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

[D.Turtle]

- The AI will never agree to become your vassal. Ever.

In my game I got the russians to become my vassals.

But only when they had only one city with only the king in it left, and me surrounding it with 3 full stacks.

And it still cost me about 80k.

Ceasefires are also weird - I can usually buy a ceasefire for 50-100k, but try to buy it with regions - they won't agree.

Just for fun I once offered the russians ALL their former regions, plus a few extra for a ceasefire - and they refused. But offer them 100k, and they agree...

Give them a gift of 30k and your relationship with them is 'perfect'.

But the relationship thing doesn't really matter for the AI. I had bribed the Moors ofr a 'perfect' relationship, I left them alone, they were at constant war with the spanish (with short oeriods of peace between them). The Spaniards were reeling under the combined attacks of Denmark, Sicily, the Papal States. So what the Moors do - attack ME, the strongest faction in the known world, who had a perfect relationship with them, who periodically gave them gifts, had helped them against the Spaniards before, and was of the same faith.

Great logic.

The horse archers thing is also weird - I now have my armies consisting almost exclusively of horse archers (Mameluk archers), with spies opening the gates of enemy cities. They rip apart anything in the open field through peppering the enemy with arrows, and the charging in from all sides. City battles cost a bit more, but their cavalry charge is still strong enough to defeat most enemies.

Has anyone else noticed that the automatic conclusion of battles is also quite broken (sometimes in your favor, mostly against you). I've had battles heavily lost in the automatic conclusion, that, when I fought them myself, were heroic victories, with me doing nothing but simply sending my army straight at the enemy, with no surrounding, flanking, or anything...

[Vympel]

That's funny, I auto resolve seiges against minor garrisons, and they always come out in my favour. Though the casualties are always bizarre (i.e. seige engines take the casualties, as if they'd ever do any fighting).

[Alferd Packer]

So the Vardariotai? Insane. An army with eight units of them plus some regular, crappy infantry and Trebizond archers absolutely slaughtered 2 full Milanese stacks. That was an insane battle.

After being attacked by Milan, the HRE, and Sicily, I have no choice but to commit my forces to Italy. I'm knocking at Rome's door right now. Do I get an instant crusade called against me once I take Rome?

[Thanas]

Nevermind the absurdity of Vardariotai having 1 Defence point higher than Kataphrakts- because, you know, Horse Archers with no significant armor to speak of are naturally going to have a higher defence than a fucking Kataphrakt.

Well, historically the vardariotai were the guard units of the 14th century, so they should have a high defence rating. However, their armour is not reflected in their model - which sucks.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I think it's funny, the casualties are spread accross the board doing a fixed percent damage to all units, reguardless of how often they get hit historically. Also, in RTW you had to build siege structures no matter how many engines you brought with you, if you auto resolve. I recall one time I had one turn left on a mission against a barbarian city out in the middle of bum-fuck and I brought up a stack that was one third onagers and ballista. clicked to attack that turn and then accidentally clicked to auto resolve. (my artillery was decimated allegedly (technically the oagers should have reduced the city to burning rubble by themselves, (infact I did reload the auto save and did just that....)

[Pablo Sanchez]

I have once done a successful bribing, it was a france army and got two units of peasants for 7k...

Playing as Venice I had a fair bit of cash, and when the HRE and Sicily simultaneously attacked me while my best army was returning from crusade (the Poles beat me to it), I considered bribing the HRE stack that was moving toward Milan. Talking about one unit of feudal knights, three of dismounted feudal knights, and a few peasant archers and spearmen. They agreed to be bribed... if I paid out 45,000 gold.

I killed them a few turns later with a fat stack of militia units. I find that Venice does very well for me because of their strong militia infantry; I keep raking in the cash because almost every settlement I have (apart from Rhodes and now Vienna) is a city, and I don't suffer that much in military weakness because I have really good militia.

[Companion Cube]

All of Christendom will be awed by the victory we have won here today!

I wish the computer wasn't so prone to standing in one place whilst your archers pound it. The only actual melee occurred when all of my swordsmen managed a simultaneous charge on the enemy line and the knights got their act together for once and pulled off a perfect charge that insta-killed a group of spearmen. This battle was otherwise notable in that the Kaiser managed to catch a trebuchet round with his face.

[wautd]

Do you guys somethimes have an incredible drop in fps in some of the larger sieges? I think there is a memory leak when the PC has too much units on the walls when it's using towers

[PeZook]

Diplomacy is annoying, hence why I decided to forego it completely.
All my allies ever made have backstabbed me, and Hungarians refused a ceasefire even when all they had was one castle, besieged and easily taken one turn later. I find it's more beneficial to keep good relations with a faction than it is to ally with them, since when they become your allies, they immediately start planning to backstab you

Right now, the best diplomacy I find are citadel walls, Polish knights and a strong navy. Nothing quite gets the message of "leave us the fuck alone" like killing stack after stack of enemies with minor casualties.

[Companion Cube]

Do you guys somethimes have an incredible drop in fps in some of the larger sieges? I think there is a memory leak when the PC has too much units on the walls when it's using towers

Definately; in my case it also seems to occur when a number of units cluster around to board a set of ladders.

[Dominus Atheos]

Do you guys somethimes have an incredible drop in fps in some of the larger sieges? I think there is a memory leak when the PC has too much units on the walls when it's using towers

All the damn time. Even when I put the graphics on the lowest setting, it still does it.

[Vympel]

The thing with a fps drop in sieges is a known issue.

As for Vardariotai- it thus makes so much sense that you can get them in 1080 without any buildings, doesn't it

Really, shouldn't the Vardariotai and Kataphtrakts be swapped?

[D.Turtle]

Anyone else notice the abysmal path-finding (especially in cities).
Sometimes units find their way through really easily, other times they won't go to another place even though its a straight line to there.
Also, when sallying out, I periodically have units get stuck at the city gates/walls/houses.

Aztec cities are broken even more: units go through buildings to go from A to B.

Which brings me the the New World:

Its a complete waste of time.
You have maybe 5 regions out there (Brasil, the Caribic, North America and two for the Aztecs I think). The Aztec units are overpowered (I mean, they have fucking clubs and are wearing leather armor with tiny animal skin shields, and they beat up my heavy infantry wearing proper armor and using proper swords, and real shields?!).
Their cities have the exact same city walls as European cities, only their city buildings are different (and they don't have horse units or gunpowder).
Which leads me to the next question: These people have never seen anything like a horse, or gunpoweder - they should be as scared of horses as your cavalry units are of elephants. And gunpowder units should destroy their morale even more.
Instead they have perfect morale (like the Mongols and Timurids).

[Fire Fly]

Anyone else notice the abysmal path-finding (especially in cities).
Sometimes units find their way through really easily, other times they won't go to another place even though its a straight line to there.
Also, when sallying out, I periodically have units get stuck at the city gates/walls/houses.

Aztec cities are broken even more: units go through buildings to go from A to B.

Which brings me the the New World:

Its a complete waste of time.
You have maybe 5 regions out there (Brasil, the Caribic, North America and two for the Aztecs I think). The Aztec units are overpowered (I mean, they have fucking clubs and are wearing leather armor with tiny animal skin shields, and they beat up my heavy infantry wearing proper armor and using proper swords, and real shields?!).
Their cities have the exact same city walls as European cities, only their city buildings are different (and they don't have horse units or gunpowder).
Which leads me to the next question: These people have never seen anything like a horse, or gunpoweder - they should be as scared of horses as your cavalry units are of elephants. And gunpowder units should destroy their morale even more.
Instead they have perfect morale (like the Mongols and Timurids).

Three territories for the Aztecs, I believe. But essentially, that's why every single mod is planning to mod them out. The New World serves no major purposes. By the time the New World event comes around, you already are the supreme power of Europe, not to mention, I hate the disproportionate size of the New World and the extremely bad geography. Is it really that difficult to have at least a proper Central America? RTW mods were able to make huge and decently accurate maps of the Middle East and India.

Edit: I presume it is a bug but does anyone else find that their archers do not fire on the unit that you order them to? For example, they'll be firing at target A and you order them to fire at target B but they keep firing at target A for several seconds/minutes. I think it was reported earlier that calvary units do this sometimes also.

[Vympel]

Official reviews (at least, IGN) said the New World was gimmicky and somewhat pointless too. It annoys me that it was included when they could've spent that time and effort on squashing bugs.

Edit: I presume it is a bug but does anyone else find that their archers do not fire on the unit that you order them to? For example, they'll be firing at target A and you order them to fire at target B but they keep firing at target A for several seconds/minutes. I think it was reported earlier that calvary units do this sometimes also.

Haven't encountered that myself. Do you have fire-at-will mode on? I find that when I turn on fire at will, let them fire a bit, then turn it off, they might fire one more volley before they stop. If I want a unit to target a specific unit, I usually turn off fire at will first so there's no confusion and they don't waste arrows on units not worth the bother from being turned into an arrow-pincushion (did that in Rome too).

[InnocentBystander]

I presume it is a bug but does anyone else find that their archers do not fire on the unit that you order them to? For example, they'll be firing at target A and you order them to fire at target B but they keep firing at target A for several seconds/minutes. I think it was reported earlier that calvary units do this sometimes also.

Yes, I've seen this. I've found that if you manually select each archer and tell it where to shoot, it works. Very annoying.

[Vympel]

The Aztec units are overpowered (I mean, they have fucking clubs and are wearing leather armor with tiny animal skin shields, and they beat up my heavy infantry wearing proper armor and using proper swords, and real shields?!).

What factions/ units did this happen with? The Aztecs can kill Mongol Infantry, which is insane- I've tested that out on Custom Battles ...

(note, this is after peppering them with hordes of arrows and even rocket launchers)

[Darth Wong]

That's funny, I auto resolve seiges against minor garrisons, and they always come out in my favour. Though the casualties are always bizarre (i.e. seige engines take the casualties, as if they'd ever do any fighting).

I have learned the following about auto-resolve, most of which is carried forward from RTW: the auto-resolve algorithm seems to compute outcomes and casualties based mostly (if not entirely) on the attack and defense values of each unit. It is not tactical, and makes no considerations whatsoever for the actual battlefield behaviour of a particular unit type.

Therefore, since artillery units have devastating attack but weak defense, they will tend to auto-resolve with plenty of experience but they will take casualties. Horse archers have weak defense and strong offense, so they will perform similarly. It doesn't matter how these units would realistically behave in combat.

So if you have an army of dismounted knights and the enemy has an army of horse archers, you want to auto-resolve, because then it will just pit the attack and defense values of each unit against each other. If you try to fight the battle yourself, your infantry will never catch the horse archers and they'll be whittled down to nothing by ranged fire. Conversely, if you're the team with the horse archers, the last thing you want to do is auto-resolve.

[PeZook]

...on the north, the situation was different.

Ever since the Danes were victorious against the Holy Roman Empire, and forced the Kaiser to accept vassalization, the Western Polish border was in a precarious position. The Holy Roman Empire didn't seem to have much love for their new masters, and when Denmark invaded the western provinces, laying siege to Stetin, refrained from aiding Poland in the war.

Let us annonate here, that Poland only bordered Denmark in one place: The port city of Stetin lay very close to a mighty Danish fortress in Hamburg, taken from the Holy Roman Empire decades ago. From this fortress, the Danish king decreed, the conquest of Poland should take place.

The Danish campaign happened while sir Boleslaw The Mauler was campaigning against Hungary. Denmark was a powerful country, with good soldiers, accustomed to hardship, strong and brave. Against them, however, stood the finest troops of Poland, motivated to defend their fatherland, coming from all sorts. Bravem tough woodsmen, spear-armed men at arms, nobles and retainers. While defenders of Steting repelled assault after assault of Danish hordes, a magnificient army was raised in the fortresses of Breslau and Halych, and marched against the Norsk hordes, ordered by king Vaclav to repell the Danes and take Hamburg, to deny them a base from which they could launch assaults against us.

This army was ambushed and destroyed completely by a powerful Danish force. As it turned out, Polish infantry was no match for Norse fury, and the line collapsed within minutes of entering melee, broken by fearsome Huscarls charging blindly into walls of spears. The captain commanding this army died in the battle as well, fighting with his men to the last drop of blood. It was a disaster and, once again, it was up to the commoners of the land to defend Poland from agression.

King Vaclav has sent his cousin, Marcin Premyslid, to the area along with all troops he could spare. Russians were running a campaign of skirmishes and raids on the East, and Polish treasury was strained to support all necessary countermeasures along three fronts. Had Venice decided at the time to break the Peace Of God imposed by His Holiness, Poland would surely be doomed.

Fortunately, sir Marcin was a capable commander, and took revenge for the lost battle by destroying the Danish army that invaded Polish lands. Again, mustering an army of militia supported by mercenaries, he dashed agressively towards Hamburg, taking the fortress with the aid of simple catapults and bravery of his men. From this mighty castle, which was soon thereafter rebuilt, expanding it's defenses with an extra ring of walls, Marcin was able to dominate the only way into Poland. Wisely cultivating ties with Danish vassals of the HRE, king Vaclav ensured for the time being that Polish border would be secure. His Holiness intervened soon thereafter, imposing a Peace Of God on both sides of the conflict. For years, the border would finally not feel war.

And yet, it is the year 1130. Danes, possessing of only four cities, broke the Peace Of God and were thus excommunicated by the Pope. King Vaclav is old now, and will soon pass on to a better life. Marcin Premyslid, the architect of this great victory, fell to an assassin's blade. Can the walls of Hamburg stop another incursion by the Danes? Piotr Of Elblag, the King's son-in-law, now defends the border, along with a mighty force, much stronger than the last grand army lost against the Danes. With continuing pressure in the East, Danes invading from the West, and a war in Italy waged by a crusading member of the royal family, as well as dynastic problems, Poland may yet have to fight for it's survival once more. The current heir has no wife, no sons, and has turned fifty. Even darker times may come when the line of succesion is not clearly marked for all to see...

[D.Turtle]

What factions/ units did this happen with? The Aztecs can kill Mongol Infantry, which is insane- I've tested that out on Custom Battles ...

(note, this is after peppering them with hordes of arrows and even rocket launchers)

Ok, my memories were not quite perfect.

Here is what units I had (with the egyptians):

Tabardariyaa (axe men with 20 attack and 11 defence, no shield), Saracean Militia (spearmen with shields), spear militia, arabian cavalry, mameluk archers, sudanese shooters (armed with guns - who barely, if ever shoot - totally useless).

I couldn't defeat them when fighting them myself (even with half a stack of native troops), as they wouldn't retreat (probably also has something to do with playing on hard, but its still stupid) and beat up my troops quite badly (which is crazy). The native troops almost turned the tide, but I had lost too much by then - auto resolve massacred the enemy and I won...

I've noticed in other battles that the Tabardariyaa suck - even though they have these amazing statistics and are the best unit you can train fro the militia barracks (and even though you train them in cities from your militia barracks, they cost upkeep in cities...). So I barely if ever use them - why I trained some for use in the Americas is something I don't know

[Pablo Sanchez]

I've noticed in other battles that the Tabardariyaa suck - even though they have these amazing statistics and are the best unit you can train fro the militia barracks (and even though you train them in cities from your militia barracks, they cost upkeep in cities...). So I barely if ever use them - why I trained some for use in the Americas is something I don't know

This is actually a known, weird issue with certain M2TW units, in that they behave in ways their stats wouldn't indicate. For example, the best infantry unit in the game is, bar none, the Janissary Infantry. Their stats are kind of bleh compared to advanced dismounted knights and others, but in practice they will completely annihilate anything they come to grips with. Venetian heavy infantry are also very powerful.

[InnocentBystander]

This is actually a known, weird issue with certain M2TW units, in that they behave in ways their stats wouldn't indicate. For example, the best infantry unit in the game is, bar none, the Janissary Infantry. Their stats are kind of bleh compared to advanced dismounted knights and others, but in practice they will completely annihilate anything they come to grips with. Venetian heavy infantry are also very powerful.

I'm always extremely surprised at how poorly professional troops do against militia.

Of all the units in the game, I hate Turomans the most, I once saw a single unit of them nearly destory and route two full, veteran, units of Knights Hospitallar in a city street. They just took on some of the best (stat wise) cavalry available, and owned them. They'd have taken both groups down if I didn't move up a unit of spearmen.

Also, anyone know why Broken Lances have such high upkeep costs for such low stats? I don't see why you'd build them over cavalry militia (which I find to be top notch, not seen them do any worse than the armored feudal/hospitallar cavalry).


As an aside, I've just started fighting england, and I notice how they look rather... unique. Looking at their army of various levels of Billmen, English knights, archers of many falvors, and other troops that look completely different from what I field, I kinda get the feeling that Venice (and Milan, Sicily, HRE, Hungary, and perhaps other euro nations that I have not come into conflict with) got the short end of the stick in terms of interesting troops.

[Vympel]

This is actually a known, weird issue with certain M2TW units, in that they behave in ways their stats wouldn't indicate. For example, the best infantry unit in the game is, bar none, the Janissary Infantry. Their stats are kind of bleh compared to advanced dismounted knights and others, but in practice they will completely annihilate anything they come to grips with. Venetian heavy infantry are also very powerful.

Don't get me started about Janissary Infantry. They're just fucking crazy. Why the hell don't the stats mean anything? I sent all sorts of different enemy infantry types against them, they all got frakking pasted.

Is this sort of stuff being mentioned on the forums where CA looks?

As an aside, I've just started fighting england, and I notice how they look rather... unique. Looking at their army of various levels of Billmen, English knights, archers of many falvors, and other troops that look completely different from what I field, I kinda get the feeling that Venice (and Milan, Sicily, HRE, Hungary, and perhaps other euro nations that I have not come into conflict with) got the short end of the stick in terms of interesting troops.

You must be joking- for "the short end of interesting troops" look no further than the Byzantines. Once upgraded, all the units have virtually the same skin with minor modifications, for frak's sake.

[GuppyShark]

That's to be expected from an unlock faction, though.

[Vympel]

That's to be expected from an unlock faction, though.

No it's not. The majority of the factions in the game are unlock factions- none of them display that level of sameness.