Medieval2 ~:cheers:

[Proper Gander]

So, yes. Have the wheels by all means, but at least make it immobile.

*imagines the humongous amount of "why's my trebuchet not moving" threads that will spawn*

[paullus]

Has anyone else noticed this ?
From totalwar.com-"New Settlement Types
Build through six levels of settlement ranging from humble villages to vast cities and wooden forts to mighty stone fortress. Develop your faction as a feudal aristocracy using you castles to keep the peasants in check whilst conquering your enemies with your powerful armies. Or build cities to develop a wealthy urban society, and battle your foes with diplomacy, bribery, assassination and armies of mercenaries."

Sounds kinda like the EB government system. That'd really be the best way to represent the independent city leagues in the HRE without having an emergent faction in the middle of the HRE, which would be really difficult to pull off I'd think.

However, they may really just be talking about "castle".."fortified village"..."walled city" etc, in which case its nothing exciting. Hard to say from a press release.

[Steppe Merc]

Yeah, for all we know it could mean that you could choose to focus on farms or on merchant buildings. Pretty vague.

[Shigawire]

I noticed that also with curiosity Ryanus. It certainly sounds like they are going to differentiate between two methods of holding on to power.

Forts and Castles may be like the ones in RTW. Which you may build with your army, on any tile you wish. Except now we get multiple choices of Forts.. Wooden Fort being the lowest level, Stone Castle being the highest.. and so on.

The interview in IGN also peaked my interest.

The defender can counter by developing bigger fortresses with two or three rings of walls. An attacker with a good train of artillery will always be able to blast a hole in the outer wall, but if the assault on the breach is too costly, they might not have the strength to take the second or third ring.

This means we can finally reflect the true might of Qarthadashtim, who used to build three walls around their cities. Qart-hadasht and Thapsos especially.

[Dux Corvanus]

quote: The problem is that CA will misunderstand this data,
How the hell do you know?

Because we're usually pesimistic, and even so, they always manage to let us down even more.

quote: I wonder how they'll deal this time with Crusades, the Bizantium decadence, the Otoman rise, the Iberian Reconquista, the Italian labyrinth, the Pope-Emperor conflicts, the post-Viking states, the Hanseatic commerce, the forming of Eastern powers, the arrival of the Age of Discoveries -giving Spain and Portugal huge resources towards the end of the timeline- etc. Too complex and challenging, if they really want to make a difference with Medieval 1, more than simply adapting it to a new engine -with a probable loss of number of factions and game depth.

Very simple: as goals like they did in part 1. Worked perfect you know.

No, it isn't very simple. Complex economical, social and military organization changes can't be recreated with a simplistic goal system of the kind conquer-that-city or discover-gunpowder. It didn't worked perfect, you know, unless you're easily satisfied, fun gameplay is everything for you and don't give a cr*p about historical immersion. Anyway, one expects a progression, not the same game with a new engine. Because I have MTW yet, and I don't need to buy it again.

Quote: Plus, I'd doubt they would be able to modern the rise of cities and decline of the feudal system correctly within the limits of the RTW engine. If they would even bother with that at all, of course.

How in M:TW did they depict the rise of cities? Never heard anybody about it. Could be very simple though. Larger upgrades from a certain date in certain areas. See?

How they will depict that those upgrades are in fact a consequence of things like the plague, that reduced population and made a peasant's work more expensive for his master, changing the relations between masters and servants and giving rise to a new class of citizens that were released from their servile rural duties, fleed to towns and weakened the rural noble estament whereas increasing the power of state, incarnated in the monarchs? That this reduced agricultural production in Western Europe, making necessary to import resources from Eastern Europe, where noble ownlanders became, instead, so powerful that State was almost unextant, and servants lived attached to land propiety? That all this, and the obsolescence of the knight as a weapon, signaled the fall of chivalry and the rise of non-noble units inside the western armies? That the needs of modern war gave birth progressively to a professional, stable and centralized army, instead of trusting exclusively in feudal contingents, militia and mercenary troops?

I don't hope they can recreate all these things, but I'd like to see an effort to imitate it a bit, for the sake of variety and gameplay depth.

First of all how many games are out there that offer this depth (which you people complain is shallow) at all.

Very few, it's true. And I praise CA for that. But I expect them to make progresses in those aspects, too. Since MTW, all I've seen are technical improvements, due to better performances of PCs today. But, as a historical-based strategy game, it has gone worse. In RTW, gameplay may be more fun and attractive for the casual or recent player, but, lacking depth, its appeal decreases more rapidly, and gets more boring and repetitive than MTW after some time.

I don't want that for MTW2, a funny use-and-throw console-like game that makes you happy in Xmas and it's forgotten about February. Maybe that's the market, but that's not the way CA made its name, and they can't repeat the RTW formula forever and ever, without exhausting it. It's lovers of historical warfare who gave CA its fame, and departing more and more from History to woo show-lovers will finally give birth to hibrid products that no one will like: too deep for arcaders and too light in content for the quieter gamer.

The time frame is a bit odd but saying that half the game is in the early modern period is as nonsecal and you know it yourself. EM era has started just 30 years before.

I don't feel comfortable with chopping History in slices as it is pork, since all chances usually happen slowly and have different progressions in different geographic scenarios. But, traditionally, Early Modern Age is usually related to the fall of Constantinople before the Otomans (1453), the end of the Hundred Year War, the beginning of colonial expansion by Portugal and Castile, the cultural changes of Renaissance... all events that happened around mid 15th cantury, and hence, we're talking about almost a full century that changed completely Western World in all aspects. 1530 is so different from 1080 as our days are from the France of Louis XIV, and I can't only understand CA's election as an attempt of increasing variety and fun by incorporating gunpowder and exotic 'supernatives', for making a minimally informed historical game with all those variables in mind is a huge, probably impossible task.

It's about immense epic battles. Not about all you're reforms and specific little details happening on the exact date.

Then why feigning it's based on a historical frame or a timeline? Make it in Mars and put Wargs, Aliens, Predators, head hurlers and chicks that throw fire thru their a**. Immense! Epic! Fun fun fun!

I never ever heard anyone complainng tha M:TW lacked anything on the history front. How come?

Then you didn't put your ear in the proper places. Why do you think there is a 'Medieval XL' mod? Besides, I don't complain about MTW. It's only I want it to progress. Not to sacrifice its best things in exchange for simple adrenaline and spectacle. We can have both.

You apparantly feel cheated with R:TW. Well then go play something else.

Oh yes. I'll play EB.

On another side:

The defender can counter by developing bigger fortresses with two or three rings of walls. An attacker with a good train of artillery will always be able to blast a hole in the outer wall, but if the assault on the breach is too costly, they might not have the strength to take the second or third ring.

Oh, wonderful, but that's not the way it worked. In order to protect from artillery, cities were not surrounded by 'rings of walls', but engineers developed a new kind of wall known as 'trace italienne' (Italian shape), which consisted in inclined walls -which deflected artillery shots instead of standing them- and a characteristic 'star' shape -which allowed attacking the besieging enemy from several angles:

[Shigawire]

Indeed Dux. That wasn't the point. This could be useful for EB 2 perhaps?

Qart-hadasht had 3 progressively sized walls, as did Thapsus. The outer wall being shortest, the inner wall being tallest.

[Dux Corvanus]

Indeed Dux. That wasn't the point. This could be useful for EB 2 perhaps?

Qart-hadasht had 3 progressively sized walls, as did Thapsus. The outer wall being shortest, the inner wall being tallest.

We'll see, we'll see. I'd also love to see an EB series progressing bith in technology and depth. It depends on motivation -and future moddability- I guess.

If they also make posible fortified island-cities -such as Gadir and Tyrus- I'll be perfectly happy. Imagine the tactical posibilities of such an approach.

BTW, no word about sea warfare.

[Jebus]

... and if you didn't notice, most liked RTW. It's core strengths - especially the battle system - is still lightyears ahead of any other game in simulating the mechcanics of classical and medieval combat. It's so easy to bash historical inaccuracies to make yourself feel learned, but would you rather have historically (and slightly modding) troubled engine or no game at all? If CA made TW fantasy from the start instead of mock-history people would even be interested in realism. Goodness be happy that there is a Total War series and that the next game will have greatly improved graphics. Does bad hype actually annoy you even you play?

I really don't get that attitude. It's so incredibly typically Anglosaxon.

In the Paradox community, for instance, people actually expect good games. There's pressure from players, interaction and player advice to actually make games as good as they can be. And what do players get? GOOD GAMES. If you are expecting a half-assed product and still be happy because half-assed is still better than nothing at all, you will ALWAYS get half-assed products, and they will only become progressively more half-assed as time goes on.

Stand up for yourself, you mindless consumerist drone. They aren't making their games for themselves, they are making games for YOU. For YOUR money. YOUR time. It's all about YOU - not what they want to do with their time. YOU buy their products, so THEY WORK FOR YOU.

Is that really such a hard concept to grasp?

[Kralizec]

*imagines the humongous amount of "why's my trebuchet not moving" threads that will spawn*

The solution is simple. Actually putting that bit of information in the unit description will stop those gamers who have achieved literacy from creating threads about this. If some people do make such threads, we probably don't want them at the forum anyway so we can just ban them

[NightStar]

Interesting discussion and all but I believe in giving CA the benefit of the doubt until the game actually comes out and I have tested and tried it.

[NightStar]

Interesting discussion and all but I believe in giving CA the benefit of the doubt until the game actually comes out and I have tested and tried it.

[Lord_Morningstar]

My main concern now is that this will simply be RTW in the Middle Ages. Not that I didn’t like RTW, it remains one of my favourite games, just that I’m not going to shell out money and possibly buy a new computer to play essentially the same game.

However, until I hear anything about features, I’m reserving judgement. I thought BI was very good, so I’m not going to despair.

There’s a couple of things we’re not going to be getting, though.

We’re not going to be getting a totally and perfectly accurate EB-style game. Sega has to pay heed to the bottom line – they need a game that can be produced and tested in reasonable time, and a game that a large percentage of the potential computer-game market will be interested in. Likewise, they are not going to go too far out of their way to make the game highly moddable.

We’re not going to get MTW that looks like RTW. I wouldn’t want an exact copy of MTW, anyway. I enjoyed the game, but again, I’m not going to shell out for a better-looking version of a game I already own.

Other than that, who knows?

[RandyKapp]

Havnt read all the replys in this thread so forgive me if its already been said. But this system of giving different shild designs to in the individual soldier while it may sound nifty doesnt make much sense. 80-90% of the infantry in the period were men-at-arms who would bear the standard of their lord. Making units with several different patterns a step backwards =/

[Steppe Merc]

I disagree, though what you say is true for some Europeans. But rember within each faction there would be a large number of lords, each with his own vassals that he would call up when his lord called upon him.
Also keep in mind the non feudal or not exactly feudal factions.

[Kralizec]

Besides, that would be easily modded out. Probably you just need to remove the different skin parts for the shields and replace them with a single one, or edit some text so that the engine can only select one shield picture.

[Dayve]

Good... I'd rather have the same faces/shields/clothes/helmets with no dirt or blood so i can have more units on screen than less units with all that useless stuff... Although i admit it would be nice to have all that and a nice computer able to do both but i haven't the money now or then to buy a new expensive pc to do that..

[Chester]

Will MTW2 be moddable? Even from a skinner prospective or perhaps a animator's stand point. The models look very complex. Will this cause a problem for modders? I can see RTW models being remade, but the MTW2 models have much more detail and pagentry. Blood and mud forming ontop of armour and cloth over time?, yikes. I hope we can find able skinners and moddlers.

[Ypoknons]

I really don't get that attitude. It's so incredibly typically Anglosaxon.

In the Paradox community, for instance, people actually expect good games. There's pressure from players, interaction and player advice to actually make games as good as they can be. And what do players get? GOOD GAMES. If you are expecting a half-assed product and still be happy because half-assed is still better than nothing at all, you will ALWAYS get half-assed products, and they will only become progressively more half-assed as time goes on.

Stand up for yourself, you mindless consumerist drone. They aren't making their games for themselves, they are making games for YOU. For YOUR money. YOUR time. It's all about YOU - not what they want to do with their time. YOU buy their products, so THEY WORK FOR YOU.

Is that really such a hard concept to grasp?

I'm Chinese, if that works for you. Anglo-saxonism, confucianism, whatever, I'm just a hodgepod of values it doesn't matter.

My point is that RTW wasn't so bad - it had huge flaws to be certain, but not to the extent that I wouldn't play it. You're working off the viewpoint that RTW is a piece of crap that noone would buy, and I don't buy that. RTW gives you classical battles in a 3D engine, something not even MTW can give. Yes, the shoddy AI made it boring after a while, but I actually thought that RTW was a rather good game. I am to be called a mindless consumer drone if that is the case? That I happen to prefer a flawed TW-style game to say, HL2 even. People who like Lock-On air combat despite its flaw would say the same thing - what, they will choose to live with those flaws because there is no idealistic dream world giving an idealisticly what you would call a 'good' game. Yes, RTW has more flaws than it should, but whether those flaws are worth your money, is up to you. It's either flawed RTW or no RTW, and the former does in fact, make me happier.

Yes, CA should interact with its customer base more and RTW would have benefitted from that immensely. But that is the realm of the sueprlative developer, and if you only accept games form such developers, go ahead. I don't hold people to the same expectations that you do, and if that makes me a consumerist drone, so be it.

You, in fact, have won me over to the fact that we can expect more from CA. But you won't convince me that RTW is somehow not worth my money, and the same, from current evidence, goes for MTW2.

[Shigawire]

But you won't convince me that RTW is somehow not worth my money, and the same, from current evidence, goes for MTW2.

Good point. I'd buy MTW2 in a heart-beat myself.. but that doesn't mean I have to be a fanboi all of the sudden. I will keep pressuring CA to be the best they can be, because if they make ONE misstep, they are over and out in this industry. It's that cutthroat. I will admit joyous jubilation over the production of this game, but I will not sit idly by and let them pump me with their stuff. I will expect the fans to be a more active partner in what they do. If we don't expect it, and crave it, it will never happen.

[Kushan]

I'm personally holding a neutral opinion of MTW II. We all saw the pre RTW coverage, and then we all saw what it came to be. Yes, i'll by MTW II the day it comes out, but I dont want to get my hopes up.

If the hype, for the most part, seems to equal up then I'll change my opinionm until then we'll just have to wait and see.

I personally am planning on removing the Aztecs, and bring the map more on a European/Asia focus. I dont find it realistic to conquer the Aztecs in the Middel Ages.

Kushan

[Shigawire]

I agree about the Aztecs. It seems like a wild goose-chase to bring them into the game, when there are so many factions that ought to have representation.

[Ypoknons]

I personally am planning on removing the Aztecs, and bring the map more on a European/Asia focus. I dont find it realistic to conquer the Aztecs in the Middel Ages

Actually the conquest was finished within the timeframe of MTW2, but certainly it made little difference to the historical situation of Europe before 1530 and is much more of a Renaissance thing. I hope I understood you right.

[Shigawire]

Well yes, it is technically within the period. But how much can be reflected between 1492 to 1530?

[Ypoknons]

Well yes, it is technically within the period. But how much can be reflected between 1492 to 1530?

Sorry, that was my point. The historical signifance of the Aztec conquest to Europe - vast amounts of gold flowing into Spain and its conbritubtion price revolution - do not lie within the timeframe that MTW2 is in. It's sort of a pointless minigame, if implemented well, and probably a waste of effort for us, though I have heard that some people are enjoying the variety.

[King of the dutch]

Is it really?

It is really. Especially if you claim that that puts 'half' the game in the EM era.
See Dux post about the timeframe.

These might seem like ever so slight details to you, but they make a huge difference to me.
Again how did the original M:TW show this. Did you think that game sucked too? Plus i'm not saying they're slight differences.

Hah, if only if it were that simple. You can't model the transition from an agrarian-run economy to a city-run economy like that. Apart from the military matters I've discussed before, there's a whole lot more to the transition from a feudal society to the Early Modern society. How would you model the hard-fought independance of the cities? The fact that each city formed its own mini-government? Work specialisation? Trader economies? Indirect taxes? City militias? Cross-national trader unions? Trade centers?

Well then tell me how they should exactly recreate that. Cities could rebel for instance from a certain time. Reflecting that they are moving away from their masters. Most things you say can be represented by numbers. City militias could be build from a certain point. If you have a better idea share it in stead of shattering everything from the start.

then they shouldn't add the whole princess 'n popes crap.

Now whats the problem with that.
1 Untill the 'end' the pope tried to be a main power in Europe compelling the feudals what to do. Btw at the end near the renaissance the popes were a decadent bunch.
2 It was very common to marry out you're daughter to other monarchs/princes/lords en so on.

Have you looked at the egyptian faction in Vanilla recently? Or any "barbarian" factions? Let's just say they haven't wooed me with their historical research in the past, and I tend to be a realist. If something has changed for the better since then (which is definitely possible with a new publisher), then I'd be pleasantly surprised!

Good point. Still they already made a game about medieval history. I didn't find any major faults with that one. (r can't remember). The Egyp faction was a concession to battlefield practibility. (see the Q&A in the off. rome forum).
So were all the bright colors for instance. So you could distinguish troops on the battlefield.

"This game improves on some of the flaws of its predecessor"?


No, it isn't very simple. Complex economical, social and military organization changes can't be recreated with a simplistic goal system of the kind conquer-that-city or discover-gunpowder. It didn't worked perfect, you know, unless you're easily satisfied, fun gameplay is everything for you and don't give a cr*p about historical immersion. Anyway, one expects a progression, not the same game with a new engine. Because I have MTW yet, and I don't need to buy it again.

It seems that with the graphical improvements you want a whole lot of other things too but this:
How they will depict that those upgrades are in fact a consequence of things like the plague, that reduced population and made a peasant's work more expensive for his master, changing the relations between masters and servants and giving rise to a new class of citizens that were released from their servile rural duties, fleed to towns and weakened the rural noble estament whereas increasing the power of state, incarnated in the monarchs? That this reduced agricultural production in Western Europe, making necessary to import resources from Eastern Europe, where noble ownlanders became, instead, so powerful that State was almost unextant, and servants lived attached to land propiety? That all this, and the obsolescence of the knight as a weapon, signaled the fall of chivalry and the rise of non-noble units inside the western armies? That the needs of modern war gave birth progressively to a professional, stable and centralized army, instead of trusting exclusively in feudal contingents, militia and mercenary troops?

is impossible. You know why? Because it takes the game out if the game. THe above is a documentary. Beginning in a set historical situation in whatever year gives you the player the change to make or break history. It's up to you to follow this line you sketch above. On the other hand it's perfectly possible that you don't. CA gives you a situation and you deaql with it. If they would recreate every single event (which are different for all 'nations') it would not be very exciting. Every game would be the same 'coz factions would be as strong and developed as is historicaly accurate. That's never been the aim of the game.

But I expect them to make progresses in those aspects, too.

good point

Then why feigning it's based on a historical frame or a timeline?
Like i said above it's about history but it's not about recreating history for you. Also CA makes choices about what they deem is for every faction a necesaay/valueble point in time to elaborate. (like the messages in M:TW)
One of the reasons there are not so many faction specific features is performance. Look now ppl are already wondering/complaining (if) they can('t) play it.

Then you didn't put your ear in the proper places. Why do you think there is a 'Medieval XL' mod?

Well my eyes and hands were cos i played it. In what way did it do this:

How they will depict that those upgrades are in fact a consequence of things like the plague, that reduced population and made a peasant's work more expensive for his master, changing the relations between masters and servants and giving rise to a new class of citizens that were released from their servile rural duties, fleed to towns and weakened the rural noble estament whereas increasing the power of state, incarnated in the monarchs? That this reduced agricultural production in Western Europe, making necessary to import resources from Eastern Europe, where noble ownlanders became, instead, so powerful that State was almost unextant, and servants lived attached to land propiety? That all this, and the obsolescence of the knight as a weapon, signaled the fall of chivalry and the rise of non-noble units inside the western armies? That the needs of modern war gave birth progressively to a professional, stable and centralized army, instead of trusting exclusively in feudal contingents, militia and mercenary troops?

In fact, in what way did it make M:TW more historically accutrate or better depicted the development you are talking about? (it was a cool mod. Not attacking the modder)

We can have both.
i agree.

I admit i was:
agressively worked up defending a meme (although....what's a meme )
I meant no insult.

Dux:
Isn't that type a castle not an EM type (maybe late) i thought Early period castles did have multiple rings?

kotd

[Proper Gander]

The solution is simple. Actually putting that bit of information in the unit description will stop those gamers who have achieved literacy from creating threads about this. If some people do make such threads, we probably don't want them at the forum anyway so we can just ban them

*tries to imagine the new TW generation take their time reading the unit descriptions*

[Ludens]

Stand up for yourself, you mindless consumerist drone. They aren't making their games for themselves, they are making games for YOU. For YOUR money. YOUR time. It's all about YOU - not what they want to do with their time. YOU buy their products, so THEY WORK FOR YOU.

Is that really such a hard concept to grasp?

Please drop the belligerence. If you are so frustrated with CA, stop buying their products. If you aren't, give them credit for what they got right.

I am a bit surprised why people are hacking like this at R:TW while seeming to forget that M:TW was neither as bug-free nor as historically accurate as it could have been. R:TW was far more ambitious, so no wonder more things went wrong. Yes, I was disappointed with the game, and yes, I still think many things should have been done better and that a lot of potential has been wasted, but all this aggression at CA is going to do more harm than good. After all, they made the engine for great mods like EB.

I don't expect them to make M:TW II a historically accurate simulation of social, economical and military dynamics in the Middle ages. None of the previous games were, after all, and the public (the majority, anyway) doesn't expect that of them. All I hope for it that they get the basic engine right, and that the rest will be moddable.

[Kampfduck]

i think its gonna be a great game, but by the looks of it, what are the specs for this game, pentium5 !?!

[Salazar]

Well, i think it is just an upgraded rtw engine, so it shouldnt be too heavy.
I imagine that most of the graphical improvement comes from better textures for units buildings landscape etc.

[Dux Corvanus]

Dux:
Isn't that type a castle not an EM type (maybe late) i thought Early period castles did have multiple rings?

Certainly, earlier fortresses did. But that's not what I don't like, but the fact they intend to put them in as an answer to 'a good train of artillery', this is, organized wall-demolishing gunpowder cannon and bombard trains, as Otomans and Castilians started using since mid 15th century.

Concentric rings of walls appeared much earlier -see Shigawire's post- and were not purposedly designed to stand artillery attacks, but making possible intruders face several strong lines of defence.

In fact, several rings of vertical walls only make the demolishing task longer, but don't avoid destruction. Trace italienne was an effective passive response to trains of artillery, and marked the end of medieval fortification, circa 1460. With time, trace italienne was also to show its limitations.

I don't criticize the use of multiple rings in the game, they're historical -if properly done. But I don't agree in the use and counter-artillery effects they intend to give them ingame -which may be effective, given the limitations of engine, but unhistorical.

More info:

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