The best thing about this game...

As you know, i've only just started playing MTW (unfortunately)... If i'd known i would enjoy it this much i would have bought it years ago, but alas i have only just acquired it. I've been playing RTW for a very long time now, i know that game like the back of my hand, although it is mostly mods that have kept that one alive for me. (Hoorah for EB!)

MTW is great... I've had no problem adjusting to the graphics, i don't even consider them to be bad, just not as good as RTW's graphics, they are easily bearable and pose no problems to gameplay for me at all. I like the more intelligent AI, the way neighbouring factions hardly ever attack you when you are allied or even neutral, i like the crusades, the way you can marry your daughters to strengthen an alliance and i love the risk style campaign map just as much as i like the RTW one. I love the way factions can re-emerge and i'm loving the province-specific units.

But the thing i like the most, something which RTW failed to achieve and also what most mods find it difficult to accomplish, is that 1 army of experienced quality troops is enough to conquer the world, if used right, which is realistic as that's how it was in those days. One army of experienced decent quality men is formidabble and can take you anywhere you want to go, conquer anywhere you fancy, and then still be an effective strategic piece once you've done it all! Also, most of the time, one army is all you can afford... (In my Byzantine campaign i can barely even afford 1!) So you are forced to use it wisely or pay the price, for a long time every major battle you fight is make or break...

In RTW, battles were unimportant. The AI is dumb as hell, you can afford to upkeep several full armies once you own a few provinces and battles don't matter after that. If you lose a battle, so what? Send another army you have waiting in a fort somewhere. If you lose that too, so what? Retreat to th nearest city and defend the streets.. The AI is dumb, it will charge its cavalry and missile troops into your massed infantry and get itself owned, then you can send yet another army you have to finish them off and take a few cities from them... In MTW, battles really matter, if you lose a battle and your army or most of it, it will take a while to recruit a new one and during that time the enemy can take your lightly defended provinces.

Overall MTW owns vanilla RTW in almost every possible way except for graphically, but RTW was made in a time where graphics technology had advanced so it isn't really fair to compare the two graphically. Although RTW has some better features, like the grouping and moving of an army is much easier in the battlefield as you can pick exactly where you want them to march, little things like that. EB has also done wonders for RTW, EB is a lot more challenging, but again there is one thing EB cannot do, which all other mods cannot do, and that is change the fact that once you own 10 provinces you will become enormously rich and after that it is impossible for anybody to threaten your being.

Anyway congratulations if you read this far... Just wanted to say that MTW rocks basically. :bow:

Except for the golden horde! They suck! Teh stole my eastern provinces! :furious3: :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Dayve

Anyway congratulations if you read this far... Just wanted to say that MTW rocks basically. :bow:

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Glad you enjoy the game - it's my favorite, too! Wait until you've tried the MTW mods - things only get better!

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Originally Posted by Dayve

Except for the golden horde! They suck! Teh stole my eastern provinces! :furious3: :laugh4:

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Now, now - that's their job. It wouldn't be a challenge without them! :2thumbsup:

Actually it wasn't much of a challenge. I'm playing as the Byzantines on hard difficulty... The golden horde appeared in that one province above Armenia, a huge army... I retreated to the castle because i knew i couldn't win, after a few turns it fell and most of their army seemed to go north, so i saw my chance and pounced with what army i had... I killed the best part of 6 units of heavy mongol cavalry and 4 units of horse archers... I'm sure that must have hurt their armed forces somewhat... So i took back that province. Then i moved my army west and they moved into Armenia, so i had to go back and take that from them.. At that point i controlled all but 2 provinces of Asia Minor again but was in debt, so i had to declare war on a neutral Egypt, after a large battle i took their city and their other city rebelled from them leaving me to take it, or so i thought... The Turks have re-appeared and are attacking me! Bastardoez...

But the main thing is, it's still challenging 50 turns into the game, something which RTW and all of its mods are not.

To true:laugh4:

playing as HRE on Expert, I lost the my third battle to the french. My king died, there was a civil war and I backed the wrong side. Ended up lossing the game :no: So your right every battle does matter.

But one faction, if used wisely, does have the problem of getting fat on riches ... the sicilians. I had a ship in every sea and a master merchant in Sicily (it took forever to do), and I ended up making close to 15,000 florins a year, just from sicily! :2thumbsup:

Can you play as Sicily in vanilla? I think they are just rebels in my game.

No not in vannila, you have to mod the game to play them, they are a faction in your game but they are just non-playable. Or another way to play as them is write -ian after the target in the icon propeties ( e.g. "C:\ ... \Medieval - Total War\Medieval_TW.exe" -ian) and then in a new game press shift + 0, and it will switch to the Sicilians.

I strongly recommend that you invest in Viking Invasion, Dayve. You'll not regret it.

Just bought MTW gold with the Viking expansion off of eBay brand new and sealed for £11 (including postage costs). W00tn3ss!

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Originally Posted by Roark

I strongly recommend that you invest in Viking Invasion, Dayve. You'll not regret it.

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Yes Roark is right it is very fun I must agree as is MTW. Out of all of the TW games Medieval is my favorite.I got Shogun on a whim and liked it and then found MTW and stuck with it ever since its really a great game. I got RTW but its too graphicy for my computer so I never really played it.:juggle2: I"m glad that there are still more people getting into MTW.:2thumbsup: