Medieval II Total War - Impressions from a TW Veteran

[TinCow]

I agree that the M2TW campaign map requires less strategic thought, but that has relatively little to do with the make-up of the map itself. It has everything to do with the fact that the RTW/M2TW maps are far, far more complex, thus the AI has a harder time keeping up. The STW/MTW system was only more "strategic" because it was primitive enough to allow for a relatively simple AI. The failure of the new games to keep up is a failure of the AI to adapt as well to the complex map, it's not a failure of the map itself. The old system was nothing more than an elaborate version of Risk which, as much as I like it, is not exactly the pinnacle of strategic gameplay.

[Whacker]

Indeed. As much as I still have very fond memories of STW and MTW, it's really hard now to go back to the old Risk style map and the 2D sprites. I love the new 3D map much much much much more than the old Risk style one. That doesn't mean it wasn't well done for the two games, but I'd never want to go back to it in future games. Also, it's been my experience that the AI does a decent enough job keeping it's front lines manned with heavy stacks, and it does a halfway decent job fighting a retreat before someone else's onslaught. In my last RTW campaign as Seleucia, I took on Egypt fairly early and keep it on a fighting retreat. Egypt did a very admirable job of trying to overpower me at every turn and stop/push me back. Even when I got to the "warm chewy center" of the empire that would (theoretically) be very lightly defended, they did a good job of keeping the pressure on. I ended up whipping them soundly, but it was due to generalship, not weight of numbers. Most often they had me outnumbered, in fact as I finally play as Seleucia, it makes me realize why Egypt becomes a superpower so quickly.

[edyzmedieval]

Indeed. As much as I still have very fond memories of STW and MTW, it's really hard now to go back to the old Risk style map and the 2D sprites. I love the new 3D map much much much much more than the old Risk style one. That doesn't mean it wasn't well done for the two games, but I'd never want to go back to it in future games. Also, it's been my experience that the AI does a decent enough job keeping it's front lines manned with heavy stacks, and it does a halfway decent job fighting a retreat before someone else's onslaught. In my last RTW campaign as Seleucia, I took on Egypt fairly early and keep it on a fighting retreat. Egypt did a very admirable job of trying to overpower me at every turn and stop/push me back. Even when I got to the "warm chewy center" of the empire that would (theoretically) be very lightly defended, they did a good job of keeping the pressure on. I ended up whipping them soundly, but it was due to generalship, not weight of numbers. Most often they had me outnumbered, in fact as I finally play as Seleucia, it makes me realize why Egypt becomes a superpower so quickly.

I don't agree with you here, unfortunately. I like the old risk-style map because the AI KISS (kept it simple & stupid). Nothing too complicated, and many times I ended with my whole army led by a 5 star general routed heavily.

The RTW AI proved really easy to counter, even on VH/VH.

[Carl]

I'll get in touch later today, i'm getting some testing in on my V1.24 Rebuild-ProblemFixer ATM.

[Carl]

The failure of the new games to keep up is a failure of the AI to adapt as well to the complex map,

Actually it's a total failure in AI updating at all. When you read the AI files and look at the on map behavior the AI is still treating the map as if it#'s risk style. SO it does absolutely no forward planning and doesn't alter or change decisions it's already made based on the current circumstances.

Not a chance mate. This game is about as unmoddable as you can get, make me a list of stuff you can change and I'll make you a list 5 times as long of stuff you can't.

No offense Whacker, but this statement is utter garbage.

The Game is supremely moddable ATM, and whilst not as moddable as many of say Relic's games, it's still very good. The majority of games I own cannot be modded AT ALL, and of those that i do own that CAN be modded, only 2, (M2TW and DoW), are easily moddable and well supported by the respective companies, (by well supported I mean you can go on one of their big forums and instantly find out how to mod the game and be up and running inside half an hour, I'm sure UT2003, (as an example of game I have that I know can be modded but isn't well supported IMHO), has modding forums somwhere, but they are nigh on impossibbile to find and somehow i doubt it would be something i could pick up in half an hour like i did with Dow/M2TW).


I've actually seen various posts elsewhere by you about this in the modding forums, and what you and others are asking for simply isn't realistic. The level of modability and code access you want is fairly large, and based on what I understand of copyright issues from many license and terms of use documents I've read, opening up the engine to the degree you want would have to be handled very carefully if they are to avoid putting their own copyright at risk.

Most companies wouldn't take the risk of something slipping past them and putting their copyright at risk, so in reality your being totally unrealistic in your demands. The best you can hope for is for more of the hard-coded values to be made moddable. Anything more is likely to be wishful Thinking unless CA is one of those rare companies.

[Whacker]

No offense Whacker, but this statement is utter garbage.

None taken, but on the same token this statement here:

The Game is supremely moddable ATM

is just as wrong and patently false. If you really want to, please feel free to PM me and we can debate this. Be more than happy to talk about it there.

Edit - Same to you fenir, if you'd like to debate it, please PM me, be glad to chat about it.

[fenir]

Whacker, I too am wondering what you mean.
I have been modding games for as long as I can remember, and nearly all the TW series are very modder friendly by comparisions to other games.

We have unit, Resource, map, factions, and yes, we would all like more in the way of numbers of resources and unit access, and more depth to the ablility we already have, but we must be realistic.
We have diplomacy AI DB, Campaign AI DB, we have modded almost everything we normally do.
So please, which part (realistically) is there that we cannot?

But as it stands, the game is very modd friendly IMHO.

This is one area I will not fault CA for. I applaud them.

2. My impression of the Patch (unoffical) 1.2u.........very good improvement, but so much was not fixed.
All together, we got what we wanted of the P1 fixes, but thats it basically.
Lots of room for improvement

average patch 5 / 10

Will wait for the Offical version now, but i don't anticipate any great change to the line up.


fenir