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[PershsNhpios]

The players on this forum have an entertaining and very interesting treasury of experience; which can be explored in a number of ways but only if the information is shared with detail.

Garnier has shown many new techniques to me simply by writing briefly about his current campaign - chiefly regarding the subversion of the King.

So I am asking very enthusiastically that everyone who reads this message, and who plays Medieval: Total War in any form should press the quick-reply button and write everything they would share about their current campaign in the game.
If they are busy, and have no campaign - please, mention your last one!

Strange developments, new methods, old methods, surprises, drama, difficulty - satisfaction - bring everything worthy of note about your current or last campaign here - please!

It need not at all be an AAR, it is not necessary even to structure your input.



I would place my current campaign here, but it is quite obviously somewhere else already.

Which reminds me.. I have some bad news to report there.

Please! Tell me!

[Durango]

[gollum]

Great stuff Durango!

Talk about succesful Civil Wars - if only the player was as succesful as the AI in self instigating them (especially the HRE AI).

[caravel]

Ah the fabled catapult rebellion! Brilliant.

[Garnier]

I must report a saddening occurence, as I said in the Campaign History thread, I had a famous knight of Aragon who had just killed the English king, and had slain hundreds through his lifetime, he was killed by arrows fighting the English in France. I am going to work on the career of another of my knights though, hopefully turning him into another famous warrior and general.

My main general for the entire game so far has been the line of El Cid, with 8 command stars and +3 and +2 on attack and defense, respectively. However, he now has the Coward trait and the Not so Bold trait, which among other things make me want to retire him...

[gollum]

8 command stars? You can try playing with the -green_generals addition to your MTW shortcut - this gives degraded stats to generals as they die over the years as well as degraded traits.

Coward and not so Bold - this must be -12 morale - even Knights turn into jelly.

[Garnier]

Well he sort of makes up for it by being a gentle knight with 8 command stars, that adds 8 + 3 I think. But yeah, time for a new general.

I used to play with green generals, but I heard that it sometimes causes problems, maybe CTDs or something. Is there any technical reason not to use it?

[gollum]

Not that i know of Garnier - never caused any problems for me.

[drone]

Rumor has it that green_generals hurts the AI, since it has a hard enough time as is keeping and grooming generals.

[Garnier]

Hmm.. maybe I could help the AI by making titles that confer a lot of command stars, and then simply not use these titles myself. Maybe this discussion should not be in this thread though.

[Turbosatan]

Rumor has it that green_generals hurts the AI, since it has a hard enough time as is keeping and grooming generals.

I too have heard this mentioned, but when you've only got a two- or three- star general because your unstoppable killer hero git has just popped his clogs to be replaced with a fresh-faced young pup, I find it balances the game out in the long run.

Otherwise by the late era you're bound to end up with a plethora of undead nine star zombies who -- in 1450 -- are still gaining the plaudits they earned in 1106, which I just find a bit sad really.

Anyway, keeping this on-thread, current campaign is still that Pocket Mod French one I was blathering on about t'other day. Civil war left a crusade stranded in Greece as the True French (it helped that there was four thousand troops along for the ride) apart from one tiny outpost in Normandy; since last I mentioned I've taken Constantinople & Nicaea & bravely faced off against the unstoppable hordes of the Fatimids, who have about eleventy billion troops. 'Tis, as they say, rather hard.

However, my king's just died, teleporting the new laddie back to Good Ol' Europe & leaving his brave men stranded in the desert.

I have no ships.

[caravel]

That's a convincing argument as to why to use green_generals Turbosatan. It does cut down on AI jedi generals as well.

I haven't used it for years so I cannot remember the exact effects. I know that stats get reduced, but what happens to vices/virtues?

[gollum]

They also get reduced so a humanist turns back to great thinker.

[bondovic]

Hungary, early. Modded the TAO (Tyberius' add on) so that each faction now has a more characteristic unit roster with very harsh homeland restrictions. Exception being made for HRE that is in deep enough Barney as it is (didn't help them though - dead by the hands of EVERYONE, as usual). Also bumping the 'rebellious' value by 2 for all regions. This means that e.g. Livonia oozes a hefty rating of 4 in this aspect. Makes expansion harder and the sorting-out-period longer.

[PershsNhpios]

Grand, Bondovic! I wish I had time and knowledge to play with modding..

From what I have experienced, the baltic people are quite vicious and barbarous as they are - without needing to make them more so.
I have never bothered to try taking Pomerania or Prussia in XL!

I am about to test the MedMod on the advice of Asai.
However I have a second copy of MTW ready if I wish to go running back immediately to XL.

Is the MedMod the same as what you are using in that screenshot, Durango?

And I am sorry to hear about your brave sir Knight, Garnier, if it were me, he would have been replaced by 33 green sir Knights long ago, that I could rely on the unit in a proper charge.
But then I do often neglect to train units well in valour, I rely on the stars of my general.

[caravel]

Is the MedMod the same as what you are using in that screenshot, Durango?

It looks like the Medmod and i know that Durango plays that mod, so it's a safe bet that it is.

[Durango]

Glenn: Yes. that's the MedMod IV right there. Excellent work by Wes, as many already attest to.

The changes to the game are quite substantial, but my own home-mods also add to the flavor of it in much the same way as Bondovic's does. Especially regarding the upped rebelliousness which really makes expansion a more risky affair. However, I you love XL/Tyberius, the MedMod might not be to your tastes. Primarily due to a more restricted unit roster (ca. 6-8 units per factions per era), homelands and other things like fewer crusades. The "supermods" offer more content and breadth than does the more focused mods like MedMod and Asai Nagamasa's Pocket Mod (since it is based on vanilla).

But the battles....of my!

The battles are very balanced and competitive in the MedMod IV. Top stuff for the tactician, since virtually no unit is unneeded and/or completely overpowered IMHO. I lost about 50% of all my battles against the English in my most recent Celtic campaign on Early/Expert when you get no decent archers to go up against the English regulars.... couple that with enemy stacks that are pretty much equal to yours in terms of army composition and some rough terrain and you could be in for a smacking whenever you least expect it!

My Celtic campaign on the whole was chaotic. I was struggling to get enough Claymores to counter the English when my provinces in the north was barely holding on while being outnumbered 2:1 and with them having the better generals. Started with an early defeat when I invaded Nurthumbria thinking it would be a close victory as my previous experience would lead me to believe. Big mistake. The terrain was like a ski slope at some alpine resort and covered with trees none the less. Up I march, trying to scout ahead, but to no use. The AI did exactly as it was supposed to do, flanked me out of the trees with Claymores from two sides and annihilated me

Ahhh... the joys of old AI at play.

(Btw, if you are wondering about the province lettering on that sceenshot, it's my own. I've changed the campaign map to look cleaner and more interesting at places.)

[Garnier]

I started a new HRE campaign today after rethinking some of my modifications. I upped the rebelliousness everywhere by +2, like bondovic did. I have a ton of other tweaks and stuff, but one important aspect is the farming upgrades and province loyalty. I removed the happiness bonuses from everything except a +10 for the militia building, and +5 for each of the religious buildings. Then I made the farming upgrades each do -5 more than the one before, for a total of -20 at 80%. This makes rich provinces harder to maintain authority over.

So, starting an HRE campaign with these settings made ALL of my provinces under 100% loyalty to start with even on very low taxes. However, I have persevered so far and am conquering scandinavia. I get very little money though, so it's an interesting game. I had a lot of trouble taking Denmark, the initial battle was a very close affair, and then there were four subsequent rebellions all of which cost me a lot of men. I expanded too fast into Sweden and Norway, I lost Norway and am retaking Sweden at the moment.

[PershsNhpios]

Durango, since my post I have installed and started an early MedMod campaign, just as a test.
I like it very much - and I have not even played a battle yet!

I did not realise that the battles and units were more balanced - indeed, I would prefer that to XL.

I also like the steps which Wes has taken to slow down productivity in building.
Coupled with rebellious populations and homelands, this will make the game much more realistic!
I shall not be crusading for a little while!

Hopefully it means that I can trust my neighbours more too..

You have reminded me of a question;

On Hard & Expert difficulties, does the AI get huge unit stat bonuses and become insanely aggressive as in RTW, or is it simply new tactics and more intelligence which is added to the opposition?
I have only ever played on Normal, because RTW ruined my trust in higher difficulties.

[PershsNhpios]

If I might add something new here, since I was just kicked out of MTW MM to this thread, I am having a problem.

I tested a Venetian campaign in early, but since I had not made a definite decision for my AAR, I started another as the Pechenegs.
Or so I thought.

The game freezed in the loading screen, whereafter ALT+TAB I found a message telling me that a certain Pagan Image could not be found and that the Default Image was instead being used.
Happy that the issue was resolved without a crash, I pressed enter and saw my new Pecheneg Kingdom.

I right-clicked on Moldavia, the game froze, the same message appeared after alt+tabbing and thereafter the game crashed.

What to do?

Will this happen each time I so much as investigate a pagan faction?


-------


I am very happy to see these campaigns being explained in detail, thank you for your input!

[Durango]

Durango, since my post I have installed and started an early MedMod campaign, just as a test.
I like it very much - and I have not even played a battle yet!

I did not realise that the battles and units were more balanced - indeed, I would prefer that to XL.

Wes and a heap of other people have spent many hours rebalancing and tweaking the game to make sure that redundant units are either removed or reworked. An example would be the exclusion of certain hybrid units that the AI cannot use properly, and changes in stats so that missile troops are more distinguished from one another.

There is a very real chance of losing battles now, which I very much like

I also like the steps which Wes has taken to slow down productivity in building.
Coupled with rebellious populations and homelands, this will make the game much more realistic!
I shall not be crusading for a little while!

Hopefully it means that I can trust my neighbours more too..

Crusades are more expensive, but you in turn get more troops. As far as neighbours are concerned, they seem to be a bit more reliable than normal, and actually sue for peace more often it seems.

You have reminded me of a question;

On Hard & Expert difficulties, does the AI get huge unit stat bonuses and become insanely aggressive as in RTW, or is it simply new tactics and more intelligence which is added to the opposition?
I have only ever played on Normal, because RTW ruined my trust in higher difficulties.

You can always check out the MTW numerology thread (or Frogbeastegg's Unit guide) for in depth info on the AI and difficulties, but off the top of my head I'll say that on Expert the AI gains +4 morale on the battlefield making them harder to rout. There has always been a bit of a debate whether or not this helps the human player more though, due to the fact that the AI stays around longer to be....well....killed which gives the player Valour quicker.

But personally, I think the bonus makes things more challenging and should be considered if you want tougher battles. Also, the AI on Hard and above gets access to actual better tactics on the battlefield so it's really no contest between say Medium and Hard. I sometimes play Expert, sometimes Hard.

The game freezed in the loading screen, whereafter ALT+TAB I found a message telling me that a certain Pagan Image could not be found and that the Default Image was instead being used.
Happy that the issue was resolved without a crash, I pressed enter and saw my new Pecheneg Kingdom.

I right-clicked on Moldavia, the game froze, the same message appeared after alt+tabbing and thereafter the game crashed.

What to do?

Will this happen each time I so much as investigate a pagan faction?

Ah, that is a known bug I'm afraid.

It happened to me too when I tried out the Pechenegs. The problem lies with the culture and religion association of the pagans (I would think it applies to all of them). What I did and you should try as well is to open up your Early.txt (found in Campmap\Startpos) with notepad and find the part where the faction cultures and religions are declared.

Hit Ctrl-F (Search) and type REL_PAGAN and you will see a list of factions. Find the Pechenegs and
note that their religion says CATHOLIC instead of PAGAN. Change this, save the file, and try another campaign.

When I found the bug, it seemed that the Town Watch line of buildings was the cause of the bug, but I could play the Pechenegs anyway since the error message only popped up during play and could be clicked away.

On another note, the Pechenegs need to quickly expand in order to increase their income. Their starting lands of Wallachia and Moldavia are poor and pretty underdeveloped, so your enemies will outproduce you unless you seize some lands early on. I'd set my sights on enemies that neighbours your more open borders, such as Kiev to the east. To the north lies the Carpathian mountains, valuable for defense and to the south is the Danube river that closes off Wallachia to the Byz and Serbs.

[drone]

You have reminded me of a question;

On Hard & Expert difficulties, does the AI get huge unit stat bonuses and become insanely aggressive as in RTW, or is it simply new tactics and more intelligence which is added to the opposition?
I have only ever played on Normal, because RTW ruined my trust in higher difficulties.

As Durango says, on Expert the AI gets a +4 morale bonus, as well as better tactics. In addition, on Hard, the AI gets a +15% bonus to combat stats (attack and defense), and on Expert they get a +30% bonus.

[Haccapelite]

Currently I haven't got a campaing under work since all my campaing saves disappeared after a parent-related mishap on the computer, but I had a very interesting campaing going as the French before that.

I started on early, playing on hard difficulty (my first proper attempt on that difficulty) and I have to say that it was one of the most fun campaings I have had. The first decade I spent gathering enough troops to launch a full-scale assault on the English.

The next 30 years were pretty much continuous fighting, after wiping out the English from the mainland and destroying their faction under rather suspicious circumstances (the English king bravely lead his enormous army of 100 spearmen against my three times larger army.) the Germans decided to attack me.

After crushing the main body of their army and conquering a couple of regions from them (not too many, I was hoping they would still provide some competition later.) I started to plan on a series of crusades on the holy land and maybe even giving a try on the Crak des Chevaliers.

I managed to grab a foothold in the holy lands where I held Palestine and Tripoli, and had some very very (very very) annoying battles against the Turkish. Blast those horse archers! While starting to develop Palestine into a troop production center I started immediately to upgrade Tripoli towards Krac des Chevaliers.

Meanwhile back on the home front, the king of Spain had got some delusions of grandeur and decided to attack me. I beat his armies back four years in a row, each assault lead by the king himself. After that he had gained enough morale-dropping vices for his entire royal family. I then decided to attack Spain and conquered Aragon and Navarre.

Unfortunately this is where the history of France is cut short by the unfortunate disappearance of the French Chronicles. Following events can only be guessed by the future generations: Was the Krac des Chevaliers finished in time? Did the Spanish king manage to gain even more vices on the battle fields against the French? Did king Pierre the Pretty find his lost court-wig before the grand ball? I sure would like to think that all this and even more could have been achieved in the future of the campaing.

Ah the memories, I think I'll start a new campaing again, maybe even today, since I found a copy of Medieval from the depths of my hard-disc with the Tyberius add-on. Maybe I'll give the Hungarians a try, or possibly the Scots.

[PershsNhpios]

Grand, 'akkapelites!

I have never successfully led a crusade, but I hope to change that soon enough.
I am very much enjoying this unit roster in MedMod - it isn't exactly varied - but it means that going to war with certain cultures has certain advantages, and going to war with similar cultures means one hell of a hard fight.

With great difficulty I have been trying to start a campaign worthy of an AAR.
Oh but I have fear! Fear that I shall be wiped out soon..

For my faction has defeated two of the neighbouring states, but is now left with 500 troops to guard a very long four-province border with a jilted ally, who has 2400 men and is capable of successfully marching into war at any moment.

I have three turns to wait before I shall have enough money to recruit more troops!

Oh the calamity! I would not start an AAR that ends in defeat so soon..
But I have a very good idea that should see me through such embarrassment - so I think this particular faction will be my choice - I will start a write-up.

----

This campaign is Normal, but if you all think the bonus to unit stats is worth seeing the extra tactics, then I will use Hard on the next campaign.

[Faremisch]

I have played MTW for years now, although on a rather low intensity. I´ve played Vanilla, BKB, XL, Hellenic and NTW. I really appreciate these mods. The last weeks I´ve started playing Redux and MedMod. I honestly haven´t had time to try them before, and I am surprised with the great feel of these two mods, especially the homeland-refrm of medmod adds to the fun.

I play as HRE in both campaigns. In Medmod I´ve played some 30 years into an early/expert campaign. I managed quite well. Allied with the English and beat back simultaneous attacks from France, Denmark and Poland. I managed to grab three provinces from France and Poland and hold on to what I started with (Don´t like giving up provinces). Hungary attacked and took Austria, I took it back. I was building up and managing quite ok, piling up Archers, Knechts and german spears. My economy slowly grew as I started trading with the English, easily fending of the Danish longboats coming from the north.

Then all those Italian states decided to attack me simultaneously. I held my ground but took some beating. Stretched to the limit I got excommunicated. Not exactly sure what I did to upset the pope, but upset him I did. The English broke our Alliance and marched into Lorraine, the Swedish decided to land a massive contingent of Vikings into my northern territories. The italians crossed the alps into two of my provinces. In four of my provinces I have large stacks from four attacking factions. The Polish, Hungarians and danish are all hostile and have piled up stacks right outside my borders to grab whats left of me once I hit the end-button. I have no reserves. Only the french have enough problems with rebellions and the English to stay away.

Rough years to come for the german states.

[chris34au]

i started a Sicilian campaign last night but i don't know whether to stick with it or to try another faction. i love their starting position and the income from their 3 starting provinces is insane but i don't know what to expect from their unit roster when the late and high eras hit. from what i've heard, you're pretty much stuck with the basic Catholic unit roster when playing a Sicilian campaign.

reading Glenn's NTW AAR has left me really curious about the NTW mod and the Hellenic mod sounds really promising too. i hope this isn't considered OT but can anyone tell me more about the Hellenic mod(either in this thread or a PM) or where to find more info on it? TIA

[PershsNhpios]

I would very much like to write about the organisation of my armies in my Portuguese campaign - but there isn't any!

Why?

Because little organisation is required for the use of two light armies!

I would instead like to ask anyone familiar with the MedMod;

How does one make money in this mod?

I have control of the entire peninsula, (See the campaign thread), and my armies consist of 2900 men overall.
Yet I am only just making 1050 florins in a year, when in XL I would have 2200.
This is obviously intended, but there must be some way of making currency here!
I cannot afford another army, and I need another army to expand, what I have is the minimum requirement for a sufficient defence against a very probable Byzantine attack (They are colossal!).

Farmland seems useless.. Trade will take much time to develop, as will upgrading every province to 60% farming.

What to do?

[caravel]

I believe medmod places some deep sea zones at the straits of Gibraltar and perhaps in other areas (?). This will be severely restricting your maritime trade income and naval transportation - which is a very good thing indeed. Try optimising your provincial governors, build mines and disband any useless units you do not need. Check the income parchment to see how much you are grossing per year then look at what is costing the most. Fleets can be very costly. If you have too many ships and they're not really brining you in anything worthwhile in trade then you should reduce them. Two ships per sea zone is usually enough.

Medmod has been tuned up to not give the huge bloated income of vanilla and some other mods. This is why it's much more challenging. The SW mod is similarly hard and the income in my Asai campaign has been abysmal so far.

[PershsNhpios]

I have since extended my borders to hold southern France, which move allowed to me three armies and 1000 florins per turn.
I used this to increase the navy, and I then assisted my German allies in a war with Venice, where I lost all of my fourth army troops in a massacre.
The Italian units were simply far superior.. it was not fair.

But nevermind income!

Nevermind the Italians!

The Eastern Roman Empire, quite restored and holding more than half the known world, having provinces on all seas, has just declared war on little Iberia.
I am disillusioned, but I suppose the devastation of everything I created before the 13th century should make for a good AAR.

--

Is it normal for the HRE and Byzantines to do so well in MedMod?

It is truly like the Western and Eastern Empires have returned - Venice and Portucale are the only middleweights left!

[Durango]

Very good advice from Asai as usual. The deep sea zones are very important to note when planning your campaign.

The North Sea is in contrast to vanilla, a deep sea zone that restricts which type of ships can enter and leave the Baltic. The Adriatic ocean is blocked off, further dividing the Mediterranean. And finally, the Gulf of Cadiz is removed so that you have to cross the Atlantic Ocean to get beyond the Gibraltar (Or conquer the Costa Verde zone to bypass it). You need deep sea capable ships to get by all these zones, which is the Caravel in the high period if I remember correctly.

I can only concur about the money shortage in MedMod. This is, together with much better unit balance and Homelands, what I like most about it. You can't just keep pumping units every turn non-stop and expand relentlessly to support them, but you have to carefully consider what you will need as well as taking risks when fighting other armies.

If you continue to wait for a moment when your enemies are weaker than you so that you can comfortably outnumber them (like in other mods), you get outproduced and surrounded fast, and could quite possibly suffer serious setbacks due to the much improved AI army composition.

When building armies and invading, take very careful notes on the enemies exact stack composition, his total number of units, the terrain and landscape of invasion routes and other variables. In MedMod (and I guess in SW), you need to maximize the advantages that allows you to take on superior and larger forces such as the killer Italian spears or the fearsome French cavalry.

War is costly and carries serious consequences, like it should

Also, considering what provinces to invade is more important. Study the potential of provinces you wish to conquer, and set top priority on certain ones. Trade centers are a good idea to set your sights on.

For an increased challenge (), you can also play with increased province rebelliousness. By raising it, the campaign becomes very, very strategic when coupled with limited income, forcing you to enter nerve wrecking battles that are absolutely crucial to win!