Total War thread

[Ira the Weatherman]

Any other nigga here still play the historical titles? I recently finished an Attila campaign as the Burgundians. Had fun. Attila is underrated and I'm not saying this because I'm a cavalryfag and Attila is a game where cavalry is as busted as it was in Medieval 2, no siree. I wonder what to do next. I've been thinking of firing up Europa Barbarorum and play as a barbarian faction, anyone got experience with how to play those? So far I've only played with successor states and nomadic factions.

Barbarian factions all start out as single province backwaters so you'll be hemorrhaging cash and your first few conquests will be vital. It'll take a while before you'll have a decent positive income, but nearly all the barbs are relatively isolated so you can afford to your time. One advantage on the campaign map is that barbarian areas tend to have good regional troops. Heavy Belgae and South Gallic cavalry, decent Scottish and Irish infantry, a lot of varied regional troops across Eastern Europe.

Pretty much all of them rely on shock infantry as their backbone. Most units aren't well armoured and the few that do tend to be pretty slow, but they usually pack a punch and have above-average morale. You don't want to get stuck in a slugging or shooting match, send decent troops to smash into enemy lines and hit their flanks and rear as soon as possible to induce a chain route. Try to keep ranged and cavalry safe and use sparingly, they tend not to be the greatest and you'll want to save them for situational use like chasing enemy ranged away.

A notable exception are the Lusotannan (and Arovaci in 2), who tend to focus more on heavy hitting skirmishers and light cavalry. Surround, harass and draw enemy formations apart and hit them from all sides when they get isolated.

Good to see Empire get some coverage anyway. Genuinely one of my favourite TW games, despite, or because of, all its flaws.

Empire is such a fucking shame because it could've been a vastly better game if they had just given it another year or two, but Sega rushed the devs to meet the deadline and it showed. A whole swathe of cut, often near-finished content (Mughals and Portugal were supposed to be playable, and Italian voice acting suggests one of them may've been planned as well) and features, as well as deep-seated, near-inoperable bugs.

I still enjoy the game but you need Darthmod and half a dozen smaller mods for it to become good, many of which you'll have to dig for through pages of 10-year-old forum threads. And you'll still need to tinker and familiarise yourself with the godawfulness that is Warscape Engine modding in order to fine tune it all and make it work.

 

[HeyYou]

If they make another fucking Warhammer Total War, 40K or not, I'm going to be so pissed. Warhammer has gotten three nearly back to back games and on top of that they're making another Chinese game, despite the fact that Three Kingdoms came out in 2019 and wasn't even finished. All I want is just one actual historical game that's a sequel to an era we haven't seen in awhile, or set in an entirely new era.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Barbarian factions all start out as single province backwaters so you'll be hemorrhaging cash and your first few conquests will be vital. It'll take a while before you'll have a decent positive income, but nearly all the barbs are relatively isolated so you can afford to your time. One advantage on the campaign map is that barbarian areas tend to have good regional troops. Heavy Belgae and South Gallic cavalry, decent Scottish and Irish infantry, a lot of varied regional troops across Eastern Europe.

Pretty much all of them rely on shock infantry as their backbone. Most units aren't well armoured and the few that do tend to be pretty slow, but they usually pack a punch and have above-average morale. You don't want to get stuck in a slugging or shooting match, send decent troops to smash into enemy lines and hit their flanks and rear as soon as possible to induce a chain route. Try to keep ranged and cavalry safe and use sparingly, they tend not to be the greatest and you'll want to save them for situational use like chasing enemy ranged away.

A notable exception are the Lusotannan (and Arovaci in 2), who tend to focus more on heavy hitting skirmishers and light cavalry. Surround, harass and draw enemy formations apart and hit them from all sides when they get isolated.

Thanks bro, sounds like how you're kinda supposed to play them in Rome 2 vanilla... only it's more autistic since it's EB and all. A lot of other mods I've played for Rome 1 also have this gimmick where you start with one shit province but a decent early game stack so you're bleeding money and are supposed to expand fast, so that's nothing new either. In any case I've decided to play as the Sweboz.

despite the fact that Three Kingdoms came out in 2019 and wasn't even finished.

Why do the thing they promised for the first game and add a brand new area in the north for free while making the Xiongnu nomads DLC to be playable when you can pull that patented Warhammer scam and make Three Kingdoms 2 focus entirely on the wars in the north and adding later starting dates which were supposed to be in the first game. I mean seriously, for a game called Total War Three Kingdoms it's unbelievable that none of the starting date bookmarks puts you in the time when the Shu-Han, Wei and Wu kingdoms were actually established. By the way, no, you won't be able to play Three Kingdoms 1's starting dates, the southwest of the map will be cut and there'll be no Nanban present in the game.

But fret not! If you own Three Kingdoms 1 and all the DLC you can play the brand new Mortal Empires Immortal Kingdoms campaign which will be released a month two months three months half a year after the fucking game even came out, it combines both maps from both campaigns, as well as all starting dates and DLC factions! Sounds good???
And yes, this is how I predict TK2's business model will be like.

 

[Ira the Weatherman]

In any case I've decided to play as the Sweboz.

Yeah, Sweboz are a lot of fun, they're like the arch-barbarian faction in that pretty much all their guys have little to no armor. I don't think you get chainmail troops until you get a reform fairly late in the game. You do get pikemen and club infantry.

You're able to go toe-to-toe with the Celts and Romans if you play smart. Sauromatae are a bitch because lolnoarmor and you don't get any decent archers or cav. Good thing in EB1 is that Sweboz are isolated ina sea of Eleutheroi, so you'll be able to build a big empire before you ever have to face anyone. EB2 adds two other factions on your doorstep.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Yeah, Sweboz are a lot of fun, they're like the arch-barbarian faction in that pretty much all their guys have little to no armor. I don't think you get chainmail troops until you get a reform fairly late in the game. You do get pikemen and club infantry.

You're able to go toe-to-toe with the Celts and Romans if you play smart. Sauromatae are a bitch because lolnoarmor and you don't get any decent archers or cav. Good thing in EB1 is that Sweboz are isolated ina sea of Eleutheroi, so you'll be able to build a big empire before you ever have to face anyone. EB2 adds two other factions on your doorstep.

Yeah that's why I wanted to play them in the first place. It was either them or the Lusitani, but the Lusitani are very much a skirmish-heavy faction which is the type of warfare I'm good at, with most of their light melee units also doubling as solid skirmishers. So I wanted to challenge myself by picking a shirtless grug smash faction. From what I remember in EB1 (which is what I'll play) pre-reform only their general unit is a heavy unit, that being infantry, with reforms they also get another heavy infantry unit and also get a heavy cavalry unit. But local recruitment is a big part of EB, I especially utilized it with my Seleucid campaign (the only one I finished since the save files miraculously didn't all crap out on me) and since the Celts are quite literally across the river I can just get some heavy infantry support from there, by expanding westwards to Gaul or southwards to the Alps.

 

[ellroy]

Empire's biggest problem is that it's a broken mess, especially on the battle side. Muskets were about as deadly as flashlights and even then I swear units kept aiming for the flanks which made lethality pathetically low and made the battles drag for so long. It made Rome 2's hoplite v hoplite engagements seem as fast and lethal as Rome 1 or Shogun 2's engagements by comparison. Units would also try to shoot through walls or on the flipside would refuse to shoot if the terrain wasn't completely flat. Entire formations would waste time completely repositioning if they were firing at a formation that wasn't 100% in front of them. Melee combat was even worse. Enemy AI was just flat out moronic, both in land battles and on the campaign. The braindead campaign AI ruins the campaign experience, really the only thing the AI was good at was declaring war on you for no apparent reason.

Napoleon and Fall of the Samurai are much better games if you're looking for line warfare but they just don't have the complexity of Empire, not to mention the variety you get from the 3 theatres of war that Empire has.

I used to pride myself on fighting every battle in Medieval 2 and not using auto resolve but when it came to Empire and Napoleon I could never figure out muskets well enough that I would reach for the auto resolve button. Napoleon I would occasionally fight it on my own but Empire, those reasons right there is why I just gave up.

 

[Steinercard]

These lazy cunts announced Chaos Dwarfs yet?

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

I used to pride myself on fighting every battle in Medieval 2 and not using auto resolve but when it came to Empire and Napoleon I could never figure out muskets well enough that I would reach for the auto resolve button. Napoleon I would occasionally fight it on my own but Empire, those reasons right there is why I just gave up.

From what I played of Empire wasn't it literally just form lines and keep shooting until someone runs?

 

[HeyYou]

From what I played of Empire wasn't it literally just form lines and keep shooting until someone runs?

Add in your artillery missing most of their shots and your cavalry getting shot to ribbons in a failed flanking maneuver and you've about got it.

 

[ellroy]

From what I played of Empire wasn't it literally just form lines and keep shooting until someone runs?

No because you take too many casualties. I think the meta back when I cared in 2009 was to eventually charge to break the line.

The problem was the muskets were trash against melee units the natives had. You could lose your colonies quickly on very hard.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

No because you take too many casualties. I think the meta back when I cared in 2009 was to eventually charge to break the line.

The problem was the muskets were trash against melee units the natives had. You could lose your colonies quickly on very hard.

Never fought natives. Just crushing neighbors as Prussia. Name of the game was bring more guns.

 

[Agarathium1066]

No because you take too many casualties. I think the meta back when I cared in 2009 was to eventually charge to break the line.

The problem was the muskets were trash against melee units the natives had. You could lose your colonies quickly on very hard.

Depends on if you are playing in campaign or in multiplayer. In the former until you tech up Native units will be able to crush your colonial units in melee, their archers will also shoot faster and with similar accuracy to your line infantry. Your cavalry will get utterly smashed because Native units have much higher melee skill. Oh and if you had the Native DLC they'll also have the option to eventually tech up into having their own equivalents to your units.

Balance in Empire's campaigns is fucked.

Multiplayer it depended on what nation you wanted to play, you could play skirmish-y if you went with Austria. If you wanted competent line infantry you went Prussian or British. If you wanted to just melee charge your opponents you generally went Russia. Otherwise it was all super gimmicky builds with a lot of artillery.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Add in your artillery missing most of their shots and your cavalry getting shot to ribbons in a failed flanking maneuver and you've about got it.

I found it funny how artilery crews in Empire and Napoleon felt like they were led by blind men while in M2 cannon crews were insane. In my Americas campaign as the Spanish they feel laser-guided with how accurately they can hit exact spots in the town square with the highest concentration of Aztecs standing around.

 

[Agarathium1066]

I found it funny how artilery crews in Empire and Napoleon felt like they were led by blind men while in M2 cannon crews were insane. In my Americas campaign as the Spanish they feel laser-guided with how accurately they can hit exact spots in the town square with the highest concentration of Aztecs standing around.

Comically the artillerymen got their shit together in Napoleon to the point that certain nations would usually get a 'fair play' rule where only so many guns could be deployed. I pissed off a friend by really leaning on the Russian Unicorn artillery. Cheap artillery was horrible but it still could be useful with enough time. They couldn't hold a candle to Shogun 2 or FOTS arty through.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

I found it funny how artilery crews in Empire and Napoleon felt like they were led by blind men while in M2 cannon crews were insane. In my Americas campaign as the Spanish they feel laser-guided with how accurately they can hit exact spots in the town square with the highest concentration of Aztecs standing around.

Now, about artillery - you don't build one unit, you need 5. Preferably, howitzers. They are wrecking infantry regiments, especially when you unlock extra ammunition types. And with unlimited ammo for it, you just need to form defensive line of infantry and have cavalry for flanking and hunting enemy's artillery

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Comically the artillerymen got their shit together in Napoleon to the point that certain nations would usually get a 'fair play' rule where only so many guns could be deployed. I pissed off a friend by really leaning on the Russian Unicorn artillery. Cheap artillery was horrible but it still could be useful with enough time. They couldn't hold a candle to Shogun 2 or FOTS arty through.

Now, about artillery - you don't build one unit, you need 5. Preferably, howitzers. They are wrecking infantry regiments, especially when you unlock extra ammunition types. And with unlimited ammo for it, you just need to form defensive line of infantry and have cavalry for flanking and hunting enemy's artillery

Right, I should've been more specific especially since I finished a Napoleon campaign a month ago and yeah, getting access to howitzers changes things dramatically in Napoleon. It again reminds me of M2 where your usual fare of medieval siege weapons like catapults, trebuchets and mangonels (God help you if you ever decide to use that one) can't hit anything but once gunpowder gets invented and you get access to cannons it's like you have explosive snipers at your disposal.

 

[Snekposter]

Now, about artillery - you don't build one unit, you need 5. Preferably, howitzers. They are wrecking infantry regiments, especially when you unlock extra ammunition types. And with unlimited ammo for it, you just need to form defensive line of infantry and have cavalry for flanking and hunting enemy's artillery

Shit's nasty in DarthMod for Empire. Leaving aside the pure murder that is carcass and quicklime rounds, you're still going to want cannons just for counter-battery. They massively out-range howitzers to the point of being able to shoot practically into deployment zones on smaller maps thanks to that mod using realistic artillery ranges. A few field guns to knock out theirs or put some rounds in enemy cavalry prior to engagement can tip the scales in your favor.

 

[Monkey Shoulder]

Got sick of WH3 again, so I started a game as the Franks in Attila because why not.
Decided to not be my normal aggressive self, and to leave the WRE alone, while I pick off the smaller nations and build up my own.
Got most of Northern Europe and the UK before the Huns showed up and started absolutely pissing on the WRE.

Being a sentimental guy, I couldn't just let those settlements be razed, and one thing led to another and I entered Italy before Attila is even born, without fighting a single time against the Romans. They're actually my best friends in the world.

Is this the power of "turtling"?

ETA:
Just got Rome itself. Still having good relations with the WRE who are now pretty much confined to Spain and some islands.

 

[HeyYou]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2805330646

I can finally play Empire Divided without facepalming at the units.

 

[Herty]

Add in your artillery missing most of their shots and your cavalry getting shot to ribbons in a failed flanking maneuver and you've about got it.

Is there any mods that fix the combat and ai?