|
PirateBob posted:Jesus christ... in a game that's over 10 years old and was patched for 5 years they never managed to fix the bug where the AI's ships won't unload when attacking your port city. Some of them just get stuck in the harbor and, if you have battle time limit turned off, you have to concede defeat even though you have been doing everything correctly. gently caress's sake CA. Shogun 2 was released in 2011 and they never fixed that Hattori & Tokugawa ninja field units are meant to be better but by error more expensive and worse than everyone else's.
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2024 07:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 30, 2024 08:00 |
|
|
I always play with the battle timer turned on, just for that sort of reason. It’s rare that I need more than 40 minutes to win, and being able to fast forward and run out the clock is occasionally useful.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2024 13:49
|
|
|
Been playing FotS lately, it's pretty good. It suddenly clicked that revolver cav is fuckin' nuts. Just had to say that. Incredibly busted unit.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2024 09:34
|
|
|
So, the Sea Peoples Free DLC for Pharaoh is out today. I know, I know, "daed gaem lol who plays this?" but is anyone gonna try it or has played pre-update Pharaoh? I really like the time period, don't mind the Warham engine (I enjoy Total War both old and new, mostly) so I might hop in at the reduced price. Thing is, I don't know much about the game itself (didn't play Troy much either) and the discourse online is just muddy and terrible, there's a massive cloud of antihype from uninterested Fantasy fans, the usual mob of TWCenter type disgruntled historical fans and youtubers farming negativity for clicks, and then a small sprinkling of "I played it, it's fine?  ".
Washin Tong fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Jan 25, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 17:03
|
|
|
Washin Tong posted:So, the Sea Peoples Free DLC for Pharaoh is out today. I know, I know, "daed gaem lol who plays this?" but is anyone gonna try it or has played pre-update Pharaoh? I really like the time period, don't mind the Warham engine (I enjoy Total War both old and new, mostly) so I might hop in at the reduced price. I need to get Pharoah now that they dropped the price. It always seemed fine, just too focused to be a full price game. Which also seems where most of the reviews I read settled? Good, some nice mechanics, but pretty narrow. How did you feel about Thrones? From the outside that seems the most comparable.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 17:38
|
|
|
I played it and it's not fine But maybe it's improved now? I probably won't be going back to try it out for a good while
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 17:48
|
|
|
To be a bit less glib, I really disliked the UI on the campaign layer and there was a lot of stuff that seemed complicated but not complex. The battles were dire, it has the messy scrums of warhammer but with only 3 unit types: melee, ranged, chariots. Since it's bronze age the melee and especially ranged are both really poor and chariots stomp over everything. So it has the problem 3k has where shock cavalry absolutely dominates and solves the game, but it's worse because 3k at least has good ranged units, artillery and melee to spec into if you want a change. Plus 3ks battle engine and campaign layer are just miles ahead. I didn't play very much to be fair but I've heard the long term campaign suffers badly from every faction pretty much doing the same things every time and a lot of the twists and wrinkles in the campaign like trying to become Pharaoh or dodging the sea people can be ignored. That was how the campaign felt to me, like there was a huge amount of stuff bolted on to have to learn and the UI made it difficult to do so, but it was unclear if any of it had an overall purpose. I got a couple campaigns out of troy and even one out of throb but I bounced off this one hard very quickly. The battles, theyre so bad.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 17:57
|
|
|
Pharoh is functional product. That's about the highest I can speak of it. It's such a downgrade in almost every sense compared to 3 Kingdoms that I can't bother playing it for more than an hour or so before I lose interest and boot up 3K or Warhams instead. As far as I'm concerned, 3 Kingdoms is the absolute peak of historical titles and Troy/Pharaoh are trying to shoehorn a history game into the Warhammer engine and it just doesn't work. Even the faction mechanics work more like the Warhammer faction mechanics and it's just not good. They need to scrap Troy/Pharoh, go back to 3 Kingdoms and build from there. As for the update, its there and it works. You can choose to be a horde and raze cities, or you can choose to settle down and occupy them. That's about it. The units are basically the same as all the other factions. They all look the same and are next to impossible to distinguish from one another. None of the factions have any visual identity that sets them apart from the others.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 19:05
|
|
|
I wanted to like Pharoah, and I haven’t tried since the update but even 40 seems to steep for the content there as it’s like 99% Troy. Definitely get it on sale for under 20$, which will probably be soon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 19:48
|
|
|
It's a very flat product which is really sad to see CA go backwards since 3k. I think they're slaving too much to the Warhammer formula for safety and it's really hamstringing them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 20:38
|
|
|
I decided to get back into Thrones for awhile while waiting for the next WH3 dlc. Any suggestions on factions? I pretty much played Wessex and one of the Viking factions and checked out after that for a lot of reasons mostly unrelated to the game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2024 23:18
|
|
|
The Welsh factions are fun for their ridiculous longbows - Wales is a tough starting location, but Strat Clute/Strathclyde is a bit gentler.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2024 23:32
|
|
|
Kazzah posted:The Welsh factions are fun for their ridiculous longbows - Wales is a tough starting location, but Strat Clute/Strathclyde is a bit gentler. Cool. Strat Clut has been fun so far. I ended up leaning into their heroism thing and declared war in Northleode and their vassal pretty much right away. Not only do they have a fuckton more food than I do but I've been pretty steadily outnumbered in every fight. But I just unlocked longbowmen which is a solid upgrade to my archer core and have the ability to start researching both the elite spears and cavalry. Elite spears on the "best archers and best cavalry" faction, even in a game where archers and cavalry are much weaker compared to other TWs, just seems funny. Their cavalry is also hilariously good especially with higher heroism and champion skills. So far they've been carrying me harder than my bows have, but the extra range and AP on the longbows sure won't hurt in that regard. Anyway, I've broken the back of the Westernas vassals with my king and his son just took Edinburgh so I'm raising a few armies of just a lord to go mop up their settlements quickly. Once this finishes I'm headed for one of the Sea Kings factions for heavy infantry + javelins. E: I generally like the recruitment system, though it combined with food means that at least for now I want as many elite units as I can handle because I have more gold than food. I could see being in a situation where food is plentiful so I can spam levy troops, but as is it hasn't really kept me from doomstacking (I also simply don't have the ability to recruit non-levy spears yet so it isn't like I have a choice in that regard yet...). Maybe playing a faction that gets more variety within a troop type will see more use of this, because as-is I have 1 spear option, eventually 2, 1 sword option, eventually 2, and 2 axe options, which I think doesn't change. 2 archer options, with retinue troops essentially being recruited on cooldown, and 2, eventually 3, cavalry options, with levy horses being pretty pitiful. Realistically I'm getting retinue archers and cavalry every time and levy spearmen, simply because I don't have much else. I also love how spears are both the anti-cavalry weapon and the jack of all trades weapon in terms of armor-piercing, with axes being specifically anti-armor and charge bonuses and swords being chaff-killers. It means you're going to bring spears for most purposes unless you're either the vikings and so have All the Axes or looking for a specific niche to full. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Feb 3, 2024 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2024 16:23
|
|
|
Or you play as the Irish faction and use swordsmen to mulch hundreds of poo poo levies in sieges for like 20 losses
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2024 19:24
|
|
|
Agean90 posted:Or you play as the Irish faction and use swordsmen to mulch hundreds of poo poo levies in sieges for like 20 losses Oh, good to know they have good swords. I'd been eyeing an Irish playthrough too; I got the monastery up in Scotland and like that chain. Getting Ireland locked down and getting all the research buffs seems fun. The Welsh swordsmen suck rear end: they cost a ton more than the levy spearmen and aren't much better in terms of killing chaff. Meanwhile you also get retinue axemen at the same price point who come with better armor and armor piercing. And since you're the Welsh, your bows mince anything unarmored anyway. Their roster really is ridiculous and Strat Clut getting the retinue cavalry on top of everything else just makes them silly. I really like how there are multiple types of "main" building that changes what you can build in the main province, even if it means that if you don't start near Ireland or Scotland you're hosed if you want to get that faster research buff from Monasteries. On the other hand, I took a Market chain building with 4 villages all making commerce buildings too and that place is funding at least two of my armies, so there's that. E: also I like javelins. I had a ton of fun in M:VI with Connacht spearmen and gallowglasses and figuring out how to play around with having no archers and poo poo cavalry. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Feb 5, 2024 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2024 01:11
|
|
|
No I wanna play Thrones again. It’s underrated imo.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2024 01:25
|
|
|
Yes. It's good. Best of the 'spearmanii' historicals
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2024 01:30
|
|
|
Yeah I'm really liking it. I think they should absolutely steal the recruitment system for basically everything going forward except maybe make levies have a much faster recovery. Maybe it's because of my single start as Strat Clut so far, but generally I've always been limited by food so the cost of units is pretty much meaningless beyond food and the availability, so the only reason I have levy troops at all is because i don't actually have levy spears to recruit. A few of my armies have a few javelins just because i needed some more armor-piercing early and i just never replaced them, and one army i recruited from a surprise war has them because i had nothing else. But I really like the recruitment system with a few tweaks going forward, maybe with higher costs for retinue/elite troops and faster levy filling so I might chose to bring more levies. I guess in fairness I do prefer levy spears to retinue swords, at least for the Welsh, but that is basically it. Add in the retinue system from 3k and I'd be thrilled. Keep the building system because frankly I like that different settlements have a different "theme" and while having a single unit able to take a minor settlement is a little annoying sometimes, the fact that they don't get actually take damage when that happens makes it much less annoying to take back. Add in a "red" minor settlement type to represent permanent forts or garrisons and I think it'd be great. E: and maybe the resource system from Troy too. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Feb 5, 2024 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2024 03:18
|
|
|
what's the good mod for thrones nowadays
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2024 04:57
|
|
|
There were some nice mods for different models within units and purty shield designs, but i dunno if any good big overhauls showed up
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2024 10:49
|
|
|
HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:what's the good mod for thrones nowadays Near as I can tell they have about 400 mods total on the Workshop and most of them are various cheat mods or cosmetic mods. E: I wish Irish Kerns were a little better in melee or had a retinue version that could fight ok, maybe with reduced ammo. Their javelins are really good but having some true light infantry would be nice. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Feb 7, 2024 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2024 03:08
|
|
|
Ok, so been playing a lot more of Thrones, specifically as Mide, and some of the weirdness with diplomacy made me think about vassals in basically the entire Total War series and how its fairly inconsistent what vassalage is. 3k has been the only one where it felt good, imo, but for the rest of the series it's kind of a mess. It can't entirely be a medieval system because there is no way your king's personal fief or household consists of basically the entire country. Even in Thrones that's clear because you're giving away estates and lands to the various nobles in your country. So that type of medieval vassalage and retinue system has to be abstracted away within your existing lands. Ok, fine, so vassals are client states. Except the main thing about states is that even if they are client states they should still have the ability to make diplomatic decisions for themselves, just not in a way that directly counters their liege state. But they can't do that either. Mechanically it's effectively locking the client out of diplomacy and giving you a tribute. Part of the weirdness comes from how other factions, and the vassal faction themselves, feels about changing the vassal agreement. 3k helps with this a ton (like most diplomacy things) because other factions can politic with your vassals and support their independence claims. But in so many other games its just weird. In WH3, if you're chaos and vassalizing someone forcibly, it's treated as providing a beneficial relationship to the subjugated state. It's akin to a military alliance, and means that your Chaos allies slowly start to hate you as you subjugate the world because they view you as allying with the vassal. Likewise, the vassals's former allies can start viewing you more favorably, assuming you don't immediately roll into those allies too. And the Empire has weirdness where you can both vassalize and confederate the other Elector Counts. In Thrones, especially as Mide, it's really, really weird. Vassalizing gives you some Legitimacy. Forming defensive and military allies gives you more. And the weirdest part is the Annex (it's basically just confederation, but is only available to Mide and it costs a good chunk of Legitimacy). You can annex your military allies, but not your vassals, which if anything is backwards. Which means if you vassalize an Irish faction and later want to annex them, you need to cancel their vassalization which royally pisses that faction off. There is no way to elevate them to something like a military ally (an overtly better state for the vassal state, as they get all the defensive benefits of being a vassal except they also don't have to pay tribute and can make their own decisions in terms of war), only essentially cancel your obligations to them. The main use of vassalizing, imo, should be to represent confederation in games when you cannot confederate a faction (like different rosters or whatever). Being able to make a vassal your ally should be possible if you wanted, but being a vassal should not count as being an ally in terms of how the other factions view them and you. Also it would be neat if vassals could declare offensive war with your permission, and doing so would not obligate you to join their war. Basically, 3k did it best but sorting out what vassalizing means would be nice. E: the 3 viking invasion fleets just spawned and beelined for English soil. I'm on Ireland. Do I really need to go head over there to beat them up too? Fiiiine. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Feb 10, 2024 |
|
#
?
Feb 9, 2024 19:41
|
|
|
See 3k is on sale, what of the DLC is worth buying? Now that ive got a computer that can run it i wanna give Cao Cao a start, or whoever has good cav
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2024 04:22
|
|
|
I think anything other than maybe Eight Princes is worth buying, especially with as cheap as they are at the moment. Mandate of Heaven and A World Betrayed are probably my two favorites - the first for the earlier start date and the second for the two really fun, often chaotic campaigns.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2024 04:31
|
|
|
You'll want the most recent DLC (World Betrayed?) for special Cao Cao mechanics (I think having them is dependent on owning the DLC). You get the mechanics as him no matter the start date, which is nice. Factions with good cav: Anyone with red cav (all Han factions). Its that simple. A more complicated answer: Cao Cao has some good unique cav. Yuan Shao gets some amazing unique cav of his own. Gongsun Zan gets some awesome unique archer cav. Ma Teng/Ma Chao get perfect vigor charge (red) cav and cav archers (blue). AAAAA! Real Muenster fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Feb 16, 2024 |
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2024 18:02
|
|
|
Ma Teng is where it's at for cavalry He's got a somewhat tough start but perfect vigour red cavalry are bonkers and more than make up for it
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2024 18:23
|
|
|
If you need extra Cao Cao mechanics, I think those are in World Betrayed However, base game as Liu Bei, especially in records mode, you can experience 3K cavalry while playing as the correct and most benevolent faction without needing any special bonuses, because you and your bros (and in records, their god-tier entourages) are just that loving good
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2024 18:35
|
|
|
Communist Thoughts posted:Ma Teng is where it's at for cavalry Underrated Ma Teng strat is to get him killed ASAP so Ma Chao can inherit. Just as much of a cav monster as his dad but without the irritating public order penalty
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2024 19:13
|
|
|
I would recommend records mode too. I never went back after doing a couple romance campaigns. Total war just doesn't work well with single entity dudes and the super cavalry squads you get instead are both very fun and also more vulnerable Plus stamina doesn't make a big difference even in records but when it does its pretty sweet, I had a snowy defence against a massive enemy army where I had my perfect vigour Zhang Fei riding down hundreds of exhausted men in the woods as they marched towards me
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2024 20:11
|
|
|
I would recommend romance mode, because the super-cavalry squads you get instead in records mode always feel like they homogenize the experience. Or more sincerely i'd just recommend trying both out and seeing what you like instead of taking what yahoos on the internet say on gospel.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2024 20:48
|
|
|
reignonyourparade posted:I would recommend romance mode, because the super-cavalry squads you get instead in records mode always feel like they homogenize the experience. Trying both is obvs the correct option, but I post for records bc of how often it gets written off as boring mode for dweebs, when honestly I think the single-entity characters are 3K's one big step back compared to even Warhammer 1, let alone current Warhammer 3, which does single-entity characters so so good. But my TW opinions also include thinking Shogun 2 is boring and that Thrones is the best spearmanii on spearmanii experience they ever put out, so e: also speaking of did they release Med 2 definitve edition for free or something? My toddler has been up all night with some kinda illness so I'm sitting here at the computer posting in fugue state, and looking at a time killer suddenly noticed it in my steam library with no memory of ever buying it on this steam account? Either way downloading it for some sweet 5am byzantine/sick toddler action Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Feb 16, 2024 |
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2024 23:46
|
|
|
ninjahedgehog posted:Underrated Ma Teng strat is to get him killed ASAP so Ma Chao can inherit. Just as much of a cav monster as his dad but without the irritating public order penalty
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 00:39
|
|
|
Romance mode lost it's appeal after like 2 campaigns for me. The cavalry maybe is OP but you can single entire armies with the heroes on Romance once you know what you're doing. And the duels aren't engaging gameplay-wise.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 01:12
|
|
|
AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:I disagree, his cav upkeep discount far outweighs the public order penalty. You're crazy, he starts on the Silk Road! Money's no object. Keeping the peasants quiet is much harder.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 01:32
|
|
|
Kazzah posted:You're crazy, he starts on the Silk Road! Money's no object. Keeping the peasants quiet is much harder. In addition to this, most of the big cav discounts come from the faction's red buildings rather than Ma Teng personally, *and* there's an opportunity cost building PO buildings in slots where you could be making even more money.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 03:07
|
|
|
There is a mod that adds the Warhammer Total War style 'Wounds' debuff for 3k romance characters and its a legit genius, elegant way to help reduce the power of Romance heroes. I always preferred the 'power level' of the characters (relative to normal troops) of Records Mode, but the abilities are just so much cooler and unique in Romance mode. Seems like a lot of people had that feeling because there are lots of mods that reduce the insanity of Romance heroes, other ones I like simply limit many hero abilities to only 2-3 uses per battle or make the powerful AOE abilities literally cost 15-20% of the heroes HP to use.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 03:29
|
|
|
Just bought Pharoah because the Blood and Sand trailer is loving metal as hell. Edit - adding the link because it rules : https://youtu.be/-AZUbfkqZC8?si=ko1pel4xZFfo1DVA A Perfect Twist fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Mar 17, 2024 |
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2024 11:19
|
|
|
Is Rome 2: Emperor Edition worth it at $15? I played Rome 1 way, way back and then nothing really until the Warhammer Trilogy. If I want to dip a toe back into a historical title, what's my best bet?
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 00:17
|
|
|
Rome 2 at $15 isn't bad. It's kinda uninspired, but it's probably got the most faction variety of any non warhammer game. Other good options are 3 Kingdoms (haven't played a lot personally but it's got a strategic layer that doesn't suck), Shogun 2 (has the least variety but manages to make that into a very focused experience), and Attila (kind of a mess but the strategy layer steadily getting worse all the time is fun).
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 00:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 30, 2024 08:00 |
|
|
Legendary Ptarmigan posted:Is Rome 2: Emperor Edition worth it at $15? I played Rome 1 way, way back and then nothing really until the Warhammer Trilogy. If I want to dip a toe back into a historical title, what's my best bet? Rome 2 is great. It's probably their most polished and easy to grasp, straightforward historical title. The graphics on a modern PC look excellent. The game design doesn't feel like it's aged at all. I think it's their best game that doesn't have elves in it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 00:38
|
|
