Top 5 Total War Exploits

[@BadSkeelz]

"One thing you're absolutely not supposed to be able to do while on Crusade or Jihad is attack people of your own faith!" *Laughs in Venetian*

[@Daedalus_9]

Well, by Total War standards, Byzantium and Venice are different faiths.

[@rocekth]

@@Daedalus_9 They could also be referring to the Christian city they sacked before Constantinople

[@marioytambor]

Dimitrije Šuković You do take a huge penalty with the pope for attacking orthodox factions on hijad. Not that it matters, because in the ver hard the guy just hates you because you’re breathing.

[@ethanpalmer5670]

4th Crusade Time

[@rocekth]

@A venti dble chchlate chip frappucino I'm fully aware of the Massacre of the Latins, but it was 22 years beforehand

[@UnbornHeretic]

I think i would rather have the movement bug and be able to detatch units. I mean, it is super tedious for whomever uses it.

[@wardr08e2]

Agreed.

[@pewienpanzmiasta6292]

AI didn't know how to use it and always spammed tousands of small, shitty armies.

[@xLionsxxSmithyx]

Super tedius... you gotta be purposely trying to make yourself bored by using it.

[@johnmartinez12347]

I transported my entire army to Moscow in the first turn in Napoleon

[@rasspliffari]

@ what kind of reject would want to do that? and why should everyone else lose out because some people have no life at all?

[@AfshinR.Laroudi]

you can't just pull a general out of your ass...... I love this guy

[@polishpat95]

When did he say that ? Lol

[@QuinnMLH]

@@polishpat95 About 12:40

[@TheAzorg]

@Samuel Kováč me too, i was confused af :v

[@G1CAAAAEO]

Oh yes you can. I just came back from the toilet and when I looked over my shoulder I saw a general lying in the toilet.

[@marincro704]

Top 5 Least Cost Effective Total War units

[@johnmartinez12347]

Grenadiers in Napoleon TW sucks. Their grenades sucks (only like 10 kills per throw) The have less men per unit (120 instead of 160 men) Unlike Empire’s grenadiers they aren’t good at being grenadiers. So they are good line infantry, right? No, they have less men and cost more.

[@Dragonite43]

@@johnmartinez12347 I would say Grenadiers in Empire Total War are the worst. At least Grenadiers in Napoleon Total War are 120 instead of 80, and they can form squares.

[@waterape1185]

A.k.a. hot garbage units.

[@SwordEncarmine]

Janassaries in medieval 2 + dismounted gothic knights

[@tomh4754]

RTW Bull Warriors

[@CaptianAm]

Shogun total war: first total war. Use all archers. Retreat outside of map border, then tell your archers to attack. They will stand still outside the map line and shoot with impunity. AI will line up to be slaughtered. Its hilarious.

[@bagofshitythoughts9501]

Never heard of it but will definitely try it out

[@jimjoe2849]

Does this work for shogun 2?

[@helikos1]

@@jimjoe2849 No. Of course it doesn't! Might work in Medieval total war though.

[@orangechaos3197]

I scanned the comments and did not see anyone mention this bug. There is one in Medieval 2, if the enemy has an agent you don't like (merchant, witch, ect.) but do not want to risk reputation or agents by assainating/confession/merchant take over; if you surround the unit on all eight sides (up, down, left, right, and all diagonals) then move a single unit on to the square the agent is on they will auto die since they have no where to retreat to. Super broken and kind of funny.

[@GrimFaceHunter]

That can also be done with fewer agents if you use edge of the map or a peninsula.

[@Assassin123999]

I Was expecting this to be on the list.

[@willc1294]

That was included in his 2013 exploit video iirc...

[@5Rogi]

@@willc1294 This exploit also works in Rome TW. I'm shocked that it isn't mentioned here.

[@ivan55599]

I always thought that it is a feature. Of course an army of men will push one enemy out of the way.

[@sheepykilly711]

I know we all like to moan about how the franchise has gone downhill (me included) but what about a top 5 improvements between games?

[@johnmartinez12347]

No DLC in newer games like Rome 2 Just kidding

[@99IronDuke]

Like what, aside from gaphics? (and even that does not apply to the truly rubbish looking 3k).

[@Niscimble]

I'd like to see this

[@xXLacedaemonXx]

@@99IronDuke line of sight in battles for example.

[@thebodyH2O]

Improvement to battle AI from M2TW : AI in open field battles can't be tricked into retreat-advance-retreat and getting peppered down by ranged units like it used to in M2TW

[@muhammetacikgoz205]

"One thing you absolutely not supposed to do is being able to attack people of your faith whilst in crusade or jihad." Boniface: uhhhh...yes...yes, of course.

[@mackmasters325]

Literally every Christian crusader: uhhhh...yes...yes, of course.

[@Hslt95]

@Remove Talos lmao

[@Seriona1]

3rd Crusade in a nutshell

[@Bradley2806]

@@Seriona1 4th?

[@slasher8765]

@@Bradley2806 def 4th

[@keizervanenerc5180]

Top 5 Legend Top 5 videos

[@theprovincial]

Legend Top 5 inception

[@toggafamai4224]

Look up Top 5 Legend of Total War moments

[@johnmartinez12347]

Top video should be the Top 5 Legend Top 5 videos just to be a mindfuck

[@Feminismisfornobody]

Was it really worth cutting out an important feature like being able to detach units because of a bug that few people know about and that barely anyone would use anyway. I ain't got the attention span for that lol

[@reporterid]

Its removal came with the new feature of being able to choose and improve the garrison of any city, without having to pay for it. I don't remember how it works in Shogun 2 but it's still true for Empire and Napoleon.

[@franzluggin398]

It was also to introduce "Army Traditions" which would help alleviate the annoyance of that army limit thing if the traditions weren't so useless.

[@fancyncv110]

@@reporterid free garrison was a thing in medieval 2 too, just not as insane

[@TheDirtysouthfan]

It wasn’t just because of the bug, it was also to make the game simpler for the AI so they perform better.

[@reporterid]

@fancyncv110 Was that garrison made only of peasants/local militia or could you improve it and expand it by constructing specific buildings? I never played Medieval 2 and all the previous games but I played Empire and all the following ones.

[@2SSSR2]

Top 5 Total War Cavalry units.

[@CentreSwift]

Tsars Guard for both sheer coolness and close killing power.

[@LechuZcechu]

Medieval and rome total war intensifies...

[@Wesley_Cavalcanti]

Tagmata pre-nerf?

[@malekiththeeternityking5433]

Oof That's a tough one. He'll probably pick Pset Xyon for number 1

[@OnlyDeathIsEternal]

1. SpetXion Archers. 2. SpetXion Archers. 3. SpetXion Archers. 4. SpetXion Archers. 5. SpetXion Archers.

[@thenut55555]

top 5 artillery units in total war series.

[@phile1832]

rockets, howitzer and large onager ?

[@TuffLP]

The Shogun 2 FOTS late game canon. It's so beautiful to behold the entire enemy army get shredded before they can even reach you.

[@STM1066]

Armstrong guns. Those things were so OP it ain’t even funny

[@thenut55555]

you guy forget other thing about armstrong guns it's you can manual fire it however my favorite artillery units it's have to be fire rockets imo.

[@johnmartinez12347]

Grand Battery of Convention is a more powerful cannon (12 lber I think) but it has TWICE the cannons witch makes it twice as powerful. This unit is in the Napoleon Imperial Eagle Pack which is free now.

[@joeppeters7001]

Exploit for Medieval 2; all your merchants on one spot. If you take a general and place a fort on top of a resource, you can plant 20(?) merchants in that fort. They will suddenly all start making money off that one resource. So one moment you are playing the English, you send a small army on a ship to Algiers and declare war on the Moors. Then, you B-line it all the way down to Timbuktu and take it from the rebels. Then you take your general, put him on the ivory nearby, set down a fort, have your merchants form a conga line towards the fort and boom, you get 2-3K from just one resource. Congratulations! You are now the Brittish Colonial Empire in the 11th Century. Another trick that comes right after: Since you are miles away from London, your merchants will have a 20% chance of gaining the trait "worldly merchant" if you end them on a resource. If you want to diversify quickly and shuffle the merchants around, then place a fort on the gold resource nearby, and one on the slaves. Next, simply change them from one resource to another every turn, which resets the 20% chance that they gain that trait. This will get eventually get all of them more finance skill, allowing you to make even more obscene amounts of early game income. Moreover, if you manage to do this fast enough, and you reach the resources there and hoard it from the Moors, then for a while you'll be the only faction trading in those three resources. This allows your merchants (yes, all of them) to gain the trait "monopolist" from trading the same resource of slaves, increasing their financial skill and giving you even obscener amounts of money. God, do I miss infinite merchants...

[@elmo11080]

Why I love this channel: Welcome blah blah 10 seconds Gets to the point, boom.

[@szczesliwekomunikacjeladow383]

The exploit that I think is quite interesting is the Wooden Pole exploit in M2TW. It only works with archer units that have the wooden poles ability. This exploit allows you to successfully defeat EVEN 4 stacks of Mongol/Timurid armies which besiege you with all cav units except a single unit for a battering ram. what you need to do is have 2 of the archer units in a castle/city. and set up in front of a gate (works better in castles) and set down the poles in a V shape. these never break and when a cav unit comes into contact with them they *PERISH*. So when they break the gate, the cav will just run in flooding thorugh the gate and will be *ABSOLUTELY DISINTEGRATED* granting you a free win since the infantry unit will just break since the armies will just die in like 4 seconds

[@pavelthefabulous5675]

I think they fixed this in Attila, so now the poles break after a certain number of units die. It's a really useful way to defend forts and cities. Once you get good garrisons, a Western Roman city becomes like a massive castle, able to destroy Hunnic armies that even dare come close to it.

[@blakeares3424]

So forgive me if I'm wrong, but when you were explaining the first layer of the sally out exploit, you didn't explain what saving then loading actually did.

[@Denterify2]

Considering the 2nd Layer it probably canceled out the attack

[@alex1soldier]

In Empire you can use a single unit of cavalry to repel a full stack of enemy army if you have a 20m time limit. Just run around the battlefield without engaging. After the time is up, you win and the enemy gets a lot of casualties for some reason. I besieged cities having full stacks in defensive with just one unit of cavalry and took them with no problem. It doesn't work if they have multiple units of cavs in their army, they just hunt you down and you lose.

[@DivididedbyInfinite]

not sure if this counts as an exploit. but in total war: warhammer when playing as the vampire counts. if you have an entire army of throw away units sugh as zombies or skeletons. and cause as much casuslties as possible to your enemy (and yourself) so that the battle itself will become a mass grave. (this wil show on the campaign map) the effectively allows you to recruit mortis engines from turn 3, aswel as grave guard, blood knights, veriations of corpse carts. basicly everything. its really broken.

[@dieguy3080]

If you're willing to sacrifice an army turn 3 to recruit units you can't afford lol. Never really thought of doing that though, wp sir.

[@dieguy3080]

@@diomedes7971 Yeah but you just spent your first turns making and destroying an army to buy high upkeep units at increased cost. You're better off just having an extra army and playing aggressively.

[@plcdfa]

They couldn't fix THAT bug, so they removed a core feature? How lazy can you get?

[@jusfab9897]

They also cut the feature to stop deathstacking (pile up "dead troops" e.g. yari spearman) there was little advantages to going higher tech in these games but in newer games it's really good and mostly required to tech up and not just spam recruit 1 unit type and drag them generalless behind

[@franzluggin398]

It's not the only time they did this. It goes all the way back to Med II, where they cut out all mention of the year a character was born in. So you couldn't notice that while the game advanced at 2 years/turn, characters only aged one year every second turn. Walls that are impregnable to infantry or cavalry without equipment? Gone because AI is a dumb-dumb. This also means no battle can end in a draw anymore. "Give settlement" option in diplomacy. Probably because no dev thought of implementing it in the newer titles yet. Interception mechanic from Empire. Or, alternatively, the ability to completely cut off an army's retreat path so that they are annihilated if they lose (from Rome/Med II). Instead we got the "if you are currently retreating from another battle, you can magically ignore Zones of Control from any army, and you can retreat AROUND obstacles, as long as your starting and ending position are one "retreat distance" from each other as-the-crow-flies.

[@plcdfa]

@@jusfab9897 If you wanna stop people from spamming certain units you do it through the recruitment system, (or even better, by balancing the units better,) not by removing whole strategic options.

[@plcdfa]

@@franzluggin398 To be fair, the time-discrepancy in M2 wasn't really a bug they were lazy to fix, more like a design compromise. If they synced the character aging to the years, they would have died in 20 turns each, you would never have the time to get value out of your experienced generals. If they synced campaing years to the characters aging the campaing would have been too slow, with no pressure to actually push forward. (You can actually implement the latter by modding one line in a file.) On the other hand, the retreating in R1/M2 had its peculiarities too, sometimes armies retreated over a longer distance then their normal movement range. In some cases it resulted in situations like when I attacked an army and it retreated through a bridge nearby outside my movement range. Attacked it again next turn, it retreated back to the previous side of the river, again out of range. Not to mention fleeing armies, sometimes they walked halfway through the campaing map in a turn to get back to friendly territory.

[@jusfab9897]

@@plcdfa i liked shogun 2's system better then rome 2 or WH, but yeah it does not makes sense that 1 general runs around and commands 100 units also "balance the units right" if a unit in let's say shogun let's pick 2 melee ones would perform based on just cost/upkeep some units of 40 men could kill 1000+ men, also there is the problem of +flat increases like the unique buildings in shogun 2 provided being near game braking on cheaper units since it boosted their stats up to mid/high tier stats

[@Flamingbannas]

I like how the they removed that entire feature because of an infinite moment exploit and then in their very next game, Rome Total war 2 they have a far less tedious and easier way to that exact same exploit. Yay well done CA!

[@kosmara1901]

Karmic Irony.

[@koob1413]

why is rome 2s movement bug not number 2? it's as severe as Empire's while being much more convenient to use.

[@gal5245]

Because it works in 3 games im assuming

[@LegendofTotalWar]

@@gal5245 correct. Plus The empire movement can get you way further than in Rome 2. I once traveled from Morroco to India in one turn with it. Rome 2 requires you to have ass loads of generals in reserve in order to do it and the first time you capture a settlement you're done. In Empire you can capture 50 regions in 1 turn with it.

[@kosmara1901]

@@LegendofTotalWar I don't get why fixing the Empire movement bug/exploit was so hard. I mean just add a rule (if/then/else) on stacks that you cannot move a selections of units outside a stack (split) if the selection contains a unit with not enough movement (0 or near). How hard is that?

[@bagofshitythoughts9501]

@@kosmara1901 lazyiness

[@kevin06289]

@@LegendofTotalWar hhh, I'm playing rome 1 total war and all I do is reset_character "the general name". does it work in later games though?

[@aVo_001]

In Rome 1 I would use the phalanx/pikeman wood wall glitch during sieges. When the AI would build rams to bust in, I line up my pikemen right up against the wall with spears raised, then I would lower them and they could glitch through the wall and kill the ram carriers before they could even get a hit on the wall. Doesn’t work in Steam version so obviously CA knew about it, but I never have heard any one else talk about it. It was really broken during early game and saved me tons of money on upgrading to stone walls. I would never lose a settlement. Anyone else know about that one?

[@thehypest6118]

I actually didn't know about this one but now that you've introduced it to me it seems so obvious

[@aVo_001]

The Hypest I remember I discovered it when I knew that placing pikemen or phalanx on a wall breech was super powerful. I tried getting them as close to the wall as I could to fill any gap that they could pour through. I lowered spears and saw how it glitched and used it ever since. I was also a shameless user of add_money 20000

[@rogerb7647]

Top 5 time periods/crossovers you would like to see in the next total war games

[@johnmartinez12347]

Medieval and 18th/19th Century

[@geraintthomas4343]

1-Inca, maya or Aztec period central americas 2- 19th to mid 20th century (this would be a difficult one to make, needing at least 3 methods of war, 3-4 economic and political systems with a revolution/civil war mechanic to match, extensive diplomacy and the whole planet as a map, so won't ever happen)- whole world 3- Bronze age middle east 4- Central or west africa medieval period might be interesting if enough factions can be justified 5- India to south east asia just about any time before the colonial empires started showing up

[@geraintthomas4343]

For more fictional stuff warhammer's build is pretty decent for a lot of fantasy-based crossovers (amending it for GoT and LOTR would be pretty easy for exampke) but i haven't got a preference.

[@Flowerz__]

This

[@Flowerz__]

Geraint Thomas WW1 might be cool.

[@unifieddynasty]

So they got rid of one of the most useful features -- delegating the military to captains -- simply because there's an obscure bug that allows you to tediously move around the map?

[@agustinl2302]

And all of you actually believed Legend on this one? It wasn't because of that, who cares about a silly exploit. It was because the AI kept sending massive amounts of one-unit armies (and worse, fleets) and annoying the player in the late game. Also Empire was unplayable at a certain point due to the Ottomans trying to move a billion one-unit around Palestine (and if you killed them, someone would take their place, usually Sweden). FOTS' lategame was also very annoying with a ton of gunboats running around and three dozen separate corvettes bombing your ports, forcing you to play cat-and-mouse with them. It was that kind of crap that CA was unable to fix, hence why they removed the feature entirely. Not some obscure and tedious exploit.

[@hausser0815]

Even more so since they replaced the cumbersome infinite-movement-bug with one way more conveniently to execute.

[@slasher8765]

@@agustinl2302 Glad they did that honestly

[@CesarJoel94]

Agustín L who cares what the AI stacks up ? You can outsmart them anyway , such a stupid decision removing one of TW essentials because of stupid AI

[@WillowGreenheart]

@@CesarJoel94 That feature was useless anyway.

[@winstonsmith3092]

In RTW there is an exploit so you can get into to a city without losing any troops. At the start of the battle place all your units apart from one in the same place. Now take the lone unit and give it a ladder or a siege tower (or some way to mount the walls) and place them closet to a towerless wall ( all the cities have at least one blindspot on their walls). The AI will put all of it's troops on the walls to counter your main force, so the lone unit and climb the walls and capture the undefended gate. Then simply march your army round to your captured gate. The AI won't move till it is too late to stop you. I prefer to use a missile unit, as you can then sniped the enemy as they retreat off the walls. Don't get to close the enemy on the walls thro' as this will trigger them to attack the unit.

[@irohn]

It also works in M2TW. But I don't consider it that op; I mean, yes, you can capture a gate without losing any men, but that's it, when you move your main army to the captured gate then the enemy army will move back to the center, with perhaps some moving towards the captured gate and starting some street fights; but in any case, you will still need to kill the enemy and conquer the center. Also, if the enemy has more units than you, it's highly likely that the AI will put at least one unit to counter your lonely unit. With a lot of units, the AI will also have many units along the walls, at least in M2TW, where the walls aren't that big and units with huge scale cover a lot of space. In fortresses or citadels, the AI will just run to the next layer of walls as soon as you capture a gate (if there's any AI unit there, then that unit will put up a fight of course, but the rest of the army that is not there will move), and you can't get to the next layer of walls faster than them. It's more of a way to minimize casualties when atacking a city with a small garrison, while you have a lot of units (auto-resolve is still the more efficient thing of course). In the end it's just the dumb AI facing a human who will not throw men to the main gate while he can just make a detour. Altough, throwing the majority of the men to the main gate is exactly what the AI generally does, which makes me feel a little bad about it.

[@winstonsmith3092]

I've never had it work in M2TW, that's why I said RTW. In the early game the AI invariably moves most of it's units, one at a time mind, towards the centre but usually where you have entered. This is predictable behaviour so it is easily countered or exploit, if you will.

[@irohn]

​@@winstonsmith3092 Interesting, I tought that in RTW it was the same as in M2TW (haven't play RTW in a good while, and I never got too into it). Thanks for the extra details, I will make sure to remember it the next time I play RTW.

[@solbergsindre]

One exploit I always found ridiculous was the recruitment of generals in Empire. Late game, when you had more money than you could spend, being invaded or attacked in a vulnerable spot far from your own armies was no problem, because if you had just one regular unit in a nearby garrison, you could simply spam endless amounts of general units at the enemy. It was by no means effective, but even the strongest armies get problems when attacked by 400 general units...

[@Rance-j6x]

must have been the saddest day to be promoted to general

[@kosmara1901]

what about Elephant Generals (Indian nations)?

[@Niscimble]

Top 5 worst agents in historical titles

[@jaake6091]

ohhhh nooooo, not again, PS: merchant fort No.1 exploit

[@thenut55555]

Merchant is not *BAD AGENTS* Are you had to do is go to Timbuktu and send one unit around gold resource and then merge to that army ( need a lot of authority) but if you can't then they no reason to *HIRE THEM*

[@khorps4756]

1. diplomat 2. spy 3. assassin 4. princess 5. merchant

[@ngugitwc6380]

5. Merchant 4. Merchant 3. Merchant 2. Merchant 1. Merchant

[@thenut55555]

@@khorps4756 but spy is best agent in RTW and M2TW

[@Beefonweck]

There's a 4th part of the sally out exploit. The "unrecognized reinforcements" bug. If you siege the city with one unit and then stick an army on the other side of the city, but not sieging it, the enemy will sally out no matter the odds.

[@17ftd]

legend use that all the time in campaign lol

[@irohn]

​@@17ftd Indeed. Maybe he uses it so much that he forgot that that thing is actually a exploit.

[@derkylos]

I think it works even if the other army is sieging. The reinforcements just have to be over 1 tile away from the besiegers (ie: they wouldn't normally be counted as reinforcements outside of a sally). Works in Rome1 as well.

[@glishev]

The №2 exploit for MTW2 works fine in Steam version, too. :) Usually, when the AI enemy sallies from a besieged castle, the gate remains open. If you act well and you have swifter units, you actually may outmaneuver the enemy army, take the open gate. and close it, thus remaining in the castle while the defenders remain outside. But you must have this in mind: such a maneuver may produce a draw if you're doing it with only one swift unit. It will lead to victory (that is, to the conquest of the castle) only if you enter the castle and close the gate with at least two units. Only thus you may HODOR and take the central plaza at the same time. And, of course, it must be a one-layer castle ;) One of my favourite sieges was with the Byzantines against the Sicilians in Tunisia. I had a small Greek army of horse archers besieging a rather numerous garrison consisting of armoured sergeants and heavy Norman knights. The enemy sallied and routed most of my units. I tried another exploit, starting to move my last light cavalry unit around the border of the battle zone (and thus, around the castle). This would normally lead to a draw because of time limit for the attackers. Then, I realized the castle gate was still open. I entered the castle, I closed the door and I even tried to reach the plaza and keep it for three minutes. Still, finally I lost the battle because when I left the gate, the approaching enemy regained control of it and reentered the castle. But I used similar tactics with the Polish against the Teutonic Order in the Baltic campaign and this time my two light cav units just escaped from the heavy troops of the enemy, entered the gate, closed it, garrisoned it, and I took the centre of the place with the second unit. Ta-ta :)

[@c.horvath]

I have the Medieval II definitive edition on Steam and the "second layer" works for me. So after entering the battlefield, hitting exit results in a draw. I just used it in my Britannia campaign.

[@pewienpanzmiasta6292]

You are so bad that you need to cheat?

[@c.horvath]

@@pewienpanzmiasta6292 I don't consider rebels a faction, so sometimes I use this to take over a settlement. Usually when my main armies are far away.

[@tiagomendesvisscher9030]

Even if its rebels, you shouldn't use it, it is just kind of low, and come on guys where is the rolplaying spirit

[@tiagomendesvisscher9030]

Still you can play the game normally, also without rolplaying And especially, WITHOUT these stupid exploits. Why would you even bother playing the game if you only play it with those exploits

[@liamwalton4183]

@@tiagomendesvisscher9030 I'd only have used it to grab a rebel settlement that my ally was about to capture. Playing France and want to ally with Genoa? Your army busy up north battling the English? Genoa are mobilising and about to take that settlement which is RIGHTFULLY WITHIN THE BORDERS GOD BESTOWED UPON MY KINGDOM??!?!? Send a unit of cavalry to besiege it. To avoid having to declare was on an ally

[@Greg-ku7rn]

I would have thought the save-scum auto-resolve would have taken #1. Just make a save, attack an enormously superior force, auto-resolve, load save. Repeat until you win. I'm pretty sure everyone has done this at least once to cheese out of a sticky situation in their Total War careers.

[@BradHann]

I realise I'm a bit late to this, but there was a bit of an exploit in naval battles in Empire. You could plant a small, fast ship in front of a huge enemy fleet and wait for them to attack you, then kite them around the entire battle arena until the timer ran out. The game would conclude that you won and you'd sink or capture several of the enemy ships, all without firing a shot in the actual battle.

[@SordoBjorn]

I just read this and I tried this in NapoleonTW but it seems CA fixed this in between those two -> you can still 'win' the battle meaning single small/fast ships can freely raid trade routes but the 'defeated' fleet doesn't lose any ships; instead they just retreat (and, maybe this is just coincidence, it seems the AI just gives up on attacking that 'fleet' -> Nelson did and my sloop is sitting right in front of London raiding the channel trade)

[@orbitalsummer]

That Thumbnail is geniusly chosen. XD

[@faceoctopus4571]

There is a movement exploit, but it isn't great because it takes time to set up, and your enemy can disrupt it while you have it ready. What you do is you have a bunch of ships on a shogun 2 map (I'm not sure if this works in other TW games). And you have your army and/or agents in a ship. If you move your ship to another ship, you can transfer your army to the new ship. Rinse and repeat. I'm pretty sure you could get from one side of the map to the other with this, but I haven't taken the time to test it. So while it is powerful, it costs a lot of money because ship building and upkeep, and of course your enemy can still attack your ships as normal on their turns.

[@unissay3530]

The Rome 2 bug is insane, I think it deserves at least the third place because you can move anywhere on the map like that

[@orangesilver8]

Where's the send war dogs into a battle, let all the dogs die, run away, go back into battle with all the war dogs magically regenerated?

[@stelleverde4589]

I got big nostalgia from my cheesy crusadin days, thanx for the feelstrip bro♥

[@reeceshugrue6167]

Are you seriously telling me they removed reattachment over something so tedious? If someone is willing to waste so much time in order to cheat then just let them, don't punish everyone else.

[@spbkoon3385]

There's an exploit in RTW when you are getting attacked by two armies from two sides, one of them will be made as reinforcements directly behind you, or from the corner. You can freely place your troops in their way as they march through the red line. Unless they have done it fully as a unit, they won't resist your men killing them, so you can wreak havok on them with almost any troops, but of course most efficient way is roman shield wall or greek spear wall. This way it is really easy to get 2-3k kills with next to no casualties. Only downside is that enemy routs pretty much emediately, and they manage to get some troops back through the red line, so you need to be creative if you want to kill all of them.

[@Trimilkcornbrush]

they got rid of a feature that made the game better because people were inching across the map, that is so dumb, like it doesn't seem worth it and if it is then your game is obviously going badly. just seems to tedious for most people to bother with. now we are stuck with tactical choices and being able to reinforce armies in a better way.

[@brodaviing6617]

In ETW, you can go to diplomacy and offer military access to your neighbours for 2000-3000 coin. If they accept, instantly cancel the deal and repeat. You can drain the AI of funds this way and use the money to buy their techs up, saving you time. Then you can just repeat the process and get all that money back again. Note: it works best on friendly nations that border you. You also dont suffer diplomatic penalties for the scam.

[@Survivor_of_DMVdrivers]

I busted a gut laughing at the Medieval 2 and Shogun 2 exploits. I already knew about the latter's tax exploit where you jack up tax rates, get a warning for city unrest next turn, lower rates for the new turn, play it out, then repeat. But your "Realm Divide" trick is absolute genius and had me rolling! I'm currently playing the Takeda on Legendary (both a first for me) and struggling a little, but I'll hold off on using this until AFTER I beat it legit. Got about 20 more provinces to go, so fingers crossed. Love your vids (especially your top 5 lists)! Been binge watching several these last few weeks. Cheers!

[@ΝίκοςΤζαλαβάρας-ζ1ε]

Top 5 Total War Artillery units

[@KardFett]

I feel like a related topic that would be a good top 5 would be "Top 5 cheese tactics in Total War games." Correct me if he's already done that

[@John333Scout]

That last bug looks like a pain in the ass

[@Sone418]

Fun exploit in Napoleon Total War campaign. 1) Bring more cannons than your enemy but minimum infantry/cavalry 2) Find a bridge linking friendly to enemy territory, stand on the enemies' side of the bridge. 3) Once attacked, set up your cannons in front of the crossing and watch infantry/cavalry/anything die in canister fire

[@primarchvulkan4013]

Bridges are indeed fun in Total War games. In Rome Total War i would usually stand on the bridge on a strategical map, waiting for the enemy to attack. Then, at the start of the battle, I'll just wait for enemy to cross the bridge and attack them using all my army. The thing is, while their morale shatters, they will always try to escape from the battlefield ASAP, and the AI doesn't count your troops while choosing the path. So the enemy army will try to escape, through your army, which will get them massacred, as they aren't surrounded from all sides, and it snowballs extremely fast, so you could completely wipe out superior armies with minimal casualties

[@ivan55599]

I think that there should be also a second bug with number two: AI leaves only 1-3 units to garrison places (at least in medieval 2). They are so easy to conquer. Especially when there is only one enemy in the city (most likely a general). You just shoot gates down (if you attack without ladders, ect) from point-blank-range, march into the city center with your lowest tier of unit, and capture it. The enemy (general) doesn't attack it , even if he sees capturing enemies right in front of them. And that leads to close victory, even if I have full stack of army, they have only a bodyguard, and nobody suffer any losses. They just sit in the middle of town square. 100% guaranteed victory.

[@trthorson]

12:18 "You could very easily get all the way across the map, from one side of the map, to the other" Weeeelllll, idk about "very easily", lol. Not to take away from how game-breaking that obviously is!

[@viptech_c5286]

It is a very simple and easy exploit, just tedious and annoying if you do it every turn because you're going to be doing the exploit more than you play the actual game, and you will run out of stuff eventually

[@trthorson]

@@viptech_c5286 right. I guess i don't separate tediousness from consistency when talking about things like this... Otherwise, by that same metric, taking 100 million papers with numbers written on them and sorting from largest to smallest is "easy" :)

[@maxmagnus3793]

Oh god the #1 detach bug. How could this happen? I'm kinda pissed that this is the reason why units can no longer leave and join armies in "modern" total war. I hope they reconsider this eventually

[@sm901ftw]

Wait, so they removed the detatch feature to avoid the slower Warscape movement bug in Rome 2... while adding a new, even easier to use movement bug in Rome 2??

[@ivan55599]

Number 1 bug strenghtens my opinion, that after medieval 2 many things went wrong, and M2TW is the best for me.

[@sjoerddevries1626]

Set a time limit for battles in Empire Total War, when you're being attacked by an entire fleet just sail away til the time is up, the whole enemy fleet wil sink in the campaign.

[@jacobhewitt2798]

The "layer 2" of the siege exploit for med 2 works for me on steam

[@p.r.1308]

I dont get why get rid entirely of a feature for a bug that is not well known and pretty tediouse to do? I'd rather have that bug in it than removing such a great mechanic from the game

[@warwickthekingmaker7281]

The "the AI attacked my cavalry unit and I can't retreat so I'm just going to run around until timer goes out" exploit is pretty big because it spans all total wars except rome 2. The flags were added to combat this. In medieval 2 (and other games), using this exploit you can stall any enemy army by just having a unit of light cavalry and making the enemy attack it.

[@KevinSterns]

Don't know if it counts as an exploit, but in Empire and STW2, you can chain-move armies completely across the map in 1 turn, using relays of ships.

[@barnabashegedus2452]

There is an exploit in M2TW, for which you need to have canon towers on your walls. If the city or fort is attacked, you just need to selly out, and the ai puts its units into formation inside the range of the walls defences, so you dont even need to send your troops out, just man the walls so the towers fire, and wait for all the enemyies to die. Since the towers have infinite ammo you dont even need to worry about that.

[@Holsp]

How did you even found out about the Rome II bug? That is so advanced. Also an exploit in SG2 is that you can actually kill agent of your multi-player buddy. Works in CO op don't know about man against a man and of it works in other titles too but if you want your friend not being OP this is a good thing

[@Normandy-e8i]

It really isn't even close to 'advanced'...

[@Holsp]

@@Normandy-e8i I mean you have to do a lot of stuff to find this thing. I did not even knew that changing generals was possible :D

[@Normandy-e8i]

@@Holsp Oh lmao

[@jaake6091]

Where was the GODDAMNED MERCHANT FORT>!>!>!!>?!????!!?!?!? FFFSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[@JarthenGreenmeadow]

Merchant fort is intended.

[@hrogarfyrninga3238]

Top 5 broken/OP units

[@stormraider5400]

Merchants

[@johnmartinez12347]

Armstrong guns. If you have an army of them they will destroy everything and take zero losses

[@Riksosten95]

Shogun 2, heavy gunners right when they were released. Rekt the mp community and were equally dumb in campaign haha. They literally one shot-killed anything.

[@daonlyowner6631]

yari ashigaru

[@theprovincial]

Calvary in Stainless Steel 6.4. I'm sorry, but 3 Arabian Cavalry are not capable of killing 50 dismounted knights in one charge.

[@armaholic5949]

Another exploit that I know works in Shogun 2, if your co op is at war with someone and you declare war on them too, then either one of you can make that enemy a vassal REGARDLESS of his strength. So one player gets free daimyo honor and money while the other kills that faction.

[@rookygaming6968]

Rome 1 has a massive exploit: at a bridge fight (wooden or stone) put 2 phalanx units with the front men's toes against the start of the bridge in their phalanx formation. Now normally phalanx armies will have to poke quite a bit to get enemys to die, but as experienced players will know there are exceptions like chariots who will just instantly die when they meet a spearpoint of the phalanx army. Well at this location near the bridge this instant kill mechanism will work for all units in the game (even elaphants!) and the whole enemy army will drop down on the floor. this way you can hold off an infinite army as long as they dont use too many ranged units. Also V formation in cities near every gate or breakable wall is overpowered, but at least they wont drop dead immediately.

[@warbossbloodskar3704]

Take a shot everytime he says disc edition

[@edcross447]

Found a small one in Warhammer I. Take a single settlement faction's last unwalled settlement (example: wood elves vs crooked moon) while their army is in the field. They will come back and attack. Defend and kill everything you can but let them flee. Don't chase on the world map. Since you have to fight a second battle to wipe them completely out they will slightly regenerate. Let them break against their own walls for a turn or two until they are only a general and 1 or 2 units. Pull the army out and leave a single general and any hero. Their remnant army will attack the garrison/general/hero every turn with only a low health general and 1 or 2 other low or at best half health units. Manually fight and just rush forward on fast forward. DO NOT auto resolve. Every turn, free general/hero xp and it seems to be as much as a full stack battle. EVERY TURN.

[@Dagychanell]

So basicly CA didnt like this attach/dettach movent bug, so instead of fixing it they removed att/dettachment of armies alltogether, but that backfired when they introduced a completely new movement bug where you only have to hire a new general at the last second of army movement and you have full movement again……... *sadclap you played yourself CA Its as if they said: "We didnt like you waste time on the old bug so we introduced a new faar quicker bug, so if you want to exploit, u migth aswell do it faster. Improvement! Improvement first and foremost!" -CA Would it rly be that hard to make new engine where all units have their own movement cap and moved on a invisible grid like it was in the old tw games?

[@CesarJoel94]

Dagy47 i hate the stupid warscape engine it ruined everything

[@yassinhafez1337]

total war attila you could literally move in any coastel settlement by double click and your movement spacebar will not decrease

[@Gilannun12]

On my first playthrough of Empire i fund out that when you order your units to climb a wall (during sidge), and back the down when they place the ropes, enemy units on these walls will switch to melee and climb down towards my cavalry and infantry like a lambs for a lttle bit of slaughter :-)

[@OldCarpenter]

In medieval 2 there is another game changing exploit. When you are defending a settlement and enemy has rams and ledders/towers you can force AI to abandon rams. Get your worst unit out of the gates and attac the unit with the ram. They will abandon it to fight oyur unit and afterwards in 99% cases AI will never use any of their rams again. Infantry will fight for the walls and cavalry will be useless. Even if the enemy have like 10 infantry units and only one ledder they will still use it, absorbing tower fire. Great exploit agains the Mongols.

[@GrasshopperKelly]

Using the 20 minute time limit to force a draw, in a completely unwinnable defence.

[@bryanmercado5616]

How about in Empire where if you could get an enemy navy to attack a single fast naval unit and just evade until the timer ends. You'd wind up capturing several enemy ships

[@jonniheinisto9825]

There is one thing i would mention. Im not sure if this works in Shogun 2, but what i did in Fall of the Samurai constantly was raising taxes to promise vast sums of money for deals, calling everyone to go to war against someone and then making peace with them, declaring war on others and making everyone attack them and then making peace etc.... and then i would simply exempt all of my taxes and go bankrupt for one turn, and then get everything back to normal. It works less well on higher difficulties, but the AI does keep falling for it for quite a bit. Also, when there is realm divide in FotS, you can attack anybody who is on your side of the divide and they will always accept peace immediately, the only resistance they do is during the battle and you can basically just annex territory. Also, before the realm divide you can use agents to incite revolts in all the territories that are supporting the one youre supporting (Shogun or Emperor), and no one is going to take notice that youre doing anything in anyway aggressive. Then you just switch sides when you have backstabbed the side you were previously on, and youre in league with the winners.

[@estebancepeda4532]

The instant “concede” to draw in M2TW was a decently powerful exploit too

[@halvoringvaldsen97]

Yo legend I told you about the sell military access bug in empire before, couple of years ago though. Pretty effin overpowered Basicly you sell and cancel and sell again military access, You get a shit ton of cash and buy land, then sell and cancel to get cash back Buy more land and repeat. With that exploit someone could beat you're world record man 😉

[@LevCallahan]

Gonna add another exploit I found from Rome 2; it isn't game-changing but it's kinda cool anyway. Movement bug. Say you want to sail an army across the sea to somewhere. While it only works if your army has enough movement points to actually reach the sea, it's pretty good. Say your army is land-based, but it's so far away from the sea that its movement points that're left once offshore are very low. To counter this, click your army that's on land, right-click on the sea within where your movement points are, and then immediately double-right-click the same spot on the sea. Your army will suddenly skip all the land it had to cross and spontaneously appear next to the closest port or landing area, where it will continue moving to the point you clicked on the sea. You'll then have as many movement points available to you that you would have used if you'd crossed the land to get there. Granted, it's limited, and you also can only use this when going from land to sea, but again. It's useful, and you don't have to change generals while doing the exploit.

[@pablolongobardi7240]

In medieval 2 you can build castle structures in cities or city structures in castle, all you have to do is place a few structures in the queue, then convert the city to castle (or viceversa), then drag the structures after the conversion in the queue. Very useful for getting some special unit in cities or public order buildings for castles far away

[@feddyvonwigglestein3481]

I like how there's an even easier movement bug in Rome 2, which introduced the armies-tied-to-generals mechanic due to the attach/detach bug they couldn't fix...LMAO. And they didn't even ever fix it, it's still present in Empire Divided!

[@kosmara1901]

How are these bugs not fixed?! They are easy to replicate and probably solve! How do they not polish their product and keep just selling more DLC? I don't get why fixing the Empire movement bug/exploit was so hard. I mean just add a rule (if/then/else) on stacks that you cannot move a selections of units outside a stack (split) if the selection contains a unit with not enough movement (0 or near). How hard is that?

[@markhenley3097]

I remember in Empire I could get money or tech in return for military access, then cancel it and repeat. Or just any deal for military access, Empire AI loved it for some reason. Once got East Prussia as Poland (free port) for 20 turn military access I remember.

[@DookieNr88]

Biggest exploits I saw in those games: Shogun 2: -Giving the neighbours military access for a lot of koku (you can get 10.000 koku with that in the first rounds). -high skilled priest starts revolution in allied territory, to capture the province afterwards. -honma island put 2 yari ashigaru on the beach and the enemy can’t invade you anymore. Play only ashigaru and bring 3 stacks against each army to auto resolve. Warhammer: -as wartooth Sack the own provinces to start rebellion, to defeat the army and get a shit ton for looting.

[@sao7967]

Top 5 best total war religions

[@olefredrikskjegstad5972]

Top 5 but yeah

[@sao7967]

@@olefredrikskjegstad5972 trying 10 would be nice..but k np

[@biggusballuz5405]

ISLAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

[@edwin884]

@@biggusballuz5405 allahu ahkbar boooom

[@zakback9937]

Fedyx 1 well you need Israel in order to create that unit lol

[@sam3121513]

In Shogun 2 FotS you can merge a fleet with embarked units to a fleet with fresh movement points, then remove the ships that have used movement points from the merged fleet and the embarked units and fresh ship can continue. If this is repeated you can travel the entire map, given enough ships that is. It is similar to the exploit in the no.1 slot and if you have a somewhat secure coastline it can easily be used to not much of a cost as gunboats are cheap as shit.

[@LYNXLYNX76]

It works in Shogun 2 as well

[@sam3121513]

@@LYNXLYNX76 Thought it might but I was unsure as I have not played it in a long while

[@kosmara1901]

@@sam3121513 I think I used it in Rome 1 too

[@ThatTonnatoTenrec]

I believe 2 part of Sally out glitch still works in the steam version

[@czechchineseamerican]

I really enjoyed the elite unit exploit in Shogun 2 coop, where you gift your elite units to your ally temporarily so you can recruit more units and thus exceed your elite unit capacity.

[@unnamedshadow1866]

i remember there was also the exploit to walk over any other agent in the Campaign Map in Medieval 2, essentially killing them.

[@michaelchristidis8658]

I know of an "exploit" really well in Rome Total War... basically when you are losing a field battle in defence you select your cavalry and run around the map until the timer runs out and the enemy army can do nothing about it...if they've got cavalry themselves they might try to chase you but the AI likes to move the army in formation and they always have infantry that gets exhausted very easily, I don't usually do it because it's pretty boring but when I definitely want to win a battle I may resort to that strategy if I've lost my army

[@kosmara1901]

I don't get why fixing the Empire movement bug/exploit was so hard. I mean just add a rule (if/then/else) on stacks that you cannot move a selections of units outside a stack (split) if the selection contains a unit with not enough movement (0 or near). How hard is that?

[@guyhazelof4878]

*Clicks tongue* N O I C E

[@indieWellie]

there is an exploit in empire and napoleon, where you can get supersized fixed artillery units. it occurs when they’re in a reinforcing army during a battle. the artillery units will get swap number of men with cavalry/infantry units in the same stack. it isn’t particularly effective on the upper two unit scales, but on lower scales it is very effective. on the lowest you can have a battery of four cannons where infantry units have at most 40-50. i have yet to test if it still works in the most recent update, but it’s a thing.

[@fredrikengstrom2107]

There was one exploit I used when I played Shogun 2 and tried to beat it on the hardest difficulty ( I think its called Legendary). What makes Legendary so hard is cause you cant save (besides auto save). So if you lose a battle then you lost the battle. But if you literally pull the plug of the game during the battle, then the battle will "reset" when you load your game, and you are free to try to win it again. There were some battles or sieges that were very hard for for me to win, but I kept pulling the plug everytime I was about to lose and kept repeating the battle until I won it. Worked like a charm. Won the campaign on Legendary eventually.

[@Brugar18]

don't know how much of exploit it is but in medieval 2 total war when you want to put other merchant out of bussines or auto resolve battles you can save before you try to do it, if you fail, you reload the save and try again.

[@JarthenGreenmeadow]

Thats called save scumming. A lot of games have that so I dont thing its a "total war exploit" more like a general exploit. Like binding weapon shoot to mouse wheel.

[@thewrongguy1]

Military Access Exploit. Empire Total War.The AI way overvalues military access. it will almost always accept it for money. with Russia for example you can trade access to sweden and poland for 1-2k money and cancel and re do as many times as their treasury can handle in the same turn. once the AI is out of money it will usually start offering territory. In addition its a good way to keep peace as most countries will not declare war with an empty treasury, this isn't as reliable though.

[@tahaemreyucel8750]

In M2TW when you double click on settlements that are under fog of war you can see how many units they have

[@MrJtizzler]

The most game-breaking bug I saw in MTW2 was the diplomacy bug where if you demand 2000 gold for 999999999 turns, it makes the deal super generous as opposed to demanding, to the extent that if they have at least 2000 gold you can both bankrupt their country AND buy all their territories in one swoop. This also makes them like you a lot since it's such a good deal. I think I saw this in a Spiffing Brit video, but I've used it a bunch of times when I'm doing a silly playthrough.

[@keys6556]

Damn I can't say how much I just love this channel and especially Legend is a real fucking legend

[@ivanvoronov3871]

The draw Sally out exploit work for me in the steam version, at least in mods

[@pcgamingforevah]

Looks like Rome 2 movement bug is the worst of them all.

[@skarsnikswarboss6446]

@LegendofTotalWar There is an exploit with Crooked Moon Goblins in Warhammer 2 where you can win any siege battle against a walled settlement in the early game so long as you have 3 Nasty skulkers, 3 night goblins, or 3 of any of the goblin units with the stalk ability. The AI always places their troops according to where they "See" your troops placed. So if you place all of our visible units as close to one side of the map as possible and then place your stalked units on the opposite side, the AI will have no troops defending the side of the wall with the stalked units. Then you can slowly move your stalked units over the walls and then run for the enemy capture point. The capture point will go down and you will win the siege from sitting on it. I would consider this a minor exploit since it only works against walled settlements and only if the enemy does not have a high level garrison (since heroes and lords tend to sit in the victory point which makes this pretty hard unless it's some worthless goblin shaman).

[@simmiusthefirst4558]

Number 5 is a pretty historically accurate mechanic given the 4th crusade.

[@angrycupra8636]

fall of the samuri, selling milatary access multiple times to the same enemy for stupid amounts of money is one bug that should have made it

[@chickenhunt5163]

Top 5 merchant resources

[@a-a-ron3542]

I know I'm a year late on this... but if you are attacking a city/fort in Empire and camp all your units right next to the corner of the walls with howitzers right behind them, the enemy will flood all its infantry onto the very corner of its fort but won't be able to shoot you. You can then use howitzers to decimate them with lime shot. If you have two infantry battalions and two howitzers, you can win every siege battle you ever face no matter how many units the enemy has.