Medieval 2: Total War Re-release Party

[Gregoshi]

The Org is going old school on May 15 and having a Medieval 2: Total War Re-release Party! So grab your installations disks or re-download the game if it is no longer on your hard drive and get ready for a trip down Memory Lane. If you haven't played M2TW before, here's your chance to play along with veteran players and find out what you missed. So check your favourite retail or online shop and grab a copy now.

New Total War releases are a community event. Everyone is playing the game and talking about it. However, once a new Total War game comes out, playing the older games becomes more of a solitary experience. The Re-release Party hopes to change all that. By targeting one game, we can play it together again - sharing our stories, strategies, tactics, questions, answers, AARs, and online match-ups once again in the M2TW forums. Whether you are re-visiting an "old friend" or playing M2TW for the first time, let's get ready to battle like it is the year 1080.

May 15 is a soft start date. You are free to begin play anytime before or after that date. The goal is to have as many people as possible playing at the same time. M2TW's expansions and all mods are fair game for this event. So prepare your armies and your computer for battle! We'll see you there.

[Gregoshi]

Feel free to post here if you plan to participate.

I'll be joining, of course. I've only ever played the demo for M2TW since the game was too much for my ancient computer at the time. So consider me a n00b.

[easytarget]

Ha! Over the last month I've been having my own private re-release party here, I never played it the first time either, so naturally I'm having a blast, but can't wait for more players to ask questions of!

Incoherencel is making a let's play of England running SS6.4, so I've been bugging him with questions, but man it would be nice to have some more folks!

[Kadagar_AV]

Ha! Over the last month I've been having my own private re-release party here, I never played it the first time either, so naturally I'm having a blast, but can't wait for more players to ask questions of!

Incoherencel is making a let's play of England running SS6.4, so I've been bugging him with questions, but man it would be nice to have some more folks!

I'm in.

Let's direct everyone to the existing M2TW board or create a new one?

My hint for the day: It really really REALLY pays off to have your knights line up and charge properly.

Do it wrong and your knights won't be worth ****. Do it right and you will saw through the enemy like a hot knife in butter.

The general with his knights can easily cut through 4-5 enemy formations during the time of a normal battle. This unit you have access to from the start, USE it.

Remember to hit from behind or the sides though...

Heck, you can charge straight on against spears and still win, but it will be costly.

I have no idea how many times my heavy cavalry saved the day.

[Gregoshi]

We can just use this existing board. Glad to have you aboard Kad. And thanks for the tip.

[Kadagar_AV]

Hint 2:

It might be a bug, or actually mimicking real medieval warfare... But it's all about sieges.

Have one army stack with cavalry and troops, and another one or two for sieges.

The first should be whatever mobile stuff you have, the latter should be rock-throwing-thingys coupled with slow but steady infantry.

Use the mobile stack to scare away any enemy force, use the assault stack to actually capture stuff.

EDIT: cavalry are absolute rubbish in city-fighting. As much as they are game-savers on the open fields, they absolutely are rubbish in street fights.

[Kadagar_AV]

Hint 3: Jihads or Crusades is daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn powerful. Never ever ever hesitate to start one.

A small hint is to make friends with the pope if playing a non-islamic faction, that way you will have 100% rate of whatever crusade you start. You can then direct the crusade to whatever enemy you have.

Play your cards right this includes catholic factions.

The benefit of crusade troops is that you can pick up extremely cheap mercenaries along the way - crusade troops (some are AWESOME). Also, you pay low upkeep (1/10?) for crusading stacks. Also, if a stack actually take the objective they will all get some extra experience bars. Did I mention you can get extra crusader specific items that just ROCKS? If not, I just told you so. "The spear of Antioch" comes to mind.

Seriously, we should get AskThePizzaGuy in here... I know all there is to functionally know about this game, he holds that as well as every tidbit of cheese you could possibly get.

I remember a post he made about besieging.. He used a light cavalry to lure the enemies out of the castle. He then took them to the maps edge. He then charged back to the center, starting the 2 min timer of automatic default of holding the square - the enemy troops were to far away to get back in time.

I don't do cheese... But that doesn't mean I don't bow to the cheese master!!

[Myth]

My Byzantine campaign is hectic. I've started conquering the Levant and the Dalmatian coast. However, I'm at war with the Yellow Death (Egypt), Venice, Sicilly and Hungary. And I preemptively sank a Moorish boat with a fullstack of troops, that was sniffing around the Athenian coast. If it weren't for the awesome archers and horse archers the Byz get (and the General's Bodyguards) I'd have lost it by now.

[KingFergus]

Here's an update on my Scottish campaign. I left off pondering whether to eliminate England (who has been relegated to Caen) or send my forces Northeast (Denmark) or West (Spain). I decided on attacking Leon but surprisingly noticed that Bordeaux was still controlled by rebels and quickly made a UTurn and took Bordeaux with ease.

So where do I go from here? I lost a race to Toulouse and was severely out-manned by the French. I decided to ally with the French so I could concentrate on taking out Spain and Portugal without fear of the French attacking Bordeaux. The French had their hands full with Milan anyhow.

I made the mistake of trying to scoop up both Pamplona AND Zaragoza over the span of two turns. I had no idea that Portugal had already taken Valencia and that was where the majority of their troops had been. Makes obvious sense as to why Pamplona and Zaragoza were lightly protected. Needless to say, Portugal took both Pamplona and Zaragoza back.

Back at the drawing board in Bordeaux and my alliance with the French is in tatters because I MAY have assassinated their heir and got greedy attempting to eliminate the King. Got caught with my hand in the cookie jar!

So with the French wanting retribution for the death of their heir, I'm stuck in a deep hole with little options. Do I strategically take on Portugal, wage war and fend off the French, or abandon Bordeaux? I'm honestly leaning towards attempting to negotiate a truce with the French. My hope is that they will trade Rennes for Bordeaux and then work on eliminating the English.