Sorry MTW II ?????????

[Pompey the Great]

Hi Generals,

Some real basic questions but I need to catch up quickly.

When did MTW II come out and are their any reviews / guides of it on the site.

I have played the original a few years ago which was fantastic and want to know how it compares to the new version.

Is it Great or a Let Down ?

Cheers


C

[nachoviper]

Hi Generals,

Some real basic questions but I need to catch up quickly.

When did MTW II come out and are their any reviews / guides of it on the site.

I have played the original a few years ago which was fantastic and want to know how it compares to the new version.

Is it Great or a Let Down ?

Cheers


C

November/ yes a lot of them

Overall it is great, some would say even better than the original, but requires a REALLY good computer

[naut]

Wrong forum? Although it is sort of right here, as you want a comparison between it and the original.

Overall it is great, some would say even better than the original

I beg to differ. I've lost interest in M2TW already, I've only had it for 2 months. But that's just me.

[Alpha666]

I beg to differ. I've lost interest in M2TW already, I've only had it for 2 months. But that's just me.

Why ? I can´t play it anyway just curious....( guess 1,4 ghz + Ati 8500 isn´t good enough for MTW2)

[naut]

It got repetative and dull. In the same way as Rome did.

[Odin]

I chomped at the bit when I heard MTW2 was coming out, then had a look at the specs and realized i needed a 1000-1500 (us dollars) upgrade to my PC.

So I just came back to MTW, get a mod and fire up a tough faction, there are literally hundreds of hours of game play to be had with MTW. From my snooping at the MTW2 boards, most find it a fine game but there were some shortcomings that were all to familiar from RTW.

I guess a patch is out and has fixed some issues, but the dormant ai stuff that was tossed around the board scared me off. i'll wait a year for an expansion, an indepth mod and a new PC.

[caravel]

It got repetative and dull. In the same way as Rome did.

I know what you mean. The battles are one thing, but it's campaign game that eventually wears me down, and has me loading up MTW again. It's just far to RTS and involved, but at the same time isn't an RTS but a sort of quasi turn based game. If any of you have played the old Fallout games you'll know what I mean. The 'allotted steps' bit is what I really despise. With STW/MTW I don't have to micromanage in this way. I can simply drag and drop and entire army from one province into another, done. With RTW I'm sending armies off on walkies to a certain point, then ending the year and sending them on a bit more. Finally they bump into some rebels and obliged to fight a boring battle where the enemy break as soon as a well placed moto-cav charge hits them square on. Then there are other battles where, everything descends into chaos and I'm clickfesting like a loon.

The realism mods fix alot of the problems with the battles, but the campaign is still the same walk a certain number of steps using up "movement points" end turn and repeat until reaching destination thingy. Having to send emissaries and priests on their travels using the same system is tiresome as well... yes that's a good word: Tiresome...

[Vuk]

I know what you mean. The battles are one thing, but it's campaign game that eventually wears me down, and has me loading up MTW again. It's just far to RTS and involved, but at the same time isn't an RTS but a sort of quasi turn based game. If any of you have played the old Fallout games you'll know what I mean. The 'allotted steps' bit is what I really despise. With STW/MTW I don't have to micromanage in this way. I can simply drag and drop and entire army from one province into another, done. With RTW I'm sending armies off on walkies to a certain point, then ending the year and sending them on a bit more. Finally they bump into some rebels and obliged to fight a boring battle where the enemy break as soon as a well placed moto-cav charge hits them square on. Then there are other battles where, everything descends into chaos and I'm clickfesting like a loon.

The realism mods fix alot of the problems with the battles, but the campaign is still the same walk a certain number of steps using up "movement points" end turn and repeat until reaching destination thingy. Having to send emissaries and priests on their travels using the same system is tiresome as well... yes that's a good word: Tiresome...

I begger to differer.
RTW was a huge step up from MTW in many ways (not that I dislike MTW, but that RTW is a massive improvement), but a few small steps back in a few others. The battle map is a million and one times better and more realistic, and the campaign map is a cosmic improvement. In MTW armies could move from one provence to the other in one turn - regardless on the size of said provences. That is to say that an army needs the same time to cross a tiny provence in Scotland as an immense desert provence in Africa! RTW improves this by giving armies (and agents) movement points. Different terrain comsumes different movement points.
Also, you can interact with the terrain much more strategically and realistically. The world is 3-D, and you can built forts in narrow mountain passes, place your army at the end of a bridge and prepare to defend it from the enemy, set up ambushes in forests, plan your battles to use elevation to your advantage, etc. The campaign map is one of CA's largest achievements with the release of RTW.
Agents however, were a bit of a disappointment...

M2TW was a huge improvement over Rome with the campaign map, though the battle map seems to have changed not for the better. The recruitment pool system is excellent, though there are a lot of dumb traits and messy character interactions. For the campaign map alone, M2TW is worth buying! (and that may be all you use after you fight a battle or two on the battle map.)
The main pros and cons of the battle map are:

pros:

1. cavalry no longer uber when sent into the fray and not disengaged.
most of cavalry attack has been transfered to charge bonus and cavalry can now disengage. Cavalry hitpoints have been lowered.
2. artillery is now quite a bit more realistic, though gunpowder is under powered...
3. Beautiful sieges :D


cons:

1. Missile damage has been reduced to a point as to make archers useless against most units.
missiles don't interact with armour as they should.
2. Gunpowder is very unrealistic
3. formations are useless, and you men don't keep ANY formation when moving.
4. AI, though improved in some respects, is extremely dumb (esp. regarding missile units and cavalry).
5. Horse Archers don't "work".

All in all though, despite its many flaws, I'd say M2TW is a darn good game and warrants buying. I will be playing it till I go back to school...and who knows, maybe even then...

[cegman]

Vuk he didn't say it wasn't more realistice but that it is tedious and dull. Explain how it is not if you are going to comment. I haven't played M2TW but if it is like Rome then I heartily and sadly agree with him.

[caravel]

I begger to differer.

RTW was a huge step up from MTW in many ways (not that I dislike MTW, but that RTW is a massive improvement), but a few small steps back in a few others. The battle map is a million and one times better and more realistic...

A million and one times more visually realistic, you mean? In the same way that Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of the Syth is a million and one times visually better than Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope? In terms of "better", I'm afraid not. RTW pretty much put the last nail in the coffin for the old STW and MTW multiplayer clans, ask them about the battles.

...and the campaign map is a cosmic improvement.

In what way, a cosmic improvement? It is a different type of game. On one hand we have a risk game and on the other a civ/RTS wotsit with movement points and eye candy. It is tiled, so it doesn't have realistic outlines, it's blocky. In terms of detail, 3D bells and whistles it' better. But is the game better? This all depends on what you want I suppose. Personally I don't want to sit around watching little animated figures "walking" about on small roads between cities. I don't find this any more realistic than the Risk style provincial map + it's tedious and boring.

In MTW armies could move from one provence to the other in one turn - regardless on the size of said provences. That is to say that an army needs the same time to cross a tiny provence in Scotland as an immense desert provence in Africa! RTW improves this by giving armies (and agents) movement points. Different terrain comsumes different movement points.
Also, you can interact with the terrain much more strategically and realistically.The world is 3-D, and you can built forts in narrow mountain passes, place your army at the end of a bridge and prepare to defend it from the enemy, set up ambushes in forests, plan your battles to use elevation to your advantage, etc. The campaign map is one of CA's largest achievements with the release of RTW.

Well no, because again, it's a different game to the risk game that came before. It's also nothing new. In Civilisation II it took my armies all their movement points to travel through a mountain tile, wheras in flatland they could move about 3 tiles or so. Also as I've said before, movement points have been used in old turn based RPGs for years. Another thing is that movment times in Rome are also unrealistic in that it takes years to travel from e.g. Italy to spain. Movement in MTW is also wrong in that it takes 1 year to travel from Scotland to Northumbria, and also 1 year to travel by sea from Scotland to Palestine. Most of us MTW players are well aware of it's shortcomings. As far as movement times are concerned, CA have yet to get it right, as regards movement points - horrible.

[naut]

Having to send emissaries and priests on their travels using the same system is tiresome as well... yes that's a good word: Tiresome...

That coupled with the horrible Diplomacy AI, equals never bothering with diplomacy or agents what so ever.

[marcusbrutus]

I was trying to avoid looking at the pro's of M2TW seeing as how my PC can't hack it thank you all very much . Thought I'd be safe in the Main Hall.

Just kidding... I came back to MTW shortly after Rome. I just find MTW a more enjoyable game. I'm still going to save up for a PC for M2TW though - and by that time I'll know what 'features' are never going to be 'fixed' before I decide whether or not to buy the game.

[Jxrc]

I came back to MTW shortly after Rome. I just find MTW a more enjoyable game. I'm still going to save up for a PC for M2TW though - and by that time I'll know what 'features' are never going to be 'fixed' before I decide whether or not to buy the game.

Exactly the same happened to me ... Must have played about five or six RTW campaign before getting fed up (finishing just two). Not that I could say that I ever mastered the whole game but I simply got bored with it ... The map in RTW is a great idea but, IMHO, it is ruined by the fact that the IA cannot handle it and that the game loses too much fluidity as a result (especially once you use spies and assassins in substantial number) ...

Seems to me that they are plenty of good ideas in MTW 2 (city/castle, free militia, guilds, all the stuff with the pope) but I am not sure it's enough to make me abandon the original stuff ....

If someone would be willing the add the above-menioned MTW2 features to MTW 1, needless to say that I would be most willing to pay for that (one can always dream ....)

[MSB]

Hello Pompey the Great,
If you have played MTW then this thread should help you compare it to the new M2TW.

[caravel]

This is the one I don't fully understand:

I like having the decent animations. They really help the game to go along. Plus the fact of Agents cant move across the entire map in one turn..That really annoyed me.

My Vote goes to M2:TW.

How do decent animation help the game "go along"?

And what is the problem with agents being able to travel across the map from one port to another in one year? Surely this is what most people preferred... or is he saying the opposite?

On the whole their message amounts to "M2TW is better because of the graphics", and that's it. Orda Khan raised some issues about spears and their effectiveness in MTW v1.0. I remember that also, and I may look into tweaking spear unit stats in the mod I'm working on.

[econ21]

I think this thread belongs more in the Citadel than the Main Hall, but anyway, for what it's worth, I think M2TW is a nice blend of RTW and MTW.

I never liked the Risk style map of STW and MTW - too abstract for me and while the strategic AI was better than in RTW, that was in part because it often cheated outrageously (esp. in STW). I take the point about low movement points in M2TW - the armies are fast enough, IMO, but the agents are tiresomely slow and don't add much. (I don't worry too much about "fast" as in "realistic" - I think we have to forget realism when it comes to the TW strategic layer). Where M2TW campaign map improves on RTW is that the strategic AI is a bit more canny. I've observed it keeping out of reach of my stronger armies; I've observed it keeping adjacent to a second stack to deterr attack; and it can nip in to take weakly defended settlements if your armies are too far away. Apparently, it still does not have much of a "killer" instinct, in a grand strategic sense of mustering a great army and smashing through until you are destroyed. But in TW, I kind of assume that is my job.

The battles are gorgeous to look at (especially the wonderful terrain - fighting on Scottish heather is beautiful). And they not far from MTW in their "tactical" and historical feel. They are slower than RTW and the balance of arms seems better (although cav are arguably a little too strong and spears too weak). With a pause key, it is perfectly controllable and gives a similar experience to a MTW battle. There are some nice touches over MTW - more unit variety (e.g. unique faction units) and arguably more historical units (I like my longbow stakes). I have a feeling the AI is stronger than in MTW; it is certainly better than RTW. If I am significantly outnumbered, I tend to be defeated by it - which I certainly never expected before the demo. And the really cool thing is that this challenge does not come through a crude +7 to AI attack values or similar unbalancing of stats.

Out of the box, the game avoids some of the game killer flaws of MTW - peasant armies on early; tedious "reinforcement" battles where you have won when you've killed the first wave (inc. general) but must endure another two waves; and overpowered sea trade (which the AI could not match). Depending on your playstyle, it can be rather challenging. On VH/VH, I've ran two English campaigns for about 100 turns each and both have been great fun. Trying to hold onto a crusader kingdom has been especially fun, and the Mongols/Timurids have not arrived. I think if you rush more than I do, and if you sack lots of cities, it may get a little easy.

My only gripe is that I don't have enough time to play the game. It does take an awful lot of time to play - rather like Civ. I don't know why people fuss so much about increasing the number of turns to years - it's exhausting enough as it is. I can kind of see where the "tiresome" comments above come from - playing M2TW campaigns is tiring, but I find it worth the effort for the nice historical flavour and the challenge, both strategic and tactical.

[Martok]

I probably haven't played Medieval 2 nearly as much as the others here that have weighed in on the subject, so you should take my two cents with as many grains of salt as makes you comfortable. That said, my opinion is that while it *is* a fun game, MTW still offers me a better overall experience. Medieval 2 is admittedly superior in a numer of gameplay aspects (not just graphics). It still lacks....something, however, and I just can't get into it as much as Medieval.

For me, M2TW doesn't have the same atmosphere and ambience as its older brother (although it's definitely *much* improved over Rome). Do I enjoy playing it? Yes. Would I rank it among my top 10 favorite PC games of all time? No. Whereas I would've easily rated Shogun and MTW at least an 8.5 (out of 10) straight out of the box, I would rate Medieval 2 at about a 7.0. To be fair, I should mention that I've only played the game without the patch, so I haven't been able to see how much of an improvement it is.

I think this thread belongs more in the Citadel than the Main Hall,

Normally I would agree, but there's already been several threads comparing the two games in the Citadel, and I wanted the patrons of the Main Hall (many of whom don't really visit the Citadel that often) to have a chance to see a debate about it here.

[caravel]

A fair opinion posted by econ21. I can't argue with much of that. The bit about the terrain is encouraging, from looking at screenshots (I haven't yet played the game so bear that in mind) I can see that the terrain detail has improved from Rome but still I find it cartoonish and fake looking. MTW and RTW had too many boring terrain types that were overbright and fake looking. STW had very different terrain, storm effects, fog and on the whole a much better atmosphere. It just felt better, if you know what I mean.