Ideas for MEDİEVAL TOTAL WAR-2

[bozkirsovalyesi]

These are my ideas and suggestions about Medieval-2…I hope;the creators of the game should care about these suggestions…


1- Soldiers types and the battle screen should be like Medieval-1 .Strongness and weakness of soldiers should be protected but archers should be improved .In some provinces(Egypt,Persia),recruiting War Elephants can be good. Soldiers should be more brave and shouldn’t leave the battefield immediately. Thre must be a lot of unit formation but they should be simple,not fantastic. Units should be seperated or the seperated units should be joined together. Generals and admirals with stars should be joined together too. We cannot unite these generals in the same group. This should be changed and improved.

2- There should be siege machines in the game(You know the siege machines in Stronghold-2).The defender sides should have trhenches near their walls, Grek fire, boiling oil, balistas and trebuchets on the walls and things like these. And the attacker sides should use siege weapons like siege towers and onagers. Players always want to put their soldiers into a big siege weapon and attack to walls. The Naval Army should attack the castles near seas. A tower that has no soldiers in it shouldn’t fire arrows. We should leave a unit in every city to defend the city so they can stand in the Towers and fire arrows to enemy. You know in Medieval-1 the towers and walls are firing arrows but there are no soldiers in them so who’s firing?-Ghosts(?)

3- The big Map Technic in Rome should be used in Medieval-2 too. The map should be between The 25th and the 65th North latiudes---20th West and 75th East parallels. But the map should be more big and 3d. Travelling on the map should be like Rome but there’s a problem that should be solved;for example if a large army takes a road in 3 turns, only a general’s unit should take the same road in one day.You know general’s unit’s horses are beter than any horses. Diplomats,spies or assasians should travel faster. Fleets should take more road in one turn. Mountains, rivers and lakes should look like as their real looks. And there must be wars on the pasages of mountains. Passage of mountains should be more important. We should carry our armies with our fleets, and our armies should pass the rivers that are not too deep.(This option is avaible in the game:Imperial Glory). But our armies shouldn’t pass through everywhere. There must be areas that covered by rocks or swamps. And these swamps should effect the wars.

4- In Rome and Medieval the naval wars are on the campaign screen and they are done automatically.But we should do naval wars on the battle screen. .(This option is avaible in the game:Imperial Glory)

5- Armies must be bigger. Strategy players don’t care about soldiers’ faces or hair. Players always want to see a lot of units in the same screen.For example we should lead an army that has got 500 units and each unit should have 100 or 200 soldiers. Players don’t like to strive with little battles. Joining into a big battle with powerful army that is prepared in high details is more attractive to players.

6- Trade products should be stored .And when we produce gold,stones we should be able to store them.And we should be able to build construcitons with our gold and stone stocks. We should build castles on our owns.We should improve our castles with towers or trenches. For example İstanbul Castle is a peninsula,Paris Castle is on a River…Each castle should have its own specialities.But in Medieval and Rome all of them are open to any kinds of attack. We should build castles on our maps and can improve these castles.We should also stock storable food in our castles.So if the enemy siege our castles,we can defend for a long time ourselves so the enemy has to attack directly .So the sieges become more enjoyable.But in Rome and Medieval, attacking a castle is too boring.

7- In rivers or thight sides of seas should be passed by rafts.Beacuse in the begining of the game we cannot transport our armies.And waiting for building a port steals our times..

8-Building a construction takes too much time.But in real world buildnig a port or a barrack doesn’t take too much time.

9-Bribes,awards and gifts types can be improved.. In history, kings or sultans give each other horses,swords or female slaves.And concubines should be recruited as spies or assasians.We should give concubines to our general and agents.So their loyalty becomes higher.And we should also give good horses to our generals as a gift.Or an unit that uses good horses can be recruited.So these units can get into the enemy lands and give an unexpected visit to enemy soldiers.

10-Generals with high skills should lead more powerful units.And generals should be recruited in another barracks. Simple soldiers should be able to become a general if they fight for years. Old generals should be able to leave the job and they should be able to become a governor of a place.

11-The game should pass years between 925 to 1525. And the periots’ starting dates should be 925,-1080,-1180,-1290.In turns,the climate should be changed and in every year there should be 3 or 4 turns.

12--Border Castles should be left out. But special units should be recruited to defend the borders.And another special units can be recruited to save the Kings.

13-Assasians and spies can kidnap enemy diplomats or generals.And kidnapped people can be interrogated in a special building. And when we learn what we need we should kill or set free these people.

14-When a princess marry,there is no need to delete her from the map.And kings’ children should be on the map so players should be able to kidnap or kill them to destroy faction’s heirs.But a kidnapped person should be rescued by ransom.If the enemy doesn’t give ransom units can be used as slaves.or kidnapped diplomats can be hold in a Dungeon.Yes there should be a new building named Dungeon

15-Spies should be able to open the gates of a city which is under a siege.And catching a spy should be too difficult on open lands.Furthermore they should be able to make a rebellion in the enemy army.

16-Only the religion doen’t cause a rebellion.National feelings can be used for making a rebellion. And people that see many wars on their lands should be more warrior and always try to make a rebellion

17-Like in Rome and Imperial Glory ciwil population should be use as a source. Heirs of a destroyed faction should be able to prepare a rebellion.

18-There should be groups in the people like real world.Nobles,slaves,soldiers...These difference between these groups should cause a fight.

19-If a king is dead or the kingdom’s condition goes badly,the heirs of the faction should fight each other to take the management of the country.

20-Woman should be able to become a General(egypt quenn secerüd dür -Remember; Jan dark).And women whose husbands’ are died should be able to marry again.

21-In Rome and Medieval-1,the trade goods are only written on the paper.But I think these should be used. There must be occupation groups for each of trade goods.And in the constcruction menu we should be able to start buildings about these. For example,

Iron and copper --- Weapon and Armor

Gold and silver --- As Money

Fabric and Silk --- Uniform/Sailcloth

Wheat/Oil/Grape/Cattle --- Food for common people and soldiers

Stone and Lime --- Castles and Buildings

Slave --- Productive Power

Camel and Horse --- Transport and Carvan

22-Sounds of the game is really important for strategy players.Sounds in Medieval-1 are wonderful.In Medieval-2,sounds must be as good as Medieval-1’sounds.
And the pictures of people should be more detailed.In Medieval-1,all the pictures are full of ugly people(!)

23-And if the creators of Total War decide to make Medieval-2 they should search cultures of nations.For example,In Medieval-1 Turks,Persians and Arabs are shown as same.Three of them are Muslim but they have got very difference.So the creators should make a big search about cultures..

[Patron]

I think the main commercial problem with improving strategy games is how easy it is to play.

There was this one game that pushed the limits a little called master of orion 3, it was a complete failure... It was an extremely complex game laid out like a spreadsheet that became tedious and players quickly became bored and annoyed. However I don't think it's complexity was the problem, but rather the AI used to make the game easier.

I think games like this when you are going for 100% conquest or games like civilisation 4 are nearing the limits where a person can make all the decisions himself without getting bored. The next level of complexity would have to be achieved by using an AI in a manner that ensures the player has complete control without putting much effort into things he is not interested in. Something as simple as a few automatic commands that can be switched on and off which can be programmed easily to perform actions the players wants, determinned by extensive play testing... Like the auto-tax, except more complex.

I don't think there will be a medieval total war 2. Maybe a napolean total war. Or even better a complete global total war ranging from the stone age to the late 19th century with 100s of scenarios and the AI I just mentionned and all the bribes, trading and technology boz mentionned.


hmm? hmmm?

[Sensei Warrior]

I'll chime in on this one even though I believe there is already a medieval war 2 which I'll explain in a bit.

1. The soldier/ archer thing can be modded to make them stronger or weaker. Since MTW can be modded to add new units your elephants can be in MTW if you want. I think routing and leaving the battlefield is realistic enough not to be changed.

2. I fully agree to this, except I think it would make the game to complicated if you took the best aspects of stronghold and mix it in to MTW.

3. I think as long as there isn't oceans in the way armies can go anywhere. Technically they can. The game is talking about provence to provence so there is almost always a way. Armies would navigate around swamps and find passes through mountains. This might affect fatigue and morale but I am unsure how someone would be able to go about this and still make a game playable. To break the game down to more than one turn a year might make the game exceedingly boring. Sometimes I go 10-20 years w/out doing anything of signifigance except build. If I had to move military armies around swamps, large rivers, and mountains I would be frustrated and doubt I would be having fun.

4. I totally agree. I think it would have rocked playing naval battles. Fleets manuvering and the such, most fun, not to mention it would make you alot more leary about building a trade network of just 1 ship per section of sea way.

5. I totally disagree. One of the reasons I liked MTW was their attention to detail. I liked the look of the armies their hair and faces and army detail. If you want bigger units then change the setting thats already in the game.

6. Nice but again if i have to count every gain of wheat my country grows, or every ounce of gold they mine it will drive me crazy. Heck when I've conquered 1/3 of MTW it takes 1/2 an hour a turn just to get through moving pieces, ordering buildings to be built, and checking morale. This is not even talking battles. If it takes me 3 years to win the game once then that is 2 years and 10-11 months longer than I liked.

7. I'd like to see you transport your now super huge cavalry unit across the british channel in a raft. 1st you want your army to be harder to move then you want to make it easier by putting them on rafts? Thats crazy. Transporting a fleet across a large body was a massive undertaking, requiring fleets of ships. To do it in the game would undermine the reasons why places like the British isles and ireland were hard to conquer. It is a significant natural barrier. I don't even like the connection between wessex and flanders. Thats still 16 miles of open sea. Of course that can be modded to get rid of it.

8. In the real world building a port is accomplished with machinery and computers. Of course it doesn't take to long. Back then it took significantly longer. The time it takes to build things in MTW is just fine with me.

9. Yes i definately agree some of the political or espionage type actions could be vastly improved. I would like to see them delve into expanding this.

10. I dont think this is necessary. You can make old generals govs of provences, and you dont have to take them into battle. This is a part of the game you could roleplay yourself. About high ranking generals leading more powerful units they do. I had a 9* general, whose unit was Urban Militia. That sucked right? Wrong. These guy's valour was off the chart they had access to the best armor and weapons because I had them refurbished in a provence with a County Militia (i think thats the highest one), a master blacksmith and a master armourer. They still more than held their own against "more advanced troops".

11. Yet again another example of you have way to much extra time on your hands. It would take way too long to play the game even one time through.

12. Border forts are part of a network of pieces that protect your borders. Spies, assassins, emissaries, bishops, cardinals, and even princess run counter-intelligence to protect the people who live in your borders, even your king. I agreed that developing the more sneakier or political aspects of the game would be neat, but I don't see any reason to remove border forts.

13. What would we learn that we cant already find out in the game? Nope don't like it.

14. No, when a princess marries another faction she is no longer yours to control, best case scenario she would become a pawn of the other faction. And as a pawn of the other faction her new duties no longer revolve running about the countryside. She is busy producing heirs and planning parties. This is a historic reality. Actually from a historic standpoint, MTW's princesses were given way to much freedom.

15. Opening seiged castle doors are already in the game, albeit very hard, as it should be. Armies can be bribed which is close enough to rebell for me. Catching a spy is fine as it is now. Remember a whole network for counterspying is at work catching spies.

16. Already happens in the game. Drop a provences loyalty below 100% in a game and watch what happens. It isn't a religious rebellion its a provincial rebellion and I've fought more than a few with rebellious foot knights and reg. army vets. This can also be modded to make a provence more likely to rebell.

17. Population = resource, hmmm, very interesting. I would go for it. Heirs of a destroyed faction are used for rebellions. I'm sure you've seen a faction resurgence, if you haven't you need to play the game longer, i promise they're there and problematic. The only exception is your faction. Once you lose then you lose game over.

18. I am not interested in this whatso ever

19. Already happens. Are you playing the same game I am? Civil wars can and do happen. Pray that you are never on the recieving end of one that you didn't engineer yourself.

20. MTW was made to be semi-historically based. Let's try to keep it that way. Women's role during the Medieval period is pretty well depicted in the game. Women were almost never generals (Except Joan of Arc). Although letting a Woman take control if their were no male heirs would have been interesting to see.

21. Again making to many parts of the game more complicated may overwhelm the player. A frustrated player = a player who isn't going to play much longer.

22. I agree the music still must be interesting, and perhaps even more varied. People in the Medieval World were ugly. Deal with it.

23. I believe you are right. They did a very decent job of factions and the differences of them, but they could do more. Although this is a good segway into the reason why MTW-2 already exists.

Some of the things you have listed above already occur in the game one way or the other. You did bring up a couple of good ideas like fleet battles, and exanding on epionage and more politics.

The rest of your ideas have already been done by modders. I believe the direction these modders have taken have created many MTW-2s. They have created more factions, more units, more cultures, and more music. They have even created different environments. You could play Lord of the Rings Total War, based on the books by Tolkien. I think a modder is working on Colonial Total War, based on the American Colonies and the Revolutionary Period. Sounds fun, huh?

This is the reason why CA may never come out with a MTW-2. They developed a great game and are prolly sitting around playin the great games built by modders who tweaked what they created. If you want to try somethin new download the BKB mod or MTW-XL or one of the many kicking around the forums. I hear they are very different and bring a whoile new flavor to MTW.

[antisocialmunky]

I'd like to see a TW that uses the whole world and goes from 5000BCE to Future :-D.

[Mithrandir]

Moved to Arena.Though this maybe a game in the TW series it is not MTW.

[frogbeastegg]

And on to the EH, because it's still TW.

[GonZ]

Some interesting ideas... I go along with this one in particular

5- Armies must be bigger. Strategy players don’t care about soldiers’ faces or hair. Players always want to see a lot of units in the same screen. For example we should lead an army that has got 500 units and each unit should have 100 or 200 soldiers. Players don’t like to strive with little battles. Joining into a big battle with powerful army that is prepared in high details is more attractive to players.

I agree with bozkirsovalyesi up to a point here. Yes I think it's very important to have bigger armies and bigger battle maps to accommodate them. But I like the detail too.

I know it's pushing the technical envelope, but in an ideal world I'd like a seamless transition between the campaign map and the battlefield.

So at "satellite" view you can see armies marked by the walking units (as in RTW). Zoom in a bit and you can see the actual armies walking in columns on the map. Zoom in again and you can start identifying individual divisions (or indeed separate armies) and manoeuvre them on this more tactical view. Zoom more and you get the RTW battlefield perspective. Zoom again and you get a Generals eye view.

I'd like to lose the turns and have to manoeuvre my armies into battle positions in real time (time slider on the campaign map please). I think this tactical manoeuvring phase would add a lot of depth and realism.

[Marcellus]

For example we should lead an army that has got 500 units

Armies of 500 units would be impossible to control.

[British Mutt + Viking]

500 units is not as crazy as you think. The only issue would be that you cannot fight MTW or RTW type warfare with that kind of numbers. Napoleonic warfare, which is rigid and simple, controlling 500 regiments is a trifle, but 500 units in MTW or RTW would drain the best of us dry.

[bozkirsovalyesi]

correction:

500 soldier ................ 100 or 200 unit






or more good:

400 - 500 soldier ........... 100 - 150 - 200 unity

[tigger_on_vrb]

Heres (a few of!) my suggestions I could go on all day, but then noone would read it!

(A) I think the number of units should be increased slightly, but not much (maybe 20-25), but I would make the weaker 'barbarian' type units larger. This is because at the moment a small high tech army can slaughter an enormous low tech army with hardly any losses because the low tech army can only bring approximately the same number of men to the field at the same time due to the way reinforcements are handled. eg double the size of peasant, fanatics, slavs etc so they can 'swarm' the high tech guys.

(B) I think the building time for structures should be proportional to the size/population of the settlement. Its ridiculous that a tiny outpost fort builds at the same rate as your capital with hundreds of thousands of workers.

(C) I think generals should be trained at a military accademy (which you can send your princes to if you want) and this coupled with genetic inheritance decided how good a general they are. The current system which relies on the kings influence is too biased
When a general dies you should have to substitute a new one - not a guy with identical stats appearing - this is totally unrealistic. Great leaders DID die and their countries were often much worse off because of it, but hey thats life!

(D) I want to see a score system which gives me more satisfaction than that end sequence and a high score table. This could be something like GA balancing military and civilian goals, but which gives you a score for the game even if you finish before the end!

(E) There should be more specialisation for which provinces can build which units etc - less generic armies and more reason to contest certain provinces. eg anyone can build tribizond archers, but only in trebizond etc. I think this would show the fact that when a nation conquors a region then the culture of that region can become assimilated into their own (rather than lost forever as it is at the moment - except reemergences)

(F) I like the movement, sea movement and trading concepts in RTW, with a bit of modification they could work well (the one thing I dont like as a result of this is all the siege battles)

(G) Diplomacy needs improved greatly - I want to fight alongside allies on purpose, not by random chance. Be able to trade/give units, provinces, gold to each other. Right of passage agreements. Mutual protection pacts, alliances etc.

(H) Some sort of limit on strategic agents - they can be greatly abused and I've mostly stopped using them as I prefer a battle dominated game. My suggestions would be a maintainance cost for them or each building can support a certain number (eg each church has 2 missionary priests, you get 1 cardinal for your cathedral, 2 spies for each brothel etc)

(I) Archers allowed on the walls instead of infinite tower arrows in siege defences. Suggest the archers have to make a trip to the armoury to restock arrows after they have shot them all - running out as easily as in foreign campaigns would be unrealistic.

(J) You should be able to take the metal armour off in the desert! Just because you equip a guy with the best plate armour in the world it doesnt mean he has to wear it for every fight!

(K) Add momentum to charges, particularly cavalry. I'm fed up with heavy cavalry charges getting stopped by a few guys in a depleted unit or routers. I'm not saying they have to be killed immediately, just that they shouldnt halt the charge the riders who dont connect keep going

(L) Add weapon lengths so eg pikemen have a very large advantage when a swordsman is at the end of the pike, but a disadvantage when (if!) he reaches the guy face to face

[bozkirsovalyesi]

MEDİEVAL TOTAL WAR-2

what time..?

[Budwise]

1. My biggest complaint is that their is no multiplayer campaign mode. If I even had to autocalc battles against my human friend, thats fine but I want an ally I can trust.

2. Lets say I ally against Germany and no matter what, I stick by his side and save his butt and he (the A.I.) helps out once in a while - once my nation gets bigger, I would like to remain allied when someone else attacks me and its allied to both. I am tired of seeing a good ally break alliances as well.

3. No more cheap tactics, for instance; Faction Returns with Uber Armies, Pope Returns Constantly, Mass Rebellion in the end, one weak enemy ship taking out 2 of my more advanced ships later on. Also, don't quote me because many factors go into moral and routing but I think sometimes my army routs when in reality it shouldn't have.

4. I can understand it taking a long time to build a building the first time in an empire, the research wasn't there yet in history - but if I have a bell foundry in Wales, it shouldn't take so long to build one in Scotland - I already did the research for the one in Wales. Also, if I had a Master Shipyard in Florance, I should be able to just build one in Demark without having to tech all the way up - BUT IT SHOULD COST MORE, perhaps double the amount of florins.

5. All Catholics should be able to Crusade. I love playing the Danes and they can't. I know in real life they didn't Crusade but this is a game - if I was king and I saw Britain have a successful Crusade to Palestine, I would want to do one too.

6. In the movie Braveheart, they put oil on a battlefield and had archers ignite it, that would be cool.

7. Cannons should come in groups like everything else, that way if you put a unit cap, artillery won't be such a bad idea in Multiplayer Campaigns. I mean, whats better - ONE cannon or a group of CMAA's

All in all, I am not complaining. I love this game and for every thing I put above, I can name 5 things I like about this game. Please, if you hear me on anything, I would rather have better AI and extra ideas than a new Graphics Engine. Thank you.

[Budwise]

Also, fun factor is always more important than realism.

Sure, I love realistic playing as much as possible but I don't mind breaking a rule to make a game a lot more fun.

Case in point, Danes and Poles should at least be able to crusade.

Want proof that this is important, look at Counter Strike - the #1 non MMORPG game out there. Its mostly realistic but it doesn't kill the pace like other tactical shooters. Now those get boring quickly.

Also, more than 16 units at a time would be sweet.

[Samurai Waki]

A Few more ideas sort of just popped into my head

This is going along with the idea that there is an RTW style map involved. No Turns...none...zip...zero..nada. Instead make the system work more like HoI or HoI2, I don't think a board type strategy game like the original MTW works very well, everything like marching distances, recruitment, and build time would be dependant on time itself, of course the real time could be adjusted to fit your needs.

The Tactical System should be overhauled as well, something along the lines of the game 'mount & blade' on a much grander scale. This would be neat. and of course the time it takes to relay messages between the general and his lieutenants would take time as well, not the instantaneous "go here!" "Yes Sir!" it would be more like "relay this message to this unit's captain or superior officer... I want him to take this hill" and then your runner would go to the Captain and tell him to take the objective, and then your runner comes back and says something like "the Lieutenant has gotten your orders sir! he is taking the hill at all costs". The Further a Unit is from your general the longer a unit has to wait for a message. The More Coordinated a Force is, the faster messages can be relayed, so in the beginning of the early period you might have messengers run to an officer, and then later in the game Flags could be used, so you can command larger armies more effectively.

I still agree with my Physics suggestion.

Towns & Population: Towns need some serious overhaul. I do like the suggestion of build your own castles. But more has to be done as far as complexity of terrain. And You really only have command of what is built within your walls, like armouries and palaces, etc. When People move in your city, they might expand beyond the reach of the walls, and not only build houses, but if you're castle is a trade hub you might sea merchants moving in, or an increase of churches (if a cathedral isn't built), and basically see people going about their daily lives. If it is a port city, such as London you might see ships going up the Thames to dock (or actually docking). The Larger a Settlement is the quicker buildings will get built, especially if it has an ample amount of educated men to engineer structures. If You Upgrade your Castle, you can also build ringwalls around the city settlement, thus adding to it's defense. If a Castle is besieged you will see it's villagers (as the feudal system should work) run into the castle and arm themselves accordingly. You should get an instant Bonus in men. The Better the Armory the more capable weapons a peasant or commoner will be armed with.

Also on a further note: If it were to truly be the medieval times I'd like to see my suggestion of Feudalism noted. Men coming from different parts of the same Kingdom will have different banners and colours. They only way you can tell which men are yours and which men are the enemies is going to be based on general garb but more importantly by their standard. Of course there would be an indication that the these men belong to you because their standard would have something that would indicate loyalty to the Kingdom such as the "Three Lions" or the Three Fluer-de-Lys. But unlike in Medieval total war, whole armies of men were not colored coordinated at all, until the latest parts of the game, which would be like a "consolidation of power and national unity" sort of event, in which all your men dress the same and all standards are the same. If a standard falls in battle this is going to be bad for you, because you may not be able to tell whose troops are whose in the confusion of battle, and this did happen quite regularly. of course the following system would have to be adjusted to the ai.

Agents: While Personally I dislike the Diplomat Agent (I don't see why you couldn't just have a window representing diplomacy) I do like the Spies and Assassins. Good Spies should be hard to come by but may prove themselves very capable. Such as gaining a position of trust or being the right hand man of a rival king could bring them down swiftly if you decided to unleash his powers at that point. Spies should also be able to cause a general ruckus within a city, or heaven forbid open it's gate up to you (which would be much harder to do than it is in RTW). Assassins... well they don't really need to be changed.

As far as when a King Dies, he may have the Alexandros option of not appointing an heir, "to the best man is my empire" sort of deal where you're sons and nobles are all fighting each other for domination. In the early game the chances of all out war between several different factions within your kingdom might erupt, but by the later early era the more docile it becomes, with more backstabbing and whoever is the most manipulative gets the throne. If you're king dies without an heir, but has a daughter married off to a foreign king, he automatically gains control of your Kingdom (so watch out for that :) ), the reverse of if a son or royalty is married to a foreign princess nothing would happen at all, but the chances are much better that the heir married to a princess of a powerful country will ultimately gain the throne, as that king could potentially use his own power to bolster yours, such as sending you a host of Knights, or even sending you a whole army to destroy your enemies.

I'll have more to say in due time :)

[bretwalda]

Case in point, Danes and Poles should at least be able to crusade.

AND Hungarians!

[Csargo]

I think that the campaign should be longer than ending at 1453 I think that it should go past this

[Csargo]

And to add I think that their should be asassin movies like in STW that would be really cool I always like those movies.

[KukriKhan]

A fine thread. We have a new forum dedicated to Medi2, so we'll move this topic there. New members are able to post there also. So follow me to the new forum, please.