The most satisfying moments in Medieval Total War

[Axalon]

Hi people,

For me it is always wonderful to execute few thousand peasants or something like that (slaughtering those blasted and worthless horse archers is certainly a worthy candidate as well). In the original game it is always an abundance of peasants everywhere. Executing them and cleaning up MTW Europe makes it a better place you know….

- Just your average peasant-hater signing off.

[Brandy Blue]

- Just your average peasant-hater signing off.

Why don't you mod your game so that no one can build peasants or Muslim peasants? It should be pretty easy to do with gnome editor, so long as you back up your files to prevent accidents.

You can get gnome editor at https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local...=N&pp=5&page=3

[Ironsword]

Ah, I nearly forgot!

One of the most satisfying moments for me is when the girlf is out, I have three hours spare and hear the intro music!

Sadly, this doesn't happen all that much!

[Trapped in Samsara]

My most recent campaign (Cumans, Early, Hard, GA, XL+Tyberius): the Cumans do not get arbs so I was forced to use arqs much more than previously. Sicily declared war, so its fleet in the Tyrrhenian interdicted the link to the Khan's capital province. Sardinia rebelled, mustering about 600 rebels including a unit of horse. My garrison didn't amount to much and I elected (And gambled.) to build a unit of arqs.

The battle opened. When the rebel horse were in range the arqs fired a volley taking out 2 or 3 of their number. The horse formed open order and made to charge the arqs. They were so nearly upon them I thought, "This is it. Adios amigos." At the very last millisecond the arqs unleashed a volley that sounded like a thunder clap. About twenty of the horsemen dropped (no surprise, it was point blank range) and the remaining half dozen bolted, routing off the field.

Boy did I enjoy that: the tension, the outcome, pure immersion.

Even after that the rebel spears and peasants put up a decent fight; they had a two-star general versus my no star chap.

All in all a real fun episode. I still slaughtered the ringleaders.

VGB

[Fagar]

Ah, I nearly forgot!

One of the most satisfying moments for me is when the girlf is out, I have three hours spare and hear the intro music!

Sadly, this doesn't happen all that much!

HA HA How true is this!
Me I so look forward to my monthly RDO, smile and send the GF off to work, wave good bye, have a lovely day dear.
Immediately bolt back inside put the computer on, boil the jug make a coffee and turn the speakers up!
Sit back in true contentment as the intro music starts up and "THIS IS AN AGE OF DARKNESS"

[Weebeast]

I have plenty but what I like the most is when the win or even lose track starts to play. Then I get to tour around the battlefield and see all the dead bodies stretched from one start flag to another. That means I and AI are doing something right.

[Great Est.]

-- Finding a suitable and honorable use for high-valor, severely undermanned mercenary units. Namely, sending mounted archers/javs against vastly superior forces to take out enemy royalty or high-star generals. After all, they're only mercs.

-- When you are in a defensive, rearming phase of the campaing and two or three neighbors decide it's a good time for a dogpile. Your plans go out the window and you are forced into new directions. Two moments I love here: the one were sea battle results are displayed just before the turn begins where you are wondering who had the audacity to backstab you, and the moment right when the turn begins when you must take stock of the actions of your bellicose rivals.

-- Anytime an inferior unit that is not supposed to make it through an engagement survives with massive casualties, earning valor and a place of honor in the King's vanguard.

[Fagar]

After I can't remember how many times of playing as the French to finally achieve all the GA points in the allocated times.
Including The Krak des Chevaliers!

[Roark]

Well, that makes one of us. Well done, dude. Not easy.

[Axalon]

Why don't you mod your game so that no one can build peasants or Muslim peasants? It should be pretty easy to do with gnome editor, so long as you back up your files to prevent accidents.

You can get gnome editor at https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local...=N&pp=5&page=3

Hi there Brandy,

I appreciate the friendly advice here and the link, but I really dont need a GnomeEditor. Thanks anyway, If you for some reason are intrested as for why that is, just click on my signature and you would find out pretty fast I'd guess.

Hating peasants is just thing I have, not to make too much fuss about. Just
keep them out of sight and we are all good...

- Cheers

[Geezer57]

Speaking of satisfying moments, I had a real nail-biter last night in Axalon's Redux Mod.

I'm playing the Germans for the 1st time - normally I prefer a faction that starts somewhere isolated or near chokepoints, so I can turtle for a while after initial expansion until I've developed some infrastructure/tech. Not in this game, surrounded by way too many factions.

At any rate, after a few decades of opening play, no more rebel provinces are around in my neighborhood and tensions are rising. The Norse open hostilities by sinking one of my ships, followed by an invasion of Pomerania. My garrison there is too weak, I withdraw and abandon the province temporarily. After shifting forces and reorganizing, I kick them out of Pomerania, then move on Denmark for revenge. The AI retreats from Denmark, then retreats from Sweeden, and is left with only Norway. But it's packed full of elite Norse units, almost all with high combat stats and elevated morale/valor.



But their Highking (who's in command) is only a 2-star General, while mine is 6-star. So while my units are somewhat inferior to the Norse, and my army (18 units totaling 1080 troops) is slightly smaller than theirs (21 units adding up to 1260 troops), I gamble on the extra command proving decisive. I have a big advantage in missile troops, but the map favors the melee defender - full of heavily wooded hills. I'm having 2nd thoughts on all this, but the AI has deployed at the fairly flat top of a hill that has one clear slope, one that starts out steep but shallows near the top. I'm hoping to get near the shallow incline, and shoot up any AI troops that exit the woods to attack.

Things go just as planned at first - the first two units that attack piecemeal (a Norse Spearmen and a Norse Swordmen) are almost destroyed by crossbow bolts and rout (only to rally later). I move closer to the treeline, and hope to provoke other units to attack by shooting at them. Multiple Norse units emerge, and a fierce melee develops on my left flank, but no general engagement. So I'm able to outnumber and flank those units on the left, meanwhile feeding defenders one by one into the fray as more enemy units attack. Finally all my units are involved in combat, except to two of the four crossbowmen (one's chopped up to a remnant and routed, the other is stuck in melee), an Irish Kern I'd been saving, and my Imperial Knight (10 men) General's bodyguard. Out from the forest emerges the Highking's Norse Bodyguard (base stats of 5/8/5/5/10 chg/melee/def/arm/morale - 20 men) - one very tough cookie. As the enemy General approaches, I note that one of my formerly 60-man Frankish Spearmen (now down to 17 men) is standing around, having defeated their Norse opponent. So I send them to intercept the Highking, and take the initial shock of the charge, while positioning the Kerns and my General to flank. Meanwhile, the rest of my line is close to breaking, only my swordsmen (with their higher morale) still holding - several units on both sides have already routed.

The two available Crossbows (depleted down to less than 30-men each) fire on the Highking as he gets closer. They only get a couple of volleys off before the Frankish Spearmen make contact (and immediately start losing badly), so the missile attrition isn't much. That is, until the Kerns launch a volley from behind, and drop 30% of the bodyguard. Then my General hits, gets a good charge in, and takes them down to about half. But as they settle into melee, the Frankish Spearmen break and run, so now the Norse Bodyguard are chasing them rapidly - presenting a poor target for the javelins. And my Imperial Knights are dropping fast, what with the uber stats and armor-piercing abilities of these Norse.

The Highking's bodyguard is whittled down to one man, the Kerns are out of javelins, and my Knights are down to four men, when a victorious Norse Axemen unit emerges from the general melee and moves to save his King. In a desperate move to stave off disaster, I sacrifice the Kerns to delay the enemy rescuer, hoping to kill the King before it is too late. In a gamble to execute the Norse monarch, I turn the Crossbowmen's fire back onto the enemy leader (I'd turned them off that target when my General got involved with him). The Kerns were being chewed up rapidly, my line was wavering, my General was down to only a few men, and that darned Highking wouldn't go down. The tension was incredible ... then it happened - someone got the critical hit in (my leader or the missiles, I still don't know which) and the enemy leader fell dead.

Several Norse units broke at that point, others were off chasing my routers, so my General and Crossbowmen attacked any enemy close by - luckily the Norse morale was very low and they shattered readily. By then another remnant crossbow unit (16 men) rallied and rejoined my severely diminished forces. But I had no melee unit other than my General (4 men) to face the Norse remnants and reinforcements soon to arrive. So I ordered in my only reinforcements (2 units: a light Halbardier (40 men) and a Light Cavalry (40 men also), withdrew to the nearest clear hillside, and waited. A few small and fatigued enemy units showed up while I waited, and were sent packing by concentrated volleys from the Crossbowmen. My small band rested on that hillside until the reinforcements arrived, meanwhile we could see new enemy forces marshalling in the woods across the valley. With two fatigue bars restored, my small band cautiously marched in the clear areas, seeking enemy resistance.

We found two Norse Bodyguard units, one at 9 men, the other at 7, parked near one map edge. As we approached within missile range, they took off towards the reinforcement map edge. We gave chase, shooting whenever possible, until they stopped where a unit of spearmen joined them. My units were still uphill, and focused on the bodyguards until they broke under fire, taking the spearmen with them. Then all that was left were three units of peasant reinforcements, which didn't offer much in the way of resistance. The Light Halbardiers and Cavalry drove them off after a little melee. As we moved to follow the routers, the message "the enemy flees the field" was displayed and the ordeal was finally over.

[IMG][/IMG]

Casualties were horrendous - I lost more men that the Norse, and their survivors would have outnumbered my remaining forces by 3 to 1 if the fortification had been larger. Thank goodness all those extra enemy men, who wouldn't fit in the Fort, were lost.

I haven't had such a roller-coaster ride in MTW in a long, long time. I'd like to thank Axalon for a great mod, one that's made my favorite game even better.

Cheers all - enjoy!

[HopAlongBunny]

Speaking of satisfying moments, I had a real nail-biter last night in Axalon's Redux Mod.

Cheers all - enjoy!

Wow!
Nail-biter is an understatement That's the sorta stuff that keeps the game interesting!

Congratulations on the heroic victory!

[Fagar]

Very nice post Geezer.
Those momemts where your battle is right on the edge are definately memorable.
A most rewarding victory!

[Geezer57]

Wow!
Nail-biter is an understatement That's the sorta stuff that keeps the game interesting!

Congratulations on the heroic victory!

Very nice post Geezer.
Those momemts where your battle is right on the edge are definately memorable.
A most rewarding victory!

Thanks for the kudos, guys. It was definitely one of the highlight moments in my many, many, MTW battles. Upon reflection, I think I've uncovered a factor I'd overlooked, one that might explain why those Norse were so incredibly tough - don't defenders who have no escape province get an extra morale boost? I was so wrapped up in pushing them back a province at a time, I completely forgot.

From the Numerology Thread at the .com site: "+8 Morale to any units fighting where there is no escape (ie Castle defense, or surrounded by enemy provinces)"

I already knew they'd get a nice boost from the Expert difficulty, but I'd overlooked that little extra. If I'd have thought of it before the battle, I might have waited some turns for a more favorable force ratio.

Cheers!

[Axalon]

Hi people,

Geezer57: A fine battle you had there and fun to read about. Don’t feel bad about the losses – you meet a serious foe thus you might end up with serious losses. Besides its redux, it’s more lethal and unforgiving. I’m actually a little surprised that you won at all – it sure was not a given with the troops you committed. The Norse had in overall better troops than you did. Infantry is kind of their specialty, so you really fought them on favorable terms for ‘em. I think what saved you from defeat were your decent amount of ranged troops and some decent generalship as well. All in all, well done.

Yeah the numerology thread – don’t leave for battle without it. Great thread.


- Cheers
-----------
There is a battle-thread over at the redux area – perhaps you should give it a try Geezer57? I’m sure that plenty of people would think that was fun and interesting to read about. I know I would. Of course it is supposed to be a bit more hardcore on tactics but you seem able to handle that pretty good, so feel free to try it out and post a battle report. An excellent solution with the screen on the troops btw, you save yourself a lot of writing and headaches with that maneuver – I’ll try that out myself next time I post something in the redux battlethread. As for the traits of troops and stuff like that, such things are obvious and specific redux-matters and as such it should be discussed over at the designated redux-forum.