M2TW: The French and Spanish features!!!!

[Vympel]

To be updated regularly.

Awesome

Great screenshots.

[Vympel]

Oh, and there's also a nifty little faction movie too.

[Ace Pace]

Update the title because I'm too lazy to have a dedicated thread for this?

Gamespot is slightly more filling

Religion in Medieval 2
By Dan Toose
Game Designer, Creative Assembly Australia



Medieval 2: Total War is set in an era where faith ruled the lives of men, regardless of whether they were pauper or prince. For this reason, our team here at Creative Assembly has put considerable effort into creating the most robust religion system of any Total War game to date.

At no point did we want to make the game about religion; we make strategy games. However, a strategy game in a medieval setting that doesn't consider matters of faith would be taking away some of the greatest challenges rulers of the time faced: how to be seen as an angel as you conquer like a devil. What follows is a summary, over two parts, of how we went about working that into Medieval 2.

Even though there are many more faiths and denominations that could be included in Medieval 2, we decided on five: Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Islam, paganism, and heresy. The two Christian faiths and Islam represent the primary religions of the game, with paganism now entering its dying throes in the Old World and heresy being not so much a religion itself but a more general opposition to organized religion. For that reason, heresy is the enemy of all other religions in Medieval 2. Religious harmony leads to stability, whereas religious tension leads to unrest and conflict.

As for why we left out certain faiths, it simply came down to the faiths of the factions in our game. Religion can only be spread by a faction that actually builds religious structures and trains priests, so we didn't want to include other faiths only to have them wiped out during the course of our game.

Because of the importance of religion in the medieval period, we wanted to ensure that religion had a significant role to play in Medieval 2 without creating something complicated that the player had to micromanage. The key effect of religion is keeping your people happy, or more to the point, preventing them from becoming unhappy by not providing an environment where their chosen faith is dominant. Each region on the map has its population split up between the five religions. There are other ways religion affects Medieval 2 as well, such as crusades and jihads, dealing with the pope, and diplomatic effects when you find yourself at odds with the pope.

To ensure your religion is dominant in your lands, you will need to support the faith by financing the construction of churches or mosques. Once you build a religious structure, it will convert a percentage of the people in that region over to your faith. The more expensive and grand the building you invest in, the more absolute your faith's dominance will be. This means that once you spend the money on ensuring your faith is dominant in your own lands, the player can essentially let things run their course, unless heretics or religious figures of other faiths enter the lands, which brings us to the role of priests and imams in Medieval 2.

Building religious structures is useful for keeping your people happy, but sometimes you might conquer a region only to face immediate problems because the local populace does not share your faith. This is where creating a mobile conversion force is useful, and in Medieval 2, that means recruiting priests (or imams for Islamic factions). Priests are considered agents, like spies, assassins, and diplomats. Their religious conviction and power is represented by their piety attribute, and it not only affects how effectively they preach, but also how well they combat heresy. In regions where heresy is left unchecked, heretics start stalking the map, and aside from an assassin's blade, being put to trial for heresy by a priest is the only way the player can actively attempt to dispatch these extremely disruptive figures.

While religion has the same basic effects for all faiths in Medieval 2, those of the Catholic faith also have to deal with the authority and will of the pope. What the pope said was considered mandate, and that was something that was often a problem for the kings of Catholic factions, especially if it involved not attacking your annoying neighbor who also happened to be Catholic.

So within Medieval 2, the pope is an extra authority figure to deal with, for those who normally answer to no other authority. If you play as a Catholic faction, you will receive missions from the pope, much in the same way that you received missions from the senate in Rome: Total War. However, the pope has far more personality than the senate ever did. That is because each pope develops individual traits as he rises through the ranks of the Catholic Church.

That concludes the first part of this diary on religion in Medieval 2. In the second part, I'll reveal details of how you manage your relationship with the pope when playing as a Catholic faction, how to avoid the threat of excommunication, the terror of the Inquisition, and even how you can get your own pope elected by rigging papal elections. I'll also look in detail at the risks and rewards of crusades and jihads.

[Vympel]

Meh personally I would've put it in the other M2TW thread, but bah we'll just use this one from now on.

[Ace Pace]

Then can you update the title?

[InnocentBystander]

Hopefully the Pope's crusades won't be directed at a particular country. How cool would it be to see the armies from a half dozen factions charging toward the middle east.

[Vympel]

Then can you update the title?

*grumble*

Meh. Ok.

New unit on totalwar.com, the Berdiche Axe Man

Wielding the mighty “berdiche” these Axe-men strike fear into the hearts of their enemies just before striking into the hearts of their enemies! Berdiche Axe-men receive plenty of training to wield their fearsome two handed axes and are heavily armoured wearing anything from light mail up to heavy brigandine. Many Russian generals use these men as shock troops to soften up enemy formations.

I never really knew what Russian troops looked like in Medieval times, but I like it.

The Holy Roman Empire is bumped off the No. 2 spot in my faction play list. Now it goes:

- Byzantine Greeks;
- Russians;
- Holy Roman Empire;
- England; and
- France.

[Crown]

Religion in Medieval 2
By Dan Toose
Game Designer, Creative Assembly Australia



Medieval 2: Total War is set in an era where faith ruled the lives of men, regardless of whether they were pauper or prince. For this reason, our team here at Creative Assembly has put considerable effort into creating the most robust religion system of any Total War game to date.
<snip>

So within Medieval 2, the pope is an extra authority figure to deal with, for those who normally answer to no other authority. If you play as a Catholic faction, you will receive missions from the pope, much in the same way that you received missions from the senate in Rome: Total War. However, the pope has far more personality than the senate ever did. That is because each pope develops individual traits as he rises through the ranks of the Catholic Church.

That concludes the first part of this diary on religion in Medieval 2. In the second part, I'll reveal details of how you manage your relationship with the pope when playing as a Catholic faction, how to avoid the threat of excommunication, the terror of the Inquisition, and even how you can get your own pope elected by rigging papal elections. I'll also look in detail at the risks and rewards of crusades and jihads.

I know that this is set after 1080 but I was holding out hope that when I can extend Byzantine's boarders to Justinian the Great's level I could drag the Pope kicking and screaming back to Constantinople to have his buttocks whipped if he pissed me off Justianian II style (the slit nosed, not the great ).

I DEMAND IMPERIAL POWER!

Creative Assembly, are you listening?

[Crown]

I never really knew what Russian troops looked like in Medieval times, but I like it.

The Holy Roman Empire is bumped off the No. 2 spot in my faction play list. Now it goes:

- Byzantine Greeks;
- Russians;
- Holy Roman Empire;
- England; and
- France.

If you pay attention to the video, I'm pretty sure that it's a poor Byzantine levy the crazy Russian axe dudes are chopping into. Also on one of the trailers I'm pretty sure we get a look at the Byzantine standard;

B|B
B|B

With the B's on the left reversed though.

Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων

Fucking awesome!

[Archon]

King of Kings Ruling over Rulers.

One of the best State Mottos of all time.

[Vympel]

The first of the developer blogs is out- the demo is in pre-beta and should be here shortly:

Link

This week was demo time, you guys and gals wanted it so you are going to get it real soon. It’s a pre-beta build but still has enough sugar to give you enough of a taste of what the final product will be. There was many a long night and weekend working in the studio to have it ready, not to mention the local Chinese takeaway and pizza shop cooking up a storm to maintain our ever increasing waist-lines and maintain nourishment to those muscular little fingers and bulging eyeballs. This game build hasn’t been tweaked to play just right yet, so no need to spam the forums with “Guns, get it together”, “Pikemen, what the!”, “Missiles, golly gosh!”, “Cavalry, it’s gonna be spam time all over again.” That’s all being done or has been done as I type this message. Check the infantry blobbing improvement and general slow down in combat speed, that’s just a taste of what’s coming.

[Thanas]

according to some pics you won't be able to play with the byzs from the start - you have to win with one of five catholic factions. This sucks bigtime.

Link: http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/C ... mpaign.jpg

[Archon]

according to some pics you won't be able to play with the byzs from the start - you have to win with one of five catholic factions. This sucks bigtime.

Link: http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/C ... mpaign.jpg

It should be easy to open the other factions. It was in R:TW IIRC.

EDIT TO ADD: That is to say, easy to open them without having to play a full campaign first.

[Lonestar]

That really looks more like a R"TW mod than a new game.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

That really looks more like a R"TW mod than a new game.

Are you referring to the graphics of the campaign start-screen? As far as the latter goes, well, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

Also: if that map accurately models the number of provinces in the game, it is way, way too few.

[Vympel]

according to some pics you won't be able to play with the byzs from the start - you have to win with one of five catholic factions. This sucks bigtime.

Link: http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/C ... mpaign.jpg

I'll just download the crack/patch that enables all of them for play upon the start, as was made for Rome. I had no problem playing for the Romans in Rome first, but they can forget about me wasting time on the Catholics and their Pope/Crusade fetish- I'll get round to that when I'm good and ready.

And I'm pretty sure that screencap is from M2TW, not some mod.

[Vympel]

KING OF KINGS RULING OVER RULERS:

Link

Sheer AWESOME. The video is great.

Byzantine Infantry, the hard-hitting bastards from the original Medieval:

Link

The mighty Varangian Guard:

Link

There's a new unit, Byzantine Spearmen. The cavalry units have also been greatly expanded and refined:

- Byzantine Lancers: Link

Well trained and well disciplined, Byzantine Lancers are well armoured and equipped with a lance and a sword. Common throughout the Byzantine Empire, their training and discipline allows makes them very useful on the battlefield, whether mounted or on foot.

(Can Dismount!)

- Latinkon:

Latinkon is the collective term in Latin [Greek, actually] for western European troops, mostly mercenaries, in the Byzantine army. Despite fluctuating numbers, there are enough of them to warrant the position of Megas Konostabllos being created to oversee them. Wearing heavy armour these experienced and well trained fighters are armed with lances and swords and are effective both mounted or on foot.

- Byzantine Guard Archers

Byzantine guard troops are financed by the Emperor himself and unlike many Byzantine units consist purely of Greek troops. Skilled in the use of the composite bow, these troops issue a challenge to all Byzantium's enemies at range. Also equipped with a sword and wearing mail, the Guard Archers can withstand more combat than many other missile units.

- Kataphraktoi: Link

The Kataphractoi trace their origins back to Roman times and are normally recruited from amongst the middle classes, providing the Byzantine army with a force of well trained and well disciplined cavalry units. Well protected and armed with a lance and a mace and although somewhat outdated by modern heavy cavalry, they still make for formidable fighters on the battlefield.

- Byzantine Cavalry: (another comeback from the original game)

Link

- Skythion

Skythikon is the Byzantine term used to describe the mainly Cuman, Asiatic Nomads, who serve the Byzantine Empire exclusively as horse archers. Accustomed to being on horseback in the plains and steppes of Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region, these cavalrymen wear little to no armour and are armed with a composite bow and a small sword.

- Vardariotai

The Vardariotai are drawn mainly from the Magyars that settled in the Vardar Valley, and their descendents. Disciplined and highly trained, the Vardariotai are elite horse archers. They wear light mail to light brigandine armour and fire a composite bow from horseback. Able to relentlessly pepper their enemies with arrows and use their mobility to stay out of trouble.

The Greeks seem to have an awesome cavalry arm. Should rock.

Alan Light Cavalry are also available as a mercenary unit. Artillery is the catapult, trebuchet, ballista, and bombard.

More generic units include Byzantine Militia Cavalry

Used throughout the Byzantine Empire to protect merchants, provincial towns and roads, Militia Cavalry are poorly trained and armoured in light mail armour and equipped with a spear. These men are very good at chasing down archers and light infantry and light cavalry.

General's Bodygard, which is self-explanatory;

Spear Militia

These troops are peasants from villages and small towns across the Byzantine Empire who have been levied into local militias to defend towns, roads and bolster armies. Given some training and equipped with a spear and light little to no armour, these units are useful in support roles for heavier and better units.

Peasant Archers, and Militia Archers.

[Vympel]

There's also a host of generic new screenshots. Some favorites:

Byzantine Infantry versus Russian Berdiche Axemen:

Link

A Frenchmen runs his opponent through

[Vehrec]

With all these outsiders in the army, I keep wondering how effective the Byzantines will be for cost. At times it seems like half the units in their army are from outside the empire.
Anyone care to speculate on just how quickly peasent and Milita troops will be phased out of their armies? I get the feeling there is a lot more low end units on this tech tree.

[Fire Fly]

I'll be annoyed if Constaninople isn't a unique city map. I want waters on all sides and a large, thick wall.

[Captain Cyran]

So the demo is coming out soonish. When exactly is the game coming out? January? February?

[Pablo Sanchez]

I'm actually a little miffed by the preview, it seems like the the Byz are once again going to get screwed in the late game by units that never really evolve. No gunpowder, no improvements to Kataphraktoi, and so on. Hopefully a mod will be released to give them "fantasy" troops.

[Vympel]

I'm actually a little miffed by the preview, it seems like the the Byz are once again going to get screwed in the late game by units that never really evolve. No gunpowder, no improvements to Kataphraktoi, and so on. Hopefully a mod will be released to give them "fantasy" troops.

I was complaining about that bullshit back when the new website went up- it's had a Faction blurb about the Byzantines up for a while, and it made it obvious they were going to do the same thing they did with Medieval. It's really annoying, but I'll just have to win the game the hard way regardless.

[Archon]

Finally...

[Alferd Packer]

Hmmm, gonna need to consider a video card upgrade for this one. An Athlon 64 3500+ should be able to handle this game, though, right?