overall verdict

[Tristrem]

Well long ago, mainly last christmas, I decided that it was a good idea to buy M2TW and was thoroughly disapointed. I waited and waited, and finally after a few patches it was playable with a decent mod. Well I got tired of the CTD's that these various mods caused and moved on, well actually I moved back. I started playing EB for quite some time, but now I feel like I have overplayed the time period, and want to move back to the medieval period.

So, has there been any significant patches since the patch the fixed the 2-handed weapons, or is the game still that buggy.

I heard kingdoms came out. I also heard it was a mixed bag, with that malware thing that installs on your computer. However, what does everyone think of the new campaigns? Are the worth getting the expansion for, and are there any changes to the original grand campaign. Does the expansion fix and bugs that were missed by the patches, or deos it just create a whole new list of bugs?

I just wanted the community's thoughts in general before I went put it back on my computer.

oh and by the way, merry christmas everyone

[FactionHeir]

Well, M2TW had the shield bug fixed and the 2H bug somewhat patched up (not fixed) and some minor other bugs fixed along the way, but some more bugs were introduced and a wealth of bugs (look at the buglist to get my gist) remain unfixed with no further patch in sight.

Kingdoms did not fix any bugs and has new bugs of its own. Indeed, many of the promised campaign features don't even exist or do not work according to numerous reports. Overall, its a somewhat buggy mod for M2TW, not really an expansion to be honest. For SecuROM discussion, I think the thread was bumped up to page 1 or 2 of the citadel. There may be some patch forthcoming for kingdoms only (with no date assigned to it, but only a consideration..), which will fix maybe 1 or 2 issues that are specific to Kingdoms, but not fix anything in the grand campaign and thus vanilla M2TW.

Merry Xmas.

[Hoplite7]

The AI is not as "passive" on the battle map as it used to be. (Such as an army besieging you and then standing there)

But there are still those rare but highly annoying battle glitches, such as having a mountain range separate you and the enemy. siege AI is quirky. They still batter down the gate even if their spy has it opened, and still suicide charge an open gate covered in stakes.

Campaign AI is stupid, but I don't know if that's a glitch or just bad design. They leave 75% of their settlements with only a family member and a militia unit, so you can easily take them.

By far the most annoying campaign bug is naval invasions. It went from none at all, to being really annoying. You'll find ridiculous situations on the campaign map as random factions sail around taking territories. (Turkey sending an army to capture Bologna, Portugal taking Ireland, both making good use of the "fixed" naval invasion)

But overall the game is more enjoyable. It's much less frustrating and there are definitely less game-breaking annoyances.

[Old Geezer]

I have not been bothered by the relatively few bugs in Kingdoms. I think that Kingdoms is at least as good an expansion as Viking Invasion. The retrofit mod adds a lot of new units and little touches like the date showing on the campaign map. I think Kingdoms is worth the price just for one of the campaigns. Britania and the Crusades have been great. The Americas campaign was surprisingly interesting as the Spanish. Try it. If you don't like it, I'll buy your copy from you.