Medieval Total War II

[Proteus_MST]

Strange, as it obviously worked for me.
The french did the same to me,
they declared war (thereby betraying my aliance with them)
end then only blockaded my ports without sending an army to my territory (maybe they feared crossing the pyrinees or they had too much respect for my army which was the largest of the known world at this time )
After a couple of turns (maybe 10) of such a low level warfare they were excommunicated by the pope (which was the occasion I used to set my armies on the move and start conquering the 2 french provinces north of the pyrinees [leading to the death of their best {7 stars} general and faction heir])

The french stayed excommunicated till the death of the pope (and election of my candidate to be next pope) although they declared a ceasefire years before this time (which I granted after they paid 1000 Gold to me )

Do you have the patch to version 1.1 installed, Chemical Olli?

[Quillan]

Ollie, I also recommend heading over to the forums at www.totalwar.org and checking out the Citadel (the single player forum for M2TW). It's a good forum, a helluva lot better than the .com forums are. They've got some other forums set up with threads as guides for each faction.

[Chemical Ollie]

I believe I installed the 1.1 patch, but I can't find any place in the game where to confirm that the installation worked.

[Chemical Ollie]

OK, now I see it: If I go to "Options" in the main menu, it says "Ver 1.1" in the top right corner.

[Proteus_MST]

Then maybe your standingwith he pope isn´t as good as it should be?

The pope seems to react more tolerant on the misbehavior of people he likes
(a good step towards this goal seems to be the occasional present of gold by your diplomats )


btw.
beware of heretics
Heretics lead to heresy
heresy leads to inquisitors coming
inquisitors coming leads to a lot of dead people

[dannubis]

That or the occasional snake in his bed...

[Ned]

I ordered the game from Best Buy for $24.99, free shipping. It will arrive next week. Not a bad price. The Downloadable game costs $49.99.

I've played RTW, but some time ago. I must admit that I am having a hard time getting used to controlling units in battle. Have these controls changed since RTW?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Ned
I ordered the game from Best Buy for $24.99, free shipping. It will arrive next week. Not a bad price. The Downloadable game costs $49.99.

I've played RTW, but some time ago. I must admit that I am having a hard time getting used to controlling units in battle. Have these controls changed since RTW?

Nope, the battles are played the same way as in RTW.
The only difference I can think of is the behavior of gatehouses and towers.

Unlike in RTW you aren´t able to control the towers of city walls just by moving into/next to them. The towers are controlle by the side that controls the centralk plaza.
But you are able to make them stop firing, this happens if you drive all enemy units away from the vicinity of the tower.

Gatehouses, too, are much simpler than in RTW. They don´t pour boiling tar on the enemy troops and you don´t have to enter them with troops on foot to control them. Instead they are already controlled by your forces if you march your cavalry units through them.
Therefore unlike in RTW it is a good tactic to just smash the gate with a battering ram. (the chance of the enemy towers and archers to set your ram on fire is lower than in RTW therefore it´s not uncommon for a single battering ram to succeed in reaching the gate in one piece.

Unlike in RTW you can have multiple walls with your/enemy fortresses but normally even if you used up al of your siege equipment on the outer walls of the fortress it doesn´t mean that your siege is lost as the inner walls normally are connected to the outer walls via sets of stairs, meaning that, if you hold the outer wals you also have a way to reach the inner walls.

Oh and for the differences on the strategic layer:
For every region you can decide if you want to have a city as capital (which works like in RTW) or a castle (which allows you to build more advanced defensive structures and weapons building, but, unlike cities, doesn´t have so many buildings that increase your income from the region)

And you have traders which you can move to the strategic resources in distant regions (no matter if the region is controlled by your empire) and use them to gather money.

All of the other things resemble MTW1, meaning you have religion instead of culture (which can improved by your preists) and princesses as srategic units which can be used as diplomats as well as married off to the heirs of other countries thereby creating alliances.

[Chemical Ollie]

I think the battles are more crude than in RTW. Forget about flanking spearman walls and attacking from behind, the battles in this game is just a cluster****. Just send in your heavy infantry and swing the swords until all men on one side is dead or routed.

[Harovan]

Really? Sounds disappointing. Good thing I didn't buy it yet.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
I think the battles are more crude than in RTW. Forget about flanking spearman walls and attacking from behind, the battles in this game is just a cluster****. Just send in your heavy infantry and swing the swords until all men on one side is dead or routed.

Hm, yes that might be right.
Spearmen in MTW1 and RTW had a rank bonus against frontal attacks, i.e. they got a bonus depending on the depth of their battle line (as long as the line stayed intact).
Somethign that lead to really devastating results if cavalry made a frontal charge against such a battle line

According to some sources this rank bonus has been replaced in MTW2 with just a general bonus against mounted foes.

Maybe the modders are able to make something about it.
After all they were able to create the total realism mod for RTW.
Maybe there are flags within the data files which switch things like the ranking boni on and off

[Chemical Ollie]

Yes, after having a RTW revival on my old computer during this summer holiday, finishing several campaigns, I really miss the sophisticated tactic battles of that game. MTW2 seems more sophisticated on the strategic level, and more crude on the tactical. But the strategic level seems to be all about ass-kissing the Pope or sending crappy assassins with a 1:20 chance of success, so I'm not convinced it's an improvement. Ironically enough, I purchased MTW2, but only "lended" RTW.

On the tactic level, I found a way to win against a superior sieging force, even when they have artillery. I send out a strong unit of heavy infantry or cavallery on a suicide mission to attack the siege equipment or artillery. This gets the enemy confused. They send 50 % or more of their force within range of my archers and towers, their artillery stop shooting and their siege units forget about penetrating my walls for a long while. Seems more like an exploit on stupid AI than a strategy, but it works.

[Quillan]

Ollie, there was a similar exploit in RTW. I could always send out a unit of peasants to draw the enemy within range of the towers or archers on the walls.

RTW didn't have rank bonuses, as far as I know. However, each weapon does have a reach, and the spears for the much less numerous units that had them were long enough that the second rank would fight also. Spear units are everywhere in M2TW, but the majority of them have very short spears, and the unit spacing is such that the second rank can't reach the enemy. The units that have pikes have the reach to get the second rank fighting, but again spacing is such that the third rank can't reach.

One of the big issues is the spear/cavalry/infantry balance. Cavalry that charge properly just seem to annhialate any infantry they hit, whether that be spear, sword, halberd or pike. Against pike, they take huge casualties and can't normally reach beyond the first rank, but they often still wipe the entire front rank instantly. Spears get such huge penalties against other infantry (or the infantry huge bonuses against spears, not sure which) that European peasants can beat armored sergeants in melee!

[Odin]

Got M2TW for Christmas, yesterday. Playing the English. Captured the rebel cities in Northumbria (York), Wales, and Brittany (Rennes) and am currently sieging Bordeaux. I will then go for the rebel cities in the Low Countries if France or the Holy Roman Empire don't get them first.

I'm still trying to get used to the distinction between towns with and without castles and getting used to the religious element that wasn't in RTW. Those inqusitors are annoying SOBs.

[Chemical Ollie]

The inquisators kill 1-2 of my family members per turn in the late game. I have multiple assassins attacking them, but the snake always goes for the rat. 30 or so failed attampts so far. Inquisitors seem impossible to kill, they turn up from nowhere, they are seasoned experts from the beginning and they don't seem to die of old age. And no matter how many priests I hire and how many withches I kill, they still harass me.

A medieval game with religion as an important factor seems like the same thing as a WW1 first person shooter: It's so historically obvious that it's impossible to leave out, still it totally destroys the gaming value. No matter how hard you train and how much you prepare, you're just gunfodder anyway.

I also tried to sail west to India with a full stack of troops and a full range of specialists, but the Spanish armada sunk my single ship.

15 or so turns left in my first campaign, and I will lose miserably, with only 20 or so cities.

I will start a new campaign soon, and this time, mr Pope can kiss his sorry ass himself, because I won't be the one doing it for him...