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Medieval 2 Battle Report & Strat Thread (Super pic hvy)
Posted: 2006-11-11 05:03pm
by Acidburns
Might be fun to post reports from some of the battles that we fight in Medieval, and discuss tactics and strategy.
Here you can see the approaching Scottish army. I am defending Edinburgh as the English.
Three units of Peasant archers defend the walls. The ladders go up.
What you see here is not troops ascending the ladders. They are retreating down, after being beaten by levy spearmen.
The doors are destroyed by the battering ram.
The Scottish horde floods in, lead by the general and his bodygaurd.
You can see some nice variation in the soldiers here.
Some scottish units climb the gate tower and attack the walls while the battle rages below.
The archers do their best to shoot them down as they move along the wall.
The archers beat off the Scottish units, and fire down at the ground. My general, and the militia spearmen are wiped out, but fight to the last man.
Not many Scottish units made it to the courtyard. Both our generals died at the gateway.
In a desperate bid to win, I send my remaining unit of peasant archers to the courtyard and open fire.
The remaining trio from the general's bodyguard charge the archers. The archers kill one before being destroyed.
Didn't do to great here, though considering that it was an army of peasants and militia it wasn't too bad.
I've got two more battles ready to be posted if this thread takes off. Both are more interesting, and demonstrate weaknesses in the battle AI. In one I attack a castle, the main attack fails on the walls, but a flanking unit with ladders manages to run all the way round to the far side of the castle, capture the gatehouse and left in my half dozen units of mailed knights.
In the second I am attack from both sides by two seperate enemy armies. I defend on top of a hill and beat both off, mostly because the AI still hesistates when charging large numbers of missle troops.
Posted: 2006-11-11 08:06pm
by Lonestar
...God I hate you.
Posted: 2006-11-11 09:33pm
by Vympel
Indeed. So not fair. I'm now thinking about playing the English first.
Posted: 2006-11-12 03:16am
by Dartzap
Pity this thread was not around yesterday, I;d have made some screen caps of my battle in the Highlands then, it was a fantastic battle, the entire thing was on the side of a mountain - Crossbows at high altitude = Death from Above.
Posted: 2006-11-12 06:53am
by 2000AD
I tend to put my most rock hard unit right in front of the gates when defending, then i can bottle neck the attackers.
Though i haven't had it yet, if there's boiling oil like in Rome:TW then this works a treat as the boiling oil keeps on dropping on anyone in the gate. If you repel any siege towers and ladders you also get a nice chance to use your archers on anyone queing up to try and get in through the door.
Posted: 2006-11-12 06:58am
by Acidburns
Vympel wrote:Indeed. So not fair. I'm now thinking about playing the English first.
The English have great longbowmen and solid infantry. I'm not sure if they still have the pavvise crossbowmen unit, which was my favourite ranged unit in Medieval 1. However, playing as the English mean you get dicked around by the Pope. I had the Scottish down to their last fort at Inverness, and was fighting a series of battles with the French (only captured about one French town, they seem to have a lot of cash/troops at the start) when the Pope hits me with a restraining order on both countries. It was maybe 6 turns against the Scottish, and 10 against the French, (which feels like forever). Problem is, the dirty French and Scottish bastards keep attacking me, I'm only allowed to defend.
I get pissed off and decide to take back Edinburgh (which I lost as detailed above, after foolishly assuming the Pope was also restraining the Scottish) and then take the rest of Britain into control, the Pope be damned!
I got excommunicated of course, which puts a 10-15% morale penalty on all my towns. I've whether through this now, the current Pope died and I was offered to take part in the election of a new pope. I vote for the Danish cardinal, as they are my allies. He won by a major majority. As soon as he is instated, he reconciles me . So it all worked out in the end.
The guild system is fun as well. I have a thieves' guild in London (don't know what it does, but it's something intel related); a forestry guild in Nottingham (+1 experience on bowmen, and gets increseases with extra ranks in the guild. Includes a global bonus eventually!) and an Assassin's guild in France (same as forestry but for assassins.)
Posted: 2006-11-12 07:01am
by 2000AD
Thieves guild is for spies. Spies trained in a city with one get a "trained in thieves guild" talent which adds +1 to his skill for spying (Presumable increases as you get a beter guild)
Posted: 2006-11-12 07:54am
by Acidburns
2000AD wrote:I tend to put my most rock hard unit right in front of the gates when defending, then i can bottle neck the attackers.
Though i haven't had it yet, if there's boiling oil like in Rome:TW then this works a treat as the boiling oil keeps on dropping on anyone in the gate. If you repel any siege towers and ladders you also get a nice chance to use your archers on anyone queing up to try and get in through the door.
I've never tried putting a unit *right* at the gate, I've always formed a ring just inside the gate. I often keep some cavalry nearby who can charge in if my pocket starts to falter. I havn't seen any oil yet, though I have not attacked the largest of the fortresses yet.
Here I am defending against two Scottish armies that are attacking from oppisite directions. We have equal numbers of mailed cavalry, however I have 3 units of archers, they have a unit or two of foot troops. I've left the minmap on to help with orientation. I set myself up on a hill facing outward as shown below:
My General, one unit of mailed cavalry and one unit of archers face left
Two units of archers and one unit of cavalry face the other way
My archers rain firey death down below.
Here one of the flaws in the AI appears. It's units just park themselves halfway up the hill and get shot to shit. I suppose that it was maybe waiting for the other army to get into position, but I'm unsure.
Much the same happens on the other side.
The AI thinks about withdrawing it's troops, changes it's mind back a forth for a while. It eventually retreats on this side.
It finally gets it's shit together and attacks.
However my charge smashes right through the footmen and the first unit of knights, on into his general.
My knights sweep the field.
A heroic victory. 15 men injured, 2 recover.
I have seen this hesitant behaviour from the Total war AI before, it was particularly bad in the first medieval. In Rome it was less pronounced. I'm not sure if it will be a real problem in Medieval 2, most of the other battles the AI has missle troops of it's own, I guess it will become clearer later. Overall the AI sat long enough about for my longbows to use a quarter of their armour.
Generally, I have noticed that the AI will move it's missle troops forward as a sort of skirmish screen to meet my own missle troops. If I have peasant archers, they will engage his skirmish screen, while my superior longbow archers fire on the main body of the AI army. I then send a single cavalry unit out to chase his missle troops about so they can't fire, the AI general fails to respond to this. Meanwhile I'm butchering the rest of it's army. The AI does seem to start an attack after a while, but I'm not sure if this was because I was winning the ranged battle, or because my cavalry came too close to his footmen. Regardless, this tactic has given me some pretty big win ratios against the French and Scottish.
Posted: 2006-11-12 09:20am
by wautd
I'm le french. Conquered all of France and because the Pope is a dick (he wouldn't let me attack England) I'm now killing heathen Milanese crossbow armies in the east and backstabbing Portugueses in the south.
Vive la France!
Posted: 2006-11-12 09:32am
by Vympel
Fuck the Pope. I'd rather get excommunicated than lose the chance to crush my enemies!
Posted: 2006-11-12 02:24pm
by kheegster
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?
Posted: 2006-11-12 02:37pm
by Decue
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?
It is for the insta kill factor, the coolness in just a bonus
Posted: 2006-11-12 02:40pm
by Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba
Vympel wrote:Fuck the Pope. I'd rather get excommunicated than lose the chance to crush my enemies!
Indeed. Excommunication = more enemies to see driven before you. And you can jumpstart the Anglican Church!
Posted: 2006-11-12 02:48pm
by LaserRifleofDoom
Wouldn't excommunication open you up to attack? In the real world, when the pope threatened you with excommunication, you backed down because if you aren't part of the Church, all the rules about honoring all the alliances signed with you Under the Grace of God go out the window and every minor vassal is going to defect from you rather than get attacked by every faithful army in the area.
Or is this not represented in the game?
Posted: 2006-11-12 03:16pm
by MKSheppard
Posted: 2006-11-12 03:32pm
by Ubiquitous
Posted: 2006-11-12 03:53pm
by LeftWingExtremist
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?
Well its good for breaking morale and for making elephants go ballistic other than that not much (well at least in rome it is).
Posted: 2006-11-12 04:02pm
by GuppyShark
And yeah, they do shoot slower with fire arrows on - at least, they did in RTW IIRC.
Posted: 2006-11-12 04:31pm
by JLTucker
How did you get this game? It isn't released yet.
Posted: 2006-11-12 04:36pm
by Ace Pace
JLTucker wrote:How did you get this game? It isn't released yet.
Yes it is. Not in the U.S.
Posted: 2006-11-12 07:05pm
by 2000AD
LaserRifleofDoom wrote:Wouldn't excommunication open you up to attack? In the real world, when the pope threatened you with excommunication, you backed down because if you aren't part of the Church, all the rules about honoring all the alliances signed with you Under the Grace of God go out the window and every minor vassal is going to defect from you rather than get attacked by every faithful army in the area.
Or is this not represented in the game?
Oh yes. If your excommunicated then all your towns get an extra unhappiness boost, other factions don't take a popularity hit with the Pope for attacking you and you can also get crusades declared against you. And you don't want crusdes against you.
Crusades are completely differnet from M:TW 1. Once the Pope has OK'd a crusade request you can make any character and their army declare themselves to be joining the crusade. They have to keep heading towards the target (otherwise the troops start deserting to go it on their own), but:
- They get a speed boost (i think, it certainly seems like this)
- Characters get a stat boost, mainly to their piety.
- Agents in the target area can get some cool traits or retinue people. My 4 priests in a crusade area all got a "crusading knight" who adds 2 to piety and boosts personal security, which was one of the big contributors to me ending up with 6 cardinals and controlling the next 3 Papal elections.
- The best one, crusading characters get a whole boatload of special, dirt cheap, crusader mercanaries. To put things in perspective a unit of mercanary crossbows costs just over 600 florins to recruit. A unit of crusader knights costs just over 300. So any crusading armies are likely to suddenly double in size if they have some room and the commander has some spare money.
So if you get excommunicated you best not be holding any territories the Pope wants.
Posted: 2006-11-12 07:17pm
by white_rabbit
The Pope is the most annoying FUCK known to humanity in this game.
constantly whining about me murdering my fellow catholics, bitching because I didn't vote for him, making me trapse off to Asscrackistan or somewhere similar or he'll excommunicate me.
Then he even decides its time to make me send my Faction Heir off to die in the holy land!
Thanks very fucking much, even if I did end up establishing a crusader kingdom over there.
It does have its pluses, like when the French got excommunicated, and the old fart declares a crusade against Toulouse. I'll get right on it your Holiness !
I've found that the fact that all your crusading units are "free" for upkeep makes it less of an arse to send 8+ units off to die in the desert. Speed of the crusading force is "doubled".
Whats a bit of a cock is if your general dies, your troops desert unless theres another bloke to take over.
playing Byzantium was like a breath of fresh air, Fuck the Catholics!
I plan to take great pleasure in conquering Rome.
Posted: 2006-11-12 07:39pm
by HSRTG
What if you conquer Rome as a Catholic faction? Permanent excommunication?
Posted: 2006-11-12 07:54pm
by Vympel
In the original, if you captured Rome you'd have a puppet Pope, but the problem was the Papacy faction would constantly re-emerge and try and re-conquer Rome, with powerful armies. This made you keep a large stack in Rome all the time to defend it. Should be easier to do in Medieval 2, if they repeated that approach.
Especially with the awesome Trebizond Archers of the Eastern Roman Empire defending the walls.
So white_rabbit, did you hack that file to get to play all the playable factions, or did you finish it as a Catholic one first
Posted: 2006-11-12 08:15pm
by Adrian Laguna
Vympel wrote:In the original, if you captured Rome you'd have a puppet Pope, but the problem was the Papacy faction would constantly re-emerge and try and re-conquer Rome, with powerful armies. This made you keep a large stack in Rome all the time to defend it.
Actually, if you kept Rome and the Papal lands completely ungarrisoned, the Papal Faction was less likely to make a come-back. In my Italian game I did that and never saw the real Pope again.