Medieval 2: Total War for Independence

**Ramses II CP** · 01-30-2008, 21:29

Success! (56k warning on my AAR thread, 500 or so images):

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=97845

This is what a free world (MTWII world anyway) looks like:

This is quite a fun and challenging type of game, and I recommend it to anyone looking to stretch their enjoyment of vanilla. Plan well for the Hordes, or you'll get caught short. It's much better to send your armies east aboard ship, as I quickly discovered, and the Aztecs are such a joke you really only need to send one full cavalry stack over.

**Askthepizzaguy** · 01-31-2008, 22:21

Adds enjoyment to vanilla, yes...

Adds bucketloads of trouble to Lands to Conquer!

**ReiseReise** · 02-17-2008, 14:46

I'd like to see how everyone playing with these rules is doing. I find it hard to believe that Ramses is the only other one who wanted to try it.

I am going to give it a shot playing 1.2 vh/vh Russia. I thought about making Constantinople or Bran one of my 10, but decided instead to make a contiginous core. We will see if it works out. My initial choices are pretty standard Russian territory - Novogorod obviously, Moscow, Ryazan, Smolensk, Vilnius, Kiev, and all of Poland -Thorn, Krakow, Halych, which leaves me with 1 open spot I haven't decided on yet. Riga is pretty worthless but fits nicely into the shape of the territories so maybe...

I will be writing it up, I haven't decided on how much storytelling I will be doing.

To start off, I made a little something to start the story. I'll put it here to get a little publicity.

Please let me know if the flow of the images is confusing or if the text is unreadable, after staring at it for so long I can no longer view it objectively.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Askthepizzaguy** · 02-17-2008, 14:51

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

I like it... very nice start.

Russia makes an obvious choice for this particular challenge, as no excommunication, great late period anti-mongol troops, and prime anti-mongol location.

Should actually be superior to France or Italy once you get it up and running.

I don't often rank Russia highly, but in this case, it's the perfect faction. Only one better would be Byzantium or the Turks.

My Sicily campaign is on hold until I make the 8 turn record for the HRE long campaign...

Current status: Made improvements to SirRethcir's campaign with a couple lucky hits! May be possible to dominate 45 regions in 8 turns after all!

**Ramses II CP** · 02-17-2008, 23:17

Russia does seem like a good choice, as long as the Mongols/Timurids don't decide to go popping in at Baghdad. I strongly advise you to keep a trading partner alive until around the Mongol arrival. In your case England or the Danes are probably the only choice. You could leave the Turks, but as the Mongols crushed them you might find your economy falling down just as you most want it in full gear.

Good luck! I like the header graphic.

**ReiseReise** · 02-18-2008, 20:35

Thanks for the advice Ramses.
Honestly I did not pick Russia because of its starting position, I actually thought of doing Moors first and building Iberian base then sweeping Africa/Palestine to meet mongols. I picked Russia because of the obvious ties that can be made to this style of gameplay and communism. I thought it could make for some interesting storylines although they are mostly being abandoned and recreated as I have started playing. I'm not saying that ATPG is or is not a supporter of communism

but the general theme is:
1) absolute equality of every person to every other person
2) absence of religious ideals in government (granted, absolute freedom of religion is a far cry from State Atheism but I am trying to make this rationalization work)
3) the necessity of an interim solution before the ideal can be realized
4) the end sounds good but the means can get ugly, I hope to elaborate on this theme in the AAR

Back to the game: I am on turn 9 (10 turn write-up expected tomorrow) and just had the craziest series of events I have ever seen in a campaign: A little background first: After starting with Novgorod, I have taken Moscow, Riga, Smolensk, and Helsinki (there's a story behind that one), and have armies headed towards Vilnius/Kiev/Ryazan/Thorn(? not sure if I want to start that war yet). I took the first three all on turn 4 which jumpstarted my economy and put me on a good track. I am planning on making the Polish homelands part of my 10 core provinces, and leaving Hungary alone (besides deposing their leaders obviously

) This is where the crazy starts: Princess Antonina is out wandering the wasteland looking for a half-decent husband and making diplomatic contacts. She is headed through the pass in the Carpathians NE of Bran when Hungarian general Istvan comes here way. He is unmarried so I decide to go on a little adventure concentrating only on Istvan while ignoring the rest of the game, and then reload and playing as I planned to. However I was incredibly surprised by what happened!

Antonina marries Istvan (37% chance), 5 star general, liberating him from his evil masters. Istvan recruits 3 Slav mercs and 2 Bulgarian brigands, then turns around and declares war on his former masters, massacring the army of 6 militias he was leading earlier that same turn. He then marches to Bran and occupies it. He abandons it and heads for Budapest (I had a spy leading Antonina so he checked out the situation first, it's "defended" by only the Hungarian king) En route to Budapest, Bran turns rebel, my first convert of the game! A full stack of hungry soldiers (

) is headed towards him, but too late. Istvan takes Budapest, thus eliminating the Hungarians. All because one of their generals was wooed by my princess!!!. Istvan abandons Budapest and marches up to Krakow. Budapest turns rebel, thus totally freeing the Hungarian people. Another milestone: my first liberated nation!. Unfortunately it doesn't count because I vowed that this was an "experiment only". Istvan recruits 2 merc xbows and takes Krakow. I didn't continue further but I dare say I could have eliminated 2 nations due to the scheming of one Russian princess

**Askthepizzaguy** · 02-19-2008, 01:36

Women actually rule the world, and we are their puppets. By making us think we have autonomy, they control our minds and manipulate our strings with words and emotions and desires.

They can cause wars between nations... and need I mention that sex is the basis of all male conflict?

1. Money... need money to attract a mate and pay for children... not to mention buy all those fancy clothes and the big car and a house.

2. Competition. There's only so many women out there. If you fall for one, you may have a competitor.

3. Envy. Men would not have "little man syndrome" if it didn't matter what size or how skillful they were in the bedroom.

Males are pretty much the basis of all female conflict too. Why would they need to fight over anything if we weren't around? They would all turn lesbodian and fertilize eggs with genetic engineering. Who is to say that isn't their eventual goal anyway? Have all the men wipe each other out, after the sperm banks are all nice and full and the human genome has been fully catalogued.

Women will rule the earth... they already do, indirectly. Imagine if every woman on earth went on strike and refused to have sex.

Men would be on their knees within a month.

PS I am not a communist... but I do believe that every person or group has the right to declare autonomy and live the way they choose, so long as they don't violate the protected rights of another or violate some universal standard of ethical conduct.