Total war games,boring gameplay?

[Axioms]

Lords of the Realm 2 had a unique and well-made strategic map aspect. There were little plots of land that you had to decide whether to turn into grazeland, cropland, or fallow land. These were important for growing food to feed your people. Maps were organized into territories like Risk maps and if a territory was flourishing little villages would spring up on it denoting population centers. There were also mines, quarries, lumber mills, and smithies, vital for putting your population to work. If an enemy army came by, they could destroy your cropland to deny food, destroy villages to reduce population directly, or raze your industries to temporarily put them out of use. Or they could just lay siege to your castle. This was a remarkable way to do things, as it allowed you to harm your enemy's economy even if their fortifications were too powerful to assault directly. In time their territories would be reduced to an ashen wasteland.

This is kinda what happens in Empire isn't it? A bunch of economy outside of walls.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Well there are two reasons for problems with TW strategic maps.

1. They are hating the idea that stuff would be too complicated and people would not pay money, because the game would require think about stuff, or gosh do some planning.
2. They are touching very unpopular topic. Population removal of original population by immigration, and MURDERING original population by warfare. In old Rome TW, the population size was a MAJOR limiting factor, and barbarian factions couldn't lose many soldiers. Rome on the other hand... they'd breed another one.

But well, money talks, and reviewers are not willing to give low ratings to CA games for massive simplifications.

Immigration and pop control are but a couple of issues along the 'we do OUR version of history' tactic that CA uses with its TW games now. Reading just a few history books will trigger the fuck outta even the most resilient of college nerds. Crucifixion, proscription, tribal genocides, rampant and endless war, internal corruption that dissembled entire empires, dogs and cats living together, etc etc. But instead of recreating those things, let alone giving the player the chance to indulge or fix those things, we get Amazon women horse lords, god-mode leaders, and empire management that doesn't even touch the issues of slavery, usury, or cousin fucking.

Even Paradox has their incest/kin slayer simulator with Crusader Kings II. You know when your creative scope is getting cucked by Swedish developers, you got a problem.

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

These game series are all great, especially Warhammer 2 but in same way they also makes me sleepy and drinking too much beer.
I bought them all sine Shogun 1 with all expansions, i used many mods too.
They are really fantastic, have great background, gfx, music, gameplay, sounds, ui.

But on the other hand i finished only 2 full campaigns since Shogun 1.
I always go to bed after my head hit the desk after next turn pressed for milion times.
No matter how hard i would try no matter three kingdoms, Warhammer 2, napoleon, rome, med 2, empire, britannia etc modded or unmodded my liver wants to kill me after another beer.

It is so hard, without beer i cannot go pass 100 turns or install another mod which fucks my older saves. No matter how much TWC forum i read, no matter how many times i read tacitus or army book or Sun tzu or another view on Roman empire or clausewitz i always end the same, hold in late or early campign and going play something else to give my liver some relief. But these games are So great i love them for so many years, So great... Hrrrr.. Love.. ...hrrrrrr....hrrrrr.hrrrrr......hrrrr.hrrrr turn.... Hrtt.... Hrrrrrrrr... Hrrrrttt

 

[TheEntitledOne]

Battles are too damn easy, any noob can win a 1:1 fight against the AI, you are forced to deal with millions of tiny battles against microstacks, if you dare use autobattle you suffer ton of loses. And so on.

 

[Morkar Left]

These game series are all great, especially Warhammer 2 but in same way they also makes me sleepy and drinking to much beer. I bought them all sine Shogun 1 with all expansions, i used many mods too. They are really fantastic, have great background, gfx, music, gameplay, sounds, ui. But on other hand i finished only 2 full campaigns since Shogun 1. I always go to bed after my head hit the desk after next turn pressed for milion times. No matter how hard i would try no matter three kingdoms, Warhammer 2, napoleon, rome, med 2, empire, britannia etc modded or unmodded my liver wants to kill me after another beer. It is so hard, without beer i cannot go pass 100 turns or install another mod which fucks my older saves. No matter how much TWC forum i read, no matter how many times i read tacitus or army book or Sun tzu or another view on Roman empire or clausewitz i always end the same, hold in late or early campign and going play something else to give my liver some relief. But these games are So great i love them for do many years, So great... Hrrrr.. Love.. ...hrrrrrr....hrrrrr.hrrrrr......hrrrr.hrrrr turn.... Hrtt.... Hrrrrrrrr... Hrrrrttt

You just love beer...

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

These game series are all great, especially Warhammer 2 but in same way they also makes me sleepy and drinking to much beer. I bought them all sine Shogun 1 with all expansions, i used many mods too. They are really fantastic, have great background, gfx, music, gameplay, sounds, ui. But on other hand i finished only 2 full campaigns since Shogun 1. I always go to bed after my head hit the desk after next turn pressed for milion times. No matter how hard i would try no matter three kingdoms, Warhammer 2, napoleon, rome, med 2, empire, britannia etc modded or unmodded my liver wants to kill me after another beer. It is so hard, without beer i cannot go pass 100 turns or install another mod which fucks my older saves. No matter how much TWC forum i read, no matter how many times i read tacitus or army book or Sun tzu or another view on Roman empire or clausewitz i always end the same, hold in late or early campign and going play something else to give my liver some relief. But these games are So great i love them for do many years, So great... Hrrrr.. Love.. ...hrrrrrr....hrrrrr.hrrrrr......hrrrr.hrrrr turn.... Hrtt.... Hrrrrrrrr... Hrrrrttt

Wulfric, you coulda just said, 'total war games makes me wanna do this'



But Cheers anyway, buddy. Have 6 more on me.

 

[aris]

I agree, Gaudaost, but I see two discrete reasons for why this is, and they are applicable to different games and genres. In 4x games, the early game is a time where you explore and expand by finding the perfects spots to build cities. There is so much variance in what resources you will find, who your neighbors will be; every early game is its own mystery. Then comes the first age of drudgery, where your borders expand until they reach your neighbors' and then there is no more room. This age isn't as bad as the age to come, as your realm is still a modestly sized one and so is no chore to operate. But then you reach the second age of drudgery, which is where you start expanding INTO the AIs' territory, and you begin to acquire cities that were improperly placed to begin with and so no fun to work with, and you become overloaded with management tasks, tending to let things slide for the sake of expedience. At some point, usually near the beginning of the second age of drudgery, the scales of power slide so dramatically that there is no longer any AI realm powerful enough to pose a threat to yours, and even if you are fortunate to be playing a game where multiple AI realms will band together in attempt to challenge yours, it's likely that they are unable to coordinate together, just flinging their units at you haphazardly one at a time. So the game requires lots of grunt work, offers little challenge, and there's no surprise lurking behind exploration and expansion.

That is one type of game. Then there is the other type of game, which I will term the Total War style of game. In Total War style games, the AI is so shitty, so abusable, that even at the start you are practically in the second age of drudgery. There is also an intense focus on sieges because no AI can challenge you in the field, and sieges might cause you casualties but they will never come at your loss, as you are assured, destined, even, of winning them all. Some games outside the Total War franchise have qualities reminiscent of this franchise. For instance, in Mount and Blade you have the dominance of sieges in the late game, and the sieges fucking suck. But as far as I know only the Total War games bring both of these qualities into a single package.

Exactly. I find that in most 4x games, you have to keep playing, when your victory is already a forgone conclusion. There is basically no way you can lose, yet you have to trudge through 50 more rounds to clean up all the other cities, or to reach whatever goal the game wants you to reach. It would be cool if someone introduced the possiility of some major event fucking up your shit. Like an unknown super powerful force, or major earthquakes or something like that.

 

[Axioms]

I mean it is a strategy game. If you are just playing to win go break out a war-game or head to multiplayer. I just don't get it. What are you expecting? If you feel like you have won, just quit?

 

[aris]

If you feel like you have won, just quit?

It is what I do. But it never feels good, and it's not like I say: "Well, now I've won, let me press the quit button", interest just fades away, and I gradually stop playing the session.

 

[thesheeep]

Battles are too damn easy, any noob can win a 1:1 fight against the AI, you are forced to deal with millions of tiny battles against microstacks, if you dare use autobattle you suffer ton of loses. And so on.

I feel that only three kinds of battles really work out:
1. At the very start of a campaign before you have godlike armies.
2. Scripted battles, like special events, story, etc. as those usually pit you against a superior force.
3. The rare occasion when you have one of your stacks fighting off 3-5 enemy stacks at the same time/after each other.

Not that those always offer a challenge, but if there's challenge, it is IMO to be found in one of those. And unfortunately, they make up <10% of battles.
Mods help, but I tried both Lucky's and SFO and while both make things more interesting, I find that both eventually end up with the same problems, albeit later in the game.

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Battles are NEVER too easy, you just not drunk enough beer, you can't play strategy games properly while sober
it's just against nature to drink water like some kind of , well, animal! After 4th can, they start to be real challenge! Without beer battle difficulty level is like we say in Poland "Dupy nie urywa".

BESIDES GET FUCKIN READY not only new dlc but also THESE Ladz COMING OFFICIAL NOT IN MOD!

The Old Friends are coming to WARHAMMER II – Gotrek and Felix are making their way into the game and you may be able to recruit them…

Gotrek effectively functions as a Lord, and Felix is a Hero that accompanies him. This means they can function as an army just by themselves, and you can send them off around the world on adventures of their own, or supply them with troops and have them function in the same way as your other armies. Although with a rather powerful pair of characters leading it!

The legendary adventurers and mercenaries will be available to everyone for free through Total War Access from 17th October but if you want to get them early, they’re also available in September’s print issue of White Dwarf magazine.

Questions? We bet you’ve got some but before you ask, make sure we haven’t already answered them here: https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-warhammer-ii-gotrek-felix-faq/

 

[Sloul]

Exactly. I find that in most 4x games, you have to keep playing, when your victory is already a forgone conclusion. There is basically no way you can lose, yet you have to trudge through 50 more rounds to clean up all the other cities, or to reach whatever goal the game wants you to reach. It would be cool if someone introduced the possiility of some major event fucking up your shit. Like an unknown super powerful force, or major earthquakes or something like that.

There are only 2 games which I know are doing it:
Falls from Heaven 2 and Third Age Total War (with Mordor and Haradrim being such power house in late game +the invasion mechanic).

I am currently playing through The Elder's Scrolls Total War mod and there are multiple events which bring life to the game. Notably an invasion of demonic forces late game (which I didn't experience yet). In my current game I find myself at this precise point you describe where I am the superpower and zZZZzzzzZZzz.
This mod made me realise how much events can impact your faction and how fun they can be. If one wanted to mod a sort of Wargamme RPG, Med 2 is the real deal.
For instance, playing with Redoran Great House from Morrowind, you can easily access and conquer an independent fortress which unlock two additional units faction wide with the correct building.
Still with Redoran, going on an expedition to a nearby northern island and conquering two village of dubious economical interest, you can hire skaal warriors faction wide.
And there are more of those on the map.

 

[attackfighter]

gaudaost
I also like late-game scripted catastrophes. The two I can think of are the Mongolians and Timurids in CK2 and the Planet Awakening in Alpha Centauri. In both cases I think they are rather weak and underpowered, but I like the idea behind them. They function as sort of an endgame boss fight to bring closure to a campaign.

 

[Axioms]

I mean in a non-simulation all you can really do is script stuff. Though personally I think they could script the spawns in CK2 to increase relative to your power level.

 

[JarlFrank]

4X games and Total War style strategies should have mechanics that allow for civil wars in large empires, weakening the empire from the interior and allowing foreign powers to invade from the borders. That would break the whole problem of one faction becoming so strong it's unstoppable. Rome didn't progress to conquer the entire world, and neither did China. Both were fucked over by rebellions, civil wars, invaders who used the internal weakness as an opportunity, etc.

 

[Axioms]

But that would require the game to be a simulation that actually modeled the reasons for those events. Even Paradox doesn't do that really. It is mostly lame scripting of events.

 

[JarlFrank]

But that would require the game to be a simulation that actually modeled the reasons for those events. Even Paradox doesn't do that really. It is mostly lame scripting of events.

Yes it would, but you could abstract and simplify some mechanics. Also one idea from CK is good and should be used in more 4X/Total War style games: limits to the amount of provinces/cities you can rule on your own, and having to appoint vassals or governors to provinces above that limit.

That alone would already help in simulating more realistic ancient, medieval and early modern empires. Communication and travel was slow until the 19th century when railroads and telegraphs were invented, so in a large empire you can't have total centralization.
So the player will have to appoint governors or give land to vassals depending on distance to capital or on size of empire.
These governors can become corrupt and wage civil wars, etc.

And if those civil wars had mechanics that more consistently led to new rulers becoming independent, rather than the empire just going back to normal once the rebels were beaten, it would already add a lot more dynamism to the game.

There are many reasons for governors to rebel. There are just as many reasons for the population to rebel. A lot of these elements are already extant in both Paradox and Total War games. Religion, culture, etc. If you empire consists of many different nationalities, they will have a tendency to rebel. Same with religions. The Assyrian empire collapsed essentially because at some point, all the conquered peoples decided they had enough of being oppressed by brutal conquerors and rose up, and the Assyrian military couldn't handle all the pressure of the many rebellions, along with foreign powers using the opportunity to attack.

Then, just add a more dynamic stability stat, like the stability Paradox uses in the EU games except less static. Stability could be a factor of:
- how well the economy works
- how successful wars are
- whether your cities have enough food
- how much unrest there is among conquered peoples
- how multicultural and multireligious your empire is

And when you have a large empire encompassing many different cultures and religions, tensions are already high. One single lost major battle, or one major famine or plague, and everything might collapse. Cities where the majority of the population is of a different culture or religion will declare independence, governors and vassals will send armies to the capital to depose you, shit hits the fan. Suddenly you are no longer an invincible superpower, but are fighting for your life against an empire that turned against you.

The mechanics don't even have to be more complex than, say, what CK2, EU4, and Vicky2 are already doing. Except that these mechanics have more of an influence on whether your empire stays together or falls apart.

 

[Morkar Left]

4X games and Total War style strategies should have mechanics that allow for civil wars in large empires, weakening the empire from the interior and allowing foreign powers to invade from the borders. That would break the whole problem of one faction becoming so strong it's unstoppable. Rome didn't progress to conquer the entire world, and neither did China. Both were fucked over by rebellions, civil wars, invaders who used the internal weakness as an opportunity, etc.

Guys, you should try Field of Glory: Empires.

 

[Raghar]

4X games and Total War style strategies should have mechanics that allow for civil wars in large empires, weakening the empire from the interior and allowing foreign powers to invade from the borders. That would break the whole problem of one faction becoming so strong it's unstoppable. Rome didn't progress to conquer the entire world, and neither did China. Both were fucked over by rebellions, civil wars, invaders who used the internal weakness as an opportunity, etc.

China was too selfish to innovate, and thus it become backward country where one official tried to discredit another official. Then it has of course problem called. OVERPOPULATION. A simple equation a = 1.7^n simply shows that China population quickly hit a food limit, then it dropped from 40 million to 5 million. These cycles happened during early China period quite often.

Rome empire hit two limits. First central and north Europe provided them with no income, because warm you don't need to pay for slaves clothes parts of Europe are on south, central Europe and north Europe have -18C in winter. (And current Russia was full of horse ridding hordes.) No profit from expansion into central and north Europe - no expansion into central and north Europe.
Second limit was speed of communications. Which they tried to solve by separating to east and west halves. But of course, this prevented them to properly react to threats as unified country.

 

[Axioms]

But that would require the game to be a simulation that actually modeled the reasons for those events. Even Paradox doesn't do that really. It is mostly lame scripting of events.

Yes it would, but you could abstract and simplify some mechanics. Also one idea from CK is good and should be used in more 4X/Total War style games: limits to the amount of provinces/cities you can rule on your own, and having to appoint vassals or governors to provinces above that limit.

That alone would already help in simulating more realistic ancient, medieval and early modern empires. Communication and travel was slow until the 19th century when railroads and telegraphs were invented, so in a large empire you can't have total centralization.
So the player will have to appoint governors or give land to vassals depending on distance to capital or on size of empire.
These governors can become corrupt and wage civil wars, etc.

And if those civil wars had mechanics that more consistently led to new rulers becoming independent, rather than the empire just going back to normal once the rebels were beaten, it would already add a lot more dynamism to the game.

There are many reasons for governors to rebel. There are just as many reasons for the population to rebel. A lot of these elements are already extant in both Paradox and Total War games. Religion, culture, etc. If you empire consists of many different nationalities, they will have a tendency to rebel. Same with religions. The Assyrian empire collapsed essentially because at some point, all the conquered peoples decided they had enough of being oppressed by brutal conquerors and rose up, and the Assyrian military couldn't handle all the pressure of the many rebellions, along with foreign powers using the opportunity to attack.

Then, just add a more dynamic stability stat, like the stability Paradox uses in the EU games except less static. Stability could be a factor of:
- how well the economy works
- how successful wars are
- whether your cities have enough food
- how much unrest there is among conquered peoples
- how multicultural and multireligious your empire is

And when you have a large empire encompassing many different cultures and religions, tensions are already high. One single lost major battle, or one major famine or plague, and everything might collapse. Cities where the majority of the population is of a different culture or religion will declare independence, governors and vassals will send armies to the capital to depose you, shit hits the fan. Suddenly you are no longer an invincible superpower, but are fighting for your life against an empire that turned against you.

The mechanics don't even have to be more complex than, say, what CK2, EU4, and Vicky2 are already doing. Except that these mechanics have more of an influence on whether your empire stays together or falls apart.

The problem is that players don't want that. Imagine an internal politics system of similar complexity to the military system in games. You are squanching your audience so hard. The vast majority of all strategy gamers are military focused and furthermore want dictatorial deity like powers.

Players will accept all sorts of shenanigans from other players in multiplayer but as soon as the AI does the same thing they lose their minds.

You absolutely could create a game that allows for more interesting politics but you would have a lot of trouble making money, especially if you wanted to have decent modern graphics/UI.

 

[Nutmeg]

Try Shogun 1 and Medieval 1. I found those the best because the strategic layer wasn't as needlessly bloated as in later titles. They should have stuck with the board game style.

Shogun is fine conceptually but is full of jank e.g. Geishas. Like most TW or Paradox games it's just a larping sim.

 

[Beastro]

4X games and Total War style strategies should have mechanics that allow for civil wars in large empires, weakening the empire from the interior and allowing foreign powers to invade from the borders. That would break the whole problem of one faction becoming so strong it's unstoppable. Rome didn't progress to conquer the entire world, and neither did China. Both were fucked over by rebellions, civil wars, invaders who used the internal weakness as an opportunity, etc.

This is an issue I self-regulated with 4X, Grand Strat and TW games. I simply play balance of power taking on the top dogs while trying to protect and strengthen the weaker powers until they get strong enough to become the new top dogs.

In 4X it does eventually get to be too much just delays overrunning the map while Paradox games allow you that lovely option to simply pick another faction in your game to then turn against the empire you've built, but with TW there's a bit of middle room in that you can restore nations to power taking over settlements and then letting rebels pop to capture the region and restore a faction (At least Empire had that option when some idiots would one shot Spain or France due to their one province in Europe weakness).

The problem is that players don't want that. Imagine an internal politics system of similar complexity to the military system in games. You are squanching your audience so hard. The vast majority of all strategy gamers are military focused and furthermore want dictatorial deity like powers.

Players will accept all sorts of shenanigans from other players in multiplayer but as soon as the AI does the same thing they lose their minds.

You absolutely could create a game that allows for more interesting politics but you would have a lot of trouble making money, especially if you wanted to have decent modern graphics/UI.

I can't speak for others, but I can say that I wouldn't mind those things Jarl spoke of becuase they'd be put into a decent context and part of the game.

What I hate in CK2 is when AI rulers randomly decide they want just revoke titles like made to move them around and just provoke vassals into civil war. It happens too often to Byzantium where titles are revoked, given to tohers and revoked again.

Even going into those rulers using the console to change whatever traits lowers AI rationality doesn't help, all that does it keeping an eye on them and stoping the civil wars with the console until that ruler dies, or just knocking them off prematurely with commands as well.

In Civ 4, combat is the lamest shit possible. You just throw hordes of units at the enemy's horde of units. Yawn. Civ 4 with Total War style battles would be fucking awesome.

I thought the same until I finally played Paradox games, now I feel it would blend perfectly with TWs combat, if only to end the silly huge battles which can takes months to finish.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

4X games and Total War style strategies should have mechanics that allow for civil wars in large empires, weakening the empire from the interior and allowing foreign powers to invade from the borders. That would break the whole problem of one faction becoming so strong it's unstoppable. Rome didn't progress to conquer the entire world, and neither did China. Both were fucked over by rebellions, civil wars, invaders who used the internal weakness as an opportunity, etc.

Roma Surrectum mod has early and late game civil wars that try to mirror empire splits, but the scripting often causes campaign crashes. Vanilla Rome had the 3 families in main campaign, but that led to a really goofy attempt at the replicating what was a pretty unified front, at least during the early imperial period when the focus was on the Gauls or the Carthaginians rather than internal squabbles. That in-fighting typically came after the banners of victory had been raised and everyone looked around for new foes, only to find that the most dangerous ones were in Rome itself... as most empires go eventually.

As far as coding and scripting goes, I think part of the problem is getting the AI to cope with switches in how the map/units/events unfold. In video games they go pretty linear due to limitations in code and script writing, but in real life things are way more fluid and subject to change. I'm not sure if a really authentic attempt at recreating ancient Greece, Rome, or Egypt has or ever will be done TW-style. The best you could do would be something like Crusader Kings 2 but with a tactical battle overlay that would kick in when armies met. Sounds to me like Field of Glory Empires comes close, but even then that game stream lines much of the empire management, and the family politics stuff is almost entirely missing.

 

[fantadomat]

In Civ 4, combat is the lamest shit possible. You just throw hordes of units at the enemy's horde of units. Yawn. Civ 4 with Total War style battles would be fucking awesome.

I thought the same until I finally played Paradox games, now I feel it would blend perfectly with TWs combat, if only to end the silly huge battles which can takes months to finish.

They listened to JarlFrank and are making a Civ4 battle royale expansion .

 

[Galdred]

But that would require the game to be a simulation that actually modeled the reasons for those events. Even Paradox doesn't do that really. It is mostly lame scripting of events.

Yes it would, but you could abstract and simplify some mechanics. Also one idea from CK is good and should be used in more 4X/Total War style games: limits to the amount of provinces/cities you can rule on your own, and having to appoint vassals or governors to provinces above that limit.

That alone would already help in simulating more realistic ancient, medieval and early modern empires. Communication and travel was slow until the 19th century when railroads and telegraphs were invented, so in a large empire you can't have total centralization.
So the player will have to appoint governors or give land to vassals depending on distance to capital or on size of empire.
These governors can become corrupt and wage civil wars, etc.

And if those civil wars had mechanics that more consistently led to new rulers becoming independent, rather than the empire just going back to normal once the rebels were beaten, it would already add a lot more dynamism to the game.

There are many reasons for governors to rebel. There are just as many reasons for the population to rebel. A lot of these elements are already extant in both Paradox and Total War games. Religion, culture, etc. If you empire consists of many different nationalities, they will have a tendency to rebel. Same with religions. The Assyrian empire collapsed essentially because at some point, all the conquered peoples decided they had enough of being oppressed by brutal conquerors and rose up, and the Assyrian military couldn't handle all the pressure of the many rebellions, along with foreign powers using the opportunity to attack.

Then, just add a more dynamic stability stat, like the stability Paradox uses in the EU games except less static. Stability could be a factor of:
- how well the economy works
- how successful wars are
- whether your cities have enough food
- how much unrest there is among conquered peoples
- how multicultural and multireligious your empire is

And when you have a large empire encompassing many different cultures and religions, tensions are already high. One single lost major battle, or one major famine or plague, and everything might collapse. Cities where the majority of the population is of a different culture or religion will declare independence, governors and vassals will send armies to the capital to depose you, shit hits the fan. Suddenly you are no longer an invincible superpower, but are fighting for your life against an empire that turned against you.

The mechanics don't even have to be more complex than, say, what CK2, EU4, and Vicky2 are already doing. Except that these mechanics have more of an influence on whether your empire stays together or falls apart.

Field of Glory: Empires abstracts this with a decadence mechanism that works relatively well (except it is easy to game/sidestep):
Having too many regions increases decadence (as does having "leisure" buildings). Decadence contributes to making government inefficient, which can produce civil wars.
The problem is that it is relatively imbalanced now(and is only a factor in the beginning, or for some factions that have specific mechanisms for decadence , like the succeesors of Alexander, or civil wars, like Rome).
Actually, I find FOG:E much better than total War: it is less bloated, and the battle resolution system (FOG2) is much superior, even though the transition is a bit unwieldly(but no more than waiting minutes for the endturn of Warhammer Total War: Mortal Empires).