/twg/ - Total War General

Medieval 2 had the best recruitment system, it actually forced you to utilize your entire roster for a good portion of the game, and even into the late game you couldn't just recruit the best units exclusively. But then it also didn't have passive replentishment.

>tfw play fantasy, history, gsg, and mount and blade
Will the grand autism coalition ever find peace?

How do you into Brettonia in MP (inb4 "do not")

Good factions are too strong.
Try some of the mods to nerf Dwarfs and buff Greenskins and Skaven, then things get REALLY interesting.
For your current game though, fight the Dark Elves, they're very interesting to fight as Empire.
High Elves are a good fight too, and easier campaigning as Ulthuan is warm and comfy.

lose a lot, cry deeply

Passive replenishment is one of the worst changes they've made IMO
In M2 it added so much strategic depth in that you would have to ferry depleted higher-tier units back to somewhere you could replenish them, and it made me feel like I couldn't just waste them fighting shitters. When sending an army out to fight you had to consider reinforcement.

It results in sort of silly things too, like having to protect depleted units and a few other silly things. On the other hand, lack of replenishment would probably make the AI even worse at coping, and would maybe make single units hard to balance.

yeah the Dwarves in particular seem not only good on the battlefield but their campaign AI is voracious. They gobbled up the whole Orc desert, are trying to muscle into Sylvania, are trying to burn down Athel Loren, and are now sending stacks up north to take the Norscan territory I've sacked. Even though they are my allies I'm happy to see them occasionally lose to Vampires and Wood Elves. Maybe there's a mod or something that makes them want to stay in the fucking mountains where they belong.

Norsca shows how passive replenishment is nicer. Nobody wants to waddle all the way north after a hard day's raiding just to lose all the money you got sacking shit to upkeep on the trip back. Hell, I wish outposts had normal recruitment times instead of global recruitment times, not sure what the real benefit is there (cost?)

I'd kill for some kind of logistics system with the ability to build forward bases or outposts but ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh hard to say how that would really work with their strategy layer stuff. it does need a few more simple systems for depth's sake.