Medieval II Total War Patch 1.2 Released!

[The Vortex Empire]

Couldn't a shot from one of the gunpowder artilleries with exploding ammo knock them off?

For one thing, cannons aren't as accurate as ballista and you would just get a ton of shots going over their heads or under the bridge if you fired from the side. For another, people fly up in the air and then fall back down in M2TW when they get hit, rather than flying in the direction of the projectile that hit them.

Oh. I guess I never paid enough attention to the flying bodies. Maybe that could get fixed in the next patch, if there will be one.

[PeZook]

Jesus, the Ventians just threw away 2500 men (two full stack armies) trying to cross an impregnable bridge on the Danube.

On my side, there's a road going towards the bridge and coming between two hills. I place about 450 crossbowmen on the hills, spear militia in front of them and one unit of heavy cavalry on the road.

The venetians come rushing through, and, well...

There is something incredibly satisfying in watching 450 crossbow bolts slam into a huge mass of men on the bridge. Oh, there were also catapults.

Basically, once they got to my side, they get charged by the cavalry, then by the spearmen, then they break and run. And, of course, not back through the bridge, but towards the map egdes - right through my men.In the second battle out of 1200 men in the venetian army, I took circa 800 prisoners, which tells a lot about the mechanics of the struggle

[Dartzap]

Currently restarted my England game with the new patch and I have to say it's a fantastic watching Billmen kicking arse and taking names. my other infantry units don't even need to engage - the longbows and billstaff are that bloody effective!

[Wanderer]

Things I discovered.

In defending your walls, if you have Trebuchets and your wall has been taken, order your Trebuchets to fire on the wall and you'll wipe out the enemy unit and his ability to get in.

Keep cannons on normal shot, they actually do grazing shots! Very useful when doing an assault on a breach and on the field.

[Darth Wong]

Also: don't even bother trying to stop them at the gates if they knock them down with a battering ram. Keep enough men at the walls to keep those towers firing until the battering ram reaches the gates, and then rush everyone back to the city square (or second level, if you're in a fortress or citadel).

Enemy forces attacking the city square are forced to bunch up in the streets, where they're particularly vulnerable to missile attacks and artillery. They also come out into the square in small groups, highly vulnerable to being swarmed by your defenders.

[Wanderer]

Also: don't even bother trying to stop them at the gates if they knock them down with a battering ram. Keep enough men at the walls to keep those towers firing until the battering ram reaches the gates, and then rush everyone back to the city square (or second level, if you're in a fortress or citadel).

Enemy forces attacking the city square are forced to bunch up in the streets, where they're particularly vulnerable to missile attacks and artillery. They also come out into the square in small groups, highly vulnerable to being swarmed by your defenders.

I keep my Archers on the Walls and tell men at the gate to run and like suckers every time, the enemy chase and forget to clear my walls, so they get shot from behind for a massive shock to their morale

[D.Turtle]

The other advantage of defending at/in the city square: Your troops will never retreat. They will fight until death.

This of course also means: When attacking, never attack the enemy directly in the city square, instead stay a bit outside of the square and shoot him up with ranged attacks - this will cause him to rush his troops out of the city square, after which they will retreat very soon again back to the square, if you do this properly you can shoot up his entire remaining army without having any more, or only few, casualties. OTOH, if you would have just charged the square, his troops would have fought with complete effectivity until death - which means you would have suffered a lot of casualties.

Another thing to remember: Siege weapons love concentrated troops - and where do you have more troops concentrated, than when he charges all his troops through your city gate?

[Slacker]

Are there any particular recommended mods out there I should snag now that I've picked this up? I'm looking at this Blood, Broads, & Bastards mod, and it seems pretty cool. Suggestions? I've just started with MTW2, but I played the first and Rome pretty heavily.

[PeZook]

Also: don't even bother trying to stop them at the gates if they knock them down with a battering ram. Keep enough men at the walls to keep those towers firing until the battering ram reaches the gates, and then rush everyone back to the city square (or second level, if you're in a fortress or citadel).

Enemy forces attacking the city square are forced to bunch up in the streets, where they're particularly vulnerable to missile attacks and artillery. They also come out into the square in small groups, highly vulnerable to being swarmed by your defenders.

I always stop them at the gates. It's when they also breach the walls when things start becoming troublesome.

Tough it does seem to be good advice for defending against a hugely superior enemy force. Also, place some stakes right behind the gate and in the streets - your cavalry won't be of much use in the city anyway, and his will take huge casualties without you doing anything.

[Darth Tanner]

Are there any particular recommended mods out there I should snag now that I've picked this up? I'm looking at this Blood, Broads, & Bastards mod, and it seems pretty cool. Suggestions? I've just started with MTW2, but I played the first and Rome pretty heavily.

I'm using the latest DarthMod mod, its pretty good, an extended map, fixed unit lists, cavalry have been reworked and the author makes claims of having fixed the diplomacy issues but I haven't really seen this. Spain still re invades my coastal cities the turn after paying thousands of gold for peace.

The only thing it lacks in musketeers and artillery for everyone.

don't even bother trying to stop them at the gates if they knock them down with a battering ram.

It's when they also breach the walls when things start becoming troublesome.

One of the most irritating things in this game to me is the sieges with stone walls, having to wait in my city square for what seems like hours while the ai breaches my walls in perhaps a dozen places from maximum range with artillery just so it can then then send everyone through the first breach! If I don't have enough cavalry to sally out and wipe out the siege crew it gets pretty ridiculous.

[Vympel]

One of the most irritating things in this game to me is the sieges with stone walls, having to wait in my city square for what seems like hours while the ai breaches my walls in perhaps a dozen places from maximum range with artillery just so it can then then send everyone through the first breach! If I don't have enough cavalry to sally out and wipe out the siege crew it gets pretty ridiculous.

That didn't happen for me in a custom battle I just did- I was playing as Spain against the Turks, and though they broke the walls down in a ridiculous number of places- they sent em through two breaches instead of just one!

[Darth Tanner]

Ha! well I suppose that is an improvement over my situation.

I don't know why they implemented the wait until all siege ammo expended behaviour into the game, it wasn't this way in Rome.

I'm almost tempted to mod the artillery so it only has sufficient ammo to keep firing for a few minutes. I'd imagine that would rather hinder my ability to take castles myself though.

[Darth Wong]

Isn't that what the "6x game speed" button is for? Or do you check the "unlimited time" option? I personally keep the time limit on. There's plenty of time to take virtually any settlement or win any battle, and if you run into one of those annoying situations where the AI is being passive while attacking, you can just run out the clock at 6x speed.

[NRS Guardian]

In my game as the Greeks I stuck an army of spearmen and trebizond archers on the bridge near Aleppo and the Mongols sent three armies one after another in a single turn. I set my spear men up near the front of the bridge with my archers behind and annihilated 2 of the Mongol armies with the third taking 50% casualties but defeating mine due to the losses from fighting the previous 2 armies.

[Vympel]

Byzantine spearmen are simply too fucking weak. I remember that the IGN preview back before the game came out asserted there'd be Byzantine Spear / Pikemen, but obviously not.

Heck, IIRC, Byzantine spearmen may actually be the worst spearmen in the entire game (excluding militia of course)

To save that situation you've really just got to throw in your cavalry and take them on horse to horse. Backed up by spearmen, Latinikon or Kataphrakts to can take on the best Mongol cavalry.

Byzantine Lancers take horrific casualties though.

[Vympel]

Isn't that what the "6x game speed" button is for? Or do you check the "unlimited time" option? I personally keep the time limit on. There's plenty of time to take virtually any settlement or win any battle, and if you run into one of those annoying situations where the AI is being passive while attacking, you can just run out the clock at 6x speed.

I turn it off when attacking, and turn it on when defending. I'm a gamey bastard

[Vympel]

Anyone else notice that since the 1.2 patch, when you bust the gates down, the camera is off, so you're looking at the space in between the towers instead, showing you nothing? Annoying.

Had a good outcome during the Greek subjugation of Britain - Nikeforus Commenus, an old, successful general, was struck and killed by a Dismounted English Knight - however, the battle was still won (it was quite close - with no Dismounted Latinikon in that army, I had to rely on Dismounted Byzantine Lancers as heavy infantry, and they're no match for Armored Swordsmen) and so the Captain who must've taken over command in that battle became the Man of the Hour

[The Vortex Empire]

Anyone else notice that since the 1.2 patch, when you bust the gates down, the camera is off, so you're looking at the space in between the towers instead, showing you nothing? Annoying.

Had a good outcome during the Greek subjugation of Britain - Nikeforus Commenus, an old, successful general, was struck and killed by a Dismounted English Knight - however, the battle was still won (it was quite close - with no Dismounted Latinikon in that army, I had to rely on Dismounted Byzantine Lancers as heavy infantry, and they're no match for Armored Swordsmen) and so the Captain who must've taken over command in that battle became the Man of the Hour

Yeah, it happens to me too, sometimes. Only on cities, though, never in castles.

[Zwinmar]

First quetion: There are actually mods for the game? I got WoW and havent played either either RTW2 or MTW2 since. so been awhile.

Second, I wont say here how to do it, but there is a way to get unlimited cash and even extra units at no cost to you. Even completely upgrade every city to max, no matter the time period in one turn. Cheating it is, well maybe.

Is useing the toggle_fow considered cheating?

[Vympel]

Well, in my long-running post-victory Byzantine game, the year is now 1392, and I have just finished annihilating, in rapid succession, the Danes, the Moors, the English, the Scots (subjugating the entire British isles in the process) and Hungary. The only factions left now are Poland, the Rus, Portugal, and the Timurids.

Ah yes, the Timurids. They arrived a few turns ago - and Timur the Lame (hehe) was killed in his first battle when he attempted to besiege Tbilisi and was promptly blown away by my cannon towers.

That caused the Timurids to head to the Sarkel region, apparently abandoning their campaign against my empire in Asia Minor before it even began.

I sent a newly recruited assassin after them and against all odds (10% chance of success against these guys) he killed two of their generals in rapid succession. This seems to have had some sort of effect, as they turned back around. Luckily, an army that had been camped outside of Baghdad had just finished making the journey up, and was in a position to attack two of the Timurid armies as they tried to re-enter the far east of my empire from the passes joining the Tbilisi region and Sarkel.

Positioned on the mountain heights- and with mercenary Elephants recruited, I rained death on them so badly that one army was totally crushed and the other withdrew. So that should keep the Timurids out. I love mountainous maps.

Anyway, has anyone been following the new unit feature for Kingdoms?

[Darth Wong]

Trivia question: what is the only faction apart from England to get archers who can plant stakes in the ground when they deploy?

Answer: Turkish janissary archers. The turks are incredibly powerful when they have their advanced structures built, but expansion is slow if you keep trying to build all of these structures because they take so long. Unless you modified the game to cut the build time in half. After I play one or two un-modded campaigns, I always cut the build times in half for Total War games; I think their build times are excessive, as shown by the fact that it's basically impossible to construct all the buildings for any given city size before it's time to upgrade to the next city size.

[PeZook]

Trivia question: what is the only faction apart from England to get archers who can plant stakes in the ground when they deploy?

Answer: Turkish janissary archers. <snip>

Uh, you're wrong,Mike. Poland also gets Lithuanian Archers who can do that. Though I agree with building time - as Poland, I only get the best buildings in cities I conquered, I never seem to be able to build them myself.

[Vympel]

Trivia question: what is the only faction apart from England to get archers who can plant stakes in the ground when they deploy?

Answer: Turkish janissary archers.

Really? You'd think every faction with archers that are "professional" would be able to plant stakes. I know I've missed it with my Byzantine Guard Archers, but then, those guys are practically the equivalent of Dismounted Byzantine Lancers in melee, so perhaps it's a balance issue- what are Janissary Archers like in melee?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Really? You'd think every faction with archers that are "professional" would be able to plant stakes. I know I've missed it with my Byzantine Guard Archers, but then, those guys are practically the equivalent of Dismounted Byzantine Lancers in melee, so perhaps it's a balance issue- what are Janissary Archers like in melee?

They're as good as Norse Archers or Highland Nobles in a scrap, but actually not quite as good in melee as the Ottoman Infantry that become available to the Turks rather earlier in the game. The difference is the ability to deploy stakes, and they also have very good stamina and good morale, which are great to have.

EDIT:
Is anybody else bothered by the "Latin Knight" mercenary units that certain factions have access to? I'm talking about the Byzantine Latinkon and Moorish Christian Guards. These units both come late into factions that are fairly unique and allow you to turn them into what is effectively a Catholic faction without the Popery. I know I don't have to build them, but they still bug me.

[Vympel]

Is anybody else bothered by the "Latin Knight" mercenary units that certain factions have access to? I'm talking about the Byzantine Latinkon and Moorish Christian Guards. These units both come late into factions that are fairly unique and allow you to turn them into what is effectively a Catholic faction without the Popery. I know I don't have to build them, but they still bug me.

I'm not bugged by the Latinikon (they mispelt it in the game) because they're a historical unit referred to in sources from the period. If anything, what bugs me is that even though they're Western European Knights fighting for the Greeks, their equipment remains just as anachronistic with the passage of time as does the rest of the Greek unit tree.

Compare this for example to the identical (in skin) Norman Knights of Siciliy, who when you upgrade their armor change their look completely to more resemble Feudal Knights. This is just an aesthetic complaint though- Latinikon and Norman Knights are identical in stats when upgraded, IIRC. Of course, this goes back to the lazy approach CA took with the Byzantine faction skins - every single one of their units is a variant of the same basic skin with different levels of armor. Really.

The Latinikon and Dismounted Latinikon are IMO an essential unit as far as simple fairness is concerned because the Greeks get assfucked so badly at the start of the game. The decision to make their units "old fashioned" with no chance for matching some of the late-game power houses is mystifying given that you still only get their good units at the same time as all the other fucking factions get their late game units. Whereas you'd expect them to have Kataphraktoi and Dismounted Byzantine Lancers and Byzantine Infantry etc from the start, they've got absolutely nothing. Your only hope to conquer in the early game is Vardariotai for open battles and hordes of the Worst Castle-Built Spearmen In the Game when attacking settlements.