Medieval 2: Total War

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Bought this morning and played for around 8 hours solid without realizing it. Yep, it's class. It amazes me how these developers of these games can keep releasing new versions and manage to be better than the previous one each time. Pure quality.

 

I got a demo in a magazine today. If it's that good, I may have to get it on Boxing day...

 

Yeah mean this is something we got before the Americans? Score!

 

Like civilisation?

My friend bought a copy, and said it doesn;t work... ANy idea why? What're the specs?

 

I loved Rome so I might check this out. Need something to play when I am not WoWing

 

This is well good! I've just been playing it solid for the last few days. Very addictive stuff - class game.

Daie, specs off the back of the box...

1.8ghz
512mb RAM
11gb HD Space (yes, really!)
128mb video card with 'Shader 1 support' (whatever the hell that is) and DirectX 9.0C compatible.

That's it really.

 

I loved Rome, one of the reasons I'm getting a new computer so I can play this beast. Is the AI improved? i.e they dont break alliances and just attack the nearest city to them.

 

Yeah the AI is pretty cool now. Just, when you get it watch out for the Milanese! They only look a small little country, not much to worry about but they are ever so aggressive.

My English troops fending off a Milanese castle attack!

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/9368/0009as9.jpg

Armies facing off at the Battle of Agincourt...
http://img464.imageshack.us/img464/8923/armiesoq5.jpg

My longbowmen doing the biz...
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/3965/longbowsxn0.jpg

My boys trying to hold the line against heavily armoured French...
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/2479/holdinglinevw8.jpg

[ November 15, 2006, 20:47: Message edited by: Barmy Army ]

 

The screen shots look great. I never played the first Medieval. How complicated is it to learn how to play? It's obviously strategy intensive. Does it require immense amounts of micro-management during the battles? How long does a typical battle take?

 

It's very easy to learn how to play. But it takes a bit of time to get good at. Just like any good game, really!

It can be quite strategically intense, but I guess you choose how intense you want it. If it's a battle you know you will win, then you can just throw all your men in and steamroller the enemy. But, after a few battles like that, you'll learn to want keep losses to a minimum so you don't have to keep replacing your men. So that's when you start to think of new battle tactics and army make-ups.

I mean, my standard tactic is pretty simple, but effective (I only really play the English, because I love longbowmen): Have the longbows plant stakes so cavalry can't charge them before you can react. Have the pikes and swords close behind with cavalry on the flanks. Let the enemy come forward and the longbowmen will start showering them with arrows. When they get closer, switch to flame arrows (flame arrows lower morale, but are less accurate). By the time they are on you, they've lost loads of men and their morale is shaky. Charge your foot soldiers out from behind the longbows, and slowly move your cavalry round the sides of the battle and out to the enemies rear. Hold the enemy there and charge your cavalry into their side and rear, soon, the enemy will rout.

So all I do is make sure I have strong infantry, a good amount of archers and a few units of heavy cavalry and I can win most battles. I only struggle when I'm using someone other than England . If you're not bothered about having to think about tactics, then you can just make sure you have tons more men and just simply outnumber the enemy into submission. Obviously, this means you'll have to be VERY good at building your economy up so you can support this though.

I love the other side of the game even more. The strategy map side of things, where you move your armies about and build your empire. Great game.

Sorry - a typical 'big' battle like the one in the screenies would usually take 10-20 mins. Battles can last a lot longer though in some cases. I mean, I had a fight earlier today against a Danish army where neither of us wanted to make the first move (very even armies). The Danes went to the top of a hill and just stayed there. I didn't fancy charging my men straight up, so I sent in a few crossbow skirmishers to try and tempt them down, but they weren't having it. I ended up having trying to disrupt their lines by charging my cavalry in, charging them out again, then charging in. I eventually won when I got fed-up and just threw everybody up the hill. It was VERY close though and I didn't have many men left by the end of it. They had another army nearby and soon killed the remnants of mine off . That battle took about 45 mins. Obviously smaller battles will only take a few mins when all it takes is a cavalry charge to make the enemy run .

[ November 15, 2006, 21:25: Message edited by: Barmy Army ]

 

Sounds great, my mate was telling me today that when a crusade is declared you get access to special units with St. Georges cross on their robes and armour , hope you gave the frogs a good duffing at Agincourt.

 

Yeah if the Pope asks you to join a crusade it's a good idea to obey (being excommunicated isn't fun). Once you get one going, you can hire all sorts of mercenaries. Knights Templar are well hard!

My only problem with crusades is that when you use England, it takes forever to get to the holy land, even in a boat. Half your army has deserted by the time you get there!

 

Class, I cant wait to get this game. Is there anything you can do to stop them deserting? Maybe if you capture a town half way there if you can find one that isn't Catholic , you could use it as a sort of re-fueling station for your men. I bet it's good when you can get to the America's, start forging your Empire!

 

If you hold Sicily or Crete you're OK as you can launch from there, but when you're launching from London or Wales, you're so far away it's silly!

 

Hmm yeh I wonder how long it takes to sail the Atlantic then... dont want your expeditions running off with Aztec women.

 

One more question - do you win by world conquest? Mediterarrean conquest? I'm assuming if you're conquered it's game over, but how do you determine who wins? I'm not sure how to classify this game. It seems like some stange combination of an RTS along with the strategy of a civ/tycoon style game. Would you say that's an accurate description?

 

Yep, think Civilization's strategy map, city building, empire building, alliance making etc., but you command your troops in battle.

The victory conditions are set before you start the campaign. Either short or long.

Short - Hold 15 settlements and eliminate your main rival (i.e with England this would France).

Long - Hold 45 settlements and control the holy land (Jerusalem, Acre etc.)

Once you hit these you get a message up saying you've won the campaign. After this you can choose to end the game or go on and control the whole map.

This is what the map looks like in my current game. Bottom left is the overall map. I think I've got around 28 settlements in this game and I'm well on my way to controlling Europe. Soon it'll be time to hit the Moors, the Turks and the Egyptians. I think the Mongols are down there too. The main screen shows a few of my cities. The lines and small boats indicate trade routes. Under the city name is the profit it is making (trade/taxes/harvest), its public order indicated by the little smiley face, it's population growth and whether or not it is currently building or recruiting soldiers. The red banner indicates army size (in this particular screenshot it's just a few cities so the armies are only small garrisons).

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4760/0003yk2.jpg

On this one you can see a few of my armies invading and besieging Polish cities, so my armies are a bit bigger .

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/121/0004ao1.jpg

Any questions with what that's all about, let me know

 

OK, I think you've convinced me. Does the small map in the lower left corner indicate the entire playable map? So we're basically talking about the Mediterranian region plus a bit more? Europe less Scandinavian area, northern Africa, Middle East/Asia Minor?

 

Yeah huge map. It's a bit daunting at first when you start with 2 or 3 settlements and a few piddly armies full of peasants and militia. Once you get going though it gets really, really addictive 'just one more turn...'.

Bottom left of my current controlled area you can see a little bit of white, that's the Portuguese trying to invade! Git, I'll soon learn 'em though.

I think I'll take Italy and Greece soon as the trade routes across the Aegean and Italy are really lucrative. I think that's a good justification for war anyway! (the pope gets all touchy when you declare war on fellow Catholics - I'm currently excommunicated as the assassins I sent to eliminate the Pope failed and got caught... that went down like a sack of spuds!)

Edit - This is a cool bit of siege action. Damn Germans! I beat them, they were fools to attack with only ladders .

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q234/Threedots_dead/image0185.jpg

[ November 16, 2006, 14:57: Message edited by: Barmy Army ]

 

That map of Ireland looks dodgy, especially the North. Someone has filled in Lough Neigh , and the Ards Peninsula is now joined to Antrim

Looks like someone has also stolen our Islands

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4760/0003yk2.jpg