Medieval 2: Total War

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Glad it's picking up a bit, Aldeth. To be honest, it'll take a while until you really understand everything and the best ways to go.

One thing I will say though is turn off all Auto-build/recruit. You mention Caen went ahead and made 3 ballista's (I don't bother much with artillery myself). Watch out for this. I remember once I forgot to turn off auto-train in 1 castle and it was constantly making Royal Knights (which cost a bomb to recruit and maintain) and I was wondering why I had sod all florins! Always make sure that it's turned off otherwise the AI uses all your money!

The Scots are always a major ball-ache with England. You need a decent size army to beat them, then you need to leave a good garrison in case of revolts. I sometimes just sack the city or exterminate the population. That prevents troublesome uprising, and you then the new populous is more likely to be loyal to you (evil, but those Scots are such a pain).

3 turn buildings? Lucky git . Wait till you're upgraded to citadels and some buildings can take 10 turns to build .

Hope you're enjoying it. Just wait till you understand all the units and how to get the best ones quickest. Remember that happiness improves population growth and you want high population cities. So don't be scared to get + Public order, Health and general happiness buildings to get that population up (more tax etc.).

it's the battles that make this game. If all the battles were just resolved by the AI, it'd be just another 'god' strategy game. But when you can control full scale battles with like thousands and thousands of units on a battlefield at once, it really sets it apart from the rest. Like if you're getting a bit fed up of all the politics and strategy of the campaign, you can just have a massive big custom battle for the laugh.

As for what to do next, it's completely up to you! Sooner or later, you're going to have to get involved in a major conflict with France. it's unavoidable. It is, however, a long and arduous fights that will go on for years before you've managed to completely eliminate them. A better option first, might be to send an army on a ship over to Scandinavia and take Norway/Sweden and then Denmark (they often only have 1 or two settlements and are easily beaten - they're Catholic though so the Pope won't be chuffed about it).

Once you've got these places, you can recruit Huscarles which are very, very good early game infantry units. I'd still leave a good army at home if you're going to do this though, because those French aren't likely to give you plenty forewarning before they decide to invade.

 

That will be something I do next game. For me, the choice to auto-manage the cities without governors is made when you are picking your settings for the game. Once you start it's hard-coded. So the box that you check to auto-manage the city is greyed out. I cannot un-check it at this point. Since I'm disinclined to start over again, especially since this is the first time I'm playing that it's going fairly well, I'll just put up with it. One thing that I did last night when I noticed that many of my cities were making military units was to go into each city and select "financial growth" as the build option (most of them had the build option set to "military growth". I figure that should make them build more structures that bring in cash rather than military units.

I also notice that I got a message saying I was the most cultured nation. What role does culture play in the game? I can see that it would make people happy, but does having a high culture make the nation as a whole happier, or just cities with high culture?

I can see the whole Pope thing being a real pain. Given my location, it's obviously not very practical for me to send troops to the middle east on Crusades. Similarly, all of my neighbors are Catholic. Is a strategy that focuses on making war on the Papal States viable? Or does the only that happens is the Pope decalres a crusade against you? The reason I selected Spain as my first nation was that I'd have a non-Catholic neighbor who the Pope wouldn't be pissed off if I attacked.

 

I don't think the Pope can declare crusades on Christian factions the worst he can do is ex-communicate you. A good idea would be to 'build' a priest and have him convert a town (perhaps the Irish one is pagan?). The more people he converts his rating will go up and he will have a chance to become Pope himself. If the Pope comes from your faction I doubt he'd ex-communicate you even for invading other Catholic nations.

 

That's strange. You should still be able to change it. When you hit the 'Three Lions' button bottom right, is there no option to auto-manage and auto-set taxes?

I don't think those messages mean a great deal to be honest. There's a few, 1 for strongest army, 1 for best technological advancement etc. I don't think they mean much, it's just to let you know who's doing well as much as anything I think!

Don't be *that* scared of the Pope. If you declare war on a Catholic nation, he'll not be pleased and he might threaten you with excommunication. To be honest, this isn't THAT massive a deal. It affects a few things really. Population happiness, religious unrest in cities (to a small degree, and making a few priests usually solves it) and it makes you fair game to any other Catholic nation to attack you without fearing the Pope's wrath (but they'll only attack you if they think they can take a few poorly defended lands). At the very worst, he'll call for a crusade against you (I've never had it happen to me). But to be honest, often the extra income from the extra settlements is worth it. Plus, if you build a few nice big churches in your cities, that can get you back in his favour. Also, as soon as he dies and a new Pope is elected, all excommunicated factions are welcomed back into the fold. One thing you can do is keep an eye on anyone else who gets excommunicated. You can nick a few cheeky settlements that way.

I'm more often than not extremely out of favour with the Pope or excommunicated. But, I'm also usually the strongest faction so no-one attacks me and gets away with it! One good trick is to get a few priests early in the game and let them get better (they go up in levels the more they preach, so basically go up in time). Once you're plenty of years into the game, you can get 3 or 4 of your priests into the college of cardinals and so can have a massive say in who becomes pope. So you can elect one of your cardinals as pope eventually, then you can do what the hell you like.

 

If the worst comes to the worst and you end up excommunicated you could try and assasinate the Pope, you'll have nothing to lose and if you succeed the you won't be excommunicated anymore.

 

I'll try that out. I left the "auto-manage city" button checked at the beginning of the game. I wasn't aware that you could change that after the fact.

I noticed that having a few priests around does help. It appears that each priest converts 1% of the population to Catholic each turn. The only problem is you forget that he's there, and don't move him around to other cities after you reach 100% Catholic.

EDIT: Now this is strange. The current year of my game is 1122. Since the game starts in 1080, it means all of William the Conquerer's children should be at least 42 years old. They are not. In fact, the youngest son, Henry, is only 28. I don't remember how old he was at the start of the game, but I do remember he was still a child. Robert and Rufus, the two older sons are in their 40s, but since they were already in their 20s at the start of the game, they should be in their 60s by now. What gives?

[ November 22, 2006, 14:19: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Generals age one year for every two turns. (iirc)

This is because the game progresses at two years every turn, and if they didn't age this slowly then they'd be dropping dead left, right and centre every few turns.

 

Oh, I didn't realize that the game progressed two years every turn. I though it took two turns to progress one year. That's why it would shift from summer to winter. Now that I think about it, it is kind of strange that it is one turn is two years instead of one turn being six months. Given the distances that your armies can travel in one turn, it is much more believable to think of it as moving said distance in 6 months rather than two years. I fully understand that a sizable chunk of the army is on foot, and therefore cannot travel nearly as fast as those who are on horse back. But, it takes three turns to go from London to Edinburg. Even given the long travel times in medieval times, I can't imagine it would take 6 years to make that trip. In fact, I can't imagine it even taking 18 months, but at least that's more believable.

 

In Rome it was 6 months a turn I'm sure. Is there even a set time for a turn in Medieval, the game no longer runs from one year to another but for a set amount of turns (you can carry on after you reach the end turn if you wish), so I dont even think you can accurately set a time period for a turn, although I agree with Aldeth 6 months would be much more believable. My new computer should be ready for this Saturday so I'm thinking of picking this up then, cant wait .

 

Well, there's no time limit per turn, but there is a maximum distance each unit can move in a given turn. So you cannot extend a turn indefinitely. After everyone has moved their maximum distance, there simply isn't anything more you can do.

I still say that my initial impression of a turn lasting 6 months seems intuitively correct. One turn everything is green and growing (suggesting summer) and the next turn most of Europe is covered in snow (suggesting winter). 3rd turn everything is green again. 4th turn snow. Repeat ad naseum. While I never bothered actually looking at what year it was each turn, given what certainly appeared to be seasonal changes, I assumed that one cycle (in this case two turns) of seasonal changes was equal to one year.

 

You can change how much time each turn takes by altering one of the files. Don't see why it's important though, some insignificant thing like that. What we're interested in is how many turns you've played, not how many years.

 

I havent played this but in Rome you had an army you started with and a few nice rebel settlements within your grasp. I reckon it is the time in Medieval. Take those settlements with the military you have and then chill out for a bunch of turns and build up your finances and only recruit what you need to keep what you have. Pretty soon the cash will flow in faster than you can spend it as long as you make sure that you dont recruit more troops than you need. Two-three standing armies running around kicking butt and and sufficient garrissons to defend yuor cities and keep order. Do not need massive defence just enough to resist until you can send reinforcements.

In Rome the traits of your familymembers were affected what kind of buildings you built and what you had the dude do so there are some things you might want to keep away from (in Rome it was alcohol related temples and such).

Trade trade trade, order order order is what you need in your cities. Build that first and everything will work out.

 

Got the game today . I'm late to the party but what a party! Amazing game and the grpahics are gorgous to top it all off. Started a campaign with England, just consolidating the British isles at the moment then I think I'll attend to the age old English tradition of kicking France's arse.

 

Hope you're having fun, Duffin

 

Damnable Milanese!!! The traitorous curs!!! They offer an alliance and throw in the king's daughter to marry my faction's heir to the throne to sweaten the deal. I accepted the deal, and no sooner did I move an army out of one of my cities (leaving a garrison of about 300 men) than they attacked with a force of over 800.

They came with ladders, a ram, and a siege tower. The ram and siege tower never made it to the walls, thanks to my archers firing flame arrows, and my heavy infantry (pikemen) held the wall against the ladders. The Malinese got a major arse whipping laid on them. After the siege weapons were destroyed, their cavalry was useless (seeing as how horses can't climb ladders). After their infantry broke, I took my reamining forces out of the city, and finished off the cavalry divisions.

No it is time the Malinese pay for their insolence! The fools only hold 4 settlements, and the capital is next shares a border with on my most heavily garrisoned settlement. Too bad you can't divorce in this game, because I'd kick that Milanese princess to the curb really fast after that!

I'd also like to say that the Holy Roman Empire really kicks ass. Not only do the start the game with 6 or 7 settlements, there are also 4 or 5 other nearby rebel settlements there for the taking, plus another 4 or 5 that are close enough that you can usually capture some of them before other factions take them. Joacqin's strategy works pretty much flawlessly if you control more terroritories than anyone else, which is the case with me.

 

The Milanese are little gits! Really, really aggressive faction and any alliance with them is not to be trusted. In truth, I rarely make alliances with anybody. More often than not, I end up having to break the alliance to expand my borders and that ruins your factions reputation which makes further negotiations (trade rights etc.) difficult.

HRE are indeed strong. The only problem with them is that they are completely surrounded by potential enemies. The English advantage is that it's very difficult for other countries to surprise attack you, apart from Scotland and they are easily dealt with. HRE have Poland, Hungary, Milan, France etc. who might attack you so it's very hard to keep each and every border properly defended. 'Sprawling' is probably the best word to describe their starting position.

 

So I have discovered. I can't believe they were stupid enough to attack! Even if they were successful in taking the city, they wouldn't have been able to hold it, and they have no chance to stand against the combined might of the HRE. That really, really pissed me off. The only reason that I signed the alliance with them in the first place is that they are an afterthought in terms of my plans for conquest. They only control 4 settlements, so conquering them was never required. (Note: One of my victory conditions is to take Rome as one of the 45 settlements. I'm assuming that Rome is part of the Papal States and not the Malinese.) Of course now they decided to be annexed.

The one good thing about this is they attacked me, and so the counterattack will be done with no negative reprecussions from the pope.

 

I've got to admit im addicted to this game. Here's my campaign so far (with England). Taken the whole of Britain and Ireland and after a drawn out conflict with the French have reduced them to only 2 cities left. My war with the French was alot longer than it should have been due to a nasty conflict with the Holy Roman Empire, neither of us have made any ground our armie's seem to be grinded away before they manage to reach a settlement. I also had a few settlement's in Turkey as the result of a Crusade but decide to abandon them and leave them to the rebels due to a high upkeep cost. Have recently begun war with Denmark but this doesnt really concern me, should be able to send a few fleets with an invasion force. I have a strong alliance with Spain, our relation is classed 'good' so I'm hoping to avoid a conflict with them especially as we will be sharing a border once I finish of the French.

The only things I'm slightly worried about is I may run out of turns to control 45 settlements. I have 14 settlements and another 140 something turns. Secondly France and the Holy Roman Empire have just been reconciled so if I want to finish them off I risk excommunication even though the Pope is English!

With my new system the graphics are amazing , how are you to getting on then? The Milanese seem to have a shady reputation.

 

Yeah, it looks like you're going to have to pick up the pace to reach 45 settlements, but not by much. Keep in mind you haven't even spent half your turns yet. You start the game with something like 240 turns, and from that viewpoint, you still have a long time to go. I know that those cities in turkey have high upkeep costs, but I would have considered holding onto them regardless. England has a requirement that one of those 45 cities be Jerusalem, which is a whole lot closer to Turkey than it is to any other settlements you hold. Having two settlements out there would have served as a launching point for future attacks in that region.

Other than the traitorous Milanese, my game has been mostly peaceful. I still have 170 turns left and currently hold 18 settlements. With the exception of a few Milanese cities, the only other settlements I've taken over are rebel encampments. I took four rebel settlements to the immediate northeast of my starting position, Florence to the south, and two more rebel settlements along the coast of northern France to the west. I've even taken a few rebel cities on islands off the coast of Italy. Once the Milanese are defeated, I will have conquered all there is from my current enemies. Of course, now I need a war with somebody. Due to my good relations with just about everybody, including the pope, I don't really want to piss too many people off too soon. Here are my options as I see them.

Expand north, and defeat the Danes and possibly some of the Scandinavian rebel settlements (although by now it is more than likely that Denmark has already conquered them). Certainly the easiest option, but also one that is not going to increase my land holdings by all that much. I mean how many settlements could possibly be up there? 4 or 5?

Expand westward into France. France owns a bunch of settlements, and will get me a long way to reaching the 27 more settlements I need. However, France has good standing with the Pope, and will be a worthy foe.

Expand east and run into god-knows how many countries. I know I'll hit Poland and Hungary first, and I'll eventually reach the Byzantines. Pretty much the same benefits/drawbacks as the French.

Expand to the far south into northern Africa. I've never gone there in any of my games, but I assume there have to be some settlements, and that they wouldn't be Christian. Also, while they would likely be held by the Moors, I can't imagine the majority of their forces are stationed in north-central Africa. One obvious problem here is that I would be venturing onto a new continent, and bringing in reinforcements should the need arise would prove difficult. This would also require me to keep good relations with the Papal States and Sicily, as I will have to transport troops along the Italian coast to reach northern Africa.

Exapand to the immediate south and take on some combination of the Sicilians, Venetians, and Papal States. One of my victory conditions is to take Rome. However, seeing as how I'm nowhere close to the 45 cities victory condition, I really don't see the sense in attacking the Papal States at this point in time. The game manual explicitly warns you that attacking the Papal States likely will bring the wrath of a lot of other Catholic countries, and seeing as how I'm surrounded by Catholic countries, my plan was to not attack the Papal States until I was nearly at the 45 city victory condition. The exact plan was to make Rome the 45th city I control. That would be ideal, as the game would end and I wouldn't have to worry about reprecussions from the other Catholic nations.

[ November 28, 2006, 14:28: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Got excommunicated again. *sigh* The Pope demanded that I stop attacking the Milanese, and that wasn't going to happen after they screwed me over with the alliance. They are now down to one last city, Dijon, which I assume they captured from the French.

Speaking of the French, it appears that the decision has been made for me as to who I'm fighting next - the French. The French sent a diplomat over to talk to me and offered an alliance. I countered with different proposals, but despite the diplomacy scroll indicating a balanced deal, my offered insulted the French diplomat, and the next turn they declared war on me.

I had an absolutely wonderful battle last night in which I defeated the lion's share of the Milanese army despite being vastly outnumbered. I kind of lucked out though, because the computer ran the battle really poorly. After taking Milan, I was sending a group of about 500 armored spearmen and cavalry as re-enforcements for the city. I had NO missile groups with me because most of them had survived the battle and were retraining in the city. On the way there, I was attacked by the Milanese army of 1300.

My initial reaction was to withdraw, but for the heck of it, I checked on the Milanese commander's army. I saw that over half the army consisted of peasant archers and peasant crossbowmen. They had 2 groups of pikemen, 2 groups of spearmen, and 1 group of heavy cavalry. All the rest were missile weapons. So I went for it, despite having a not-so-great general leading my army. I luckily started out on a hill with trees, so I was able to hide most of my cavalry and spearmen, but I never saw so many enemy units on a battlefield before.

The AI stupidity began immediately. They advanced all of their missile weapon users towards us, leaving the infantry and cavalry back. I waited until the crossbowmen and archers got close enough to start firing their weapons, then ordered an all-out charge on the enemy. I lost about 100 men in the mad charge down the hill, but once I got to the enemy, it was a slaughter. Seeing the carnage, the enemy charged their cavalry and infantry. However, since they were far away from the battle it took them a while to get there, and the cavalry got to the battle long before the infantry. I had time to position my spearmen into a wall and crushed the cavalry charge, killing the enemy general in the process. At that point, the rest of the crossbowmen and archers routed (I had killed about half of them in that time). The cavalry chased down who they could, while the infantry charged the enemy spearmen and pikemen who were now finally getting to the battle. They had my infantry outnumbered, so I had to bring back some heavy cavalry units to flank attack them. Eventually they too were routed.

Final statistics for the battle - I lost 224 of my 586 men, they lost 1,025 of their 1,302. Most of their survivors were the crossbowmen and archers, because I had to turn my cavalry around to help my spearmen. As the last enemy fled the battlefield, my general proclaimed, "Today will go down in history as one of the greatest moments of the Reich!" He also was declared the "Man of the Hour" and adopted into the Royal Family. I also had a whole bunch of prisoners, who I demanded ransom for. The Milanese refused, so the prisoners were executed.

But the thing is, I got lucky. If the computer had attacked with everyone in the beginning, I probably would have been toast. All they needed to do was keep the infantry right behind the archers and crossbowmen, and it would have stopped any cavalry charge. Instead of fighting 1 huge battle, it's like my army fought 3 small battles in quick sucession. First I fought the missile units, then the cavalry, and finally the infantry.

I took the next-to-the-last Milanese city next, and even though there was a garrison of only 200 men, my general said it represented over 1/4 of the Milanese army (the same thing he said in the battle of 1300). Evidently 1/4 is the highest fraction you can give. In order for 200 to be over 1/4 when 1300 was also over 1/4, it must have meant that the 1300 was over 1/4 by a lot. It was probably more like half their total troops.

Finally, I love ballistas. It's so much easier to just knock holes in the walls rather than trying to use a battering ram or a siege tower. You always take heavy losses with your siege crews, and by blowing a few holes in the walls, the enemy typically retreats further back into the city, meaning you usually take the walls without a fight. The only thing it costs you is a couple of extra turns after caputuring the settlement to repair the walls.

[ November 29, 2006, 18:52: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]