M2TW: The French and Spanish features!!!!

[Darth Wong]

Wait till the game actually comes out before doing anything rash, like buying new hardware. Sometimes it's surprising how little hardware you actually need for a game. I actually ran RTW on a Celeron-1.4GHz for a long time and it was fine, until BI came out with its five or six thousand man besieging hordes. My old Celery just couldn't handle the scaled-up armies so I had to upgrade to a 3 GHz P4.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

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.

I plan to just give the late-game Byzantines Turkish gunpowder units, seeing as how by that time the Ottomans will be part of the glorious Roman Empire!

[Pablo Sanchez]

I plan to just give the late-game Byzantines Turkish gunpowder units, seeing as how by that time the Ottomans will be part of the glorious Roman Empire!

Yeah, but the Turkish gunpowder units are going to be Janissaries and derivatives, who would have been utterly inappropriate to the Byzantines.

The problem is just laziness on the part of the Total War people. I don't understand why in Rome: Total War they were perfectly happy to give the Seleucids sweet fantasy units, when the analogous nation in MTW2 (a once-strong nation about to enter total decline) gets fucked yet again. Simply put, the only reason Byzantine forces stagnated in the late medieval period is because the empire stagnated; the player can easily turn this around, so why should a resurgant Byzantium--which would logically be the most advanced nation in the game--be stuck with obsolete units?

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I plan to just give the late-game Byzantines Turkish gunpowder units, seeing as how by that time the Ottomans will be part of the glorious Roman Empire!

Yeah, but the Turkish gunpowder units are going to be Janissaries and derivatives, who would have been utterly inappropriate to the Byzantines.

The problem is just laziness on the part of the Total War people. I don't understand why in Rome: Total War they were perfectly happy to give the Seleucids sweet fantasy units, when the analogous nation in MTW2 (a once-strong nation about to enter total decline) gets fucked yet again. Simply put, the only reason Byzantine forces stagnated in the late medieval period is because the empire stagnated; the player can easily turn this around, so why should a resurgant Byzantium--which would logically be the most advanced nation in the game--be stuck with obsolete units?

As to the first part, I could clone the janissaries and just give them new names and descriptions. Or take the lazy route and just give them to the Resurgent Empire.

As to the second part, I agree wholeheartedly.

[Vympel]

Fuck gunpowder. It's lame. Anyway-

Gothic Knights:

These unique knights are the Holy Roman Empire's elite warriors. Their plate is in the distinctive fluted gothic style produced by the finest German armourers, and includes the popular visored sallet helmet. Riding a plate-barded destrier and wielding a lance and mace, Gothic knights have little to fear on the battlefield. Well practiced in heavy cavalry tactics these knights make a fearsome addition to any Imperial army.

[Vympel]

Hmmm, another unit update. They're getting quicker now:

Mongol Heavy Archer:

The primary weapon of the Mongol army is the composite bow and, as Mongol warriors are born into the saddle, they make excellent horse archers. These warriors have exchanged the mobility of lighter padded armour for the protection of heavier lamellar armour, allowing them to take a little more punishment from both ranged and melee weapons.

Taking the opportunity to completely crush the Mongols was one of the great pleasures of the original Medieval. Can't wait to repeat it.

[Crown]

The thing that has got me wondering is that in R:TW Asia Minor had shitty, tinny cities, and yet historicaly it was Asia Minor that provided for Byzantium's vast power of men, food and resources.

Will this be accurately modeled in B:TW II? I mean I don't want cities in Asia Minor to be Constantinople big, but I do want them to be able to train my army for me faster.

And I agree with Vympel; fuck gunpowder. It's all the more reason to play an aggressive game from the begining and extending the boarders of Empire fucking fast.

Oh and Fire Fly, I too would like to see Constantinople as a unique map, but the walls better be fucking bigger than any other cities, and virtually no upgrades available for them, or else I too will be pissed off.

[Vympel]

Sicily

[Crown]

Sicily

Pfft. They will soon be added to the glory of Magna Graecia!



Still, all these faction features are making me happy!

[Vympel]

I'm annoyed, they're late. I expect them the same time every week.

[GuppyShark]

The Sicily writeup was great. I'm glad to see them fleshing out the factions - the initial information we had on factions was very sparse.

And thanks for keeping us in the loop Vymp.

[Vympel]

No probs-

New 3D Unit, the Coyote Priest:

Some members of the Aztec priesthood engaged in combat alongside regular soldiers. Once they had managed to capture 6 enemies alive, they were traditionally given a fearsome coyote uniform to wear. These men are not just priests but are also hardened warriors capable of both cutting a man’s heart out over an altar and dealing death on the battlefield.

I can't wait to kill these silly little dressup freaks in droves with Gothic Knights.

[Vehrec]

Does this mean that we will get to lead a fantastic Conquest of the new world? Gunpowder units and heavy calvary just carving up those damn natives?

This is gonna be SWEET.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

No probs-

New 3D Unit, the Coyote Priest:

Some members of the Aztec priesthood engaged in combat alongside regular soldiers. Once they had managed to capture 6 enemies alive, they were traditionally given a fearsome coyote uniform to wear. These men are not just priests but are also hardened warriors capable of both cutting a man’s heart out over an altar and dealing death on the battlefield.

I can't wait to kill these silly little dressup freaks in droves with Gothic Knights.

And I can't wait to play the Historical Scenario and surround and slaughter Cortez's rebel army before sacrificing him to the Gods.

Fun for everyone!

[Ace Pace]

Vympel, update title.

Diary!

On a Mission
By Penny Sweetser
Game Designer, Creative Assembly Australia


Hi, I'm Penny Sweetser, a game designer on Medieval 2: Total War. One of my main areas of work is designing the campaign game mechanics, including the design and implementation of the missions that are assigned to the player. In this diary, I'm going to take you through some of the work myself and the team has done in this particular area.

In Rome: Total War, the player was assigned various missions by the Roman Senate. These missions were designed to give players interesting, small, side objectives to pursue to help them on their way to achieving the main objective of the game: global domination. The main campaign can be quite overwhelming, so these missions helped to give the player concrete objectives, as well as give flavor to the game in the form of the Senate.

In Medieval 2, we wanted to extend the mission system to provide more medieval flavor and add greater variety to the types of missions assigned. To do so, we decided to create an array of different entities that would issue the player missions. Each one would have different goals and motivations and assign different types of missions accordingly. In Medieval 2, the player is issued missions from the pope, a council of nobles, and guilds, as well as other factions.

The pope is an important presence in the game and is always watching over the shoulder of Catholic factions to ensure they are on the right path. He expects that players will pay proper respect to their faith by building churches, recruiting priests to preach, keeping the peace with fellow Catholics, and ensuring that their people remain properly loyal to the Catholic faith. The pope issues missions to players to try and ensure that these goals are met. However, the pope himself is the leader of a faction and has his own biases toward different factions depending on their diplomatic relations with him and their dedication to Catholicism. Consequently, he can be particularly harsh on factions that have not been keeping the faith and turn a blind eye to those who are paying their dues. He assigns missions, rewards, and penalties accordingly.

The council of nobles is an entity within the player's faction, made up of men of importance within the kingdom. As such, they generally have the best interests of the player in mind. They give missions to the player to help them expand their territory and maintain diplomatic relations with other factions. However, their actions are sometimes motivated by more personal reasons, and they can issue missions to further their own ends.

There are various types of guilds in the game that can offer to establish guild halls in the player's settlements. Depending on how a kingdom is run and how the settlements are governed, different guilds will be attracted to different regions. Once these guilds are established in the player's settlements, they begin making requests of the player in exchange for certain benefits. Missions that are given by guilds reflect the goals and motivations of the specific guilds. Some of the available guilds include the assassins' guild, the Templar's chapter house, and the explorers' guild.

The player will also receive demands or requests from other factions. These can come from individuals within the faction, seeking external help to further themselves within the faction, or from the faction as a whole. If the player makes an agreement with another faction to carry out a certain action in the future (for example, attack another faction), this agreement will become a mission, and players will receive their rewards when the action is completed.

The mission system itself has been improved from Rome: Total War to provide the player with the most relevant and varied set of missions throughout the game. When a new mission needs to be issued, each mission in the system is evaluated to determine if there is a valid target. Then each valid mission is issued with a score, based on a set of criteria, such as the best available target for the mission, time since this mission was last given, time in the game, the mission giver's attitude to the player, and the player's current assets (for example, money, available agents, and so on). The result is that the player gets an interesting set of varied, achievable, and relevant missions throughout the course of the campaign.

The presentation of the missions have been improved to make them a more prominent and usable part of the game. A Missions button has been added to the user interface, which brings up a dedicated missions scroll, outlining the player's active missions, with information about time remaining, mission goals, rewards, and penalties. Players can also click on any of their active missions to highlight and zoom to the mission target on the map.

After we had a chance to play the campaign game with the new missions, we were able to tune the difficulty, duration, and rewards associated with each mission. It was important to try to balance out the mission system so different types of missions were assigned with the right frequency and that the player receives new and interesting challenges throughout the game. Also, since one of our campaign programmers, Scott Lowther, did such a good job in creating the missions system, we were able to easily add in some new missions and mission variations. The missions in Medieval 2 will give the player a rich, varied, and challenging game-playing experience.

[Admiral Valdemar]

GAME and HMV have the title on pre-order now (10/11 it comes out), and looking at the special collector's set is nice. You get a decent sized map with unit build trees on, a remixed OST CD for those that love the scores done to any TW game. There's also the special case and art cards and making of documentary.

It seems really strange it comes out in just over a month. I was expecting another SIX months for some reason. My machine really needs an upgrade in RAM and GPU if I'm ever to hope to play this.

[Vympel]

GAME and HMV have the title on pre-order now (10/11 it comes out), and looking at the special collector's set is nice. You get a decent sized map with unit build trees on, a remixed OST CD for those that love the scores done to any TW game. There's also the special case and art cards and making of documentary.

It seems really strange it comes out in just over a month. I was expecting another SIX months for some reason. My machine really needs an upgrade in RAM and GPU if I'm ever to hope to play this.

Could it be that it's actually coming out when they say it's coming out? Possibly.

[Admiral Valdemar]

NEVAR1!! My own personal opinion trumps reality, my friend.

I just wish it came out later, y'know, when I can run the damn thing in its true glory without my CPU doing a China syndrome.

[Vympel]

Oh btw, I get my new PC this week.

[Darth Wong]

I'll wait till it comes out. If it runs like shit on my PC, I'll upgrade parts.

[Vympel]

I'll wait till it comes out. If it runs like shit on my PC, I'll upgrade parts.

Yeah, your PC is likely way better than mine- getting this new PC was a long time coming (didn't have M2TW specifically on my mind), because I bought my current one in July 2002. Usually I upgrade every 3 years, but this one lasted longer. Every PC I buy generally lasts longer than the one before

It's got a 1.7ghz AMD 2100+ XP CPU (which I have to put on 1.3ghz in the summer because it gets too hot), orginally only had 512MB RAM (now 1GB), only has an 80GB HD (don't ask me how I survive, I don't know), the extremely troublesome nvidia 6600GT video card (that's an upgrade), a creative audigy soundcard, and an old CD-R drive combined with DVD (no DVD-burner).

Sucks. I've been playing Rome with normal sized units. Have never been able to turn it up higher.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Time to update the title, Vympel. The Turks!

[Darth Wong]

I'll wait till it comes out. If it runs like shit on my PC, I'll upgrade parts.

Yeah, your PC is likely way better than mine- getting this new PC was a long time coming (didn't have M2TW specifically on my mind), because I bought my current one in July 2002. Usually I upgrade every 3 years, but this one lasted longer. Every PC I buy generally lasts longer than the one before

It's got a 1.7ghz AMD 2100+ XP CPU (which I have to put on 1.3ghz in the summer because it gets too hot), orginally only had 512MB RAM (now 1GB), only has an 80GB HD (don't ask me how I survive, I don't know), the extremely troublesome nvidia 6600GT video card (that's an upgrade), a creative audigy soundcard, and an old CD-R drive combined with DVD (no DVD-burner).

Sucks. I've been playing Rome with normal sized units. Have never been able to turn it up higher.

Oh. Yeah, mine is actually fairly current in every area except for the graphics card. I'm running a 3GHz Pentium-4 with 1GB of PC3200 RAM, and my HD is a 320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA2 unit. My Radeon 9600 is a bit on the pokey side according to the spec sheeets, but I've never found it to be a bottleneck. RTW has always been more CPU limited anyway.

[Vympel]

Updated thread title and added my rabid Medieval pro-Greek bias.

Oh. Yeah, mine is actually fairly current in every area except for the graphics card. I'm running a 3GHz Pentium-4 with 1GB of PC3200 RAM, and my HD is a 320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA2 unit. My Radeon 9600 is a bit on the pokey side according to the spec sheeets, but I've never found it to be a bottleneck. RTW has always been more CPU limited anyway.

Luckily, Core2Duo, here I come- spring's just hit and I've already turned down the CPU, but MBM says the thing is running at a toasty 60-63 degrees celsius most of the time. Though I feel absolutely dejected that they're already talking about Quad cores. Jeez, slow down, let me enjoy it!

Incidentally, I've noticed something disappointing in the screenshots, they've actually been quite lazy with the armored horses- those of Kataphraktoi look the same as the Qapukulu of the Turks, in terms of the face armor the horses are wearing- different colour plumage, but that's about it.

And, everyone's favorite slaughter-central from Medieval, Rome, and Rome:BI is back:

Link

I hear talk that the unit lists aren't comprehensive, and they sure as heck wouldn't be- in Medieval, it was the Greeks that had the Naptha grenade throwers, not the cursed Turks.

[Vympel]

Another 3D unit update: Varangian Guard:

The Varangian Guard, most famous of all Byzantine units, was a military levy sent to the Byzantine emperor from the ‘Rus’. Now a permanent unit often used as royal bodyguards, they were initially composed solely of Scandinavians and later on other Europeans. These superbly skilled and fearless warriors wield two-handed axes with vicious abandon, hacking down the Emperor's enemies.

How could these guys not be one of my favorites to play ...

There's also this:

Multiplayer blog entry

Some interesting notes on balance which I assume applies equally to the single-player game:

Cavalry Balance: No longer is there a need to cap cavalry, they kill on the charge but when they stop they are easy targets. Like infantry they cannot be selected and moved as an indestructible mass ”blob”. If you find your cavalry surrounded by enemy units and try and get out of there - bad luck, you are just too big to be missed, even peasants will thrust at your mount. Best of all missiles love cavalry, such big juicy targets, how can you miss.

All Factions Playable: That’s right we have done all we can to ensure EVERY faction is playable in EVERY era, the best thing is we have made many of the factions play very different. So if you have a preferred style of play you will find a faction that suits you and is strong, but best of all if you develop your skills fully you will be able to play every faction equally well. Oh and don’t worry even the Aztecs will do well in all era’s if anything we are looking to tone them down right now.

You better. That's just dumb, the Aztecs suck.