Medieval II: Total War Official Thread

[Quietus]

Great graphics!

But will battles last more than 5 minutes?

Advanced Combat System
Zoom to the frontline and witness the fast, visceral melee combat enhanced by new spectacular battlefield animations. Troops block and parry attack moves and string together deadly combo attacks and finishing moves before scanning the battlefield for their next kill.

[Ravenloch]

All they need now is authenic smells!!!!
Will their be ground troops stepping in Horse crap if following behing the Cav units..?

[caspian]

I hope they add a blood option even if its hidden from the menu. If we're talking about historical accuracy, we have to see the mass of dead over the battlefield lying in pools of blood.

[Divinus Arma]

I hope they add a blood option even if its hidden from the menu. If we're talking about historical accuracy, we have to see the mass of dead over the battlefield lying in pools of blood.

I see some blood on that armor. Is this an effect that will occur in battle? If so, we are seeing a major departure from the previous "bloodless" battle policy of the past. It is my impression that CA and Sega are testing the waters. They seem to desire a more graphically engaging product through accurate bloodshed, but desire a measure of consumer and critical response before moving on to decapitations, disembowelments, and limb-launching. I fully support this decision and I hope that they continue in this direction in an accurate way; a portrayal that does not shirk from the brutality, but does not show anime-style 40ft high blood fountains either. Press on CA, you will not be dissapointed in reviews or profits.

heh.

[Ilsamir Lord]

Does anyone have any speculation as to the system requirements? I suppose if it is well optimised it should be fine on my system.

[Samurai Waki]

I watched Kingdom of Heaven just to get into the mood, man... now it's gonna be hard to wait so long. Granted, Kingdom of Heaven isn't historically realistic but it does have decent atmosphere and I absolutely love the sound track.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Looks very beautiful graphically, but it seems like only a few new gameplay elements added... I'm curious about how the map looks in terms of scaling - will they shrink it in order to include the Americas or will they keep it detailed? I'd also be happy if they had increased the number of factions to perhaps 50 instead, to reflect the changes in the period. Egypt sounds a little cheesy compared to Abbassids, Mamluks and Fatimids, for example, there should IMO be differences over the periods. Finally I'm curious about how/if they're going to fix the most important issue that detracted from gameplay - removing the numerous small skirmish battles with brigands and similar and make the AI factions capable of regrouping and assembling larger armies for the battles instead of sending their units a few at the time. It's also important that they keep battle speed down so that the AI doesn't get completely crippled in the battles, so that better strategy on the map is necessary to compensate for larger losses in the battles. I'd also like to know how they're handling recruitment - if they're trying to limit blitz strategy by making it difficult to recruit in newly conquered territories right away.

[Duke Dick]

Does anyone have any speculation as to the system requirements? I suppose if it is well optimised it should be fine on my system.

IMHO; looking at the RTW minimum system specs and comparing them to the recomended specs, you can see that there is large space for customisation of your own system.

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

* English version of Microsoft® Windows® 98SE/ME/2000/XP
* Pentium® III 1.0GHz (1000MHz) or Athlon™ 1.0GHz (1000MHz) processor or higher
* 256MB RAM
* 8x Speed CD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers
* 2.9GB of uncompressed free hard disk space (plus 500MB for Windows® swap file)
* 100% DirectX® 9.0b compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers
* 100% Windows® 98SE/ME/2000/XP compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers
* DirectX® 9.0b (included)
* 3D hardware Accelerator Card Required - 100% DirectX® 9.0b compatible 64MB Hardware Accelerated video card and the latest drivers*.
* ATI® Radeon 7200
* ATI® Radeon 8500
* ATI® Radeon 9000
* ATI® Radeon 9500
* ATI® Radeon 9600
* ATI® Radeon 9700
* ATI® Radeon 9800
* All Nvidia® GeForce 2 and higher

As you can see, this is very low end, even for a system like Rome. The M2:TW system looks to have boosted many of the graphical features included in Rome, so it is only natural that system specs will have to be increased.

I speculate that the M2:TW minimum specs will probaly only differ from the RTW specs in slight ways, such as a minimum of a Pentium 4/Athlon 2GHZ+ processor, 512MB RAM and direct x 9.0c compatible cards.

[TB666]

I speculate that the M2:TW minimum specs will probaly only differ from the RTW specs in slight ways, such as a minimum of a Pentium 4/Athlon 2GHZ+ processor, 512MB RAM and direct x 9.0c compatible cards.

That is no slightly increase.
That's a pretty big one.
A slight increase would be Pentium 4/Athlon 1.2GHZ+ processor

[Alx]

Come on guys, Martok is the only one from here backing me up in the AI thread

Maybe we can at least get CA to allow AI modding, if that's even possible? Then the community could work on it, instead of wasting crazy man-hours redoing all the skins out of boredom.

[Ludens]

Maybe we can at least get CA to allow AI modding, if that's even possible? Then the community could work on it, instead of wasting crazy man-hours redoing all the skins out of boredom.

The A.I. is such an integral part of the game that making it moddable it is almost impossible. Mind you, I am not saying that it can't be done, but that it will be very, very hard. However, it is possible to make A.I. preferences moddable, and CA has done this in M:TW and R:TW.

[Doug-Thompson]

The A.I. is such an integral part of the game that making it moddable it is almost impossible. Mind you, I am not saying that it can't be done, but that it will be very, very hard. However, it is possible to make A.I. preferences moddable, and CA has done this in M:TW and R:TW.

That's it. That's what I want out of M:TW II than anything else.

I want a better array of options that "arcade" and "something else."

What soured the fan base on R:TW more than anything else? Unit speeds. People used to controlling their battles were aghast at the run-around. It looked goofy.

For me, the biggest laughable problem was the "flying horses" stuff.

You can drop arcade battles, as far as I'm concerned. I'd like options between "RTW" style play, which is obviously designed to be quick, and "traditional," or "paced" or "MTW-style" or (some would say) "slow and boring" play.

I'd like things like the spear bonus back, too.

[DukeofSerbia]

What about titles? King of Aragon, King of Serbia, Duke of Bavaria, Voivode of Wallachia, Count of Flandern, Censor of Genoa etc.

I want them back!

[General_Sun]

Yes agreed. Hand cranks are not the same thing as vehicular wheels.

BTW, Hambut_bulge, those are very interesting pictures, thanks for showing them.

[RZST]

how i love the .org, people arguing over the slightest irregularities(sp?) *sighs*
instead of focusing on the big shiny pictures

[Reenk Roink]

On the little mini-debate, the muslim factions definitely need to be made stronger (touche for mongols as well) but not at the levels that some may suggest.

It's undeniable that the muslim armies immediately after Muhammad had unmatched morale and zeal...

Take the example of Yarmuk where a lightly equipped muslim army essentially crushed a Byzantine army AT LEAST twice it's size and with much better arms and training in a frontal assault.

But it is also undeniable that this kind of ethic in the muslim soldier tapered off as time passed...and the muslims suffered reverse defeats.

I think that the best way to go about this is somewhere in the middle...

And yes, I am intrigued by the shinies, but more so about the POSSIBLE* improvements in gameplay...

[ajaxfetish]

Much as I am excited by the breathtaking screenshots, I'd rather have a great game with mediocre graphics. Afterall, the #1 game I play here in 2006 is M:TW (1). 3 1/2 years out and still going strong.

Ajax

[Martok]

Great graphics!

But will battles last more than 5 minutes?

An excellent question--one that I brought up in the official forum as well. After AI and diplomacy, the pacing of battles is probably my biggest concern. I admit I could do without the 8-hour battles we sometimes fight in Medieval 1 (I suppose I might as well get used to calling it that now), but Rome's battles were over so quickly it was absurd! There has got to be a happy medium somewhere....

[Rodion Romanovich]

An excellent question--one that I brought up in the official forum as well. After AI, the pacing of battles is probably my biggest concern. I admit I could do without the 8-hour battles we sometimes fight in Medieval 1 (I suppose I might as well get used to calling it that now), but Rome's battles were over so quickly it was absurd! There has got to be a happy medium somewhere....

The main problem with MTW1 battles was the endless hordes of reinforcements. Remove that (replacing it with the excellent reinforcement mechanics of RTW) and you get battles with perfect mechanics but without the unrealistic and boring reinforcement hordes.