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[Asehujiko]

Egypt is the 'best', because Chariots are seriously imba. Like, really imba.

I suppose you never tried to run over a set of dogs with them? They tend to fall apart if you do that.

Selucids are the best. Phalanx, elephants, easy access to pretty much every single wonder and only one of their neighbours is any threat at all.

[andrea]

Yes, war works, but not too much war. Mainly, i take rebels, then my target is to build infrastructure so that any future war can be handled easily. Small wars against small nations on the borders happens, whenever i think i need more land.
What i don't understand is why half europe teams against me, even ( mostly) my allies. What does alliance mean if they take the first chance to betray me?

[chaoticag]

Aww, lost my disc 1 when I moved from Virginia... stupid airports...

[jnecros]

Using this mod: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1117 called Rusichi Total War, I played the Novgorods and was doing pretty well for A time until my damn faction leader died, then my cities exploded in revolt that escatlated to a full-blowen civil war with two disgruntled heirs rampaging my lands, after like 4 years or so I thought I had it contained, and bam the Mongols rode into town and it was basicly game over.


and this mod: Broken Crescent
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=346

Any game where I play the Roiaume de Jherusalem forget it, its a non stop blood bath, on the edge of my seat until turn 120 or so. And the playing the Great Seljuks, I dominate in field battles but just can not effectively devour cities, just goes to show that horsemen suck at sieges, thats why one hires mercs!

[Mindmaker]

Fun game, but way too easy.
Try the Ultimate AI , it really adds challenge and more realism to the Game.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Played through it from Shogun to Empire...

Medieval 2 wise, you can't go wrong with Stainless Steel, and more recently I must recommend the growing Third Age LotR mod.

Holy freaking crap as a finished product it's far more polished than Empire was at release, greater than a level of EB vs vanilla Rome and etc.

[Jreengus]

Yes, war works, but not too much war. Mainly, i take rebels, then my target is to build infrastructure so that any future war can be handled easily. Small wars against small nations on the borders happens, whenever i think i need more land.
What i don't understand is why half europe teams against me, even ( mostly) my allies. What does alliance mean if they take the first chance to betray me?

The entire world goes against you because it is a war game, if your not at war you really are doing it wrong. Just wage perpetual war, early on your enemies will be weak so grab their capitals for a major boost to your growth, later on you should have outgrown your enemies so it shouldn't be a problem taking on a few extra empires. Peacefully growing your empire is ultimately a waste of time because it means you have a bunch of soldiers sitting on their hands doing nothing.

[andrea]

actually, the whole point of peace is not having to upkeep an enormous army.
Beside, it may be a war game, but every little nation declaring war on you, invalidating all game mechanics involving peace ( royal weddings, alliance and such: worthless if you even dare to share a border. ) is a bit... lets call it "too much"? even if they are a tiny region-state with no army, they go on and declare war on me, when i am 20 times stronger than him.

I know it is a war game, i like war. But the whole Europe and some more declaring war on you in the first 30 turns, despite all the alliances and me never doing anything against anyone , is ridiculous. It seem that after the first war, a cascade starts dragging everyone else in a war against me.

What happens in hard mode? you start at war against the whole world? and maybe the enemies have a couple of tanks?

[Jreengus]

If you don't have armies then don't be surprised if people declare war on you...

Armies easily pay for themselves so you don't really save money by not having them. The diplomacy is there mainly so that you can focus on a certain front, it needs to be backed up by a big army though otherwise they will view you as weak and ignore alliances because they are of less value to them.

[Jackrabbit]

See, you actually aren't wrong with the 'player? WAR!' ideal. In Empire (and presumably others) anyone adjacent to you will attack after a period of time.

Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised - Niccolò Machiavelli

In Medieval, the only way to win is, well, Total War. Allies are fleeting, forget about them. The only allies I pay any attention to is the Mongols, and now I know they have a grand total of two regions left. Everyone else I'm allied with is simply a nation I've set aside to be conquered later. One thing I've noticed about Total War is you cannot be friendly or peaceful, because if you are everyone wil make a landgrab the moment they are stronger than you. Alliances are nothing, just words on a piece of paper. The AI doesn't care much about them and neither should you. I've been at peace for a while (except for the Moors), have 200,000 and control most of Europe because I have a bigger stick than the other guy.

If you want to be peaceful, conquer the world. See, it works like this.

Peaceful                               Peaceful
|                                         |
No army                                large army
|                                         |
Small amount of land               small amount of land
|                                         |
Tiny cash flow                       Coffers in freefall
|                                         |
AI go to town on you.             AI wages war you can't sustain         
                                          |
                                          AI goes to town on you.

War
|
Use starting armies to take land
|
Use land to continue expansion
|
Bigger armies
|
More land
|
More money
|
Hard fought wars, occasionally sneaky use of diplomacy, spies, assassins, ect.
|
Total War
|
YOU RULE EVERYTHING

tl;dr if you aren't playing brutally, you're playing it wrong. Everyone who isn't you is a target.

[KaelGotDwarves]

That's why there are AI mods.

Total War isn't exactly a series that lends itself to peaceful resolution, it might have something to do with the whole "Total War" moniker after all. 

But the point is that in a global conquest game, there ought to be those scheming for global conquest. The standard Empire: Total War campaign AI sees that you are a human player, and simply declares war on you. Versus computer players it makes a calculated decision to invade or not, but in Empire, even as you are about to exterminate the Computer-run race from existence, they will refuse a peace treaty.

This isn't a Civ/Alpha Centauri/GalCiv type deal where you can broker peace/culture your enemies to death and then achieve victory through ascending Godhood as genocidal bunnies.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=161570&site=pcg

At the very least, all you can do is play off diplomatic relationships and inciting wars through large cash bribes, and that gets a little old after while, especially since everyone ends up declaring war on you in the end.

That is why battles are the only real interesting thing for me in Total War anymore, and for battles and if I do play campaign I end up using AI mods. There are a few that end up simulating decently everyone trying to get to the top or survive against say... Russia or mongols or mordor instead of blindly trying to screw over the player, which is sometimes fun but still not as fun as Alpha Centauri and GalCiv epic level behind-the-scenes jackassery 

[andrea]

They are a target, but i like fighting only one or 2 at once, not all the medieval superpowers together. It gets stressing after a bit.
I can understand people stronger than me seeing my land as a palce for conquest, the problem here is that EVERYBODY does it, even when i am stronger and by much.
I think you got it wrong: I don't keep a small army. I keep enough to defend my kingdom and attack other should it be needed. I just keep it low enough so I don't go bankrupt in few turns. This may be total war,  but i like having infrastructure behind the armies, like for example castles. I try to avoid pillaging since these are the cities i have to rule.
I have nothing against Ai jumping at me in a moment of weakness: what i complain about is the whole world going at war against me for no reason at all by turn 30, refusing peace even if they are losing their last region and I am offering them wagons of gold ( ok, i don't actually do that. But they would still refuse).

In other total war games, i never had this kind of problem. There was war, but not "all vs me" war.

Also, I can't focus on a side. IF i manage to make peace, accepting outrageous conditions ( because i am still stronger than everybody), that nation will only wait more or less 5 turns before going to war again.

It just makes half the game seem worthless. Trade, diplomacy, religion... all useless.

If you was , lets say, switzerland, with 2 units of pikeman, would you atatck me, the richest and most powerful lord of europe, with thousands of soldiers in yuor area? AI does it. The problem is not defeating enemies, because i am much stornger. The problem is having to split armies.

and milan, how much i hate these traitors filled of pride. They are the worst of them all.

I think I will just look for the expansion and download that middle earth mode. At least there will be a reason if people fight against me.


EDIT: well said, post above me. It may be fun once, but seeing it everytime gets a bit boring. The first time, it was great, surviving and eventually winning against all europe together. The second time, it wasn't as great.

Also, i bought Alpha centauri from Ebay. I hope it arrives soon.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Also, i bought Alpha centauri from Ebay. I hope it arrives soon.

First time playing Alpha Centauri?  Such an old game that has kept up extremely well. The original factions... such hate I harbored for Godwinson and the Believers. I would play as University or Gaia and they were always pretentious backstabbing douches to me on my first playthoughs that later on I would always preemptively form an alliance to wipe them from the planet.

It gives me such a smug, ironic feeling to bring the apocalypse on the Lord's Believers by using Planet busters on them playing as Gaia's Stepdaughters.

Decade more later and games still have worse AI 

[Jackrabbit]

Ah, there's one problem.

Pillage fucking everything. All that means is you have to repair a few buildings and people have the fear of you instilled in them.

Anyway, I see your point. It's not fun to have the whole world up in arms, but for some reason that didn't happen to me. I think it's because I always focus absolutely everything on one nation and merely defend my borders against my other enemies. I don't know why you're having such a hard time of it, I always stabilize around turn 50 and end up in a nice, but not too easy, position.

I know that the game shouldn't be like that out of the box, and I'm not sure why I'm not having the same problem, but I prescribe AI mods and if they don't work, call me in the morning.

[andrea]

probably, they just see me being rich and powerful, realise that since they are "easy" AIs they iwll never be as good as me, and decide to attack lemming-like.
I'll have to try playing on "hard".