Medieval II: Total War Official Thread

[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!

[TB666]

There are medieval illustrations of both types:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~rmine/ht/ht01.html
http://members.iinet.net.au/~rmine/ht/ht02.html

As was mentioned earlier its thought (and has been demonstrated on medieval weapons programmes) that the wheels allowed the trebuchet to move back when firing. This causes the weight to drop in more vertical line, rather than proscribing an arc (which it would do if wheelless), and that this generates greater force.

I think you have misunderstood.
We aren't talking about the wheels that are on the drawnings.
We are talking about wheels under the trebuchet so that they can push it around the battlefield.
All Trebuchet versions I have seen don't have those wheels.

[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.

[x-dANGEr]

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.

I agree about Egypt thingy, I don't remember if the Omaweyins is in that era too or earlier (But they were before the Abbassids)..

I do hope the muslims get some decent units earlier on and not cheese units like muwahid and nubian spearmen that were almost the same bar some small statistic changes.

Also i do hope they get better units as they advance, sure they were in decline but just to keep up with the europeans, a late european army is far easier to handle than a muslim one where you have to micromanage.

I really don't know why they are always downgraded. After all, they were the only ones to repell the danger of the mogols and all the crusades.. I think they should have some nice troops with the exeptional option of 'VERYYYY' excellent morale. As muslims when in a battle, won't fear either death or life. For if it is death, paradise is the nest stop and if it's life, glory is the next stop.

[Hambut_bulge]

I think you have misunderstood.
We aren't talking about the wheels that are on the drawnings.
We are talking about wheels under the trebuchet so that they can push it around the battlefield.
All Trebuchet versions I have seen don't have those wheels.

Not at all. In my haste, I merely should have linked to page 3:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~rmine/ht/ht03.html

The drawing for the Siege of Jerusalem has what appear to be wheels on the base, although the accompanying text does admit that this is a rarity in medieval drawings.

Also I found a link to a site (http://authors.history-forum.com/lia...h13122005.html)
about Chinese war engines (apparently the Chinese invented the trebuchets) and near the bottom of this are a couple of illustrations of what may be wheeled trebuchets. Sadly, as with many drawings of the period, there is a great deal of room for interpretation.

Also came across these pages (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostemp...et/wheels.html and http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostemp...t/builds.html). This TV programme was shown on BBC2 a few years ago and provides a practical demonstration of how a trebuchet with wheel could actually work.

[The_Doctor]

OMG, its just wheels. There only there so you can move the thing around.

[Hambut_bulge]

OMG, its just wheels. There only there so you can move the thing around.

Well yes, but what else are we going to do until winter 2006?

[TB666]

OMG, its just wheels. There only there so you can move the thing around.

Hey I have no problem with the wheels.
As I said before they probably added them for gameplay.


@Hambut: Thanks for the links, very interesting read

[ChaosLord]

This is a pretty dissapointing announcement. Better graphics, a few new gameplay elements and a rehashed game. I wonder which they'll remake after MTW, STW or RTW. Probably STW, if we're lucky Sega will go under before anything as lame as RTW2 can be made.

[The_Doctor]

Well yes, but what else are we going to do until winter 2006?

It is winter 2006.

[Templar Knight]

'Deep thinking strategy campaign' - sounds promising, I just hope that there is more diplomacy and diplomatic intrigue, these after all went hand in hand with war.

[Lord Armbandit]

Thought I'd put my nose into the Trebuchet debate.

The wheels on the base are there to allow the trebuchet to fire (much)further and also allow it to deal with the strains of firing with less stress on the structure. It allows the weight to drop almost vertically, as it moves through the firing motion.

I saw this on TV, so it must be true.

[Kraxis]

I really don't know why they are always downgraded. After all, they were the only ones to repell the danger of the mogols and all the crusades.. I think they should have some nice troops with the exeptional option of 'VERYYYY' excellent morale. As muslims when in a battle, won't fear either death or life. For if it is death, paradise is the nest stop and if it's life, glory is the next stop.

Don't be silly!
We can all be rational about fear when we are outside it. Then we can feel as if we don't fear anything, but fear does take a man, even a determined religious fanatic. And it wasn't as if they were religious to the point fanaticism, some were but most weren't. It has even been argued that the christians were worse in that department in that age, that they were more likely hold some sort of religious fervour in battle, and disregard their own lives.

Since practically all battles prior to the modern age have been decided due to morale, the Muslims would never have been halted if their morale was consistently better than their enemies.
Also how do you explain routing muslim armies? Or tiny crusader armies beating much larger muslim ones in the first years of the crusades?

Now I agree that in MTW the Muslims were terribly underpowered when the game moved into High. And that was just not right. THere are reasons as to how the Almohads/successors managed to stay in Grenada for so long after losing their heartland there. Part of the exlaination is that they were not stagnant.

But from making the technology better to making the Muslim armies unbreakable is a serious misunderstanding of the situation.

[Kraxis]

It is winter 2006.

Exactly!!!!
But I fear SEGA doesn't know that...

[The Stranger]

OMG im in love...is that blood i saw on a units armour...i mean if it is .......oohohohohooh

and i hope i read and saw it right but does a unit now have multiple faces or is that just for the screenies

[x-dANGEr]

Don't be silly!
We can all be rational about fear when we are outside it. Then we can feel as if we don't fear anything, but fear does take a man, even a determined religious fanatic. And it wasn't as if they were religious to the point fanaticism, some were but most weren't. It has even been argued that the christians were worse in that department in that age, that they were more likely hold some sort of religious fervour in battle, and disregard their own lives.

Since practically all battles prior to the modern age have been decided due to morale, the Muslims would never have been halted if their morale was consistently better than their enemies.
Also how do you explain routing muslim armies? Or tiny crusader armies beating much larger muslim ones in the first years of the crusades?

Now I agree that in MTW the Muslims were terribly underpowered when the game moved into High. And that was just not right. THere are reasons as to how the Almohads/successors managed to stay in Grenada for so long after losing their heartland there. Part of the exlaination is that they were not stagnant.

But from making the technology better to making the Muslim armies unbreakable is a serious misunderstanding of the situation.

But morale did get them where they went. Muslims didn't have those very heavily armored catas, or those deadly 3 metre pikes. They had valour, they kept attacking Constantinople untill they occupied it. Unbreakable!! Who said that? I said make their valour the best (In other words) or else find a way to make them as good as others 'while' keeping them historically accurate.

[RZST]

nice screenshots =D

time to make wallpapers again!

[Kraxis]

But morale did get them where they went. Muslims didn't have those very heavily armored catas, or those deadly 3 metre pikes. They had valour, they kept attacking Constantinople untill they occupied it. Unbreakable!! Who said that? I said make their valour the best (In other words) or else find a way to make them as good as others 'while' keeping them historically accurate.

Actually the muslim armies were not really technologically behind the European armies. Their cavalry was often as heavy and their light cavalry was most assuredly better.

Yet the shock of initial contact with European/Frankish styled charges broke them consistently in the beginning. Even the bravest men fled. Just like they had in Europe.

The muslim armies did have a morale advantage, in general, in the initial expasion after Muhammed. That is true. But it is not superior morale that means you will take a place after hundreds of years of trying, that is determination of your leaders and in some cases chance.

No what would be more practical and historical would be equal morale (to Europeans) save special units, better mobility and slightly less armour. Broadly speaking.
Muslim units were not 'behind' much until plate armour began getting popular. But still the Ottomans kept up by developing other equipment.

[Watchman]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Orda Khan]

But morale did get them where they went. Muslims didn't have those very heavily armored catas, or those deadly 3 metre pikes. They had valour, they kept attacking Constantinople untill they occupied it. Unbreakable!! Who said that? I said make their valour the best (In other words) or else find a way to make them as good as others 'while' keeping them historically accurate.

They took Constantinople with very large guns. Not a great deal of valour there.
While I agree that in MTW the Moslem factions were too weak in comparison with the European, I agree with Kraxis.
As for the Mameluks and stopping the Mongol threat.....there was far, far more involved than a disciplined army. Ain Jalut was an army against a rearguard ( and that rearguard gave a very good account ) and a large contingent of the Mameluk army were in fact Golden Horde, sent there by Berke.
For a clearer picture of how impossible any further expansion was for the Ilkhanate, read Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia. The complexities of threats from all sides meant consolidation was all the Ilkhanate could realistically think about.

As for MTW II, I just hope CA do not repeat the mistakes of MTW. Namely, overly strong European armies, poor unit cost comparison and a pathetically weak Mongol presence

.......Orda

[Adrian II]

Despite sharing some peoples' questions or doubts about specs, the AI, battle speed, diplomacy ectetera, I must say some of the announced features are enough to make my mouth water.

Hurling dead animals into cities, now there's a thought for the weekend.

And the new, 'historically correct' option to have your Priest become Cardinal or even Pope, thus enhancing your faction's power and standing, is in one word: brilliant.

[VikingHorde]

OMG, this is my happy day! I was praying for MTW2 and got it! I think it will be better than RTW and even better MTW1. With sega providing better support, it will get a better start than RTW did when it came out. I was hoping for more factions like 30 or so, but we will see. The pics looks cool and the press release says a release date of december 2006, cool! I just hope it doesn't gets moved.

[RZST]

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

[ajaxfetish]

Start firing up your modding skills, VH! . I'd like to see 30+ factions, too. And of course if they do make any of the mistakes we worry about, I'm counting on guys like you to fix them.

Ajax

[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...

[VikingHorde]

Start firing up your modding skills, VH! . I'd like to see 30+ factions, too. And of course if they do make any of the mistakes we worry about, I'm counting on guys like you to fix them.

Ajax

Well, im not very good at making 3D models, so I can only mod tekst stuff . It is one of the resons why I don't mod RTW any more. Maybe I'll make a realism mod of some kind if MTW2 isn't perfect, but we will see .

[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