Should I (Re-)Buy MTW

[MSB]

Hello everybody,
This is my first thread here I believe. I bought MTW/VI Battle Collection a few months ago and I had to send it back as it, like Shogun which I bought the month after, wasn't working on my Nvidia Geforce 4 MX4000. Since then I have become a regular Org poster and now I know how to fix the problems I was having - by setting the anti-antilizing to 2x. I am now wondering whether I should buy MTW/VI again. I know that for many this was their favorite game and the AI was a vast improvement on Rome - even though it was older. I noticed while I was playing it however, that the strat map and the UI was quite different from R:TW, which I was quite used to, and it was harder to understand what did what. I was wondering if an R:TW user could get used to it over a period of time.
All advice much appreciated,
Avlvs

[Kaidonni]

I only played MTW for a brief period when it first came out, and have played RTW a fair amount. Purchased the MTW Gold Edition, read the (hefty) manual that I had to print out, thank you very much distributor of the game...(LOL!).

Yes, you can get used to it over time. Once you have some of the mechanics worked out, it's quite easy to understand.

Anything specific you want us to go into?

[MSB]

Not really, just wondering if a member used to R:TW could cope with M:TW and if it was worth me buying.

[Noir]

Once you get used to the STW/MTw engine, and particularly how the battles play, you'll never go back...

The older games (unlike Rome) are less intuitive (thank god). They have an enormous amount of features that are "burried" and the battles require a certain amount of "studying" from your part in order to understand how they play and enjoy them.

Try frogbeasteggs unit guide in the guide forum for starters.

As for the campaign, experience willget you there in time. Choose a medium size nation (England, HRE, France, Spain) for starters and play with them until you feel confident that you know what you aer doing.

There are endless ways to play even the samefaction in MTW and this i find is one of the many virtues of the game.

[naut]

Avlvs Libvrnivs Britannicvs Maximvs, in my highly biased opinion you should if not for the game as vanilla but for the [many] mods (I have 2 up my sleeve also ).

[caravel]

You have quite an old, low end graphics card, if you don't mind me saying (Geforce4 MX cards are much more similar to Geforce2 MX than they are to a Geforce4 Ti) . An older Nvidia driver than the latest may be better suited to it. The newer drivers don't benefit the new cards that much, apart from compatibility. The 2x AA thing such solve the CTD.

As to whether the game is for you, I cannot even begin to guess at that. I wouldn't say the AI was a vast improvement over Rome's. The AI is better in many ways, and battles are much better balanced and paced. Strategy comes into fighting a battle, wheras with Rome it's all over too fast. The AI still has it's problems however. Sieges are particularly poor but workable. Jedi generals can be a problem also. Apart from that the AI uses the terrain well, attacks and defends well and provides a decent enough challenge.

The MTW campaign map is totally different to Rome's. This is what us old time STW players think of as "Total War", that is: the risk style campaign map in conjunction with the classic STW/MTW real time battles, that the old MP community practically lived for. The map is divided into provinces which are faction exclusive. When controlled by a particular faction, another faction cannot enter without invading and starting a war. Armies are grouped in stacks as with RTW but when moving they simply move from one province to the next. If moving by sea they can depart from a port province and land at another, providing that they have at least one ship in every sea zone between the source and destination. Agents can move from one province to another, or from one port to another regardless of whether you have ships in the sea zones between those provinces or not. Spies and assassins are always invisible to rival factions. You will never see them or know where they are until your own spies and assassins catch them (In my opinion much more realistic than Rome's which involves much more micromanagement). If an assassin or spy fails their mission they are always caught and killed (with the exception of spies orchestrating treason trials on your own generals).

In many ways the campaign map game is more straightforward and simplistic than Rome's in other ways it is more complex. Overall the MTW campaign map AI is better than Rome's, but this is due Rome's AI not being able to handle it's map at all well. MTW also has less of that Civ/AoE feel about it, in that it doesn't go overboard with the population/squalor factors (less graphs). Cities don't have a population that is represented in the game. Cities are known as Castles and are purely military buildings, ot upgrade it you pay and wait. Population is not a factor. Civilian structures are abstracted (not in the game). They and their upgrades, accompanying buildings and extra fortification allow you to defend the province, keep the population "happy" (oppressed - having a castle full of armed killers down the road usually has that effect), increase income and allow you to train new units and agents among other things.

There are also many mods available such as BKB, XL, Pike and Musket, Samurai Warlords, Hellenic Total War, Napoleonic Total War, and many more. Rythmic is also working on a mod for the VI campaign which is looking very good. My own humble effort, currently in development, is also posted in this forum, it is a light realism/gameplay mod, not on the scale of mods such as BKB or XL, but tries to address many of the innacuracies, balancing and gameplay issues. It has a long way to go, but it's getting there slowly.

[naut]

Caravel, I wish I had your way with words.

[MSB]

Thanks for the quick response. I will order M:TW off Amazon tonight.
Thanks again.

[Odin]

Thanks for the quick response. I will order M:TW off Amazon tonight.
Thanks again.

to add to the comments thus far.....

I have only played stw, and mtw. Wasnt intrested in the RTW time period, and MTW2 well, I dont buy newly released games, dont want to be a tester/bug reporter.

The best reason to buy MTW now is that you can probably find it for a song (easily under 20, should be anyway) and for that kind of short money its a fine game. Certainly wont match RTW graphically, but you will get your moneys worth of gaming out of it.

[The Unknown Guy]

I got it from ebay about two months ago for 14 €, shipping included (from London to northern Spain)

[Sensei Warrior]

I bought MTW way back when for $40-60. It so far has had the best return of any game I've paid, meaning I keep returning to it. I must have logged hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours and still enjoy it immensely. It's the only one I tinker with (mod that is) and it has a large collection of mods to go with it. Its like a pack of games and like Odin said probably picked up for a song.

[Alpha666]

So you think i don´t need to buy Rome ? I guessed it would perhaps better (esp. the unrealistic camp map in MTW disturbs me a bit)......

Btw. I cranked up all the Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering in my ATI8500. Hasn´t had any visible effect - also no slower play or so. Seems the game doesn´t use these features at all......

[caravel]

(esp. the unrealistic camp map in MTW disturbs me a bit)......

Please define how the MTW campaign map is "unrealistic" and how the RTW campaign map is "realistic".

[Kaidonni]

They're two very different maps, and they both have their flaws (Rome's main one being that it confumbles the AI and makes me write words like 'confumbles' that confumble everyone else ).

MTW's is RISK-style, and truly turn-based. It has that lovely Chess-feel to it. And yes, it is a little bit unrealistic that it takes the same time to move from Scotland to Northumbria as it does by boat from Scotland to Palestine (1 turn if you have the ships), so I see where people might be coming from there. But that makes it even more strategic. Naval battles actually MATTER. In Rome naval superiority meant little. In MTW you MUST have it or you can become an easy target (and if your leader is cut off while you have a large empire...ouch, I don't want to have to deal with anything like that...well, I lie, I do...it'd be fun...I think...LOL!). Somehow, the RISK map also adds more atmosphere.

I'm yet to play M2:TW (the DVDs were buggered when I got them...Christmas Day...replacements should be coming once they've been tested by Play.com...oh well, to phrase it in less colourful language, stuff happens). I reserve my judgement for it. I still like Rome...been playing online on it more. Quite fun. But MTW somehow has that 'classic' feel. It happens to all games eventually, where they are done to death (sequels aren't always best...less is more).

Not that I don't like the 3D map, just that both maps are in a league of their own. The unrealistic elements are...embellishments. They add a whole other side to the games. The 3D map is eye-candy. I often think MTW's map could've had more colour to it, of course (artistic license taken to the true limit...would really make the game even better...but the paper feel is also more Medieval, so...).

[Alpha666]

Please define how the MTW campaign map is "unrealistic" and how the RTW campaign map is "realistic".

Hi,

see this post for the map question:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=77111

I didn´t play RTW at all, i guessed they improved the map ?

[caravel]

RTW's map is a tiled map much like those seen in Civ games. If you're saying that it looks realistic in a google earth fashion then I'm afraid I'd have to disagree. It looks like a game. The animated giants that run about it also look gamey, cartoonish and silly. MTW's map isn't even trying to be realistic (I doubt if RTW's is either), it is a Risk style map. Arguing about where it's realistic or not is similar to whether arguing if chess is realistic. The original STW map was a representation of a general's map. MTW's was not as good as it was designed to look too much like terrain, sticking with the olde style paper map would have been better, and would have suited the risk pieces better. RTW's map is neither a general's map nor does it have google earth like realism. Neither are realistic or unrealistic, realism simply doesn't come into it. Accuracy as important on the campaign map, where there is always going to be some level of abstraction.

[OmarPacha]

Kaidonni wrote:
" And yes, it is a little bit unrealistic that it takes the same time to move from Scotland to Northumbria as it does by boat from Scotland to Palestine (1 turn if you have the ships), "

I don't find movements on MTW to be unrealistic. We might think that 1 turn means 1 year and, if it is quite true that in 1200 a ship could take a year to get from Scotland to Palestine,
it appears somewhat ridiculous that an army (in MTW2 and RTW) needs 12 months to go from Venice to Dalmatia.
MTW map is by far more functional to a strategic game than RTW one, and movements on it also.
The new map allows armies (and agents) to move freely through all provinces, it doesn't matter who's the owner; sometimes I feel like to be in a market place with warbands, bishops and assassins on same routes.
I find this gaming condition is very unrealistic especially in MTW2; in middle age a king, as a governor or a local leader, could not think of an army in his own lands without preparing to face it on battlefield. Crossing the border of someone else's territory in middle age was a quick way to bring war.

Cheers All

[caravel]

I don't find movements on MTW to be unrealistic. We might think that 1 turn means 1 year and, if it is quite true that in 1200 a ship could take a year to get from Scotland to Palestine,

I'm not sure if he had issue with Scotland to Palestine taking a year but more so Scotland to Northumbria also taking a year.

it appears somewhat ridiculous that an army (in MTW2 and RTW) needs 12 months to go from Venice to Dalmatia.

Precisely I think we all have to accept that the years/seasons setup in TW games has never been ideal.

MTW map is by far more functional to a strategic game than RTW one, and movements on it also.
The new map allows armies (and agents) to move freely through all provinces, it doesn't matter who's the owner; sometimes I feel like to be in a market place with warbands, bishops and assassins on same routes.

Movement of agents was severely crippled in RTW, I'm not entirely sure if M2TW is still the same. It is horribly tedious having to walk an agent click by click from one location to another.

I find this gaming condition is very unrealistic especially in MTW2; in middle age a king, as a governor or a local leader, could not think of an army in his own lands without preparing to face it on battlefield. Crossing the border of someone else's territory in middle age was a quick way to bring war.

Cheers All

Good point. Those days were extremely territorial. With regards to Rome this was perhaps acceptable to a certain level, but during the Medieval period it would have resulted in a war. Minor border skirmishes are fair enough but those annoying rebels that occasionally come along and camp in your provinces are nothing more than a major annoyance.

-Edit: Anyway I'm not sure if the OP is coming back to this forum.

[Kaidonni]

Actually, I have no issues with the movement. :)

Just illustrating a point, more or less, that the movement can be unrealistic, as Alpha666 remarked that he/she was disturbed a bit by the 'unrealistic camp map' of MTW. Caravel then asked to define how it was unrealistic, so I threw in my two pence.

To me, though (and this is just me - each to their own), I love the chess-like interface. So what if it takes the same amount of time to move from Scotland to Northumbria as it does from Scotland to Palestine (the latter perhaps actually being the more realistic...LOL!)? To me, it makes it more strategic. The computer can do the same as the Human (I've seen it in XL, where England kept moving from France and Navarre right up to England and back, so if I started a war with them, as Scotland, I knew they could hit back hard due to their naval superiority - within the space of a single turn).

[caravel]

(I've seen it in XL, where England kept moving from France and Navarre right up to England and back, so if I started a war with them, as Scotland, I knew they could hit back hard due to their naval superiority - within the space of a single turn).

This is what I like about most about the STW and MTW campaign maps. It's a case of banging your army down on a rival factions province and you're off. If you are playing as e.g. the English and leave your coasts unprotected. You could see a large Byzantine force arriving in Wessex. In my last campaign as the Almoravid, the Byzantine invaded Brittany from Asia Minor. This may sound ridiculous to to some, but with the amount of fleets the byzantine had in every sea zone on the map, and the fact that their empire was expanding into russia and eastern europe, it was entirely plausible in those circumstances. It had taken them 1 year to despatch their invasion force and they had pulled it off. They didn't count on as large Almoravid force sinking half of their ships and landing there the following year though.

I do feel that the units of time in a TW game should be represented as four seasons as I've said before. That is resonable, a year is not. STW had this model whereby you only recieved income once per year, so you had to make your koku last over 4 seasons. I would adopt this model again but I would have it so that trade and mining income returns ever season, wheras farming only returns every 4 seasons.

Units such as peasants and militias would only take a season or two to train wheras archers and better units would take four or more, etc etc.

[Kralizec]

MTW/VI should be cheap, so there's little harm in at least trying it. After I went back from RTW to MTW the dropback in graphics didn't really bother me, admittedly in part because I was forced to play RTW on low settings. Lately I've used most of my time I had for gaming to play EB, but I have no doubt that I'll go back to MTW again when time permits it
There's just a certain charm, atmosphere mostly but not just that, about the game that never wears off.

MTW's map isn't even trying to be realistic (I doubt if RTW's is either), it is a Risk style map. Arguing about where it's realistic or not is similar to whether arguing if chess is realistic.

[Martok]

I do feel that the units of time in a TW game should be represented as four seasons as I've said before. That is resonable, a year is not. STW had this model whereby you only recieved income once per year, so you had to make your koku last over 4 seasons. I would adopt this model again but I would have it so that trade and mining income returns ever season, wheras farming only returns every 4 seasons.

Units such as peasants and militias would only take a season or two to train wheras archers and better units would take four or more, etc etc.

I would definitely like to see this as well. The move from seasons to full years was one of the few things I didn't care for when MTW was in development -- 4 turns per year would be far preferable. The only thing I'm unsure of is how that would work with army movement across water. Perhaps your army could only invade provinces within 3 sea regions, with exceptions allowed for Crusades and Jihads(?). Something like that, anyway.

[caravel]

The armies would need to have moved into the sea zones themselves. This would only work if you had a fleet present. Loosing a fleet would mean losing the army in that sea zone. It seems simple to me. I wouldn't have had a problem with my army stacks sitting on a sea zone, or grouped with a fleet. What I despise I ships that beach and units that board them, this is so childish and RTS like. I don't feel the need to have my units actually inside the bloody boats.

[Martok]

So armies would probably move at what--2 sea regions per turn? It would have to be at least that, else you couldn't travel to certain ports in a year or less. Still, an interesting idea.

[Odin]

I do feel that the units of time in a TW game should be represented as four seasons as I've said before. That is resonable, a year is not. STW had this model whereby you only recieved income once per year, so you had to make your koku last over 4 seasons. I would adopt this model again but I would have it so that trade and mining income returns ever season, wheras farming only returns every 4 seasons.

Units such as peasants and militias would only take a season or two to train wheras archers and better units would take four or more, etc etc.

I agree completely, the STW season approach was excellent and would have worked in MTW for timing of income/expense.

[caravel]

The only thing I'm unsure of is how that would work with army movement across water. Perhaps your army could only invade provinces within 3 sea regions, with exceptions allowed for Crusades and Jihads(?). Something like that, anyway.

Well what was it that was once said by a Roman about sending men by sea as opposed to sending them by land? Sea travel should be alot faster, at the end of the day a Barque or Caravel is faster than a marching army. Army stacks moving overseas would need to have moved about 4 sea zones at a time.

It's a pity this can't be modded.

Back to topic: I have often thought about the development stages of RTW and MTW. I had read somewhere that MTW was in fact supposed to be based on what is now the RTW engine, or at least the 3D battles part of it, but it wasn't anywhere finished. Thus they released MTW as a kind of stopgap? I remember reading reviews at the time, referring to the game as "disappointing", due to it being "more of the same", "2D sprites", "risk map" etc etc. I got the impression that the reviewers had expected the battlefield sprites to be 3D models. Despite this it did still get very good reviews though.

In view of this, would it be fair to say that RTW's development was somewhat behind schedule, or am I spouting alot of speculative nonsense here (very likely)? If this is the case, it certainly would explain the buggy and unfinished nature of RTW v1.0 ? A highly ambitious and revolutionary project that was seriously lagging, with a not so friendly Activision breathing down their (CA) necks?

RTW so drastically changed the TW series, and attracted such a different type of consumerbase, that many would say that it had alienated many of the old players and forum members. The question is, are old MTW/STW vets right in recommending their TW games of choice to players whose only playing experience of a TW game is RTW or M2TW? I would say yes in some cases, and no in others. If they are asking for an opinion then they must have seen some screenshots or played a demo, but not always. So if the member returns posting about the awful chess map and the 2D sprites should we be at all surprised? This is why I am very cautious when recommending MTW. I will at first warn the potential player, that the game is hardly state of the art visually, after that it's up to them to decide if they part with their cash or not, though at only a few pounds for MTW Gold, they're not paying alot for a piece of legendary gaming.

[Martok]

Well what was it that was once said by a Roman about sending men by sea as opposed to sending them by land? Sea travel should be alot faster, at the end of the day a Barque or Caravel is faster than a marching army. Army stacks moving overseas would need to have moved about 4 sea zones at a time.

Yeah, that sounds like that would be about right. Any slower, and it would be difficult for armies to reach certain ports in a reasonable period of time.

I am curious, however: How long would it really take to sail a medieval-era invasion fleet from Stockholm all the way to Big C? I honestly have no idea.

It's a pity this can't be modded.

Indeed. While I admit it's a pretty minor quibble compared to the game as a whole, I would dearly like to have seen this in MTW. Ah well, cest la vie....

Back to topic: I have often thought about the development stages of RTW and MTW. I had read somewhere that MTW was in fact supposed to be based on what is now the RTW engine, or at least the 3D battles part of it, but it wasn't anywhere finished. Thus they released MTW as a kind of stopgap? I remember reading reviews at the time, referring to the game as "disappointing", due to it being "more of the same", "2D sprites", "risk map" etc etc. I got the impression that the reviewers had expected the battlefield sprites to be 3D models. Despite this it did still get very good reviews though.

I read something about that as well (that MTW was supposed to Rome's engine), although for the life of me I can't remember now where or when I saw that. I know CA began working on the Rome/Medieval 2 engine shortly after Shogun was released, but I'm not sure at what point they realized it wasn't going to be ready in time for MTW (and henceforth decided to stick with Shogun's engine). In retrospect, their decision to make Medieval 2 is pretty obvious -- it was literally the game they wanted to make 4 years earlier, but didn't get the chance to.

That said, I wouldn't label MTW as a "stopgap" title. While the large quantity of hidden pictures text indicates CA wanted to do more than they did, it was still pretty complete as it was, not to mention feature-rich. Of all the PC titles I've played, Medieval was overall one of the least buggy out of the box - not that the 1.1 patch didn't fix some issues that needed addressing.

In view of this, would it be fair to say that RTW's development was somewhat behind schedule, or am I spouting alot of speculative nonsense here (very likely)? If this is the case, it certainly would explain the buggy and unfinished nature of RTW v1.0 ? A highly ambitious and revolutionary project that was seriously lagging, with a not so friendly Activision breathing down their (CA) necks?

Yes and no, I think. I know that CA was originally going to release Rome almost a year before they did so. After a demo was shown to Activision, however, the bigwigs were supposedly so impressed with what they saw that they granted CA another year to "polish and refine" the game.

I think the problem that arose was that CA then got overambitious -- they became so busy with adding more bells & whistles to Rome, that they suddenly ran out of time. Hence the very buggy release....and perhaps the poor AI as well (since there wasn't enough time)? We'll probably never know for sure.

RTW so drastically changed the TW series, and attracted such a different type of consumerbase, that many would say that it had alienated many of the old players and forum members. The question is, are old MTW/STW vets right in recommending their TW games of choice to players whose only playing experience of a TW game is RTW or M2TW? I would say yes in some cases, and no in others. If they are asking for an opinion then they must have seen some screenshots or played a demo, but not always. So if the member returns posting about the awful chess map and the 2D sprites should we be at all surprised? This is why I am very cautious when recommending MTW. I will at first warn the potential player, that the game is hardly state of the art visually, after that it's up to them to decide if they part with their cash or not, though at only a few pounds for MTW Gold, they're not paying alot for a piece of legendary gaming.

I agree with pretty much all of what you're saying. While I happily recommend MTW to just about anyone that asks about it, I usually preface my recommendations with the warning that the graphics are clearly showing their age, and that they have to be okay with the Risk-style campaign map. While I have absolutely no problem with MTW's visual appeal, I'm enough of a "graphics whore" to appreciate that some people will be turned off by it. (Of course, that still doesn't stop me from believing that it's their loss. )

[Sensei Warrior]

If I'm not old then my comp must be. MTW is the most visually spectacular comp game I own.

[caravel]

I am curious, however: How long would it really take to sail a medieval-era invasion fleet from Stockholm all the way to Big C? I honestly have no idea.

No idea whatsoever, about 6 - 7 months perhaps? I'm probably way off there. It would also depend on the weather. Those early barques and caravels would have made port quite often, it wouldn't have been a non stop voyage.

Yes and no, I think. I know that CA was originally going to release Rome almost a year before they did so. After a demo was shown to Activision, however, the bigwigs were supposedly so impressed with what they saw that they granted CA another year to "polish and refine" the game.

That makes sense.

I think the problem that arose was that CA then got overambitious -- they became so busy with adding more bells & whistles to Rome, that they suddenly ran out of time. Hence the very buggy release....and perhaps the poor AI as well (since there wasn't enough time)? We'll probably never know for sure.

Personally I think CA spent a lot of time on the cosmetics of the real time battle engine, and that is what caused the delays. The bugs in RTW have for the most part been related to the strategy map, AI and unit stats. The Battle map was on the whole pretty stable, though flawed.

[Digenes Akrites]

I also miss STW and MTW's multiple starting eras. I quite liked leaping straight into late medieval times to face a radically different balance of power (especially playing Byzantines in High or Late - always fun).