A few questions on M2TW & M2TW:K

[Swiss Halberd Pike Landsknecht]

Hi,

I was wandering if I could ask a few questions about Medieval 2: Total War, and the new expansion Kingdoms

A few months ago I bought from the budget section in 'Game' (UK shop), Medieval Total War: Gold (includes Viking Invasion)

I've so far really enjoyed it's depth (campaign), large scale battles, and big choice of factions. I was particularly pleased about Viking Invasion, as I'm very interested in Britain (and Northern Europe) prior to 1066 (and the 11th century is one of the most important / interesting in my eyes)

As soon as I bought it, I immediately started to think about getting M2TW, but knew there was a risk it might not work, due to the system requirements,

My pc isn't that old, but only has 1024 RAM, the main thing I was worried about though was the graphics as my one came with a 'stock' graphics card, a 128 MB ATI Radeon X300SE, I haven't changed it yet, but will at least hang on to it for a bit longer.

So yesterday night I wanted to see if M2TW would work or not by downloading the demo. To my surprise, the game worked, although it was extremely jerky (slow), so I went to the options menu and set everything to low and put pixel shader from 2 to 1. And it was a lot better. I found though that going from a resolution of 1280 to 1080(?) made it quite a lot smoother, (but of course it looked a bit worse),

What I'd like to know is in the full version of M2TW & Kingdoms, do you have the same option to turn the pixel shader to 1? as that significantly made the game run smoother for me. Although it didn't look as good, for now I'd really need that option as otherwise it would just be too slow.

I read that there have so far been 2 patches for M2TW? I guess they are easy to find on the net, but if I were to also get Kingdoms, would I first install the patches, and then later install Kingdoms?

I was reading up on the factions in M2TW and Kingdoms, but couldn't find the Swiss :( Which is ashame becuase I loved playing in them as MTW, they were the best pike / halberd troops, and were lethal against cavalry.

Is Kingdoms run any slower than M2TW? or is it basically exactly the same.

If I were to get both games, would that be around 12 gigs of hardrive space required?

and lastly for those who also have MTW (gold), are there any notable advantages and disadvantages between the games, (not including the obvious like graphics and effects), I know many of the units look different to each other in M2TW, and have improved AI, (although I read some can get pathfinder(?) problems?

[Darkarbiter]

Yes theres an option to change pixel shaders (I dunno about you but nVidia control panel can force pixel shaders too). 12 gigs sounds about right.

As to advantages or disadvanges... ouch you just let the cat outta the bag
(This is basicly including mods btw... I've only played m2tw mods)
MTW:
-Better music
-Faster yet reasonably detailed gameplay
-Religion works far better imo
-Sea and trade works better
-Combat feels far more tactical especially with hiding and forests
-Has a very effeciant feel... does what it does best... IMO this is a classic although m2tw will probably not be.
M2tw:
-Graphics
-Better AI
-More complicated (not necassarily a good thing in some instances)
-Larger community (suffice as to say)
-Mods
-Pickup lines (chicks dig it)
-Much more scope if you play a mod with lots of factions
-Longer campaigns (maybe not necassarily in vanilla)
-People will actually read your AARs

Can't comment on kingdoms (yet....)

[Swiss Halberd Pike Landsknecht]

ah thanks for the info

good to hear about the pixel shader in options menu (I was actually surprised I even was able to use it), but I will be able to play the game well if it is turned off.

I guess the good thing would be to have both games, so I can get the 'best from both worlds' As they both have advantages, and unless there are M2TW mods on the Swiss and 10th & 11th centuries (for Britain), I can stick with MTW for that era & factions.

[Darkarbiter]

ah thanks for the info

good to hear about the pixel shader in options menu (I was actually surprised I even was able to use it), but I will be able to play the game well if it is turned off.

I guess the good thing would be to have both games, so I can get the 'best from both worlds' As they both have advantages, and unless there are M2TW mods on the Swiss and 10th & 11th centuries (for Britain), I can stick with MTW for that era & factions.
Certainly they are both very different games but if you liked MTW you'll like m2tw.

[Swiss Halberd Pike Landsknecht]

in MTW, you couldn't place any of your men in / on the Castle Walls & Towers, you did however have (depending on construction and size) arrow & ballistic towers which would automatically fire at enemies approaching (although I think they eventually ran out of ammo?) you also had burning hot oil which automatically spilt on enemies trying to breakthrough (right under) the gatehouse. That def. had limited oil

In M2TW. do you also have similiar (auto) arrow towers? but can you also place archers, on walls to give them the height & vision to shoot down at enemies? Would be very good if you could.

Also are there any flails, maces and war hammers in M2TW or M2TW:K?

as it was ashame there were none (I think) in MTW

[FactionHeir]

In M2TW, you need to have a unit near the tower wall section to make it fire. Towers have unlimited ammo.
The unit on the wall has an insignificant range bonus but actually a penalty to hit due to most units shooting at the battlement itself or up into the sky due to having vision blocked by the person in front or the battlements.
They are quite difficult to hit with non artillery particles though and they get a large defense bonus.
No burning oil.
Maces and warhammers exist and are both classed as mace and armorpiercing. Just the visuals differ really.

[Swiss Halberd Pike Landsknecht]

ah OK

thanks for the info

I'm also thinking of maybe getting Shogun & Rome too, not played them, but I am also interested in those eras. Hopefully Shogun will work on Win Xp Home SP2.

[HoreTore]

Hopefully Shogun will work on Win Xp Home SP2.

If not, then I'm very sure that there is a mod/fix available to make it work, seeing as a bunch of people here still play it, and who still runs win2k or earlier?

[Swiss Halberd Pike Landsknecht]

yeah hopefully should be fine

I read on another thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=90934

that Kingdoms uses some security thing, but I hope it won't screw up the system (spyware?), not too sure

I'd really like to get Kingdoms as some aspects I'd really like to play with

[King Bob VI]

My old graphics card was only slightly better than yours (x600) and when I played the demo it looked great but was very choppy and slow. Fourtunately for me and you, this is only an issue in the demo. When I bought the game it ran 10 times smoother and I was able to play with low/medium graphics with very little lag.

But now I have an nVidia 7600 and can run the game with almost all highest settings :whip: and I'm enjoying it more than ever!


So I would recommend getting the game, I promise the real thing will run a lot smoother than the demo.

[Swiss Halberd Pike Landsknecht]

good to hear that thanks

I was actually surprised to hear that, as usually I would have thought that the full version could require more system specs than the demo, but good to hear it will run smoother, so I can increase possibly the resolution, or unit details

now it's also whether a question if I get Kingdoms too, or wait a while to see what other people say about the security protection it has (so it doesn't damage the pc)

[King Bob VI]

Well the demo runs slower because it is an earlier version of the game and they released the demo before they could completely optimize it to run well on all computers.

As for for the security protection thing, I don't know much about it but I don't think it is a big problem and it shouldn't damage your PC or anything. I think it is just one of those things that some people are paranoid about but it's not really a big deal.