Medieval 1 player in need of some help

[Zozon]

After spending most of my youth playing Medieval 1 i finally got myself a copy of Medieval 2, and started playing around in custom battles to figure out unit statistic, how deep should i deploy etc, and i also started a couple of campaign games. There are a couple of things that are preventing me from enjoying this game and if someone could explain some things to me or give some hints it would be great>
(1.2 version of the game, huge unit scale)


1. Shock troops,AP units - the very first thing i did when i installed the game is smashed a group of Varangian guard into dismounted Feudal knights,the weakest tin cans, just to enjoy the carnage and beautiful graphic. Varangian guard routed with 20 man remaining and Feudal knights had about 30 man alive. I set them to charge into one another and feudal knights killed more of Varangian Guard on impact, something i really did not expect considering varangians charge, attack and AP weapon. And only a few people died on impact around 10 varangian and 5 knights. I tried this a couple of times with deeper formation and every time the results were pretty much the same. At first i thought that shields where really "overpowered" in this game but even when i pin down feudal knights with some other unit and smash Varengians on their rear they kill knights slower than i expected, much slower than in MTW anyway. On the other hand Janissary heavy infantry which for some reason has lower stats always wins against knights but with 50 men dead on average, a little to much considering their price and tech tree requirements, and even them lost a couple of times when knights killed captain early in the fight. And two handed swordsman are almost totally useless and they are not even AP anymore (i am pretty sure they were in MTW). Axe units die fast like in MTW but they kill much slower.

2. Heavy Calvary - now this is most annoying part of the game for me. You can charge anything and you will win. A perfect army is 20 units of heavy calvary. Spears who should at lest be able to decently resist calvary charge but even on impact they die like flies and kill a few horses, barely holding the line enough for me to flank. And even hi end pike units like Scotland Nobles and Danish Obudshaer, who should be ultimate horse killers lose when charged in their spear wall, killing at max 10 calvary units on impact and about 10 more before they rout with 20 men remaining. How do you even force a horse to charge 4 m long spear? Is there any cure for this, mod, patch, something i missed?

3. I heavent played campaign enough to be sure but are all desert penalties for armor, weather penalties for ranged units and similar fine realism details still in the game? As far as i can tell my knight were fighting Moors in Europe and Africa with the same efficiency, and by that i mean they killed everything with ease and stayed alive.

[Monk]

First off, welcome to the .Org Zozon!

Two-handed units are a little strange. Their charge animation is buggy so if it doesn't fire off properly they will likely get slaughtered. When they do charge correctly though, they are pretty effective. I believe one of the citadel-goers around here compared them to cavalry but without the mobility in their effectiveness not too long ago. I can't remember 1.2 stats or if 2-h units were even buggier than they were/are in the Kingdoms build. Factionheir, or one of the other stat hunters could probably help you there.

Heavy Calvary - now this is most annoying part of the game for me. You can charge anything and you will win. A perfect army is 20 units of heavy calvary. Spears who should at lest be able to decently resist calvary charge but even on impact they die like flies and kill a few horses, barely holding the line enough for me to flank. And even hi end pike units like Scotland Nobles and Danish Obudshaer, who should be ultimate horse killers lose when charged in their spear wall, killing at max 10 calvary units on impact and about 10 more before they rout with 20 men remaining. How do you even force a horse to charge 4 m long spear? Is there any cure for this, mod, patch, something i missed?

The pike units in m2tw, in my experiences, are probably the worst units in the game. Even the highend nobles seem to take forever to kill something and are generally something you use to fix and flank, not really have them solo another unit. I'd use a more conventional spear unit to take down cavalry, but if it's something like Gothic knights coming at you, well you're going to have to expect to take a few losses

2h units fighting cavalry is really buggy too, from what i remember of vanilla(something like highland nobles for example), just don't do it!

3. I heavent played campaign enough to be sure but are all desert penalties for armor, weather penalties for ranged units and similar fine realism details still in the game? As far as i can tell my knight were fighting Moors in Europe and Africa with the same efficiency, and by that i mean they killed everything with ease and stayed alive.

Don't know, one of the other patrons around here will help ya though!

[FactionHeir]

1. 2H unit animations remain bugged and are unlikely to be fixed. There is afaik only one mod fix out there but that one makes them completely overpowered, so there is nothing in the grey area currently. Bugged as in their animation is very slow and against infantry only 2 of 4 played attack animations actually can kill. Against cavalry, all their animations are successful which makes them good in a melee battle against them.

2. Yes, in unmodded M2TW cavalry will eat anything alive, even in an extended melee fight with spears. There are 2 different fixes for pikes, one is to remove their secondary weapon and turn them into killer machines, the other is to fix their formation to make them act more smartly and regain spear wall formation quicker after changing swords. Loads of mods out there which have their own balance changes to fix that to a varying degree of realism vs gameplay.
I invite you to try out mine

3. Terrain penalties exists and afaik they affect the attack stat only. In addition there is a heat stat which causes certain units to tire faster in certain terrain, but unlike MTW, units don't tire out over time when standing in desert terrain for instance but can get fully "recharged" after a while. Penalties are relatively minor and generally will not change the outcome very often.

[Zozon]

Thanks, im going to install kingdoms and latest patch tonight, then try some mods. If things dont get better im back to good old medieval 1. One interesting thing when you set Varangians and other similar two hander units to loose formation they perform much better, probably because of that animation problems you mentioned. There is one thing in this game i am extremely happy, and that is how they did horse archers, skirmish actually works, they pick good targets on auto fire, and if their attack is 9-10 or more they are still effective against heavy armor. I can now manage a army of horse archers easy, something that was for me impossible in MTW.