The Pet Peeve thread

[phonicsmonkey]

hey, can you still take out the cutscenes? you used to be able to in RTW I remember...

on the artillery friendly fire thing, I once charged a unit of hospitallers through a mass of my own bombards, just as they were firing (with flaming ammo of course).....ouch

[Don Esteban]

Actually, I don't know how many of you have been to Spain, but the spanish accent is very accurate, and I have no qualms about it. A spanish person speaking english would sound exactly like that. It is one thing CA did do right.

Lol, That's exactly how I sound when I speak english......NOT

I know what you mean though, it's not bad at all. The Sicilian's should have an outrageous Italian accent though.

[DVX BELLORVM]

hey, can you still take out the cutscenes? you used to be able to in RTW I remember...

Yes, you can. You will have to edit the medieval2.preference.cfg

Find event_cutscenes = 1, and change the value to 0 (event_cutscenes = 0)

On topic... I find very much annoying the fact that after the flood, you can't ever build watchtowers and forts in affected province, and the movement is greatly reduced. And this has been an issue in RTW, too.

[Kobal2fr]

Lol, That's exactly how I sound when I speak english......NOT

I know what you mean though, it's not bad at all. The Sicilian's should have an outrageous Italian accent though.

"We've a-taken their a-walls, Boss !"

[Don Esteban]

"We've a-taken their a-walls, Boss !"

Whad'ya wanna offa me such a bad deal a-for

I'm a gonna attaka your city, capiche


Actually come to think of it the Sicilians were Norsemen.......still, same joke just for Milan.

[HoreTore]

*looks away*
I...I've never... I've never seen the Timurids....I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN GUNPOWDER, DADDY !
*bursts into tears*

Yah, I've got grass-greener-on-other-faction's-soil-itis too

The solution: Make gunpowder, both invasions and world is round event take place earlier. In my current game, I have gunpower at 30, mongols at 50 and world is round at 60. Can't remember when I put the timurids though.

I actually had high hopes of FINALLY seeing the aztecs, but then I noticed that Mount&Blade thread in the arena....

[Fußball]

I have never gotten to the world is round event yet either and I always purposely prolong my games. Maybe I will wait that long in my current game.
Tschüß!
Erich

[Didz]

I nearly forgot this one as I've become so used to it now that its almost a feature of the game.

I really. really, hate the auto-rerouting bug that kicks in when a unit can't move where you told it to.

You know the scenario.....your Crusading army is marching through Alpine Germany with all those awkward little passes to negotiate plus the usual merchant traffic jams to contend with. You click on your Crusade and it shows a clear green path all the way down the next valley, so you click on the point you want it to move to and instead of heading in that direction it marches back the way it just came because invisible to you there is a merchant or neutral army coming through the pass from the other direction blocking the route.

That is really annoying and causes damage to my keyboard when I thump it to try an hit the Backspace key as quickly as possible.

If you're too slow it also costs a fortune in replacement units when half your crusade desert because your heading in the wrong direction.

[John_Longarrow]

My pet peeve would have to be...

Iberian tourists

You know what I'm talking about. Those random stacks of Spanish troops that wander the French country side, eating and drinking with the locals. They don't attack anyone, they just roam the lands drinking all the good wines. And of course their cousins in white and blue who have a strong fettish for good beer and whiskey. At least that is the only reason I can see for Portgugal to invade IRELAND.

No, not a show stopper, but something I'd not expect when these factions are trying to take over their homelands from the Arabs.

[Kraggenmor]

I really. really, hate the auto-rerouting bug that kicks in when a unit can't move where you told it to.

Now that you mention it..I'd really like it if we could see the route the unit was planning to take before it started moving on that route.

[HoreTore]

No, not a show stopper, but something I'd not expect when these factions are trying to take over their homelands from the Arabs.

Well, spain did actually try to invade england a few times in the middle ages...

But as for the tourism, I completely agree, they should keep to their own lands when they're not gearing up for an invasion. That goes for all factions, really. They should have a big army when they're trying to invade someone, and they should stay clear of enemy/neutral lands when they're not invading(unless they're just passing through). In short, they should respect whether they have military access or not.

[DVX BELLORVM]

What bugs me is the composition of rebel armies. I don't consider myself to be an expert for medieval European history, but how often did the knights and other soldiers rebel? Not very often, I think. And yet, the rebel armies in M2TW consist mainly of those troops.
On the other hand, there were a lot of peasant uprisings, and it would be realistic if the rebel armies are mostly peasants. Wouldn't it be nice when we would be confronted with a full stack of peasants, revolting against their feudal lords?

Another thing, when a city revolts, you just find your troops out of it, and a province lost. How did the rebels manage to do it? Did they, in the middle of the night, carry your sleeping soldiers and their beds outside the city walls??
I would like to have a chance to defend my city...

And when you look at the rebel army that now holds the city, you'll see that they are mostly high quality troops. When did they came from? If you can train only 3 units per turn, how can they train 20?

[Whacker]

Flags surrounding the town square not changing to your faction's flag when you take control of it in a siege, and vica versa.

[Gorm]

Well, this is not a game breaker, but why does a king of your faction have a loyalty rating? Why do I get announcements that my king feels appreciated and his loyalty has increased? He's the KING! People should be loyal to him!

On the same thread, I don't like it when I get a report that a "feels unappreciated" trait has decreased when it means their loyalty has increased. Just tell me that his loyalty is better. It's like saying "I ain't got no money" (a double negative which logically means "I have money")

[Foz]

Now that you mention it..I'd really like it if we could see the route the unit was planning to take before it started moving on that route.

You can. It will show up when you hold the right mouse button down at the target location, provided it is not a unit/settlement (i.e. must be open ground). If it is one of those things, hold right mouse down in open ground near the target item with your character selected - you should see the entire journey plotted out without the guy moving at all. With RMB down you can even highlight the settlement/unit (an X will appear for no movement allowed) to see the path to it, which in my experience remains the path when you finally right-click the item to go there. The path includes any detours the unit will make because of road blocks, but of course not for items you can't currently see: those will just cause it to stop moving if it hits them.

Flags surrounding the town square not changing to your faction's flag when you take control of it in a siege, and vica versa.

The flags surrounding the town square just upset me, period. It's so horribly annoying trying to determine where among the mass of flags the one remaining enemy man is. And since your troops won't just go find him to kill him, you really do have to hunt around until you can distinguish his banner to attack him and finally end things. So I guess I don't mind the flags as much as I mind the fact that they're nearly identical to the unit flags and there's so many of them. Maybe they could be changed to the faction's colors, just in the opposite proportions. You know, HRE is yellow on black, so switch to black on a predominantly yellow flag. Even a change that small would make it infinitely easier to tell which flags were for units. Making them more sparse would be useful too. The town square could as easily be defined by only 4 flags total, one for each corner, or maybe 8 (for corners and midpoints) and that would reduce the visual clutter during square fighting by leaps and bounds. All the clutter from those flags, and in the same color as the defenders, just drives me nuts...

[John_Longarrow]

Foz,

When fighting in the city center, I tend to hit the faction shield on the lower right hand corner of the screen. This causes a small green circle to flash under your troops and a small red one to flash under enemy troops. Its easy to spot that lone guy hiding in the middle of your generals bodyguards that way.

[Whacker]

The flags surrounding the town square just upset me, period. It's so horribly annoying trying to determine where among the mass of flags the one remaining enemy man is. And since your troops won't just go find him to kill him, you really do have to hunt around until you can distinguish his banner to attack him and finally end things. So I guess I don't mind the flags as much as I mind the fact that they're nearly identical to the unit flags and there's so many of them. Maybe they could be changed to the faction's colors, just in the opposite proportions. You know, HRE is yellow on black, so switch to black on a predominantly yellow flag. Even a change that small would make it infinitely easier to tell which flags were for units. Making them more sparse would be useful too. The town square could as easily be defined by only 4 flags total, one for each corner, or maybe 8 (for corners and midpoints) and that would reduce the visual clutter during square fighting by leaps and bounds. All the clutter from those flags, and in the same color as the defenders, just drives me nuts...

Seconded.

Also IIRC the general's unit doesn't have a special flag, so say you field 3 units of archers, all 3 are going to have the archer flag. Really obnoxious when trying to locate that unit on the field without having to resort to clicking on the unit card to highlight it.

[Moral55]

when it rains, the rain passes through the citygate archs and trees.

[Didz]

What bugs me is the composition of rebel armies. I don't consider myself to be an expert for medieval European history, but how often did the knights and other soldiers rebel? Not very often, I think. And yet, the rebel armies in M2TW consist mainly of those troops.

I think you'll find there were a lot of both, though I do think that the game should make a better distinction between the two.

As an example of the distinction take:

The Peasant Revolt 1381
http://www.britannia.com/history/art...ntsrevolt.html
and the revolt led by Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur) in 1403.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Percy

These two rebellions were very different in both nature, composition and threat and that isn't really highlighted in the game very well.

Also the third type of uprising which is implied by the game but not really handled very well is simple brigandry. e.g. bands of redundant soldiers, unemployed mercenaries and outlaws wandering about preying on the local population. e.g. Robin Hood and his associates. The number and strength of these bands ought to be directly related to number of military units disbanded in a given province over recent game turns and/or the number of battles fought in the area.

Another thing, when a city revolts, you just find your troops out of it, and a province lost. How did the rebels manage to do it? Did they, in the middle of the night, carry your sleeping soldiers and their beds outside the city walls??

Possibly.. although its more likely they were woken up and frog-marched out the gate after being given the chance to join the uprising.

Funnily enough I was watching 'Bloody Britain' last night on the TV and they were covering The Peasant Revolt which has some relevance to this discussion. Apparently, the peasants from Kent and the South-East initially massed around Southwark on the south bank of the Thames where they were addressed from a barge on the river by the 14 year old King Richard II. They demanded that the King hand over the corrupt cleric's and ministers who were on the barge with him so that they could be tried and given their just deserts and when the King refused they decided to go and get them themselves.

This involved crossing London Bridge, which at the time was a fortified part of Londons defences guarded by two gatehouses and a draw bridge. In theory, they had no chance of getting across as they had no seige weapons and were only armed with makeshift weapons. But they apparently magically made it, pouring into the city of London, burning palaces like the Savoy and murdering anyone they didn't like the look of, the assumption is that the guards on the bridge must have just lowered the draw bridge and let them in.

Still not satisfied that justice had been done the peasants decided they wanted to get their hands on the ringleaders amongst the corrupt government, namely the Lord Chancellor (Simon of Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was particularly associated with the poll tax), and the Lord Treasurer (Robert de Hales, the Grand Prior of the Knights Hospitallers of England). These dignitaries were hidden away in The Tower of London under armed guard and the protection of the King, completely safe and beyond their grasp. That is until the peasants simply walked up to the guards said 'Lets us in mate, we want to kill your boss', at which point the guards simply opened the gates and let them into the Tower. They dragged out all the noblemen and their families hiding inside and proceeded to behead them all at Smithfield.

So, based on that real-life example I think your expecting a but much of your soldiery in such situations, in fact I would argue that the garrision of a settlement that revolts ought to join the rebels. Governments cannot rely upon the dumb loyalty of their national military in situations of civil revolt, thats why many nations retained foriegn mercenaries as bodyguard troops.

[Kobal2fr]

Well, as any cop in any cop-movie would say, "I ain't paid enough for this!"

The brigand thing is annoying, yes, but then again brigandry would be very hard to implement properly - I don't think they'd be dealt with in pitched battles, and most likely were sort of guerrilleros, or "unlawful combattants" as the term is popular these days. Something like a Brigand event that slowly kills your soldiers and agents in a given region would probably have been more accurate than spawning brigand armies, but it wouldn't have been fun to deal with.
Charging peasants with plate-clad lancers on the other hand ? Massive entertainment value !

[Didz]

I think brigands would be relatively easy to implement sensibly and all the basic triggers are already there in the program somewhere.

For example:

Mercenaries: Take the number of unemployed mercenary companies available in a given region and take a percentage of this number to produce a random group of brigands armed in accordance with one or more or the mercenary units which remain unhired.

Unemployed Soldiers: Every time a military unit is disbanded in a region add a percentage of that unit to the number of brigands in that region and arm them in accordance with the disbanded unit.

Deserters and dispossessed soldiers Take a percentage of all soldiers who survive a battle where the defeated army disperse and add them to the tally of local brigands. You might also want to add them to the number of available mercenaries too.

Brigand Behavior
Brigands should not behave like rebels, they have no axe to grind, they are merely trying to survive. Thus they should not attack anyone, or anything, instead they should interdict trade a bit like land-based pirates and avoid direct conflict whenever possible.

By comparison Revolts whether peasant or noble-led should have a clear target agenda and behave aggressively in order to achieve their goal. They should also gather strength over time if not dealt with quickly.

[alpaca]

Got one for you:
The bug that links sea trade routes to the Port buildings instead of the Merchant Wharf line. I'm really annoyed by it for very obscure reasons (but quite possibly because I hate things doing something else than they are supposed to and tell you on the box in big green neon letters).

[DVX BELLORVM]

I think you'll find there were a lot of both, though I do think that the game should make a better distinction between the two.

As an example of the distinction take:

The Peasant Revolt 1381
http://www.britannia.com/history/art...ntsrevolt.html
and the revolt led by Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur) in 1403.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Percy

These two rebellions were very different in both nature, composition and threat and that isn't really highlighted in the game very well.

I must admit that I wasn't aware of Sir Henry Percy's revolt, and I'm sure there were other similar incidents. But those are, to some extent, simulated by the game - I think we've all witnessed a captain led full stack army going brigand...

So, based on that real-life example I think your expecting a but much of your soldiery in such situations, in fact I would argue that the garrision of a settlement that revolts ought to join the rebels. Governments cannot rely upon the dumb loyalty of their national military in situations of civil revolt, thats why many nations retained foriegn mercenaries as bodyguard troops.

What you say is true, but I consider a city revolt to start not within a city itself, but from villages that surround it. Dissatisfied peasants band up together and march to the city/castle. So, basically, when a city revolt occurs, I would expect a siege battle. That would add to realism, because how realistic is the fact that highly trained elite army that fought it's way across half of Europe and stormed an enemy castle, suddenly finds itself driven out of it by a bunch of peasants?

[Kobal2fr]

Got one for you:
The bug that links sea trade routes to the Port buildings instead of the Merchant Wharf line. I'm really annoyed by it for very obscure reasons (but quite possibly because I hate things doing something else than they are supposed to and tell you on the box in big green neon letters).

Heh ? Whatchoo talkin' about Willis ?

[alpaca]

Heh ? Whatchoo talkin' about Willis ?

Listen well my French friend, for you may learn something:
Open a city and build the strange device you humans call a "port". Firing up the trade details screen after this deed, you will notice an increase in the number of "sea export" routes your settlement can serve. I am given to understand this equals to the number of fleets it can serve at the same time at its docks.
Building a merchant wharf, however, you will not notice such a thing, in spite of the appearance of the descriptive text and the weird name.

[Kobal2fr]

Well frick me gently with a poisoned chainsaw, sideways. I never noticed that, I always assumed the wharfs were what upped the number of tradelines.

And I wrote a finance guide, too

[alpaca]

Well frick me gently with a poisoned chainsaw, sideways. I never noticed that, I always assumed the wharfs were what upped the number of tradelines.

And I wrote a finance guide, too

Well as far as I can tell I am the only person that noticed it at all. Haven't seen it reported anywhere except by me, and usually nobody pays attention to what I say anyways
Actually in our mod we'll probably use the port tree as finance port and add a warport tree that can build better ships.

[Foz]

Well as far as I can tell I am the only person that noticed it at all. Haven't seen it reported anywhere except by me, and usually nobody pays attention to what I say anyways
Actually in our mod we'll probably use the port tree as finance port and add a warport tree that can build better ships.

Nah, it's been around and mentioned in several places already. And if FactionHeir hasn't spammed the port bug all over the bug thread, I'll eat my hat. No offense intended, it's just what he does. I've also known about it for a long-o time-o, and am certain I read it on the Org. Try somebody else's financial guide, that's prolly where I saw it

[alpaca]

Nah, it's been around and mentioned in several places already. And if FactionHeir hasn't spammed the port bug all over the bug thread, I'll eat my hat. No offense intended, it's just what he does. I've also known about it for a long-o time-o, and am certain I read it on the Org. Try somebody else's financial guide, that's prolly where I saw it

Ah well I'm not paying that close attention to the citadel. Good to hear I'm not the only one who's mad enough to have noticed it.

[andrewt]

I've noticed it, too but didn't really care that much about it. I just changed my build order.