smallfish

I started playing some of my WWI scenario. Wow I was declared on by Russia first. Finally I beat them back to Warsaw. Austria has some nice defensive hills around Prague and Vienna. Their army looked imposing and it was a very bloody battle, but I was not in any real danger. They moved towards Lemberg then, but their offensive had run out of steam. All I did then was get valuable experience by killing their hurt units. Of course my army was hurt as well and I had no real prospect of taking Warsaw. Not that early in the game.

My system has a Phenom II 945x4, which gets an 8. I have a Radeon HD 6770 which gives me a 7, and 8 gigs of RAM rates at 9. So, yours with more RAM would play it faster than mine. Your CPU is high quality, mine generic. My graphics are slightly better, but then again you have Nvidia, which they say is better quality. Once you update your graphics card, you'd have no problems running that game at all.

I have a gaming ASUS laptop as well which plays FoTS very neatly. I use that for my co op games.

For FoTS I checked here...http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=3202&game=Shogun+2%3A+Total+War+-+Fall+of+the+Samurai&p_make=Intel&p_deriv=Core+i7-3630QM+4-Core+2.4GHz&gc_make=Nvidia&gc_deriv=GeForce+GT+640M&ram=4&checkSubmit=

It rates your i7 at 10 and your display at 6 and your RAM at 6. So yes you can play it. You can sign up there to see more specifics. I would upgrade my RAM probably to at least 8GB though. Of course 16 is even better. I run 8 myself. I should double it as well.

Some folks are rather daft on here. One man said the unfinished Civil War scenario is the second expansion and that it could be called ONE WORLD.

Of course some characters will be made up.

It is going to be difficult to write a story about Austria-Hungary. What a mess they had with the dual monarchy trying to run the empire. Twice the ministers and twice the headaches. Cisleithania (Austria) and Transleithania (Hungary) both had to be represented. I was thinking of using some players from both sides but taking on events from a joint point of view. Otherwise I will be pulling my own hair out. LOL!

On another note smallfish I am preparing to start a log of sorts while playing my WWI scenario. I plan on doing an actual full story when the new expansion comes out and I finish the larger version of the game. In the meantime, I am going to post this test version on my scenario thread instead of stories and tales. I may even try my hand at writing a bit for certain parts. We'll see.

I do have a point system for a challenge which I will explain. There are points for gaining and losing cities and capitals. If you lose your capital, the game is over, you lose. Units destroyed and lost are also counted for points. So it should be quite interesting. I have decided to play as Austria-Hungary.

Whoops I keep posting on my visitor section instead of yours. They may start colonizing at some point. Perhaps i just beat them to the punch. On the terra there are not all that many extra resources, which i was surprised at. Most are gobbled up by the CSs over there.

As far as gameplay goes, I agree it would be better if they kept all of the things that worked as they continue to try to make the game better.

The AIs don't settle the terra continent. I thought they were going to fix that in the Fall Patch. I saw ships and only one Roman settler, which I captured. I remember the last time I played terra with vanilla 3 other civs settled cities on the new continent. Maybe the civs in my game are not naval minded. I thought at least the Greeks could be they traded throughout the med. Rome as well. Anyway it is a bit odd. I even limited CSs.

Next game I go up to King maybe that will help.

smallfish do you play Napoleon Total War? They are in the process of greating (actually that was a typo, but it sounds good) a mod for it called 'The Great War'. It looks incredible. You can even drive WWI tanks. Find out more here.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1608

War against America worked very well. They were really caught with their pants down. LOL!

Spartacus War of the Damned and The Walking Dead are on tonight. CiV will have to be put on hold for awhile.

ATM I am just exploring around the terra continent. I need to set up shop there very soon, because I have seen Incans and god knows what else snooping around. There are a bunch of decent city sites around. On the main continent America is being attacked by Greeks and the French. Both are getting smacked around pretty good. I am in first place, but America is still out teching me. For my next SP I will start Rationalism, I just finished the right side of Honor awhile ago.

Sounds like war is hell! Hopefully you finish off those Austrians soon. Sometimes when you think a civ is finished for the game, they are back there in the fog of war creating a monster war machine. I am going through it in my game and it is only on Prince. What size map are you playing on? I have to go back in too and finish off the Americans. Next target Boston! War with America and Austria is like it never ends.

Checkout my alternate rules at Buzzdowan's Warmonger Challenge thread.

Something interesting happened tonight in that same game. America made a push to take back Washington. A turn later the Romans DoW me again. So, I asked the Greeks what they would want for DoW against Rome. He wanted 5 Iron, 2 horses, and silver. No problem pal, we have plenty of that. Anyway, he went in and took Rome. It was hilarious and the Romans suddenly made peace with me and gave me a free decent city. Now I have played games with Washington enough, he is a dead man!

It could be that Rome thought he could grab a city from me while I was busy elsewhere. Rome does not like America anyway. They've been fighting back and forth since the game started. I wonder, do the AIs pay each other to DoW other civs? Actually I am surprised at Rome, because I shared intrigue about Greece plotting against them. That did not seem to help my diplomatic relations much. He does not covet my lands or anything. He is trading 209 gold for my resources still. So, I am not sure what his thinking is. The AI is kooky!

Napoleon is rather weak, which I thought was odd. Anyway he apparently does not want trouble either. I just met him recently and he is far enough away not to be a problem.

In any case, it is time to build up my cities after the war with America is over and send ships to find and settle the Terra continent. I added only 10 CSs to the map. Perhaps some valuable resources will be there.

I love trading the AI his capital and his second largest city for my two worst cities. I DoWed Washington this time and I went straight for his capital, but he took out my CS ally then invaded me in the south where I had hardly any defenses. Then Rome backstabbed me and showed me his obsolete army, but he did not set one foot in my territory and made peace 3 turns later for a decent amount of cash. Even though Rome DoWed me after peace he is friendly and does not count me as a warmonger even though I have two DoWs now. Someone told me you only get one free DoW. Napoleon and the Inca are also friendly. I have a DoF with the Inca. So, that is not the case. There must be other criteria that determines warmonger status.

Mr. Tzu wasn't playing against this AI or he might change his saying. Indeed my position was unassailable, even without the Great Wall, which I have not been able to acquire in my last few games.

Here are a few quotes that describe how I got the best of that AI.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." ― Sun Tzu

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” ― Sun Tzu

“The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies” ― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Never send a battalion to take a hill if a regiment is available.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

I have learned to have that regiment available smallfish my good friend.

It would be interesting to make a thread called battle stories in Stories and Tales. Where we can describe some of the interesting campaigns we get involved in.

As far as the WWI scenario I am going to finish the larger version when 'One World' comes out. The map is awesome. Right now I am working on the mountain ranges, just got done with the Alps.

This game has been going much better. I have taken the Hun capital along with another city on the way there which I kept for its 8 iron. During the sieges I have been holding back my catapults so they are not destroyed outright. During this campaign I generally had decent terrain to contend with. The AI is much better and did all it could to hold. I just used overwhelming force. When I declared war I didn't just drive in right away, I let him come to me and waste a few f his important units. Then I used two horsemen and a CB to drive around the city to the north to give there archers something to shoot at while I got an extra turn to move my infantry and archers in. It worked pretty well.