Medieval II: Kingdoms

Raesene · Post by **Raesene** » 2007-08-28 08:38am

My newsletter told me it's available on August 28th in the USA (I'll have to wait until 31st).

Anyone playing it already and can provide comments ?

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2007-08-28 12:46pm

WoOt, it's out in four more days here (In the EU it's generally always out on a Friday)

England's Gonna Get Ye'.......

Look at the unit sizes. My computer is going to cry

Lonestar · Post by **Lonestar** » 2007-08-29 04:06pm

Picked it up today. I'm actually installing MTW:2 on my new comp as well.

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-08-29 07:37pm

Screw you guys- Aussies don't get it until 6 September. What total shit.

Lonestar · Post by **Lonestar** » 2007-08-30 06:36am

Vympel wrote:Screw you guys- Aussies don't get it until 6 September. What total shit.

Some Comments: It doesn't load one expansion, it loads 4 "games", so you'll see 4 shortcuts to the campaigns on your desktop. The Teutonic and Crusades campaign is pretty fun. The Americas...not so much. Haven't played the British Campaign yet, and I didn't go more tha a few rounds on any of the others.

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-08-30 08:35am

Yeah, I have no wish to play the Americas campaign any time soon - I'm going to play Crusades first. I can't wait to try out the Greek Firethrowers.

I mean, ffs, the America's campaign has indians mounted on horseback with muskets. That's retarded.

How many provinces on the maps? As many as in the Grand Campaign? Because that level of detail in the smaller regions would rule.

Lonestar · Post by **Lonestar** » 2007-08-30 09:45am

Vympel wrote:Yeah, I have no wish to play the Americas campaign any time soon - I'm going to play Crusades first. I can't wait to try out the Greek Firethrowers.

I mean, ffs, the America's campaign has indians mounted on horseback with muskets. That's retarded.

Yeah, I was put off by the Apaches on Horses!

How many provinces on the maps? As many as in the Grand Campaign? Because that level of detail in the smaller regions would rule.

At least thirty(as that's the threshold for victory).

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2007-08-30 01:09pm

One more day, and it shall be mine!

Screw you guys- Aussies don't get it until 6 September. What total shit.

You'd think a game made by the Ozzie branch of CA would atleast release it there first, eh?

Be thankful, Relic in Canada released Dark Crusade in North America four weeks before the rest of the planet.

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2007-09-01 04:53am

Just got it, I shall install soon

Betcha this thread dies a death until Vympel gets the game

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-09-01 04:59am

The Greek firethrowers are awesome. That is all.

PS. The Americas campaign is surprisingly fun. The units may be lame, but I like the way you start with nothing but a foothold and have to build from there.

Lonestar · Post by **Lonestar** » 2007-09-01 09:06am

Darth Wong wrote:The Greek firethrowers are awesome. That is all.

PS. The Americas campaign is surprisingly fun. The units may be lame, but I like the way you start with nothing but a foothold and have to build from there.

See, for some reason I don't care for the Americas Campaign. I am enjoying cutting a swath of destruction through the Baltic as the Teutonic Order though. Even though the Teutonic order has some serious financial problems...

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2007-09-01 12:18pm

Lonestar wrote: See, for some reason I don't care for the Americas Campaign. I am enjoying cutting a swath of destruction through the Baltic as the Teutonic Order though. Even though the Teutonic order has some serious financial problems...

Funnily enough, I am also looking forward the the Teutonic Order campaign. But for completely opposite reasons

The Americas sound interesting, too. What is the starting period for this campaign?

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2007-09-01 12:43pm

PeZook wrote:
Lonestar wrote: See, for some reason I don't care for the Americas Campaign. I am enjoying cutting a swath of destruction through the Baltic as the Teutonic Order though. Even though the Teutonic order has some serious financial problems...
Funnily enough, I am also looking forward the the Teutonic Order campaign. But for completely opposite reasons

The Americas sound interesting, too. What is the starting period for this campaign?

1500's

I just started as the Apaches. For some reason, none of you bastards told me my nation was being led by the gay Indian from YMCA!

Ah well, it's been hilarious so far, almost a dozen territories to take from around me, all rebels. The Spanish are going to be in for a shock.

There's apparently an "English and French arrive" event. Possible unlockable factions?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-09-01 02:17pm

Yup, the English and French arrive before too long. As the Spaniards, I have to deal with the French showing up in Florida and the English showing up in Brazil, both hungry for territory. The French are something I can put off, but the English are encroaching in a lightly defended area and are going to be a serious problem.

One of the biggest problems with the New World is that the settlements are so primitive to start with, so it takes a long time to build them up to a level where they can defend themselves.

Pint0 Xtreme · Post by **Pint0 Xtreme** » 2007-09-01 02:49pm

Has anyone tried the multiplayer campaign? Is it implemented well or clumsily?

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-09-01 08:33pm

What new units did they add for the Greeks, besides the Firethrower? I recall the Alomonoi(sp?) which are guys with Zweihanders, and also Byzantine Gunners - are they armed with arequebuses? Do they finally get cannons?

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2007-09-01 08:49pm

I've finished the Americas campaign and the British and French are not unlockable. Now onto the other ones.

RazorOutlaw · Post by **RazorOutlaw** » 2007-09-01 11:13pm

I'm terribly curious if the new unit sizes are at all possible. My computer had a hard time with huge unit sizes on medium video settings, but damn that would be so cool to play with. Sometimes when I zoom out there just seems to be too few men on the field.

NRS Guardian · Post by **NRS Guardian** » 2007-09-02 01:38am

Vympel wrote:What new units did they add for the Greeks, besides the Firethrower? I recall the Alomonoi(sp?) which are guys with Zweihanders, and also Byzantine Gunners - are they armed with arequebuses? Do they finally get cannons?

I got it Friday and have been playing the Britannia Campaign.
According to the manual the Greeks get these in addition to their old stuff: Pronoia Infantry, Alamanoi, Greek Militia Cavalry, Archontopoulai, Byzantine Gunners, Greek Firethrowers, and Mangonel. It seems the campaign ends before gunpowder becomes too important so factions only get handgunners. The only gunpowder artillery available is the bombard, but Jerusalem gets Ribaults as well.

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-09-02 02:07am

NRS Guardian wrote: I got it Friday and have been playing the Britannia Campaign.
According to the manual the Greeks get these in addition to their old stuff: Pronoia Infantry, Alamanoi, Greek Militia Cavalry, Archontopoulai, Byzantine Gunners, Greek Firethrowers, and Mangonel. It seems the campaign ends before gunpowder becomes too important so factions only get handgunners. The only gunpowder artillery available is the bombard, but Jerusalem gets Ribaults as well.

Sweet. It's annoying that they're not getting intergrated into the Grand Campaign, but I'm going to play the Crusades Campaign like crazy as it is. It's easily going to be my favorite.

Companion Cube · Post by **Companion Cube** » 2007-09-02 03:10pm

A few questions: Has anyone noticed any glaring bugs in the game? Any of the AI strangeness that characterised M:TW2?

Can you use factions from the expansion in the custom battles, and can they fight factions from the grand campaign?

NRS Guardian · Post by **NRS Guardian** » 2007-09-02 03:34pm

I know in the Britannia campaign that Custom battles allows you to play against Grand Campaign factions with the new Britannia factions.
I haven't encountered any glaring bugs, but I've only been playing for a day.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2007-09-03 02:30pm

Finished the Americas campaign. It was nice, had a good feel to it and cool moments in terms of events. I played as New Spain (duh) and I was really annoyed that the pajama men were still tougher than they should have been. Mind you not as bad as MTW II's Grand Campaign when the game first came out. Mounted Conquistadors utterly pwn all their troops. But they still hold out well against sword and buckler men and such.

I think my biggest problem is properly utilizing my gunpowder units like cannons and especially arquebussiers. I try to manuever them into a position where they will do maximum damage and can't seem to find that in city fighting. I set traps to get the pajama troops to surge out into my prepared firing positions and they all just sit there. And their archers are still too damned powerful. They did not have steel headed shafts so why are they putting such a hurting on my men?

I end up closing for melee and then unleash my conquistadors (path finding for mounted units in cities is still esquisite torture unfortunately) but if I auto resolve my units end up with casualties a tenth of what they suffer with me leading them. Annoying.

Still I enjoyed it. I will be trying Britannia campaign next.

Any advice on how to best utilize the gunpowder units against the pajama boys? Also what changes have been made to the Grand Campaign with this expansion if any?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-09-03 06:20pm

Stravo wrote:Any advice on how to best utilize the gunpowder units against the pajama boys?

Fight them out in the open, with your musketeers on skirmish mode and mounted conquistadores to back them up if they get into trouble. The tight quarters and narrow streets of cities tend to nullify the principal advantage of musketeers, which is their range.

Dillon · Post by **Dillon** » 2007-09-06 03:00am

Playing as the Byzantines in the Crusades campaign is fucking hard. Let's just say I'm going to enjoy massacring those fucking Venetians when I take Constantinople back.

The Americas campaign is fun. I managed to take the whole map as the Apaches. Well, all of the map other than the islands, because I have no way to travel to them. But they were all rebel controlled anyway.

The great thing about playing as the Apaches is how unbelievably cheap the units are to produce and upkeep, and how quickly you can turn newly conquered settlements into major troop production centers because of the rather simplistic tech tree of buildings. Combine that with their unique abilities to use stolen cavalry and muskets, as well as the fact that Apache wisemen can call "warpaths" which are basically the equivalent of crusades, and they're well suited to kick ass when dealing with the other Native tribes.

I had Spain wrapped around my little finger as well, they stayed with me through every alliance that I broke with common allies. The English never had a chance to become a threat, and I had a fun time picking off each new French army as it arrived. Take that, froggies!