Medieval II Total War Patch 1.2 Released!

[GuppyShark]

Since the patch I've been playing again. As England - Longbowmen are making most battles a bit more trivial than I'd like, but having to fend off France, Milan and Germany without being excommunicated is proving quite a balancing act.

I've started becoming a naval power - I just raise full stack armies in England, then ship them off whereever I feel like, rather than try to push through Europe against fellow Catholics.

[brianeyci]

Thinking of getting the game now that I have access to a kickass computer. But I won't get it unless I can beat the demo.

Battle of Agincourt, English side. I always lose, sixth try now. Is there a minimum range for longbowmen, and what do I do with my longbowmen once the French have closed, just tell them to stop firing since they'll hit my own guys? It doesn't seem to matter, since the dismounted French knights always kick my ass. Also what's annoying is a load of guys who come around out of nowhere from the back, French Heavy Calvary. They charge and kill hundreds of guys at once. It gets better if I stay in the mud, but I just get stuck in a neverending melee.

I've tried rearranging the men so the heavy billmen and dismounted English knights are behind the stakes, and I've even tried spiltting my army in half, but doesn't seem to work. I've tried forming a square with all sides surrounded by infantry and the archers in the center, but once the French close my archers just seem to stand there doing nothing.

Also what's the difference between fire arrows and normal arrows.

[CaptHawkeye]

Battle of Agincourt, English side. I always lose, sixth try now. Is there a minimum range for longbowmen, and what do I do with my longbowmen once the French have closed, just tell them to stop firing since they'll hit my own guys? It doesn't seem to matter, since the dismounted French knights always kick my ass. Also what's annoying is a load of guys who come around out of nowhere from the back, French Heavy Calvary. They charge and kill hundreds of guys at once. It gets better if I stay in the mud, but I just get stuck in a neverending melee.

I played and won Agincourt back in the demo, before they fixed a retarded bug that actually stopped Billmen from attacking cavalry that were attacking THEM. (They would literally just stand there and get slaughtered.)

I've tried rearranging the men so the heavy billmen and dismounted English knights are behind the stakes, and I've even tried spiltting my army in half, but doesn't seem to work. I've tried forming a square with all sides surrounded by infantry and the archers in the center, but once the French close my archers just seem to stand there doing nothing.

Organize two units of Billmen and face them in the direction the French backup cavalry will be coming from. In Vers 1 this bought me enough time to deal with the French attacking from the front. It's stupid that they don't defend themselves I know, this bug has been fixed.

Ignore the french crossbowmen, you've got better things to worry about. Concentrate on their heavy infantry. Disregard enemy cavalry attacking from the front except for the King's Bodygaurd. Attacking them is a given.

Order your center line archers to stand their fucking ground. You need every man you can get in the melee because you are short on heavy infantry. You will lose a lot of them, but again, you need every man you've got.

Archers on the far left and right flanks should continue firing into the battle mass. The French are impatient during the battle, and will eventually commit all of their ranks to a single battle area. You will have to commit most of your infantry to it if you want to hold the line. But the mass of Frenchmen will be an easy target for unengaged archers. Loose flame arrows to create panic.

If you don't create a mass route by the time the French Cavalry work their way through the back you are screwed. You need to freak out and scare off as many French Knights as possible.

If anyone has a better strategy feel free to post it. This is what I used to win on "Hard".

Also what's the difference between fire arrows and normal arrows.

They are less accurate but do more damage and create panic amongst enemy troops. Best used against large groups who have lost their commander or suffered heavy casualties.

[GuppyShark]

Thinking of getting the game now that I have access to a kickass computer. But I won't get it unless I can beat the demo.

Battle of Agincourt, English side. I always lose, sixth try now. Is there a minimum range for longbowmen, and what do I do with my longbowmen once the French have closed, just tell them to stop firing since they'll hit my own guys? It doesn't seem to matter, since the dismounted French knights always kick my ass. Also what's annoying is a load of guys who come around out of nowhere from the back, French Heavy Calvary. They charge and kill hundreds of guys at once. It gets better if I stay in the mud, but I just get stuck in a neverending melee.

I've tried rearranging the men so the heavy billmen and dismounted English knights are behind the stakes, and I've even tried spiltting my army in half, but doesn't seem to work. I've tried forming a square with all sides surrounded by infantry and the archers in the center, but once the French close my archers just seem to stand there doing nothing.

Also what's the difference between fire arrows and normal arrows.

Been a while since I did that mission. Archers, set to "Fire At Will" won't normally fire into melee - that will only happen if their targets engage your troops while they're firing, or the archers miss their intended targets. Fire arrows are awesome - they do morale damage.

There's no minimum range on arrows. If they've got no valid targets, you can always have them add their mass to a melee - even if they're not on the front lines (where they of course suck) the pressure they add will contribute.

What you generally want to do in MTW is to break the enemy's morale. I usually focus a good chunk of my might against small forces of the enemy and crush them, which drops their morale into the toilet and they run. Seeing their friends run lowers other units' morale, and so on. Once they're running, sick any free cavalry onto them to get easy kills, since if a unit routs, it may still come back later.

Try and keep your General with your melee forces if the going gets tough. The General gives your men a morale boost when he's in proximity.

Once you've gotten the hang of the interface, threat ranges, etc it should all fall together.

[CaptHawkeye]

Try and keep your General with your melee forces if the going gets tough. The General gives your men a morale boost when he's in proximity.

I haven't done Agincourt in a while, but IIRC, the French are aiming for King Henry during the battle. Wherever he is, is likely to be where the French are going to attack.

[GuppyShark]

You were able to get them to chase King Henry around the field?

[CaptHawkeye]

You were able to get them to chase King Henry around the field?

Pretty much yes. If I sent Henry to one end of the line, they would attack that end. I had Henry do an attack on the French flank while they were engaged one time. (I was losing the battle anyway) When I ordered him to break, the ENTIRE French mass started chasing him. I lost him to a random arrow during that fight. But it was kind of funny.

Apparently those Nobles really don't like him.

[Vympel]

What can I say? Any game that demands such a large time commitment is one that you can't just sit down and play in a spare moment. Another weakness of M2TW (not that I dislike the game, which should be obvious since I keep playing it) is the era. Forget all those people who say the medieval era is an ultra-cool setting for a Total War game;

I will not be forgotten!

the Roman era just "feels" more epic by its very nature. You're Caesar, for Bob's sake. And the different factions have very different styles of warfare, which makes it more interesting from a tactical standpoint. All the European factions have similar units in M2TW, which is reasonably accurate to history but makes for less interesting units.

True, the Roman setting is better, and I can't wait for Rome II, which I assume they'll make after the next game they make. I think there's some pretty marked differences in the European factions though- playing the English is hugely different, IMO, from playing as the Rus, or the Greeks. The Catholic factions are samey though. I remember you saying you haven't had much occasion to use any sort of Horse Archers much- has that changed at all recently? I lurvveeee the Horse Archers.

I'm starting to think (probably from watching Sharpe ...) that the Napoleonic era (it would have to be a few hundred years of course, like always, maybe start in the 1700s and finish in the 1800s ...) would be a good setting if they could get the scale right, because the fact remains that even on the Huge setting, the armies are still too small for the battles the game is trying to portray.

[GuppyShark]

What irks me about unit scale is if you go up to Huge, fighting in cities becomes an absolute mess.

I'd love to play on Huge but the one time I tried it I quit in disgust after fighting my first siege. The pathfinding is bad enough already.

[Vympel]

What irks me about unit scale is if you go up to Huge, fighting in cities becomes an absolute mess.

I'd love to play on Huge but the one time I tried it I quit in disgust after fighting my first siege. The pathfinding is bad enough already.

The problem with seiges on huge (I've never played with anything but so I've simply gotten used to it) is that when you're defending placing your troops is utterly fucked. I don't remember if Rome had that problem because I couldn't play on huge ...

[brianeyci]

Well I tried again. Four times actually. The fire arrows thing helped, but what happens is I manage to cause the mass rout just as soon as their general comes in. Then the general rallies the five routed units and kick my ass. I turned off fire at will and let one unit of archer hit one melee and that seems to work best, but I can't seem to hold off the calvary from the rear. That's if I can cause the rout. Most of the time I can't.

The archers seem to have a minimum range in the demo. I can put them back, but then they don't add their mass to the melee and I die because of not enough melee. But if I add their mass to the melee, they suddenly draw swords or stop firing, even the ones in the back. Archers seem to be unable to fire if they're too tightly packed. I might try again later with "loose" formation but I'm not holding out any hopes.

[Darth Wong]

I wouldn't worry too much about the historical battles. The battles in the game are actually not as difficult as the historical battles anyway.

True, the Roman setting is better, and I can't wait for Rome II, which I assume they'll make after the next game they make. I think there's some pretty marked differences in the European factions though- playing the English is hugely different, IMO, from playing as the Rus, or the Greeks. The Catholic factions are samey though. I remember you saying you haven't had much occasion to use any sort of Horse Archers much- has that changed at all recently? I lurvveeee the Horse Archers.

I've used horse archers before. What I don't like about them is the way they drag out battles. I guess I'm an impatient guy and I like to smash enemy armies with the hammer and anvil, then watch them rout in confusion.

I'm starting to think (probably from watching Sharpe ...) that the Napoleonic era (it would have to be a few hundred years of course, like always, maybe start in the 1700s and finish in the 1800s ...) would be a good setting if they could get the scale right, because the fact remains that even on the Huge setting, the armies are still too small for the battles the game is trying to portray.

Part of the problem is that the range is really small, and that also has to do with the limited game scale. It shouldn't be possible for enemy troops to enter a cannon's range and then run until they're right on top of the cannons by the time the cannons can fire two shots.

[GuppyShark]

I wonder, maybe the Billmen bug is kicking brian's ass? I doubt the demo is up to version 1.2 .

The irony is I fought a battle similar to Agincourt recently in my campaign. I landed an army in Moor territory and sent it against one of their armies. That army was reinforced by the Sultan's garrison in the capital. I was gambling on taking down the Sultan's men as well, thus not having to force a siege.

It, erm, didn't quite work out. I trounced the first army utterly, then proceeded to get hosed by the Sultan's Moorish cavalry charge from behind (despite having kept a wall of spears ready to face it). I had sent my general and the cavalry off to hack down fleeing Moors, wasn't expecting the Sultan to arrive so soon, or for the spears to fall so quickly.

In the end it came down to the Sultan's bodyguard of five survivors routing my archers, it would have been worth losing that army if a single one of my catapults had splatted him.

[Darth Wong]

The most difficult battles are the ones with one or two enemy reinforcement armies, especially when the terrain is unfavourable. You usually have to fend off attacks from multiple directions, and if the terrain is no good, you can't just park yourself in the corner of the map and wait for them to come to you.

PS. Musketeer-heavy armies are a lot of fun. Of course, you only get them in the late game, and only for certain factions, but they have very long range and good lethality. You just need to put them on skirmish mode so they avoid melee combat, and keep some heavy cav around to make sure the enemy doesn't run them all over with his cav (luckily, Spanish late-game cities can train gendarmes, which are pretty good heavy cav). I just kicked the shit out of three English armies besieging one of my cities (and the city didn't even have cannon towers) by parking my musketeers all over the walls and then luring them into range. They have a huge amount of ammo compared to archers.

[brianeyci]

I came really really close, mostly because I was lucky and hit both enemy generals with fire arrows. Almost their entire army was routing, but Henry was surrounded, and got killed before the last of their units routed so I lost. I'm good enough to rout almost their entire army but usually lose because there's not enough infantry so I use Henry and he gets surrounded and killed.

It's too bad they couldn't model Agincourt a little better. I was expecting knights stuck in mud, then retreating churning more mud up. And dismounted knights trying to climb hills of mud, and even more mud. Then archers coming in from the flanks while the fucks were stuck in mud and taking their light weapons and finding chinks in armor, slaughtering the foolish French from the flanks. And of course, King Henry should say once more unto the breach dear friends, not the tutorial guy. What happened historically is thousands of dead from arrows, more than four men per square foot dead and knights trying to climb over the dead bodies of their noble friends. Instead the way they chose to model it is the fire arrows and routing mechanic.

And of course in real life there was no rear attack. King Henry only thought there was a rear attack, long after the battle was done, because his baggage train came under attack by peasants. Then he ordered all the French nobles taken prisoner executed. This was long after the main battle, so I wasn't expecting a calvary charge from the rear.

The medieval setting doesn't turn me on as much as Caesar and et tu brutus, so I might go for Rome total war. RTW is more a classic and cheaper too. And yes, my computers were too shit to run Rome total war before a couple weeks ago.

[Vympel]

The problem with Rome is that though the setting is awesome, the Roman play layout is really contrived. Julii, Scipii, Brutii all with their own personal cities and an entirely seperate Senate faction? Bollocks ....

[Darth Wong]

The problem with Rome is that though the setting is awesome, the Roman play layout is really contrived. Julii, Scipii, Brutii all with their own personal cities and an entirely seperate Senate faction? Bollocks ....

Indeed, it was a curious decision to model Rome as a set of Alexandrian satraps.

[GuppyShark]

I never had much of an issue with it - it's a rough approximation of the internal power blocs, and the Senate provides a bit of a safety net for new players (I recall the Senate marching out and defeating an army of Gauls that had advanced into Italy proper in my first game).

It's probably the simplest way to model a civil war, as well.

[Darth Wong]

I never had much of an issue with it - it's a rough approximation of the internal power blocs, and the Senate provides a bit of a safety net for new players (I recall the Senate marching out and defeating an army of Gauls that had advanced into Italy proper in my first game).

It's probably the simplest way to model a civil war, as well.

It would have been cooler to suddenly have half of your cities go rogue on you, and sprout full-stack armies under a new Roman faction.

[Vympel]

It was a sort of ham-fisted way of trying to model the power struggles between the various great generals of the late Roman Republic - which was a strange decision, given that it was really the reforms of Marius that made those destructive (to the Repubic, rather than Rome) wars between personalities like Pompey and Caesar and Mark Antony and Octavian etc possible, yet the game begins before the Marian reforms even took place.

That aside, a better model would've been for you to just start out with Rome, but Rome spawns multiple, independent generals with their own armies (also raised from Rome) and it's a competition between the families of those generals to capture and squeeze as many nice fat provinces as possible until you've got a critical mass of crack legions, money, and popularity back in Rome to destroy the Republic and make yourself Princeps.

Just like it really happened

[Ace Pace]

Funny fact, SDN shows up on the first 2 pages of Google search on MTW2 Aztecs.

This patch has made me consider installing MTW2 again, playing stock.

[Darth Servo]

the Roman era just "feels" more epic by its very nature. You're Caesar, for Bob's sake. And the different factions have very different styles of warfare, which makes it more interesting from a tactical standpoint.

The RTW soundtrack is also far superior IMHO. What can I say, I'm a sucker for the little extras that go into a game to make it a sensory pleasing experience.

[GuppyShark]

Oh, man, what atrocious luck I had.

The first army I sent to Moorish Spain was massacred as above. The survivors huddled in their ships until the second fleet arrived.

The second army landed, met up with the first, and engaged some Moors that were in the way. An enemy catapult killed my army general.

The THIRD army arrived, but before they could land the HRE sank their fleet.

My fourth army landed on the other side of Spain, with whom I was now at war and no longer cared about our relations. They took up the cross and marched forward. Ever reliable Denmark aided them, and with three full armies, we sacked the Moorish capital.

And then my general was assassinated.

[Wanderer]

I just bought MTW2 and patched it and having fun with the Moors. Gunpowder hasn't arrived yet and Already all of France, Spain, Portugal, Scotland, and Milan is under my control.

I am going to up to VH/VH and discontinue the use of Assassins once I am done.

As for what took me so long to get MTW2. Well, I was having to much fun playing Rome with the Total Realism Mod.

[Dartzap]

Playing as Venice has been vastly more fun now, the VHI are actually useful