57 replies to this topic

[thirdgumi]

Medieval II Total War is out, who's playing it?
The gameplay isn't much different from Rome, the graphics are better beyond doubt though. I only thing that attracts me is that I can play with Portugal, hehehe. So any idea want to share? Any hints?

[Zuo Zongtang]

I am. Merged with other thread.

Medieval 2 is waaaaaaay to difficult for me.

AI is still screwy in Alliances though. Not trusting them at all until the first patch comes out.

I started out as HRE, my favorite medieval empire. I conquered basicly what is modern Germany, minus a region in the north and plus Venice and another region in Italy. Wanting to get my hands on heathen lands, I asked for a crusade against Antioch. I recruited a full stack army with 1337 Crusader units and my best general. No one else tagged along (Poland and Portugal declared support, but I didn't see any troops sent there). South of Turkey, right off the shore, my transport fleet was sunk by the Egyptian navy. There went thousands of gold and my best General. If that wasn't bad enough, Sicily was besieging me, I was bankrupt, and for some reason, the Hungarians, who were married in my family, and the Danes invaded. (Instance of poor AI which was rampant in RTW. I was on good terms with both the Danes and Hungarians.) I was therefore at war with 4 countries, including Venice. Although still wealthy, I had little elite troops. Most of my garrisons were Militia men with a few knights. My powerful army was sunk thousands of miles away, and I resigned in disgust.

However, I find the battlefield AI and difficulty to be excellent. In siege battles, I easily lose over half my army, something which never happened in RTW. Even with 4:1 strength ratios, victory was not certain. Your infantry can finally cross bridges and climb siege equipment without pausing for 10 seconds.

I hope that CA comes out with a patch which fixes the campaign AI. Its the only thing ruining the game for me now. With RTW, I didn't mind cause I would crush the AI armies even if every nation in the world declared war on me. In M2TW, the AI can actually do damage to me, and I'm scared...

[thirdgumi]

My Portuguese campaign went well, conquered all iberic peninsular and some parts of north africa, eliminated the Spanish and Moors, now I'm marching to France. Oh and the allies, never trust them, I never trust them in Shogun, nor in Medieval 1, nor in Rome, and certainly not in this game. And the crusade, I never paid attention to it, someone else would reach the objective for me, so there is no need for me to send my troops.

In Medieval 2, musketeers are way stronger than in Medieval 1, they have way longer reach than archers and much better accuracy than their Medieval 1 counterparts, I call them the "footknights' nightmare", once I set a custom battle, a unit of musketeer against a unit of Gothic foot knight, it was a massacre, it reminded me how chinese soldiers charged against the lines of western armies during the late Qing period. Mounted knights could surviver better since they could charge home, so I put pikemen to protect musketeers.

I'm not sure how merchant are used, you just put them on top of the resources on the map?

[Zuo Zongtang]

AI needs a c**p load of fixing. I gave France 100 florins for 10 turns. Thats 1000 free florins right there. The MOMENT I exited the diplomacy scroll, I get a message saying Alliance in Tatters. France ended their alliance with me. I'm like ***?

[dej2]

I'm not sure how merchant are used, you just put them on top of the resources on the map?

select your merchant then move your cursor directly over the resource you want them to manage. You'll notice the cursure change it will pulsate when properly place. The confirmation is when your merchant verbally replays back.

[thirdgumi]

select your merchant then move your cursor directly over the resource you want them to manage. You'll notice the cursure change it will pulsate when properly place. The confirmation is when your merchant verbally replays back.

Thanks dej2.

BTW, how do you discover the americas?

Edited: never mind, I already discovered it, you just build a grand carrack or caravel and move it all the way to west throught Atlantic and you will find it.

[JB_Xyooj]

I am. Merged with other thread.

Medieval 2 is waaaaaaay to difficult for me.

AI is still screwy in Alliances though. Not trusting them at all until the first patch comes out.

I started out as HRE, my favorite medieval empire. I conquered basicly what is modern Germany, minus a region in the north and plus Venice and another region in Italy. Wanting to get my hands on heathen lands, I asked for a crusade against Antioch. I recruited a full stack army with 1337 Crusader units and my best general. No one else tagged along (Poland and Portugal declared support, but I didn't see any troops sent there). South of Turkey, right off the shore, my transport fleet was sunk by the Egyptian navy. There went thousands of gold and my best General. If that wasn't bad enough, Sicily was besieging me, I was bankrupt, and for some reason, the Hungarians, who were married in my family, and the Danes invaded. (Instance of poor AI which was rampant in RTW. I was on good terms with both the Danes and Hungarians.) I was therefore at war with 4 countries, including Venice. Although still wealthy, I had little elite troops. Most of my garrisons were Militia men with a few knights. My powerful army was sunk thousands of miles away, and I resigned in disgust.

However, I find the battlefield AI and difficulty to be excellent. In siege battles, I easily lose over half my army, something which never happened in RTW. Even with 4:1 strength ratios, victory was not certain. Your infantry can finally cross bridges and climb siege equipment without pausing for 10 seconds.
I hope that CA comes out with a patch which fixes the campaign AI. Its the only thing ruining the game for me now. With RTW, I didn't mind cause I would crush the AI armies even if every nation in the world declared war on me. In M2TW, the AI can actually do damage to me, and I'm scared...

Shogun total war Mongol Invasion share that same trait and feeling... **d**** it, especially the Hideyoshi campaign against Korea.**

[thirdgumi]

Now I'm in the americas and waging war against Aztecs. Man, they are tough. I landed there with a full stack from Europe, hired a mercenary army of local people, then assaulted their city with these 2 armies. It was a tough fight, I forgot to bring any cannons, so I had to assault the walls, only after losing several units (lost half of my sword militia and my cavalry were virtualy gone, only a lone general survived) that I was able to take the city. Then I hired more mercs, filled the ranks of my main European army, and put the rest of mercs outside of the city to support my main army. After 2 turns, the Aztecs returned with an army of 1k and sieged the city to retake it. I tried to broke the siege. During the battle, I put my 4 units of musketeers on the wall, it was a massacre, after losing more than 80% of their strength to musket fire the Aztecs withrew, I didn't have enough cavalry to pursuit, so I didn't exploit this opportunity.

Fire arms rule, in my Portuguese campaign, on the European continent, the importance of melee has been substituited by ranged attacks of fire arms. I'm now against the Danish who is the most dominant faction in central Europe in my campaign, and we both use fire arms as primary weapons.

[thirdgumi]

I just discovered that Jinets (how do you spell it?) are great against elephants.

[thirdgumi]

I don't know if this happens to you, but my game often crashes when there are elephants on the battlefield. It's so annoying. How do I remove the elephants from the game?

[JB_Xyooj]

I don't know if this happens to you, but my game often crashes when there are elephants on the battlefield. It's so annoying. How do I remove the elephants from the game?

Did you try to degrade the performance ?

[Zuo Zongtang]

Its a bug.

twcenter.net

This site has a bunch of mods which removes the elephants for a more realistic game.

I use Shaba's 1.4 Diplomacy Mod to enhance AI intel (works very well) and a 2-hand animation mod which fixes the inability of Billmen and Axemen to kill Cavalry. I also modded Princess consent age and recruitable Generals. (Ask me if you want ot know how to do both)

[thirdgumi]

Thanks Zuo Zongtang. I wasn't aware that Billmen and Axemen couldn't kill cavalry. I just want to remove the elephants, I'm reluctant to apply other mods cause I'm affraid that they would mess up with my game. Is there a way to remove the elephants just by editing the files?

Now that you mentioned it, I did some custom battles, and the Billmen indeed do not attack cavalry, they just stand there waiting to be killed. Not only the Billmen and the Axemen do not attack cavalry, the Portuguese dismounted knights also do not.

[QuicoNait]

Hey!!!
I've been playing Medieval Total War II. It's a great gam!! And I've been hearing all of tou talking abou t playing with the Portuguese... But I can't choose them..
Can anyone explain how cam I choose Portugal?

Thank's!!

[thirdgumi]

You must finish the game once to unlock all unlockble factions. Just start a small campaign, it will be quicker to finish. There are factions which are unplayabel like the Timurids, the Papa State...

PS: to all mods, please don't merge this thread with another one about Medieval II just yet, QuicoNait might have trouble finding the thread. Leave it for a few days.