Who's still playing?

[edyzmedieval]

I had enough of ETW and NTW for the moment, so I returned to ye old' faithful, Medieval: Total War. I started an Expert campaign as the Egyptians, one of my favourite factions, so I'm waiting to see how this turns out.

Still playing, my dear MTW comrades?

[Durango]

Certainly. XL/Crusader states/High/Hard.

[PershsNhpios]

I suppose you could say that I am... XLTyb2.2/Byzantines/High/Hard

Also Caravel/English/Early/Hard

[huth]

BKB/Bohemians/Late/Normal

BTW what are the differences between difficulty levels? AI has more money etc?

[Stazi]

BTW what are the differences between difficulty levels? AI has more money etc?

check here

[huth]

Thanks, whole thread is very informative :)

[Durango]

Huth, how is BKB compared to vanilla and other mods?

[huth]

I played XL or vanilla long time ago, so I can't say much about differences... What I like in BKB is this historical feeling of certain period. Every period has its own 'unit_prod' etc. files, so you don't have acces to new units in later periods. This could be minus for players playing slowly, but this gives unique character of every period with units, factions and provinces that make campaign different. Early period is set for Normans, Reconquista, Byzantium, Muslims and crusades, high - religious wars of all kind, late - dominance of western warfare, pikes, full plates etc, but every nation have its unique units, so there's no point for concerning that some nation is less 'cool', but of course historical aspect is deciding, so muslim nations in late aren't that strong and has less variety of units or heroes.
There are many new units, buildings, titles, provinces, nations... I play almost only in late period, because it's the longest one and late medieval units are excellent. Gameplay is epic alike in XL, everyone has enough cash for big armies, heroes and offices guarantee strong enemies, generally it's great fun :P
I remember that I like unit balance more in BKB than XL, where fights are fastest IIRC... Also I like BKB's historical nuances and details.

[gaijinalways]

I'm still playing vanilla MTW. Started a campaign with the Italians (early, expert) again to get me used to it again. Up past 1205, humming along, though the English just attacked me for some reason, sank part of my navy, grrr!

Will have to see to payback, hope I haven't shifted too many troops away to Constantinople and Antinoch!

[Beirut]

I'm about to load it up on my cheesy laptop and see how it goes.

My old game rig died and as far as I know the Nivdia 8800 bug is still alive and well and I can't play it on my present game rig. Totalbummer.com

I like the eye-candy on M:TW2 but the campaign mode drives me nuts. I can't stand it. Would love to have the old campaign mode but with the newer graphics.

[edyzmedieval]

I turned to the XL Mod, enjoying a nice campaign.

[Leith]

Hello, guys!

When I'm not modding, I play ReduxTW. It's very different and quite enjoyable. RomanWars comes second. BKB's great but regrettably buggy Age Of Warlords is good for custom battles.

[drone]

I want to finish up my very old Swiss campaign (the race to 60% or 1453), but RL is killing my gaming time. I got a couple of turns in a few weeks ago, but it's all big battles from here on out and getting the blocks of time necessary is tough. Once done with that I will probably try Caravel.

[edyzmedieval]

I want to finish up my very old Swiss campaign (the race to 60% or 1453), but RL is killing my gaming time. I got a couple of turns in a few weeks ago, but it's all big battles from here on out and getting the blocks of time necessary is tough. Once done with that I will probably try Caravel.

Banks! Be Swiss! Use banks to fund Swiss Armored Pikemen.

[drone]

Banks! Be Swiss! Use banks to fund Swiss Armored Pikemen.

Ironically, money has been so tight in this campaign, the Swiss can barely rub two florins together. Poor lands, no trade, constant warfare. I don't even have Switzlerland teched up to SAPs.

[edyzmedieval]

Ironically, money has been so tight in this campaign, the Swiss can barely rub two florins together. Poor lands, no trade, constant warfare. I don't even have Switzlerland teched up to SAPs.

Expand? Just take a nearby province and raid of all the buildings for the money.

[Lehesu]

I just started a Kiev campaign in early (BKB Super Mod). I'm toying with the idea of doing an AAR. Would it be better to post it in here? I notice the Mead Hall doesn't seem to get much traffic.

[drone]

I just started a Kiev campaign in early (BKB Super Mod). I'm toying with the idea of doing an AAR. Would it be better to post it in here? I notice the Mead Hall doesn't seem to get much traffic.

We would welcome it here in the Main Hall.

Expand? Just take a nearby province and raid of all the buildings for the money.

It's 1426 and I have 39 provinces. It's a blitz rush at this point to get to 60%, can't afford to strip down a province when I have to expand so quickly, and can't give up provinces I take.

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

Caravel Mod v2.1, English, Early, Hard. It's 1336 (or thereabouts), and I've got 40-ish provinces. I've only recently got to the point where I have the financial muscle to really start blitzing but, trust me, money is still tight, and all build decisions have to get past several value-for-money committees before receiving the King's approval. My first (and only) level 5 castle only completed a few years ago.

Am in the process of giving the Egyptians a lesson in the strategic application of military assets (naval invasion of Greece to be specific). But it's been a long, hard fight. No kidding. It took me a couple of decades to evict them from Iberia, not least because I couldn't maintain naval superiority to interdict their flow of Saracen Infantry, Ghazis, Desert Archers and Ghulams. There were a couple of close run battles, and at one point I had to abandon Cordoba in the face of 3-1 odds and a superior general. Earlier there was the chevauchée from Portugal to Navarre 'cos I was going to get my @r$e kicked if I tried holding on in the face of continuous rebellions plus probable Egyptian attack.

It's a great campaign. Thank you Gollum and co.

Best regards
Victor

Sapere aude
Horace

[Durango]

I will be playing MTW in the retirement home, that's for sure! Nice to see that it's still going strong.

[PershsNhpios]

Lehesu, if you decide to make an AAR, in which effort we would all encourage you, please don't hesitate to make a new thread in the Main Hall, as it would be very worth a page of it's own.

[edyzmedieval]

Good to see people are still enjoying it.

I might start an AAR as well...

[Lehesu]

Lehesu, if you decide to make an AAR, in which effort we would all encourage you, please don't hesitate to make a new thread in the Main Hall, as it would be very worth a page of it's own.

Ah, yes, by "here" I meant, "in the Main Hall", not "in this thread". My apologies for the imprecise language.

I am tempted, and have actually already written some pieces, but the truth is, my campaign thus far has been relatively boring. Ten turns and not a single battle yet. I also haven't taken any screenshots worth showing as a result. If I do end up doing it, the AAR will be presented via a series of letter/journal entries from the perspective of different characters within the game.

[gollum]

Thank you for this interesting acccount of your campaign victor. I am glad you are having fun with the mod.

v2.2 includes an enhanced bodyguard behaviour for all factions' BG units - they play more cautiously now coordinating their attacks with the rest of teh AI army and do not charge on their own. You can implement the fix your self in version 2.1 of Caravel, and other people can do the same in the mods of their choices or vanilla - it does make a difference.

I am very seriously contemplating to make version v2.3 within the next week that will include small adjustments to some of the rebel stacks, have unique and more properly priced mercenaries and also have dead bodies for all units as per stazi's suggestion, and that will inevitably involve me playing the game again, after having had a very refreshing break with STW.

[Durango]

....after having had a very refreshing break with STW.

I too have been thinking about Shogun lately. It's such a tight, focused, balanced little artistic masterpiece, even though
I don't have the game I can still feel the quality of it by watching videos on Youtube...

[gollum]

One of the strengths of STW is the elongated shape of the country; it makes for many bottlenecks and that helps keeping up the tension as it takes much less time to re-establish a defensive line for the defender.

In MTW on the other hand, there are too many options for moving armies around (due to large province connectivity) and that effect is multiplied manyfold by navies that provide even more options. This means that, in the long run the AI has much more options, and with having more options he can make more mistakes. You can see clearly the effect of this on the AI performance in RTW where the map becomes a sea of options, as, the 60-100 squares of STW/MTW became thousands of little squares in the RTW/M2TW map that the AI really got a hard time to navigate.

In addition the eurasian/north africa map has more edges than the japanese one. playin the Russians would have been a piece of cake if there was no Mongol Horde as you are basically going straight forward with your back covered, as you are with the English.

STW also has very good art indeed - the game took twice as much to develop as it was riginally planned (it was planned for release in late '98/early '99 iirc) - from two years to nearly four - and in the process the developing team got enlarged. It was meant originally to be a typical WarcraftII/C&C clone with 2D/top-down perspective in the battlemap. This all changed when a young and able programmer set up the battlemap in full 3D without crashing the systems of the time in terms of resources and that was the beginning of TW. Very soon, gameplay was focused around realism and the morale system was born.

MTW on the other hand was caught half way in between RTW and what it finally it became ie an "evolutionary" step from STW. Initially CA intended MTW to be its full "3D men" release, and in fact you can see that in the intro sequence of MTW - that's an early version of the Rome engine. Notice the man climbing the ladder of the siege tower and his animation there - that later on was also to appear (for entire units of course) in RTW.

The unit icons in MTW also were made apparently using that same early Rome "3D" battle engine, with appropriate skins of course. You can see this in their often similar postures - probably they got the same model and applied a different skin - perhaps even slightly change the angle of shooting and voila.

[PershsNhpios]

Lehesu, excellent! The campaign may be boring, but the AAR is only as boring as you allow it to be. If nothing is happening in your realm you can write pages regarding the battles and excursions of foreign rulers who are influential to your campaign - supplementing that information with pictures of the factions concerned in battle by making screenshots of custom battles to that effect.

You can strip a general of titles or attempt assassination of someone within the realm and make a hullabaloo over that.

Such things can be made very interesting and important to the reader with a little sensationalism and can be used as bridges over boring parts of the campaign.

So let's see it!

-----------------------

I too have STW installed, but I haven't managed to start a campaign yet and it is not the priority assignment in TW for the moment!

[edyzmedieval]

MTW on the other hand was caught half way in between RTW and what it finally it became ie an "evolutionary" step from STW. Initially CA intended MTW to be its full "3D men" release, and in fact you can see that in the intro sequence of MTW - that's an early version of the Rome engine. Notice the man climbing the ladder of the siege tower and his animation there - that later on was also to appear (for entire units of course) in RTW.

I've been playing MTW for the past 9 years and I haven't realised this. Thank you!

[Tristrem]

I've been experimenting with a few good mods, and I am about to try out the Nords in an Age of Warlords campaign, my first for this mod.

[Vantek]

If I play any computer game at all, MTW has certainly the highest chance of being the one. Unfortunately or fortunately, but playing any computer game at all does not happen often these days, maybe 5 hours a month. Not enough for a proper campaign... Last time, it was when I was ill a month ago, and I did play MTW :P But with autocalc, cause I didn't have the time for battles.

I still enjoy checking up on my fellow fans though, and seeing the screenshots of the rare AAR.