A Beginners Guide to Medieval: Total War

[frogbeastegg]

The big update is complete:
-Split the guide into 2 posts to make life easier when I edit it, also to get it under the character limit.
-4 new army formation diagrams made by my own fair hand (that is why they are slightly wonky...)
-Retooled army descriptions for some of the existing armies.
-Polished language and punctuation, also clarified a collection of points here and there.
-New information about the Pope.
-New links
-Link to a redundant mirror removed.
-Miscellaneous new information sprinkled liberally throughout the guide, mostly a new sentence here and there expanding existing points.
-Generally assorted changes that improve the guide but are not really suited to listing here.

I was going to add more but the guide is already the beginner's, intermediate with a pinch of advanced guide to MTW and there is no point in adding more complex stuff to it when that information really belongs in a different guide.

[frogbeastegg]

At long last we have some Pope rules from CA, ever wondered just why he won't share his ice cream with you? Then check the excom section under the Pope to find eat cold steel explaining a thing or two...

[frogbeastegg]

A PDF version of the guide is now available, it's up to date as well as good looking. Thank Tricky Lady for converting it.

[Powermonger]

I was just thinking it would be a good addition to the Beginners Guide to perhaps include some recorded games demonstrating simple battle tactics and/or unit use. They wouldn't have to be huge battles, just custom ones showing certain techniques or how to use particular units to get the most out of them.

It's probably a little bit of work but sometimes when I read peoples descriptions of different tactics, it's very hard to visualise what they mean.

Anyway, just a suggestion to help add just that little bit more to such an excellent series of guides for MTW.

[frogbeastegg]

That is a very good idea, Opeth, and one I have been toying with since a month before the unit guide was released. I thought about creating a pack of replays for download by readers, with one replay showing off exactly what a certain unit category (e.g. swordsmen) could do when used properly, and therefore including tacticsa like flanking. I thought of a few problems and drawbacks to the idea, and it promised to be many hours of extra work which I couldn't handle while writing and then updating the guide.

I'll think on this more seriously, and see if I can find solutions to my main reservations...

[frogbeastegg]

Small update to the mercenary section, they work for free if you put them in a crusade. Thanks to ah_dut for that tidbit.

[ah_dut]

why thank you Froggy always obliged to help

[Zortanius]

Frogbeastegg, I must say that your Guide(s) are probably the most complete and methodically helpful peices of MTW documenttaion out there. In fact if I am not wrong it's referred on the Total War Official site. I just could not afford the strategy guide by Brady Games when I started so I decided to just have a go. If only I had read your guide the first time around....

In any case once I did get around to reading it, despite knowing most things, it did enrich my gameplay with a lot of tips I would have otherwise missed. I was all about wedge formation with infantry most of the time. It too me till 1351 to finish the game with BYZ the first time around

I digress..

Excellent work, it's a real pleasure reading and working with it.

There are a few things I would like to tell the community myself - once I figure out where to post them, I will

Thanx once again,
Cheers

[Zortanius]

D'oh I just read some of the earlier posts and came across your new battle formations for high and late period. So much for thinking I thought up of them. But the placing of the arbalesters in front of the pikemen in the high period formation and of the Varangian Guard at the corner flanks - pure genius.

Man... I should have joined this forum a long time ago - I coul have learnt and traded so much more info.

Anyhow - keep up the good work.

Cheers

[frogbeastegg]

thank you, Zortanius.

[cutepuppy]

3. Some units will disappear after a certain date. You can no longer build Varangian Guardsmen or Ghulam bodyguards (as the Turks) after 1321. Check the VI manual for the limitations on the new units.


I found this in section 2.3, but IIRC, turks can train late ghulam BG, but it's no longer a prince's or sultan's bodyguard (replaced by sipahi o/t porte).

[frogbeastegg]

I'll add that to the ever growing list of guide related things to do. I need more hours in a day...

[Axeknight]

Just a very small suggestion to an excellent guide, Froggy.

In a siege (after patch 2.01 Viking Invasion), missile units can shoot at walls with fire arrows. This can be useful against wooden forts or Viking period strongholds, although it is still best to use siege engines for stone keep level and above. So in early (or Viking period), when assaulting a fort (inc. fort motte and bailey), you don't need siege engines, although they're much better at making the walls come crumbling down.

Very useful guide, Froggy. I consider myself an intermediate MTW player, but there are some things in here I didn't know (single-click to charge etc).

[frogbeastegg]

A quick look at the front of the guide will reveal a new addition - I am not updating this any more.

Simply, I don't have the time or will any more; I am writing a book and it is expanding rapidly, demanding more and more with each idea that I have. At this rate it may even become a two-parter or trilogy, assuming I can ever get it to the required standard for publishing. My attention can only be in so many places and something had to give; it was my guides that gave way. They are complete enough, they are a lot of work to maintain, and to be honest I don't even like MTW any more.

I will try to include these last few points raised before this post, but I don't know if or when that will happen.

[Blodrast]

Froggy,

As you said, the guides are complete enough. Already there is some info in them that is probably beyond the interest or understanding of a beginner, and even without your other activities I believe there is no point in trying to maintain them. At best, there would be a gain in information of 0.001%, at the expense of too great an effort. It's not worth it.
Anyway, they're a great thing, thank you again for writing them.
Lots of luck with your book(s), and hopefully you'll still drop by occasionally to give us a story in the Mead Hall

[ah_dut]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ June 21 2004,13:39)]and to be honest I don't even like MTW any more.

What? and good luck with your book

[motorhead]

FBE - Much thanks for all the time and effort you put into both guides. The true Player's Manual for the game.

- MH

[frogbeastegg]

Thanks everyone.

Blodrast, I've just started a new mini series in the Mead Hall today; Dragon's Tears, a medieval Welsh tragedy.

ah_dut, when you have spent literally hundreds of hours working away on guides for a game you slowly begin to lose interest; MTW was always a big letdown to me when compared with the magnificence of STW, all the time I spent working so closely with the game has only magnified those things I don't like. I can't bear to play the game any more; I would uninstall it but I have my eye on the Two Crowns mod, it promises to change MTW into something closer to the game I was hoping for. I suppose it is the price I paid for writing these guides.

motorhead, well shucks :blushes:

[ah_dut]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ June 27 2004,01:04)]Thanks everyone.

Blodrast, I've just started a new mini series in the Mead Hall today; Dragon's Tears, a medieval Welsh tragedy.

ah_dut, when you have spent literally hundreds of hours working away on guides for a game you slowly begin to lose interest; MTW was always a big letdown to me when compared with the magnificence of STW, all the time I spent working so closely with the game has only magnified those things I don't like. I can't bear to play the game any more; I would uninstall it but I have my eye on the Two Crowns mod, it promises to change MTW into something closer to the game I was hoping for. I suppose it is the price I paid for writing these guides.

motorhead, well shucks :blushes:

Off topic but the story is good

[sunsmountain]

I would like to thank frogbeastegg for this wonderful guide. I am using it on a regular basis to train my newbie friends in the art of MTW.


Thanks

sunsmountain

[ah_dut]

Quote[/b] (sunsmountain @ July 18 2004,08:43)]I would like to thank frogbeastegg for this wonderful guide. I am using it on a regular basis to train my newbie friends in the art of MTW.


Thanks

sunsmountain

copyright abuse froggy should charge royalties.
OT, i have an idea, somebody could keep editing the guide if tosa gave them the power, just and idea so froggy dont have to do all the work

[avatar]

After playing STW I thought MTW would be the same. I was humbled quickly. Thank you for your great work.

[Melbourne]

Mate that is brillant.

Cheers

[gunslinger]

This guide has definitely made learning MTW a lot more fun for me. Thank you froggy for making it.

I do have a beginner's question if anyone would be kind enough to help me out. Is it possible to control what order your reinforcements come onto the field after a battle has started? After I have routed the enemy with a strong formation of infantry and spears, I like to quickly withdraw some of them, along with my nearly depleted archers, and bring on the cavalry to chase the routers and tear the enemy reinforcements apart as they come onto the field piecemeal. However, I'm always wasting time cycling through a bunch of other units before I get to the cavalry. Are there any options besides simply making my army smaller so that the cav is the only reinforcement I have?

Thank you,
Gunslinger

P.S. If this isn't the appropriate forum for this type of question, please let me know.

[Ludens]

Is it possible to control what order your reinforcements come onto the field after a battle has started? After I have routed the enemy with a strong formation of infantry and spears, I like to quickly withdraw some of them, along with my nearly depleted archers, and bring on the cavalry to chase the routers and tear the enemy reinforcements apart as they come onto the field piecemeal. However, I'm always wasting time cycling through a bunch of other units before I get to the cavalry. Are there any options besides simply making my army smaller so that the cav is the only reinforcement I have?

I can answer that question for her. There is no way of altering the order of reinforcements during battle, but if you have VI installed you can do it before the battle starts. (It is possible to do in M:TW as well, but this involves cycling all reinforcement units in the deployment phase until they are in the right order, and is quite tedious and laborious.)

This is not exactly the right forum, though. These kind of questions are best asked in the Entrance Hall.

Welcome to the Org!

[_Maximus_]

Yeah! Welcome

[Ciaran]

To find victory you must use and understand the landscape. I will give a basic rundown here but if you really want to know the tiny details find a copy of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War'. This book is the original and best guide to conducting a war; reading and absorbing its contents will improve your game immeasurably as Total War was designed around it.

A sound advice, after having reading "The Art of War" (you can find it at gutenberg.net, by the way) I´ve noticed many aspects are applicable to the Total War games (or rather the other way round, many of the aspects used to gain victory are outlined in the book, as I´ve played the games first and finished the book just recently), though, in my opinion, even more to MTW (the passage of winning a battle without fighting comes to mind - this is much more useful in MTW than in RTW) than RTW, as a matter of fact.

[VirtualWolf]

WoW I guess "The Art of War" was one of my favorite books when I was in the Martial arts. Here however I played RTW a few times before I started remembering and applying Sun's advice. I can't wait to use it in MTW. As my first post ever here I wanted to thank you for mentioning TAoW and making me feel that I was not way out in using it.

[Bill Westwater]

I have a question regarding the factors affecting a leaders influence. I am currently playing MTW as the Turks in late, and my third Sultan's influence, which had over the previous 10 years or so, had risen from 3 where it had started to 9, this after taking over just two or three provinces more than he had begun with. He hadn't done much to raise his influence, other than launch 1 jihad to take Bulgaria from the Byzantines. He had made no more than a couple of allies, and he didn't have any particularly good or bad v and v's. Then the Egyptians attacked taking Lesser Armenia and besieging Constantinople. I checked my leaders influence and it had fallen to zero! Disaster! But not one province rebelled and gradually his influence began to climb again to the point where it is 6 and rising. Has this happened to anyone else, and if so does anyone have any ideas why this might have happened?

[Bill Westwater]

I have a question regarding the factors affecting a leaders influence. I am currently playing MTW as the Turks in late, and my third Sultan's influence, which had over the previous 10 years or so, had risen from 3 where it had started to 9, this after taking over just two or three provinces more than he had begun with. He hadn't done much to raise his influence, other than launch 1 jihad to take Bulgaria from the Byzantines. He had made no more than a couple of allies, and he didn't have any particularly good or bad v and v's. Then the Egyptians attacked taking Lesser Armenia and besieging Constantinople. I checked my leaders influence and it had fallen to zero! Disaster! But not one province rebelled and gradually his influence began to climb again to the point where it is 6 and rising. Has this happened to anyone else, and if so does anyone have any ideas why this might have happened?