New to MTW

[drone]

Glad to see you were able to get around the video problem (if I'm not mistaken, it has something to do with how the nVidia driver renders the campaign map, battles are no problem).

About the Risk-style map. The AI seems to handle this better than Rome's map (less complex), so you will get more "big" battles (none of the small stack beatdowns you could exploit in Rome). These battles are also more meaningful, every battle is a basically a fight for territory (not some meaningless skirmish out in the middle of nowhere), and if you lose a few of these your unrest levels will rise quickly.

Combat will be slower, but there are more tactical options and seemingly small things can turn the battle in your favor.

Just out of curiousity, what era/faction did you pick for your first campaign?

[Quickening]

Glad to see you were able to get around the video problem (if I'm not mistaken, it has something to do with how the nVidia driver renders the campaign map, battles are no problem).

About the Risk-style map. The AI seems to handle this better than Rome's map (less complex), so you will get more "big" battles (none of the small stack beatdowns you could exploit in Rome). These battles are also more meaningful, every battle is a basically a fight for territory (not some meaningless skirmish out in the middle of nowhere), and if you lose a few of these your unrest levels will rise quickly.

Combat will be slower, but there are more tactical options and seemingly small things can turn the battle in your favor.

Just out of curiousity, what era/faction did you pick for your first campaign?

I went the English. I was surprised to see that the Scottish were not an option but I don't want to play the Viking Invasion yet.

[Quickening]

Well the conquest goes well I think. My plan was to take Scotland and Wales first. Seemed logical. However shortly after taking Wales the damn French attacked resulting in a bloody war that is still raging. It didn't help that there was then a rebellion in Wales.
However, I finally crushed the Welsh rebellion and the French are now being steadily beaten. I will wait until there is some stability in my Kingdom before claiming Scotland.

Im loving this game. Definately the kind of game you could play for hours. It's 2AM here now!

[drone]

Sounds like you are having fun. Watch out for the Scots, Highland Clansmen can be tough early on, they are fast and will chew through spearmen. Scotland will also need more troops to maintain order once conquered.

If you want to play the Scots in the MTW time period (not VI), the XL and BKB mods have a Scottish faction. After a few campaigns, you may want to try one of them out.

Im loving this game. Definately the kind of game you could play for hours. It's 2AM here now!

I usually only fire the game up if I can get in at least 3 hours straight. If you have a woman in your life, she may begin to hate this game.

[Martok]

Scotland will also need more troops to maintain order once conquered.

To add to what drone just said, there are several other provinces that are especially "restless", and will need a larger-than-normal garrison to keep the people from rebelling there. Some of these provinces include: Portugal, Livonia, Lithiuania, Prussia, and Pomerania (and of course Scotland). There are other rebellious provinces as well, but those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

If you want to play the Scots in the MTW time period (not VI), the XL and BKB mods have a Scottish faction. After a few campaigns, you may want to try one of them out.

I can personally recommend the XL mod. BKB is also very popular, however, and may be more to your liking. Of course, there's also no reason why you couldn't download and install both!

I usually only fire the game up if I can get in at least 3 hours straight. If you have a woman in your life, she may begin to hate this game.

I too don't play MTW unless I can devote a significant chunk of uninterrupted time to it. As a result, I don't play that much during the week anymore, although I usually try to workin at least a couple hours somewhere.

As for women, I'm blissfully single right now. However, my last ex actually got hooked on a couple of my strategy games, including MTW. There was a brief but bitter custody battle over the disk, let me tell you.

[Matador]

I am glad your liking the game. I have never played RTW so I don't know what all is the same. Some advice though, everything you do affects your generals and Kings vices and virtures. For example if you execute alot of prisoners than soon you will get a negative vice that says something like your King kills innocent people in his sweeps of rebels, this will reduce happiness. Just something to watch out for. Have fun!

[Quickening]

Thanks for all the advice. I killed the French King in battle and his lands fell to rebels. After Ive sweeped up the rebel proinces I'll turn my attention towards Scotland.

Just one question that may be foolish. I have armies in Ireland. I thought that all I had to do was have a ship bridge to be able to move my troops across the sea. I have a fleet in the Irish Sea yet my men will not move to mainland Britain for some reason.

Also, many times I have had a general die in battle, yet after the battle he appears to be alive and well?!