Medieval II: Total War Official Thread

[Leet Eriksson]

Need to clear some issues.

Back in the 7th century or so the Arabs had besieged the place for years, to no avail (I think the Emperor eventually managed to offer them enough tribute to get them call it off). And they were still running on the high gear of the newly established faith's militant expansionism phase. The as-such usefully unifying religious fervor didn't much keep them from having serious issues with Sassanid war elephants, however, and routing from several battles for other reasons. Ditto for the Moors when they butted their heads bloody against Frankish lines at Poitiers, 732 AD.

poitiers was a case of a small arab force against a much larger frankish force, they were already retreating from their recent raids when the franks organised for a defence.

The important factor was the frankish shield wall as most raiders were cavalry, think of it as a phalanx, the arabs didn't really put much of a fight though, most were too concerned with the loot they gained.

On the sassanid war elephants, they did adapt eventually, very remarkably fast too, they used camels and elephant slayers in a certain battle, the elephants themselves pretty much did the work for the arabs in routing the sassanids.

But as for the franks, the arabs didn't really adapt becuase contact with them before the crusades was pretty minimal, thats why at first crusaders won against superior odds.

The Muslim (initially really Arab) ability to overrun a poerful, long established empire and bring another to its knees in their initial Blitzkrieg came from many reasons, but among the chief ones was the simple fact Byzantium and the Sassanids had been fighting each other more or less intensively for quite a while and were caught in a rather weakened state. The Arabs may not have been steppe nomads, but quite a few of them were desert nomads and hence capable of considerable strategic mobility, especially in deserts, that the imperial armies found difficult to match.

You forgot that the both empires were fully capable of repelling the arabs, the real problem was the arabs had very good to excellent commanders, even if the empires weren't weak, at best the entire qaddisya and yarmuk campaigns would have been longer, due to the lack of competent sassanid and byzantine commanders.

Now if Heraclius wasn't totally nutters, that would have been a different story.

Around those times pikes had fallen from use (although to my knowledge standard one-handed infantry fighting spears the world over have tended to reach lenghts of some two and half meters that doesn't quite compare to the up to 5.5 meter Hellenic and Medieval pike...) anyway, and the Arabs swiftly copied the cataphract principle to the extent their resources allowed - which in practice meant most of the horses had to make do with hardened leather barding, for example. Well, at least that kept the load down and retained greater mobility.

I don't believe the arabs copied armies they met, they just recruited on the move, visigoths, sassanids, byzantines, and whoever they met on their way, by the time they reached the pyrannese alot of their army were composed of berbers and visigoths, and at Talas it was turkic.

Arab armies were relatively light at the time of conquests, chainmail being the heaviest armor they had, and only available to whoever can afford it (usually nobility).

Anyways, i agree mostly with kraxis, it shouldn't be overtly exaggerated, just make the muslims competent at least without the need to micromanage alot(especially in MP, muslim faction players know how hard it is controlling horse archers and micromanaging them), and also provide units for later ages, in MTW they were stuck with very few mid-late game units and had to rely on mostly crap units compared to the chivalrics and heavier cavalry the europeans got (even the byzantines suffer from this to some extent).

[Templar Knight]

Weren't the Franks heavily outnumbered at Tours/Poitiers, some 17,000 against 60,000?

[Leet Eriksson]

Weren't the Franks heavily outnumbered at Tours/Poitiers, some 17,000 against 60,000?

There were no certain numbers, based on a christian source it was some 15,000-75,000 against 300,000 (bit exaggerated).

For arab sources, some say were equal, some say the arabs were outnumbered.

Here are the relevant articles:

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issu....occitania.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Tours

[ShadowMagnet]

Personally I can't understand why some dare whinge about CA returning to medieval era again. Was there any alternative course of history you know about? Any unturned stones? Did I miss anything at school? There had been summat like fifty games about middle ages before MTW and you still bloody drooled over it when it came out. I nearly wet my pants when I saw STW even though I had been playing Nobunaga's Ambition 1,2 and 3 before. Just deal with it.
Or would you perhaps prefer Star Trek TW just because it's a fairly fresh idea for a strategy game?

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

I thought that the Turks got some very nice late game units...

[Leet Eriksson]

I thought that the Turks got some very nice late game units...

we are primarily on egypt and almohad... egypt can handle a bit of abuse if they can churn out some mamelukes and good commanders, but almohads only uniques are AUM and Berber Camels.. which makes them a bad choice, unless you really like it rough

[Quid]

Unsure if this has been commented on, but what exactly does 'winter 2006' mean? Is it this winter or next. Granted this winter (the one running now) is awfully close (is winter in fact ) and the announcement awfully late but do we really have to wait for an entire year for this ?

Quid

[Leet Eriksson]

Unsure if this has been commented on, but what exactly does 'winter 2006' mean? Is it this winter or next. Granted this winter (the one running now) is awfully close (is winter in fact ) and the announcement awfully late but do we really have to wait for an entire year for this ?

Quid

I'm pretty sure by winter they mean Q4. I hope i'm wrong though..

[Quid]

Yes, that would make sense, of course. I just had this little glimmer of hope that it would be sooner rather than later because it will be an awfully long wait. Thanks anyway [trots off with a little tear in his eye...].

Quid

[ajaxfetish]

By the way, for anyone who hasn't noticed yet, the org now has a whole forum set aside for Medieval 2: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=130
You may want to check it out for further discussion as well.

Ajax

[Shoraro]

It's outside the time period by 35 years (1565) but in during the Great Siege of Malta the Knights of St John (numbering 600 - 700) with about 9,000 men-at-arms held off an invading Ottoman force estimated at 200 ships and 40,000 men.

One thing of note, amongst many, is the age of the Grand Master at the time. Jean Parisot de la Valette was 71 when he commanded the defences. Also, Dragut Rais, one of the Muslim commanders, was 80. Both had been galley slaves.

I just wish the game covered it. Maybe upto Lepanto in 1571. Ah well, guess we all want something that isn't going to be covered. Really looking forward to this though.

[ChefBoyRDee]

Am I the only one who is slightly dissappointed about this news?

I was expecting Napoleon Total War or at least a different time frame such as the Peloponnesian/Persian wars or the Mongol Invasions of India and China.

I have played all the Total War games, and will play this too, but there are so many other interesting periods.

[Orda Khan]

There were no certain numbers, based on a christian source it was some 15,000-75,000 against 300,000 (bit exaggerated).

For arab sources, some say were equal, some say the arabs were outnumbered.

Of the size of each army there are so few credible accounts that the only thing that is safe to say is that the Franks were victorious. Even the date is being disputed

.....Orda

[LeftEyeNine]

Am I the only one who is slightly dissappointed about this news?

I was expecting Napoleon Total War or at least a different time frame such as the Peloponnesian/Persian wars or the Mongol Invasions of India and China.

I have played all the Total War games, and will play this too, but there are so many other interesting periods.

I think RTW was something below the disaster. The first-time use of 3d eye candy graphics was RTW's stronghold. I was never and ever excited or nervous while playing the Rome era where diplomacy and variety of soldiers was a "total failure". That was not utterly the mistake of CA though, the concept of war was less "total" by the period. The things were simply "simpler", me thinks. RTW has no atmosphere. Zero. That's why I can't play RTW.

However Medieval era has all brutality mankind carried from the beginning while including complex "peaceful" relationships. And yes, that is total war indeed.

MTW:2 would be CA's worst miss ever if they had never thought about re-making it. MTW2 is here and CA proved out to be one of the best Dev. studio around, because repeating a game concept in order to make use of newer technologies is something the others hesitate or can not plan.

for CA... They deserve every penny (and even more) they earn for their efforts.

[x-dANGEr]

Ottoman persistence and eventual success in attacking Constantinopole had everything to do with their imperial priorites and skill in siege warfare and preciously little to do with religion. And they had to try several times, too. And it was *still* a pretty close run thing.

But if it weren't for Islam, they'd be sitting back in the deserts.

Back in the 7th century or so the Arabs had besieged the place for years, to no avail (I think the Emperor eventually managed to offer them enough tribute to get them call it off). And they were still running on the high gear of the newly established faith's militant expansionism phase. The as-such usefully unifying religious fervor didn't much keep them from having serious issues with Sassanid war elephants, however, and routing from several battles for other reasons. Ditto for the Moors when they butted their heads bloody against Frankish lines at Poitiers, 732 AD.

Well, Muslims did have trouble with Saissanid eles at start, but they adapted to them quicky, and it's mentioned that to do that, they trained their camels and horses on bags of straws that looked like eles.

Conversely, firm belief in a direct ticket to Heaven through martyrdom did not to my knowledge make either crusading European armies or the military Orders in some way unbreakable. Some of course were; but when the push really came to shove, most would panic and run like any other soldiers in the same situation.

That's how you describe Al-Qadisya when 32k muslims withing fighting 1700 women were fighting more than 120k Romans/Sassadins (Can't remember )

The Muslim (initially really Arab) ability to overrun a poerful, long established empire and bring another to its knees in their initial Blitzkrieg came from many reasons, but among the chief ones was the simple fact Byzantium and the Sassanids had been fighting each other more or less intensively for quite a while and were caught in a rather weakened state. The Arabs may not have been steppe nomads, but quite a few of them were desert nomads and hence capable of considerable strategic mobility, especially in deserts, that the imperial armies found difficult to match.

Well, the main reason for the battle with Saissadins, was that they killed a messenger for Arabs. And Romans were considering them steppe nomads, so they weren't allowed to go in what we muslims call a holy land (Al-Quds a.k.a. Jerusalim). But still, counting the fact that muslims had nothing more than a chain mail, and really most of them with no armor at all, because of the 'n0-money' status, and yet had the war VS both Romans and Saissadins together, and all they fed on was 3 dates a day, you can't say that the main reason for their victories on them wasn't morale, or tactical generals. At that era, shortly after the death of Prophet Mohammad and the one ruled after him (Abu Bakr Essiddeek), Muslims morale was firing, espiecially that they were led by the bravest muslim general to be known, Omar Ibn el-Khattab (Led as ruled).

Around those times pikes had fallen from use (although to my knowledge standard one-handed infantry fighting spears the world over have tended to reach lenghts of some two and half meters that doesn't quite compare to the up to 5.5 meter Hellenic and Medieval pike...) anyway, and the Arabs swiftly copied the cataphract principle to the extent their resources allowed - which in practice meant most of the horses had to make do with hardened leather barding, for example. Well, at least that kept the load down and retained greater mobility.

And what were their resources? All they had is spears, camels, horses and dates. Is that enough to make a cata, then I didn't know that.

[Watchman]

Resources can be... aquired. From their previous possessors (read as "looted), captured armouries, captured manufacturing hubs, in trade...

Not that the weight of equipement was such a decisive issue anyway. Steppe nomads seem to have done quite fine with bows, various types of leather armour, and scrawny little ponies. Overextended empires in general actually seem to have been in the habit of getting the stuffing kicked out of them by incursions of poorly equipped 'barbarians', although the invaders also tend to be in the habit of equipping thmselves with better gear ASAP.

To give an RTW analogy, you use unimpressive basic troops to capture a decent-sized city while the opponent is busy elsewhere and promptly start using his infrastructure to give a thorough equipement overhaul to your men. Heck, when the Mongols did their damnedest to turn parts of Central Asia into wasteland they nonetheless made a point out of sparing armourers and other such useful craftsmen... Same principle.

[Leet Eriksson]

Of the size of each army there are so few credible accounts that the only thing that is safe to say is that the Franks were victorious. Even the date is being disputed

.....Orda

No argument here, i totally agree.

[A.Saturnus]

Am I the only one who is slightly dissappointed about this news?

I was expecting Napoleon Total War or at least a different time frame such as the Peloponnesian/Persian wars or the Mongol Invasions of India and China.

I have played all the Total War games, and will play this too, but there are so many other interesting periods.

While I agree that there would have been other interesting scenarios, I can understand that they return to medieval. Many people hoped for seeing a medieval scenario in 3D and it´s simply the scenario that interests most people because of it´s familiarity.

[Afro Thunder]

Wow, I go away for a few weeks and look what happens. They're making a whole new honking game here!

[King Henry V]

I just have one thing to say to CA: Please, just take your time with this game. It is a perfect era, a wonderful engine and the original MTW was fantastic. However, don't rush the game for the Christmas market so that we all get a half baked product. I don't mind waiting three months extra in exchange for a super and almost bugless game.
Thank you!

[ShadesWolf]

All I can say is WOW

This is an excellent time period with so many possibilities.

[PFJ_bejazuz]

*rolls up sleeves*

*falls to knees*

"PLEASE LET IT WORK AS AN MP EXPERIENCE LIKE MTW1"

-----------

(& as to Islamic armies - I've always said their units should be much larger than european equivalents)

[KukriKhan]

Many thanks to all for the excellent response. Now that we have a dedicated forum for Medi2, we'll move this thread there.

Junior Members are able to respond there, so new guys: don't be shy.

[Mount Suribachi]

I seriously doubt we'll see MTW2 in Q4 2006 - all games release dates slip. I remember the howling when RTW was slipping...

Things that have piqued my intrest

- The "individual" appearance of soldiers by mixing and matching different body parts

- The Blood and dirt on soldiers as the battle wears on

- The general jaw-droppingness of the graphics

- The Papacy. They sound very much like the Senate from RTW. The ability to promote Bishops to Cardinal and even intruegue to elect your own pope is reminiscant of the Cursus Honorum from RTW. It also sounds like the Pope will give you missions, much like the senate.

- Scotland as playable faction. The incessant whinging from the jocks in the run up to MTW was unbearable. One less thing to worry about

- The return of assination movies - yay!

Things that cause me to raise an eyebrow

- The "combo-moves". As someone else pointed out, sounds a little to consoley, but if done properly could actually be really cool.

- Milan as a playable faction, but not Genoa????

Like everyone else says, I also want better AI, better diplomacy, and battles that last longer than 5 minutes.

As for the 2 sub-threads in here

Trebuchets - there was a superb documentary on TV here a few years ago. They built a giant "castle wall" using traditional medieval techniques, and got 2 teams to build a trebuchet each, with which they were to try and knock down said wall. One team, lead by an academic, built theirs without wheels. The academic was a real arrogant, conceited ****. He sneered at any suggestion that Trebuchets had wheels and thus built his without them. The other team was lead by a (non-academic) expert in mediaval weapons and their construction. Based upon medieval sources showing Trebs with wheels, he built his with wheels.

And whaddya know? The wheeled Trebuchet significantly out-ranged the non-wheeled one. And, just as importantly, it out-ranged the longbow as well, something that I'm sure the Treb crew would have appreciated. The programme did an excellent job of explaining the physics of why the wheeled Treb had a longer range, even having slo-mo footage of a little model Treb to demonstrate. IIRC it went backwards, then as the arm approached the release point started moving forwards, giving the projectile additional impetus as it was launched.

They also had cameras set up on the "castle wall" which filmed the rocks as they flew towards to the wall, and let me tell you it was damn scary! Very good program.


Islamic Armies - I just wanted to make a point about the fall of Constantinople. x_DANGEr seemed to think that it fell due to the sheer heroism & bravery of the Ottoman armies. Which neglects 2 key issues.

1) The Ottomans weren't the first to take Constantinople. The infamous 4th Crusade under the leadership of the blind octagenerian Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, some 250 years previously

2) Perhaps the biggest single factor in the taking of Constantinople by Mehmet II was that he had a great big cannon with which to batter down the walls. A cannon designed and built incidentally by a German. Go figure.

[cutepuppy]

- Milan as a playable faction, but not Genoa????

Well, most people seem to forget that Milan was more of a political power, while genoa was a naval trade power. Milan was the leading city of the lombard league, which defeated the HRE several times, and from the second half of the 14th century (Sforza and Viscont families), Milan had some very close ties with some royal dynasties. The duke of milan was regarded as one of the most important men of europe, and Milan was one of the biggest cities in europe (I think second, just after paris) from the second half of the 13th century, with a population of up to 100000 people. I think the developpers made a very wise decision by choosing Milan over Genoa.

[PFJ_bejazuz]

Like everyone else says, I also want better AI, better diplomacy, and battles that last longer than 5 minutes.

*cough* & maps as big as MTW1

Trebuchets - there was a superb documentary on TV here a few years ago. They built a giant "castle wall" using traditional medieval techniques, and got 2 teams to build a trebuchet each, with which they were to try and knock down said wall. One team, lead by an academic, built theirs without wheels. The academic was a real arrogant, conceited ****. He sneered at any suggestion that Trebuchets had wheels and thus built his without them. The other team was lead by a (non-academic) expert in mediaval weapons and their construction. Based upon medieval sources showing Trebs with wheels, he built his with wheels.

And whaddya know? The wheeled Trebuchet significantly out-ranged the non-wheeled one. And, just as importantly, it out-ranged the longbow as well, something that I'm sure the Treb crew would have appreciated. The programme did an excellent job of explaining the physics of why the wheeled Treb had a longer range, even having slo-mo footage of a little model Treb to demonstrate. IIRC it went backwards, then as the arm approached the release point started moving forwards, giving the projectile additional impetus as it was launched.

They also had cameras set up on the "castle wall" which filmed the rocks as they flew towards to the wall, and let me tell you it was damn scary! Very good program.

top show - trying to find the URL i had of an excellent page someone on britarch put up with pics & diagrams of said same

[L'Impresario]

Talking about Constantipole made me think about how exactly will MTW II handle specific cities (and their fortifications). Will there be historical map layouts, esp. for cities whose exact features are extremely well known, such as Jerusalem, Constantinople, Granada etc (maybe even Buda and Pest).

1) The Ottomans weren't the first to take Constantinople. The infamous 4th Crusade under the leadership of the blind octagenerian Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, some 250 years previously

Well, at least it wasn't a real siege with a straightforward attack, like the Ottomans had to face, nor was it that expected. Ofcourse pre-1204 Byzantium was in a considerably better position than in 1453, but still..

Just a minor correction

A cannon designed and built incidentally by a German.

Urban was Hungarian;)

EDIT: If anyone knows the name of that program, please do mention it ASAP:)

[Kraxis]

Thinking about the wheels makes sense now...

Simple physics tells you that when you throw back weight you are propelled forwards. Now make a 'light' frame and add a heavy weight that swings down and backwards. The frame will, if on practical wheels, move forwards...
Now I didn't think of this as I didn't believe the wheels would be rolling well enough for this, or the weight to be propelled far enough backwards to send the frame forwards. But obviously I was wrong.

[x-dANGEr]

Islamic Armies - I just wanted to make a point about the fall of Constantinople. x_DANGEr seemed to think that it fell due to the sheer heroism & bravery of the Ottoman armies. Which neglects 2 key issues.

1) The Ottomans weren't the first to take Constantinople. The infamous 4th Crusade under the leadership of the blind octagenerian Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, some 250 years previously

2) Perhaps the biggest single factor in the taking of Constantinople by Mehmet II was that he had a great big cannon with which to batter down the walls. A cannon designed and built incidentally by a German. Go figure.

A little correction, he's called Mohammad (el-fateh). And what I insist on being a huge factor of taking Constantinople, was the urging of muslims, they have sieged it many times, attacked it many times and lost many times. But still, they kept attacking it.

[Martok]

Talking about Constantipole made me think about how exactly will MTW II handle specific cities (and their fortifications). Will there be historical map layouts, esp. for cities whose exact features are extremely well known, such as Jerusalem, Constantinople, Granada etc (maybe even Buda and Pest).

This is something that has me concerned/excited as well. I would like all major cities to look as historically accurate as is *reasonably* possible. I realize that from a gameplay perspective, cities that are particularly large (such as Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Cairo) cannot be shown as their true size. Otherwise whichever faction that owned these cities at the beginning of the game would have a ridiculous and unfair advantage--particularly in terms of wealth and manpower. I still hope, however, that these "uber-cities" (for want of a better term) will at least have some of their distinctive features on the map.

Some examples: Cairo would have the Great Mosque and the Caliph's Palace. Constantinople would have the Imperial Palace and the Haga Sofia. Jerusalem would have the Wailing Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Rome would have St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican. London would have the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. Paris would have Notre Dame. (Yes, I know Rome, London, and Paris were nowhere near as big as the other three back then; I just included them because they're also well-known examples of what I'm referring to.)

Yes, I realize at least some of these structures either didn't exist yet in 1080, and/or were still being constructed. Therefore, I'm hoping these structures appear in their respective cities' build queues once the correct year has arrived.