Medieval 2: Kingdoms - Expansion Discussion

[Lusted]

It arrives in 1346 in Southern Europe first.

[TB666]

The black death is probably the most terrifying thing in the game.
Not even power of the mongols or Timurids can match the destructive power of that plague.
Ruins your economy and gets you into a deficit just with 2-3 turns and wipes out most of your family.

Anyway, reading the gamespot preview made me very interested in the Teutonic campaign.
The recruitment method for the order sounds cool.

[MilesGregarius]

The black death is ingame, it's freakin lethal when it arrives.

Sorry. I only play short campaigns.

And Lusted, absolutely love LTC. It's the main reason I'm content to wait until whenever for 1.2 to finally show.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Is it at all possible that NEW elements will come into the game? moats fair enough, and flame thrower... those will be great new dimensions and hopefully summit to mod. But will we get an increase on 31 factions? Will we get a higher unit limit? Without these things, the four mini campaign system just seems a way of giving limited pleasure which won't enter the grand campaign, it won't really revolutionise the engine and allow us to make a decent game out of it

And as stated little things like setting the faction heir or princesses/queens inheriting, leading armies, remarrying and so on just seem to be ignored. The dispatching and acquisition of titles as governor, bishop etc that existed in MTW is totally needed here too... will we get it? Do they care if they can blind us with other nice sounding things in the PR package and flashy advertising. Once we've bought the game...they won't care...but we will...

[Quickening]

PC Gamer UK have a four day report on the expansion pack on their site.

Here is day one and the links to the next three are on the right hand side: http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=161675

[pike master]

i hope they let yu play the english on the americas campaign. the english expeditionary force?

[wilddog]

I like the look of the castle/forts which are shown in the Britannia screen shot and look like they are unmanned. I'd like to see a screen shot of a battle involving them just to see what they really look like.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

PC GAMER "In fact, that's one of the major issues with Medieval 2: the sheer scale of the game. Campaigns demand months of your time, and much of the end-game is sheer grind to clinch those final few provinces. That's where Kingdom's four new mini-campaigns come in. "

told u so, this is going to be VERY acrade, the mini campaigns will be over in an hour or SHOULD be, they will not offer anything to hardened players...if we can get some good modding out of it remains to be seen

[Lusted]

Have you seen the amount of provinces in the mini-campaigns, there are about 50 provinces on each map. You won't be able to beat that in an hour. I doubt they'll be arcady, just smaller more focused camapigns that can be played quicker. I mean i've never finished a campaign in M2TW(only finished one in MTw and RTW), but i think i might in Kingdoms.

[Quickening]

They will hardly be "arcadey". It's the same game you're playing. It's Medieval 2 in more focused bite sized chunks which is a great thing in my opinion. I can't always be bothered conquering (or trying to) all of Europe. Sometimes I want a nice little campaign that I can focus on over the course of a week or two. It definately won't be over in an hour that's for sure.

EDIT: Hell some of my battles take a good half hour.

[wilddog]

If I have any (MILD) complaint with the campaign selections in Kingdoms, it's with yet another rehash of the conquest of the Britiain. The Reconquista or the era of the condottiere in Italy would have made for fresher subject matter.

Guess its a personal taste thing but me I'm looking forward to this as the Britannia campaign and and castles bit is exactly what I was looking for for my mods. This era wasn't exactly stable in Britain so is ripe for modding (I was already doing one starting 1280).

The only thing I don't get is that I thought the Britannia mod had a start date of 1272 or did I remember that from something else?

[Hochmeister]

Caliban just posted this in the Official CA Discussion Thread over ay the .com

Hi everyone,

I thought I would stop by and answer some of the questions raised in this thread. I'm really sorry if I haven't answered your question, I will try and answer the most commonly asked questions.



How will you be able to control multiple armies on the field?
Via the control multiple armies feature. You will have to option to control the reinforcement armies before you enter the battlefield. From there you can swap between armies and issue orders to your reinforcements.

Will you be able to fight the new factions against the old factions in multiplayer?
Yes, in multiplayer and custom battles you can choose most of the older factions to play as.

Will the new "control reinforcements" option be available in the "core" (original) campaign?
We are currently looking into it.

Will boiling-oil be brought back?
Yes Boiling oil will be back and available in all campaigns except Americas

Will there be historical battles?
There will be some multiplayer scenarios as well as some single player scenario battles. But no historical re-creations.

Will there be a multiplayer mode?
Yes, you can play multiplayer battles in each campaign as well as the hotseat mode.

Will money will be a problem for the Teutonic Order, which can only build castles ?
Castles will be the main source of unit production for the Order, however we are now looking at giving them the ability to upgrade their cities to increase their income. The outcome will be decided based on balance testing.

The English will have troubles with the 2h bug again, or will the patch fix that in both games ?
The 2H will be fixed in 1.2 as well as any future releases including Kingdoms.

The game will have a new soundtrack or use the one from Medieval 2 ?
Yes, there are new sound effects and so far, 35 new songs for Kingdoms composed in-house by our award winning Sound guys :)

Also, during the Crusades campaign will European crusading armies appear at random times throughout the campaign?
Yes, you will see a host of European factions arrive to take part in the crusade. Off the top of my head, Venice, England and France.

How many of the features in the expansion will be added also to the original game?
This is still unknown as of yet and being discussed due to balance reasons

Will you release the ***** Hot-Seat before Kingdoms so in the expansion we will see a real Multiplayer Campaign :)
You can still access the hotseat mode via command lines, but it won't be fully implemented until Kingdoms

* Will factions from the core game have new units, any new siege units, ships??
Yes! But you will all have to wait to find out what ;)

Will Kingdoms be fully modable and will the new features be hardcoded? For example, could I make Ireland have no family tree or give Norway the ability to change religions if I wanted to?


In the Britannia Campaign we know of 5 factions that will be playable, will it be possible to add (mod) other factions into this?
You will be able to mod Kingdoms the same as M2 vanilla, there won't be any restrictions from modding the original M2 game to the expansion. We are looking to include more modding features in Kingdoms as well as implementing some features asked by the community. Some of the new features (most I think) will be modable.

Could you please add fires and famines to the descr_disasters events list, and also add floods, storms, fires and famines to the descr_events file for modding?
It will be added to the long list of community modding requests. Only some of the requests will make it in because of the huge amount of work involved to add them all.

What will the colour of my pants be when I play M2:TW Kingdoms?
Brown, if you're wearing any..

Please bring Burning Oil back.
Sure thing!

Please bring Sapping/Under Mining back
I already gave you one feature, don't get greedy!

Please answer these questions.
Is three ok?

Apparently from what they have said in interviews kingdoms is ment to be the most modable Totalwar project to date(notice word apparently)
Correct!

Well you be able to switch off/disable the hero's, or their abilities, for the people who do not want to play with them?
You don't have to use their abilities if you don't want to. Just don't press the button.

Will we see improved AI?
Yes, the upcoming patch will see a lot of big AI improvements, these will be carried over to Kingdoms.

Will the option to view cities be available again?
Unfortunately no, that feature was removed during the engine transition in M2.

Is there any way they can change the name to have the word "Invasion" in it?
Kingdoms Invasion? Probably not, sorry

Of the previously listed patch -"bug" repair requests, how many will be addressed? There are simply to many to list in one post. If you would (finally) fix the items listed in either "R&R" or the patch request posts this should make the day.
We are well aware of the community bug lists and we have been using these for some-time to help prioritise our in-house bug list. The upcoming patch will contain some of the top priority bug fixes, we will be including more in the kingdoms release as we get to them. I couldn't give you an exact number as of yet because we haven't finished.

Campaign modding - will we be able to add additional campaigns like we could in RTW, or will we have to stick to modding one of the grand campaigns like we have to in M2TW?
Yes it is now possible to have multiple campaigns in the one mod. It requires some menu work and maps to be placed in the correct folders. This is available in the leaked 1.2 and will be available in the upcoming patch.

Will the pope have any power and if so is it just gonna be the crusader and Teutonic campaign. can he excom faction still?
No, the papacy won't be included in the expansion pack, however there will be dialog from the pope but he won't have any direct influence over the campaigns.

In the Britannia Campaign, will there only be a map of Great Britain, or will Norway be included on the map as well (not only as an invading faction)?
Only the norwegian faction is available in Britannia, however you will be able to visit them in the Teutonic campaign as most of Scandinavia is featured on the campaign map.

Will the aztecs/native americans have their own distinct voices? I think in MTW2 they use the Mongol voice.
Yes! The Native Americans will have new unique voices in Kingdoms.
Will anyone from CA answer this thread?
I hope so, it's getting pretty damn long..


Again, sorry if I didn't get around to answering your question/s, I hope this atleast sheds a bit more light on the expansion and some of its features.

EDIT: Hochmeister, I hope you didn't mind me fixing the formatting for you ~sapi

[Furious Mental]

If anything Kingdoms sounds less "arcadey" to me. For instance the way troops recruitment and diplomacy are linked with the native American factions introduces a whole new layer of strategy to it.

[sapi]

Interesting.

Thanks for keeping us up to date (I can't bring myself to read the .com )

[NagatsukaShumi]

I certainly find that FAQ a bit more uplifting than previous information, I can certainly see Kingdoms being quite enjoyable from a gamers and a modders perspective, especially if they deliver what they are claiming they will, that of course remains to be seen.

Looks good either way, looking forward to playing some hotseats with friends

[TinCow]

It's funny... the thing I'm looking forward to the most from Kingdoms is actually the mods of the Britannia map that will eventually surface. I'd love to play a Britannia game with 21 factions!

[wilddog]

It's funny... the thing I'm looking forward to the most from Kingdoms is actually the mods of the Britannia map that will eventually surface. I'd love to play a Britannia game with 21 factions!

I was already working on one. I kept delaying things for the patch as I didn't want to redo a lot of things but now that the Kingdoms expansion has the extra castles (and units and presumably voices) its making me rethink things a bit. I'm almost certainly going to delay till the expansion is out but use the extra time to prepare some of the factions and some different sized maps.

[lars573]

I also wonder how Saladin will be portrayed in the Crusades, if he will actually make an impression. In M2:TW I have'nt really noticed him though he must be there, somewhere. I have'nt played the Egyptians either so I would'nt know. Wonder if he will be well portrayed and what his special ability will be. I'm sure loads of people (like me) just can't wait to command him and his chivalrous warriors !

Salute !

I've never noticed him either. But If your looking for a guy named Salah Al-Din you'd be waiting a long time. Salah Al-Din or Salahuddin or Saladin was a name he took later in life. His real name was Yousuf Al-Auyyubi. I'll be on the look out for that name (or alternate spellings of Yousuf) for sure.

[Matty]

boiling oil is back. cool. Sappers are not back. Also cool.

[danobnano]

When will this be out?
I don't know if anyone has already posted the same question, but still, WHEN WHEN WHEN!

Dan