Total War - Recommendations?

[Zevox]

And it's done. Kyoto fell before an attack from two of my armies working together - and was finally a battle where I deployed my first siege weapons, fire mangonels, which I quite liked and wish hadn't taken so long to get ahold of. One year later, in spring of 1574, my Daimyo was declared Shogun by the Emperor, and his second-eldest son captured the Takeda capital of Minos, marking the fortieth province to fall under my rule. Campaign complete, victory.

So yeah, nothing really new to say at this point. Aside from not being thrilled with the wall-climbing thing, I quite enjoyed that. Don't know if or when I might play another campaign in this one, particularly since other factions will still largely play the same just with different starting positions, but I'm happy to have played it at least once. Thanks all for the recommendations on it!

Part of me wants to go start a campaign in Rome 2 now, but it's only a little under 2 weeks until Devil May Cry 5's release, and I'm definitely not going to be playing Total War once that game's out, and based on how long this campaign took, I probably wouldn't finish a Rome 2 campaign before then. Maybe after I'm done with DMC5. Guess in the meantime I'll find other games to pass the time - or maybe keep playing Shogun 2 a little just to finishing conquering as much of Japan as I can until DMC5 arrives.

[Blackhawk748]

If you want to have a very different campaign down the line, try playing as the Oda. Not only is your starting position crap (seriously, its awful) but you get Super Ashigaru as your special unit, and that really messes with how you play the game as your Ashigaru will kick the crap out of everyone else's.

[Inarius]

Part of me wants to go start a campaign in Rome 2 now, but it's only a little under 2 weeks until Devil May Cry 5's release, and I'm definitely not going to be playing Total War once that game's out, and based on how long this campaign took, I probably wouldn't finish a Rome 2 campaign before then. Maybe after I'm done with DMC5. Guess in the meantime I'll find other games to pass the time - or maybe keep playing Shogun 2 a little just to finishing conquering as much of Japan as I can until DMC5 arrives.

You may want to wait if you're going to be occupied with DMC 5. Steam spring sale will probably be coming up soon and Rome 2 will likely be on sale during it.

[Zevox]

You may want to wait if you're going to be occupied with DMC 5. Steam spring sale will probably be coming up soon and Rome 2 will likely be on sale during it.

Oh, I bought Rome 2 already - there was a sale literally the day after I bought Shogun 2 where it was 75% off, and I grabbed it then.

[The Jack]

If you want to have a very different campaign down the line, try playing as the Oda. Not only is your starting position crap (seriously, its awful)

Oda's starting position is excellent. What're you doing? You've got awesome neighbours and a good route south.
Oda's the one clan where i thought the starting difficulty was a complete lie (mind you, I've never played Mori or Tokugawa and don't have the Hattori)

Now Takeda and Uesegi start with BS (though maybe I'm bias with Takeda cause it was my first hard game) but the Uesegi are slow and the Takeda are completely surrounded. My Takeda campaign only went well because I was really trying hard to be BFF with the imagawa. Like towards the end I'd periodically gift them thousands just so I could wipe out everything East without needing four armies west.
To my Chargrin, when I got everything East and hit realm devide, I Rolled through to kyoto and never got to use the great guard as a takeda because that ended my long campaign.

Now the Otomo... That starting position is a sick joke.
You get a nanban trade port but it's in the wrong province.
You border five provinces
Everyone hates you, you're at war with two factions and you're going to be at war with more very soon.
The Starting dude talks about how you're rivals with the shimazu, who never last long enough to be seen.

[Blackhawk748]

Oda's starting position is excellent. What're you doing? You've got awesome neighbours and a good route south.
Oda's the one clan where i thought the starting difficulty was a complete lie (mind you, I've never played Mori or Tokugawa and don't have the Hattori)

Now Takeda and Uesegi start with BS (though maybe I'm bias with Takeda cause it was my first hard game) but the Uesegi are slow and the Takeda are completely surrounded. My Takeda campaign only went well because I was really trying hard to be BFF with the imagawa. Like towards the end I'd periodically gift them thousands just so I could wipe out everything East without needing four armies west.
To my Chargrin, when I got everything East and hit realm devide, I Rolled through to kyoto and never got to use the great guard as a takeda because that ended my long campaign.

Now the Otomo... That starting position is a sick joke.
You get a nanban trade port but it's in the wrong province.
You border five provinces
Everyone hates you, you're at war with two factions and you're going to be at war with more very soon.
The Starting dude talks about how you're rivals with the shimazu, who never last long enough to be seen.

You're in the middle of the map and if your neighbors decide to kill you (like mine did fairly early) you are gonna have a very, very hard time fighting them off. Granted it was my first playthrough so I probably did some stupid stuff, but god it was awful.

Now my second playthrough was a curbstomp with all of my super Archers as the Shimazu can get a province that boosts them stupid early. That and stacks of Katana Samurai will just let you roll everything.

[Kadesh]

It's more how to juggle a host of issues, especially in the early game. Back before the updates and stuff, shortly after the game's release, I had a quite successful campaign as Mide, and I wanted to go back and play it "properly" now that it looks like CA is "done" with Thrones of Britannia, and I'm finding the beginning much more difficult despite playing on Normal difficulty like last time. My expansion options always seem frustrated by Airgialla, since they swoop in and take territory from my immediate neighbors that I wanted (Brega in one playthrough, where I helped them against Dyflin, and in another where I conquered them instead they marched into Breifne, my next conquest target, because Breifne had started a war with Ailech, Airgialla's master and my ally). And my army building seems to be going a lot slower than that of my rivals, who are deploying stacks of 14 or even 19 while I'm struggling to get even one stack up to 10 troops.

I'm also having difficulty keeping my populace fed and my nobles happy at the same time, since a lot of them are asking for agricultural estates. When I have Agricultural estates, they provide extra food that my army needs, but when I give them to my nobles, that bonus flips to a penalty, and before I know it I'm dealing with a food shortage on top of rebellions in my conquered regions that take food-producing towns from me and making the shortage worse. Add to that the fact that my Legitimacy keeps tanking and it creates a snowball effect where I can't keep my realm under control and am spending more time defending what little I have while other territories fight each other around me, something I eventually can't keep up when I finally become targeted from outside.

In short, I'm sort of struggling with my opening moves, as with these updates the game is much more challenging than it was at launch (and for the record I do think the changes they've made ARE for the better, I'm just really having a hard time relearning the game). I'm certain there's a way to get "over the hump" so to speak and get to a point where my own progress snowballs into me conquering Ireland and beyond, but I'm having a hard time figuring out that way...and Mide is supposed to be one of the easier factions to start as!

Biggest challenge for me is that 14 Strong Stack that goes for your villages from the Vikings when you side with Brega.

My actions were; pay/secure Military Access with Brega (3Kish), and defeat the rebels, return home, and recruit more (mainly Jav Cav and Archers), before heading south to protect against the Vikings, staying near to the crossing. Rush the Jav Cav over, and alpha strike the general, then try and bait them over. Leave Brega to claim Viking Territories, and head north to take on Briefne, and claim the Iron. Depending on food needs, head south to the Hlymrekr and take the farm. Issue Agriculture estates only to those who do not have the Virtuous or Wise trait groups, as they are Food negatives. Build garrisons to improve your reinforcement range, now you can support your allies more, fight more offensively with a more secure homeland, and then spend time on emphasising trade and leadership to gain the Legitimacy needed to eventually Annex people.

[Inarius]

Now Takeda and Uesegi start with BS (though maybe I'm bias with Takeda cause it was my first hard game) but the Uesegi are slow and the Takeda are completely surrounded. My Takeda campaign only went well because I was really trying hard to be BFF with the imagawa. Like towards the end I'd periodically gift them thousands just so I could wipe out everything East without needing four armies west.

Huh, for me Takeda wasn't so bad. Their starting position is fairly easy to defend because the mountains create barriers that funnel enemies to certain cities. There's one particular city who's name escapes me that is the terminus for 4 separate paths to your capital so if you take that city and garrison it you have free reign to expand southward to the coast.

Uesugi is indeed BS though, partly because the provinces in its starting area are so large so moving armies takes forever which can dramatically slow your expansion. There's also a lack of good defensible choke points in that region of the map so it winds up just being a slog to get started.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Biggest challenge for me is that 14 Strong Stack that goes for your villages from the Vikings when you side with Brega.

My actions were; pay/secure Military Access with Brega (3Kish), and defeat the rebels, return home, and recruit more (mainly Jav Cav and Archers), before heading south to protect against the Vikings, staying near to the crossing. Rush the Jav Cav over, and alpha strike the general, then try and bait them over. Leave Brega to claim Viking Territories, and head north to take on Briefne, and claim the Iron. Depending on food needs, head south to the Hlymrekr and take the farm. Issue Agriculture estates only to those who do not have the Virtuous or Wise trait groups, as they are Food negatives. Build garrisons to improve your reinforcement range, now you can support your allies more, fight more offensively with a more secure homeland, and then spend time on emphasising trade and leadership to gain the Legitimacy needed to eventually Annex people.

I'm stuck at the part where you fight the Vikings at the crossing. My Jav Cav won't cross the bridge, giving the Vikings enough time to engage them in melee. Am I at the right crossing (it's just outside Cnodba, which the Vikings have taken from Airgialla)? Also, just like in previous attempts, Airgialla swooped in to chomp up Brega the moment they started a war with Dyflin. They just can't stand on their own it seems.

[Kadesh]

I'm stuck at the part where you fight the Vikings at the crossing. My Jav Cav won't cross the bridge, giving the Vikings enough time to engage them in melee. Am I at the right crossing (it's just outside Cnodba, which the Vikings have taken from Airgialla)? Also, just like in previous attempts, Airgialla swooped in to chomp up Brega the moment they started a war with Dyflin. They just can't stand on their own it seems.

Yeah, that's the one. Seems strange that they don't cross. Have you turned off the autoskirmish, or will they literally not cross? And yeah, it's the one giving you a Religious Estate, if I'm misremembering. Can't say I've had issues with them getting chewed up by Airgialla. Might be worth trying a Migration campaign, or just eating the Viking's up once they've taken Brega (whose only role is to be eventually swallowed by you anyway), and then striking back against their more defensible settlements when the Viking's have overextended?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Yeah, that's the one. Seems strange that they don't cross. Have you turned off the autoskirmish, or will they literally not cross? And yeah, it's the one giving you a Religious Estate, if I'm misremembering. Can't say I've had issues with them getting chewed up by Airgialla. Might be worth trying a Migration campaign, or just eating the Viking's up once they've taken Brega (whose only role is to be eventually swallowed by you anyway), and then striking back against their more defensible settlements when the Viking's have overextended?

You're right, it was the autoskirmish. Once I turned that off, they did what I needed. Now we've got Cnodba for ourselves, and we're researching food and building up our food buildings, but I'm concerned I'm over extending myself.

Bardr may be dead, but his army is on the mend, looking to secure their remaining lands from me, and my army's got attrition issues due to the food shortage I incurred building it up to deal with Dyflin's. I've added some troops to my second army and marched them to our border, but Breifne looks like it's about to make war either on me or Ailech, which I'm concerned I'm not ready for...

[Kadesh]

Ah, seemed strange, so glad that that's sorted.

All units cost food upkeep, so surely by building new units, you're putting your army you want to gain replenishment under a worse circumstance if it's that which is preventing you from gaining troops back. Being fair to Britannia, I've found it to be one of the more challenging early games, and have restarted a number of times. The only thing that was more difficult for me was release Attila, when I wasn't very good at horse archery.

I've found Jav Cav to be ultra effective units ever since I learned about them with Mercenary Tarantines in Rome 2, however, and absolutely love fast short ranged AP units like them who can decimate Heavy Cav etc.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

That is true, but after building a granary and upgrading my food buildings that's less of a concern. I'm more worried that I've only got one major army, and that it's tied up in Brega while Briefne is looking to start a war of its own, and my second army is nowhere near as strong.

[snowblizz]

That is true, but after building a granary and upgrading my food buildings that's less of a concern. I'm more worried that I've only got one major army, and that it's tied up in Brega while Briefne is looking to start a war of its own, and my second army is nowhere near as strong.

War on two fronts hard? Who knew.


What's the deal with that Game of Thro..Britannia game? I must have gottne burnt on Rome 2 because bought Attila on a whim in a sale and coudln't get into that either.

[Kadesh]

The battles are among the most boring, but I preferred the campaign play of Britannia compared to virtually any other, even modded M2. I have high hopes for 3K.

[Crow]

Now the Otomo... That starting position is a sick joke.
You get a nanban trade port but it's in the wrong province.
You border five provinces
Everyone hates you, you're at war with two factions and you're going to be at war with more very soon.
The Starting dude talks about how you're rivals with the shimazu, who never last long enough to be seen.

Gunpowder is your friend.