Medieval: Total War II

[alanschu]

I've heard that the expansion for MTW2 will be about discovering the New World.

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No need for an expansion to do that.

 

Now, if they included the rest of the world in an expansion, I'd be able to go discovering, Portugal style.

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I had heard that the expansion will cover it much more in depth, and be the focus of the game. The new world part of MTW2 is pretty small.

[Tigranes]

Bleurgh. The Total War engine can't handle native American warfare.

[Pidesco]

Why?

[Tigranes]

Because the only kind of 'covert' warfare Total War deals with is hiding in tress and (to a limited extent) behind buildings. It also deals mostly with open battles with set armies. We're going to either see native Americans line up in a nice line composed of "Aztec Bowmen", "Aztec Spearmen" and stuff (to which I dont really see a point), or ...

 

I don't know. How *would* it work?

[Pidesco]

A bunch of Aztec warriors rushing you and you mopping the floor with them. It would be easy, but it would be realistic. One shot with a rifle and they'd be running for the hills.

[Tigranes]

That's true, but in that case what's really the point? Total War games are already full of easy opponents, they dont need more time-wasting fodder. The only gameplay benefit this could have is

 

1/ A more dynamic campaign map experience with culture conversion, more involvement with landscape, propaganda / deceit, etc. Somehow I dont see that happening in a xpack to a RTW engine.

 

2/ Guerilla warfare. Again, I don't anticipate such a major break from the design foundations the engine was based on.

 

I suppose they could either give you very few troops (not really fun in this case), and/or have you compete against other European powers. But I've seen waht they do with 'canon fodder' troops in BI and I wasn't impressed at all. TW is for classic European battles and nothing else until it upgrades its engine instruments.

[kumquatq3]

A bunch of Aztec warriors rushing you and you mopping the floor with them. It would be easy, but it would be realistic. One shot with a rifle and they'd be running for the hills.

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Unless they were Aztec Voodoo Zombie Warriors!

[Musopticon?]

 

from ze demo

[metadigital]

Are you making fun of me? Look back a page.

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Any ideas/opinions about what kind of TW will use that new engine?

 

I really want to see Total War: Napoleon

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Well, the Persians had a global (Mediterranean) empire, and the Greeks, before the Romans, including some of the most significant battles of all time. Also Egyptians and Babylonians might be worth a title, too.

 

My favourite option would for Chinese or (better yet) the Mongols!

[kumquatq3]

from ze demo

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That didn't end well.

 

 

EDIT: And seriously, get some stir-ups why dontcha.

Edited October 16, 2006 by kumquatq3

[Musopticon?]

Down tha RTR-ghetto, yo, someone threw out the suggestion that Mongol:TW would model all the affected peoples and cultures on the map. So the game wouldn't actually be about a continent, but an era. From Lithuanian Empire to the harsh winds of Sinkichon sounds a bit utopic, but properly executed and given the same kind of centrism as Rome got in RTW, more units and more elaborate campaign, conquering the known world as Mongol Khanate could be beyond awesome.

 

Of course, the map has to be centered on the historical stretch of the Mongol Empire with Europe on the border and Japan on the other, they could never model the whole Eurasia.

Edited October 16, 2006 by Musopticon?

[Rosbjerg]

Well, the Persians had a global (Mediterranean) empire, and the Greeks, before the Romans, including some of the most significant battles of all time. Also Egyptians and Babylonians might be worth a title, too.

 

My favourite option would for Chinese or (better yet) the Mongols!

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in part we saw both the Greek and Persian Empire in the Alexander Addon .. and I don't think they'll make a full game now that they've recently touched on that..

 

But an ancient era with either Babylon, Egypt or China would be both realistic and really awesome! :D

 

--

 

As Mus? said above, a Mongolian TW game would really be awe inspiring .. as you would battle and reek carnage across so many cultures and places of the world.. and we saw, in part, the Mongolian invasion in both MTW and STW..

Edited October 16, 2006 by Rosbjerg

[Pidesco]

Are you making fun of me? Look back a page.

 

You want to get it on with me, don't you? :shifty:"

[Musopticon?]

Has anyone noticed the music in the Totalwar.com site?

 

"Euro Battle" is perhaps one of the best works of Jeff van Dyck. It has influences from all of his work. I can definetly hear some Shogun and Rome there along with the prevalent organ at the start that harkened me back to Medieval's start menu. I personally hate organs, no matter where used, but that track is just so fitting.

[Gorgon]

" love roleplaying leaders. Actually, if you want any sort of historical simulation going on in your mind, RTW's 2-turn system really kills it; RTW's movement rates and the level of detail on the campaign map means that each turn is rather like a month than a year. Yet increasing movement rates means it's too easy to "go around" things, as it's not simultaneous turns (and can't be, probably, due to CPU constraints), and decreasing the level of terrain / land detail would cheapen the new map system. That, and things like raising armies and buildings would take a lot longer in the number of turns, so that the focus of campaign gameplay would become tactical movements, and I don't think they want TW to have too much of that.

 

A pity, but should still be good."

 

With the old system it would have taken 20 years to march an army arcross Europe.

[Xard]

Updated demo has also battle of Otumbia. Darn it, how can you win that fight? I'm far from bad TW player but that's just too hard. My stupid Cortez and his cavalry don't understand meaning of strike and run in that demo. It's nearly impossible to get them away from the fight and attack again. Heck, in many times they move forward to other enemy units or keep fighting eventhough I ordered them to break from the battle. Also, aztecs have way too high morale against horses. They should be terrified by them. Not to mention their weaponry is way too effective. Heck, my musketeers don't have (unlike they should) big effect on them. Damn it, they should flee when countering powerful gunfire!

 

Aztecs are way too powerful in that battle. Oh well, gameplay over historiality. I'm still little bit pissed though

 

Also, any ideas how to win? <_<

 

Other ways demo rocked hard

 

edit: Does someone have link to that Napoleon mod for RTW?

Edited November 17, 2006 by Xard

[Checkpoint]

OK, so I've played this game a bit at a friend's place and kinda got the hang of it (I've played STW and MTW1 in the past). I played a modded version, though, since I understand that the vanilla one has some issues.

 

One of the things that tries its best to kill immersion is the people-get-200-years-old syndrome generated from having 2 turns per year and people aging only one year every other turn. The mod(s) that I used offset this slightly by having turns only covering one year, but that still meant that people only aged one year in two. Are there any mods out there that splits up years into at least two turns to make aging proper without totally whacking game balance (is it even possible having turns covering less than one year)? I imagine making things more expensive would solve the problem of technology advancing too fast and defending against the Mongols too easy etc.

 

I've seen you posting at TW Center, Allan, so what gives? I haven't had the patience to look through mod threads of a game I haven't been able to play until this holiday. Any pointers would be appreciated since I'm getting this game as soon as my 1024MB RAM and new hard drive arrive.

Edited December 27, 2006 by Checkpoint

[alanschu]

You can edit the turn cycle so that every turn is a half-season, if you are finding the ages of the people to be a distractor.

 

 

I haven't played with the new patch yet (been distracted by a War in the Pacific!!!), but open up desc_strat.txt and change the time scale from 2.00 to 0.50.

 

Here's the FAQ from Total War Center.

 

 

Be careful about making things too expensive though, as it may affect the way the AI plays the game (may opt to just buy units, rather than saving up for buildings or something like that). Also, look for Shaga Wangby's diplomacy mod. It helps override some of the inherent bloodthirstyness that the AI typically has. But don't be a jerk and become untrustworthy (by executing prisoners, executing/sacking too many towns), lest you want people to always be at war with you.

[Checkpoint]

OK, I think me and my friend may have run into some of that AI suspicion by impatiently exterminating difficult-to-appease heathens. We played as the Turks and even though we kept beating the Byzantines and chased them out of Asia Minor and captured Constantinople (which we renamed Istanbul! ) ), they just thought our peace offers were too demanding. It's fun boosting the dread-o-meter, though. We did have a successful softie, though, in Selim the Chivalrous who sorted some dire situations for us.

 

I think that with the emphasis put on seasons and aging every second turn, the most logical course of time should be two turns a year, and that also seems like the original idea. I guess they found that too unbalanced, however, and solved it by simply making turns span a longer frame of time which seems like a bit of a panicky way to address it. The Anno Domino mod appears to be promising, but will it solve this problem?

[alanschu]

I think it was more of a length issue. It takes significantly longer to get to many landmarks in the game such as Gunpowder and the New World otherwise.

[Checkpoint]

Are they scripted like events coming at certain dates? I would have thought they'd come up whenever you reached that "level of technology" through city growth and so forth. I do remember now, however, that there were events regarding the Europeans and Christianity etc in Shogun. Hm, personally I don't mind the wait.

 

I'm more concerned with the prospect of having too easy a time preparing for the Mongol invasion and such if the years "move slower," as it were.

[alanschu]

The bigger events are scripted via the date.

 

And if you're playing the Turks, as a counterpoint to "build up" for the Turks (which I hear are a pain anyways, even at the slower rate), you'll also have to suffer against the Catholic factions that do more build up themselves, and go on Crusades. And if you play with the latest patch, I hear the level of naval assaults flies through the roof.

 

I'd also strongly recommend playing on "Very Hard" for the battle difficulty. The AI no longer gets fake bonuses to morale and attack power, but rather actually tries to use its units more effectively (charge with units that have high charge, and so on), and it makes morale a bigger issue for the battle on the whole.

[Gorgon]

How can I unock all the factions without having to complete the grand campaign a gazillion times ?

 

I started playing the English but got bored with it, now i'm the scots and I have finally gotten a handle on how trading and such works and am nolonge dependant on sacking my enemies to build anything. It plays pretty much exactly like RTW, although city management is less impossible, now you actually have a chance of governing a city without slaughering the entire population once a year to deal with squalor and unrest.

Edited December 27, 2006 by Gorgon

[alanschu]

Check out that FAQ I linked to earlier. It has a way to unlock the factions.

[Tigranes]

Easiest way: go to game folder\data\world\imperial_campaign (might have missed out a folder there) then open descr_stats.txt, then at the top move all factions to playable. Except for a few like rebels, who don't work properly without further modding.

 

I'm using Darthmod Lite right now, mainly for its inclusion of ShabaWangy diplomacy mod.. it's the only thing that makes the game tolerable. I got exactly the same experience as BI: a few new features made it fresh for about 5 hours, then I found out that the AI is still just as stupid, and the game mechanics remain just as, uh, mechanical. It's still a damn good game, but right now and after months of RTW, I dont have the patience for the same enemy betraying me EVERY turn although it's outnumbered 20 to 1, then fighting me just so it can sit there on top of the hill getting shot by my arrows. Still, it was pretty fun being the Champion of the Pope.. I had 10 out of 13 cardinals French, French pope, with a little kingdom in Jerusalem and Acre (Antioch and Damascus held by the Hungarians) and the English as my vassals. Just really miss giving out titles.

 

I'm actually playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms 11 by KOEI... it's a very old series, you westerners might know KOEI from Dynasty Warriors. I hadn't played it since the 4th rendition back in the last century, and they now have battles actually take place on the campaign map. The thing is, this game is pretty damnc omplex - and had just as many variables and so forth as total war games back in its more ancient incarnations. And the AI works so much better. THey honour allianaces; they gang up on you and only attack when the odds are good; they backstab you only with a big chance of success; they use battle tactics very well; etc. There are probably a bit less variables and stuff like that than TW, sure, but it doesn't matter becuase it's so immersive.