I think I didn't mention that I finished the grand goal of conquering the world. Once I pwned the English (after AAAAAAGGGEEES of hard battles) everything went pretty easy, cleaning up midget states like the Venetians, Spain, Poland and some larger ones like Danmark and Russia.

I left the Papal States for last, obviously. They were pinned down to Rhodos (tiny island) and were a vassal of mine. In fact, with the last 4 factions alive left I had all of them as vassals - technically speaking I already ruled the world. But apparently you need to destroy everyone to actually "win". Pic attached, including monster budget.

I do want to say that i cheated some battles though, but only because the autoresolve AI SUCKS. It mostly concerned siege battles in which I defended the city with about 8 cohorts of Janissaries (heavy infantry) or more against a large army. Because Janissaries are tougher than just about any infantry I met and really cut down cavalry by the dozens (no kidding) they easily hold every type of siege, I think I only ever lost one siege with janissaries in the city. So, in situations like crusades I just stocked up the target city with them and slaughtered army after army. With great ease. Still, the AI managed to lose EVERY battle I left to him with the exact circumstances, even with a 10-star general leading the battle. It's ridiculous. So I didn't want to fend off wave after wave after a while and just cheated the battles. But I feel it was justified. What a difference from RTW where you could have the autoresolve AI win just about every battle with 4 Urban Cohorts.


I'm playing the historical battles now and they're kinda fun. Only two left to do; Hastings and Tannenberg. No major problems with any of them so far!

Bastard, you beat me to it. Plus, i had no intention of capturing the Americas.

Pff, just cos you're afraid of the Aztecs.

But seriously, why was it again? You though the way they worked out the New World sucked, right? I can't (completely) blame you.

lol. Yeah, because the New World sucked mightily.

Ok, so I finished all historical battles and I'm pretty much "done" with the game...I mean all challenges are gone, I think. I could start another campaign but after 2 (including a world domination one) I don't really feel like it atm. Maybe later.

The historical battles are all dead easy btw...but they're fun and well-developed. Battle of Otumba was the best of em.

Well, I reinstalled it and am playing again. I really enjoy these games. :p I'm playing as the Holy Satis Empire (err....Roman, whatever) and am putting pain on Hungary, Sicily, Venice and Milan. At first that was a bit overwhelming but I'm starting to do ok now.

I got the expansion yesterday (using up gift cards). Haven't installed it yet. :p

Since im playing this on my laptop when i travel around i got a small question.

Im playing as England and i was doing fairly well, conquered spain, smacked the frenchies, put a huge perssure on Holy romans, i even spat on Milan.

And now the black death hit and my cashflow went into -40.000, how can i survive this and what steps should i take.

Just wear it out. Funnily though, I had the plague solve my financial problems once. My population had become so big that I had to use expensive measures to keep them happy. After the plague (which itself still costed money off course), all those troubles had melted away. Tax income was suddenly huge and I was finally able to put my enemies to the sword.

My army is huge. I lose 20k people per turn, i take financial hit of -12k a turn. So next turn i will be at roughly -55000. Good god will i ever dig myself out of that?

Try disbanding expensive units/cohorts. or kill off some bad generals (their bodyguards have high upkeep). Or let some of your cities rebel and then loot them upon taking them back. But that's only a short-term solution.

well the good thing is that the entire europe is affected by the plague. The bad thing is that the AI is likely to recover faster from it than i will be.

Yea, the black death is pretty much where you have to just hang in there and hope you can recover. Not much you can do. The whole war effort just kinda grinds to a halt.

Stormrise, a strategy title from the makers of Empire Total War was utterly destroyed by gamespot, it got a score of 2.0.

wow...does that beat big mother truckers?