Frogbeastegg's gold code day comments and early thoughts on M2TW

[frogbeastegg]

I’m going to keep this briefer than I’d really like, and by preference I'd have had it posted early today. I got back late last night, I’ve been at work all day and I’m not getting a day off until next week. I don’t have much time to write in.

Having spent a few hours playing M2TW I find myself considerably more optimistic than I was before. When the game was first announced I shrugged and ignored it, so disenchanted had I become with RTW. I occasionally looked in on some of the previews, saw fancy screenshots and talk of flashy killing moves and improved graphics, shrugged again and walked away. It’s only in recent months I started to pay attention. For that I can thank (or blame!) the blogs, the increase in detailed forum posts by CA staff, and the inclusion of information I want to hear about in previews.

The things I’ll be judging the game on aren’t things you can fairly judge on a few hours play. True, you can find something that you feel to be badly wrong in those areas in a short time. But if they are done right it takes much, much longer before you know it. So for my more complete thoughts on the game you’ll have to wait a few weeks.

What I can definitely say is that I didn’t find anything glaringly wrong. I didn’t find anything which made me worry. There was evidence that CA have heard what the veteran community said about RTW and have listened, evidence ranging from tiny things to the significant. I found promise.

Thanks to the demo we’ve most of us seen the tick box in the options screen for the minimalised UI, and we’ve seen that it’s a more comprehensive UI than RTW’s as it features the speed control. It’s a tiny thing; it means no longer do we have to edit the .ini. It’s convenient. It also means that an option which wasn’t there at the start in RTW is there at the start in M2TW – I find that reassuring. When RTW was brand new I noticed a lot of old issues from the series had reappeared and required killing again in a patch, for example suicide generals. BTW, I haven’t seen any evidence of them yet.

Battles are slower, both in terms of unit movement and in killing. I’m not willing to comment much further on this until I have played more battles.

Cavalry is undoubtedly less godly; they can’t disentangle themselves from a melee as easily as in RTW, and they don’t fight like a bunch of kill-bots. You must use more thought on where and when to commit them. Not wanting to give the wrong impression I’ll hastily add that cavalry are still very much worthwhile as part of your army! Good charges also appear trickier to perform, requiring more clear space for the unit to form up, aim and then dig their spurs in to break into top speed. Simply double-clicking on the enemy doesn’t appear to be the best idea – running damages unit cohesion and gives them less time to get the formation right. Huzzah! I’m back to using my old STW/MTW tactic of single-clicking, and leaving them to it. It’s an awesome sight, one of my favourite old sights made all 3d and beautiful. A unit of knights walking their horses towards the enemy, tweaking formation as they go, then the trumpet sounds, the spurs dig in and the lances come down as the unit breaks into the charge. Again, further play will reveal much more about cavalry, how best to use them, and how much they have changed. I’m hoping this initial impression of mine is not erroneous.

The music and voice acting is much improved. No more comedy kebab shop owners bawling, “Yes, strappy-horse!” or squeaky adolescents pretending to be Roman generals. Each faction now appears to have its own voice set; units on the field and agents will speak with the appropriate accent. So far the ones I have encountered have all sounded good. Stunning; the amount of work and money this represents – and the amount of detail put into the game world. It’s something people have been asking for since MTW. Myself, I did not much care for the idea each time I hear it proposed. Now I shall admit it lends considerably to the atmosphere, and I like it. As for the music, I have the soundtrack CD from my collector’s edition playing right now. Some of these tracks will be added to my folder of TW music. For those who don’t know my musical tastes (I imagine 99.6% of you ;p) I loved the music in STW and MTW, especially the Viking music from VI. I liked the credits song in RTW, and that was all. I found it bland.

The AI reacted far more intelligently to my moves on the battlefield than RTW’s. At one point, during the siege of a city with no walls, it held me on three fronts as it sent units to counter my efforts at surrounding it. I never saw that in RTW; I considered it good if the AI reacted at all to my attacking it from multiple directions. On average I was losing roughly twice as many men per battle as I was in RTW. Yes, that’s all I am going to say on the AI. I want to play much, much more before commenting any further. It’s improved, how much so I can’t say.

I was surprised at how pleased I was to see the agent movies return after an absence of two games. In STW I used to turn them off for a long time, then put them back on for a bit to inject some variety. Those spy movies can be quite amusing …

I do like the alteration to wooden walls; level 2 walls are now impervious to battering rams except at the gates, and can have units placed on them. At long last wooden walls feel worth building for themselves and not as a landmark on the path to stone walls. I found this out the hard way, besieging Caernarvon. I brought two rams and one set of ladders, wondering why I was being offered ladders and siege towers to build in the first place. Incidentally, the AI destroyed both of my rams before they reached the wall, and my single set of ladders proved woefully insufficient because the AI positioned a good selection of troops on the wall around the area I was trying to scale. This was my only loss to the AI; it was set to very hard.

The new recruitment system is neat; being able to raise multiple units, mixing and matching types, in one turn much better than the rigid old system. It only takes a bit of play with it to see that building armies of uber units is going to be very hard now, slow work requiring numerous settlements contributing their handful of units every such-and-such turns. It should still be possible for those who like to play that way though. Army composition for the AI is benefiting from this; I found that the armies I faced in my brief bit of campaign play were very similar to my own. Caveat: I only played 13 turns.

Merchants look like an interesting agent type; on a low level they are an extra source of income, on a higher level there’s potential for economic warfare. Nice to have options away from warfare.

Diplomacy looks much improved. Certainly the structure is there for the game to make use of; only play will show how the AI handles it.

What else should I say?

Suppose I should include something about the graphics. They look very nice. The toned down colour palate is pleasant, yet the units still have bright colours on their banners etc if you zoom in. It’s a balance and I feel it is a good one.

The PCs we played on were:
P4 3.6
2GB DDR RAM
Geforce 7600GT

Everything was on full and it was silky smooth, including in the 2v2 LAN game.

Sega do a nice buffet. Good variety, and they include fruit. Alas for my fear of getting crumbs on posh Sega keyboards.

Being able to meet some CA representatives face to face was great. I knew a lot gets lost in internet communication thanks to the reduction in tone, the loss of body language, the slowness of typing a post and waiting for a reply. I underestimated just how much. Seeing a developer in animated flow explaining his game is special, as is hearing an old warhorse reminiscing about Shogun.

The marketing blog which spoke about the collector’s edition expressed a hope that those who obtained one would feel it special. I find mine to be quite gorgeous. As a bonus it’s solid enough to concuss if I whack someone on the head with it, making it a handy-dandy self defence tool as well as a game. I agree, the pictures don’t do it justice. The map and unit/building poster are damned good … though out of honesty I must say I remember that the original standard editions of STW and MTW plus their respective add-ons came with tech trees, and RTW had a map.

As a guide writing frog, let me give mention to the manual. It’s the best one so far. Undoubtedly. The humour of some of the previous manuals is sadly missing; the information included is more useful and greater in quantity. It’s a lengthy effort too by today’s standards, 63 pages in quite small print. People should read it, veterans included.

There’s probably more I wanted to say but can’t think of now. I’ll wrap up; it’s nearly midnight and I need sleep. If there’s anything people want to ask I’ll do what I can to answer, but please bear in mind that I’d really like to play the game and when I’m writing I can’t do that I missed my entire two hours of potential playtime to write this and the other snippets I have posted here and elsewhere, and missed the tiny bit of playtime I could have had yesterday writing a short bit for the community blog I probably now won't have chance to play until Saturday.

My stance on the game now is that it shows considerable promise, and that it may very well meet that promise. I want to play more, I want to dive in and test and tinker and discover. Above all I want it to meet that new expectation it’s raised in me. My main irritation is that I’ve got a copy of the game and no days off until next week.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

ever played on very hard?(battles)
and what was it like?

[econ21]

Excellent - thanks for that froggy.

I must say the initial impressions from the vets are overwhelmingly positive - I confess I had not predicted this when I first volunteered to moderate this forum, but it makes my life easier.

Two minor quibbles on RTW though. Firstly, on cavalry: the single click being better than double click is in RTW too. This is very apparent playing RTR Platinum, where cav have low attack and defence but very high charge. It is perhaps the best thing about the game - trying to set up a decent cavalry charge. Tricky and immensely satisfying to pull off - straighten your lines (preferring facing a committed enemy's flank or rear); start to trot, move to a canter, down come the lances and you know it's going to be a good one. But it's very easy to fluff, if you are disordered, don't have a sufficient run up etc.

Secondly: the wooden walls. I thought they were a really big deal in RTW too, at least at the strategic level. Try playing RTR Metropolis mod where most settlements can't have walls and you'll see the difference. On the offensive, wooden walls stop you blitzing a settlement in one turn. On the defensive, they make it possible to have a minimal garrison backed by some mobile reinforcements would can relieve a besieged town next turn. I actually like the Metropolis mod, as the vanilla game tends to a boring siege total war, but it is hard to say wooden walls don't matter. (The other bad thing about wooden walls in RTW was that the AI ran backwards and forwards under arrow fire with wooden walls, which was lamentable.)

I guess the one click cav charge and wooden wall points are not such an issue in vanilla RTW, where cav is uber even with a botched charge and you are often not under AI threat. But in more challenging mods, these things do show up.

Sorry to go off on a RTW tangent.

[Dan.o6]

Nice report, I just can't wait to get the game now. Matter of hours :D

[frogbeastegg]

ever played on very hard?(battles)

From the paragraph about wooden walls and seiges:

Incidentally, the AI destroyed both of my rams before they reached the wall, and my single set of ladders proved woefully insufficient because the AI positioned a good selection of troops on the wall around the area I was trying to scale. This was my only loss to the AI; it was set to very hard.

and what was it like?

I've only played for a couple of hours total; 13 campaign turns and about 4 battles, one of which was a LAN battle and the other three against rebel held cities. I'm not able to say much until I have played more; I simply haven't seen enough to judge.



Econ, I'm not going to compare vanila M2TW against any RTW mod Firstly I didn't play them except an early bversion of RTR, and a bit of gothmod. Secondly and most importantly, it's CA's work I am looking at and interested in, and it's that which is the important thing here. Mods are not the reason I get the game; I barely ever touch them for any game. I didn't go to Kew to test out a mod, and I didn't dump RTW because of features which were present in mods.

The cavalry may have been like that in RTW but I never needed to take it into account. I simply moved my cavalry behind the enemy line at a run, double-clicked to attack without giving them time to stop or reorient, and that was that, my cav smashed into the enemy and pulped them.

Wooden walls were little aid to the AI in defending a city; a battering ram or two and that was it, job done and with very little trouble. I only needed to start planning when I encountered stone walls, and even then I didn't have to plan much. Two sap points and the units to man them et voila, job done. Boring. I wouldn't know about walls from the defender's position; I don't recall needing to defend a city in battle in the entire time I played RTW. In terms of forcing an enemy army to stand about besieging low level walls worked as nicely as high level ones. I didn't let enough time pass for the city to surrender before I relieved it.

Whether the features were in the vanilla in some form or not, the vital thing is that they could be utterly ignored. So far in M2TW they can't be.

[redriver]

meh! comparin' RTW to M2TW is like comparin' apples to oranges.. different eras and almost 1500 years apart.. how bizzar. try comparin' to the original MTW instead. ppl should only compare graphics/UI to RTW because it's the most recent product. and everythin' else is way too different to make it a fair comparition.

[Quickening]

Great report frogbeastegg! Just got two questions.

I noticed that they have the minimum system requirement at a 1.8 Celeron. Im going to attempt to get it running on my 1.7 Celeron. Was performance on older systems discussed at all?
How much more scalable are the options in comparison to the demo?

[Tamur]

Great writing as usual Froggy. I do hope you get the chance to actually play the game for fun this time round before launching into a guide. Saying of which, I hope the laudatory verbage regarding the manual does not mean you think it is sufficient...?

[Kanamori]

Keenly informative... again.


This may not be the best place to ask, but I've always been interested in making math models for theoretically grounding the results of different types of units against each other, speed prior to engaging, formation, angle prior to/while engaging, forests, hills, or just as many factors as possible. Basically, I'm just trying to figure which elements are most important, without relying on intuition. Has this been done before? Would one be able to figure it w/o relying too much on in-game observation or w/o having any knowledge of programming?

[doc_bean]

Great little preview/review

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Keenly informative... again.


This may not be the best place to ask, but I've always been interested in making math models for theoretically grounding the results of different types of units against each other, speed prior to engaging, formation, angle prior to/while engaging, forests, hills, or just as many factors as possible. Basically, I'm just trying to figure which elements are most important, without relying on intuition. Has this been done before? Would one be able to figure it w/o relying too much on in-game observation or w/o having any knowledge of programming?

You need a patient MP partner It's still in game observation though...

Louis,

[AussieGiant]

Thanks for those very well written words Froggirl. It sounds very positive.

No need to respond...just play away, and get back to us later

[-Isapostolos-]

I have the game since yesterday, although only yesterday I had the time to play. I can say that I too was pretty skeptical at first when the game was announced, because RTW was pretty much diappointing to me. The main problem for me was not the AI, lack of historical accuracy or the numerous other problems that were present, but mainly the lack of atmosphere which namely shogun and mtw did have.

The one thing I'd like to say is that this game really captures the feel and atmosphere of the era in so many ways, which really makes the game very enjoyable. One of the important contributors to this atmosphere are definantly the voices; there are so many more of them now! And of high quality! Some examples: When I had captured the Venetian Doge I was offered to ransom, release or execute him (just RTW). When I held my cursor over these options, I could hear a guy speaking with emotion and in Italian accent comment on my possible decision e.g. release: "Yes, yes! You would be gracious and noble to do so!" Or something in that sense. And when I held it over Ransom: "yes we can pay, we have the money, you would make a wise decision!" When I held the cursor over execute, a could really notice the Venetians despair and horror :).
All characters on the map now have an appropriate reaction ready: I think the Venetian army leader remembered my chivalrious behaviour for releasing some prisoner for no ransom, when he said "We seek a fair engagment, my honourable foe".
When you click on a rebel army it said "you are not mein Kaiser!" (I'm playing the HRE) and a heretic told me that the pope was a liar.
Add to that the lovely movies, the comment of the story telling monk on world events, the music, inquistors picking on my family members and priests and burning them at the stake.

All in all, this game really is much more emmersive then RTW probably ever could hope to be. Congratulations to CA for doing a job well done.

p.s. I can confirm that I ahd similar experiences as Frogbeastegg, kudos for writing such a nice review!

[geala]

Nice review. I received the game yesterday and played about 30 turns since.

First impression is positive. Graphics are fantastic (but not so important for me). Very good atmosphere. Interesting new features.

Some short remarks:

- Diplomacy is much better than in RTW/MTW at least for lazy guys like me. You get enough hints about the others position to make logic decisions instead of guessing.
Unfortunately an ally is not a real ally yet. Venice became my ally only to attack me (with a rather weak army) 2 turns later.

- AI is better than RTW but sometimes strange yet. For example: I was attacked (as HRE playing on H/H) by the Venetians who sieged Bologna. When I came with an army to relieve the town the Venetians retreated to their bridge which was clever indeed. But next turn AI sent 4 troops (only spearmen) away without any reason. I attacked: in the following battle the 4 units of spear militia stand still and took the rain of arrows of my four bowmen troops without any movement. I had 3 units of spearmen and a general in addition; in RTW AI would have withdrawn from the battlefield in such a situation to minimize casualties which would have been much better.

- Frogs remarks about the performance give me something to think of. I myself was a bit disappointed in some situations. I had a battle in a wooden area with 4 units of mine against 3 enemy units and I had to significantly lower the settings. I have a relatively new pc with Intel C2D 2,4 Ghz, a GF 7950 FX2 and 2 MB RAM which is presumably a bit more than the average.

- I am angry about the fact that the stats are not longer in normal txt-files (didn't know this before because I didn't play the demo). That makes even primitive modding more difficult for pc-dummies like me. Fortunately thanks to notepad I could kill the green arrows otherwise I would have stopped playing. But in RTW it was more easy.

Overall it will not be to negative. I am very eager to play more at least.

[hoom]

ppl should only compare graphics/UI to RTW because it's the most recent product. and everythin' else is way too different to make it a fair comparition.

This is actually an important issue.

Many many TW veterans were unhappy with how RTW compared to STW & MTW*.
If a comparison between RTW & M2TW shows much to be very different in a good way, particularly if it makes more sense to compare with MTW then the right sorts of changes must have been made because many people were expecting M2TW to be pretty much just RTW with Medieval themed skins.

* actually RTR PE on the BI engine with Candelarius' Extended Realism mod & a couple of my own tweaks is currently giving me much joy in ways that STW & MTW never could.
But then thats the point too, I'm running a modified version of the 2.3 version of a mod that runs on beta 1.7 version of a mod that is a conversion between official patch versions of version 6.3 of a mod for RTW & I find anything less a let down.
Which just goes to show how far from the mark RTW was.

[Lusted]

M2Tw combat feels so different compared to RTw that comparisons with MTW may be more accurate.

[econ21]

* actually RTR PE on the BI engine with Candelarius' Extended Realism mod & a couple of my own tweaks is currently giving me much joy in ways that STW & MTW never could.

I concurr. I am interested in the comparison between M2TW and the RTW realism mods, because both are essentially tweaked RTW games. And because, as a history fan, I love what the realism mods have done. But I appreciate froggy's point that she has not had enough experience of playing RTW mods to want to comment.

[Bombasticus Maximus]

M2Tw combat feels so different compared to RTw that comparisons with MTW may be more accurate.

It does as I play online alot on RTW all you do is have an archer duel, engage inf then flank with cav. In MTW you do all 3 at once as the AI is alot smarter.

[crpcarrot]

I felt exactly like you during thew first few months of the M2TW hype. the thing thats turned it for me was the shoguns blog when i hought this mihgt be more than just graphics and started to get geniuinely excited.

well your review encourages me more i hope it will be great as MTW which i still do play. i've bought M2TW but i dont have a rig good enough to play it on yet. maybe get one cos i got 2 weeks off at christmas.

just an opinion but caomparing the game to mods is not relevant i think. i for would rather pay for a complete game rather than one that someone else has to be kind enough to fix for me for free.

good work frogg looking forward to your next update

[hoom]

Agree Econ, my comments were a tangent aimed more towards redriver.

It is indeed heartening to see both CA delivering the goods and a bunch of old orgers liking the way that M2TW is working compared to the situation of RTW where they were all running away screaming in horror

[Orda Khan]

Many comparisons made by vets between RTW (the latest game) and previous titles made absolute sense IMO. To say they were not well judged and to then mention 'modded' versions is 'not well judged' AFAIC. Mods have always improved the game (STW/MI v103, MTW/VI Community Mod, MTW/VI Samurai Mod)
The poor comparisons made by vets were valid because of the state of RTW MP compared with the previous MP experience and this was the major complaint. There could so easily have been a multitude more comparisons/complaints but a huge majority of vets chose to give up on the game. It is far too early to claim MTW II as the be all. A few weeks into MP will uncover any flaws (if they exist) and then we will see just how good this game is.

So far, I see mainly the same people who swooned before release doing the swooning now. When a few more doubters post positive reports I will start to feel more optimistic.Until then, the first impressions I have seen contain very much what I expected. Frogbeastegg has posted a cautiously optimistic, concise report and this approach makes more sense IMO especially since the game has barely hit the shelves. MP reports are looking grim at the moment, will we ever enjoy 4v4 again?

......Orda

Edit:Clarifying a point.

[frogbeastegg]

Quickening, sorry, I haven’t heard anything about performance on older systems. The options are the same as in the demo, but overall performance for the finished game is a little better on my PC than it was for the second demo, and much better than for the first.

Tamur, presently I have no solid plans for a guide. I don’t have nearly as much time, and I haven’t firmed any lasting opinions of the game yet.





Having played a bit more here's some further thoughts. While not wholly positive I do feel considerably better about M2TW than I did about RTW after a similar amount of play.

Playing on VH/VH English campaign, 21 turns.

In no particular order, good mixed with bad and general observations thrown in haphazardly:

1. The AI on VH has one new tactic which made me when I first saw it. I told myself it couldn't be doing what I thought. Then I realised it was. This was both exceedingly good, and disappointingly bad.

The AI will now corner camp. Yup, it's stolen that cheesy old player tactic. This is good, IMO, so long as we have to have corners on the field and so long as it doesn't do it when it has a superior or equal force.

The bad is that it was corner camping with an army made up entirely of mailed knights and border raiders: a force able to smash mine if it charged and acted aggressively. The other disappointment is that this AI force was fighting with another Scottish AI force, and they didn't join together. If they had done so I'd have been massacred. Instead I picked off the smaller mixed army with my archers and knights, then formed up and approached the other force from the best ground possible, only engaging after shooting the crud out of them.

Before anyone screams "Passive AI bug!" I do know about it I'm hoping this failure to press the advantage is due to that. However, based on my understanding of the passive AI bug (basically you have to be moving and acting for the AI to react; if you stand still it may do likewise) it is not applicable in this case. I was moving, fighting, forming up, moving again, raining arrows down on the horses ...

2. Knights don't seem to use their lances very often. I'm going to investigate this one further in custom battles. I order my mailed knights to attack an enemy. I watch them march over, lances as the visible weapon. Close to the enemy they begin their charge - waving their swords. This happens however I order them to attack, one click or two, from a close or long distance.

3. Agent cap = marvellous. No more spamming the map with agents. It's handled sensibly as well; for each basic level building of the relevant type you have you may have one agent, plus one more for each level of upgrade. So there is no need to fear that large empires with advanced settlements will be limited to the same amount as tiny backward factions.

4. Campaign map AI is so far much improved, playing on VH. It uses consolidated armies made up of a good mixture of units; that mob of mailed knights and border raiders was an anomaly in my experience. They do go after rebel settlements; Scotland in my game gobbled up all the nearby rebel settlements except York (I got it first ) and then came after me as it has no other way to expand. I've no nice examples to give, so you will have to take my word for it that it feels like I am playing against a better opponent.

5. I like the look of the campaign map now. I've seen others, Econ21 included, say they find it ugly. Not sure if this is a video card thing or a matter of taste.

6. The more I hear the music the better my opinion of it grows. Ditto the voice acting and the atmosphere of the game in general.

7. There's an odd delay at the start of battles before speeches begin. Would be nice if they started right away as per RTW, instead of when the camera zooms to the general. The speeches themselves are good thus far, less Hollywood action flick and more serious historical epic. I do enjoy the added speech on the campaign map. I confess I click on random units belonging to different factions just to hear what they say. I love the way the comments depend on your status with their parent faction, and on your actions. While at war with Scotland a Scottish merchant told me "So, you want to trade with the enemy?" when I clicked on him. The leader of the main Scottish army started to say "I'd welcome a trial of arms on the field to settle this conflict" after I ransomed his soldiers back to him. The Scottish captain who said "I'm gonna rip off your head and spit down your neck!" make me grin. I killed his army two turns later.

8. Rebels! 7 turns in to my brand new campaign and a stack of rebels spawns in Normandy. With chivalric knights! That's a unit which cannot be built until well into the game; it's far more powerful than anything I can field. Ludicrous. It's also spawned with a goodly collection of friends, e.g. crossbowmen. I can't kill them until I field a massive army I can afford to have badly mauled. Spawn rate also feels a bit high for my preferences. I have very happy (145% or more) settlements with good garrisons and I have two lots of rebels in 19 turns.

9. Battles still feel significantly better. I haven't been defeated by the AI yet (am on VH) but I have had some nice action. I found it surprising when I saw the AI using moves I've been using myself since STW's demo: skirmishing, fainting with cavalry, inching forward into missile range. They form up well and stay formed up ... in general. In my last big battle the Scots sent a unit of knights after my reinforcements as they marched to join me. Fairly sound plan - except those knights were the general's bodyguard, and were going to fight a unit of spear militia and another general's bodyguard. But overall it's far better. Still waiting for the VH AI to do what it has famously done to others, and shred me.

10. I continue to like the new settlement system. Castles and cities feel very different to each other and have very different capabilities. You couldn't manage with all one type or another.

11. The recruitment system for fighting units has shown one more trait which gains my froggy favour: you can retrain any unit anywhere if it will gain an armour or weapon boost from it. You can only retrain for men in a settlement where the appropriate unit pool exists. For example you can recruit some mailed knights in a backwater castle and send them to your advanced city to shop for new armour. But if you want to recruit new knights to that unit you'll have to go back to your backwater castle, or to another with the relevant buildings. It's how I expected it to be, yet I had fears that maybe retraining would work differently.

12. The AI can do a mass cavalry charge quite nicely when it wants to, and with good effect. I now worry about heavy cavalry if the AI has it.

13. I like the increased details on the faction summery scroll at the start of each turn. Especially having some idea of how my faction stands overall, updated on a turn by turn basis compared to the previous turn.

14. Overall there does seem to be more information available; it is neatly presented and easier to get.

15. Missile units seem better balanced. They can do good damage if used properly and given time to loose volleys. They are not overpowered as per RTW: you don't drop 20 men per volley, and armour or shields cut down on damage from low tech archers tremendously.

16. Someone please remind the frog of the .ini edit to turn off the in-battle movies? I don’t want my game interrupted when I breach walls and kill generals!

17. The ghosts of where units will move to (hold down space on battlemap after giving a move order) disappear if you move the camera. Irritating – setting up larger armies and giving complex move orders requires the ghosts to stay put while I move the camera.

18. Diplomacy is improved. Factions didn’t act like I was trying to give them the plague when I offered trade rights to them, indeed they sought me out and offered them. Ditto alliances. Liking the extra information available during negotiations.

19. Diplomacy isn’t perfect. My allies, the Scots, attacked me without warning … but I was blocking their only route to expansion and we were nearly equal in power, so this one I’m willing to excuse and even call a good move.

My allies, the French, parked large armies in my lands and kept reinforcing them, turn after turn. The French also allied with my worst enemy, the Scots, an action which still forces an infuriating automatic peace treaty on the warring factions with no warning or even decent notification. If they must force peace on you in this manner there should be a message box which tells you a truce has been formed due to your enemy allying with your ally. Better yet you should be given a choice between continuing the war and ending the alliance, or preserving the alliance and ending the war.

20. The Pope is not as batty as his predecessor. When the Scots attacked me he excommunicated them. The number of times the MTW Pope excommunicated me because someone attacked me …

21. I like the missions. They are sensible, give good rewards without being too rewarding, and are so far varied enough to remain fun. The ones from my council of nobles have tied in to my own plans too, sending me after rebel settlements I already had my eye on, or reinforcing border settlements which were weak.

22. I don’t particularly have any opinion on the new turn system and counter. I like knowing how many turns I have played without having to calculate. I’d like to see a date as well. Other than that Maybe when I’ve had a few generations go from birth to death with it I’ll have a stronger opinion.


I still feel the game has promise. It’s beginning to emerge out of the fog and show its personality now. I feel better about M2TW than I did about RTW after a similar amount of play. What the patch does will be important, and I still say I need more time to play to form anything more than the random opinions and observations I’ve posted thus far. Perhaps most importantly, I still want to play it. I spent a good part of my day at work today mentally planning things to do in custom battles and campaign.



Anyway,. That’s enough for now. I want to go and test out some knights and see if they use their lances or swap, and to see if the alt+click alternate attack works for them as it did with certain cavalry types in RTW.

[econ21]

Interesting observations, frogbeastegg - I'd agree with most of them.

With the rebels, things did start to get hairy for me at one point - no chivalric knights but I did get several spawns of decent size and quality for the early game at a similar time to what you report. I started to worry that it would be high RTW respawn rates again - one of my pet peeves from that game. However, since then, rebels have not bothered me much. The significant rebel spawns occurred a few turns after I took Wales and some French territories. It may be too much to hope for, but it could be that the high spawn rate is related to recent conquests - which would be historical and not too tiresome for gameplay either, IMO.

However, it may be too much to hope for - as far as I can tell from the Ludus Magna thread, players never figured out what affected rebel spawn rates in RTW. So inferring determinants from a couple of initial experiences is probably optimistic.

[Quillan]

With regards the use of lances, I haven't noticed an issue. However, as I'm playing Byzantium, I don't have any knights yet either, so it may be just with one troop type. The general's bodyguard certainly charges with lances and then switches to swords. I took a couple of screenshots while I was running down a small rebel army:

[Shoraro]

16. Someone please remind the frog of the .ini edit to turn off the in-battle movies? I don’t want my game interrupted when I breach walls and kill generals!

I'm guessing (cos I've not actually tried it yet) it's change event_cutscenes = 1 to event_cutscenes = 0 in the game section of the preference file, a few lines below the disable arrow markers line.

There's also the line disable_events = 0, but I think it's the first one I mentioned. Guess I could give it a go and find out

Just got around to checking, it's the first one. Hope that helps.

[fuzzilogik]

How is the naval playing out? The naval in RTW drove me crazy. Giving ships of sail the ability to run away really fast was very annoying. I can remember it taking 5 turns and up to kill a single ship.

[Sheogorath]

How is the naval playing out? The naval in RTW drove me crazy. Giving ships of sail the ability to run away really fast was very annoying. I can remember it taking 5 turns and up to kill a single ship.

Ships die far too fast for my tastes. Ive had entire fleets sunk in their first battles. Bloody pirates.

[Quickening]

Ships die far too fast for my tastes. Ive had entire fleets sunk in their first battles. Bloody pirates.

Im actually very glad to hear that. I hated it in Rome how you would end up with loads of tiny fleets all over the place because it was near impossible to have them sink. Naval combat is one thing I cannot be bothered with at all.