Medieval II: Total War

[Coldbeard]

I'm in love!

Anyone else playing this awesome game?

Fear ze might of ze Holy Roman Empire!

 

[Yeke]

Yeah been playing it quite a bit to be honest I think the AI is a bit of a letdown and at times worse than rome add to the fact that it blatently cheats IE bizare things happening at crucial times also some pretty buggy "features".

Its a decent game but not any real progression from rome imo.

 

[Levin]

I'm waiting for some patches before i go and buy this game.. i'm doing well enough with R:TW and all its great mods in the meantime.

 

[Coldbeard]

Agree with most points mentioned above. The AI needs a fix! However I don't think that they have changed the game much is a negative thing, nor the lack the of progression. After all, why fix something that already works?

I needed a change of era also, played RTW way too much

 

[Andrilyn]

It's a nice game but like people said in above posts the AI is really crap, fights where the AI just doesn't do anything and just let's you shoot them down from range not to mention starting a war with me for no reason what so ever.
Also it seems the developers put alot more effort into the Europe factions (better synergy between units, decent early game and late game units etc) which is a shame because I love playing for an Islamic faction (keel the Pope <o/).

 

[Coldbeard]

AI is indeed the biggest problem:

AI in keep sieges is weak and needs to be reworked, units often stand within missile range taking damage without doing anything and the computer has some wierd bombard strategies.

Factions behaviour is strange, factions that are allied with me declare war on me so they can blockade one of my ports for 2 turns. Usually I these factions are much weaker than me and can easily be destroyed in a few turns. Totally irrational behaviour.

Also I think cavalery units act wierd, stop in middle of charge and sometimes the whole group spreads out in all direction for no appearent reason. I had one group of Templars that died fighting a mounted archer unit in melee, was a bit ... hmm.

Can't comment on Islamic factions, as I haven't played them nor played much vs them. I encountered Egypt on a crusade, and despite Egypt being the strongest factions they were easy pushovers. I think there should be a reward for capturing Jerusalem and a bonus when it comes to standings with the Pope. I led a crusade that captured Jerusalem, and the pope still hated me :x

Bring on the patches!

 

[Andrilyn]

Just hoard over as much gold as you can spare to the Papal states then you get full "love" bar from the pope even if he has your faction really low on that list.
Also shit when someone attacks you and you repel their attack and want to give them a little payback then all of a sudden the Pope starts freaking out telling you if you do not stop hostilities against that faction you'll be excommunicated etc :d

How I love calling Jihads against the Papal states.. just wish they would give the Islamic factions some better units and some less hassle from the Mongols as you need to spend tons of cash to repel them and repair and retrain your units when they enter the game :s

 

[Bracken]

Bought the game, played it solidly for a week now waiting for the much needed patch. Gone back to RTW for a bit while I'm waiting

 

[Yeke]

However I don't think that they have changed the game much is a negative thing, nor the lack the of progression. After all, why fix something that already works?

I just think it could have been better, for instance naval battles they were never interesting and still arn't to the point I hardly bother with them would have liked to see them do something with them to make them more enjoyable.

Wasn't looking for huge changes just some small ones tbh since rtw was great but with some small tweaks and improvements mtw2 could have been much better imo

 

[Ormorof]

i love it, i got lucky though and managed the 45 provinces + jerusalem just before the mongols attacked Jerusalem and kicked my ass

they had a max command and dread general with thousands of experienced troops and i had a weeny crusader army

 

[Morchaoron]

yes the AI is a bit stupid in battles and in politics aswell...



but what i real hate is when they have like 1 catapult and just HAVE to destroy every segement of the wall even tho they could just walk in already... makes me wish i could do time x20

 

[snushanen]

I love this game too, been playing it a bit when i am off duty.

I dont like the way the pope acts. When France attack me its OK, when I attack one of their cities the pope excommunicate me

And i also hope they will fix the bugs you guys have stated

 

[Rulke]

Took me a while to warm to it, but I'm hooked

Played on medium as spain, then hard as scotland (ofc!) now very hard as byzantium. Not noticing any major differences except the AI uses more agents - I cant really use any priests or merchants cos they get killed within a few turns

Lets hope the patch addresses the AI and that annoying charge bug. Still, I might have to put more effort in if I can't destroy whole armies with a few horse archer units.

Btw I thought the pope interaction was ok, if you keep your rep high with him and you fail those "dont attack" missions he wont excommunicate you, just be a bit mad. So just build lots of big churches, cathederals or higher and the pope will be your friend. Oh, or win a crusade!

 

[Coldbeard]

Campaign difficulty really varies from what faction you pick. A friend of mine picked England, and he can wage war on one single faction at a time. I play The Holy Roman Empire, and basically the whole world is against me :/

 

[cHodAX]

I play The Holy Roman Empire, and basically the whole world is against me :/

Sweet, I will play them next. On the Russians atm, none of the AI factions wants to take them on. England, Spain and Scotland were far too easy.

 

[Yeke]

Campaign difficulty really varies from what faction you pick. A friend of mine picked England, and he can wage war on one single faction at a time. I play The Holy Roman Empire, and basically the whole world is against me :/

Aye thats who I picked on my first game and ashamed as I am failed to complete the objectives, got drawn into trying to defend EVERYTHING and with the crippling cost of repairing often ended up crawling along and falling behind :<

Spain, England and scotland are all fairly easy havn't tried milan yet but assume they would be along the same lines as the holy roman empire.

 

[Morchaoron]

What difficulty you guys play? if you want to make it more challenging you could ajust the difficulty, i recall that in RTW Very Hard on battles gave the enemy a big morale bonus and Very Hard campaigns gave each opponent 10000 extra gold each turn, its probably the same in this game

i actually completed the game with the Julii faction on very hard/very hard tho, it was very challenging in the beginning (due to the 10k extra gold for noobie factions, but became really easy later on when you could hoard loads of cash

havent played very hard/very hard in MTW:2 yet tho, but i did complete the game with the english on normal, and am currently playing another normal game with the scicilians, which is actually even easier then the english....

gonna try byzantines after patch, should be hard since they get wiped out pretty quick usually ;o

 

[Coldbeard]

Hmm, in RTW I usually played on hardest mode, but I didn't find it that much of a difference anyways. It is a bit wierd though, you can get completely different scenarios on campaign. When I played hard, it was like the same thing every time. Egypt grew strong, Seleucids was destroyed early on, Roman factions grew strong, but when I changed to easy or normal I found that the gameplay really changed alot. Some factions did grow strong instead of being destroyed, some expanded more than they did on hard etc. Was a nice change.

I haven't tried anything else than Normal on MTW, I just finished a long campaign on normal with Holy Roman Empire, think I am gonna try Denmark or Hungary now on hard.

 

[Ormorof]

on hard mode the AI is much more aggresive and smarter in where they place their troops, for example they'll sail around your big armies and attack weak spots, very fun, but also slightly irritating

 

[Chronictank]

i found the random wars and the pope continually trying to save factions annoying, so in the end got tierd of it and just got myself excommunicated then took france milan and scotland before making amends. Nor does it seem to surrender, i had Denmark down to their last city while it was under seige, offered them a ceasefire and they didnt take it :S (maybe no surrender is built into hard?)
The AI indeed does very strange things

I cant comment on the easy mode as i started on hard, i felt the game isnt interestring enough to do it a second time
i found the whole strategy map very tedious and slow progressing

 

[Flimgoblin]

on hard mode the AI is much more aggresive and smarter in where they place their troops, for example they'll sail around your big armies and attack weak spots, very fun, but also slightly irritating

supposedly the AI is the same just they'll have more resources so are more able to venture troops on slightly more risky long sails.

 

[Andrilyn]

Sweet, I will play them next. On the Russians atm, none of the AI factions wants to take them on. England, Spain and Scotland were far too easy.

Wait till the Mongol invasion comes, Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Hungary etc are all fooked when that happends as you have to spend most of your income fending them off then if some Europe faction also tries to attack you you got no units or money left to fight them.

 

[Levin]

Has anyone tried RTW The Crusades? It's a mod made by Caius, one of the developers of RTR. It's fecking hard, but very polished and god awful fun! Great music too. I play this now instead of M2TW. I've restarted it about 5 times due to getting crushed... currently trying on Medium/Hard. And i usually went VH/VH with RTW and RTR.

 

[Morchaoron]

patch is out <o/

 

[svartalf]

I heard talk about a fix so the other factions don't break alliances so much. Just a rumour though.

 

[Coldbeard]

Aye, patch it out! Btw, I tried some multiplayer and it seems as if the game is badly coded for mutliplayer, people disconnecting, games stalling etc, was not that fun :<

A question about the patch, If I have a campaign game I have started in version 1.0, and then patch to 1.1 and resume campaign, will it be updated with patch changes?

 

[Borand]

A question about the patch, If I have a campaign game I have started in version 1.0, and then patch to 1.1 and resume campaign, will it be updated with patch changes?

Yup.

 

[Ormorof]

- Battle AI, Siege AI and Campaign AI are no-longer passive
- Cavalry Charge and Cavalry power are more consistent
- Reduced Inquisitor power

yay

 

[Shagrat]

AI is still ropey after patch though

Mongols arrived in Russia (I was playing as Egypt and had a spy up there keeping an eye on them). They then spent 30 turns following each other in circles before attacking a keep for 5 turns then breaking the siege having a wander and doing the same over and over.

AI now uses boats, though thats erratic as well. I've seen the Pope personally invade Scotland.....lol

And to cap it all my plucky defenders in Mosul (all 900 of them mainly missile troops) held off over 3000 Timurids for an hour, destroying 2 rams, 2 siege towers and wiping out all the infantry trying to use ladders (Naffatun are great for this, couple of volleys of petrol bombs over the wall and they all run like girls)

Then the soddin game crashed (again)....

So its buggy and the AI is very ropey. Disappointing really, I've stopped playing it, just too much wrong with it for me to enjoy playing.

 

[Litmus]

anyone fancy trying a multiplayer game?

not sure if my copy will work though, its not exactly legal