Medieval 2 Addon [Archive]

Lusted

03-24-2007, 13:29

It's been reported over at TWc since its been previewed in a German magazine.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=89663

Here is what we know so far:

The Addon will contain 4 Campaigns, with new faction(bolded):

Britain: With England, Wales, Scotland, Norway, Ireland.
Crusade: Two Alliances vs. Each other: Jerusalem + Antiochia vs Egypt, Byzantines, Turks and all together vs. Mongols
New World: Azteks, Maya, Apache,Tarasken, Chichimeken, Tlaxkalteken and Spanish Settlers under Cortez
East Europe: With German Knights, Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Novgorod

- Moats added around castles
- They also added "Special abilities" for the historical persons in the 4 campaigns: Richard I. can collect fleeing troups, Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can "confuse" enemy units, that they hit themself.
- The campaings have different targets and a different way of playing it. In the Eastern, the religion plays a big role (because of unrest and unit development -> u can only build teutonic knights in a catholic area) in the New world if you play the spanish have only few Units and you have to look for alliances and trading routes.
- More units on a battlefield.
- You can build Forts with water around it.... keep their position and which you also can conquer and use for urself.
- More + Different Mission Targets: A noble man apears and asks for your help in a combat. If you are successfull, your reward will depend to how you won (how many you killed).
- In the Britain Scenario you can make as enemy of England an alliance with renegate(?) english aristocrats. They ask for your help, to conquer a town. If you give them the town after the victory, they will found a new anti-english fraction "Allianz der Barone"!

Now i think that's going to be a pretty good expansion.

Quickening

03-24-2007, 14:01

Wow! That sounds like one hell of an impressive expansion!

sapi

03-24-2007, 14:02

Sounds good :yes:

FactionHeir

03-24-2007, 14:18

Interesting. So CA now makes actual campaigns. I hope those are better than Alexander though which was kind of dull. Needs more storytelling and add some immersion to the whole concept - even alternate endings.

I wonder whether they will also have, in the faith of RTW, a completely new campaign map with all new factions and units too.

Bijo

03-24-2007, 14:21

Looks good, but let's wait until the thing's actually there. I'm not elevating my hopes with the chance of being too disappointed eventually.

Rhyfelwyr

03-24-2007, 14:52

That sounds like a hell of an expansion pack. Not that long till it comes either according to that article.

seneschal.the

03-24-2007, 16:16

Sounds nice, but by the gods take your time. Lots of it. And fix the original game first.

Monarch

03-24-2007, 17:55

Troll time.

How do I play mp with 5 factions per era? :dizzy2:

VI2 would have been better tbh.

Lorenzo_H

03-24-2007, 19:00

Cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!!

The Spartan (Returns)

03-24-2007, 19:39

so is this an official expansion or mod?

IrishArmenian

03-24-2007, 19:46

Lovely! I hope they utuilise all faction slots!

Lusted

03-24-2007, 19:47

so is this an official expansion or mod?

Official expansion, though the only new so far has been in German gaming mag Gamestar.

TevashSzat

03-24-2007, 20:47

The moats sounds really promising since castles will become near impregnable due to lack of breach points

Lusted

03-24-2007, 21:26

pevergreen

03-24-2007, 23:23

What will this one be called?

Medieval 2: Multiple Invasions
Medieval 2: Culture Invasions

Are my choices

Agent Smith

03-25-2007, 00:36

What will this one be called?

Medieval 2: Multiple Invasions
Medieval 2: Culture Invasions

Are my choices

The title has already been released. It's "Fast as a Shark 2: Yeah Baby!"

TevashSzat

03-25-2007, 00:38

IMHO, this expansion seems to be the best one yet in terms of new campaigns and game mechanics

Agent Smith

03-25-2007, 00:38

First post updated with more info posted by those who have the mag.

Personally i think this could be the best TW expansion ever. We get 4 new campaigns, each focused on a different time period and area and probably all with different gameplay. We get new factions, and a generally improved game.

- You can build Forts with water around it.... keep their position and which you also can conquer and use for urself.

That's awesome. Now you can make a permanant fort at river crossings and the like. That's going to make things hella fun.

SaFe

03-25-2007, 01:23

Does anybody know more about the Britain campaign?
From the faction list i think Denmark is missing as a faction, i really hoped for something like Viking Invasion.
Hopefully it will start at least 850 AD and not 1080 AD again.

CountMRVHS

03-25-2007, 01:31

From the faction list it sounds like a later medieval campaign. If it was supposed to be a Viking invasion, it would be a big mistake to keep "England" as the only English faction. Maybe something from the period of Edward I, Hammer of the Scots?

SaFe

03-25-2007, 01:34

Sadly i think you're right - it should not be England but factions like Wessex, Anglia or some other ones. A little dissapointing, as CA should know that vikings sell:-)
So we have just a typical medieval campaign on the british isles:-(

pike master

03-25-2007, 02:57

could fast as a shark mean the speed at which they have put this together.

680 megs? patch 1.2 ?

i would think this would be unwise and more would have preferred more emphasis on expanding the world map and bringing in earlier and later time periods.with all newer factions and units being placed together with the main game.

grand campaigns in different time eras would have been my choice as well.

Furious Mental

03-25-2007, 07:59

Sounds like a good add-on, lots of interesting content, four rather different mini-campaigns. However, I am curious as to why
- The British campaign has Norway but not France
- The Byzantines are allied with the Muslims in the Crusader states campaign?

Dutch_guy

03-25-2007, 10:35

This sounds great :yes:

Hope they release some more information soon, as Lusted did well into getting my attention.

:balloon2:

Joker II

03-25-2007, 10:55

- They also added "Special abilities" for the historical persons in the 4 campaigns: ..., Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can "confuse" enemy units, that they hit themself.

Don't really like the sound of this, much to arcady like, not really what I would call "realism"

The rest sounds to be good, hope to read the full story on it asap :book:

Zatoichi

03-25-2007, 11:19

What will this one be called?

Medieval 2: Multiple Invasions
Medieval 2: Culture Invasions

Are my choices

The cover of the Gamestar magazine calls it Medieval 2: Kingdoms.

Shurely shome mishtake! There's no hint of the word 'invasion' in there at all! It must be a typo! My money is on 'Medieval 2: Kingdoms - Invaders Invading In Invasions' as the full title (or M:II-KIIII, if you like acronyms).

As for the contents of the expansion, without further details on the mechanics, it looks like mostly good stuff, with a couple of odd bits and bobs which I need to see more details on before I jump any further towards unfounded opinions!

Looks like an impressive addition to the game so far though.

sapi

03-25-2007, 11:59

For the title, my money's on Medieval 2: Kingdoms - Invaders Invading Lethally or M2: KILL

Lusted

03-25-2007, 13:49

econ21

03-25-2007, 13:52

Basileus

03-25-2007, 14:58

Sounds good and all but ive had this feeling with all TW games and expansions and ive been dissapointe a few times, i´ll keep my hope down a bit this time :D

Cousin Zoidfarb

03-25-2007, 16:35

Does this mean 4 new maps or are the campaigns new factions to the main map?

10 new factions total 31 looks like they had this in mind with the 31 faction slot limit.

"german knights" is this a typo meant to be HRE or is the Teutonic knights ordenstaat going to be a faction?

Lusted

03-25-2007, 16:37

4 new maps.

And i think they mean the HRE and might be a typo.

pike master

03-25-2007, 18:38

there has to be some misinformation about this expansion or addon.

namely the news was so rushed that medieval 2:kingdoms failed to have the total war stamped to it.

and i would seriously urge sega caution on even thinking on the expansion until they get the new game mechanics fixed.

they could just be simple historical type campaigns with story lines. and the new units and additional factions part are intended for the main game.

this would sound like a more realistic assumption. except how they would factor in the new campaign maps. which brings up another question since it would have taken less work to add extensions to the existing map instead of making seperate ones.

the only reason i can think they did this was because of the system demands that would be needed to maintain all the factions and extra area of a larger map.

these are just some of my opinions.

Husar

03-25-2007, 18:39

I'll be most interested in what the expansion adds to the existing main campaign - if we see more units or factions like we did with VI. The four campaigns sound ok, but I like the big sandbox of the main TW games best. That's the reason I liked BI best of all the expansions - it gave you a campaign commensurate with a full TW game.
On worthplaying they say 150 new units, I hope that means a few new ones for the main campaign, but in this case the small campaigns sound very interesting as well IMO.:2thumbsup:

Yun Dog

03-26-2007, 07:10

It's been reported over at TWc since its been previewed in a German magazine.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=89663

Here is what we know so far:

The Addon will contain 4 Campaigns, with new faction(bolded):

Britain: With England, Wales, Scotland, Norway, Ireland.
Crusade: Two Alliances vs. Each other: Jerusalem + Antiochia vs Egypt, Byzantines, Turks and all together vs. Mongols
New World: Azteks, Maya, Apache,Tarasken, Chichimeken, Tlaxkalteken and Spanish Settlers under Cortez
East Europe: With German Knights, Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Novgorod

I agree with others if your going to have a britain map then it needs to be Mercs, Saxons, alla VI - BOOOOO

The Crusades one looks interesting - pity alliance battles like that arent achievable in Vanilla

- They also added "Special abilities" for the historical persons in the 4 campaigns: Richard I. can collect fleeing troups, Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can "confuse" enemy units, that they hit themself.

This sounds bit scarey to me - hello WoW TW

I hear that Saladin can raise troops from the dead on the battlefield by enabling his Raise the Dead scroll in his special attacks menu.

dont want to be alarmist but is this game heading down the AoEIII path, or maybe HoMM would be a better analogy

I shouldnt cry too much seeing as I vertually never play unmodded - but what happened to the strategic, tactical, and historical war game

Continuing on this path will lead where one wonders for the next TW? - 300TW - spartans have GOD mode where they become invincible to attack for 4 rounds, Immortals have strike fear mode causing enemy troops to flee. Leonidas is 20ft tall on the battlefield and can use 'stomp' feature to destroy masses of troops

pike master

03-26-2007, 13:20

sensai has admitted that the german maganzine article is accurate. but CA has not officially announced it. i think it got leaked out.

he said it was an expansion.

alpaca

03-26-2007, 14:35

mad cat mech i shouldn't really have called it an addon, it's going to be the expansion.

Im trying to get more info out of Palamedes, but he isn't confirming or denying anything until news is posted on the offical site.
The same goes for Caliban unfortunately :laugh4:

This sounds bit scarey to me - hello WoW TW
I concur, this is a bit too much fantasy for my taste.

By the way, I don't think it's leaked, but that SEGA didn't know that the subscribers of German game magazines usually get their stuff a week or so early. They will probably be announcing the add-on this week.

Lusted

03-26-2007, 14:44

Yup as confirmed by Sensei over at .com:

Hi guys

As you know, Gamestar in Germany has been published to its subscribers early. This is not ideal of course, but somewhat out of our control. We'll have an official statement on the expansion at the end of the week together with some new information and a collection of great new assets. I'll also do what I can to get you some more detailed comment from the dev team on some of the specific features already mentioned in this thread - namely the hero abilities. In the meantime please respect the copyright of the magazine in question and refrain from posting or linking to scans of the article.

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

Im waiting to hear more about the hero abilities in particular.

Odin

03-26-2007, 16:05

I think its a decent expansion (what we know so far). I dont ever remember CA having the cat out of the bag this early though. i know the german mag published early, still it seems real early to be doing interviews/announcing an expansion.

CountMRVHS

03-26-2007, 16:14

I never played Shogun, so for my money probably the best TW expansion was VI. Don't get me wrong, BI was great, but I loved the fact that Viking Invasion focused on a smaller part of the world and therefore allowed more provinces in that particular region. The part that represented England in VI comprised about 20 regions; in M2 England consists of 3 settlements. If I'm playing as the Scots, the small number of regions makes it incredibly easy to conquer England. Now, granted, M2 isn't exactly geared toward playing some of those historically small factions like Scotland and Portugal; but I'm very glad about the opportunity to play on smaller maps with more settlements than the corresponding area in M2's big map. This is the kind of scale that most medieval kingdoms actually worked with, and for people who know about the history it will be more realistic I daresay to play the Crusades in a region that has more than 4 significant settlements. I know it's called "Total War", but I never liked the idea of faction x rampaging across Europe. With VI, I loved the chance to play more realistically in a smaller area of the world, and it looks like I'll have several more opportunities now. Good move, CA :2thumbsup: .

pike master

03-26-2007, 19:26

for the americas why do you have to be the spanish. the english arrived in 1500 something and the french soon afterwards.

thats why it would have been better to add on a full scale map of the americas to the main campaign. that way you could have conquered the americas with any faction.

also it is a disappointment that the numerous indian nations of the eastern united states wont be included. only the apaches.

Whacker

03-27-2007, 01:13

Moats seem very hopeful, BUT they'd better serve a good purpose and be implemented well. If they don't block latters and siege towers, then what's the use really? Maybe they will come up with an option to build those piles of sticks (make em flamable too) that we used to fill in stuff like that, so that a path could be opened up for a ladder team or a siege tower? The other thing would mean that it'd force you to bring your own artillery and then build a whole crap-ton of these bundles and hope you can make a hole and get it filled in. Sieges aren't nearly hard enough on the attackers, IMO. I guess for me, the bottom line is that I hope this MEANS something in terms of gameplay instead of just lame eyecandy.

As for the campaigns, that's all well and good, but I do not want something like Alexander where you're rushing against a clock/timer counting down. If it's just like VI or BI then I'll be fine.

:balloon2:

Katana

03-27-2007, 01:39

300TW - spartans have GOD mode where they become invincible to attack for 4 rounds, Immortals have strike fear mode causing enemy troops to flee. Leonidas is 20ft tall on the battlefield and can use 'stomp' feature to destroy masses of troops

dude

that sounds wicked, sign me up. i heard the 300 psp game was way lame anyways. SPARTAAAAAAAAA

pike master

03-27-2007, 02:10

how about giant galapogos war turtles with ion cannons that cause panic for 3 combat rounds.

mail covered rhinos with german berserker riders.

dont forget saddam husseins super gun. but that will need to be factored in the strategy map. target a city and when turn ends city is annihilated.

dont forget vlad the impaler campaign.[actually a balkan,austro-hungary versus turkish invasion would make a good campaign on a more serious note]

SoxSexSax

03-27-2007, 05:59

- They also added "Special abilities" for the historical persons in the 4 campaigns: Richard I. can collect fleeing troups, Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can "confuse" enemy units, that they hit themself.

This sentence requires a major 'Hmmmm'.

Lusted

03-27-2007, 10:03

Info post by Wikiman at TWC:

This is a great post but a couple of things. The modders can make a killer game, there is no doubt about that but we can add and change features which will then provide an even more expansive platform for the modders to build on. We want the modders to have new toys despite our own fears that they become competition for us. We provided the depacker, we exposed variables to config files, we helped the modders to understand the mesh file format and we even paid for one of the mod forum moderators to fly out to Australia to see how stuff works up close at the end of Med 2.

We think of it like we are providing a sandbox with a huge bunch of cool toys inside. We set up some cool scenarios in the sandbox but ultimately we know they will be pulled apart and configured a 1000 different ways into different mods. Lets put it this way, the number of new subtle features that have been added to the campaign will keep the modders busy for a long time and I am sure they are going to stretch the game way beyond where we will end with Kingdoms.

OK Heroic abilities are only available in one campaign and only 5 (pretty sure it is 5) characters will ever have a heroic ability. If you think of how many generals there are on any one campaign then this puts it in perspective.

As someone earlier said generals all didn't have equal abilities. Some were masters of the battlefield and both sides standing there facing each other knew it. We have just gone someway to represent this. This is one feature out of about 100 added to Kingdoms, I am looking forward to you guys feedback on them once the information starts to flow.

Rock on,

-wikiman

Subedei

03-27-2007, 10:51

:couch: ME wanna play in the sandbox.....

pevergreen

03-27-2007, 11:54

Very good this new special ability system will be for mods, yes.

diotavelli

03-27-2007, 11:56

I agree with others if your going to have a britain map then it needs to be Mercs, Saxons, alla VI - BOOOOO

I disagree - the VI approach worked well for pre-1000AD but wouldn't be at all accurate thereafter.

Having Britain divided as described allows you to recreate the Anglo-Norman invasions of Wales and Ireland, the English civil wars during Henry III's reign (and Llewellyn ap Gruffydd's expansion in north Wales at the same time) and the ongoing wars between Scotland and England.

Scotland itself could be a good 'un - start as Robert the Bruce with no power, facing the might of Edward Longshanks and gradually restore Scottish independence. Finish off the campaign by winning an epic battle at Bannockburn against a stronger Anglo-Norman army....

The involvement of Norway is a little more odd - their last significant scrap with the English was 1066 at Stamford Bridge. I guess they could do something quite interesting regarding the Scottish conquest of the Isles from the Norwegians but I seem to recall that was more a series of skirmishes and small scale sieges. We shall have to see!

I think CA've done the right thing not retreading the ground covered by VI. Their critics are harsh enough as it is, without giving them the chance to compare every aspect of VI2 with the original.

Taliferno

03-27-2007, 12:51

A couple of Norwegian kings tried to regain their power in the British Isles a number of times. Magnus Barelegs (king from 1093-1103) tried to conquer Ireland but was killed and his army defeated in Ulster.

Afro Thunder

03-27-2007, 12:59

Leonidas is 20ft tall on the battlefield and can use 'stomp' feature to destroy masses of troops

How about a slow-motion camera special ability, where time slows down, it zooms down to Leonidas, and he runs through about 20 Persians. Oh dear... :dizzy2:

JCoyote

03-27-2007, 13:59

I would actually think the new map style is even better suited to the warfare depicted in VI than the original was. While you can argue the current system can get a bit tedious on the full map of Europe (it can sometimes with all the micromanagement of the big map), on a map of the British Isles with warfare involving ambushes and raids in many cases, the new map would shine. Ditto for Japan.

Czar Alexsandr

03-28-2007, 03:43

Ah Novgorod, Lithuania, Poland, Denmark, and thosse troublesome Germans. This should be interesting! I'd very much like to great the Germans in the way Alexsandr Nevsky did. And making alliances with the other regional powers should be fun. It's a time and place I'm very interested in.

The other campaigns sound interesting to. It sounds like a good expansion to me. I think I'll do the England one as Wales or Ireland, that should be fun.

Slug For A Butt

03-28-2007, 03:53

I think it sounds great, I just hope the game is fully patched and fixed before this add-on is released. Otherwise I'd feel a little cheated.

pike master

03-28-2007, 05:35

i wonder if the patch will come with the addon as a bonus :idea2:

adembroski

03-28-2007, 11:45

I don't understand why everyone's so worried about the special abilities... some generals are better at certain things, I think it's a brilliant idea that's going to be put to great use by the modders here. I've always thought the command rating was way to simple and all-encompassing... so much better to have generals with particular abilities... nothing supernatural, just exceptional.

On a side note... why would CA see modders as competition?!?! You have to buy TW to use mods, don't you? I know I never would have bought BI without the mods that required it... doesn't make sense.

Geoffrey S

03-28-2007, 12:42

I quite like the idea of special abilities for generals. It takes the traits and 'night fighter' ability and builds on those features; it'd be interesting if such abilities could be tied to traits and gained throughout a campaign.

sapi

03-28-2007, 13:29

@adembroski - I think the issue with the 'special abilities' is that many people feel that it's edging TW too far away from realism and towards fantasy.

That said, I'm sure the modders will love it :yes:

Lusted

03-28-2007, 13:44

Posted by Wikiman at TWC:

OK Heroic abilities are only available in one campaign and only 5 (pretty sure it is 5) characters will ever have a heroic ability. If you think of how many generals there are on any one campaign then this puts it in perspective.

As someone earlier said generals all didn't have equal abilities. Some were masters of the battlefield and both sides standing there facing each other knew it. We have just gone someway to represent this. This is one feature out of about 100 added to Kingdoms, I am looking forward to you guys feedback on them once the information starts to flow.

sapi

03-28-2007, 14:08

*cough

Lusted, you'd already posted that above :laugh4:

pike master

03-28-2007, 14:10

poor lusted is all listed out 8(

Lusted

03-28-2007, 17:54

*cough

Lusted, you'd already posted that above :laugh4:

I've lost track of where i've posted it, i've tried to make sure its in every thread about the expansion.

Whacker

03-28-2007, 17:59

Ugh, I missed that part. So they'll give us generals with superpowers, but not dismounting units? :wall:

Sorry if I'm a bit jaded here when it comes to game features. Hopefully it will be done in a sane, even-handed manner and will contribute to the game overall instead of just being a "LOL DUDEZ I GOT TEH POWAR UP!!!!11" feature to attract the low attention span kiddies. :blank2: