Medieval 2 Addon

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

Does this mean 4 new maps or are the campaigns new factions to the main map?

10 new factions total 31 looks like they had this in mind with the 31 faction slot limit.

"german knights" is this a typo meant to be HRE or is the Teutonic knights ordenstaat going to be a faction?

[Lusted]

4 new maps.

And i think they mean the HRE and might be a typo.

[pike master]

there has to be some misinformation about this expansion or addon.

namely the news was so rushed that medieval 2:kingdoms failed to have the total war stamped to it.

and i would seriously urge sega caution on even thinking on the expansion until they get the new game mechanics fixed.

they could just be simple historical type campaigns with story lines. and the new units and additional factions part are intended for the main game.

this would sound like a more realistic assumption. except how they would factor in the new campaign maps. which brings up another question since it would have taken less work to add extensions to the existing map instead of making seperate ones.

the only reason i can think they did this was because of the system demands that would be needed to maintain all the factions and extra area of a larger map.

these are just some of my opinions.

[Husar]

I'll be most interested in what the expansion adds to the existing main campaign - if we see more units or factions like we did with VI. The four campaigns sound ok, but I like the big sandbox of the main TW games best. That's the reason I liked BI best of all the expansions - it gave you a campaign commensurate with a full TW game.

On worthplaying they say 150 new units, I hope that means a few new ones for the main campaign, but in this case the small campaigns sound very interesting as well IMO.

[Yun Dog]

It's been reported over at TWc since its been previewed in a German magazine.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=89663

Here is what we know so far:

The Addon will contain 4 Campaigns, with new faction(bolded):

• Britain: With England, Wales, Scotland, Norway, Ireland.
• Crusade: Two Alliances vs. Each other: Jerusalem + Antiochia vs Egypt, Byzantines, Turks and all together vs. Mongols
• New World: Azteks, Maya, Apache,Tarasken, Chichimeken, Tlaxkalteken and Spanish Settlers under Cortez
• East Europe: With German Knights, Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Novgorod

I agree with others if your going to have a britain map then it needs to be Mercs, Saxons, alla VI - BOOOOO


The Crusades one looks interesting - pity alliance battles like that arent achievable in Vanilla

- They also added "Special abilities" for the historical persons in the 4 campaigns: Richard I. can collect fleeing troups, Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can "confuse" enemy units, that they hit themself.

This sounds bit scarey to me - hello WoW TW

I hear that Saladin can raise troops from the dead on the battlefield by enabling his Raise the Dead scroll in his special attacks menu.

dont want to be alarmist but is this game heading down the AoEIII path, or maybe HoMM would be a better analogy

I shouldnt cry too much seeing as I vertually never play unmodded - but what happened to the strategic, tactical, and historical war game

Continuing on this path will lead where one wonders for the next TW? - 300TW - spartans have GOD mode where they become invincible to attack for 4 rounds, Immortals have strike fear mode causing enemy troops to flee. Leonidas is 20ft tall on the battlefield and can use 'stomp' feature to destroy masses of troops

[pike master]

sensai has admitted that the german maganzine article is accurate. but CA has not officially announced it. i think it got leaked out.

he said it was an expansion.

[alpaca]

mad cat mech i shouldn't really have called it an addon, it's going to be the expansion.

Im trying to get more info out of Palamedes, but he isn't confirming or denying anything until news is posted on the offical site.

The same goes for Caliban unfortunately

This sounds bit scarey to me - hello WoW TW

I concur, this is a bit too much fantasy for my taste.

By the way, I don't think it's leaked, but that SEGA didn't know that the subscribers of German game magazines usually get their stuff a week or so early. They will probably be announcing the add-on this week.

[Lusted]

Yup as confirmed by Sensei over at .com:

Hi guys

As you know, Gamestar in Germany has been published to its subscribers early. This is not ideal of course, but somewhat out of our control. We'll have an official statement on the expansion at the end of the week together with some new information and a collection of great new assets. I'll also do what I can to get you some more detailed comment from the dev team on some of the specific features already mentioned in this thread - namely the hero abilities. In the meantime please respect the copyright of the magazine in question and refrain from posting or linking to scans of the article.

Thanks,

Mark O'Connell
(aka SenseiTW)

Im waiting to hear more about the hero abilities in particular.

[Odin]

I think its a decent expansion (what we know so far). I dont ever remember CA having the cat out of the bag this early though. i know the german mag published early, still it seems real early to be doing interviews/announcing an expansion.

[CountMRVHS]

I never played Shogun, so for my money probably the best TW expansion was VI. Don't get me wrong, BI was great, but I loved the fact that Viking Invasion focused on a smaller part of the world and therefore allowed more provinces in that particular region. The part that represented England in VI comprised about 20 regions; in M2 England consists of 3 settlements. If I'm playing as the Scots, the small number of regions makes it incredibly easy to conquer England. Now, granted, M2 isn't exactly geared toward playing some of those historically small factions like Scotland and Portugal; but I'm very glad about the opportunity to play on smaller maps with more settlements than the corresponding area in M2's big map. This is the kind of scale that most medieval kingdoms actually worked with, and for people who know about the history it will be more realistic I daresay to play the Crusades in a region that has more than 4 significant settlements. I know it's called "Total War", but I never liked the idea of faction x rampaging across Europe. With VI, I loved the chance to play more realistically in a smaller area of the world, and it looks like I'll have several more opportunities now. Good move, CA .

[pike master]

for the americas why do you have to be the spanish. the english arrived in 1500 something and the french soon afterwards.

thats why it would have been better to add on a full scale map of the americas to the main campaign. that way you could have conquered the americas with any faction.

also it is a disappointment that the numerous indian nations of the eastern united states wont be included. only the apaches.

[Whacker]

Moats seem very hopeful, BUT they'd better serve a good purpose and be implemented well. If they don't block latters and siege towers, then what's the use really? Maybe they will come up with an option to build those piles of sticks (make em flamable too) that we used to fill in stuff like that, so that a path could be opened up for a ladder team or a siege tower? The other thing would mean that it'd force you to bring your own artillery and then build a whole crap-ton of these bundles and hope you can make a hole and get it filled in. Sieges aren't nearly hard enough on the attackers, IMO. I guess for me, the bottom line is that I hope this MEANS something in terms of gameplay instead of just lame eyecandy.

As for the campaigns, that's all well and good, but I do not want something like Alexander where you're rushing against a clock/timer counting down. If it's just like VI or BI then I'll be fine.

[Katana]

300TW - spartans have GOD mode where they become invincible to attack for 4 rounds, Immortals have strike fear mode causing enemy troops to flee. Leonidas is 20ft tall on the battlefield and can use 'stomp' feature to destroy masses of troops

dude

that sounds wicked, sign me up. i heard the 300 psp game was way lame anyways. SPARTAAAAAAAAA

[pike master]

how about giant galapogos war turtles with ion cannons that cause panic for 3 combat rounds.

mail covered rhinos with german berserker riders.

dont forget saddam husseins super gun. but that will need to be factored in the strategy map. target a city and when turn ends city is annihilated.

dont forget vlad the impaler campaign.[actually a balkan,austro-hungary versus turkish invasion would make a good campaign on a more serious note]

[SoxSexSax]

- They also added "Special abilities" for the historical persons in the 4 campaigns: Richard I. can collect fleeing troups, Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can "confuse" enemy units, that they hit themself.

This sentence requires a major 'Hmmmm'.

[Lusted]

Info post by Wikiman at TWC:

This is a great post but a couple of things. The modders can make a killer game, there is no doubt about that but we can add and change features which will then provide an even more expansive platform for the modders to build on. We want the modders to have new toys despite our own fears that they become competition for us. We provided the depacker, we exposed variables to config files, we helped the modders to understand the mesh file format and we even paid for one of the mod forum moderators to fly out to Australia to see how stuff works up close at the end of Med 2.

We think of it like we are providing a sandbox with a huge bunch of cool toys inside. We set up some cool scenarios in the sandbox but ultimately we know they will be pulled apart and configured a 1000 different ways into different mods. Lets put it this way, the number of new subtle features that have been added to the campaign will keep the modders busy for a long time and I am sure they are going to stretch the game way beyond where we will end with Kingdoms.

OK Heroic abilities are only available in one campaign and only 5 (pretty sure it is 5) characters will ever have a heroic ability. If you think of how many generals there are on any one campaign then this puts it in perspective.

As someone earlier said generals all didn't have equal abilities. Some were masters of the battlefield and both sides standing there facing each other knew it. We have just gone someway to represent this. This is one feature out of about 100 added to Kingdoms, I am looking forward to you guys feedback on them once the information starts to flow.

Rock on,

-wikiman

[Subedei]

ME wanna play in the sandbox.....

[pevergreen]

Very good this new special ability system will be for mods, yes.

[diotavelli]

I agree with others if your going to have a britain map then it needs to be Mercs, Saxons, alla VI - BOOOOO

I disagree - the VI approach worked well for pre-1000AD but wouldn't be at all accurate thereafter.

Having Britain divided as described allows you to recreate the Anglo-Norman invasions of Wales and Ireland, the English civil wars during Henry III's reign (and Llewellyn ap Gruffydd's expansion in north Wales at the same time) and the ongoing wars between Scotland and England.

Scotland itself could be a good 'un - start as Robert the Bruce with no power, facing the might of Edward Longshanks and gradually restore Scottish independence. Finish off the campaign by winning an epic battle at Bannockburn against a stronger Anglo-Norman army....

The involvement of Norway is a little more odd - their last significant scrap with the English was 1066 at Stamford Bridge. I guess they could do something quite interesting regarding the Scottish conquest of the Isles from the Norwegians but I seem to recall that was more a series of skirmishes and small scale sieges. We shall have to see!

I think CA've done the right thing not retreading the ground covered by VI. Their critics are harsh enough as it is, without giving them the chance to compare every aspect of VI2 with the original.

[Taliferno]

A couple of Norwegian kings tried to regain their power in the British Isles a number of times. Magnus Barelegs (king from 1093-1103) tried to conquer Ireland but was killed and his army defeated in Ulster.

[Afro Thunder]

Leonidas is 20ft tall on the battlefield and can use 'stomp' feature to destroy masses of troops

How about a slow-motion camera special ability, where time slows down, it zooms down to Leonidas, and he runs through about 20 Persians. Oh dear...

[JCoyote]

I would actually think the new map style is even better suited to the warfare depicted in VI than the original was. While you can argue the current system can get a bit tedious on the full map of Europe (it can sometimes with all the micromanagement of the big map), on a map of the British Isles with warfare involving ambushes and raids in many cases, the new map would shine. Ditto for Japan.

[Czar Alexsandr]

Ah Novgorod, Lithuania, Poland, Denmark, and thosse troublesome Germans. This should be interesting! I'd very much like to great the Germans in the way Alexsandr Nevsky did. And making alliances with the other regional powers should be fun. It's a time and place I'm very interested in.

The other campaigns sound interesting to. It sounds like a good expansion to me. I think I'll do the England one as Wales or Ireland, that should be fun.

[Slug For A Butt]

I think it sounds great, I just hope the game is fully patched and fixed before this add-on is released. Otherwise I'd feel a little cheated.

[pike master]

i wonder if the patch will come with the addon as a bonus

[adembroski]

I don't understand why everyone's so worried about the special abilities... some generals are better at certain things, I think it's a brilliant idea that's going to be put to great use by the modders here. I've always thought the command rating was way to simple and all-encompassing... so much better to have generals with particular abilities... nothing supernatural, just exceptional.

On a side note... why would CA see modders as competition?!?! You have to buy TW to use mods, don't you? I know I never would have bought BI without the mods that required it... doesn't make sense.

[Geoffrey S]

I quite like the idea of special abilities for generals. It takes the traits and 'night fighter' ability and builds on those features; it'd be interesting if such abilities could be tied to traits and gained throughout a campaign.

[sapi]

@adembroski - I think the issue with the 'special abilities' is that many people feel that it's edging TW too far away from realism and towards fantasy.

That said, I'm sure the modders will love it

[Lusted]

Posted by Wikiman at TWC:

OK Heroic abilities are only available in one campaign and only 5 (pretty sure it is 5) characters will ever have a heroic ability. If you think of how many generals there are on any one campaign then this puts it in perspective.

As someone earlier said generals all didn't have equal abilities. Some were masters of the battlefield and both sides standing there facing each other knew it. We have just gone someway to represent this. This is one feature out of about 100 added to Kingdoms, I am looking forward to you guys feedback on them once the information starts to flow.

[sapi]

*cough

Lusted, you'd already posted that above