MTW2 Guide, tongue in cheek

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[Shahed]

Excellent !

[Whacker]

- Diplomacy: the diplomacy screen may pop up from time to time. Simply press the escape key and continue about your business. Diplomacy is an attempt to lull you into complacency. Don't be naive - they're all going to end up attacking you anyway, and no matter how hard you try to be a good neighbor your rep will somehow managed to reach the 9th ring of hell soon enough.

- Characters: Don't waste time reading character attributes that accumulate over time. Not only are these intended to confuse you, they're secretly mutating on a continuous basis. You will receive a certain amount of trait notifications, to trick you into thinking you're being kept in the loop. If you pay attention to these, inevitably you'll waste valuable brainpower assigning a general to a task he'll be no good at by the time he gets there. That's one point for the AI and zero for you. Besides, they're all just going to end up with the worst traits/ancils possible no matter what you do. Utterly Profane, here we come!

- Troop requirements: You might suppose that if a unit requires extensive infrastructure, it must be top notch. Hah - this is another clever joke by the developers. Some of the worst units in the game can be produced only in very expensive buildings, while some of the best are available right away in the lowliest hovel in your kingdom. Yes yes, that would be you Milan! 8 turns for that lovely Royal Barracks, and what do you get!? Pike Militia, clocking in at a heavy 150 florins per whack, one of the most utterly useless units in the entire game! Bet you wish you had some peasants now, eh?

- Walls: Don't waste money upgrading wall defenses with ballistas or cannons. Wall defenses are obsolete before the campaign begins, no matter how much you spend. Upgraded walls just means more towers that you can't capture no matter what and keep firing at you, even if you manage to cram at least 3 whole units inside of one.

- Factions: Ignore the faction overviews on the campaign selection screen. One might imagine that those descriptions were written using information from a parallel universe.

- Modding: Don't even bother. Half of the time the files that you want to edit aren't documented at all, the other half you can't mod what you want to mod. Got questions? Expect less than 5% of any question threads you post in any given forum to go unanswered, and the 5% response rate you DO get will be 3 completely different and conflicting anecdotal accounts on how to perform whatever if was you wanted to do. The reality of it is even CA doesn't know the answer to your question, because they've coded the game in Esperanto for 'security purposes!' Just accept the game as it is and play it without complaining, you Neanderthal!

Some corrections and additions.

[Tambarskjelve]

Slightly spot on..
The game is what you make of it, though..
*wasting hours reading unit descriptions*

[Shahed]

LMAO ! Sombody has to do NAVIES !

Actually, apart from the fact that this is good humor, it's a very good attempt to highlight the shortcomings of the game.
I love the game as you all know, of course.

[Doug-Thompson]

I'm honestly bewildered by all the complaints about the diplomacy system.

I'm 80 or so turns into my Hungarian campaign. I've had alliances with both the Papal States and Poland that have lasted more than 70 turns. My current relations with the Pope are outstanding and are very good with Poland. I've never been attacked by either of them and have only just now been warned by the Pope about being my naughty by attacking the Milanese, fellow Christians who are also on Crusade against the excommunicated French.

I've asked for three crusades and was readily granted two of them.

My reputation is untrustworthy because I betrayed an alliance with the Milanese very early in the game when they were excommunicated, and I still have no complaints.

I've also gifted the Pope and the Poles 100 florins apiece on every turn I could afford it. Small price to pay for the right to clobber everybody else.

[Whacker]

HUMOR Doug, HUMOR!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

See my thread here for serious Diplomacy complaints: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=86149

[Kobal2fr]

A few more just for fun :)

- Don't bother building navies. You might *think* you utterly control the Meditteranian, but you're only one pirate stack away from total obliteration. See : Autocalc.

- The morale and fatigue system are actually clever misnommers. In that they don't affect either morale OR fatigue. They're just here for you to waste time checking them while the Dread and Chivalry system go to town and carouse.

- The Dread and Chivalry system is drunk from all that carousing. That lone figure atop the crest who'll charge with the sunset in his back, and slam right in the front of a million spearmen, sending them on their way and saving the day for his men ? Oh he's Cruel & Cunning. You have no idea.

- You might have heard the press release and game reviews talk about the exciting possibility of discovering the New World. That is actually a mistranslation from the Esperanto.
What you'll end up discovering is the result of a drunk coder's bored free time : misshapen blobs of land with no relation whatsoever to any known fictionnal or real land mass, occupied by ever regenerating full stacks of naked units who'll somehow trounce your best units (see : Units).
Oh and it has only one battlemap, aptly named MoreBloodyTrees

- Religion doesn't make any sense. In that, Medieval 2 is probably the most involved social commentary in the world. You thought converting people to your way of thinking might make them agree with you ? You nimrod ! Hellooooo Religious Unrest. Then your priests turn heretic just so the game has an excuse to spawn Inquisitors.

- said Inquisitors will then proceed to kill every single male in your whole Empire, in keeping with Biblical teachings. Only apparently Jesus was too much of a stoner wuss, so they picked King Herod as their guide.

[John_Longarrow]

Pike Unit - A very large hedgehog that slaughters horses on sight, but only if its not moving. Against anything else it needs a solid defender, such as archers or pesants or small rabid children to keep it safe.

The Papacy - An odd old man in a large pointy hat who keeps telling you to be nice, even if you are being nice. Unless you are trying to play with diplomacy (see above), you are best off by ignoring anything he says so you can con him into giving you free experience for your troops by calling a crusade on you. If you want free experience, do not pay the pope. If you do, he is less likely to call a crusade against you. Instead you must drink large quantities of ale and then proceed to relieve yourself upon his breakfast.

Alliance - This is a request for the AI to send random ships to blockade your ports. This will be done as soon as the AI removes any military forces from your region. So long as the AI has large, powerful armies on your borders you are safe. As soon as the AI has to deal with another faction and really needs troops to fight on another front it will attack you.,

[Whacker]

Accents: For once, the French don't have the worst accents in the game!

Peasants: When you absolutely, positive, have to kill EVERY town militia in the city! Accept no substitutes!

Advice: You have pressed theYour cavalry are about to be attCharging spears with yourYou have pressedOur men are under atOnly half the enemy force remIt is unwise to praise the day bef....

Rocket Powered Elephants: Giving the EB/MA hardcore types conniption fits since 2004!

[The Teacher]

excellent - admin please sticky!

Monguls - One day one of the developers was dumped by his girlfriend, so whilst the rest of the department was having lunch he put them in. They are created in the image of his then ex girlfriend. Evil, amoral, unstopable but fun to play against ....

[supadodo]

New translation for papalcy

Old white guy who can change his name to an Italian one when elected. This fat fool sits in Rome and pops out once in a while to massacre rebel scums and then pops back to Rome for a can of Coke.

Because he has only one land at the start, he is grumpy and gets jealous at your bulging empire and his only way to get at you is excommunication. But once you give him one land, he goes berserk and starts hitting every faction he thinks he can take and sometimes he dies in the process.

Mongol/Timurid

Really ugly faced men which pop out of the black eastern side of the map and wander around for decades until they decide to hit a town and then get spooked and flee the next turn because some pee wee militia has a spear which can poke their horses.

Aztec

Men in animal pajamas armed with wood that can somehow pierce plate armor. They decide to go Muslim when they upgrade to a large city but don't seem to recognize Allah.

[Whacker]

Multiplayer: Redefining and pushing the boundaries of lag! It's like a multiplayer slide-show that everyone can enjoy! The key to winning is 'leading', a technique mastered in the early days of first person shooters. Just remember to 'lead' your units by about 5 minutes so they will be where you want them to be on time.

[Kobal2fr]

Advice: You have pressed theYour cavalry are about to be attCharging spears with yourYou have pressedOur men are under atOnly half the enemy force remIt is unwise to praise the day bef....

Gah ! How could I forget that one :

- Advisor :
"Selecting a unit : to select one of your units, let your right hand rest gently on the little device with the ball inside that is connected to your computer. This is known as the "mouse". Now using your right index finger, sharply increase pressure on the plastic rectangle that should lie on top of said mouse, to the left. Do it once, then let go. The pressure pad is called a "button", and applying pressure on it then releasing the pressure is known as "clicking".

"Selecting an agent : to select one of your agents, let your right hand..."

[supadodo]

Now a Faction Guide!!

Please don't take offense if it might sound racist to you. I mean this as a joke.

Catholics

England: England is a country based on the popular country Britain. Their units consist of Robin Hood's personal entourage and gruff fat men that have trouble fitting into their armor.

France: A cheese and escargot loving nation south of England. They love the word "imbecille'"and have a knack for betrayals. Their units consist of skinny men with the twirly thin mustaches and striped tight shirts .

Spain: Spain is a country in Spain with a love for bull fights and provoking said animal to chase them down the streets. They like to ignore their neighbors and go make war with you even if you are halfway across the map.

HRE: Germans that use words like "Yagh?", "For ze Reich" and whatever mangled english they can mangle somemore. They get beaten up by everyone because everyone hates the Nazis. They have Panzerkampfwagen which pwn all

Portugal: A Spain colored in white n blue instead of yellow-red. They prefer to do fishing instead of fighting bulls. Ditto on units.

Poland: The country that created pole-dancing. They love to beat up HRE because they hate Nazis. They use their nobles to hurl javelins at Panzers - to great success.

Scotland: The birthplace of Ronald McDonald and any food with Mc in it. They love talking about fighting but rarely do it because they wear kilts and are made fun by other factions. They also love pikes but only because it prevents enemies from going near them and lifting up the kilts.(Also a reason why they don't like riding horses)

Milan: Possibly the birthplace of pizza. Milanese like to use crossbow because they suck with archery,sword fighting,and horse riding. So they spam the same unit over and over again. They hate France because the french like blue cheese while the Milanese prefers Mozzarella.

Venice: The faction with the "City that Never Sinks" Despite being featured in documentaries,movies, whatever... There are no canals whatsoever in Venice and also no Italian rower on a boat that sings cheesy love songs to a kissing couple under the moonlight. They hate Milan because they stole the idea for the pizza.

Sicily: A pointless faction taking up useless space south of Italy. Their capital has a name that sounds like nipples. They seldom do anything except blockade a port once in a while. Their units are uninspiring...

Hungary: A faction that craves for food 24/7. They are also hungry for land and most of the time, they eat up the Byz and Poles. Their units are..really, really fat men.

Tune in next time for Orthodox and Islamic factions.

[CMcMahon]

Scotland: The birthplace of Ronald McDonald and any food with Mc in it.

Mc is Irish. Mac is Scottish.

*gets hyphy, gets stupid*

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Warning warning for newbies. If you read these post you might think that they don't love this game. That is not the fact. M2 is the most historical accurate war game. The only thing is that all these posters have had bad history teachers at school. The whole idea of knights in shining armor riding on white horses is invented history. The true knights were trebuchets roaming the countryside armed with Mark V fire and forget general seeking missiles. So girls if you want some real romance look for a guy with a trebuchet.

[phonicsmonkey]

Trebuchet: large medieval hand-to-hand weapon often employed in suicidal and / or amphibious charges. Apparently intended for use as an early medieval bulldozer. Effectiveness limited by ability of enemy to sidestep out of the way.

AI-controlled Reinforcements: experts in the little-known but widely used medieval battle tactics of 1) sitting around on a nearby hilltop watching your allies fight off the mongol horde, deaf to their screamed requests for assistance; 2) charging head-on into the mongol horde at the least opportune time, mass-routing and being cut down in immense numbers by the gleeful enemy while their ally looks on from a nearby hilltop, deaf to their screamed requests for assistance

[supadodo]

Factions Guide!!

Orthodox

Byzantine Empire: When Rome was split in 2, The Eastern Roman Empire took on the false name they themselves and nobody else ever called them save the historians who dug them up. The Byzantines hate everybody because they are the only Romans left and don't have their own Pope. Their soldiers are purple....

Russia: Stalin went to the future and took Gorbachev(forget how to spell it) and then went back to the middle ages to build a old Russian Empire which is not red but blue. Russia can't hate anybody because democracy and communism wasn't invented yet. Russian units are cold because it never stops snowing there..

Islamic

Turks: Named after a certain plump bird, this faction is situated in Asia Minor because Asia Major kicked them out. They hate the Byzantines because the Byzantines eat turkey which is a sacred animal to the Turks. Turkish units unfortunately do not dress as giant turkeys but their janissaries wear socks on their heads.

Egypt: When a mummy converted to Islam, a new Egypt was born. All the pyramids were demolished to make way for sand dunes. Egypt hates all the christians because the christians stole their naptha and used it against them in Jerusalem in "The Kingdom of Heaven". Egypt does not have chariots

Moors: Moors are orange. They love camels. They sit on camels. They shoot guns while sitting on camels. Camels stink.

[Whacker]

Moors: Moors are orange. They love camels. They sit on camels. They shoot guns while sitting on camels. Camels stink.

L M A O

Nominated for best post in the entire thread, possibly of the week!

[Kobal2fr]

Not to forget that their whole army is in drag, which very logically leads them to fight like little girls with pigtails. On the back of camels.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Quote/ AI-controlled Reinforcements: experts in the little-known but widely used medieval battle tactics of 1) sitting around on a nearby hilltop watching your allies fight off the mongol horde, deaf to their screamed requests for assistance ; 2) charging head-on into the mongol horde at the least opportune time, mass-routing and being cut down in immense numbers by the gleeful enemy while their ally looks on from a nearby hilltop, deaf to their screamed requests for assistance. /quote

3) When reinforcing army has some artillery the AI decides: a) do nothing but rearrange the battle line so it will be in perfect order; b) charge with guns into the Mongols preferably uphill (the higher/steeper the better)

[Kobal2fr]

- Loading Quotes : "People in glass houses don't take any wooden nickels !" - Nick McIavelli. "In order to win, fight !" - Sun Bu

[Gorm]

In the spirit of supadodo's "Faction Guide", I offer the European ideals of heaven and hell:

European Heaven

The English are the police.

The Germans are the mechanics.

The French are the chefs.

The Italians are the lovers.

The Swiss run everything.


European Hell

The English are the chefs.

The Germans are the police.

The French are the mechanics.

The Swiss are the lovers.

The Italians run everything.

[Guru]

Rebels exist only to re-colour your hair to look like their coat-of-arms. Grey. The funniest thing is that these brigands always have top-end units like armored swordsmen who, sadly, give only little challenge to your all-peasant armies. They can often be spotted sitting on watchtowers by spotting a watchtower that has stopped spotting. They tend to ask you to come fight them since they rarely move anywhere.

[trickydicky]

In the spirit of supadodo's "Faction Guide", I offer the European ideals of heaven and hell:

European Heaven

The English are the police.

The Germans are the mechanics.

The French are the chefs.

The Italians are the lovers.

The Swiss run everything.


European Hell

The English are the chefs.

The Germans are the police.

The French are the mechanics.

The Swiss are the lovers.

The Italians run everything.

That was brilliant.

[Shahed]

..... L OOOOO OOOOOOO L !!!!

[Sheogorath]

AI - The MTW2 AI was actually programmed in 1496 my one Niccolo Machiavelli on a particularly bad day. While initially brilliant, it was designed for use on the 'Cathedral' OS, which is not compatable with most modern systems. The rest was a total re-write of the code using only Machiavelli's basic idea that all leaders should be total bastards about everything. This includes the notion that EVERY faction will fight until the death, even if, while besieging their last city with its valient defenders (IE: Two units of spear militia) said AI leaders will refuse to accept terms such as returning all their previously held land, giving them a bajillion florins, and trade rights.
The AI also reflects the fine tradition of 'never saving money, ever, no matter what.' whereby if the sum-total of its funds exceedes 1,000 florins it will take every possible measure to reduce it to a more acceptable level via funding redistrubution.

Cities: ALL structures within medieval cities were constructed within the city walls. Nobody ever built anything outside of said walls, because they were mortally afraid of bears. Any history books telling you that something like %75 of the population was rural until some time after this games timeframe is a dastardly lie by revisionist history nutcases who would also have you believe that people never mounted cannons on elephants and that most rebels didnt have access to highly trained and well equipped knights.

Woodsmen: 'Woods' is actually a corruption of an ancient Norse term for 'Super', these are the ultimate unit. Build nothing but woodsmen because they will chew up anything that can be sent against them until the invention of the horse.

Timurids: Invented the Upgraded Elephant, which is capable of mounting and firing the aformentioned cannons without instantly snapping its spine. Possibly related to the Mongols, only more Muslim. Fond of black.

Arrows: Medieval arrows were not tipped with metal. In fact, they had soft rubber heads in order to prevent any serious injury on the battlefield. Sometimes as a joke archers would set light to their ordinance, often with tragic results. During the period this game is set in it was traditional to go into battle coated in highly flammable oil, and so any man who did not quickly beat out the fires would be tragically burned to death in a matter of seconds.

The Pope: He hates you. Get over it.

Inquisitors: Often unexpected. Inquisitors were recruited from the local prison, usually arsonists and pyrophiles. They were fond of bursting into the rooms of faction leaders, princes and generals and setting them on fire. Only rarely would they actually pursue heretics and witches when given the choice between a king and their supposed 'job'.

Muslims: Fond of shouting 'DURKA DURKA DURKA,' and similar phrases. They have funny accents and are hated by all the other factions. One particular faction, Egypt, was historically fond of sending ships across the Medditerranian to blockade English ports for a single turn before sailing aimlessly around the North Sea until being sunk by pirates.

Neptune: God of the Sea. Likes pirates. If any faction attacks or is attacked by pirates a massive sea beast known as the 'Kraken' is instantly teleported to the battle from the Pirates of the Carribbean movie to assist the pirates in defeating your ships. This is why pirates rock.

Pirates: Musket-and-cutlass wielding men who talk funny and have parrots. The ancient foes of ninjas, the two would often engage in massive battles. Pirates occasionaly allied with cowboys to defeat their mutual foe. However, the tide of the battle turned with the development of the giant robot by Japanese scientists.
The only reason giant robots are not included in this game is that they are in Japan, which is an island which never had any contact with anybody until the 1850's.

Knights: Despite what you might have heard about the protective properties of plate iron, knights are quite vulerable to men armed with farm impliments and no training at all. In fact, quite often, knights would suffer as high as %80 casualties when attacking farmer levies from the back.

Sex: This didnt happen in medieval times. The only way to get new family members was to adopt. Nobles caught having sex were burned at the stake.

Age: In no way affects performance on the battlefield. Should one of your generals reach the age of 80 or so, he will be just as effective as a 20 year old in a fight. Once in battle his arthritis and drinking problems will instantly vanish in a blaze of glory as he smashes his way through everything (except peasants and cannoniphants)

Artillery: Was pretty much useless against anything that could move, and most things that couldnt. The term 'aim' was not, in fact, invented until the late 1700's. You can only hope that a strong breeze will come up and blow your ordinance into line with whatever target you have.

Orders: Are there to be disobeyed. When issueing movement orders to your troops you can be confident that they will either A) Move in the opposite direction, B) Split up, with one half moving in one direction and the other standing still or marching sideways, or C) Wait a minute or so, and then move.

Charge: Traditionally in medieval combat, only the first ten attackers would engage the enemy defensive lines. Typically the others would hang around to the back and gradually be slaughtered by rubber-tipped arrows.

Medieval Firearms: Were effective at up to 2,000 yards, and almost all medieval gunners were trained snipers, capable of hitting a small vegetable of your choice ona fence post at up to a mile away. Despite what you may have heard medieval troops were not at all suprised or afraid of gunpowder.

Aztecs: The only civilization in America. In fact, America didnt even exist outside of Mexico until 1776, and then only the East Coast. Armed with magical armour piercing rocks.

Russians: Backwards people who were poor and underdeveloped. Any rumours you might have heard that Kiev and Novogorod were significantly more advanced than just about any European city and quite wealthy are lies. Will usually be wiped out in a few turns by the Mongols once they arrive, so dont bother making alliances with them or anything.

[Tambarskjelve]

Sheogorath, that was nothing short of brilliant.

Now I have to wipe tea of my screen and keyboard.

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