This is pretty much the only game series I am too stupid for. I have no clue why I fail to grasp the basics so hard. I must have bounced off this series 10 times. I get the basics, whatever, hammer & anvil but it is actually impossible for me to perform better than auto resolve, and if I'm not playing the battles it's so fucking boring.

>>713200972 (OP)
Start with shogun 2,it's probably the easiest to learn from the entire series. Buildings are the same across factions and units are almost identical. There's not a huge variety of them either, they're pretty basic and straightforward to learn

>hammer & anvil!
I fucking hate youtubers for spreading this retarded phase

>>713200972 (OP)
>but it is actually impossible for me to perform better than auto resolve
You have to learn to manipulate the AI. But it ruins the magic so keep trying and failing.

>>713200972 (OP)
you are not supposed to perform better than AR in most cases
You are supposed to resist the temptatiom to not just AR everything
The games before Rome 2 had shitty auto resolve and those were the funnest games

>>713201315
Also, to give you further advice, the 2 easiest things to do are simply flanking and going in 2v1, you can win 80% of fights with any units against any unit like this. Literally attack from the sides or rear and if you get 1 more unit in there to sandwich the enemy unit, it'll break in a matter of seconds

bro is not napoleon...

>>713200972 (OP)
To perform better than the auro resolve you just need to abuse the dumb AI, that's all, the game is painfully unfun on higher difficulties, just play normal and enjoy watching the battles.

>>713200972 (OP)
Same anon, same
>ahh so I need to hit the back of their flank with cavalry, ok
>cavalry gets slaughtered

Never tried it again after

if ur talking about doing a campaign vs AI, the battle is easy you just want to surround the enemy, get your troops into positions where they are attacking the front, sides and behind of the enemy at the same time and avoid situations where the enemy is doing it to you

multiplayer? no idea it's always been some gay cheese strat

>>713200972 (OP)
Warhammer, Rome 2 and Attila have godlike autoresolve
3K is more balanced but still nutty
Just download a mod to make auto resolve shit and you will have actual fun

>>713201580
This. The entire game is just managing flanks. Getting surrounded is death. Hammering and anviling are buzzwords for flanking.

>>713200972 (OP)
To beat auto resolve you need to play like a bitch, its not worth it

>>713201737
>pike = bad for horse
>sword = good for horse
it's not that hard

>>713201737
Make sure the unit you are flanking is already engaged with another unit. Cavalry have poor combat stats when compared to regular infantry. The cavalry advantage is their mobility which allows them to take 2v1 fights easier.

>>713200972 (OP)
>hammer and anvil
Retard bait in some games, viable in others, winning consistently on harder difficulties in TW games require cheese of some variety because of the AI's strategic layer cheats
I abused fire artillery in 3K because that was by far the most overpowered state artillery has ever been in in any TW game, shit could route entire armies before they can reach you

Well this is all very encouraging. Maybe I'm not retarded? Should I be chasing units when they route? It feels like my shit falls to pieces either way. I let them go and they come back later and mess me up, or I chase them and my formation gets totally fucked.

>>713202104
Its all about local domination, you want to always be winning the small engagements across the field, so this means
1- learning the basic ass matchups
2 - dont get into 1v2s
3 - dont get flanked
Do this and you can beat normal

>>713202104
If you think they'll come back and your lines are stable yes chase them down. Also remember that you can flank with ranged units as well, just try and do it when nearby enemies are bogged down in melee so they dont rush them.

>>713202104
What are your army compositions like?
Are you fielding enough archers? Ranged superiority is often a consistent way to defeat the AI, don't have to run down anything if they're too dead from focus fire

>>713202104
>or I chase them and my formation gets totally fucked.
Dont use your regular line infantry to chase down routing enemies. You usually have unit types that are dedicated to chasing down routing units such as warhounds or light cavalry. These types of units typically have weak combat stats but that doesn't matter when the enemy can't fight back because they are routing. Their exceptional speed allows them to very quickly clean up broken enemies.

>>713200972 (OP)
Auto-resolve gives you a huge advantage on Easy and I think Normal too to an extent, so most people won't be able to do that well in the actual fight.

While we're on OP's topic I'm in a similar boat. I'm the type of player that tries to evenly use different units or at least have a tactic in mind that encompasses all of the available units. The thing I've noticed however is that the games or at least Rome Total War isn't built around that idea. Is it really just cheesing the best units and making armies based around solely those units, or am I making an assumption based off of my lack of knowledge and just don't know how to play the game properly yet? If so, what should I keep in mind other than what's been said in the thread so far?

>>713202627
AR on normal will get you like, 20 deaths in a 3000 vs 3000 end game battle
Its beyond retarded

>>713202726
>Is it really just cheesing the best units and making armies based around solely those units
If you're a metagaming faggot who just wants to curbstomp instead of have fun like half this site, yes you can break the game in that way, but the game is built around normal reasonable army comps.

Just watch some youtubers like legendoftotalwar

>>713200972 (OP)
use, or kill, the bitch with poisonous attacks
then steamroll enemy generals
the rest is just typical shitty creative assembly bullshit with poor AI, collision and pathfinding
game is interesting until you figure out how to run circles around the AI and then it's boring
you'll end up like a bitter cuck like volound so revel in your ignorance while you can

>>713202889
If you want to play in the least fun way possible, for sure

>>713202834
It sounds like I'm just incompetent in how I command my units then. Guess I just need to play the game/franchise some more.

>>713202726
For multiplayer yeah you need to follow the meta. For singleplayer you can do whatever you want.
>>713202104
There's 2 stages of a "defeated unit" wavering and broken. If they're wavering they're temporarily retreating and they'll come back to fight, so you want to break them which means they'll permanently retreat. Don't chase broken units in early fights, win the battle then chase the stragglers

>>713200972 (OP)
Total War oldfag here. It's all about morale. Morale is everything in this game! It's not obvious but most important. You need to secure the morale of your own troops, mainly by searching high ground, keeping formation and using the influence and special abilities of your units and generals and destroy the morale of the enemy's by luring single enemy units to leave their formation and the radius of influence of their general, tire them with cavalry, pepper them with fire arrows and attack them with several units from the sides or rear. You also need to learn the stats of the units and get a feel for how long a certain unit can endure losses in battle before it routs. Making low morale enemy units rout is the best way to win battles with minimal own losses as fleeing units will also lower the morale of other still fighting units.

>>713203047
People used what I told you here>>713201580 with compositions like full horse army against spears and won. You just have to flank and 2v1, irelevant of unit. But like I said in the first post, get shogun 2 and figure stuff out there

>>713202726
Doomstacking has sort of always been around (20 general bodyguard stacks in Med2 would like to have a word with you), but it's never been necessary, it's just a consequence of the 20 unit slot system.

>>713202957
I sill play in a more immersive way, I know how to exploit and cheese but I just don't get the urge, I just restrain myself. For me Total War is foremost a rope-playing experience.

>>713200972 (OP)
I've played maybe five or six games in the series and to date the only one I really liked was Rome 1.

>>713203325
Got it. I'll go for Shogun 2 then.
>>713203358
I heard that was a good entry.
Random question. How do you anons get past the phase of feeling sorry for wiped units? That's part of what makes me pretty incompetent I feel.

>>713202889
> legendoftotalwar
My guru is better than your guru: MrSmartDonkeyLP !

>>713200972 (OP)
How? Almost every TW game plays exactly as you would expect IRL battles to pan out if you were to pit those units against eachother. Don't exhaust your troops rushing to the enemy. Defend your flanks. Use skirimishers to troll the fuck out of advancing enemies, keep your heavy front lines fresh. Use heavy cavalry to flank units that are already engaged and nuke their morale etc. The only units that are ever really a pain in the ass are mounted archers and even that depends on who you're playing as.

>>713202726
I only play the Warhammer games but trying to use too many unit types at once makes your army more difficult to manage so I usually use specific units in specific army templates. such as
>Infantry front line+Missile back line
>Infantry front line+Cavalry hammer
>All skirmish cavalry
>Gun line+Artillery
Sprinkle in a few specialist units here and there when it makes sense. Or you can just build a stack of 5 tier monsters like a faggot if you want.

not the op but how do I get an intuition for this game? i don't want to be a cheese or wiki fag. how am I supposed to organically know what my unit comps should be in my armies? should i even be going into close match ups, or is this a game about having an overwhelmingly more powerful stack when starting a battle?

>>713203518
Yeah it's the easiest entry and if you get fall of they samurai you basically learn line warfare for napoleon/empire aswell.
Rise of the samurai isn't that impressive, I wouldn't recommend it

>>713203589
>Don't exhaust your troops rushing to the enem
That hasnt been a thing since rome 2 atleast, running into battle barely sucks fatigue nowadays

>>713202889
DO NOT WATCH LEGEND. He shows you how the burger is made and abuses the AI. It will reduce your fun and ruin the experience. You cannot get your innocence back once you lose it.

>>713203528
I actually havent watched much of him, I use to watch that divide and conquer mod author and that's where I learned how Medieval II works mostly.

>>713203707
The game literally has built in buttons that send you to Wikipedia. Other than that, hovering over units/buildings tell you what they do.

>>713203518
I think it's a good thing to want to preserve your units, but once you play enough you understand that sacrificing units in certain situations can also be useful (ie, throwing cheap shit that will certainly lose at other units to slow them down).

>>713203707
I think just play the games, stick with having a reasonable infantry core at first.
>should i even be going into close match ups
If you can win efficiently against other armies that are technically of equal strength that's the best way to play. Once you get into high difficulties you'll rarely have an overwhelming advantage over the enemy generally speaking

>>713200972 (OP)
Maybe auto resolve cheats in your favor. I don't know. Just guessing because I don't play.

>>713203707
Brotip: play custom battles with all units 1v1 to learn what each unit type is capable of against different units. To get rid of the General and have a nice flat battlefield with short unit travel before they meet you can download mods from the workshop.

>>713203751
Based public service announcement. Its hard enough these days to find any game where its not almost immediately obvious what's going on under the hood and to keep some kind of vidya magic about it. I'll never understand people who need to break a vidya down to just the boring autist numbers.

>>713204207
Don't 1v1 that's the whole thing with this game. You never want to 1v1 and if you're forced to you never want to fight from the front.
You want a line of defensive units that can hold but not necessarily win while you flank with other more mobile units

Does anyone play with mods to lower the max stack size? I love fights in the 6-10 unit per side range, but 20v20 just feels like shit.

>>713200972 (OP)
It's about understanding what units are for what purpose
Spears are good at holding a line and will annihilate cavalry
Swords are good at killing spearmen, but get obliterated by cavalry
Heavily armored units of these types are better at their respective roles
Axe/Club or other forms of assault infantry are good at striking above their weight, killing armored units, but are less effective at spears or swords for holding/infantry clearing - but some times are absolutely necessary if going against a armor heavy faction like the Romans in RTW1/2 or Chaos in TWWH.

Archers are mainly used for harassing cavalry, particularly missile cavalry like horse archers, or tipping the line battle in favor - use them to soften up elite units that will be trouble during the line melee.

Cavalry units function similarly - cav units with spears beat cav units without spears, cav units with swords kill infantry quicker - but there's a bit more nuance, since cavalry with lances are better at killing units that are stationary - but only if used properly in cycle charges.

Horse archers and skirmisher units like javelinmen are best used to flank and harass the sides of formations and get units to split off and isolate - horse archers doing what normal skirmishers do, but for cavalry, since foot skirmishers typically get folded by cav very quickly.

>>713204942
I get this but then when I'm playing Warhammer there's just all sorts other retarded shit. war machines? flying units? dogs? I don't know how to build against a stack that's full of fucking circus freaks

>>713204942
Then there's attila where you use nothing but horse archers and you win every single fight

>>713204556
1v1 is only recommended to test the units' performance against other units. You need to know if and how long some unit can hold a position on their own so that you have other units free to roam the battlefield and pincer enemy units. Often the enemy has more units and you need to compensate for this deficit.

>>713205352
And then there are praetorians, my sweet sweet praetorians

>>713205352
Attila in particular is the game that FORCES you to understand the fundamentals of units, as long as you aren't playing the Huns, since the game has a survival horror aspect where every loss you feel is a tragedy and every unit needs to be conserved to be utilized later on against the literal hordes of germano-hunnic-arabi-picto-persian niggers coming to sack your empire.

>>713205326
That's exactly why I never play any TW Warhammer, only pseudo-historical TW titles. I simply can't relate to any "magic".

>>713205326
Because warhammer is it's own thing now. Up to thrones of britannia everything was straightforward, every faction had similar units or some were identical in performance just reskined. From three kingdoms onwards they added hero units and all the bs you talked about earlier. If you like it keep playing those, if not then go back to older titles, they all hold up well

>>713205771
ThroB is honestly so based. Such a good Total War game.

>>713205887
No it's trash. Attila with age of Charlemagne it's exactly the same thing.

>>713205326
That also takes some getting used to, but to someone who's played a lot of historicals, the vast majority of the monsterous units are familiar. They are typically war elephants or chariots in different skins, functioning as mainly front line shatterers. Those that aren't are typically focused towards doing big monster duel, their purpose is to be brought as a counter to the enemies big monster balls, and if your faction doesn't have such monsters, then you just bring in halberds, which have a insane damage and melee attack bonus towards monster units, but die even quicker to dedicated anti-infantry units or archers than normal spearmen or swordsmen.

In my honest opinion, TWWH3 is a good game, but it's the cartoony action version of Total War, with a lot of unserious memery going on in the balancing that makes the game less tactical and strategic, since you can bitch out entire armies with your magic spells and whatnot.

If you want to get a solid game, play Total War Rome, or it's sequel if you prefer games that are more modern.

>>713205326
flying units are just regular units that can operate above your ground units. Dont overthink it.
Gyrocopters=Skirmish cavalry
Fellbats=Flying warhounds
Flying Single Entity Monster=Ground single entity monster
Warmachines=Artillery(armored)
Dogs=Lighter, Faster, weaker Cavalry
Monstrous infantry=Same strengths and weaknesses as Cavalry. Big unit easy to shoot. Takes bonus damage from spears. Usually good mobility to flank.

>>713200972 (OP)
I was like this with Warhammer TW before I learned checkered squares,

>>713205326
TWWH is the same as regular TW. Except Rock-Paper-Scissors got patched and has more elements. But their counter purpose is similar. You just have to know what to use where.

Which faction are you playing? Empire is probably the most conventional, late medieval/early renaissance european army.

>>713200972 (OP)
A lot of it is just learning units:
>which units are good and which are bad/situational/too expensive for their performance
>which units are strong against which other units
>how to place those units before the battle and use them during
You'll get there over time. For now, don't sweat that.