The most satisfying moments in Medieval Total War

[chris34au]

for me, it's probably seeing 5,6, or 7 star heirs mature that aren't first in line to take over the throne when the King dies. that, or being pleasantly surprised by how fun certain factions can be that i've never used before. i've still never played as any of the Muslim, Pagan, or Scandinavian factions and have never really finished any of the campaigns that i've started with Orthodox factions, so hopefully there's a few more pleasant surprises down the road.

[Axalon]

Why don't you mod your game so that no one can build peasants or Muslim peasants? It should be pretty easy to do with gnome editor, so long as you back up your files to prevent accidents.

You can get gnome editor at https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local...=N&pp=5&page=3

Hi there Brandy,

I appreciate the friendly advice here and the link, but I really dont need a GnomeEditor. Thanks anyway, If you for some reason are intrested as for why that is, just click on my signature and you would find out pretty fast I'd guess.

Hating peasants is just thing I have, not to make too much fuss about. Just
keep them out of sight and we are all good...

- Cheers

[Geezer57]

Speaking of satisfying moments, I had a real nail-biter last night in Axalon's Redux Mod.

I'm playing the Germans for the 1st time - normally I prefer a faction that starts somewhere isolated or near chokepoints, so I can turtle for a while after initial expansion until I've developed some infrastructure/tech. Not in this game, surrounded by way too many factions.

At any rate, after a few decades of opening play, no more rebel provinces are around in my neighborhood and tensions are rising. The Norse open hostilities by sinking one of my ships, followed by an invasion of Pomerania. My garrison there is too weak, I withdraw and abandon the province temporarily. After shifting forces and reorganizing, I kick them out of Pomerania, then move on Denmark for revenge. The AI retreats from Denmark, then retreats from Sweeden, and is left with only Norway. But it's packed full of elite Norse units, almost all with high combat stats and elevated morale/valor.



But their Highking (who's in command) is only a 2-star General, while mine is 6-star. So while my units are somewhat inferior to the Norse, and my army (18 units totaling 1080 troops) is slightly smaller than theirs (21 units adding up to 1260 troops), I gamble on the extra command proving decisive. I have a big advantage in missile troops, but the map favors the melee defender - full of heavily wooded hills. I'm having 2nd thoughts on all this, but the AI has deployed at the fairly flat top of a hill that has one clear slope, one that starts out steep but shallows near the top. I'm hoping to get near the shallow incline, and shoot up any AI troops that exit the woods to attack.

Things go just as planned at first - the first two units that attack piecemeal (a Norse Spearmen and a Norse Swordmen) are almost destroyed by crossbow bolts and rout (only to rally later). I move closer to the treeline, and hope to provoke other units to attack by shooting at them. Multiple Norse units emerge, and a fierce melee develops on my left flank, but no general engagement. So I'm able to outnumber and flank those units on the left, meanwhile feeding defenders one by one into the fray as more enemy units attack. Finally all my units are involved in combat, except to two of the four crossbowmen (one's chopped up to a remnant and routed, the other is stuck in melee), an Irish Kern I'd been saving, and my Imperial Knight (10 men) General's bodyguard. Out from the forest emerges the Highking's Norse Bodyguard (base stats of 5/8/5/5/10 chg/melee/def/arm/morale - 20 men) - one very tough cookie. As the enemy General approaches, I note that one of my formerly 60-man Frankish Spearmen (now down to 17 men) is standing around, having defeated their Norse opponent. So I send them to intercept the Highking, and take the initial shock of the charge, while positioning the Kerns and my General to flank. Meanwhile, the rest of my line is close to breaking, only my swordsmen (with their higher morale) still holding - several units on both sides have already routed.

The two available Crossbows (depleted down to less than 30-men each) fire on the Highking as he gets closer. They only get a couple of volleys off before the Frankish Spearmen make contact (and immediately start losing badly), so the missile attrition isn't much. That is, until the Kerns launch a volley from behind, and drop 30% of the bodyguard. Then my General hits, gets a good charge in, and takes them down to about half. But as they settle into melee, the Frankish Spearmen break and run, so now the Norse Bodyguard are chasing them rapidly - presenting a poor target for the javelins. And my Imperial Knights are dropping fast, what with the uber stats and armor-piercing abilities of these Norse.

The Highking's bodyguard is whittled down to one man, the Kerns are out of javelins, and my Knights are down to four men, when a victorious Norse Axemen unit emerges from the general melee and moves to save his King. In a desperate move to stave off disaster, I sacrifice the Kerns to delay the enemy rescuer, hoping to kill the King before it is too late. In a gamble to execute the Norse monarch, I turn the Crossbowmen's fire back onto the enemy leader (I'd turned them off that target when my General got involved with him). The Kerns were being chewed up rapidly, my line was wavering, my General was down to only a few men, and that darned Highking wouldn't go down. The tension was incredible ... then it happened - someone got the critical hit in (my leader or the missiles, I still don't know which) and the enemy leader fell dead.

Several Norse units broke at that point, others were off chasing my routers, so my General and Crossbowmen attacked any enemy close by - luckily the Norse morale was very low and they shattered readily. By then another remnant crossbow unit (16 men) rallied and rejoined my severely diminished forces. But I had no melee unit other than my General (4 men) to face the Norse remnants and reinforcements soon to arrive. So I ordered in my only reinforcements (2 units: a light Halbardier (40 men) and a Light Cavalry (40 men also), withdrew to the nearest clear hillside, and waited. A few small and fatigued enemy units showed up while I waited, and were sent packing by concentrated volleys from the Crossbowmen. My small band rested on that hillside until the reinforcements arrived, meanwhile we could see new enemy forces marshalling in the woods across the valley. With two fatigue bars restored, my small band cautiously marched in the clear areas, seeking enemy resistance.

We found two Norse Bodyguard units, one at 9 men, the other at 7, parked near one map edge. As we approached within missile range, they took off towards the reinforcement map edge. We gave chase, shooting whenever possible, until they stopped where a unit of spearmen joined them. My units were still uphill, and focused on the bodyguards until they broke under fire, taking the spearmen with them. Then all that was left were three units of peasant reinforcements, which didn't offer much in the way of resistance. The Light Halbardiers and Cavalry drove them off after a little melee. As we moved to follow the routers, the message "the enemy flees the field" was displayed and the ordeal was finally over.

[IMG][/IMG]

Casualties were horrendous - I lost more men that the Norse, and their survivors would have outnumbered my remaining forces by 3 to 1 if the fortification had been larger. Thank goodness all those extra enemy men, who wouldn't fit in the Fort, were lost.

I haven't had such a roller-coaster ride in MTW in a long, long time. I'd like to thank Axalon for a great mod, one that's made my favorite game even better.

Cheers all - enjoy!

[HopAlongBunny]

Speaking of satisfying moments, I had a real nail-biter last night in Axalon's Redux Mod.

Cheers all - enjoy!

Wow!
Nail-biter is an understatement That's the sorta stuff that keeps the game interesting!

Congratulations on the heroic victory!

[Fagar]

Very nice post Geezer.
Those momemts where your battle is right on the edge are definately memorable.
A most rewarding victory!

[Weebeast]

I have plenty but what I like the most is when the win or even lose track starts to play. Then I get to tour around the battlefield and see all the dead bodies stretched from one start flag to another. That means I and AI are doing something right.

[Geezer57]

Wow!
Nail-biter is an understatement That's the sorta stuff that keeps the game interesting!

Congratulations on the heroic victory!

Very nice post Geezer.
Those momemts where your battle is right on the edge are definately memorable.
A most rewarding victory!

Thanks for the kudos, guys. It was definitely one of the highlight moments in my many, many, MTW battles. Upon reflection, I think I've uncovered a factor I'd overlooked, one that might explain why those Norse were so incredibly tough - don't defenders who have no escape province get an extra morale boost? I was so wrapped up in pushing them back a province at a time, I completely forgot.

From the Numerology Thread at the .com site: "+8 Morale to any units fighting where there is no escape (ie Castle defense, or surrounded by enemy provinces)"

I already knew they'd get a nice boost from the Expert difficulty, but I'd overlooked that little extra. If I'd have thought of it before the battle, I might have waited some turns for a more favorable force ratio.

Cheers!

[Axalon]

Hi people,

Geezer57: A fine battle you had there and fun to read about. Don’t feel bad about the losses – you meet a serious foe thus you might end up with serious losses. Besides its redux, it’s more lethal and unforgiving. I’m actually a little surprised that you won at all – it sure was not a given with the troops you committed. The Norse had in overall better troops than you did. Infantry is kind of their specialty, so you really fought them on favorable terms for ‘em. I think what saved you from defeat were your decent amount of ranged troops and some decent generalship as well. All in all, well done.

Yeah the numerology thread – don’t leave for battle without it. Great thread.


- Cheers
-----------
There is a battle-thread over at the redux area – perhaps you should give it a try Geezer57? I’m sure that plenty of people would think that was fun and interesting to read about. I know I would. Of course it is supposed to be a bit more hardcore on tactics but you seem able to handle that pretty good, so feel free to try it out and post a battle report. An excellent solution with the screen on the troops btw, you save yourself a lot of writing and headaches with that maneuver – I’ll try that out myself next time I post something in the redux battlethread. As for the traits of troops and stuff like that, such things are obvious and specific redux-matters and as such it should be discussed over at the designated redux-forum.

[Roark]

My most satisfying MTW moments:

5. Using my sole heavy cavalry unit to successfully perform a Suleyman gambit in wedge
formation against a vastly superior army ("The enemy general is dead! A blackguard gone to his deserved grave.")
4. The pop-up message which says that the Mongols have degenerated into minor rebels.
3. (As the Turks) ...being informed that 3 different crusades are heading for, or through, Istanbul. Bring it on, whitebread!
2. Watching as the cream of the enemy knighthood goes for my pavise-infested hillside adjoining a forest full of my fastest cavalry.
1. Witnessing the coming-of-age of a firstborn son who ISN'T a proud, crazy, alcoholic, inbred paedophile.

Ah yes.
The building sound FX when you finally complete your Military Academy and prepare to build your JHI.
You can nearly hear the Katatanks quiver in their mailed boots.

Haha... Bloody oath!

[seireikhaan]

Playing as the Mongols in XL/Tiberius, and taking on all comers, armed with their knights, men at arms, and halberdeirs, and crushing army after army through arrow and pony.

[Fagar]

Most recently playing as the Hungarian.
Bribing a rebel army in Aquitaine even though it is surrounded by rampaging Spanish and bracing for the inevitable asssaults and knowing you can only build and replenish one unit at a time as you do not yet have sea support!

The most satysfying being planting yourself on the same hill year after year turning away scores of Jinette's and javelin men with your slowly dwindling spears, UM, vanilla archers and 2 units of horsemen until every units valour is sky high and your originally 3 star general has been promoted twice!

[Scurvy]

When you've chased the single unit of enemy horse archers that avoided the mass rout around a desert and finally catch them

[Great Est.]

-- Finding a suitable and honorable use for high-valor, severely undermanned mercenary units. Namely, sending mounted archers/javs against vastly superior forces to take out enemy royalty or high-star generals. After all, they're only mercs.

-- When you are in a defensive, rearming phase of the campaing and two or three neighbors decide it's a good time for a dogpile. Your plans go out the window and you are forced into new directions. Two moments I love here: the one were sea battle results are displayed just before the turn begins where you are wondering who had the audacity to backstab you, and the moment right when the turn begins when you must take stock of the actions of your bellicose rivals.

-- Anytime an inferior unit that is not supposed to make it through an engagement survives with massive casualties, earning valor and a place of honor in the King's vanguard.

[Fagar]

After I can't remember how many times of playing as the French to finally achieve all the GA points in the allocated times.
Including The Krak des Chevaliers!

[Roark]

Well, that makes one of us. Well done, dude. Not easy.

[Fagar]

Thanks Roark.
It was really difficult, no other expansion and basically no other infrastructure, focusing on the GA mode only as there are no pints in early for the French homelands. Just crusade after crusade.
Royal treasury strained to the absolute limit and relying on my travelling crusades to pick up enough men from my neigbours so that their garrisons remained small and did not feel confident enough to invade.
The HRE did eventually but I was able to repel them mainly because they had piecemeal armies as well.
So now it is about 1191 and I am still building vanilla spears and UM
uh oh!

[Paudman]

Firing your first catapult shot at long range and killing the enemy king, then watching his forces turn and rout while you send your horsemen in pursuit. Pure Heaven.
Now.. if only my nVidia graphics card would allow me to play the game I'd restart yet another campaign....

[Fagar]

Spending campaign after campaign avoiding the mongols until they are spread out and manageable but finally finding yourself in a position to take them full front on.
As the french and owning everything else planting 4500 elite troops in Kazar and turning away the scourge in one turn.

[knoddy]

winning as the aragonese :P

winning as every faction in the game, ahh if only i hadnt formatted my pc id still have the saves :)

edit : ohhhh i forgot 1 - editing the campaign AI so that every christian faction was crusader expansionist, every muslim faction was expansionist and every orthodox faction was expansionist. Best map ever, the middle east was littered with christian factions with single provinces, and the pope had several provinces around the black sea :D

[I of the Storm]

Outnumbering the Golden Horde the moment they appear in Khazar playing as Byz. One of my favourite memories...

Khan: "Like the storm of the great steppe we will sweep across the lands..."
Advisor: "Sire!!"
Khan: "... of these petty fiefdoms who they call kingdoms and empires..."
Advisor:" SIRE!!!"
Khan: "What?"
Advisor: "We're surrounded..."
Khan: "..."

[Fagar]

Being suprised by the little details.
Starting a campaign in high period as the English, build an assassin nearly straight away to get to work on the enemy spies that are everywhere. Pleasantly suprised it is Guy of Gisbourne!
5 Valour off the bat...excellent.

[Strike For The South]

Having a 10 star Byzantine Jedi stare down turks whom outnumber him 10:1 and then watch as he methodically mows them down.

Watching My Danish vikings crush the peasants/town militia.

Watching my Swabian swordsman cut through French lines and take Paris

Watching my Boyars bring order to the lawless east

Watching my Italian infantry unite the peninsula

Taking the holy land

[Fagar]

Campaigning as the English.
remembering the Byzantines lost their fight with the Turks, tracking down the remainents to Crete and seeing spawn after spawn of Kata there and nothing else.
Sending in a welsh created longbow heavy army protected by some quality spear and mowing them down.
Slaying nearly 400 Kata and only losing about 20 spear.
Satisfying!

[The Unknown Guy]

The most satisfying moments in Medieval Total War

TO CRUSH YER ENEMIS, SEE DEM DRIVEN BIFORE YOU, AND HEAR DE LAMENTATIONS OF DEIR VIMEN

[Brandy Blue]

How about when you kill or capture the entire enemy army? I like to see my flag flying over the castle next turn with no assult, no seige, no loss of buildings, no mess, no fuss.

[chris34au]

How about when you kill or capture the entire enemy army? I like to see my flag flying over the castle next turn with no assult, no seige, no loss of buildings, no mess, no fuss.

good call. i'll add taking a castle or citadel and it not getting destroyed in the process. or even better, finding out that the AI faction was upgrading to a castle,citadel, or fortress and finished on the turn that you took the province.

[Youngie]

your king is 78, his first son and heir matures !!!

Ive been know to wheap with joy when this has happend with my French campagin shouting "le Dauphin". Dolphin loving Frenchys

[Roark]

How about when you kill or capture the entire enemy army? I like to see my flag flying over the castle next turn with no assult, no seige, no loss of buildings, no mess, no fuss.

Yep. Bingo. That's a huge one.

Nothing's more demoralising than seeing the Pope scarper off the battlefield (despite being utterly MOBBED by your own troops), and knowing that you'll have to assault his citadel/fortress next turn.

[Haccapelite]

Wow, some interesting stories here by now. Geezer57, that is one amazing battle you had there! The feeling you get from winning a battle where the enemy clearly has the upper hand sure is sweet..

By Crom, The Unknown Guy, you really got that right there!

Recently I experienced yet another memorable moment relating to MTW. I wouldn't describe it to be satisfying though, actually it was quite the opposite, but I think it's still worth sharing: My mom was doing something on the computer and she started nagging something about this computer (How slow it is etc etc.), and I made the fatal mistake and tried to advice her a bit. Well, thanks to my advice she started to browse the files of the computer and deleting practically everything that she thought sounded weird or unfamiliar to her. (Which propably applies to about 90 % of the stuff that is on this computer.) Well, to make a short story even shorter, I started this computer the next day and surprise! MTW was no more. And she had even managed to delete the goddamn game entirely, no save game- file left, nothing in the trash can either.

Well, these things happen. At least now I will have time to finish my run through the Baldurs Gate game series, and one beautiful day I will re-install MTW again and wreak chaos and destruction all over Europe once more! (The situation isn't that bad actually, I still have one copy of MTW on my computer with the Warlords-mod, so maybe now I will finally have time to give it a proper try.)

[caravel]

By Crom, The Unknown Guy, you really got that right there!

Actually that quote is a rehashed version of this one that is attributed to Temujin.

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”