What do yall want?

[Kraxis]

I don't know how people would respond to this but I got bunch of positive replies a while ago. I'd love to continue playing even if my king dies without a heir. Just because a line dies doesn't mean everything becomes non-existing. Let one hi-rank general lead the population to carry on as if it was a civil war and let me play it.

I know this is not a very important thing to put into the game but why not go big?

Can you say MTW?
That is exactly what happened in MTW. Though you would need to have at least a single royal person around. Then he would fight a civil war with a top general and you could chose which one to back (you would then become that faction).

[lancelot]

One thing that must go into MTW2...a diplomacy and alliance system that actually means something...

too often, allies would stab you in the back for no apparent reason, sometimes the turn after accepting an alliance, it made no sense and was ultimately pointless...(and frustrating)

A penalty should be applied for oath-breaking...a big one to!

Something like, a cumulative unseen penalty is applied to your faction making any future alliances less likely to be accepted...repeated offences will ultimately mean your total exclusion from an alliance, possibly include trade as well to make it really sting... plus a population loyalty decrease also perhaps?

[Templar Knight]

I hope the alliance system is linked to the influence rating - similar to MTW. If you break an alliance your influence goes down... etc

[Spino]

1) VASTLY IMPROVED A.I.! Rome is simply not a challenging game to anyone with a modicum of strategy gaming experience under their belt. The fact that Rome's tactical and strategic elements are less challenging than those of its predecessors (even on Hard or Expert difficulty) is a sad commentary on a game that took several years to develop. In the absence of actually making MTW2's AI play better at Hard or Expert levels I would love to see CA incorporate 'Advanced' difficulty options that can provide veteran strategy gamers with a more effective AI opponent while not discouraging the average gamer.

2) Bring back Glorious Achievements campaigns!

3) Increase the hard coded faction limit to 30 or more (thankfully this is currently under consideration at CA).

4) Bring back Medieval's three seperate Eras and create Glorious Achievement goals for each of them.

5) Recordable battle replays for campaign game battles.

6) Instantaneous movement of all diplomats, priests, princesses, spies & assassins from one unblockaded port to the other. I think it's silly that these units should be dependent on military fleets for transportation as they are in RTW. During times of war simply factor in the chance that these units can be intercepted and/or eliminated by an enemy fleet within a certain distance of either port whenever they attempt to travel overseas.

(here's yet another wish...)

7) Princesses Revisited - If the diplomatic model is to be improved bring back the marriage system. However this time make marriages carry far greater weight than they did in Medieval and better yet, provide for the possiblity (however small) that both factions can actually combine into one with the more powerful of the two effectively absorbing the lesser and incorporating it's family members into it's own family tree.

[Ryanus]

One simple thing that would help out the campaign map IMO would be to have large movement ranges in your own territory and much smaller ones than that of your enemies , this would do two things 1.) you could cross your empire in a relatively small amount of time (no more taking 20 years to get from Italy to Spain) without allowing you to blitzkrieg the middle east from france. 2.) The disparity between the mobility of the attacker and defenders would allow defenders to intercept attacking armies before they lay siege to the city, allowing for more field battles. If they did this in RTW it was a big of enough difference.

[Bar Kochba]

i want dosent get

[Prince Cobra]

As I explained in other topic it'll be good to be included the Bulgarian faction
(there is a decent map and interesting info in '30 factions topic') full stop.
I have some suggestion
it is really good idea to change the system of the heirs
there are some examples in history for female heirs to the throne (both of them are from the byzantine history):
1) empress Irina (797-802) (called herself emperor) (she wasn't exactly a heir because she blinded her son in order to take over the power)
2)empress Teodora(1055-1056)(called herself emperor)- the younger daughter of Constantine VIII (who had no male children (while his brother emp.Basil II even refused to get married- he hated the women))
However Byzantium is an exception (that option should only exist for the empire and may be Spain (queen Izabel )) and of course the existence female monarch should lead to very low loyalty (and if the empress didn't marry (look how many years the empress ruled) mass rebellion and end of the game!
But I am wondering why ther were no children-monarchs (and this did not lead to the end of the dinasty)- Louis IX of France, some byzantine rulers and many other example. Yes, ther should be a drop of loyalty but not so fatal as the previous example. And by the time the monarch grew up , the vice and virtues of the regent( why not a woman- the mother of the king) are vital for the country
And it is also very good idea to be improved the diplomacy (esp. the part with allies who attack the enemy together)

[Cesare diBorja]

I want a game that eventually in a succession of expansion-packs takes us all the way up to the First World War. Plain and simple. No more back-tracking. Maybe a game that eventually gets more virtual as you can be a personality within the game. Now, wouldn't that be exciting? Imagine you are the king of Yak-country and you lead your armies into battle from a first person view and you have to plan out all your battles to the best of your knowledge, wit and from the best intelligence on maps and from field reports and then ask your generals to deliver you a victory. All the while you direct from your position as you can see the battle. Pray you don't come under coup to see an early death or worse, capture. Diplomacy?, don't get me started!

Pipe-dreams are great!

diBorgia

[hrvojej]

One thing that must go into MTW2...a diplomacy and alliance system that actually means something...

too often, allies would stab you in the back for no apparent reason, sometimes the turn after accepting an alliance, it made no sense and was ultimately pointless...(and frustrating)

A penalty should be applied for oath-breaking...a big one to!

Something like, a cumulative unseen penalty is applied to your faction making any future alliances less likely to be accepted...repeated offences will ultimately mean your total exclusion from an alliance, possibly include trade as well to make it really sting... plus a population loyalty decrease also perhaps?

This could be done with the ability to see the stance of other factions towards your own, and with the AI that will act in accordance to those stances. If you have friendly relations with a faction, you should be able to have some feedback about that (the more detailed the better IMHO), and then you would know that they are less likely to backstab you etc. This doesn't mean that friendships should be easy or cheap to gain, but it should add a whole new dimension to the campmap strategy and gameplay. This should make diplomacy much less of a haphazard guessing game that it was in the previous TW games, which basically meant that I would just not bother to use it at all.

edit
p.s. dammit, somebody also took my avatar...

[fallen851]

All I want is a good game, not another half baked [insult deleted]

Thus I won't buy MTW2...

Moderator comment: constructive criticism only, please.

[Ludens]

This could be done with the ability to see the stance of other factions towards your own, and with the AI that will act in accordance to those stances. If you have friendly relations with a faction, you should be able to have some feedback about that (the more detailed the better IMHO), and then you would know that they are less likely to backstab you etc. This doesn't mean that friendships should be easy or cheap to gain, but it should add a whole new dimension to the campmap strategy and gameplay. This should make diplomacy much less of a haphazard guessing game that it was in the previous TW games, which basically meant that I would just not bother to use it at all.

Agreed. What also would help is to make the responses of the diplomats more indicative of the computers attitude. My offers were often refused, but I never was sure why. Sometimes I even managed to (apparently) insult the A.I. Some more variety (and more connection with the situation) would go a long way.

[Martok]

Agreed. What also would help is to make the responses of the diplomats more indicative of the computers attitude. My offers were often refused, but I never was sure why. Sometimes I even managed to (apparently) insult the A.I. Some more variety (and more connection with the situation) would go a long way.

I second that as well. Whenever my emissary would return to court to tell me my alliance proposal with [faction X] had been rejected, I was never sure if the "flavor" of the rejection actually meant anything, or if it was just a randomly-picked message. For example: "The English King wanted to assure that he harbors no hostility towards you, but feels that an alliance would put him in a difficult position at this time;" as opposed to "The French King has refused your offer of alliance. I received the impression that it was only his good mood that allowed me to leave with my head still attached."

Would this mean the English actually like me, but are simply reluctant to entangle themselves, and that the only reason the French haven't attacked me yet is because they don't feel strong enough? Or do all the messages basically say the same thing, i.e. "we're not interested so go away"? It would be really nice if diplomacy in Medieval 2 was at least dynamic enough that the tone of diplomatic messages actually gave you a clue as to how a particular faction feels towards you.

[Cesare diBorja]

Slightly larger unit sizes.

diBorgia

[Sarmatian]

Did anyone here played imperial glory? It has great diplomacy, which I would like to see in medievel II. Actually, I think it was better than rtw in all aspects, except the battle of course which is probably the most important. If they could make medievel II as a mixture of imperial glory and rtw, I think it would be a great game.

[Zatoichi]

One simple thing that would help out the campaign map IMO would be to have large movement ranges in your own territory and much smaller ones than that of your enemies , this would do two things 1.) you could cross your empire in a relatively small amount of time (no more taking 20 years to get from Italy to Spain) without allowing you to blitzkrieg the middle east from france. 2.) The disparity between the mobility of the attacker and defenders would allow defenders to intercept attacking armies before they lay siege to the city, allowing for more field battles. If they did this in RTW it was a big of enough difference.

I really like that idea Ryanus! It doesn't even have to be a huge difference in movement points between home turf and neutral/enemy lands before it makes a whole new raft of strategies available, and is a good way of introducing the concept of supply without getting over complicated.

[Dead Moroz]

I WANT NO BUGS!

I don't want second BI that was buried on my shelf after several days of playing.

I want reasonable diplomacy AI and real alliances. I want smart tactics AI and real AI armies - not just a mix of independently acting stupid units.

I want AI to much better care about its generals on both battle and strategy levels.

I don't want lots of small groups of enemies wandering through my lands - it's not fun to easily kill those enemies with my large army.

I want human speed of battles. I'm too stupid to play RTW battles with AI without constant pressing on pause button.

I want computer-controlled reinforcements to be real help for me in battle. Every time I used computer-controlled reinforcements in RTW they were just intervene for my battle plans and waste of my troops. It need at least simple coordination between human and computer-controlled armies, like you say to your helpers: "Hold on", "Start skirmish", Attack!", etc.

I want the option for besieged garrisons to surrender, on various terms.

I want to demand besieged city in peace treaty conditions (it was impossible in RTW).

I want army that siege a city won't always go away (or disappear) after unsuccessful assault, but keep siege if it still have enough forces for it. Afaik, it was good and historically correct feature in MTW1, but was strangely missed in RTW.

I want loser armies to retreat on reasonable distance on strategy map - not to perform fantastic marathon abilities. I also want that army trapped into deadlock on strategy map won't perform Copperfield's tricks after defeat and escape right through my army.

I want to retreat from battle as much times as I have movement points for it (in RTW it's possible to retreat just once).

I want brigands or retreating rival army to not be able to cross river via ford or bridge where my fort stands. It also would be nice to have on river battle map a fort if it presents on strategy map. In RTW it was very disappointed to block a river with fort and don't have it in battle.

I want historically correct units. I don't want hordes of weird hysterical wifes and alive mummies.

I want old units to be upgradable when new types of troops are discovered. It's stupid that you have to build your army from the scratches each time you reach new technology level.

I want weather and climate to make more impact on troops in battle, like it was in MTW1. It would be nice to add special mountain bonus for some units.

I want region specific units like in MTW1.

I want culture-oriented army building system. I think it's better to be able to build troops in settlement only if it's enough loyal and colonized by you. So you won't be able to build troops in recently conquered city of different civilization.

I don't want 21 factions limit. Impossibility to create any new factions was the worst modding feature in RTW. And I want more factions in MTW2: I'd like to see there Burgundia, Serbia, Bohemia, Aragon, Lithuania, Sweden, Georgia, Switzerland, Khwarazm (if the map spreads that far in Asia - I guess it will because of promised Tumurids). Plus add several Russian principalities: initial united Russia with capital in Kiev and then emerging of Vladimir principality and Novgorod republic would be nice, but it would be great to have emerging Chernigov and Galich-Volhynia principalities too.

I want initial positions of factions to present on strategy mini-map on startup - Medieval cartography was developed enough. It also would be nice to get occasional map updates of regions which you trading with - because merchants were the real scouts in all times.

I don't want acid faction colors. It's right to set distinctive colors for factions, but let it be "eyes friendly".

I want historically correct symbols of factions. All symbols in RTW were just pure fantasy.

I don't want total conquest - it's too monotonous and boring. Gimme back Glorious Achievements of MTW! And let it be fully moddable.

I want several eras like in MTW1. It would be nice to change the appearance of units on strategy map, portraits of generals and maybe GUI when you pass from one era to another.

I want culture specific appearance of strategy level units (diplomats, assassins, etc.). It was strange to have one kind of these units for every civilizations in RTW.

I want civil wars and rebellions. But I don't want hordes of rebelling peasants appearing in small town - the number of rebels should not be bigger that number of population in settlement. And I don't want annoying armies of brigands appearing almost every turn in multiple regions - in RTW I had much more battles (boring battles!) with brigands than with other factions.

I want trade via rivers. The economical advantage of rivers is totally neglected in TW games.

I don't want to care about squalor as much as in RTW.

I want special non-combat colonists unit - just for moving population from one city to another.

I want to be able to destroy ALL buildings in city. In RTW there were some types of undestroyable buildings, e.g. city walls. But it's weird that you can't demolish the walls in game - it always was common practice during war. Also it would be nice to destroy farms, mines and the like while you are sieging settlement or just standing in rival region (e.g. like it made in "Civilization" games - when you step onto some tile and destroy its improvements).

I want all major heresies to appear in appropriate times and territories and be real threats (in MTW1 it was not real danger when about 25% of heretical moods were quickly annihilated by several priests and religious buildings). It would be nice if some regions will "suddenly" break away from you and some generals betray you because of spreading of heresy.

I want naval units on strategy map to represent the type of ship that it is - not to be just a common image of ship.

I want naval battles.

I want developers who care about their fans, not just about amount of game copies sold.

I want too much?

[boastj]

I wish to claim another’s crown and when he refuses go to war with him

[Dead Moroz]

I second this all:

the ability to create moats...

I want news of glorious battles from distant lands... If my ally or enemy has suffered a severe loss, then I want to know about it...

coastal provinces should be able to build a fishing industry in addition to naval industry and naval trade...

Reappearing factions has to come back.

Improvement of the campaign AI so that it will be capable of composing an army in a reasonable way. Meaning that you would have to fight armies composed of a range of different unit types that complement each other and no longer fight armies completely missing a type of units, like ranged units.

A town guard that can be summoned to protect a city under siege, but not leave the city. This would make siege battles more exciting, as you would be able to man the walls properly. This town guard size and quality could be dependent on factors such as city size, buildings in the city, culture and loyalty towards the faction leader and the local feudal lord.

The ability to move several stacks at the same time on the campaign map by clicking and dragging (I was just playing as the Huns in BI and it was getting annoying moving them individually)

I'd love to continue playing even if my king dies without a heir. Just because a line dies doesn't mean everything becomes non-existing. Let one hi-rank general lead the population to carry on as if it was a civil war and let me play it.

Instantaneous movement of all diplomats, priests, princesses, spies & assassins from one unblockaded port to the other. I think it's silly that these units should be dependent on military fleets for transportation as they are in RTW. During times of war simply factor in the chance that these units can be intercepted and/or eliminated by an enemy fleet within a certain distance of either port whenever they attempt to travel overseas.

This could be done with the ability to see the stance of other factions towards your own, and with the AI that will act in accordance to those stances. If you have friendly relations with a faction, you should be able to have some feedback about that (the more detailed the better IMHO), and then you would know that they are less likely to backstab you etc. This doesn't mean that friendships should be easy or cheap to gain, but it should add a whole new dimension to the campmap strategy and gameplay. This should make diplomacy much less of a haphazard guessing game that it was in the previous TW games, which basically meant that I would just not bother to use it at all.

[boastj]

An about turn button where they just turn around and don’t reform

[crab]

1) Civil wars take place more than MTW. for example, when a king died, a war should begin among princes to become a king. when the king died, player may choose a prince to go on.

2) Princes should request for political refuge from the other empires.

3) There are only two options before the battle, manuel and automatic. There may be another option for tactics. Fighting manually sometimes may be difficult to control all soldiers. There may determine a tactic like this before the battle. something like this:


4) New settlements can be built.

5) City's population should determine how many turns take establishing a building. And also in a turn more than a group of soldier may establish according to the city's population and wealth.

[andrewt]

Nerf cavalry especially and charges in general.

This is really one of the biggest reasons why RTW was a disappointment to me. I liked the new campaign map but the tactical system lacked historical accuracy, game balance, strategy and tactics. It boiled down to circling around with cav, charge, disengage, circle around then charging again. Most battles are also over after the initial charge, even including infantry battles. For an infantry dominated era, cav and archers were the dominant forces in RTW. Cav is much more powerful during Medieval's era but they were never as powerful as they were in RTW. There were problems with AI and fast attack resolutions as well but I think the charges, especially cavalry charges ruined the tactical game for me.

[econ21]

Nerf cavalry especially and charges in general.

Um, I agree cavalry were OTT in RTW 1.0. But they got better in BI and are pretty easy to mod - I like both the representations in RTR and EB. I would like to see heavy cavalry a smidgeon more powerful in M2TW than they were in MTW. Maybe I was not using them right, but I found they very much a secondary arm in that game. There was no way I would have thought of massing knights and using them as the decisive arm of my army, which I believe was done in many Catholic medieval armies. Pitching mounted knights at the level of Samartian Auxiliaries or Clibanaari (depending on the armour) in BI would be about right, IMO.

Conversely, I'd really like to see dismounting knights make sense in M2TW; in MTW, the knights units were too small and expensive for this to be a key part of your battle plan. Yet this is what English and French ended up doing in the HYW.

[ajaxfetish]

I want old units to be upgradable when new types of troops are discovered. It's stupid that you have to build your army from the scratches each time you reach new technology level.

I agree with almost everything you list, but this was actually something I really liked in MTW1 and that set it apart from games like AoE for me. It doesn't make sense to me that once you can train better troops all your old ones suddenly become better. You should still be able to field lesser quality troops and use both new and old together on the field. I could accept an option to upgrade outmoded troops by retraining them (eg. feudal knights turn into chivalric knights if retrained), but in some cases older units have at least some advantages over higher-tech ones, and having the option to use both is something I love about total war.

Ajax

[Claudius the God]

I want to be able to produce "emergency peasants" from the population of my city when under siege... (sort of like emergency conscriptions, but unskilled, barely armoured troops for city defense only, which should go back into the population at the end of the battle, and this option should only be available for the higher level cities

[sharrukin]

I won't be buying MTW2 at the first opportunity but will wait to see if it is as disastrous as RTW was!

Slower battles; if it is as bad as RTW in this regard, then I will spend my money elsewhere!

Don't do something stupid like force everyone to play ONE particular faction in order to unlock the other factions. To this day I have no idea what the logic behind that was!

No suicide generals.

More factions, or the ability to swap out playable factions of your own choosing.

MTW start dates with separate Era's.

Region and faction specific units.

Civil wars, peasant rebellions, and disloyal nobles should be more common and MAKE SENSE. Re-emergent faction leaders with uber armies never made much sense to me. Too cheesy and too much like a game mechanism.

Fewer mini-armies.

Four turns/seasons.

Ryanus had a very good idea. Armies should be slowed by having to forage for supplies in hostile territory and this would also reflect harassment of local garrisons and warlords. That said, they do need to increase the base speed of strategic map movement. In their own territory they should be able to move much faster.

[Martok]

I want to be able to produce "emergency peasants" from the population of my city when under siege... (sort of like emergency conscriptions, but unskilled, barely armoured troops for city defense only, which should go back into the population at the end of the battle, and this option should only be available for the higher level cities

This idea has already been brought up, both here and at the Org. I really want to see this as well!

[sapi]

This idea has already been brought up, both here and at the Org. I really want to see this as well!

I remember writing a topic on this back when rtw came out, asking if it was moddable. It would be fantastic if this was in, as it's something that i've always wanted to see.

I think that the peasants should gain in stats for every turn the city is under siege, as they are being trained by the professional soldiers..

[doc_bean]

Don't do something stupid like force everyone to play ONE particular faction in order to unlock the other factions. To this day I have no idea what the logic behind that was!

Rome just had a different design from Medieval, it was meant to be played as the Romans, first and foremost, the other factions were more or less an extra.
Since Medieval Europe didn't have such a dominating faction I don't see why they won't use the MTW system.

[Martok]

Rome just had a different design from Medieval, it was meant to be played as the Romans, first and foremost, the other factions were more or less an extra.
Since Medieval Europe didn't have such a dominating faction I don't see why they won't use the MTW system.

Agreed. There's no reason to not have every faction available right away. It was also not a very good design decision to force the player to play as a certain faction before unlocking the others, and I think CA knows that now.

[Gazi Husrev-Beg]

Well,u guys got pretty picture of what i want and some said that in good detail.

Better diplomacy would be good start.Oh and more factions...much more factions and regions.I like thought of ACUALLY having vassal kingdoms-hence better/deeper developed diplomacy.

What we dont see in M2TW i belive a mod will fix eventually ;)