Compendium: (under construction)
-UNDER CONSTRUCTION-
Askthepizzaguy presents
The Compendium: Written in Blood
This guide is under construction. And by under construction, I mean I'm discussing possibly planning a meeting to think about the probability of ever getting started on it. Or perhaps slightly further along than that. This is the planning phase and comment thread. What progress I make will be made public here. You can feel free to comment, because this thread will one day be locked and forgotten, replaced by the actual guide itself.
If you'd like to comment, feel free to post, or send me a private message or email me at askthepizzaguy@yahoo.com
Message to visitors:
Here is a preview of what I am attempting to do.Greetings, fellow Orgahs and Citadel lovers. I've been wanting to build this for a long time, and I believe I finally have enough general knowledge and experience to humbly contribute. While general campaign strategies, some very good guides, and a vast databank of M2TW specific facts have been created and stickied for reference, I think there are lots of unclaimed territory out there for a complete strategy guide. Credit for the vast knowledge so far goes to all modders and skilled computer experts who have done the tedious work of disassembling the game piece by piece to gather all the raw technical data about the game and its components, and Orgahs like Econ21, Honga, and Frogbeastegg who have done amazing work writing guides and assembling opinions and facts from hundreds of orgahs in convenient one-stop formats for all to enjoy.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=185 (Guides for all factions)
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72109 (Econ's FAQ and tips, the ultimate resource)
http://totalwar.honga.net/ (Honga's massive databank on unit and faction stats)
What is there left to write about? From a technical standpoint, not much. Everything you'd want to know about the inner workings of the game has been dissected, extracted, and splattered all over the operating table for some time now. Working, viable strategies for winning are posted all over the Citadel and all over the M2TW strategy guides section. Is there room for anything more? Something unique? I'm crossing my fingers and hoping so. I'm reserving this space, this thread, in the Citadel, so that I might begin construction on my most ambitious project to date. This is (going to be) the Compendium; a comprehensive and detailed strategy guide for the Medieval 2: Total War game.
Proposed Table of Contents:
1. The Unit Guide:
Detailed description of the different types of units in Medieval 2: Total War, their strengths, weaknesses, abilities, and a rating for their effectiveness in given tactical situations, including but not limited to: Seige offense, seige defense, field offense, field defense, garrison/public order, blitzkrieg (quick seige situations against smaller garrisons), hills, forests, and bridges.
This differs from the current databank on units, which is totally complete in terms of facts, but does not (to my knowledge) go much further beyond making stats public. I believe there is room for improvement on showing units' strengths, weaknesses, when to use, when not to use, tips and tactical hints, as well as fitting all of that into an overall campaign strategy.
Much like pawns on a chessboard, your units have limitations. Knowing those limitations does not mean you know how best to use these pieces. Your army can have all it's basic statistics displayed in front of you, but without some idea as to how to use these pieces, that information is less useful.
The Unit Guide is not a copy of other people's painstaking work on showing you the detailed stats of every unit in the game. This particular section won't even be differentiating much between similar units from different factions. What it will do, it will go into more depth on what your units are good for, what they are bad for, and how best (in my opinion) to use them.
No complete strategy guide would do better without a second opinion, however, and I would like to include strategies from others who are experts in areas I am not.
I have already all but completed work on this part of the guide. Amazing, I actually started something and finished it. I am now in the process of making this completed work even more complete.
2. The Faction-Specific guide
Having covered the general strategies and uses for different types of units, now I would be inclined to delve deeply into the particular factions themselves; their SPECIFIC units, and show how their army is unique, which units are unique, powerful, or otherwise special, etc. But it will not focus solely on the armies, it will also cover suggestions on how best to use these unique armies in given situations, as well as discuss various possible gameplay strategies.
Blitzing, turtling, diplomatic, economic, and other more balanced campaign strategies will be discussed at some length here, for each faction. The faction specific guide will take the raw data about each faction, and add the best elements of tactics and strategy that people have come up with and I have personally tested, and throw in a splash of my own unique character.
For example, when discussing England as opposed to other factions, I will begin with a restatement of their recruitable units and their specific stats, but then I will discuss which units are their strongest bets, which units fail to live up to the standards I keep, which units are best for certain tactics England is sure to want to use, and give a summary of how all this ties in with England's general campaign itself.
It all begins with the units. If England is Longbow-heavy and a user of sharpened-stakes, but lacks pikemen, javelins, horse archers, or a variety of cavalry, that suggests strong and weak points, which suggests certain tactics are called for on the battlefield to best cover those weaknesses and best take advantage of their strengths. That means that certain campaign strategies will be more useful to England than they would be for other factions, and it also affects how England will interact with other factions on the battlefield, and their starting position and campaign goals will also influence how England must likely expand.
For each faction, a different strategy is called for. Different tactics are better executed, and some aren't. Some friends become enemies, and some enemies become friends. Some factions become a priority, others are downgraded. Some units are called for, spammed to the max, others are neglected or even advised against for use on the battlefield.
England is not a crossbow-using faction for the most part. Though they can recruit mercenary crossbows, they will not make up England's main forces, nor will they likely influence strategy. See where I am going with this?
Beyond warfare, certain factions will have different campaign priorities, such as expansion, defense, diplomacy, crusades/jihads, and economic growth. The Holy roman empire can afford to turtle and defend, whereas Russia cannot afford to sit in their starting province and wait. Certain factions may wish to take advantage of the gold in Zagreb, others the ivory near Arguin and Timbuktu. Others, the amber in Russia. Some, the Italian textiles. Some factions do well by spamming priests and causing disorder, and will easily handle an agent war, while others struggle to perform those kinds of actions against same-religion neighbors with nearby capitals and lots of castles.
It comes down to units, starting position, and the possibilities you are given. This part of my guide will expand from those initial points, and hopefully add something useful, unique, and novel to the knowledge found here at the Org.
I have already done massive amounts of work for England and France in the faction-specific section, mainly surrounding their units. I will be returning to this part to finish the campaign and strategy sections. More progress... amazing.
3. The Campaign Guide
This will be my complete how-to guide to campaigning itself. From starting the expansion of your tiny nation into a sprawling empire, to managing your finances, planning and executing a war, managing your troops and generals, using agents effectively, when, how, and why to do just about anything you can do while on campaign, crusading/jihading, blitzing, turtling, using diplomacy, battling the Mongol horde, dealing with one human opponent, dealing with a group of human opponents, etc.
Everything that is generally applied to all factions on the highest, campaign/strategy level. Believe it or not, I actually do know a thing or two about turtling, and I apply the skills I gained from blitzing to enhance that strategy, and vice versa. Diplomacy is surprisingly effective at the beginning of a totally un-diplomatic bloodfest.
There are also "war" tactics which are specific to the campaign map, such as using navies, forts, spies, assassins, setting ambushes in forests, pincer movements, blocking bridges, forcing sallies, and blitzing vast empires before they can blink an eye. These will all be covered here.
4. The Blitz guide
I have a fair amount of expertise here. This guide will be all about lightning-fast offense with basic troops in unfavorable situations fighting tirelessly at breakneck speeds without rest or reinforcement.
Even if you don't blitz, some of the tactics and tips gained here are useful, as I have been told many times by self-described turtles. However, some of these tactics will be more for blitzing "competitively" or for the fastest possible victories, and will not apply to regular campaigns.
5. The Duel guide
How to spar one-on-one against a human opponent, with Europe as your dojo. Fans of my duel campaigns will have seen these tactics in action. I wrote a duel guide a while back, but deleted it.
6. The Hotseat guide
Everything I've learned from my fellow orgahs about facing large amounts of human opponents in a confined space, most of it from getting my severed head handed to me after another shocking defeat. Obviously I'll be consulting with more knowledgeable players for this section, not that I don't have a few tips to offer.
7. Modifications to M2TW Guide
This section will discuss the most popular, the highly recommended, and the most official mods for the game. There will be a separate subsection for each individual mod. I have vast experience with Broken Crescent, Lands to Conquer, the Long Road, and Kingdoms. I have some experience with others, and am even considering my own Mod for vanilla which beefs up the AI's aggressiveness, overall strength, and sends a Mongol Horde at thrice the total strength at you on turn one.
All of these things will take time, but if I have a place to write it, place it, update it, and rewrite it, I can make progress, finish a section, and move on. This is the only way I could possibly finish this project. Here's hoping it won't be an abysmal failure, like so many of my other failed projects.
I welcome your opinions, advice, contributions, etc.
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