A List of Questions Mi'Lords

[Quickening]

So I bought Medieval 2 on release and am still not sure about a few things. Everytime I play the game Im reminded of certain things I am in the dark about. So here is the (hopefully) complete list of my unanswered questions. Please, please only answer if you know for sure you are correct lest this topic turn into a debate. And please no-one tell me to read the FAQ or similar because I have done. Thank you


1. If you choose to Ransom prisoners, if they get executed or released are you "punished" or "rewarded" for that respectively even though it was down to the enemy?

2. Merchants. Is it simply a case of getting more money depending on the resource? I have heard talk of getting more money if you have trade rights with the nation whose lands you are on and depending on distance from your empire.

3. What is the deal with Guilds? Only one of each type per city right? And is there actually a method of attracting them or is that a myth?

4. Devastation. Okay so if an army (including rebels) is standing on enemy territory, what does that do? Does it influence trade income and/or damage anything? This is an issue Id appreciate being cleared up.

5. Difficulty levels... what do they do? According to CA the AI gets no morale bonuses or penalties depending on difficulty. I accept this. But Id like to know exactly how difficulty affects the AI on the campaign and battlemap.
A friend of mine recently started a game as England on Normal/Normal. I usually play on Very Hard/Very Hard but decided for a laugh to also start a game as England on Normal/Normal. To be honest Im having difficulty in seeing the difference between Normal/Normal and Very Hard/Very Hard except that both AI and player troops grow tired quicker on Very Hard etc.
What other differences are there?

6. Around an enemy unit there is red rather than greem (movement wise). What exactly is the rate you can move through these zones? Is this one of the benefits of forts which you could build in tight mountain passes and such?

That is all for now comrades. Thank you.

[Lusted]

1. Don't think it affects your standing.

2. The manual covers merchants, you basically need to have them on high value resources. And having trade rights with the faction who's territory they are in does increase your money.

3. Yup one per city. Recruiting cetain troops/agents can increase your chances of getting certain guilds.

4. Devestation results in a loss of income for that province. If the army is standing on a road it affects trade.

5. In battle, the higher the difficulty the more increased the effects of morale and fatique, and slightly smarter ai. In campaign the higher the difficulty the more aggressive the ai, harder to bribe other armies.

6. You can move 1 square per turn through red areas near enemy armies/cities. Forts are very good at blocking passes for this reason.

[Quickening]

Thanks Lusted! Brief but informative.

[vonsch]

1. If you choose to Ransom prisoners, if they get executed or released are you "punished" or "rewarded" for that respectively even though it was down to the enemy?

From looking at the file, failed ransoms MAY have a chance of increasing dread-related traits or getting you dread ancilliaries. Flat executing them certainly does. I haven't tested these. I haven't seen any direct hits to rep that I can pin down. But rep changes kick in at the start of the next turn, so a lot of things can factor into that making it hard to tell. Relationship changes tend to be immediate.

3. What is the deal with Guilds? Only one of each type per city right? And is there actually a method of attracting them or is that a myth?

Daveybaby's Guide to Guilds

You can capture at least some of the guilds that you can't build yourself.

5. Difficulty levels... what do they do? According to CA the AI gets no morale bonuses or penalties depending on difficulty. I accept this. But Id like to know exactly how difficulty affects the AI on the campaign and battlemap.
A friend of mine recently started a game as England on Normal/Normal. I usually play on Very Hard/Very Hard but decided for a laugh to also start a game as England on Normal/Normal. To be honest Im having difficulty in seeing the difference between Normal/Normal and Very Hard/Very Hard except that both AI and player troops grow tired quicker on Very Hard etc.
What other differences are there?

Also, I think there's a steeper "normalization" of relations with other factions as the levels go up. You have a set relationship "base" value with other factions, and the current relationship is adjusted towards that by X amount each turn. X increases with difficulty. The effect is you have to work harder to keep good relationships.

6. Around an enemy unit there is red rather than greem (movement wise). What exactly is the rate you can move through these zones? Is this one of the benefits of forts which you could build in tight mountain passes and such?

An addition to what was said already, those zones of control zap your remaining movement points once you hit them. But you can get them back if you attack the projector of the ZOC and force a retreat or destroy it. There are also some odd and annoying bugs involved in that with remembering movement points if you mix a stack of units with different movement points in the ZOC.

And, yes, this results in most of the benefit for forts. I drop a junk unit into a fort to create the delaying ZOC. Or a really cheap unit on maintenance. But it's a perfect use for unit fragments with very few men left (and little or no experience that you want to preserve as cadre).

[Quillan]

Executing prisoners harms your reputation, regardless of the reason. If the enemy chooses to pay the ransom, then you get the reputation benefit of releasing them. It may not affect your standing with the opposing faction, but that is likely already in the gutter if you're in a position where you are holding some of their people prisoner.

[_Tristan_]

So I bought Medieval 2 on release and am still not sure about a few things. Everytime I play the game Im reminded of certain things I am in the dark about. So here is the (hopefully) complete list of my unanswered questions. Please, please only answer if you know for sure you are correct lest this topic turn into a debate. And please no-one tell me to read the FAQ or similar because I have done. Thank you


1. If you choose to Ransom prisoners, if they get executed or released are you "punished" or "rewarded" for that respectively even though it was down to the enemy?

2. Merchants. Is it simply a case of getting more money depending on the resource? I have heard talk of getting more money if you have trade rights with the nation whose lands you are on and depending on distance from your empire.

3. What is the deal with Guilds? Only one of each type per city right? And is there actually a method of attracting them or is that a myth?

4. Devastation. Okay so if an army (including rebels) is standing on enemy territory, what does that do? Does it influence trade income and/or damage anything? This is an issue Id appreciate being cleared up.

5. Difficulty levels... what do they do? According to CA the AI gets no morale bonuses or penalties depending on difficulty. I accept this. But Id like to know exactly how difficulty affects the AI on the campaign and battlemap.
A friend of mine recently started a game as England on Normal/Normal. I usually play on Very Hard/Very Hard but decided for a laugh to also start a game as England on Normal/Normal. To be honest Im having difficulty in seeing the difference between Normal/Normal and Very Hard/Very Hard except that both AI and player troops grow tired quicker on Very Hard etc.
What other differences are there?

6. Around an enemy unit there is red rather than greem (movement wise). What exactly is the rate you can move through these zones? Is this one of the benefits of forts which you could build in tight mountain passes and such?

That is all for now comrades. Thank you.

1 - Doesn't affect your standing...I usually always ransom troops and I have never seen a rep hit for a rejected ransom...

2 - That's right... There is a base value to each resource, having trade rights raises that value and the level of your merchat and merchant buildings raises it further... Having a monopoly (or near monopoly) in one or more resources seemed to also raise its value...

3 - refer to the Davey's guide posted hereabove,. It says it all about guilds...
You can only have one per city so choose well. Rejecting one can lead to getting a new one proposed in the next turn or so...

Try to specialize is the main idea behind guilds...

4 - It affects both income and public order... So get rid of those pests...

5 - The main effect have seen is the difficulty increase in getting other factions to have more stable relationships with you.

Aside from that, on a tactical point of view, units tire much more easily on the higher difficulties.

6 - Once you enter the red zone, you are in your enemy (or neutral) Zone of Control...

You normally can't move behind this point apart from attacking the controlling stack or unit.

It's also a great indicator to know if your stacks are near enough a target to be considered as reinforcements.

Fighting as France, I can tell just how useful those forts can be to protect your mainland.

I've kept the Portuguese at bay for almost ten turns with only four units of spear militia on the two mountain passes in the Pyrenees mountain (natural border between France and Spain) and two on the coastal areas. I only had to bring reinforcements from Bordeaux or Toulouse each time they besieged my forts. Most of the time, they simply turned tail when i approached...


Hope this helps... No hard facts just what i've gathered from experience...

[Tully Bascombe]

Regarding #2, you get more money from a resource if your merchant has a higher finance level. Traits that give a higher finance level include "good merchant", "natural merchant skill", "secure merchant", "legal dealer", and "monopolist". Being trained in a city with a merchant's guild helps too. You also get more money if the resource is far away. I'm not sure if that's far away from your capital or far away from the city where the merchant was created.

Regarding #4, you'll notice that the area around a rebel unit becomes blackened, and the longer he stays there the larger that zone gets. Sometimes other factions will send someone to sit on your territory in the hopes of having you attack him. It lowers your standing with the Pope. If he can get away with it often enough you might eventually wind up excommunicated, then he can attack you without fearing excommunication. Three are two ways around this: (1) bribe the offending unit, (2) go send someone to stand on his territory. I've done the latter with the result that the offender got the picture and removed his army.

[Razor1952]

Regarding #4, you'll notice that the area around a rebel unit becomes blackened, and the longer he stays there the larger that zone gets. Sometimes other factions will send someone to sit on your territory in the hopes of having you attack him. It lowers your standing with the Pope. If he can get away with it often enough you might eventually wind up excommunicated, then he can attack you without fearing excommunication. Three are two ways around this: (1) bribe the offending unit, (2) go send someone to stand on his territory. I've done the latter with the result that the offender got the picture and removed his army.

There is a reputation hit with the pope is you allow others to camp on your turf? Really I didn't know this, how did you find that out? I've always ignored them and never noticed a hit like this.

[SoxSexSax]

FYI, answer to 1 is in the manual...

[_Tristan_]

@ tully :

I think you're in the wrong here...

You will get a rep hit only if you attack that faction on your territory, that's where a diplomacy option like "Get off my land" would have come in handy...

I've never seen any Pope rep hit for enemy or rebel stacks standing on my homeground and it happened quite a lot and sometimes for years at a time (notably with rebels as I had other matters to deal with...)

Correct me if I'm wrong...

Moreover on the bribe situation, I've found that bribing such an invading faction army or even a rebel one is mostly impossible even with large funds ans a good diplomat, so there is only one solution in my book : BAIT

Send a small army right next to him to lead the AI to attack, and once it's done counter-attack...

Up until now, doing it I've stayed with a perfect to good standing with the Pope without giving more than two territories (Cagliari and Aleppo) and winning two crusades...