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[KaguroDraven]

How many people here like the Total War games? Which ones are your favorates? Why? Whaty kinds of stratogies do you prefer? Etc. Just a basic game thread I guess for the Total War series. I sadly have only had the chance to play medieval two. Though Rome, and Shogun from what I've read and seen look very good. I'm also semi-looking forward to Shogun 2.

[mainiac]

RTW:BI was the last of the Total War games in my opinion.  There was a nice unit diversity and the AI didn't completely suck.  A wide variety of strategies were viable against a human opponent, ranging from the ever fun mass army in the grass to the sea of horse archers and even a conventional classic roman setup.  Sieges were somewhat problematic, as whoever had the best infantry always won against a human opponent.

As for the later games 

[Toady Two]

Recently I'm playing Empire. I don't see what people are whining about. Sure the battle AI sucks at certain situations(fort sieges ) but it is still the best available strategy game for the time period.

My favorite was probably Medieval 1, then Shogun. I didn't like Rome that much. The vanilla campaign felt bland and Romas expansion to superpower was inevitable. I later played the Europa Barbarorum mod and that made it better. It would add historical accuracy for the starting period(something that no released TW game has ) and lets you gain dominion over Europe not just with Rome but also with Athens/Sparta coalition, Carthage, Pontos or Egipt.

[KaguroDraven]

Sounds interesting. Still as I said I only have Medieval 2, not even the kingdoms expansion. It's still fun though, and I take through advantage of holy wars for cities, new units, units temporarily without upkeep and of course experiance for my units. Even though I've heard, and even somewhat seen, time and again that cavilry is overpowered in Medieval 2 I actuilly prefer to use heavy infantry and spearmen. It might just be bad luck but even with tons of the best archers in the game, mounted on walls the archers barely get any kills at all, so I just don't use them.

[Ozyton]

Recently I'm playing Empire. I don't see what people are whining about. Sure the battle AI sucks at certain situations(fort sieges ) but it is still the best available strategy game for the time period.

Ironically enough, I started a conversation with my friend about the total war series just a few minutes before this topic popped up. He recommends Darthmod if you play Empire... though I haven't tried it myself yet.

Also, is this another topic that sprouted up because of Jef's LP?

[KaguroDraven]

Nah, I haven't watched Jef's Rome TW LP yet, still watching others. I just started playing my Medieval 2 alot again, I started playing becouse of another guy's Rome TW LP, made me realise Rome has alot of thinks I would like that are missing from Medieval 2, and is missing things I hate from Medieval 2.

[Rilder]

Europa Barbarorum = Best Total war game.

Medieval 2 is good too simply cause of the mod diversity.

ETW With Darthmod isn't bad though.

[Ampersand]

Europa Barbarorum mod for Rome. Awesome. Particularly if you use the submod that enables either usage of the Barbarian invasion or Alexander AI and engine.

The AI in all of the games is pretty bad though. I've defeated entire sieging armies with one general, one unit of slingers, and a little ingenuity, mainly because the AI makes no effort to actually stage some kind of attack when you sally out of the gates to attack them before they have siege equipment.

Other times, an army with a huge number of slingers can just decimate or even route an army without a single casualty by lining up and firing on them, and running when they try to counter. The enemy always returns to their battle lines, and waits for your infantry to engage.

And guess what? Spartan hoplites can hold a clear line almost indefinitely. But at least Romans aren't severely overpowered, and their expansion isn't necessarily inevitble. It can be halted if you play some nearby power like Carthage, strangled in it's crib by Phyrrus of Epirus, or halted by the two Gallic tribes. In Human hand's almost any faction is unstoppable, mainly due to the aforementioned AI.

[ChairmanPoo]

The problem with the total war games is that they added lots of features but did not improve the AI to manage them, and as such it's performance got worse and worse the better looking and fuller the TW games were.

IMO it would have been better if they had stuck to eyecandy and AI improvement, and had only added new features (eg: the cities vs castles conundrum) insofar the AI could manage them.

[Toady Two]

This Darthmod you linked got me interested. I'm downloading it now. I wonder If I'll try to finish my current Poland - Lithuania H/H vanilla camapign or start over with the mod. Playing Ottoman empire is something I feel like trying, since I effortlessly crushed them in my current campaign. Prussia for example: was a pain to finish off even with help from Austria and unexpectantly: Courland wich layed siege to Brandenburg, and smashed a full stack at its gates with help from my reinforcements.

I like playing the underdogs in TW games usually this was Poland in Medieval/ Empire games and Greeks in EB(not really underdog but Macedonia is a pain to defeat). In Empire my PL campaign feels way to easy and is getting into the borning part when all my neibours are my allies.

[rant]Unrealisitically, XVIII century Poland turned out to be a really strong faction in Empire.  If there is ever a historial accuracy mod a la EB for the game it should portrait that getting ANY reforms or taxations in the Landowner Democracy, the political system of the time, was impossible. The commonwealths downfall should be near inevitable(with aggaersion from outside powers). I think it would still make for an awesome campaign. Instead of conquering your goal would be to remain in existance. The streangth of armies you possess should depend on senate decrees and the will of the upper classes to take up arms. The elected king could even be a member or ruler of another faction, forcing you to go join in on his wars .

Currently the only difference between a republikan system and absolute manarchy is some happyness penalties and randon ministers. That was not the case IRL and early democracies(epecially not the "spledidly isolated" ones had it hard  )[/rant]

I've been watching jefmajors Rome LP and I must say I don't remember the vanilla game to be this fun I too tried to play Scipii but I remember getting annoyed by the randomness of naval combat and the retarded senate missions.

[Apple Master]

Been playing Rome total war with some guys from the Baystation12 IRC channel, it's really fun.
Rome is by far my favourite, with BI being the best expansion pack.

[Ricky]

i have Napolean TW, but it was too big to fit on my laptop without making it even crappier.

ive been thinking about putting it on the desktop

but the little bit i did play it, it was pretty fun

[Cheese]

Played all total war games but the Napoleon expansion. I only borrowed Shogun though, so I don't own it. My personal favourite is Medieval 2, especially with all the mods out there. Or perhaps Rome, not sure. Shogun 2 looks awesome.

[Muz]

Europa Universalis has what I was looking for from the TW games.

The only thing the TW games does better is letting you blow up shit. And that's where the later games do better

[KaguroDraven]

Well how do you guys like to win your wars and battles? As I said earlier, I much prefer to load up on heavy infantry and speamen and try to use the terrain to my advantage. Cavilry isn't that fun to me, even though they tend to decimate the enemy, and Archers barly seem to get any kills under any conditions. I prefer though to get a ton of trade agreements from the beggining, get a few coastal cities for more trade income and for places to launch my fleet, and I always send a diplomat straight to rome to keep them in my pocket.

In one game as france I took about half of the holy lands during a crusade, only rebel cities, and gave most of them to Rome. Next thing I know the pope is makeing war on the turks and egypt, while catholic factions that attack me get excommunicted and destroyed. Last I checked on that game I had taken all of RL france, the Iberian peninsula, Antioch(always my trade capital), and several islands. I had given the pope all of england for the heck of it, and gave him some zones to make him a liveing shield between me and the HRE. I had decimated the mongols when they arrived by waiting with overwhelming power, I let 4 generals escape every attack on them just to see what happened. 3 go 'afraid of france' as a trait, one got 'hates the french'