Discussion - Reinvigorating MTW/VI

[gotikiller]

Hey guys, I have been hearing calls from all over the medieval total war community that medieval total war/vi is stagnant, and the old players are running away because of the lack of tactics and noobs in MTW. Frankly, I am tired of this, and believe that the reason for MTW/VI's decline is our own selves. Instead of being creative and imagenative, we are wasteing our breath and energy on a very frivolous persuit in my opinion. So, I, a person whom is intelligent, imagenative, as well as a fellow MTW/VI lover, have put some thought into our present qualms and decided to create a list of ways, you the MTW/VI player can help to reinvigorate our community.

I will divide this up into two sections one for modders and one for players(*Note I would love for a debate about my ideas to occur, and I will be happy to add to my list, & I am not saying modders are not players *)
(** Also note I include map makers under modders **)

1. The reason strategy has stagnanted is that people play the same maps over and over again, maps that are not very challenging to work with. When ever I play online (which I plan on doing when I get back from NYC, Plz be ready all because I can't wait ) I try to pick out scenarios that will challenge both players as well as to cause stagnant strategies. One thing that I have done in the past is played as the Mamluks in Late with Unlimited Money vs the Spanish in a desert climate, in a Mountains to Hills map (the Spaniards were in the mountain part of the map). (below I will post a few different scenarios which I can think of in the modders section).

2. The reason team games are so boring, is that team games today are for instance in a 3 vs 3 match, 6 seperate armies fighting, not 2 armies fighting each other. I think that the best way to rememdy this situation is A. to limit the amount of units in each army, this allows you to fight with better valour units, as well as allows you to be a wing/center of an army rather than a seperate army. I often hear people say ohh, you attacked before your partner joined up with you, which according to them is a basic of team games. It seems to me, they want to create 1 large army out of 3 forces (in a 3vs3), not 3 armies. The smaller amount of units will reflect that. When you have 16 units to Micromanage, sometimes you can loose track of what is going on with your allies. Also, to answer a question before it is asked, before many battles, one allie had to march to join another, causing the fact that you will have to march to one of your allies armies, and the tiredness that it inflicts on your troops to make the battle more realistic than anything else. My ideal small unit armies would be from 6-10 units rather than 16.

3. If you adopt the smaller unit structure, playing 2+ vs 2+ matches in Mountains and other extreme areas becomes more feasable, allowing more varied maps, & greater varied maps = greater varied strategies.

4. We need to start discussion on strategies with individual factions, and combinations of factions b/c with the smaller unit model specialization is more possible, since one does not have so many units to coordinate (since once you cause lets say your two armies in a 2 vs 2 to be a right and a left wing of one army instead of two armies, this opens up specialization, i.e. one player plays as the turks and provides archers, HA, and LC [troops that are light and can move fast to his ally w/out getting very tired], and the other player plays as lets say the Germans and specializes in heavy infantry and cavalry)

I have to leave in a few seconds so I will go on to the modders (family is coming in from Long Island . My language is going to be telegraphic

Modders:

1. VI units need to be edited, Swordsmen power down, Pikemen power up, make stronger when in hold position, as well as spearmen.

Gotta go will be back tonight or tomorrow night to finish up

[L'Impresario]

Might I guess that you 've been playing MTW (or VI for that matter) for after June-July 2004, if not quite more recently?;)

the old players are running away because of the lack of tactics and noobs in MTW.

No, the old players aren't running away, the old players are gone starting from Spring-Summer 2004 -I remember many good old players being away even before that- and now there are hardly any to run away. Not even 5% (not even 1% actually heh) of the people being in a clan in ,say, March 2004 are around now for the occasional game.The reasons you mention aren't the reason for the majority abandoning the game, although they hold some fragments of truth, maybe in a different way that you originally intended tho. A search on topics in MTW/VI a year and more ago in this particular forum will reveal a bit of what people thought around those times.


I 'll let somebody else to comment your post, I'll just say that 16 units are manageable for the average player, and possibly some people would easily manage 20 units, provided the speed isnt as fast as RTW's. The reason that team games seem like multiple 1v1s to you can be attributed only to the skills of the players you playing with , and subsequently with the lack of clans and competitive play - these have been talked to death as well as the next subject , that of modding the game, attempted many times but anythign from maps to new set of stats isn't appealing to the general TW public, this was the case from STW and still continues to be so, even more when nowdays VI/MTW mp players don't frequent such sites.
For a change I say you could download at least the mp mappack v1-3 and say to the people you play regurarly with to do the same;)

[Ghost of Rom]

IMHO this game is getting stale because...it's been out for a really long time. Any game (anything) will get old if you play it often enough.
16 units:
It takes some practise (and grouping) to handle so many units, but that is one of the reasons this game is so fun. It has a lot of depth and skill to it. Plus you can be thinking about tactics and units when your boss thinks you're working!

[edyzmedieval]

Plus you can be thinking about tactics and units when your boss thinks you're working!

But what if your boss is a member of this forum?!

[Vladimir]

Strange, I thought people would use multiplayer like a real army would. Someone controls the calvary, someone else the infantry, etc. Instead it's just a slugfest?

[Grey_Fox]

Both of those assumptions are wrong. A person chooses up to 16 units with the amount of money available. One could choose to take all cavalry, or all infantry, or go heavy on missile units, or take a balanced army, comprising of all three types.

Then how it plays out depends on the individual in command. I prefer to do multiple feints and then pin with infantry and outflank with cavalry. Other people prefer to do full, head on attacks. Still others prefer to sit back and let themselves be attacked.

If you are on a team, you will have to work together to succeed. A team that is comprised of three good players that do not work too well as a team can and will be beaten by a team of three average players that work together.