Armchair Generals: Total War

[Robespierre Richard]

Hey everybody.

Back when I was like 13-14 I was an avid player of Rome: Total War. Since then, however, I didn't play these games for a while but decided to get back into it when I saw Empire and Napoleon:TW for $7.50 on Steam. However, even on medium difficulty I found it to be very difficult, especially in large scale battles. I've decided to read Clausewitz's On War and Sun Tzu's The Art of War, currently about halfway through the first. Can anyone suggest any other tips?

Also want to make this a thread for:


What the best TW mods are.
What strategies and tactics you use.
After Action Reports & empire penis size comparisons.
How angry you are that a) Stalinists like video games and b) how these games are imperialist propaganda, as well as how much sense it then makes that Stalinists like them.
Anything else


I'm currently playing the Vanilla campaign for America, Road to Independence btw. Maybe there are ways to slow down a bit and do Indian campaigns where there aren't many firearms to begin with, or single player battles, or whatever, not sure. The grand campaign feels kind of intimidating, especially when you end up having like fifty battles per turn and just press auto-resolve on each one until it becomes like a crappy Europa Universalis. Also wish that these games had a city-building mode where I could build phallic monuments to my epic glory.

Really hope I'm not the only TW series player on this whole forum...

[Obs]

Empire and Napoleon sucked ass, don't play them. This thread is now about Rome.

I'm having lots of fun with the Extended Realism Mod these days. Playing as the Dacians, I've managed to conquer Greece and most of Asia Minor, starting to take over port cities in the Levant. Might post some pictures later.

Ín battles, I like to have mobile armies, usually with a core of spearmen and plenty of skirmishers. Fighting the Ptolemaics has been pretty hard due to not having any phalangites to counter theirs, but I tend to just hold them in place with some Persian spearmen and get my skirmishers to run up behind them. Using quite a bit of missile cavalry as well, and some heavy infantry for hammer and anvil tactics.

[DDR]

I'm with Obs, Rome TW all the way expecialli with the evrope barbarorvm mod.

[Leftie]

I'm currently playing as Alexander on the Rome TW expansion. I haven't played any other TW games so I don't know much about them.

[Revolutionair]

Third Age: Total War is a LotR mod for Medieval 2, it's the first mod I've ever dled but it's really fun.

Currently I am playing Medieval 2 as England. Already defeated the Scots. I am now in control of Denmark, Belgium, West Germany, France and Norway.

If you are having trouble in E:TW or N:TW, tell me how much ammunition do you have remaining at the end of your average battle. If a lot of your units have 90%+ ammunition, then you are positioning yourself in a way that is not optimal for firepower.

You should also try some Genghis Khan techniques. Use one full stack to go around razing unprotected cities behind the front line. Either the opponent will pull troops back from the front line to deal with it, or he will lose out on cash because the cities are not under his control = either way you win.

In both E:TW and N:TW (but especially E:TW) move your garrison out of your capital. Now exempt all settlements from tax, except the capital. Now maximize the taxes on the lowest class. After 3 turns, a revolutionary army will spawn which you can command. A republic gives you technology research rate bonus and order bonus.


edit:
And don't play easy or w/e. The game was designed to be played on vh, the only exception to this rule is R:TW where you can set battle difficulty on medium/h.

[Robespierre Richard]

Well I'm sick to death of Rome. I used to play that game way too much. Hell, I was even on the Rome Total Realism mod team. Not really doing anything, but still. I remember in EB I basically reconquered all of Alexander's empire as the Greek city-states before getting stuck on Rome and giving up. The reason why I got these games is because Cossacks 2 was shitty and unplayable unless you had pretty much perfect reaction times while here it's really not as big of a deal.

So yeah, this thread is about guns and shit, Rome-boys, no one cares about your little javelins. That game was way too easy anyway, on any difficulty level. Apparently with Shogun 2 they bumped it up to impossible, which is why I want to master these first.


If you are having trouble in E:TW or N:TW, tell me how much ammunition do you have remaining at the end of your average battle. If a lot of your units have 90%+ ammunition, then you are positioning yourself in a way that is not optimal for firepower.

What is optimal for firepower? I basically just build a center, flanks, and reserves because even when I have a mega-army it seems pointless to do anything besides find a hill and shoot from it.

[Nox]

The battles may seem complicated but literally all you need to do to win is flank your opponent and get behind them. When you realise that's all that the entire game boils down to, it kinda sucks.

[Leonid Brozhnev]

I found new love for the TW series recently, but I'm refusing to play it since I only have a week left before Uni deadlines. Instead, I've just been watching some online battle casts on Youtube. I was never into RomeTW when my younger brother used to play it back in the day, but after watching some Rome casts, it looks like fun. The new Shogun expansion looks good also, but I can't say I'm a fan of the era.

Napoleon didn't really do anything for me since it was too much like Empire, with less factions. That said, I may install Empire again although I'll probably get bored and go back to CoH after playing it for a day.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Pretty much all warfare, up until the invention of the machine gun, is kind of hammer-anvil. Pin/engage the enemy with infantry then circle and smash with cavalry. It's why the upper classes liked to be in the cavalry; because they liked the prestige of 'winning' the battle and didn't actually want to get their hands dirty doing the real fighting. Artillery in general should be used to soften targets before engaging but ensure you don't end up killing your own troops. Since you have guns, remember that muskets generally allow for the first few ranks to fire effectively (and in return be shot) so advance in columns and defend in lines. Hope this helps.

Also - play Rome: Total War and not that shitty Empire. :p

[Rusty Shackleford]

ETW is pretty fun though challenging.

one of my favorite strategies with that one was to rely on cavalry to flank when on the defensive. when they send units towards you just hit them very hard from the sides and rear, hit their artillery, and send 3+ units after their general. if they make it up to the line of infantry, a few volleys will send them running.


as for RTW, ive never played it unfortunately, though i do want to get back into it. oh, and CoH. OMG mod for CoH is excellent.

[Robespierre Richard]

Ha! Take that, George Washington!

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7872/takethatgeorgewashingto.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7872/takethatgeorgewashingto.jpg)
(the three columns are deployed, losses, kills)

Though I won this because of a glitch more or less, where my artillery got stuck, so when the shitty half of my army that I left to plug a hole got killed/fled, the 2.5 detachments that the Americans had got stuck trying to kill it, and by that time I got around the whole map, destroyed their artillery, and they pretty much surrendered.

But reading Sun Tzu definitely helped.

[Le Rouge]

Empire total war with Darth mod. Playing Darth Mod is like playing a different game. Land combat is more realistic, the ai is more clever, sea battles are like they should be : Slow. They are hundreds of new units (only in Darth Mod commander edition) etc.

Have a look at the forums on TW center.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/

[Robespierre Richard]

Empire total war with Darth mod. Playing Darth Mod is like playing a different game. Land combat is more realistic, the ai is more clever, sea battles are like they should be : Slow. They are hundreds of new units (only in Darth Mod commander edition) etc.

Have a look at the forums on TW center.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/

Yeah, I have, I just want to beat the America and First Nations campaigns first. There's a mod switcher, right?

[Red Commissar]

I haven't really played much of E:TW mods so I guess I'll take note of recommendations for that, though the last mod I really 'liked' was the Broken Crescent mod for Medieval II:Total War, though that was more of a 'content' mod than a gameplay one- but switching to the Middle-East rather than the Europe oriented vanilla was nice.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Yeah, I have, I just want to beat the America and Injun campaigns first. There's a mod switcher, right?
wat

[Robespierre Richard]

wat

Injun [ˈɪndʒən]
n
1. (Social Science / Peoples) US an informal or dialect word for (American) Indian

I've learned though that it is considered offensive in some uses and changed it so it doesn't affect anyone's sensibilites.

[Leonid Brozhnev]

Ha! Take that, George Washington!

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7872/takethatgeorgewashingto.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7872/takethatgeorgewashingto.jpg)
(the three columns are deployed, losses, kills)

Though I won this because of a glitch more or less, where my artillery got stuck, so when the shitty half of my army that I left to plug a hole got killed/fled, the 2.5 detachments that the Americans had got stuck trying to kill it, and by that time I got around the whole map, destroyed their artillery, and they pretty much surrendered.

But reading Sun Tzu definitely helped.

I remember doing this in Empire... was a few years back

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/Elburro/Loomis/shizzle/pwntfrenchies.jpg

Managed to beat back a French army with just 80 guys. It escapes me how it displays I only killed 79 when it also displays the French commander lost 526. As far as I can recall, there weren't any other armies on the field... I just camped in a Barn and let them come :lol:

[Rusty Shackleford]

Injun [ˈɪndʒən]
n
1. (Social Science / Peoples) US an informal or dialect word for (American) Indian

I've learned though that it is considered offensive in some uses and changed it so it doesn't affect anyone's sensibilites.
redemption be upon ye

[Agathor]

I tried playing Rome online for the first time in five years and got thrashed. I'm getting pretty good at Shogun 2, but there are people out there who have educated themselves thoroughly in ancient military doctrine; it's frightening to play against them when the only tactic I have is hammer and anvil. I like spamming a lot of bow cavalry because it's become very trendy to bring a rush army full of samurai. Most people just quit when they realize what I'm doing. Fair enough, I get the points.

I'm also playing a bit of Napoleon, but the online battles take too fucking long and the campaign is too easy. The enemy's entire cavalry contingent almost always charges right into my muskets at the start of the battle. C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.