Same Starting Position and Strategy EVERY TIME

[RGA]

Only the Dwarf and Greenskins campaigns are more or less repetitive since their close starting positions and their inability to capture human or vampire's settlements, which gives them incentives to fight each other. With the Vampire I can either march north or east, each presents different challeges. Playing as the Empire, I can walk in any direction and still find someone to fight.

[Viva Espana!]

A lot of you seem to be missing the point. I'm seeing a lot of "well yeah the first few turns are samey but then it's different from there!!1"

yeah. That's the fcking point. The first few turns are the same. The start is always the same. Take out the secessionists. Conquer Silver Road. I'd rather just start with Reikland finished and conquered. Having to go through the motions to beat the Secessionists in the first five turns is just a pain in the ass.

[nameless]

A lot of you seem to be missing the point. I'm seeing a lot of "well yeah the first few turns are samey but then it's different from there!!1"

yeah. That's the fcking point. The first few turns are the same. The start is always the same. Take out the secessionists. Conquer Silver Road. I'd rather just start with Reikland finished and conquered. Having to go through the motions to beat the Secessionists in the first five turns is just a pain in the ass.

So now you changed it to just those first 5 turns.

If it's that serious have you thought about maybe making a save saying "Empire Start" exactly at Turn 5 where you have Reikland conquered so you don't have to go through those first 5 turns? I usually do that for most total war games.

[FaceDancer]

I was just about to wrote same thing. If its so disturbing to start all over again then why just don't save game after beating secessionists and go back to that save not to start all over again?

[andymate]

Eh the first 5 turns for the dwarfs you should have the silver road. This is literally 10 minutes of time (That is not long). After that you can go south or north. The starting positions mod means you can play from karak kadrin as well. Then play with the RO mod and you can go any direction you want. Plenty of options especially if you mod your game.

[Viva Espana!]

So now you changed it to just those first 5 turns.

If it's that serious have you thought about maybe making a save saying "Empire Start" exactly at Turn 5 where you have Reikland conquered so you don't have to go through those first 5 turns? I usually do that for most total war games.

i never changed anything. Stop looking for a fight on the Internet. Go back and read my original post.

As for saving after the first five turns -- possible, but then the traits of the various factions (imperial distrust, for example) will never be randomized again. Not a perfect solution.

[Hoplitus]

Then I think you have to take it

Man, let's be honest: as others already said, since starting positions are always the same for every faction in any TW game, what's the problem? What did you expect? A total revolution of TW games? A random starting position for every faction?

We all knew that wouldn't happen (and most of us don't even want that to happen)! You seem to be experienced enough to know that so I really don't see a problem here!

If you say the first 5 turns are always the same and let's say a campaign lasts 200 turns, that would be 2,5% of each campaign that's the same! An acceptable value if you ask me

[nameless]

i never changed anything. Stop looking for a fight on the Internet. Go back and read my original post.

If I wanted to pick a fight why would I give you a reasonable solution to your issue?

As for saving after the first five turns -- possible, but then the traits of the various factions (imperial distrust, for example) will never be randomized again. Not a perfect solution.

Technically speaking you can play the first 5-6 turns auto resolving so long as you're spamming swordsmen. So for me those first 5 turns takes about maybe 5-7 minutes assuming nothing goes crazy.

And speaking of crazy, by the 3rd turn Meridaland (That province to the west of you) conquered Eikhart...I had to reload a save because I couldn't work with that. Someone could but not me.

[AlliedZero]

A lot of you seem to be missing the point. I'm seeing a lot of "well yeah the first few turns are samey but then it's different from there!!1"

yeah. That's the fcking point. The first few turns are the same. The start is always the same. Take out the secessionists. Conquer Silver Road. I'd rather just start with Reikland finished and conquered. Having to go through the motions to beat the Secessionists in the first five turns is just a pain in the ass.

And with Rome you have to conquer Italy. And with Greece you have to conquer Greece. And with the Franks you have to capture Frankland. And with Russia you have to consolidate Rus. And with the Eastern Roman Empire you have to endure 25 turns of sieges every 5 seconds. And with the Western Roman Empire you have to endure a crumbling economy for the first 55 turns. Every. Single. Time.

Dang you Total War and your repetitiveness. You would think the OP would be used to some repetitiveness. I bet you even shower every morning. You monster.

[Viva Espana!]

And with Rome you have to conquer Italy. And with Greece you have to conquer Greece. And with the Franks you have to capture Frankland. And with Russia you have to consolidate Rus. And with the Eastern Roman Empire you have to endure 25 turns of sieges every 5 seconds. And with the Western Roman Empire you have to endure a crumbling economy for the first 55 turns. Every. Single. Time.

Dang you Total War and your repetitiveness. You would think the OP would be used to some repetitiveness. I bet you even shower every morning. You monster.

This is nonsense. As Dwarfs/Empire you have to fight the same battle and conquer the same two/three settlements in order every single time. In Med 2, as Byzantines, for example, I could decide whether to devote my attention to the Seljuqs or to the Balkans and Hungary. As the Seljuks, I could go after Greece or contest Egypt for the Holy Land or go north into Russia. Let's look at Rome 1. As each of the Roman families, you had a faction you were encouraged to deal with, but there was nothing like "you make the same goddamn moves like a robot every five turns." Empire even did it better. As Spain, I could decide whether to dedicate my resources in the colonies or to holding onto my scattered european possessions.

Immediately, it used to feel like a sandbox. You had choices and could make a radically different campaign. And while this EVENTUALLY happens in Total Warhammer, that doesn't mean it makes the dumb tutorial segment I have to play through each time any better.

[AlliedZero]

This is nonsense. As Dwarfs/Empire you have to fight the same battle and conquer the same two/three settlements in order every single time. In Med 2, as Byzantines, for example, I could decide whether to devote my attention to the Seljuqs or to the Balkans and Hungary. As the Seljuks, I could go after Greece or contest Egypt for the Holy Land or go north into Russia. Let's look at Rome 1. As each of the Roman families, you had a faction you were encouraged to deal with, but there was nothing like "you make the same goddamn moves like a robot every five turns." Empire even did it better. As Spain, I could decide whether to dedicate my resources in the colonies or to holding onto my scattered european possessions.

Immediately, it used to feel like a sandbox. You had choices and could make a radically different campaign. And while this EVENTUALLY happens in Total Warhammer, that doesn't mean it makes the dumb tutorial segment I have to play through each time any better.

There is literally nothing forcing you to take the Silver Road or to defeat the Separatists. The opening mission can be ignored. You can, in fact, choose to ignore it. Did I just blow your mind?

Chaos? You can choose to immediately invade the land of man. There is nothing stopping you.
Dwarfs? Go West and attack your dwarfen allies. Let your garrison handle the bloody spears.

You seem like you are having trouble grasping this concept.

Hell as the Greenskins you can start a campaign and immediately Choose to abandon your settlements and go have Tea with the vampires.

[Tankbustaz]

abloo bloo, I don't have the strategic diversity because of arbitrary reasons I made up in my head.

If the first 5 turns make or break your campaign do what the other people here suggested and load a save game. You have the same incentive in WH as you do in rome 1 in terms of sandbox gameplay, minus the occupation of the mountain holds and badlands.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

You start at war with a neighboring faction.

What's weird about that? Obviously the neighboring, hostile faction is what you're going to want to deal with first, most of the time.

[AlliedZero]

You start at war with a neighboring faction.

What's weird about that? Obviously the neighboring, hostile faction is what you're going to want to deal with first, most of the time.

He has clearly forgotten about having to deal with the Visigoths in the ERE campaign or the Suebi in the WRE campaign. You had no choice but to deal with that threat. Whether you wanted to or not.
Or playing Napoleon Total War as any faction but France. He must have forgotten that no matter what, Napoleon marched East and had to be dealt with.

[Holy.Death]

You can ignore the "story" part if you so wish, just as you can ignore sometimes nonsensical quests given by the faction. I saw people having problems beating the "starting enemies" or doing something else (like making peace with them and attacking different neighbour) which led to some interesting situations or complications, like three armies of Norsemen attacking Altdorf reinforced by Balthasar Gelt's main army. Pretty epic stuff.

[LEGIO_XXX ULPIA]

Does it bother anyone else that every campaign has the same strategy/tactics/enemies every single time? Empire. Start with an army of Secessionists nearby. Take out the Secessionists. Conquer the cities one by one. Dwarfs. Take out the Blood Spears. Conquer the Silver Road. Every time.

It makes starting new campaigns such a pain in the ass because I feel like I'm doing the same over and over again. Does it bother anyone else that CA has established such a linear 'story' for the first few turns every single time?

I agree...
I like the old TW...Rome could be in Italy...or in Spain...or in Egypt...


MA LOL!!!!!

[FaceDancer]

One thing that came to my mind during this dispute. Most of us total war vets (I'm assuming there arent many new players reading these topics) call the game too simple, very easy, but we forget how TW games are inaccessible to newcomers. I found some hard moments in Attila playing as Roman Empire, but there were still plenty of people who claimed even legendary was too easy. Those starting missions are here for one reason - to introduce and help new players in starting their campaign. If those clues weren't there it would be hard for them to even start a campaign. I know what I'm talking about because I got few friends, played with them in Shogun campaign and I was amazed how they find it hard to play campaign on normal difficulty. We should also remember that this starting background missions are here since Shogun 2 (I dont remember them being earlier) when each faction you played, you got to destroy rebels and next step finish off some neighbooring rival clan to start more sandbox conquesting.

[Stangler]

I agree with the OP that the first bunch of turns all tend to turn out the same way where you have to conquer your home turf. I will often save the game at this point in case I want to go back and start a different approach.

Once you conquer your home turf there seems to be a fair amount of variety in how you approach things. Confederation makes diplomacy extremely important and powerful for certain factions. A lot of different options but you also have to expand relatively fast to be prepared for the Chaos invasion.