What improvements VI brings

[fester]

Im thinking of getting VI and I've heard that there are some marked improvements to the game e.g.moving reinforcements. What are these improvements???

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Well the swipping bug is gone for one. Their are new units and better balance. There is also a whole new era that being viking with new factions and units.

[Knight Templar]

VI also makes Hungarians, Sicilians and Aragonese playable, id adds some of new units (for example Byz lancers, Arab infarty, Faris, Slav warriors, Armoured spearmen), BF can catch spies much easier...

[Geezer57]

Im thinking of getting VI and I've heard that there are some marked improvements to the game e.g.moving reinforcements. What are these improvements???

There's a pre-battle option to select your starting 16 units, and to order your reinforcement queue. That alone is worth the price of VI!

[Puzz3D]

You can save the game at the pre-battle screen, but this feature may fail to work properly once in a while. The rate of attrition of sieging armies has been adjusted, and the probability of a king dying has been changed to work better. As I recall, the pathfinding of crusades is slightly better.

[VikingHorde]

You can play lots of cool mods that can't be played with MTW alone. With other words, you get a lot of games for the price of one

[Gawain of Orkeny]

In other words VI is the best damn game of its type in the world. Yes better than RTW and maybe the greatest bargain on the market today.

[Procrustes]

And the Z,X,C and V keys on the campagn map now have various functions to make it easier to see all your pieces/make moves. I forget the order, but one lets you visualize the sea zones and which ones are friendly/blockaded/empty, one lets you toggle between your pieces and everyone elses, one hides/displays castles, and one toggles beween armies and agents.

[Dutch_guy]

well the keys you listed all work in MTW too - without hte VI add on.
The one thing I miss the most in plain MTW is the better pre-battle screen you get in the VI add on.

[Zarax]

There's also an hidden bonus: with VI you get extra modding options too!

[econ21]

I remember thinking VI was a pretty good "patch" to MTW, although I am vague on the details. Certainly picking which 16 of your units appear on the battle and the order of reinforcements was a biggie. I also have some memory that the change to attrition in sieges was rather important - did it introduce besieger casualties and so mean that assaulting a city had its attractions? Some of the strategic AI might have been tweaked too - didn't the Danes suddenly become much less passive?

I had very little interest in the VI campaign before I bought the game, but it's well done. I think it's a little tougher than normal MTW - I remember at least one PBM campaign collapsed when us players were whipped by the AI. It reminds me of the campaign Shogun, in some ways. Rather Hobbesian - nasty, brutal and short. In a fun sort of a way...

[Puzz3D]

VI did introduce attrition in sieging armies, and the attrition rate was further adjusted for better playbalance in the v2.01 patch. Several beta team members worked pretty hard on testing that playbalance as well as testing the kings dying to make sure the probability distribution of dying was as intended and that the factions didn't tend to die out because of kings dying too early.

[ichi]

The addition of a new era, Vikings, with completely different map and factions and units and buildings, is worth the money, but hte mnior tweaks, elimination of bugs, and modding ability make it a worthwhile investment.

ichi

[Budwise]

well the keys you listed all work in MTW too - without hte VI add on.
The one thing I miss the most in plain MTW is the better pre-battle screen you get in the VI add on.

That is really nice. I remember having to click the Renforcement tab over 40 times before a battle. THank god no more.

[Budwise]

Siege battles are sweet, maybe someone else said this and I missed it but Siege BATTLES are a lot more fun with Boiling Oil and Flame Arrows. The Flaming Arrows I never saw until I read that you have to click the wooden walls of a fort with your archers. Seeing a wave of red and black hit their targets alone is worth the 10 dollars to buy the update.

[ToranagaSama]

For me the most important thing VI brought was implentation of -green_generals. In the words of the man responsible:

Wow, lots of positive reaction to the addon. An extra bit of info: when a general dies of old age, he is replaced with someone with the same stats as before, a clone if you like, those who want to take this further can set on the command line -green_generals this will give you a less experiance replacement. Also noted that -loyalty:200 will set your autotax to maintain a loyalty of 200.

The only way to play....

[Budwise]

For me the most important thing VI brought was implentation of -green_generals. In the words of the man responsible:


The only way to play....

Yeah, I would use that but I spend a long time building a general just to watch him die off like that because of old age. Sure, its nice to see but thats one thing I won't change.

[Grey_Fox]

It's not disastrous, it only knocks off one or two command points or so, so it's the not end of the world and adds a bit of realism instead of having clones.

[Zarax]

It's not disastrous, it only knocks off one or two command points or so, so it's the not end of the world and adds a bit of realism instead of having clones.

It really depends on your playing style, it would be most painful for people like me that has 50+ years pauses without a battle...

[ToranagaSama]

Yeah, I would use that but I spend a long time building a general just to watch him die off like that because of old age. Sure, its nice to see but thats one thing I won't change.

Exactly how do you "build a general"?

Sounds like some commercial on late nite TV.

ONLY $19.99 annnnddddd we'll include, absolutely FREEEEEE, the truly handy: *Build-a-Assasin* too. With this little handy gadget you'll be able kill any Agent on the map w/o risking anythingggg.

Remember, that's *Build-a-General, with it you'll NEVER, and I mean NEVER lose a battle. It'll just be Win, Win, Win, baby, and all for just $19.99.

Call this number: 800-999-CHEESE!

From the makers of Rome: Total War....

TS, ROFLOL

[Budwise]

Exactly how do you "build a general"?

Sounds like some commercial on late nite TV.

ONLY $19.99 annnnddddd we'll include, absolutely FREEEEEE, the truly handy: *Build-a-Assasin* too. With this little handy gadget you'll be able kill any Agent on the map w/o risking anythingggg.

Remember, that's *Build-a-General, with it you'll NEVER, and I mean NEVER lose a battle. It'll just be Win, Win, Win, baby, and all for just $19.99.

Call this number: 800-999-CHEESE!

From the makers of Rome: Total War....

TS, ROFLOL

Ha, I bought the parts using foodstamps and built mine out of Top Ramen noodles and Macaroni and Cheese.

No wonder I get my butt kicked sometimes.

[econ21]

I wish CA could have gone the whole hog and let the dead generals be replaced by total newbies. As it is, I hardly noticed an adverse effect of greengenerals on quality. IIRC, it's pretty much a name change and minor reshuffling of stats.

What seems more of a problem for me is the 50 years of peace. It seems that leaving your generals lying inactive in cities often leads them to go bad, especially if you are very rich, and they pick up all sorts of vices.

[Roark]

Exactly how do you "build a general"?

You research vices and virtues until your girlfriend threatens to break up with you for being an obsessed maniac.

Then you actively seek to put your generals in battle situations where they can gain the best virtues. Creative distribution of non-governor titles (Master of the Stables et al) is obviously required as well.

It's just plain old RPG-style attribute stacking.

[EatYerGreens]

I wish CA could have gone the whole hog and let the dead generals be replaced by total newbies. As it is, I hardly noticed an adverse effect of greengenerals on quality. IIRC, it's pretty much a name change and minor reshuffling of stats.

I have to agree with that. In real life, empires would wax and wane because in one era they'd have some seriously deadly guys in charge but they'd die off and the years of peace between wars would mean the next fight would be between leaders who maybe knew the 'doctrine' but had never really experienced war first-hand and could still be caught out by situations where any amount of 'book learning' was no real help.

I suppose the CA implementation of shaving off a command star or two represents a passing on of knowledge in father-to-son fashion but I would rather couple this with having the V&V's wiped clean and starting again. Losing 'Expert attacker' would lose 2 stars in one hit, for instance (or is it 3?).

Total loss of all stars would be a real bind but I have to admit that this is a fairer representation of reality. The valour boost given to the troops is on account of the general's great reputation and the loss of it represents their lack of trust in the greenhorn replacement. After winning battles in spite of that, he gains stars and they gain respect for him, hence the valour boost comes back - albeit a bit at a time.

It would add to the game dynamic to have wars suddenly being triggered because a great general, defending a boder zone, has passed away and now the AI sees it has an edge over you which it should exploit without delay.

Equally, while you have the 'hero' general's, you need to make maximum use of them, not sit around twiddling your thumbs....

What seems more of a problem for me is the 50 years of peace. It seems that leaving your generals lying inactive in cities often leads them to go bad, especially if you are very rich, and they pick up all sorts of vices.

Very true but I think this is exactly what would happen. They are the archetypal 'evil geniuses', in some way. They probably expected to spend their lives doing the thing they love best, which is battling. Left to moulder just looking after a garrison post or managing a province and they start turning their talents towards lining their pockets or picking arguments and killing innocent folk who disagree with them. (I like that one about accidentally killing a visiting holy man over an argument about the choice of wine to go with the cheese course - totally OTT).

[Procrustes]

I wish CA could have gone the whole hog and let the dead generals be replaced by total newbies. As it is, I hardly noticed an adverse effect of greengenerals on quality. IIRC, it's pretty much a name change and minor reshuffling of stats.

I like the way -greengenerals works for the most part. I think of it as the general has been grooming a replacement - a good staff officer if you will - who steps into his place when he dies or retires. He's not as good as the old guy, but he's been around him long enough to pick up a good deal of tricks of his own.

[ToranagaSama]

You research vices and virtues until your girlfriend threatens to break up with you for being an obsessed maniac.

Then you actively seek to put your generals in battle situations where they can gain the best virtues. Creative distribution of non-governor titles (Master of the Stables et al) is obviously required as well.

It's just plain old RPG-style attribute stacking.

Cheese by any other name.

Just in case you didn't get it, my comments were a bit of sarcastic humour, most relevant to Americans. Non-American might not get it, unless their late night television is as bad as ours.

BTW, I emphathize (sp?) with the GF situation, been there, living it!!!

[Roark]

Whoops. Haha... Honestly, I'm not stupid, just guilty of thread-skimming.

It's a bad habit I've gotten into when I'm too lazy to concentrate...

[DensterNY]

Well here's another way to look at it. A general who is rather experienced obviously has had men who've fought alongside him who are capable in their own right. I mean if he's a 5 star general with 4 valour then I'm sure its not all green troops alongside him.

Also, I can't speak for the Medieval Era but most armies and organizations have a command hierarchy as any individual can only manage so many people at one time. There had to have been equivalent sergeants, lieutenants and captains and majors to carry out the general's orders.