CA's Total War: The Celtic-Han-Lizardmen alliance that never was

[Heartofice]

I’m pretty sure the AI becomes more hard coded to attack the player at higher difficulty levels.

Plus on Vortex games the other Vortex powers beeline for you every time.

[Toth]

19 hours ago, Slurktan said:

Told ya. I'm pretty sure the ai is like hard coded for him to take the island in between fake Africa and fake SA and then just go wherever the player is. Try and take that and hopefully Kroq'gar deals with fake Madagascar.

Well, I certainly would like to take him on, but Malus has adopted the Clan Pestilence strategy of running all over the place with his armies in forced march, only taking undefended villages, with me unable to catch any of them. The most frustrating part was when Malus himself sieged a city, Teclis managed to catch up with him... but then he fucked off into ambush stance and I failed to reveal him, only so that he could force march away the next turn again.

"Stay still, damn it, so that I can fry you with magic! I didn't know the Druchii are such cowards they make the ratmen look brave! Our kinship fills me with shame! Oh for fuck's sake, Malus, I know you are hiding behind that tree over there! I can see the tail of your stunted pet lizard! Come out and honorably face the 20 archer units that have already taken aim at you!"

I was so frustrated I had Teclis teleport off to do his two story missions for his sword and crown. The whole "arrows are people" thing is absolutely ridiculous, especially in the battle against Malekith: https://i.postimg.cc/PJqs6SCM/20201231101454-1.jpg

1700 enemies dead, 0 casualties, Close Victory. Sure. That battle was really hilariously easy, what with the Dark Elves getting bunched up trying to cross a lava river completely helpless to me just peppering them with arrows and spells.

Then comes the one for the crown: https://i.postimg.cc/gjB913Rb/20201231105847-1.jpg

I only got those losses because I ran out of arrows and the cowards turned around and wanted to sit out the battle in a forest. I was too impatient to wait for my magic to replenish and chain lightning them out, so I went in at foot and... yeah, I seriously should reconsider getting Teclis into melee, that wasn't my most clever idea.

Meanwhile things look pretty bleak again for the good guys in my campaign. Tyrion got hammered by Morathi and lost Lothern, which in turn tanked my trade income. Meanwhile in the Southlands Settra blobbed up to enormous sizes, so I'm buddying up to him using my influence, hoping to get him to sign a trade treaty.

[The Winged Shadow]

On 12/31/2020 at 11:02 PM, Toth said:

Well, I certainly would like to take him on, but Malus has adopted the Clan Pestilence strategy of running all over the place with his armies in forced march, only taking undefended villages, with me unable to catch any of them. The most frustrating part was when Malus himself sieged a city, Teclis managed to catch up with him... but then he fucked off into ambush stance and I failed to reveal him, only so that he could force march away the next turn again.

How come you didn't utilise ambush stance yourself?  You can use it to hide your approach and not necessarily to actually get ambush. Another way to get enemy army to come to you is to recruit a single lord, force march him somewhere with decent ambush chance but within enemy's reach (hovering over the terrain should tell you the %), camp your main army in ambush stance in that area. AI can't resist a weak ass army on force march, they will gun for it. Best way is to make sure the bait army is just at the edge of the enemy lords normal movement range, so if you get discovered they can't run away too far on forced march.

Quote

I only got those losses because I ran out of arrows and the cowards turned around and wanted to sit out the battle in a forest. I was too impatient to wait for my magic to replenish and chain lightning them out, so I went in at foot and... yeah, I seriously should reconsider getting Teclis into melee, that wasn't my most clever idea.

Yeah Teclis is not a good fighter. Until he gets his Arcane Phoenix mount.

[Heartofice]

Both of Teclis’ quest battles are pretty simple i agree, but it does kind of depend on how early you go for them. Both of their main dangers come from big beasts. Malekith turns up on his black dragon and that can be a problem if you arent prepared to focus fire on him. Then there is the big flying horror in the Skaven battle, which can fly right into your mass of archers and mess you up.

I see you’ve gone full Lothern Sea guard, which is fine but is not very economical in the early game, i prefer to get spears and archers till the discounts click in.

 

[Toth]

Okay, I did get along with my work enough to sit down and reply.^^

On 1/1/2021 at 4:48 PM, The Winged Shadow said:

How come you didn't utilise ambush stance yourself?  You can use it to hide your approach and not necessarily to actually get ambush. Another way to get enemy army to come to you is to recruit a single lord, force march him somewhere with decent ambush chance but within enemy's reach (hovering over the terrain should tell you the %), camp your main army in ambush stance in that area. AI can't resist a weak ass army on force march, they will gun for it. Best way is to make sure the bait army is just at the edge of the enemy lords normal movement range, so if you get discovered they can't run away too far on forced march.

In the end I decided to just say 'fuck this' and marched purposely into the ambush. Amusingly enough, the ambush failed and I slaughtered Malus' troops effortlessly.

I did try to lure him later on when he reattached himself to one of the other roaming armies with a weak lord and my army ambushing in between. He didn't take the bait, apparently my juicy villages are considered easier targets.

On 1/1/2021 at 5:22 PM, Heartofice said:

Both of Teclis’ quest battles are pretty simple i agree, but it does kind of depend on how early you go for them. Both of their main dangers come from big beasts. Malekith turns up on his black dragon and that can be a problem if you arent prepared to focus fire on him. Then there is the big flying horror in the Skaven battle, which can fly right into your mass of archers and mess you up.

I guess I was lucky then. Malekith was too busy dicking around with Tyrion, so he was caught flat-footed when I had already taken out his army and then riddled him with arrows from the side.

The Skaven battle was weird, I think I killed the Skaven so fast it messed up the timing. I wiped out their reinforcements and then watched their main army go camping in the woods and as I was trying to figure out how to lure them out the bats came out one swarm at a time and then their giant monster a loooong time later as I was already wondering whether the small bats were all there is to it. I had just enough ammo left to take it down and no, my Loremaster took it on.

On 1/1/2021 at 5:22 PM, Heartofice said:

I see you’ve gone full Lothern Sea guard, which is fine but is not very economical in the early game, i prefer to get spears and archers till the discounts click in.

I... am too poor for the buildings I need to unlock research! XD

Joke aside, Lothern Seaguard is amazingly good and even though my army composition is boring, what works, works.^^

So yes, I have managed to play a bit more in the past nights. I must say, a lot of turns have passed and while it feels I made massive progress in terms of overcoming the starting hurdles, now that I'm thinking back on it it feels like not so much had happened in the end after all.

- I beat two armies of Malus, he then fucked off with the rest of them.

- I did the second ritual. It only spawned two armies, but of course they spawned as far away from my armies or even the cities they were supposed to target as possible and razed three undefended villages. At that point all my villages were only level 2, so I couldn't build any walls in there even if I wanted to. Also to pour salt into the wounds: Two of the villages were immediately settled by The Awakened and Hexaoatl respectively. Hexaoatl has started to get into a habit of killstealing actually. When I went to war with the Orcs in the north they always took the last town I needed to complete any province there. Then again, the Defenders of the Great Plan and the Cult of Sotek also did that from the very beginning, which is why I have so few complete provinces.

- the Elves in general made a glorious comeback. Ulthuan is now entirely ours, meanwhile Imrik also snapped back from the brink of destruction and somehow managed to get a sizable amount of territory back from Settra after he got distraced by an invasion by Repanse. Talk about irony here, given my last playthrough. The downside is that they all keep turning down my confederation requests. No Ulthuan base for the disabled archmage.

- at the same time as that happened my public order shot through the roof and my cities finally started to grow like crazy. I like to imagine the strength of Ulthuan has caused a colonization wave, but I rather assume it has something to do with me consolidating long enough after I got into a bit of a dead-end with expansion options.

- after I had a notable headstart in regards to Waystones I was suddenly overtaken by Naggarond, which makes me very nervous about whether I will be able to stop Malekith in time given how I'm turn 80 now and take forever to get everything done.

- I wiped out Clan Pestilence and somehow didn't even notice. As I was pushing onwards into ruined territory I suddenly struck into a pile of differently colored rats. Since they were allied with Lokhir, didn't show hostile at all and I was in enough wars already, I kept them as is, turned to the sea and sent Teclis to finally finish off that annoying coward Malus.

- I'm having alliances with all Elf and human factions. Wulfhart then dragged me into a war with the Defenders of the Great Plan which is amusing because they don't do shit. He was already at war with their horde lizard army and I refused to join that one (since that was just an invitation, not an alliance question). So Wulfhart killed the horde while I'm busy mopping up the Defenders, though I must say them having a wall and an impressive garrison in every single little ditch is a bit annoying. They had their Blessed Spawning army siege one of my cities early on, but I just sat it out while waiting for reinforcements. They tried to escape when those arrived, but this time I successfully blocked them. As they tried to break out by force I managed to pull off a Heroic Victory. Lothern Seaguard FTW!

- thanks to my war with the Defenders, the Cult of Sotek also declared war on me despite having been on friendly terms with me throughout the entire game. They only have two villages left though and they are both wrecking a province of me each, so I count it as a further mop-up action to finally secure the the south of Lustria.

[Toth]

Turn 95 or so now. I feel like there is a super frustrating territory swap going on right now. Yes, I'm still conquering the Defenders and Cult of Sotek territory and got Ellyrion confederated, but I'm also constantly loosing villages where my armies currently aren't...

The first thing I saw when I confederated Ellyrion was that they had only one army with six units stationed in a village in the outer ring of Ulthuan with Count Noctilus marching on it with a full stack. I put the unit out, hoping I could retreat it away, but Noctilus then decided to sack the village instead of conquering it and wiped out my unit anyway. At least I managed to cause some grievous damage and had Tyrion finish him off, but loosing that level 6 mage was... actually not that bad as it saved my economy. XD

Meanwhile I got what I deserve for turning my back on the Skaven. Of course while Teclis was busy fighting off three stacks of Malus at the Fortress of Dawn, the Skaven and Lokhir declared war on me. Fuck you! The worst part is that I'm deeply confused where the AI gets all their troops from. The Cult of Sotek has only two villages (no city!), but they were able to field two stacks with 5000 troops altogether. And even when I sieged both villages, instead of doubling back to bail them out, they kept razing undefended villages because fuck you! The same goes with the Skaven of Clan Skryre. They have ONE city left with the Lizardmen of Itza sieging that one, but of course they have two doomstacks made up entirely of crazy weapon teams that run around razing villages and even taking my northernmost province I took from Clan Pestilens only to loose it immediately to Itza. Damn it! All the while my recently freed armies from the mop-up action agains the defenders have been busy taking two settlements from Lokhir, with the third that makes up the province taken by Itza. Figures. But yeah, Itza is now the major power in central Lustria and unlike me they don't have to wrestle with a U-shaped territory.

I decided to fight sieges myself to speed up the process of taking walled settlements and free up more armies as I could take settlements with just one army this way. And... wow, sieges are really dumb in this game. I mean, yeah, they were annoying in every other Total War game, but the Army Losses penalty turns the ones in Warhammer into a joke. You essentially just park 15 units of archers angled in front of the walls and have them murder everything trying to man them until the army losses kick in and you win by default. It only gets annoying when the enemy has little infantry or many heroes. This actually caused an amusingly stupid scene in which Malus was just standing helplessly behind the gates while my Loremaster was spamming Spirit Leech on him... until he was at half health at which point he transformed into Tz'arkan... just standing there... draining his HP... until he keeled over without ever engaging with a single enemy. What a joke! Isn't it telling that Malus immediately sued for peace afterwards? I accepted because I needed Teclis back in Lustria...

Well, even though I'm still really bad at having my armies where they are needed and spend most of the time stupidly running from one fire to the next, the overall situation looks really funny. The good guys are winning for once! Kinda... Because... Naggaroth collapsed all of a sudden! Morathi got conquered by Khatep and Malekith is loosing vast swathes of territory to a blobbed Clan Moulder, but also a ludicrously strong Tiranoc. The leading faction in the Vortex race is now Hexoatl who also joined the fight beating up Malekith, having several beachheads in Nagarond... but who then got completely screwed over in the third ritual as two horrifically huge Chaos stacks came in right next to each other and they are busy smashing every city and army they come across in tandem. I actually cheekily recruited a new army in the far north of my territory with the sole purpose of following them and settling every ruin in their wake.

Meanwhile the Southlands are pretty much just Settra now. Damn it, the guy is nasty strong. And he still refuses a trade treaty! Why?!?

[Heartofice]

Oh you confederated as Teclis? I’ve never done that. Mainly because it makes the game really awkward zooming all around the map putting out fires. The AI runs a massive deficit and difficulty settings means they can have much greater upkeep and cheaper units than you ( see your point about Sotek), so when you confederate you gain all their stuff but with a ton of extra upkeep. Which is why you need to spend that first turn deleting all your troops.

I prefer to keep the game compact and tidy and not have to get overwhelmed with a ton of armies. It’s totally possible with Vortex maps.

[Toth]

40 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Oh you confederated as Teclis? I’ve never done that. Mainly because it makes the game really awkward zooming all around the map putting out fires. The AI runs a massive deficit and difficulty settings means they can have much greater upkeep and cheaper units than you ( see your point about Sotek), so when you confederate you gain all their stuff but with a ton of extra upkeep. Which is why you need to spend that first turn deleting all your troops.

Well, good thing Count Noctilus did that for me then, huh? XD

I guess the fact that their main army got wiped out was the main reason they agreed to me taking over. But occasional pirate attacks aside, Ulthuan is extremely save for the moment, so I can afford not having an army there and instead focus on spreading my army out in Lustria to prepare for the third ritual. I desperately need to catch up on the race without getting distracted all the time. I just hope Itza remains peaceful until I dealt with my Chaos marauders.

[Slurktan]

The massive doomstacks from 1 city AI powers is because of the cheats they get.  It gets worse on harder difficulties and some just get more than others for... reasons. (Looking at you Von Carsteins in ME)

[Toth]

Okay, I had a really nasty battle yesterday night. I mean firstly: I think I got the campaign in the bag (crosses fingers). I managed to be the final one wiping out Clan Skryre after Itza was utterly unable to defeat Ikit's horrifically overpowered doomstack. I did. With prejudice. After camping outside their city with two armies watching the lizardmens' siege fail. At the same time Luthor Harkon got wiped out by Wulfrik and... Lustria is now only three factions, me Wulfrik and Itza. Now I can finally go ahead with the third ritual just in time as I have nearly reached the waystones for the fourth already, but Hexoatl is on my heels. In the first turn after starting the ritual I smashed the first two armies that spawned and now there is only one army of Norsca left on the ocean south of my starting islands, no big deal I hope as I have a stack on the Turtle Islands.

What... got me good and cost me my entire playtime was my ongoing habit to get the people confederating with me killed. Because I confederated Nagarythe. They only had three settlements left despite looking so strong a few turns later. Turns out Alith Anar's main army got just killed and their second army only consisting of a level 6 life mage and a couple of shadow warriors and cavalry was in striking distance of Crone Hellebron. The fight looked winnable to me, so I tried to win it by using the forest to my advantage hiding all my troops and setting up an ambush from several directions. First try went rather well, but Crone Hellebron was left to wreak havoc upon my troops and defeated me. The second try I prioritized taking her out since I noticed that I was indeed doing decent damage to her. Unfortunately their Black Guards of Naggaroth proved impervious to my attacks and I was done for. Third try I more successfully managed to split them up and massacre them in waves, giving me the win.

Now I just need to wrap up the rituals and be done with this campaign. It is turn 110 now, I got 45 settlements. This should be fine. Trying to wreak some havoc in Naggaroth will be a bit of a distraction while I wait.

[Corvinus85]

Wulfrik? Are you talking about Markus Wulfhart? There is Wulfrik the Wanderer, Norscan legendary lord, but only if you have Warhammer I, and you're playing Mortal Empires.

I've started a High Elf campaign, too, with Imrik in Mortal Empires. He can get powerful, but his starting position is challenging. I eliminated my immediate neighbors, Clan Eshin and Hag Graef, and am sitting comfortably on 3 provinces. But in order to expand, I need to go against the Greenskins, Grimgor's Ardboyz. So I woke the sleeping giant. It's challenging to fight a war among large wastelands and mountain passes when your enemy can just hop around. I have only one full stack army, because dragons are expensive, so in 1-on-1, I am unbeatable, but I can't afford to go out and expand, while leaving my back exposed.

Luckily, Grimgor is at war with other factions, which is why he had left me alone. Naturally he is at war with the Dwarfs of Kharaz-a-Kharak and the Border Princes, but also with Khemri, and now the Last Defenders. My strategy is to attack and sack his settlements, and provoke him in sending armies towards me that I can take out piece-meal. As long as he doesn't declare a Waagh on me...

 

[Toth]

17 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Wulfrik? Are you talking about Markus Wulfhart? There is Wulfrik the Wanderer, Norscan legendary lord, but only if you have Warhammer I, and you're playing Mortal Empires.

Yes, yes. Wulfhart. The Huntsman dude. With whom I guess I have to get back to the same table now, given that while I'm busy fending off the fourth ritual invasion, Itza declared war on me. Bastards. Though it should be fine I guess because I still had two armies in the region, but I'm stunned at my inability to take cities due to the ridiculous garrisons everybody seems to be having now when even a full stack of mine is shown as horribly outmatched against an empty city. The one city in Naggaroth I keep fighting for has 3 hydras for fuck's sake! Not to mention that Morathi keeps spawning in it no matter how often I killed her.

I'm also hitting a bit of a roadblock against Chaos. First of all RNG absolutely hates my guts. Hexoatl started the fourth ritual a couple of turns before me, but their intervention armies appeared scattered across MY territory, very slowly crawling towards theirs one by one, leaving me the distinct impression they won't get there until the ritual is over. Meanwhile in my northernmost province, the one I grabbed from Hexoatl after they messed up during their last ritual, five full stacks spawned huddled close together. Are you kidding me?!? And the worst part is that even if I manage to divide their attention and take them on one by one, I somehow get badly crushed due to my archer stacks' lack of armor-piercing damage and their hellcannons wreaking havoc. I'm currently recruiting a couple of phoenixes to take out the latter, but it will take a long time until they arrive where they are needed. In regards to the armor piercing... well, nice to know that I am supposed to buy a DLC to get Sisters of Avelorn... -.- I'm also annoyed about my lack of mages right now. I REALLY need to build up on hero recruiting buildings.

Meanwhile I now also confederated Imrik as he was on the brink of getting crushed by Settra. Since I'm on amiable terms with Settra, things are a little awkward in the Southlands, but I decided to regroup his two armies and try to expand against Clan Mors and the Last Defenders with him. We'll see how that goes.

18 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I've started a High Elf campaign, too, with Imrik in Mortal Empires. He can get powerful, but his starting position is challenging. I eliminated my immediate neighbors, Clan Eshin and Hag Graef, and am sitting comfortably on 3 provinces. But in order to expand, I need to go against the Greenskins, Grimgor's Ardboyz. So I woke the sleeping giant. It's challenging to fight a war among large wastelands and mountain passes when your enemy can just hop around. I have only one full stack army, because dragons are expensive, so in 1-on-1, I am unbeatable, but I can't afford to go out and expand, while leaving my back exposed.

Now that sounds like a tough campaign! Yeah, looking at the Mortal Empires map in videos I'm surprised how much open space there is in the old world.

[The Winged Shadow]

2 hours ago, Toth said:

Meanwhile in my northernmost province, the one I grabbed from Hexoatl after they messed up during their last ritual, five full stacks spawned huddled close together. Are you kidding me?!? And the worst part is that even if I manage to divide their attention and take them on one by one, I somehow get badly crushed due to my archer stacks' lack of armor-piercing damage and their hellcannons wreaking havoc. I'm currently recruiting a couple of phoenixes to take out the latter, but it will take a long time until they arrive where they are needed. In regards to the armor piercing... well, nice to know that I am supposed to buy a DLC to get Sisters of Avelorn... -.- I'm also annoyed about my lack of mages right now. I REALLY need to build up on hero recruiting buildings.

 

Didn't really expect to take on Chaos with your Archer stack did you? lol. Sounds like you were super under prepared. Although to be fair so was I on my first vortex. Got caught with my pants down. Chaos fucked me up real good.

For Hellcannons, put your Heroes or Lords on a flying mount if you can and set your army right at the edge of map. This should make the enemy attack in waves rather than together, i.e. Cav/fast units first, then the infantry (bait them with some units if need be). Giving Cannons something to shoot at halts the cannons and isolates them from rest of the army. Hellcannons are slow so they should be ripe for the picking with your flying Lord/Hero. If you want to cheese, just try to get them to fire at you and try to dodge (eagles are better at it than dragons).

Alternatively, just give ground where you can't hold. Sell all your buildings to recover some resource and retreat to a defensible location. Set up ambushes etc. Armies are more important than cities (.....maybe not your shit stack though lol)

edit: if you don't have access to Sisters, then you might just have to build a less cheesy army. Go for the good old melee and cav with some phoenix. Swordmasters and Phoenix Guards are pretty good units. Typically the high elf units should be faster so probably just kite some of their more dangerous units (Chosen etc) if needed.

[Corvinus85]

Hellcanons are the only artillery unit that is unbreakable, so you got to hit them hard to eliminate them fast. They're also our first glimpse of the Chaos Dwarfs.

[Toth]

8 hours ago, The Winged Shadow said:

edit: if you don't have access to Sisters, then you might just have to build a less cheesy army. Go for the good old melee and cav with some phoenix. Swordmasters and Phoenix Guards are pretty good units. Typically the high elf units should be faster so probably just kite some of their more dangerous units (Chosen etc) if needed.

I don't have the buildings to recruit phoenix guard and swordmasters!

Edit: Okay, for real, I'm dead. I just booted up the game for a little nightly progress only to get hammered in three battles in a row and I'm just thinking "fuck this nonsense". It's not even Chaos that did me in this time! First the freshly respawned Morathi attacked me with a stack that was basically just Black Guards, lots of cavalry and Reaper Bolt Throwers that completely overwhelmed me and then I got attacked by a lizard doomstack that was like 50% monsters. Both times I was utterly overwhelmed and could only helplessly watch my lines crumble as the enemies barely took a scratch from my volleys. And I looked up. I seriously don't have access to any units that could help me.

[The Sunland Lord]

About which Total War is it allowed to write about on here? 

I know the OP says "any", but I'm not familiar with some of the content.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, The Sunland Lord said:

About which Total War is it allowed to write about on here? 

I know the OP says "any", but I'm not familiar with some of the content.

Any. It's just that we've been talking about Warhammer II, as most people who are posting have enjoyed playing it a lot, or getting into it.

[Heartofice]

19 hours ago, Toth said:

I don't have the buildings to recruit phoenix guard and swordmasters!

Edit: Okay, for real, I'm dead. I just booted up the game for a little nightly progress only to get hammered in three battles in a row and I'm just thinking "fuck this nonsense". It's not even Chaos that did me in this time! First the freshly respawned Morathi attacked me with a stack that was basically just Black Guards, lots of cavalry and Reaper Bolt Throwers that completely overwhelmed me and then I got attacked by a lizard doomstack that was like 50% monsters. Both times I was utterly overwhelmed and could only helplessly watch my lines crumble as the enemies barely took a scratch from my volleys. And I looked up. I seriously don't have access to any units that could help me.

Lol, such a familiar experience with Vortex and Teclis! I've quit that campaign so many times after realising how I'd screwed up.

That's why I said earlier it really pays to stay small, and play tall with Teclis. Once you get too big and confederate then all the other factions know who you are and start to declare war. If your armies are spread out, or if you have a bunch of low tier armies you will get absolutely crushed.

My goal with Teclis is to just grab enough wayfragments whilst gradually building up my 1 army to be good enough to beat a lizardmen or chaos doomstack.  With enough Swordmasters and sisters of avelorn, maybe a dragon and a phoenix it's pretty doable. But the problem is transitioning from that low tier stack that murders everything initially (Lothern Sea Guard and archers) to one that kills things that have armour. 

Then because I've only got a couple of provinces to defend it can actually be pretty simple to just turtle up and complete the vortex campaign.. if you can be bothered to play it that long. 

[Heartofice]

Playing CK3 has really made me realise what a great total war game would be if it combined many of paradox games' features. A proper casus belli system would be really interesting, and actually what I really like in CK3 is fighting over claims, rather than a constant slog of losing cities and gaining cities.

The problem with total war games is that if you start becoming overwhelmed it's very difficult to come back from that, and it's also very easy to steamroll  the world if you play right, there is a tipping point in campaigns where you just can't lose.

But if wars were more like Paradox games, where war goals were fixed and limits were set to how much territory to could grab in one go, then that would really make a difference.

Not necessary for the Warhammer titles, but I'd hope the next historical title moves more in that direction.

[Corvinus85]

That kind of stuff would be interesting in a new Medieval TW game. It could possibly work for a game set in 17-19th centuries period, too. 

Three Kingdoms has the most complex diplomacy and lord relationship system of any TW I've seen, but the casus belli/title claim system wouldn't work much, as it focuses on the chaotic period of that time. If only the game had more variety in playstyles, I've only finished it once.

Not to derail this thread too much with other games, but I'm looking forward to Knights of Honor II, which is supposed to be the bridge between Crusader Kings and Total War. The first one was fun, but its battles were way inferior to TW.