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

[Vympel]

Speaking of faction favouritism, I don't recall if I've mentioned this before, but the worst example is in the New World. The Spaniards and Portuguese can make Conquistadores (both mounted and dismounted) at any settlement (either city or castle) which has reached at least "small town" size. Conquistadores have almost identical unit stats to English armoured swordsmen. So this basically means that you can recruit tough professional troops from any settlement in the New World.

Meanwhile, every other faction has to take small towns and slowly build them up to the point where they can make decent troops: a process which basically takes you till nearly the end of the game even if you rush over to the New World the moment it becomes available.

What? That's ridiculous. If there's one thing I hate about all the games where you can change history, it's that they put restrictions on you so you can't fuck around with history too much, or, if you do, it won't be as easy.

I just don't get the rationale- what is so inherently "Spanish" and "Portugese" about going to the New World so they can get Conquistadors?

How many stacks should one send over to the New World from the start, to take the place in a single campaign as opposed to building up cities/ castles? (as the Byzantines there's no way I could build up troops there to continue the campaign before the end of the game).

There was one feature in Medieval that I think they should've retained- the re-emergence of previously eliminated factions. The way it'd work is that they'd have a pretender to the eliminated throne appear in the relevant region(s) with an army- ie. an heir to the throne who hadn't come of age (or wasn't yet born) when the family was all killed etc. I think that would make things interesting.

[Trytostaydead]

Here's probably a stupid question: I've been playing in custom battle mode because it's a great way to relax as you have the opposing armies rush you in the River Po and you bombard them to the stone age. But as I'm selecting units, I found the newer units don't necessarily have great stats. Like the Gothic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire have stats far below the feudal knights. Do the Gothic Knights have some other advantage?

[Vympel]

But as I'm selecting units, I found the newer units don't necessarily have great stats. Like the Gothic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire have stats far below the feudal knights. Do the Gothic Knights have some other advantage?

Are you sure? What are the stats, comparaively? Do you mean Dismounted Gothic Knights vs Dismounted Feudal Knights, or Mounted?

If you're right (I haven't checked to know) I'd say look at their special abilities- ie "very powerful charge", "very good stamina" etc.

I don't remember seeing that though.

[Trytostaydead]

But as I'm selecting units, I found the newer units don't necessarily have great stats. Like the Gothic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire have stats far below the feudal knights. Do the Gothic Knights have some other advantage?

Are you sure? What are the stats, comparaively? Do you mean Dismounted Gothic Knights vs Dismounted Feudal Knights, or Mounted?

If you're right (I haven't checked to know) I'd say look at their special abilities- ie "very powerful charge", "very good stamina" etc.

I don't remember seeing that though.

Yeah, the dismounted Gothic Knights. Their stats are like 14 offensive, 14 defensive. While the "lower" knights are 13:21, or something like that. I was just wondering whether the description of their armor might be a factor in it that's not totaled with their given stats on screen.

[Vympel]

Yeah, the dismounted Gothic Knights. Their stats are like 14 offensive, 14 defensive. While the "lower" knights are 13:21, or something like that. I was just wondering whether the description of their armor might be a factor in it that's not totaled with their given stats on screen.

Well the DGK differ from DFK in that they don't get a shield. The DGK get higher damage due to the larger weapons, though. What's their charge comparison?

I don't know why DGK are even in the game at all- they're not in the campaign (much like England doesn't get Armored Seargants) and the HRE already has Forlon Hope and Zweihander units to take the role of Very Heavy Infantry (my own made up category- Varangian Guards, Scottish Nobles, etc)

[Alferd Packer]

Well, it's begun: as the Moors, I'm at war with the Italians. Which faction? All of them!

I'd been at war with Sicily for a long time, so I made a full stack and island-hopped my way to Naples, eliminating them and taking control of Sardinia, Sicily, and southern Italy.

Meanwhile, in the north, Venice decided to get all uppity and I took them on. I had to chew through about four stacks (I hate Italian militia in all its forms, BTW). Milan and the Papacy were quiet throughout this, fortunately. Eventually, I wound up taking Milan from Venice in a heroic battle against 2 full stacks where I captured and executed Venice's faction leader (along with about 1500 other soldiers. My general, who is also my faction leader, gained 3 command stars, 7 dread and 4 authority after the fight from the execution of the soldiers and exterminating 28,000 people when I took Milan. He wound up looking like one of the Mongol Khans: 9 command, 10 dread, and 8 authority.

That was when Milan and the Papacy decided to attack. I brought a stack down from Paris to take Dijon from them, moved my South Italy stack out of Naples to head for Rome, and sent a newly-minted third stack out of Marseille to hit Milan. That one chewed through three stacks and wound up taking Genoa.

In all, my position is very good. Rome is about to be sieged and crushed for the glory of Allah, Venice's back has been broken, and Millan's on the ropes. I still have Milan's faction leader hanging out around Genoa; I think he's waiting for reinforcements from somewhere. I'll take five turns or so to rebuild my stacks in Dijon, Genoa, and Milan before I move to take all of Italy for myself.

Once I take Rome and have that stack in a position to hit Florence or Bologna, I'm going to sweep over the remainder of Italy, then send all three stacks north to gut the HRE, Denmark, and England. Praise be to Allah!

[Vympel]

Pfft, how can you play as an Islamic faction? What, do you love terrorists or something, you freedom-hating cheese-eating surrender monkey?

Personally, I know the Turks are an awesome faction to play, but I will never, ever play them. I just ... can't.

[Walsh]

I started a new game as the Russians the other day. It's a fun faction to play and I love the massive land grab at the start, but Poland and Hungary are a serious pain in the ass, their dismounted knights carve up any infantry I can field without breaking a sweat, and their feudal knights are as good or better than my currently available cavalry. Only by constantly defending on hilly maps and castles where my (shithouse) archers can do some damage, have I been able to avoid losing any territory.

Later Russian cavalry looks very nice but so far my armies are struggling and are totally reliant on superior numbers and on archers taking the high ground. I'm hoping to have completely taken Poland and Hungary by the time the Mongols arrive (their cities are poorly garrisoned, so while they hammer away at my castles I was planning to sneak around their flanks and take some settlements).

By the way, as an orthodox faction, does bribing the pope decrease or eliminate the chances of a crusade against you?

[Vympel]

I started a new game as the Russians the other day. It's a fun faction to play and I love the massive land grab at the start, but Poland and Hungary are a serious pain in the ass, their dismounted knights carve up any infantry I can field without breaking a sweat, and their feudal knights are as good or better than my currently available cavalry. Only by constantly defending on hilly maps and castles where my (shithouse) archers can do some damage, have I been able to avoid losing any territory.

What about Russian Horse Archers? Surely in that territory you should have ample room to maneuver and shoot their Knights to pieces?

Later Russian cavalry looks very nice but so far my armies are struggling and are totally reliant on superior numbers and on archers taking the high ground. I'm hoping to have completely taken Poland and Hungary by the time the Mongols arrive (their cities are poorly garrisoned, so while they hammer away at my castles I was planning to sneak around their flanks and take some settlements).

By the way, as an orthodox faction, does bribing the pope decrease or eliminate the chances of a crusade against you?

I've never had the Pope declare one on me, personally

[Alferd Packer]

Pfft, how can you play as an Islamic faction? What, do you love terrorists or something, you freedom-hating cheese-eating surrender monkey?

Personally, I know the Turks are an awesome faction to play, but I will never, ever play them. I just ... can't.

The Moors are awesome. Once you take Iberia and Africa, you have 12 regions that are unassailable. Their infantry kinda sucks, though, until you get Urban Militia and the Dismounted Christian Guard. Happily, their missile cavalry is competent, as are the Christian Guard and Grenadine Lancers. Heh, it's a bit ironic that two of the strongest units the Moors have are Christians.

[Vympel]

Ahh, so they're like the Greeks- the best melee units they have are the Dismounted Latinikon (who look quite similar to the Christian Guard).

Best cavalry is still our own indigenous Kataphraktoi though (same attack, but lower charge than Mounted Latinikon- more armor though, and not impetuous).

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Pfft, how can you play as an Islamic faction? What, do you love terrorists or something, you freedom-hating cheese-eating surrender monkey?

Personally, I know the Turks are an awesome faction to play, but I will never, ever play them. I just ... can't.

Incidentally, the Turks are an awesome faction to play if you get to take Constantinople early in the game

Yes, I'm a traitor and an infidel.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

Actually I've only ever played MTW1 as muslims. I loved being the Moors. The first time I played I only fought egypt as far as the Sinai puninsula and concentrated on butchering christians (never took prisoners). I loved moving through iberia and into france spanking the english and french than putting the pope over my knee. But they were freaking hard to play. Mediocre infantry, crap cav. I kinda had to rely on archers and nubian spearmen in droves to survive. Than the egyptians start sending waves of armenia cavalry at me but entire armies of spearmen helped. Second time around I held the armenian provinces and took control of the mediterranean before I moved into Europe. Than I just sent the armenian cavalry all over and they saved my ass.

But I've always thought, the turks were over powered. I haven't played the game yet (MTW2) but I saw a unit which was an elephant, with a cannon strapped to it's back. Seriously I saw that and said "Wow that would blow so hard core." I mean it could range you and then when you try to assail it, they stomp you to little pieces. Also the turks get that huge cannon. My buddy was showing me a video of him as the English in an online battle and he sent a bunch units of I believe knights hospitalier against a turkish held hill that had 2 units of the uber cannons that were lightly defended because for some reason the guy had put his units on the other side of the map. The cannons baby powder ass raped the charging cavalry. Four shots wiped out like 1/4 of his forces and he simply blinked in shock. They just dropped dead like whole units just died. Poof they were gone.

[Vympel]

But I've always thought, the turks were over powered. I haven't played the game yet (MTW2) but I saw a unit which was an elephant, with a cannon strapped to it's back. Seriously I saw that and said "Wow that would blow so hard core." I mean it could range you and then when you try to assail it, they stomp you to little pieces.

Actually only the Timurids get those IIRC. But any faction can hire them as mercenaries (my Army at Baghdad hired some in preparation for the Timurid assault).

The Janissary Heavy Infantry of the Turks are really powerful. I've tested them against practically every other type of heavy infantry in the game, I've yet to see them lose. Their awesome-ness must be buried in the stats we aren't told, becuase a look at their attack/defence stats in game reveals nothing special.

Their Janissary Archers are also very good, as are their Musketeers (or arquebusiers, can't remember).

Their Heavy Cavalry (Qupaklu or something) are also nothing to sneeze at.

[Vympel]

Stupid cannon/ballista tower bug. The Mongols attacked me at Sofia and I had forgotten all about the bug- I had, under the mistaken impression that cannon towers fired ballista and vice versa for citadels, knocked down my cannon towers and replaced them with ballista towers.

Lo and behold, the ballista towers shot ballista bolts. I loaded the game, used process_cq to put my cannon towers back- and they fired ballista bolts too.

This is what I get for not investigating the stupid bug.

So I went and downloaded the unofficial bug-fix, made the .bat required to make it work, put process_cq to give back my rightful cannon towers (I had built them once, I don't see why I should wait four turns to build them again when if not for the bug I would never have had a problem at all) and annihilated the Mongol Khan when he attacked.

Now I just need to make sure all the surrounding cities build cannon towers quickly (i stopped at ballista for most), before the Horde attacks them (unless I exploit the bug and run Med 2 without the fix .... lol)

This is really something they should've fixed with the first damn patch.

When's the next one coming out, anyway?

[Darth Wong]

BTW Vympel, I tested that Byzantine gunpowder unit patch and it works, but the units have no skins (so they look black) or unit card pictures (it defaults to a picture of a peasant). I figured out how to fix that, but it's a bit too complicated to explain without long messy posts. If you ever want to actually apply that mod, let me know and I can send you updated files (basically, you have to add a few files in the ui subdirectory and update the modeldb file in the unit_models subdirectory).

While I was at it, I added New World conquistadores to England. I'm thinking of adding them to every western european faction, because it strikes me as ridiculous that Spain and Portugal get such a huge advantage in the New World.

As for the ballista/cannon tower bug, that's right up there with the lack of boiling oil and the two-handers as a personal irritant for me. At least there are fan-made bugfixes out for two of those three issues.

[Vympel]

BTW Vympel, I tested that Byzantine gunpowder unit patch and it works, but the units have no skins (so they look black) or unit card pictures (it defaults to a picture of a peasant). I figured out how to fix that, but it's a bit too complicated to explain without long messy posts. If you ever want to actually apply that mod, let me know and I can send you updated files (basically, you have to add a few files in the ui subdirectory and update the modeldb file in the unit_models subdirectory).

Thanks- I figured there'd be some skinning issues from looking at the files (incidentally, I had no idea I had to make a batch file to get the thing working until I applied the cannon tower fix last night- I thought I could just tack in on to the end of the .exe in "Properties").

While I was at it, I added New World conquistadores to England. I'm thinking of adding them to every western european faction, because it strikes me as ridiculous that Spain and Portugal get such a huge advantage in the New World.

It makes me wonder why some nations get musketeers and others don't (even though they get arquebusiers) as well, now that I think about it. That's less of an irritation for me though.

As for the ballista/cannon tower bug, that's right up there with the lack of boiling oil and the two-handers as a personal irritant for me. At least there are fan-made bugfixes out for two of those three issues.

I'm starting to wonder if they ever intended to put boiling oil in the game at all. The list of attributes on the walls when you click on them doesn't list oil- it did in Rome, though.

My fears about the Mongols were unfounded- they're all focusing on Sofia, where I have a full (field, not defence) stack. Last night I tried sallying out again but two extra stacks were pulled into the battle along with it- I had turned off the "reinforcements delayed- your computer must suck" setting ages ago (because it was bullshit, my PC can easily handle a third full stack) but with *four* stacks (mine, and the three mongol) all on the same battlefield I got some chuginess.

I cancelled the battle and went to bed, it'll take ages for my cannons to reduce that many stacks. I think I might also reactivate "reinforcements delayed" for this battle.

[Vympel]

Well, I just wasted a good hour or so in a sally against the three Mongol stacks that are in the "area of effect" for a battle at Sofia.

The first was reduced to nothing by the cannon towers, no problem. The second was also similarly reduced, though the way they deployed themsleves they caused around 10% casualties each on my Trebizond archers from arcing fire over the walls- this added up over time.

However, my PC started protesting at the thousands of corpses literring the map- to such an extent that when the third stack showed up, the moment I would order one of my troops to do anything, the game would slow to a crawl.

So I exited the battle, going for an honorable draw.

For some reason, the game thinks I would take 593 casualties from that

Why the fuck would that happen? I didn't take anywhere near that amount of casualties, you stupid fucking ....

Oh- wait, I had a unit of vardariotai outside the walls because I didn't want to wait 5 minutes for them to walk 50m back inside the citadel gate. Gotcha.

Did I save the game after that? NO.

I'm leaving the game alone for a few days, no way am I going through that again. God what a waste of a night.

[Darth Wong]

The game engine seems to really chug on pathfinding. Certain kinds of unit movements just make it slow down to an unmanageable crawl, and if the AI tries to move one of its units in such a manner, or past a certain kind of obstacle, then the engine seems to fall apart.

[KrauserKrauser]

Ok, I've got a problem. I unpacked the game to mess around with building times and now I can't enter the battle screen to fight battles without the computer saying no and shutting down the game.

Any ideas? I've got a fun game as Turkey game going but not being able to do actual battles is making the game a bit harder than it needs to be.

[KrauserKrauser]

Fixed it.

Now for the Turkish conquest of the world!

[loomer]

I'm the Spanish in my current game. And just because I didn't like the King, or the Heir, I sent them to England.

With no other troops. And I conquered London. 60 men is apparently enough to brutally slaughter over 230 spearmen and then loot and pillage the capital of England.

I love this game!

[Brain_Caster]

A little question: Does anyone here know any mods that are worth the download? I'm especially looking for mods that make the AI a little more challenging, or at least cure it from it's chronic mental retardation.

[Alferd Packer]

A little question: Does anyone here know any mods that are worth the download? I'm especially looking for mods that make the AI a little more challenging, or at least cure it from it's chronic mental retardation.

I hear good things about Lusted's Lands To Conquer mod, plus, perhaps, Shaba Wangy's Diplomacy mod(might be included with LTC, I forget).

[ArmorPierce]

Does anyone think that this game is a bit too easy? I play vh/m. The reason the diplomacy is medium is because I don't won't to play with stupid broken half-assed diplomacy where you have to micro your diplomats to gift each civ a couple hundred gold every few turns just to keep them from hating you.