what do you actually play?

[Powermonger]

Good man; XL is an excellent mod. You won't believe the hours you'll waste playing it!

What's the difference between MedMod and XL? I've never played any mods with MTW but I remember MedMod use to be the rave a couple of years ago.

[Martok]

What's the difference between MedMod and XL? I've never played any mods with MTW but I remember MedMod use to be the rave a couple of years ago.

Well not having gotten around to trying MedMod, I'm not terribly qualified to compare the two in terms of how they're different, but I'll tell you what little I know:

First off, by pretty much all accounts MedMod makes the game much tougher than before. I don't know, however, if this is because the AI has been somehow tweaked, or if it's due to some other factor. I also want to say that MedMod's trade income isn't as overpowered as it is in vanilla MTW, but don't quote me on that.

The other major MedMod feature I'm aware of is the concept of Homelands. Basically, you cannot train your "specialty" units outside of them. In other words, the Danes can only train Vikings in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and maybe a few of the other northern provinces of Europe; the Spanish can't train Javelinmen and Jinnettes outside of Iberia, etc. I believe Wes' intentions in introducing Homelands is to reduce the "cheese factor" (i.e., the Byzantines can't "magically" recruit Varangian Guards in Scotland just because they now own that province ).

Unfortunately, that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge of MedMod. I don't know what else it adds as far as new factions or units. I know that Wes did extensive tweaking of virtually all the units' stats in the interests of rebalancing the game, but I don't know what other changes he made. It's highly-regarded by most people who've played it, though, so it's certainly worth checking out.


Now with XL Mod, I'm a bit more knowledgable. Here's what I consider to be the major features:

1.) Peasants have been removed from the game, and everyone (both you and the AI factions) now have immediate access to some of your mid-level troops (fuedal seargents, mounted seargents, etc.)

2.) Battles are somewhat improved, as the AI is now better at assembling armies. You don't see as many 3000-man Hordes consisting of virtually nothing except peasants, urban militia, and archers. Now you're more likely to see the AI field armies of smaller size but better quality. A more typical army in XL is 700-1500 men consisting of FMAA, FS, MS, RK, archers, maybe some vanilla spearmen, and a few of that faction's specific units (assuming they can train them in the era you're playing).

3.) VikingHorde created the XL mod with the idea that Land=Money. As a result, farm income has been increased while trade income has been reduced (although it's still worthwhile to establish a trade network with your ships). This also makes it a little easier for factions that are mostly-landlocked (HRE, Bohemia, Kievans, Novgorod, etc.) to keep up financially.

4.) The campaign AI is generally better, both in terms of developing its lands and deciding when to go to war with someone. A big part of this is because VikingHorde changed the AI scripts for a lot of the factions. The upshot of this is that factions will usually build up their lands more and gather more powerful armies before attacking anyone. Additionally, factions also tend to be better at bouncing back from defeats (just ask me or anyone else who's played as the Spanish and tried to take out the Almohads/Almorovids; it's a lot harder than it used to be!).

5.) Finally, XL adds a ton of new factions and units, and "unlocks" a few others (the Papacy and the Golden Horde are now playable, and Novgorod is now playable in the Early period). New factions include: the Scots, Portuguese, Bohemians, Cumans, Kievans, Norwegians, Swedes, Crusader Sates, Teutonic Order, Burgundians, Bulgarians, Serbians, and the Lithiuanians. (I've probably forgotten a couple, but you get the idea!)

[Wishazu]

RTW vanilla for multiplay :)

[Kierkegaard]

vanilla rtw1.2
i tried some mods, including rtr, spqr, darthmod,eb, vlad,and etc, but i like vanilla rtw most.

[spanakoryzo]

I'm currently running a Lithuanian campaign on MTW/VI/XL mod (I command a pagan faction ) and an ERE campaign on RTW/BI. I do like the MTW series better though. Also, I probably have too much spare time on my hands!