Playing with the upgraded artificial intelligence in version 1.2, it is still possible to get a very fast win. Here’s the play by play to win as the Holy Roman Empire on turn 8 with one to four regions to spare.
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The long delayed Medieval 2: Total War patch came out around the third week of June a few weeks after the Labor Day weekend it was promised. I’ve been playing it for a few weeks to exercise the new artificial intelligence (AI).
The AI and game rules still need some major improvement to be a challenge to the expert strategist and tactician even at the highest difficulty levels. I was able to satisfy the victory conditions for the ‘long’ campaign playing the Holy Roman Empire on turn 8. What follows is strategy, tactics and a recount of how to do it. I’ll point the way for how to do it by turn 7.
Another excellent title in the Total War series. Decisive Win takes its time to chalk up another detailed strategic and tactical analysis of this Sega game released for PC on November 17. In 26.5 turns with 199.5 to go, 45 regions are controlled including Rome at the very hard level playing the Holy Roman Empire.
Here’s a download site for the demo. The game is in stores 11/17.
The Battle of Agincourt seems to be the most difficult battle. The English Longbowman have stakes in front of them so that cavalry can’t make a frontal attack. We managed a non-decisive win the second time through. By the fifth time through, we had a decisive win with a kill rate of over 3 to 1. By the 25th time, we had a Decisive Win with a kill/capture ratio of 8 to 1 vs. the French.
Dune-style water from the air. Desalination eat your heart out.
Here’s my plan: Nuclear power. Big buildings. Hydroponics. Water from the air. Call it 100 billion carrying capacity easy. Where is the carrying capacity failure?
When I was at IBM, I helped them decide to sue Informix which resulted in a merger. I also questioned intellectual property (IP) policy with respect to the personal computer (PC) business. Now that IBM no longer has a PC business, it can more aggressively enforce its IP. With a large portfolio, IP benefits from looking tough on some of its patents. The assumptions in game theory that lead to the chain store paradox of never fighting do not apply here. It is doing that with its portfolio of non-PC patents too. IBM earned $1.4 billion from IP royalties in 2000.
I think their R&D spend is optional to support a much higher rate of patenting. That is, I think the 1.8 million they spent on R&D to get a patent was optional. Only the filing fees, incentive awards, employee hours and legal are necessary to get a valuable patent portfolio. Case in point: a patent I got for IBM on all externally adjustable medical implants. If IBM spun off its IP portfolio, that could generate billions in royalties without any risk of a countersuit. Decisive win for IBM.
The New York Times editorial page calls for non-militarization of space and is worried that we are starting a new space race.
The nuclear arms race and other races in the cold war may have been exceedingly dangerous and unwise to subject our country and the planet to such extreme weapons (that are still around albeit less in the public eye). But a race is a battle that the US is uniquely suited to decisively win with our huge economy, our innovative culture and our status as a sitting duck for asymmetric warfare such as terrorism.
Consider an analogous situation. The alternatives for Israel to stop rocket attacks from over their borders is to either clear an unduly broad patch of no-man’s land of all people permanently (which in itself requires advances in detection and the permanent enmity of the international community) or develop a laser weapon that can shoot down these rockets. The arms race offers the only glimmer of hope for peace.
Rome: Total War Alexander play by play continues…
At the start of the turn, our forces are arrayed inside Epidamnus, beseiging Byzantium and Halicarnassus and Formio on the way to Memphis across the Mediterranean.
Rutan in Popular Mechanics ups the supply from 5,000/year to a 100,000 seat number for 12-year capacity. That’s 278 flights per year for each of his first five six-passenger craft and 3-4 flights per day. Perhaps they’ll be flying two per day out of both Mojave and New Mexico. That is not consistent with $200,000 ticket prices according to the Futron demand estimate from the 2002 survey data. The good news is that if they proceed with building that kind of capacity, it will be in their interest to fly it at marginal cost if they face sufficient competition whether or not they have broken even on their debt payments. The 12-year demand in the Futron Study updated white paper is 40,000. That’s a pretty big supply/demand mismatch which would cause the price to drop out if there are at least two vendors beyond Virgin Galactic with sufficient spare capacity. With (in alphabetical order) Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems, Rocketplane-Kistler, and XCOR Aerospace producing vehicles and/or donating flights to Space Frontier Foundation Teachers in Space and/or getting their craft and/or spaceport licensed there rates to be more supply. Will this drive the price down more swiftly than Futron predicts?
It’s certainly in the interest of each firm to talk about huge fleets to try to get the competition not to build. Decisive win for investors or consumers?
What follows is a play by play of Rome: Total War with the Alexander expansion pack. You have 100 turns to recapitulate Alexander’s great triumphs across the known world. But first, we have to bring the Hellenes to heel.
100 Turns to Go
○ You have a lot of troops and your cash will run out fast. Get ready to attack in three to five directions.