My M2TW Tirade

[sapi]

It's funny how memories change with age :P

If you love STW that much, get it out again and play it. Compare it to m2tw directly and tell me that it is better.

Every TW game has improved on the franchise in some way, and while you may not like the changes, most people do, so you're going to have to live with them.

[PaulTa]

I may not be a big time poster on this board, but I sure did get hooked on MTW and the expansion for it. I loved the battles compared to other "strategy" games (AoE comes to mind), and I remember mapping out routes of invasion.

Then I got my old computer back (which was actually about four times better than my computer I was playing MTW on), and noticed that my computer was in fact too powerful for MTW. I was having crashes all the time. So I decided to go find a new game, after spending about a week's worth of time trying to remedy the problem.

Well, I found RTW. The game was great, the added speed of the battle seemed to add another element of realism (I felt that a soldier dying from one or two attack animations was more accurate than two groups of spearmen fighting each other for about five minutes with no clear victor). The new campaign map was a thrill too. Risk was cool, but now I felt like I'd upgraded to Axis and Allies. There was only one problem... I missed swords and knights and longbowmen...

Well MTW2 has mixed the best of both worlds for me. I get the feel and setting of MTW with the graphics beauty of RTW. The factions are about a hundred times more diversified, the Castles vs Cities element is just amazing, and sword units without javelins are fashionable.

That's not to say that I'm not disappointed with MTW2 a bit. Scotland is a bit of a lackluster faction, dismounted noble knights aren't nearly as effective as they should be, and poor byzantium doesn't have enough "what if" attached to her. I'd like my billmen to be more than just a novelty, I'd appreciate a more in depth orthadox religion, and I wouldn't mind some difference between the four different spear units that the moors have. Would I ever blow the dust off of my RTW cd though? Only if I needed a coaster for my coffee.

[KARTLOS]

i too find the ai very dissapointing.

1. it is very poor at seiges - with more troops you will usualy win but that is not the case for them. this means you dont have to fear their "invasions" that much.

2. it often fails to garrison its cities properly, usually just a handful of units.


3. it fails to respond to your actions - it is possible to manoevre a full stack thru their territory without challenge. for example you can lay seige to a city and the ai often wont respond even if it has trooops in range.

all these factors mean it is fairly easy to take ai territory but not to easy for it to take yours - that kills excitement.

[sapi]

What difficulty are you guys playing on? It sounds like you're playing a completely different game...

[KARTLOS]

i usually play on h/h.

i dont like the money management area of the game as much as batles and ive always asumed that comes more to the fore on vh campaign?

[KARTLOS]

the best illustration of the synfrome i am describing is egypt.

if you go on a crusade with at least one full stack, it is easily possible to destroy the entire egyptian faction. their cities are often poorly defended. thus you can move down the middle east coast taking a city/turn. they sometimes have large armies in the vicinity, but they fail to respond to what you are doing. thus it is possible for example to lay seige to cairo for more than 1 turn, whilst a large egyptian army that is in range to atack you fails to respond. you take cairo = faction destroyed, and the large rebel stacks are much less trouble.

[PureFodder]

Here's a tip if things are seemingly a little too easy. Once you've finished your first campaign start a new one on H/H or VH/VH as the Turks.

Make sure you take Baghdad.

Make sure you play for at least 60 turns.

Then try to claim the AI is unagressive and never uses decent armies........