Have you changed the way you play as time went on?

[Archon68]

When I was 14 years old and picked up EB for the first time (1.2 I recall) I loved playing battles. I had recently watched Alexander the film and wanted to carve a swath of conquests across the world, recreate his old empire, playing as the Macedonians.

In 2021 at the age of 28 the way I play has changed. I'm not so interested by endless wars and heroic conquests and just want to hold and build my empire, read the history more.

Has the way you play changed as time went on?

[Archon68]

* forgot to mention, now want to just be at peace with everyone including neighbouring factions, and build up my economies and social buildings.

[Shoebopp]

I used to play a campaign just to achieve a singular "goal". Said goal usually was to just achieve a reform or assemble an all-star cast of units into a royal army. I intended to play around with post-reform features or this monster army after obtaining them, but my motivation is usually lost by then.

Now I don't have goals, but instead just try to enjoy the game, turn by turn. Observe and follow certain characters, chronicle the expansion and development of my empire, start interventionist wars far from my nation's frontlines just for fun. Sometimes I do have a goal, but that goal is never-ending. One example would be continuing the spread of Hellenism throughout Alexander's eastern holdings as the Seleucids. This requires controlling all of Hellas, cultivating high-influence governors, and of course controlling as many eastern provinces as possible. This has been way more fun than just grinding turns to achieve a reform

[charlieh]

Interesting topic Archon. I find that the older I get the more I gravitate towards roleplaying, rather than completing objectives.

[Shlazaor]

I keep a log of my characters exploits. I basically don't touch economic buildings until I have built everything possible to increase public order because of how difficult/somewhat opaque unrest in this game is. I'd say I tend to roleplay and move goal posts pretty regularly. Conquering Saba to get a monopoly on the incense trade, regardless of how uneconomical it actually is, a pathos emperor reclaiming Makedonia for no other reason than the obsessional desire to see home again, installing democracies in most of the Greek provinces outside of Sparte to under the auspice of maintaining greek liberty, that sort of thing.

[Septentrionalis]

No, I always roleplay a lot. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to change the way I do battle either to allow myself some variability. I have found myself a tactic that rarely fails and I sadly cannot stop utilizing it because I want to win battles. I should play some weaker faction maybe that would force me to learn new ways to do battle. Tried Sweboz already but found that impossibly hard.

[colonel klinck]

Since the first opus of RTW I've always been playing Rome faction. And as sort of a play, this was always in an historical way. Blitz was never an will never be of my interest. As soon as I discovered mods like EB II I've definitively discarded even the idea of playing vanilla.
To me EB II (like DEI for Rome 2) seems to be THE MOD especially dedicated to the historical way of play.
EBII is getting a bit old when compared to graphics, mechanics of play and the factions' number to more recent TW games but it still has many charms.

I like building slowly my conquests. During battle, square formations from camillan and polybian reforms are my favorite.
17 years after, I'm 50 years old... and my play changes a little. I'm more offensive and don't hesitate to play on VH/VH. In fact this difficulty level is a joke. Once you've understood what to build first and systematically negociated trade rights with the most factions as you quick as you can to secure sufficient incomes, leading and winning a war even against numerous ennemies is not so difficult. I always like the begining till the first two punic wars. I was very happy to find guides and walkthroughs allowing me to follow some timelines. ( Thanks Quintus Sertorius !). It's less annoying after caus you're rather strong and most factions don't dare DOW on you. Despite this, micromanagement by supporting (financially) other factions can be a real fun.
I think that I've finished the game only once due to the fact that there always was another update not savecompatible to come. Playing a whole campaign takes me months even years.

[Cleitus the Pink]

A little, but not a lot. The more you learn history, the more you want to see the real history reflected in the games you play. And EBII is really as accurate as it's gonna get for TW.(for now anyway). I started playing for this reason and wanted to make alt-history scenarios rather than go the path of actual empires in history. For exampel Carthage beating Romans or the Seleukids beating back the Parthians and reclaiming Hellas. Now I realize I truly enjoy moving armies around and slaughtering thousands of men en masse in a creative fashion and offloading my wrath on enemy cities by enslaving their inhabitants and destroying their cultures! The more you know!

[Baharr]

Strategically, yes. I don't go full role-play ("oh, this governor is selfish, dull, and optimistic, I'm gonna play him like an unrepentant idiot") but I do try and keep things like routes of expansion and army compositions historically plausible (i.e. no blitzing the eleutheroi, maintaining the right proportions of units for a Republican Legion, having lots of cheap infantry skirmisher/archer levies in a Hayastan force with a core of heavy cavalry, etc.) - as a kid I just map-painted with nary a care lol.

Tactically, though? Not really. My tactics are still shock-heavy, built around holding the bulk of the enemy in the middle of the battle in a slow grinder and then defeating their flankers and reserves so I can envelop the remainder of the army and roll them up with impunity. Interestingly I do struggle with armies that don't have a lot of decent cavalry kicking about, like the Romans.

[romulus_aeneas]

I've found I enjoy playing nomadic factions much more than I used to. I studied history in undergrad, focus on Graeco-Roman history. My thesis was on the Peloponnesian War. Why does this matter? I spammed Epirote, Macedonian, and KH playthroughs in both EB and EBII. In the past, I don't know, maybe 3 or 4 years, I've found myself playing more as Pahlava, Sarmatia, Saka, and Hayasdan. I have a Pahlava game going right now where I've conquered Bukhara and Khwarazemia to the north. Normally I wouldn't have wasted my time conquering those settlements because of the cost tradeoff versus the lucrative settlements south of Nisea. This playthrough, however, I rationalized the northern invasion because I start with 2 allied tribes - Dahae and Karen - who, in my FM's eyes, needed their own "Allied Tribe" lands so my FM could earn their fealty.

That's a very specific example, and it highlights how I find little roleplay situations to enhance my playthroughs. In that situation, my reasoning was, "Why would these tribes follow me south to the Arche Seleukia without some guarantee already of income and pastoral lands for their herds?" This somewhat conflicts with the Pahlava flight from the Saka and other nomadic tribes east of them, but I think it's logical enough to justify my rationale.

Like others have said, yourself included, I like to slow the game down now, too. I really try to get to at least turn 300 in my campaigns before I start to expand from kingdom or small empire to map painter. This gives the AI factions a lot of time to build their infrastructure, expand, and recruit their best units - in all but a few circumstances, such as the Sweboz. In my current Pahlava campaign, it is only turn 70 something and I've only conquered Asaak, Hecatampylos, Zadrakarta, Ampeia (sic), and the two settlements north of Nisea. I don't expect to achieve the Pahlava reforms before turn 150-175. Normally I could have achieved it a hundred turns before then by rushing the appropriate settlements, lowering taxes, building farms, and placing appropriate governors. There's just something very enjoyable about playing that way.