Medieval II Total War Patch 1.2 Released!

[Darth Wong]

The best archers in melee are the dismounted dvor from Russia. Those bastards can beat English armoured swordsmen in melee, for fuck's sake.

[Darth Wong]

Uh, you're wrong, Mike. Poland also gets Lithuanian Archers who can do that.

Damn ... Poland is one of the few factions I've never tried playing with. Although to be honest, I do tend to have a preference for playing factions that are somewhere around one edge of the map, rather than all the ones in Europe. They all seem so alike.

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.

It's a problem that RTW also suffered from, which is why I applied the exact same "divide building time by 2" solution there.

I've also tried playing with the number of years per turn; I tried cutting it from 2 years per turn down to 1/2 year per turn, the way it was in RTW, but I think that's too much so I'll go to 1 year per turn. At 1/2 year per turn, it takes so long for the Mongols to arrive that most of my settlements were maxed out already. It will take forever for the gunpowder, "world is round", and Timurid invasion events to occur at this rate.

[Vympel]

I'm tossing up whether to play as the Rus (Dismounted Dvor!) or France in my next game. I think I may be getting spoiled with non-Catholic factions (ie no annoying Pope) so it's hard to decide.

One cool thing about the Rus is that their musketeers rule, and they're also Mounted Archer capable - while not as good as the Vardariotai, they're one of my favorite unit types.

[Vympel]

What's the best port (distance wise) to set out for the New World from? "The World is Round" hasn't happened for me yet, but all my armies in the West (except for one making for Lisbon) have finished their work and are refitting at various castles in preparation. I plan to move them all to camp outside one port and load them onto the ships as they come out of the yards.

I've even had cities in Western Europe buildup the best city barracks so I can produce Varangian Guard close to the potential ports - I'll be excising all the spearmen from these armies and filling them instead with Varangian Guard/ Dismounted Latinikon, so they'll look like this:

1x General
1x Kataphrakt
1x Latinikon
1x Byzantine Lancer
4x Vardariotai
3x Dismounted Latinikon
3x Varangian Guard
4x Byzantine Guard Archer
2x Bombard

(I believe that's counted up right)

The Varangian Guard should be able to cleave those Aztecs to pieces with little difficulty if the Dismounted Latinikon get in trouble. And with so much arrow fire I'll be in a very good position to defend.

[Vympel]

The best archers in melee are the dismounted dvor from Russia. Those bastards can beat English armoured swordsmen in melee, for fuck's sake.

Are you sure? I ran a test in Custom Battle with some unupgraded Armoured Swordsmen vs Dismounted Dvor, and the Dismounted Dvor came off a comfortable second best, even when the Swordsmen took the arrow volley as they advanced but not without standing their ground for a good long time - by the time I had enough and quit out, it was 30 Armored Swordsmen standing against 8 Dismounted Dvor (huge unit size, so 121 vs 121).

Here's how the various factions' elite archers stack up (from the FAUST, I have no idea how upgraes are taken into account).

AP = Armor Piercing
sta = stake
2HP = 2 hitpoints

Missile Weapon

Greek

Byzantine Guard Archer ("BYZ"): 9

Russian

Dismounted Dvor ("DVOR"): 11

England

Sherwood Archers ("SHERWOOD"): 13AP*
Yeoman Archers ("YEOMAN"): 8AP

France

Scots Guard ("SCOT"): 9AP

Turks

Janissary Archer ("JAN"): 10

*The Sherwood Archer is obviously the clear victor, but this is not as significant as it seems given that the Sherwood Archer can only be recruited from the Nottingham region

The Dismounted Dvor wins for sheer damage, though the Scots Guard has 9 and Armor-Piercing capability

Melee Weapon

BYZ: 11
DVOR:11AP
SHERWOOD: 16
YEOMAN: 9AP
SCOT: 12
JAN: 10

Ignoring the Sherwood rchers again, the Scots Gaurd is on top, followed by the Dismounted Dvor, then Byzantine Guard Archers (as they lack armor piercing melee weapons, being equipped with longswords rather than axes). Janissary Archers don't make a very good showing, probably being outmatched by Yeoman Archers.

Total Defence

BYZ: 16
DVOR:15
SHERWOOD: 9 (2HP!)
YEOMAN: 5 sta
SCOT: 17
JAN: 13 sta

The Scots Guard have overwhelming superiority in this category. Sherwood Archers again are unique by having two hitpoints, though their defence is by far the lowest. The Byzantine Guard Archers have the second best defence rating, followed by the Dvor. The Janissaries make up for their weakness with a double-digit rating and stakes, but the Yeomen seem to have no excuse.

[GuppyShark]

Also, don't forget the Sherwood Archers have only about half the unit size of Yoman longbows.

[Vympel]

Also, don't forget the Sherwood Archers have only about half the unit size of Yoman longbows.

Good point, forgot about that. Has been over 6 months since I played as England.

[loomer]

Started a new, fully patched game as England. Having Portugal attack Dublin was surprising, as was the sheer badassery of my longbowmen. I forgot how insanely good they are at holding a position when you have 3 units clumped together.

[Darth Wong]

Are you sure? I ran a test in Custom Battle with some unupgraded Armoured Swordsmen vs Dismounted Dvor, and the Dismounted Dvor came off a comfortable second best, even when the Swordsmen took the arrow volley as they advanced but not without standing their ground for a good long time - by the time I had enough and quit out, it was 30 Armored Swordsmen standing against 8 Dismounted Dvor (huge unit size, so 121 vs 121).

My test was in multiplayer, using two computers in order to ensure a level playing field (two humans, identical orders, guaranteed no AI advantage or handicap), upgraded to the limit allowed in multiplayer (unlike Custom Battle, which allows upgrades you can't get in the campaign game).

The nice thing about playing as the Russians is that you don't need to bother building infantry structures in fortresses. Just build archer structures and you get their best combo archers/infantry. Saves time and money.

As for the New World, set off from Spain and go northwest. Take the Caribbean first, then the lone settlement in Florida and then move down to take the Aztecs.

[Vympel]

My test was in multiplayer, using two computers in order to ensure a level playing field (two humans, identical orders, guaranteed no AI advantage or handicap), upgraded to the limit allowed in multiplayer (unlike Custom Battle, which allows upgrades you can't get in the campaign game).

I didn't know that- I knew that the weapons upgrade for a lot of units was custom battle only.

The nice thing about playing as the Russians is that you don't need to bother building infantry structures in fortresses. Just build archer structures and you get their best combo archers/infantry. Saves time and money.

Yeah- I get the impression as the Rus you should really be focusing on the hail of arrows + cavalry (and Cossack Musketeers in the late game) style of play - perfect for the steppes. One thing I'm keen to try is a Rus army with lots of horse archers vs the Mongols. I could never mass quite as many Vardariotai as I thought would give me a comfortable victory over the Mongols on the open field- as it stands, my only victory against them in the open was a massive slaughter where I took 60% casualties to their 100%.

As for the New World, set off from Spain and go northwest. Take the Caribbean first, then the lone settlement in Florida and then move down to take the Aztecs.

Cool.

I decided to take a look at the best Spearmen for each faction in the game as well (pikes excluded):

First number is melee, second is their defence rating.

AC = Anti Cavalry Bonus
sch = schiltrom

English Levy Spearmen: 5AC8, 7sch
Armored Sergeants: 7AC8, 14sch
Spear Militia: 5AC8, 7sch
Italian Spear Militia: 7AC8, 13sch
EE Spearmen (Eastern European): 7AC8, 13sch
Byzantine Spearmen: 5AC8, 7sch
Lamtuna Spearmen (Moors): 9AC8, 10sch
Saracen Militia (Turks, Egypt): 7AC8, 14
Mongol Dismounted Light Lancers: 9AC8, 11
ME Spear Militia: 5AC8, 7
Aztec Spearmen: 7AC8, 6sch

Surprisingly, the Moors are the only Muslim faction that get spearmen capable of performing a schiltrom (invaluable, I find, for killing enemy Generals in the confines of a city, and also good for defence of breaches in walls/ critical streets etc).

But as can be seen, the Greeks really do have the worst spearmen. Their stats are the same as the Spear Militia of other factions, and are left totally in the dust by the others. Worse, their upkeep price is higher than Levy Spearmen! Still, I've never found them that bad at their job, it's just the casualties they take are excessive.

[Pablo Sanchez]

The Rus missile cavalry doesn't get to be any good for a while, because they only start with the rather weak Kazaks and Boyar Sons (just like Spanish Jinetes only not as good!) and can only get Dvors with high-level structures. It also seems to take a long time for Rus to build up, in income as well as structures.

On the other hand, they do have a leg up over every other HA faction in that all your battles in this period will be fought in the best possible terrain for your horse archers. The totally flat terrain allows for huge encirclements, where you missile cavalry can rain javelins and arrows on the enemy until a charge of Druzhina routs him, and then your fast-moving Kazaks can ride them all down.

[Vympel]

The only time I ever had a real problem employing my HAs (Vardariotai, as always) was when I was fighting the HRE on their home territory - their army would often deploy in forests where my arrows wouldn't be effective, so I had to take the "hey diddle diddle, heavy infantry charge straight up the middle" approach and simply risk riding into their rear with cavalry in the forest. It worked, but casualties were higher than usual because unlike all my other battles the enemy hadn't been subjected to constant arrow fire from 4x HAs expending all their ammunition into their rear.

As far as weaker HAs go, I found before I had a lot of Vardariotai as the Greeks that the strength of their missile attack isn't really a problem so long as you attack the enemy from behind- I was getting the same results with Skythinkon and Byzantine Cavalry. The bigger problem is weaker armor and/or if they unit is not classified as fast, because then they might get chased down and really damaged. By contrast, Vardariotai can't be caught generally.

I've never played as Spain so I really have no experience with javelin-tossing cavalry except when fighting Spain (Vardariotai shot them all out of the saddle ...)

[Darth Wong]

Bad news: Rus does not seem to get Cossack musketeers in the campaign game, even though they get them in custom battles. Maybe it's just a bug, but I tried upgrading one of my cities in my Rus game to the highest level, and ... no musketeers. So it's back to Turkey, which gets not only janissary musketeers, infantry, and archers, but also the dreaded Naffatun, who are experts at raining hell down on any enemies approaching your gate.

[Vympel]

Bad news: Rus does not seem to get Cossack musketeers in the campaign game, even though they get them in custom battles. Maybe it's just a bug, but I tried upgrading one of my cities in my Rus game to the highest level, and ... no musketeers. So it's back to Turkey, which gets not only janissary musketeers, infantry, and archers, but also the dreaded Naffatun, who are experts at raining hell down on any enemies approaching your gate.

That's just fucked. What's the point of playing the Rus if you don't get Cossack Musketeers? Not even fixed in the Litemod? (I'm putting that mod on the next time I play).

(could it perhaps be castles?)

The Turks having Naffatun is another thing that gets on my nerves. In the original Medieval, it was the Greeks that had Naptha Throwers, naturally, since it's Greek Fire. The Turks had shit.

This'll only be rectified in Kingdoms, since the Greeks in the Crusade campagin get the "Fire Thrower" unit which is basically a hand-pump flamethrower equipped infantryman (dressed like a Latinikon). I believe such unit is actually more historical than Naptha bomb throwers, but still. They said they may add new units from Kingdoms into the grand campaign, which is badly needed for the Greeks.

One thing I really hope they do is transfer their new unqiue general skins over to the Grand Campaign too- the Alexus Commenus skin should be used for all Greek generals- makes a hell of a lot more sense than the current skin.

And while I'm at it- just why does the Hastings historical battle and the Agincourt battle have custom skinned king-generals and they never bothered to use them for the grand campaign?

[Vympel]

Interestingly, today I found out just how you get "Winning First' (+1 Dread) for your generals.

I had a Deranged, Shameful general in a city (Durazzo) who was doing more harm than good so I sent him out into the wild and hire two Turkoman mercenaries so he could kill all the bandit groups plagueing several of my regions.

I attached a group of renegade Byzantine Spearmen with the Turkomans, completely shooting them dead (no survivors) while never going to melee.

Instant Winning First. Apparently that's not honorable.

[GuppyShark]

I expect there's a certain threshold of missile kills before you get it - most of my generals picked it up very quickly.

[Vympel]

It was this fruitcake's first battle - the two Turkoman units under his command killed a single, 150 man unit. Pretty low threshold.

Not that dread is a problem for me- though one game I might actually go for being chivalrous as much as possible (ie constantly offering ransom).

Re: the Cossack Musketeer issue - according to website's I've seen, they should be available in the campaign game ...

[GuppyShark]

Well, it could also be a percentage. 100% casualties due to missile fire isn't a low threshold.

[The Vortex Empire]

It was this fruitcake's first battle - the two Turkoman units under his command killed a single, 150 man unit. Pretty low threshold.

Not that dread is a problem for me- though one game I might actually go for being chivalrous as much as possible (ie constantly offering ransom).

Re: the Cossack Musketeer issue - according to website's I've seen, they should be available in the campaign game ...

Ransom isn't chivalrous, it's neutral. Releasing the prisoners is chivalrous.

[Vympel]

Just a note, "The World is Round" happens at turn 161.

Incidentally, I wasn't expecting to have to build new naval buildings for the Caravels, but as it stands I needed the extra time to finish moving all my armies in the pacified West (something like four to six of them) to Spain.

I've also managed to assassinate so many Timurid generals (including their faction heir) it's not funny. They've got maybe three generals left. Looks like they're headed to Russian territory, but my assassins are chasing them every turn, trying to kill al their Uber-Generals off.

Oh- and the Mongols? Funny story, I forgot about them - they had 2.5 stacks left after Sofia chewed them up and I destroyed 1.5 of those stacks in an extremely bloody battle near Vienna with my Emperor (Athanasios the Tyrant- he has full dread by virtue of being a very young heir who has presided over the ruthless conquest of pretty much all of the West, not to mention continuous assassinations- he's only like 37 now). So the last Mongol stack (followed by the shattered remnants of the full stack I just destroyed- literally just the general's bodyguard, 40 Horse Archers, and a few Mongol Heavy Lance- ie all those who had a chance to escape the last battle) moved on while the Emperor headed for the nearest fully equipped fortress to refit.

So the Mongols headed towards Italy - where I had no fortresses, no cannon towers, and insignificant militia forces. I started to build up, but here's how dumb the AI is - they were on their way to Venice where they were blocked next to Venice's port by ...

A single bandit Italian Spear Militia. They've been sitting there staring at it for multiple turns now. So many, in fact, that the Emperor's mauled army has fully refitted and is bearing down on them to finish them off.

[Pablo Sanchez]

A single bandit Italian Spear Militia. They've been sitting there staring at it for multiple turns now. So many, in fact, that the Emperor's mauled army has fully refitted and is bearing down on them to finish them off.

I've noticed that the AI is often weirdly reluctant to attack rebel forces. In a game as France, I sealed the Pyrenees with just one fort and two units of bandit town militia who were hanging out just north of Pamplona. Spanish stacks kept coming around, looking to get through, but could take the fort, nor would they engage the town militia.

[Vympel]

I was pretty disappointed - here was a chance to fight a desperate battle against a very powerful Mongol stack (an unremarkable general, however- all the guys from the original horde are dead, save for the Khan and his .1 stack) with cities unprepared to hold them off in any other way than blocking their way with thousands of militia spear points in the streets.

I'm not so masochistic that I'll destroy that bandit with a force from say, Venice (which is actually very well defended - a vestige from when it was my beach head in hostile Italian territory) to let the Mongols come on though. The Emperor of the Known World is coming, bitches.

Last night I also discovered what happens when your Princess successfully marries another faction's general- you get him for your own faction. Never tried it before. I got a capable Rus general that way.

[PeZook]

Last night I also discovered what happens when your Princess successfully marries another faction's general- you get him for your own faction. Never tried it before. I got a capable Rus general that way.

You just discovered that? I think it says so right in the game somewhere

And it doesn't always happen - if the princess doesn't have enough charm, the guy stays with his faction, but you get a really strong alliance with them regardless.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I'm playing a campaign as the Turks and I did something a little different. I decided that after playing Byzantine, Egyptian, and Turkish campaigns in the past, the middle east was just about my least favorite part of the map. So I spent the first few turns (I play on 1/2 year a turn) gathering up all my troops and family members in Iconium, while I slapped together a fleet of dhows. Once everybody was ready to depart, I used my starting Imam to call a Jihad on Lisbon and waved goodbye to Asia Minor. With a nice full stack that picked up good experience bonuses from the successful Jihad, I blitzed all of Iberia in short order.

Now I'm pushing into France and northern Italy, and fighting back a crusade that was called on Toulouse. The HRE Faction Heir who led the successful crusade on Jerusalem apparently heard about the crusade in France and hopped back on the boat with his whole crusade army and his 9 star rating against Muslims to visit me. I threw a full stack of my own at him, leaderless, and they annihilated eachother down to about 150 men from 1500 each. An "average defeat" as the game claimed, but my losses were quickly replaced, and I killed their general and haven't seen a crusade stack from the HRE again.

Now I'm playing ping-pong with the Polish crusade. They're on their third attempt at approaching Toulouse, they somehow keep replacing their losses with fresh mercenaries. I guess I need to completely annihilate them to actually see them off. I also just took Milan in a Jihad.

Picking up your entire faction and moving them across the map makes for wild, hectic gameplay. I recommend trying it.

[Vympel]

I destroyed the Mongols once and for all last night. It was an awesome final battle- their last full stack attacked me near Venice's port, my Emperor on one side, their Khan on the other - the sun was going down - how symbolic.

They positioned themselves on a steep hill and just say there, rocket launchers and trebuchets at the ready. I destroyed their trebuchets with concentrated bombard fire, but there was pretty much no way to reduce them with horse archer fire as I usually did. So I simply formed all my infantry (3x Dis. Latinikon, 3x Byz. Spearment, 1x Varangian Guard) into a battle line (Varangian Guard bringing up the rear) - concentrated all my cav (1x Byz. Lancer, 1x Kataphrakt, 1x Latinikon, 4x Vardariotai, 2x General's Bodyguard) on the left wing, and charged straight into the flaming arrow fire.

It was fucking awesome. Not only did I not need to even committ the Varangians as I though I might have to, the Mongol infantry broke in short order (no match for Western troops, quite simply) and all that cavalry smashing right into their flank just swept them off the field - their Khan was captured attempting to escape from the press of horses massacring his bodyguard. Casualties were minimal, only a few hundred.

I guess that's the advantage of having old-fashioned units - you have them for so long that if you take on a Mongol horde, their experience will be on triple silver or gold chevron so you'll come off pretty well.

And I'm finally building Carracks! First ones will be built next term.