MTW2 for the MTW1 fans?

[Rodion Romanovich]

Any of the veterans got MTW2 yes? What are your conclusions?

- battle speed? can it be fixed by modding, have any battle speed fix mods come out yet?
- mods? what seems to be the estimated release date of the first mini-fix mods? the first historical mods (I understand that those taking an EB approach won't be finished quickly, but those taking an RTR approach would have a first release with mostly only basic fixes ready quicker, even if the first version isn't as worked through as later releases etc.)?
- AI quality? I've heard rumors of improvements here. Questions:
1. does AI flank player?
2. does AI attack with an intact battle line?
3. does campaign AI compose powerful armies or armies tending to be too strong in one aspect and weak in another (say all infantry army or similar issues)?
4. is the general suicidal?
5. do charges work properly?
6. additionally, if the game isn't moddable and/or no balance/battle speed mods are expected soon, the following questions would apply:
a. are the stats balanced well?
b. is cavalry overpowered vs heavy infantry?
c. can cavalry units be stacked on top of each other?
d. can a lonely cavalry unit charge an enemy missile unit and win the battle easily even if the enemy unit doesn't rout (say, if morale stats for the missle unit is modified to a very high value in the txt file)?

[Lusted]

- battle speed? can it be fixed by modding, have any battle speed fix mods come out yet?
- mods? what seems to be the estimated release date of the first mini-fix mods? the first historical mods (I understand that those taking an EB approach won't be finished quickly, but those taking an RTR approach would have a first release with mostly only basic fixes ready quicker, even if the first version isn't as worked through as later releases etc.)?

All the files are packed atm, an offical unpacker is coming out with the first patch. Battle speed seems alright, better than Romes, but maybe still a bit too fast.

- AI quality? I've heard rumors of improvements here. Questions:

Good quality, but the passive ai bug does ruin things occasionally. Thats the main thing that will be fixed in the first patch.

1. does AI flank player?

Yes, had it happen to me on several occasions.

2. does AI attack with an intact battle line?

Yes.

3. does campaign AI compose powerful armies or armies tending to be too strong in one aspect and weak in another (say all infantry army or similar issues)?

Generally balanced, though the ai does seem to recruit quite a few siege weapons, and Milan for example seems to recruit lots of Genoese crossbowmen.

4. is the general suicidal?

Not really, sometimes during sieges, never seen it happen in field battles.

5. do charges work properly?

Sometimes, they appear to be bugged.

a. are the stats balanced well?

Fairly yes.

b. is cavalry overpowered vs heavy infantry?

Maybe, sometimes it can decimate heavy infantry units with a charge, but if ther cav get bogged down in combat they get chopped to pieces.

d. can a lonely cavalry unit charge an enemy missile unit and win the battle easily even if the enemy unit doesn't rout (say, if morale stats for the missle unit is modified to a very high value in the txt file)?

Relatively easy, though this does depend on what cavalry unit and what missile unit.

[Cos3]

MTW1 was more challenging in most respects. Even simple things like heat exhaustion while crusading in the middle east; your knights are often tired/exhausted before battle is joined. That is not an issue in MTW2, which is dissapointing and yet another step from realism to arcade game for C.A. yawn.


There are a few shining examples of the new A.I, such as my example here:

A unit of enemy knights outflank my line and head towards my ballistas at the rear of my army. I intercept with a unit of my own knights. Battle is joined. Soon after an enemy foot unit charge my knights, the enemy knights disengage and charge the ballistas, wiping them out.

Overall, the A.I still is not good enough to present much of a challenge. Kill rates are far too high for the A.I to be able to do much. With a kill rate on par with Rome Total Realism, I think the A.I (with the passive A.I bug removed in the patch) will present a decent challenge.

[BigTex]

Any of the veterans got MTW2 yes? What are your conclusions?

- battle speed? can it be fixed by modding, have any battle speed fix mods come out yet?
- mods? what seems to be the estimated release date of the first mini-fix mods? the first historical mods (I understand that those taking an EB approach won't be finished quickly, but those taking an RTR approach would have a first release with mostly only basic fixes ready quicker, even if the first version isn't as worked through as later releases etc.)?
- AI quality? I've heard rumors of improvements here. Questions:
1. does AI flank player?
2. does AI attack with an intact battle line?
3. does campaign AI compose powerful armies or armies tending to be too strong in one aspect and weak in another (say all infantry army or similar issues)?
4. is the general suicidal?
5. do charges work properly?
6. additionally, if the game isn't moddable and/or no balance/battle speed mods are expected soon, the following questions would apply:
a. are the stats balanced well?
b. is cavalry overpowered vs heavy infantry?
c. can cavalry units be stacked on top of each other?
d. can a lonely cavalry unit charge an enemy missile unit and win the battle easily even if the enemy unit doesn't rout (say, if morale stats for the missle unit is modified to a very high value in the txt file)?

The games quit good compared to MTW. Definitely a different game but I've found it to be quite a challenge and fun.

Battle speed can't be fixed right now. It might be later.

Mods, now there's a tricky question. Currently all the pertinate files are packed away and there is no unpacker. CA is supposedly releasing a unpacker with patch zero day. That will allow for some basic changes to be done. But they've also locked the texture's and meshes away in a untouchable files. So most major mods like EB2 for M2TW platform arent happening unless CA does something.

1. Yes they'll plan flanks, as long as they arent going through the passive bug.

2. Yes indeed they do this go round.

3. This may be due to other factor's then an intelligent AI, but the enemy armies are almost always well formed. With both cavalry infantry missiles and a lot of times seige equipment. Just be careful though, on occassion you'll get that rich smart AI who builds a army composed of 1/2 knights.

4. The general so far as I've seen is not suicidal in this TW.

5. Yes charges work more then properly. Their great this time, for both cav and infantry.

6. Possibly the greatest ill of this game, the sheer inability to mod it. Even with the unpacker mods may not get very far.

A: Stats as far as their shown are balanced. But there seems to be more going on behind the scenes. Varangian and other 2 handed axes, also billmen, are too slow in their swing. If they are within the enemies weapon reach (hard for the enemy to do a lot of times granted) they'll get into a parry lock and will be unable to kill many enemies. Quite disappointing to see your unit of Varangian guard slaughtered by levy spears.

B: It depends on the cavalry. They charges are quite devastating if done properly. A lot of times if later knights get off a good charge they'll be less then 40 or so left of the unit. But they are also much more fickle in melee this time. If they stop the charge and are still engaged, even peasants can slaughter gothic knights at that point.

C: No.

D: Yes this time you wont see your companion cavalry slaughtered by peltasts in loose formation. The impetuous of a charge is usually enough to break units in loose formation, and in tight formation light infantry becomes nothing more then a speed bump to a well formed charge.

[Turpitudo]

I'm playing on VH/VH. But I don't see to much differences in the difficulty settings.

1. does AI flank player?

Not really, normally the ai exchanges arrows and goes from time to time on your missle units via cavalry. Sadly enough the ai uses only missile cavalry properly.

2. does AI attack with an intact battle line?

Most of the time yes. But the ai tends to run over the battlefield if you are defending especially with missile units in order to shoot at you, which makes it easy to outmanouver the ai or lay an ambush.

3. does campaign AI compose powerful armies or armies tending to be too strong in one aspect and weak in another (say all infantry army or similar issues)?

I guess that depends on your skill and on your unit preferences. Normaly the ai builds a lot of missle units especially pavise crossbowmen, which do have a relativly high attack and defence rating. Additionaly the ai adds some artillery, cavalry and spearman to the army. The ratio missile to meele units would be normaly 60/40. If your army is composed half of heavy cavalry, which is very expensive you can just crush your foe by smashing frontaly into the units and use some flanking manouvers. By this you lose 1/3 of your cavalry but its a effective way to win. Even if the enemy has spear or pike units. A bug is certainly that the ai is moving siege armies behind a normal army, which consist mainly of siege engines.

4. is the general suicidal?

No. The general waits behind his units and attacks mostly if there is a decision to be made. Some exeptions are if the general is the only cavalry unit in the army, then he tends to drive your missile units away.

5. do charges work properly?

Not really. The first charge works properly but you need some space between the units and sometimes the units spread out and don't fight while only the first rank is fighting. Units do not charge if the chase not broken missile units.

a. are the stats balanced well?

That depends on your individual point of view. Armor upgrades give only +1 to armor. E.g. Milita with 3 upgrades having partial plate has just a armor rating of 3 and a total defence value of 4, while armoured seargents with heavy mail have a armor ratintg of 7 or 8. But I guess this is made because of balancing reasons.

b. is cavalry overpowered vs heavy infantry?

Yes and no. Heavy sword infantry is normaly smashed by a heavy cavalry charge and the following meele but they do take some knights with them. This makes some sense, imagining a armored heavy horse with a knight with a lance on it concentrating all the energy on the lance tip and the following smash by the horse makes would lay some destruction on its target. However you can even kill pike units properly if you use two units of heavy cavalry. The first one takes most of the punishment, meaning the loss of more than half of the knights in the charge, while the other charges some seconds later will kill the pike unit after a short fight. But this is a very ineffective and expensive way of dealing with them.

c. can cavalry units be stacked on top of each other?

This worked good in RTW but in M2TW I have the impression, that they hamper each other at the charge. But charging with some seconds dealy works.

d. can a lonely cavalry unit charge an enemy missile unit and win the battle easily even if the enemy unit doesn't rout (say, if morale stats for the missle unit is modified to a very high value in the txt file)?

That depends on the unit, with a successful charge yes, even light cavalry. If they just pursue the missle unit and the missle unit decides to fight, it could get hard for the light cavarly, if they have to figth heavy armoured pavise crossbowmen or turkish archers.

Generaly the battles are not very hard if you have some experience in the total war series and got used to the new units. A change in M2TW is that it is now harder to accumulate a lot of money like in its predecessors. So you have to use the units that you can effort and not an army full of knights, which will result in challenging battles. The only factions I never got financial problems with are Sicily, Denmark and the Scots. Spain also gets some good financials after freeing the iberian peninsula. It also puts pushes the difficulty level, that the factions you are intended to destroy in the short campain will always backstab at you and the ai is normaly well prepared if she starts a war.