What does MTW:2 do better?

[Doug-Thompson]

If the bug debate keeps sidetracking this thread, I'll either stop replying or ask those who want to argue the point to open another thread.

Maybe TW veterans are pretty fussy. I think it is wrong to suggest that bug reports and gameplay issues are overstated..they are not IMO.

We have an honest difference of opinion, then.

Currently I find my normal campaign spoilt by these isssues:

Inquisitors: They kill faction leaders/heirs, your priests..and generals on crusades...madness. It ruins your game at times.

As I noted in an earlier reply, the "surround and squash" workaround is available until a permanent solution is found or patched in.

Units hanging back when you charge..only the front line engages...leaving you strung out..and sometimes losing due to this bug.

In the first place, the only time I've had some units hold back is when I order their group to charge. Selecting that unit individually and specifically ordering it to attack has solved that problem for me every time.

While that could be more micromanagment than many players enjoy, I've found the game's tactical "autopilot" features to be the best by far of any TW game, reducing this kind of direct intervention to easily manageable levels. Compared to the micromanagement needed just to use horse archers, for instance, in MTW1, this game is a snap.

Furthermore, I'm not at all convinced that hanging back isn't a morale issue. Ordering men to walk into a fight, especially when arrows are flying in their face, was never automatic.

Insane campaign AI...just no reason behind many countries actions..and diplomacy is a bit dodgy too.

I found the desperate Moorish attempts to make peace with me and the backstabbing by Portugal and France in my Spanish campaign to be quite sane. Likewise, the coalition of allied Catholic powers who pummelled me to defeat in my Russian campaign also behaved quite rationally to my sweeping destruction of Poland. The anger and suspicion of my Turkish allies after I won the race to Edessa in my current Egyptian campaign is completely understandable.

Whenever you take a province that is on another faction's list of victory conditions, you make them an enemy. Note that Jerusalem is on a lot of factions' lists. Whenever you become the #1 power on the map, you make enemies of everybody.

Unit balance issues..cavalry are more bugged than they were in RTW....you just cannot control them sometimes.

I absolutely and flatly disagree with that, and I'm a cavalry player.

Almost all issues with moving cavalry around are fixed by one simple rule: "Move loose, melee closed." Cavalry units are very hard to move in closed formation, in part because the leader has to wind through the crowd and everybody has to line up behind him if there is any significant change of direction. Moving in loose formation fixes that problem. Put cavalry in loose formation in deployment and close them with the "c" hotkey as you order a melee attack. Open them back up to chase routers.

"Fire and forget" cavalry is boring.

Billmen are useless...a major issue if you play as england...lots more to mention..but I wont.

I put a unit of Irish mercenary skirmishers in front of my a unit of billmen last night. The Irish Kerns hit the approaching feudal knights with javelins and the billmen charged in during the melee after the knights had a good, solid lances-down charge. The knights were massacred, and more than half the English and Irish survived.