Medieval 2 Battle Report & Strat Thread (Super pic hvy)

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2006-12-12 09:59am

Can't wait to see unbugged heavy billmen in action. I've tried them once and they cut trough enemy lines like a hot knive trough butter but they got wtfpwned by cavalry it was not funny

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-12 10:58am

I'm with Stravo; I'm impatiently waiting for the patch because the game's bugs are so annoying that they interfere with the enjoyment of the game.

I'm not going to flame CA over it because to be quite honest, if they had given me the choice of getting the game in November with some bugs or waiting two months longer for a less buggy version, I probably would have wanted the early game (after all, there's bound to be more bugs discovered by the public thus necessitating a patch after release either way). But that doesn't mean I'm not getting impatient waiting for that patch.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-12-12 11:04am

From what I'm reading, it's stuck in QA limbo. Knowing CA, they mean publisher QA which means that the game will be stuck there for abit as they run dozens of idiotic tests but it should hopefully be out before Christmas.

It better be out before Hanukah..

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2006-12-12 02:40pm

Darth Wong wrote:I'm with Stravo; I'm impatiently waiting for the patch because the game's bugs are so annoying that they interfere with the enjoyment of the game.

I'm not going to flame CA over it because to be quite honest, if they had given me the choice of getting the game in November with some bugs or waiting two months longer for a less buggy version, I probably would have wanted the early game (after all, there's bound to be more bugs discovered by the public thus necessitating a patch after release either way). But that doesn't mean I'm not getting impatient waiting for that patch.

I'm not buying it unitil the patch comes out.

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2006-12-12 02:57pm

I'm with the Bear.

I enjoyed RTW immensely, and would really like to try this one out.

However, I have a hard enough time with the game without annoying bugs making it even more difficult.

They'll get my money when they fix the problems.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-12-12 07:27pm

The problems are not so critical that you should wait to buy the game, IMO.

Anyway- my Byzantine game. It's 1141AD, and I just took Rome. It's funny, I could see the reason the Papal States declared war on me- Sicily had gone Rebel after the Sicilians had been wiped out- I landed an Army there and took it. The moment I did, the Papal States declared war.

I guess Orthodox Christianity taking control of Venice and Sicily was just too much.

Problem is the Papal States have Naples- and two stacks outside defending it. I tried taking it with the army that took Rome (this was before I took Rome, which I was originally going to take last) but I could only destroy two stacks- not enough infantry in that Army, even though it had my best general. Palermo, being a castle, will reinforce that army by sea, but I've got the first of three armies arriving from my completed conquest of the Middle East arriving by ship, so Naples will fall soon.

For the past 10 turns or so, I've been defending Venice against massive Milanese stacks by means of the bridge.

Such hilarious slaughter- with nothing but Byzantine Infantry, 4x Trebuchet, 2x Ballista, Archer Militia, and Spearmen, I've killed stack after stack- heavy casualties, but I can always just retrain the losses, and my troops get better and better.

Two battles ago, I killed their Faction Leader and a Family Member in the same battle, and the no-name Captain got promoted to General- since then, I've used him to capture the armies when they rout- he's now two-gold chevron.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-12 09:16pm

One thing about M2TW battles is that you generally can't get the kind of absurdly one-sided victories that you could routinely get in RTW or BI. You're going to take casualties, and the logistics of retraining your men are going to be an issue. There's nothing like the situation in BI where archery was weak, mass infantry charges were the norm, and a line of plumbatarii on a hill was virtually invincible in defense.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-12-12 09:55pm

Darth Wong wrote:One thing about M2TW battles is that you generally can't get the kind of absurdly one-sided victories that you could routinely get in RTW or BI. You're going to take casualties, and the logistics of retraining your men are going to be an issue. There's nothing like the situation in BI where archery was weak, mass infantry charges were the norm, and a line of plumbatarii on a hill was virtually invincible in defense.

That's true- I find that bridge battles in M2TW are much more bloody affairs than they were in Rome or BI- the AI has little option but to send the entire mass of men across the bridge right at your own, and routinely, it'll have more men. I've often found myself biting my nails as I watch my line of purple (or red- England) get thinner and thinner and the mass of the enemy push ever closer out of the narrow bridge and onto more open ground- and the casualties climb ever higher.

A unit of Comitatenses or Plumbatarii in BI would take hardly any.

The retraining is also good in that you can say absorb several severely depleted units into less full strength ones, but they take an experience hit in the act (generally)- or you can retrain them all individually and have a bunch of full strength units of varying skill levels.

The defence of Venice though was further complicated by Milan being so close to it's centre of power (i.e. Milan, Genoa, Florence, Bologna) and sending so many stacks over and over, I ran out of Byzantine Infantry as a retrainign source and had to wait on more than one occasion.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-12-12 10:52pm

During my Venice game I found that Milan would (at least during the first 70 or 80 turns; before I took their cities) field armies which were, more often than not, half full of crossbowmen. As a result they never really did me any harm, a single full stack held them back before they got excommunicated. After that, taking their cities was not a difficult procedure.

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2006-12-22 09:25am

Okay, I finally got this game. The graphics and detail are amazing. But I have some questions:

A lot of times my men will just mill about. 75 men trying to kill 3 or 4 men they cornered and it'll take forever. What the hell is up with that? And those cornered men aren't even fighting back. It's annoying as hell.

Using cavalry kind of has me miffed. They sure do like walking no matter how often I tell them to run.

Pathfinding.. pathfinding is kind of odd. Sometimes they decide to take the oddest route.. like through the enemy ranks.

Anyone else having these problems?

Brain_Caster · Post by **Brain_Caster** » 2006-12-26 01:55pm

Darth Wong wrote:One thing about M2TW battles is that you generally can't get the kind of absurdly one-sided victories that you could routinely get in RTW or BI. You're going to take casualties, and the logistics of retraining your men are going to be an issue. There's nothing like the situation in BI where archery was weak, mass infantry charges were the norm, and a line of plumbatarii on a hill was virtually invincible in defense.

I wish I could agree with that. It's not quite as bad as in Rome but the AI is still a total pushover, even on the highest difficulty. I'm playing the English, it's about 1230 and I am currently in control of France, the British Isles and parts of Scandinavia. I'm at war with every single one of my neighbours as well as Denmark who I invaded with a full stack army and the Papal States (Yes, I'm excommunicated).

Am I in trouble? Nope. Haven't lost a real battle since... ever. The only defeats I suffered are a few sea battles. I've got the highest population, make the most money per turn, and have the biggest military (ok, second biggest, the Mongols have a slight advantage, but instead of using it to conquer Eastern Europe they just seem to sit on their butts somewhere in the East where my spys and diplomats haven't been yet).

This game could be great, but it's ruined by being too damn easy. Just like Rome.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2006-12-26 02:14pm

The Mongols are a tougher fight in the open fields. In a well-defended citadel, you can just keep your men up on the walls, annihilate their crappy infantry and buttfuck their now-helpless cavalry to oblivion. I usually let them bust down my first gate, so that I can have two walls worth of ballistas/cannons set up the supreme killing zone. I estimated that I slaughtered 70%-80% of the original Mongol Horde (the triple sliver chevron ones, that is) over the course of a dozen sieges at Adana. Once I got the cannon tower bug fixed, it made it even more fun.

defanatic · Post by **defanatic** » 2006-12-27 03:47am

kheegan wrote:Is there any particular reason for using flaming arrows in open warfare? It seems rather pointless to me and it would take extra time to light the arrows, if the engine is that realistic. Or is it just for the coolness factor?

Fire arrows (if it works like R:TW) are more likely to kill, but are less accurate and take longer to load.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2006-12-27 09:28am

Also, they're good for making elephants rout, which is of prime importance when facing the Timurids. I think artillery would work, also.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2006-12-27 09:48am

I just started my conquest on the New World but its kinda pissing me off how Aztec warriors are a match for my demi lancers and armored swordsmen by act of magic.

PS. Is that round robin game still alive?

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-12-27 09:13pm

wautd wrote:I just started my conquest on the New World but its kinda pissing me off how Aztec warriors are a match for my demi lancers and armored swordsmen by act of magic.

WTF? That's ridiculous. Are you sure?

As far as Demi Lancers go- do you mean in melee? Cavalry sucks in melee.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2006-12-28 06:33am

Vympel wrote:
wautd wrote:I just started my conquest on the New World but its kinda pissing me off how Aztec warriors are a match for my demi lancers and armored swordsmen by act of magic.
WTF? That's ridiculous. Are you sure?

As far as Demi Lancers go- do you mean in melee? Cavalry sucks in melee.

Oh yes, I'm serious. Their stats aren't as high as my infantry but high enough to be a decent treat one on one (and thats with unexperienced units mind you) + they field at least twice more numbers. If it wasn't for my cavalry, I would have lost my latest battle. Since the Aztecs lack cavalry themselves, you can charge their lines where and whenever you please. Still, you sometimes loose a full plated knight to their pussy toy arrows, or loose a knight or 2 in a charge against some guys in pyjamas.
Just look at their stats in custom battle, they are rediculous.

Oh yeah, needless to say, having horses or gunpower units don't appear the morale destroying units as they should have been. Gotta love Aztec magic

Seriously, their numbers should increase even more, but their stats should be cut to, oh I dunno, a tenth what they have now

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-29 12:40am

Alferd Packer wrote:Also, they're good for making elephants rout, which is of prime importance when facing the Timurids. I think artillery would work, also.

I've found that artillery is much more effective than fire arrows in routing Timurid elephants, but of course, it's also far more unwieldy to deploy and use.

As for the Aztecs, the guys at CA obviously didn't want to make them realistically weak for gameplay purposes, but if that's the way they wanted to play it, they should have made New World units very expensive to maintain, they should have made it New World settlements extremely limited in terms of their expansion capability, and they should have had off-map spawning of huge Aztec armies. Making pajama-men capable of taking down plate-armoured swordsmen is just ridiculous.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-12-29 01:37am

God knows how my Latinikon (Latinkon is a mispelling) are going to go against them in my current game. I'm gonna play all the way to 1530.

Speaking of which- are the Timurids particularly Horse Archer heavy? Because I'm wondering if Horse Archers would be effective at taking down elephants (naturally, the superb Vardariotai of the Roman Empire).

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2006-12-29 08:28am

Vympel wrote:
Speaking of which- are the Timurids particularly Horse Archer heavy? Because I'm wondering if Horse Archers would be effective at taking down elephants (naturally, the superb Vardariotai of the Roman Empire).

Oh you'll love them. They're like the Mongols but with elephants (think of a MBT with psychotic tendencies) and infantry which have no problem assaulting and cleaning your walls in a siege.
The good news is, they don't seem to use wall destroying siege equipent a lot.

I've found that my longbowmen were near useless against elephants, even with flaming arrows. I had to rely on ballista's and cannons

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2006-12-29 10:36am

Darth Wong wrote:As for the Aztecs, the guys at CA obviously didn't want to make them realistically weak for gameplay purposes, but if that's the way they wanted to play it, they should have made New World units very expensive to maintain, they should have made it New World settlements extremely limited in terms of their expansion capability, and they should have had off-map spawning of huge Aztec armies. Making pajama-men capable of taking down plate-armoured swordsmen is just ridiculous.

I agree. I'm poised right now to take my first Aztec city, and the AI sent the only troops in the region south. What I did notice, though, is that there are 24 units of native mercs for hire in the region. I'm going to snatch them all up next turn, giving myself a solid garrison and plenty of fodder for the Aztec stacks. My plan is to basically replace my heavy infantry with native mercs, let them get chewed to shit, then mop up what's left with my heavy cavalry, retinue longbowmen, and artillery.

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2006-12-29 01:00pm

Playing 0.5 as England and the only thing that really pisses me off is the unending BS that is the Inquisitor. No matter what, if I have a General not in a city, he will saunter of and whack him dead with the book.

So far out of the 15 or so Generals that have faced the book, 1 has survived. Seems balanced.

Hopefully the patch will make it better, but that god damn aspect of the game could become a random event just as easily and not be so god damn annoying.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2006-12-29 01:07pm

Did you patch to 1.1? I believe the Inquisitors were nerfed.

Also, you should check out the Diplomacy mod in the other thread I made; that really takes the teeth out of Inquisitors.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-12-29 03:18pm

KrauserKrauser wrote:Playing 0.5 as England and the only thing that really pisses me off is the unending BS that is the Inquisitor. No matter what, if I have a General not in a city, he will saunter of and whack him dead with the book.

So far out of the 15 or so Generals that have faced the book, 1 has survived. Seems balanced.

Hopefully the patch will make it better, but that god damn aspect of the game could become a random event just as easily and not be so god damn annoying.

The Inquisitors were a huge pain in my ass in the first game. At one point I had five of the bastards rampaging through my lands, killing every general and priest I had. I eventually had a whole gang of assassins charged with knocking off the Inquisitors (boy did the Pope love that!), which slowed them down somewhat.

Then I finally got a diplomat down to Rome and started forking over gold. You see, the church is like the mafia - paid them 'protection', and you're safe, and if you don't, they kill you.

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2006-12-29 03:24pm

Ok, I tried to give them tribute, but they refused.

The Pope refused my money! How uncharacteristic!

What am I doing wrong?