.

For example, a mod about the 5 barbarians coming from the North in early 4th century taking down the post-3K Jin Empire (right after the period of the 8 princes DLC). There are mechanics for Nomads in this game.

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

The game holds some neat ideas but a whimper of an overall impact, which describes a lot of recent (historic) TW entries quite well. I've found simply no real pop or traction for this game overall. I think the setting has limited western appeal despite being interesting, and its adoption in China and other asian markets seems to be less than what CA was hoping for. It's already been discussed more broadly that the game's limitations and tighter base, including the lack of map-cracking as seen for other 'modern' titles, make it and related titles less appealing to overhaul dreamers.

All in all you make a case but if that case will attract the hard work required to make its modding scene pop off (never mind the other conversation of making it pop off on TWC specifically) is another matter. And even for older titles already established on TWC, it depends on you finding the people who obsess in the right way to crank out the goods. It may well have to be you specifically who parts the sea as all great modding starts with a dream and a hole to dive into, and given your experience with modding work already...

[alhoon]

It may well have to be you specifically who parts the sea as all great modding starts with a dream and a hole to dive into, and given your experience with modding work already...

Unfortunately, I don't have the tools or the skills. Or the time.
The PFM is partially done for this. There are lot of things that I can't change. I have tried, and failed, to change the number of officers to 4 per army.
And I never ever made units. Let alone an entire faction, or several. DMUC that I worked on, I worked on balancing Hammeredalways' units. He was giving the graphics and rudimentary stats and I was balancing them and arranging them to buildings etc.

The game holds some neat ideas but a whimper of an overall impact, which describes a lot of recent (historic) TW entries quite well. I've found simply no real pop or traction for this game overall. I think the setting has limited western appeal despite being interesting, and its adoption in China and other asian markets seems to be less than what CA was hoping for. It's already been discussed more broadly that the game's limitations and tighter base, including the lack of map-cracking as seen for other 'modern' titles, make it and related titles less appealing to overhaul dreamers.

The map itself doesn't need to be cracked. There are mods that increase the number of buildings in prefectures. Or add more buildings to the small resource settlements. I don't mind such mods but from what I see, they're not needed. I would love if we could put things like the universities of ETW or the factories of NTW on those towns ON TOP of the resource. Or buildings that would allow for specific units to be called inside the commandery as Zone-of-Recruitment (there are a few such cases in the game).

Anyway, I get off what I was trying to say:
You don't need to change the map to make a mod for the Mongol invasion of China or the fall of the Mongols and raise of the Ming Dynasty. Or, as this game has awesome mechanics (Fervor) for rebellions, the Taiping Rebellion with the involvement of the British or other Westerners as "Mercenary factions" (we have that too in 3KTW and you can bribe them to switch sides!).
You need to make units though. And I can't make units.

All in all this is a game where alliances and diplomacy really matters. Sure, in order to win you need to control a number of settlements that is insane - 95 settlements which is nearly as many as the settlements in M2TW.
So, another thing I would love to see modded is changing the win conditions to something less perverse. It's called "three kingdoms". If you hold 1/3 of the map, you should win. You shouldn't have to control HALF the map. Corruption is real. I guess you could kick off areas to your vassals but at some point, you will end up... like the Han Dynasty. I.e. your faction leader that is awesome and loved will die and some less-stellar guy will take over ... and the empire will collapse.


On the plus side: You could keep playing for loooong. What I mean is if you want to keep going and going and going, break up your empire. You can do that. Press the button and the empire dissolves. Or you can do that in a less dramatic fashion by making 3-4 serious vassals with 10-12 settlements each and liberate them. Now you have some friends! Move your capital to a new place far away from where you were to spice things up once your Faction Leader dies and remain with 7-8 settlements.
You would need 400-450 turns to research all tech. And since you can break up your Empire, you can remain challenged for that time.