Age of charlemagne playing as charlemagne is not fun

[DJmass]

I am really hating playing as charlemagne. I ended up having to look online just to get past the first twenty turns. Now I managed to get a bit farther ahead but now all my generals have low loyaty and even with having built churches everywere I still have massively low public opinion. I always wanted to play a charlemagne compaign but now I hate it.

[Teh_Diplomat]

It's the WRE campaign of AoC; overstretched, threats on all fronts, and a rival empire to your east.

Mind you, even the Mercian campaign is difficult in its infancy - those first few turns can set you back to having to play 'catch up' during the mid-game.

[DJmass]

WRE? yeah ended up giving up after the first 5 tries. got the Radious mod and its made it a lot easier.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by DJmass:

WRE? yeah ended up giving up after the first 5 tries. got the Radious mod and its made it a lot easier.

I've been doing my first play through as Kingdom of the Franks recently, and I did find the beginning to be a pain.

Once you stabilize the situation it gets much easier, almost too easy actually. I'm at late 784 and everyone is basically an ally or at very good relations at this point.

My advice for Franks in AoC is to use diplomacy as much as possible, so you don't get overstretched fighting on a multiple fronts. At the start, Charlemagne and Roland are too far away to address the Saxons, and while the Gascons and Aquitainians are closer, I didn't want to spend a bunch of turns down there while the other enemies invaded. So I just made peace with Gascony and Aquitaine as soon as possible, like turn 3, after dealing them one good solid defeat in the field, and sacking Argouleme.

This money from the sacking, raiding and peace deals should give you plenty to raise an army around Ghent, and to hire out all the mercs there, so you can cover that front against the Saxons. I forced a peace with Saxons as soon as I could, so that just left Angria and Easphalia to deal with in thr first couple of years.

I found money and public order to be a problem at the start. I kept taxes on Minimal for a long time to keep public order, instead of building stuff, because I wanted to keep costs down.

Again, I'd recommend diplomacy as much as possible: get Bavaria as an ally and keep Wilzi and Obidrite in your sphere, as well as Brittany. They'll help fight enemies and you can get a lot of money by making various agreements. You'll want to get as many trade agreements as possible too, because the tax income early in the game is so small.

After defeating Angria, I turned them into a puppet state, forced Eastphalia into peace, then isolated and destroyed the last of the Saxons, who had started war again.

You said you were having problems with general's loyalty: give them offices, and make sure that as you promote them, you take their rank into account, so they don't get butthurt from a lower ranked general jumping ahead of them.

Things got a lot easier once I took Carloman's lands, because there is more tax, and then the new Kingdom of the Franks gets a public order bonus, loyalty bonus, and such.

So if you can hold out till you get all of Francia, I think you'll find the campaign goes much smoother.

[Teh_Diplomat]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

Originally posted by DJmass:

WRE? yeah ended up giving up after the first 5 tries. got the Radious mod and its made it a lot easier.

I've been doing my first play through as Kingdom of the Franks recently, and I did find the beginning to be a pain.

Once you stabilize the situation it gets much easier, almost too easy actually. I'm at late 784 and everyone is basically an ally or at very good relations at this point.

My advice for Franks in AoC is to use diplomacy as much as possible, so you don't get overstretched fighting on a multiple fronts. At the start, Charlemagne and Roland are too far away to address the Saxons, and while the Gascons and Aquitainians are closer, I didn't want to spend a bunch of turns down there while the other enemies invaded.

I found money and public order to be a problem at the start. I kept taxes on Minimal for a long time to keep public order, instead of building stuff, because I wanted to keep costs down.

I'd recommend diplomacy as much as possible: get Bavaria as an ally and keep Wilzi and Obidrite in your sphere; as well as Brittany. They'll help fight enemies and you can get a lot of money by making various agreements. You'll want to get as many trade agreements as possible too, because the tax income early in the game is so small.

After defeating Angria, I turned them into a puppet state, forced Eastphalia into peace, then isolated and destroyed the last of the Saxons, who had started war again.

You said you were having problems with general's loyalty: give them offices, and make sure that as you promote them, you take their rank into account.

Things got a lot easier once I took Carloman's lands, because there is more tax, and then the new Kingdom of the Franks gets a public order bonus, loyalty bonus, and such.

This

[Haddon]

I hate the vanilla AoC as Charlemagne; you start out at war all over the place (which is a few years earlier than in history), and don't have an army to meet the enemies because you can't move far enough per turn. And why isn't Charlemagne starting out with the army he received from his father?

Last time I played, I got a mod that started me out with a small army (rather than just like 8 units), and not at war with Westphalia I think, but diplomatically so low war will come in the first ~10 turns. But it gives you a chance to stop the constant reduction in all PO from having cities on one edge or the other constantly being sacked before you can get there.

[Werecat101]

Originally posted by Haddon:

I hate the vanilla AoC as Charlemagne; you start out at war all over the place (which is a few years earlier than in history), and don't have an army to meet the enemies because you can't move far enough per turn. And why isn't Charlemagne starting out with the army he received from his father?

Last time I played, I got a mod that started me out with a small army (rather than just like 8 units), and not at war with Westphalia I think, but diplomatically so low war will come in the first ~10 turns. But it gives you a chance to stop the constant reduction in all PO from having cities on one edge or the other constantly being sacked before you can get there.

well te reasdon for this is simple and the same one that makes the ERE and WRE not have all the techs they really had i the grand campaign, lets see Romans using siege engines they had been doing that for several hundred years before Attilas start date the reality was they were devolving as far as tech and everything else was concerned. And the answer is its a sandbox game not history.

[Smokedice]

Lots of losers here modding the challenges away, sad.

[Haddon]

Originally posted by Rawfire:

Lots of losers here modding the challenges away, sad.

Maybe if CA makes a game that is challenging because of the AI, rather than silly little gimmicks like starting with almost no units and the inability to recruit more armies, or giving the Huns 8 free armies a season, people wouldn't have to mod in balance. But no, rather than making a challenging AI or strategic campaign mechanics you have to worry about, they take the lazy way and limit you to 2 armies and tiny movement range, and they just give extra difficulty settings bonus AI money and reduced stats and lots of negative PO.

Get off your high horse.

And steve, starting out with infrastructure would be silly, there would be nowhere to go. But a soon-to-be empire starting out with 2 tiny armies is silly. Have them start with a number of armies made up of starting units, just like ERE and WRE have in the main campaign, so you can combine them, and have extra generals.

[Smokedice]

Originally posted by Haddon:

Originally posted by Rawfire:

Lots of losers here modding the challenges away, sad.

Maybe if CA makes a game that is challenging because of the AI, rather than silly little gimmicks like starting with almost no units and the inability to recruit more armies, or giving the Huns 8 free armies a season, people wouldn't have to mod in balance. But no, rather than making a challenging AI or strategic campaign mechanics you have to worry about, they take the lazy way and limit you to 2 armies and tiny movement range, and they just give extra difficulty settings bonus AI money and reduced stats and lots of negative PO.

Get off your high horse.

And steve, starting out with infrastructure would be silly, there would be nowhere to go. But a soon-to-be empire starting out with 2 tiny armies is silly. Have them start with a number of armies made up of starting units, just like ERE and WRE have in the main campaign, so you can combine them, and have extra generals.

Got no high horse to sit upon. Boost PO easily by building positive PO buildings.

Combat the mechanics with the tools the game gives you. It's really not that hard to understand, you just throw in the towl because you refuse to adjust your play style, mr high horse.

[Teh_Diplomat]

The strategy you'll have to learn to love, is the art of the planned retreat; figure out what you can afford to lose (poor, and require significant investment), and what you must defend (walled cities w/ barracks), then plan accordingly.

If you think you're gonna be able to defend every territory you start with, then you're setting yourself up for disappointmeny, and severe amounts of frustration.

All this being said, Mile Pro laid out the best strategy you'll find, to overcome the abundance of threats you'll be facing.

[Mile pro Libertate]

I think the reason they make Charlemagne start with relatively small or weak levy forces is because a good part of the campaign itself is building the Frankish military system of Charlemagne.

If the campaign started in like 780, or he could recruit absolutely nothing but levies at start, I would be more prone to call bs on it.

But it starts off right when the 26 year old king takes the throne, before his systems overhaul and restructuring to make the Franks better able to project force for sustained periods, so a lot of the Frankish forces are more localized, which in game terms, would be the spawned garrisons.

He is given some Schola Cavalry and can recruit Frankish Horsemen right away. Some very strong mercenaries are also available from turn 1, so that gives some nod to the historical situatuon, i.e. very well equipped and seasoned fighters are throughout Francia, but the relevant reforms of Charlemagne (especially logistical, monetary and the capitulary system) are not in place yet, making gathering, maintaining and then directing these fighters in a concerted way, relatively difficult.

Plus you have the fact that there are Carloman's armies and armies for Austrasian Seperatists: taken altogether, the Franks start the game very militarily powerful, it's just they aren't united into a cohesive system of force building and force projection.

The player definitely feels the sting of all this when they first start up a Franks campaign; but they are, afterall, playing as Charlemagne himself, not the Franks as a whole, so the idea that it is a unified realm, "soon to be empire" is not treated as inevitable, because of the sandbox.

A large part of what the player is supposed to do is to create the conditions and structure so the faction is on the verge of being a new empire, and I think it's based on the premise that the historical Charlemagne could've ♥♥♥♥♥♥ that up if he hadn't navigated the early times well enough.

[Haddon]

Originally posted by Rawfire:

Originally posted by Haddon:

Maybe if CA makes a game that is challenging because of the AI, rather than silly little gimmicks like starting with almost no units and the inability to recruit more armies, or giving the Huns 8 free armies a season, people wouldn't have to mod in balance. But no, rather than making a challenging AI or strategic campaign mechanics you have to worry about, they take the lazy way and limit you to 2 armies and tiny movement range, and they just give extra difficulty settings bonus AI money and reduced stats and lots of negative PO.

Get off your high horse.

And steve, starting out with infrastructure would be silly, there would be nowhere to go. But a soon-to-be empire starting out with 2 tiny armies is silly. Have them start with a number of armies made up of starting units, just like ERE and WRE have in the main campaign, so you can combine them, and have extra generals.

Got no high horse to sit upon. Boost PO easily by building positive PO buildings.

Combat the mechanics with the tools the game gives you. It's really not that hard to understand, you just throw in the towl because you refuse to adjust your play style, mr high horse.

No, I mod things to be balanced. On VH/VH the mechanics of having no additional armies, armies not being able to make it to defend for at least 5 turns, and the negative PO throughout the entire empire from being sacked repeatedly, means you are gimped for the next 50 turns at least. Sure, you can build PO buildings in all of your settlements, but that does nothing for the force-wide morale debuff from being repeatedly sacked, and will still take dozens of turns to offset an imbalance. I can't abandon the settlement, I can't get there in time to defend it, and I can't recruit more armies because the game caps that. Those aren't problems with my strategy, those are limits to the game engine on turn 1, and things which are in no way true to history. Or most other TW, for that matter.

And Mile, my point isn't he should have the military that conquered much of Europe yet. But he shouldn't be limited to a couple small forces; the numbers in the armies isn't the problem, it is the number of possible armies, and the inability to raise another on the eastern front.

[Smokedice]

Originally posted by Haddon:

Originally posted by Rawfire:

Got no high horse to sit upon. Boost PO easily by building positive PO buildings.

Combat the mechanics with the tools the game gives you. It's really not that hard to understand, you just throw in the towl because you refuse to adjust your play style, mr high horse.

No, I mod things to be balanced. On VH/VH the mechanics of having no additional armies, armies not being able to make it to defend for at least 5 turns, and the negative PO throughout the entire empire from being sacked repeatedly, means you are gimped for the next 50 turns at least. Sure, you can build PO buildings in all of your settlements, but that does nothing for the force-wide morale debuff from being repeatedly sacked, and will still take dozens of turns to offset an imbalance. I can't abandon the settlement, I can't get there in time to defend it, and I can't recruit more armies because the game caps that. Those aren't problems with my strategy, those are limits to the game engine on turn 1, and things which are in no way true to history. Or most other TW, for that matter.

And Mile, my point isn't he should have the military that conquered much of Europe yet. But he shouldn't be limited to a couple small forces; the numbers in the armies isn't the problem, it is the number of possible armies, and the inability to raise another on the eastern front.

The game is balanced unmodded on normal difficulty. The point of VH is to unbalance the game in favor of the AI and throw as many unfair challenges in your way.

By modding, you are not playing a legit VH game. You've practically modded it back to "normal."

[Adam Beckett]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

I think the reason they make Charlemagne start with relatively small or weak levy forces is because a good part of the campaign itself is building the Frankish military system of Charlemagne.

...

The player definitely feels the sting of all this when they first start up a Franks campaign; but they are, afterall, playing as Charlemagne himself, not the Franks as a whole, so the idea that it is a unified realm, "soon to be empire" is not treated as inevitable, because of the sandbox.

A large part of what the player is supposed to do is to create the conditions and structure so the faction is on the verge of being a new empire, and I think it's based on the premise that the historical Charlemagne could've ♥♥♥♥♥♥ that up if he hadn't navigated the early times well enough.

Exactly.


Though there is no one 'right way' and every player is different, I love the fact that some factions (or this DLC), offer specific 'puzzles' which force me to change my playstyle.

I find the Charlemagne campaign starting conditions exciting, just because of this.

It throws you into the midst of it. Overextended. Weak. It starts with a 'real challenge', mimicking some sense of the political, historical situation of it's time. As said, before: Diplomacy becomes more important than Generals. "What are you willing to sacrifice?" - a recurring question.

CA is trying to offer something very distinct and different with their DLC campaign extensions ... introducing new or improved gameplay mechanics. Emphasizing on different elements ... which led to the rather unique Warhammer 2 campaign ... which led to TW Britannia. It leaves you weak on purpose. It does not allow you to play your/(my) 'regular' grow-fat-fast 'strategy'. It is trying to make you play 'differently'.



As for the endless AI debate... - not every game can be everything for every player. Expectations vary as there are millions(!) of TW players around the globe. There is a reason why "Game AI" is not actual "Artificial Intelligence" - otherwise it would eat server farms, not just a 4-8-16-32 core PC - on each move. Every game developer is trying to 'fake it', as convincingly as possible. It 'breaks'. It is never perfect... or reasonable to everyone.

[Haddon]

Originally posted by Rawfire:

Originally posted by Haddon:

No, I mod things to be balanced. On VH/VH the mechanics of having no additional armies, armies not being able to make it to defend for at least 5 turns, and the negative PO throughout the entire empire from being sacked repeatedly, means you are gimped for the next 50 turns at least. Sure, you can build PO buildings in all of your settlements, but that does nothing for the force-wide morale debuff from being repeatedly sacked, and will still take dozens of turns to offset an imbalance. I can't abandon the settlement, I can't get there in time to defend it, and I can't recruit more armies because the game caps that. Those aren't problems with my strategy, those are limits to the game engine on turn 1, and things which are in no way true to history. Or most other TW, for that matter.

And Mile, my point isn't he should have the military that conquered much of Europe yet. But he shouldn't be limited to a couple small forces; the numbers in the armies isn't the problem, it is the number of possible armies, and the inability to raise another on the eastern front.

The game is balanced unmodded on normal difficulty. The point of VH is to unbalance the game in favor of the AI and throw as many unfair challenges in your way.

By modding, you are not playing a legit VH game. You've practically modded it back to "normal."

That is so absurd. The game is terribly balanced; vanilla TW have been since at least M2. And I love this "legit VH game", wtf does that mean? So like half of the TW community is playing "legit" Total War campaigns? It isn't a competition, it is a sandbox game...it is meant to be played how people like it. That is the whole point of modding.