Medieval 2: Total war

Tusky

wow.

Zapp Brannigan

Yup, gonna need a new poot.

You can expand into the Americas in this one aswell. I'm excited!!

KdjaCL

Think i posted something similiar with picsof Aoe3 that everyone went ooohhhh at, then the game came out and everyone went awwww


kdjac

Azza

Thats harh.

Age of Empires III was an average gameand alot of people where impressed by what turned out to be static pictures of towns.

The total war series has got better with each release and are excellent games with solid add on packs backing them up.

Hoping that number 4 countines the trend.
Looks the part and that is in game footage.

My wish list is for naval engagements and some sort of online campaign.

The Bollox

Azza wrote:

My wish list is for naval engagements and some sort of online campaign.

do you have any idea how long that would take!?!

it takes me a good 5 to 10 mins to complete a move, now imagine 15 Marts's playing the same game, you are looking at nearly 2 hours wait just to move again, and then there are the battles to think about! I mean don't get me wrong, if there was a way to do it I would be all for it.

oh and for the record those screenshots are groin-grabbingly amazing!

Pugsley

wow, medieval total war was awsome, and Rome Total War was a league ahead of that, wonder what their gonna do to this to make it even better than R:TW, gonne be a hard game to top.

Sand

Looks nice, but Im a tad dissapointed. Medieval has already been done, and theres that Chivalry mod for those who want to have it on the RTW engine. I had hoped the next title would move on to new things, like the gunpowder era of the Napoleonic wars. Mind you Im well aware theres a whole horde of TW guys who reckoned MTW>RTW and will be delighted by this news. If they wanted to go back, the one Id have like to seen redone would have been Shogun.

Im not liking the sound of the merchants/princesses/priests/assassins - my real complaint about M:TW series is the shuffling of these supporting pieces around the map. RTW>MTW simply for the removal of Princesses alone. Bringing them back isnt a step forward. Royal marraiges, trade agreements, religion and so on could do with a bit of abstraction and clearing of the map of clutter for actual armies. IMO.

Multiplayer TW would only be feasible for 2 player, and even then it would be a pain in the ass waiting for the other guy to finish his 10-20 minute battle with rebels. Better in anticipation than reality Id imagine. MTW2 seems to take this as far as it can go with its multiplayer - battle campaigns.

Jazzy

oh yes, oyes oh yes oh yes ohyes OH YES! OH-OOO YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

made my day this has!

Balfa

Sand wrote:

theres a whole horde of TW guys who reckoned MTW>RTW

Here's one fella who reckons STW>RTW
I dunno. I just like the feel of it better, and samurai are teh win!

Zillah

Sure its pretty, but im fairly sure that its nothing more than a slightly shinier RomeTW engine. The phalanxes are a dead give away, identical image.

Ri_Nollaig

looks brillant but as said i would have loved to have seen a shogun remake rather then a medieval

rainbow kirby

Sweet

Zillah

Ri_Nollaig wrote:

looks brillant but as said i would have loved to have seen a shogun remake rather then a medieval

Oh christ that'd be so sweet.

TheDoc

yeah id be up for the shogun remake too, i think that this franchise will go on and on and ill all for it tbh, i hope they go all the way, remake the shogun series, medival, move onto gun powder eras such as napoloeon and the american civil wars, them move onto maybe the british campaign through zulu land, perhaps then world war 1 and 2

There is an ultimate possability of creations.

Maybe they might make one set before roman times such as trojans etc etc etc....

Definatly one of the best franchises ever to appear on the gaming world

madrab

i would love to see an american civil war version, or maybe independance war then civil war

BlitzKrieg

Sand wrote:

Looks nice, but Im a tad dissapointed. Medieval has already been done, and theres that Chivalry mod for those who want to have it on the RTW engine. I had hoped the next title would move on to new things, like the gunpowder era of the Napoleonic wars. Mind you Im well aware theres a whole horde of TW guys who reckoned MTW>RTW and will be delighted by this news. If they wanted to go back, the one Id have like to seen redone would have been Shogun.

I was either hoping on a napoleonic one (but the crappy imperial glory beat them to it) or a civilisation sort of one that combines the original 3 (from rome to medieval)

I see nothing wrong with slipping Shogun into this one, there's already 2 distinct groups in the original game (Christians and muslims) why not add japan in and make it a 3 way culutural conflict. Shogun does sort of run on the same timeline as Medieval. So there wouldnt be much of a gap between the two games.

Im not liking the sound of the merchants/princesses/priests/assassins - my real complaint about M:TW series is the shuffling of these supporting pieces around the map. RTW>MTW simply for the removal of Princesses alone. Bringing them back isnt a step forward. Royal marraiges, trade agreements, religion and so on could do with a bit of abstraction and clearing of the map of clutter for actual armies. IMO.

While trade in M:TW pissed me off (loved how its done in Rome) i did actually enjoy using priests and princesses and civil wars and stuff, sort of stuff that appealled to my underhanded devious nature. I'm hoping they will implement it better this time, but the weakest part of all the TW games has been the extent of the diplomacy, But really that's a problem most stratagy games got wrong, only the recent Civ game has really got close to good diplomacy.

Multiplayer TW would only be feasible for 2 player, and even then it would be a pain in the ass waiting for the other guy to finish his 10-20 minute battle with rebels. Better in anticipation than reality Id imagine. MTW2 seems to take this as far as it can go with its multiplayer - battle campaigns.

There could be ways around this?

One way is that everyone takes their turn at the same time and you have a limit of 5 minutes to make your choices thus recreating the illusion of seasons, all players give their orders for a season, then let it play out and see what happens, this could be more realistic for example:

player A orders his army to march on another army, but in that very same turn player B ordered his army to move back to a city, after that turn player A just misses his chance to jump player B and now player B has seen his intentions and will fortify himself in his city.

(distances and terrains will effect who's move will be implemented first.

OR

they could risk getting rid of turn base completely for multiplayer and have that armies of certain units and size move at certain speeds, and cities are built by putting in customizable policies. You can organise a deck of these policies before the game so you can drop a policy of your desire at any point in the game thus keeping how you manage the cities as a vital part of the game.


THese could work but your right that it could be only feasable with 2 players. as what will player 3 do when players 1 and 2 are battling away.

Canis Lupus

Hoorah!!! Shinier graphics, same gameplay....... hold on a sec...............

Zillah

BlitzKrieg wrote:

I see nothing wrong with slipping Shogun into this one, there's already 2 distinct groups in the original game (Christians and muslims) why not add japan in and make it a 3 way culutural conflict. Shogun does sort of run on the same timeline as Medieval. So there wouldnt be much of a gap between the two games.

Uh, yeah, we'll just slice off the entire Asian continent and slip Japan in just west of Poland...that'll work grand so...

BlitzKrieg

Uh, yeah, we'll just slice off the entire Asian continent and slip Japan in just west of Poland...that'll work grand so...

good point...and it could get messy (not to mention difficult) trying to fit most of asia into it as other factions. Though if Creative Assembly are up for it...i wouldnt complain being able to have a crusade through asia.

Tusky

Why is everyone saying its just a graphics update ? You know nothing about this game. I have faith, every installment of the total war series has improved upon the predesesor in my opinion.

Canis Lupus

Tusky wrote:

Why is everyone saying its just a graphics update ? You know nothing about this game. I have faith, every installment of the total war series has improved upon the predesesor in my opinion.

Err... Shogun: Spears beat cavalry. Cavalry beats sword. Sword beats spear. High land is good. Low land is bad. Game essentially revolves around not letting one unit be swamped by multiple enemy units you can usually win the fight with sod all tactical finesse.

Medievil: Spears beat cavalry. Cavalry beats sword. Sword beats spear. High land is good. Low land is bad. Game essentially revolves around not letting one unit be swamped by multiple enemy units and you can usually win the fight with sod all tactical finesse. Siege weapons and sieges are pointless.

Rome: Spears beat cavalry. Cavalry beats sword. Sword beats spear. High land is good. Low land is bad. Game essentially revolves around not letting one unit be swamped by multiple enemy units you can usually win the fight with sod all tactical finesse. Siege weapons and sieges are pointless. This time your archers happily shoot your own men in the back (may be fixed since I last played).

Admitedly Rome made changes to the battle map that impacted on where you placed armies and the terrain you fought on but still the basic underlying mechanics of the game have remained unchanged since the first game EDIT: what I mean by this is that when I played Shogun it was the best thing since sliced bread. I rushed out and bought medieval when it cam out, I cooed for a bit then realised it felt exactly the same as Shogun. I rushed out and bought Rome when it came out. I cooed for a bit then realised it felt the same as Shogun and Medieval.

Evolution, not revolution perhaps but the Total War series is stagnating as far as I'm concerned.

BlitzKrieg

but the Total War series is stagnating as far as I'm concerned.

cant say i agree with that at all.

i always had great difficulty in completing a campaign in Shogun for the very reasons you just said. After the 30th battle over the same provence i just gave up over boredom.


But both MEdieval and Rome have made huge strides in expanding and diversifying the campaign. Encouraging people to play through the entire cmapaign and rewarding them with unexpected events and death or victory choices.

Yes MEdieval didnt bring a new experiance but what it did add changed the tactics of alot of players, maybe not all of them in the battle maps but defitnally in the campaigns, yes Sand may hate them but Princesses and Crusades and Jihad, and the two distinct playing styles of the muslims and christians allowed for replayability and for 2 different approaches to the overall strategy.

Rome on the other hand made huge strides, first of all the controls were revamped, while at first i didnt like em, i have grown to love them. secondly and more important, the new campaign map, is not a minor update. Its a complete overhaul of the game's mechanics, the entire game style changed because you now could move troops very precisley, it effected every aspect of the game greatly, allowing for ambushes, bottlenecks and pincer attacks.

Yes the same basic mechanics are there, but the same basic mechanics exist in every series of games. Every Command and Conquer, Every MEtal GEar Solid and Splinter Cell, Every Sonic and Mario, they all have a basic rule set up which is the basis as to how the game works, change that and there's a big risk that the game might loose its spark. for example Command and Conquer Generals, tried to change the resource gathering and base building mechanics of the C+C series and it got a heavy slap from fans and critics alike for it, and one of the main criticisms was that it didnt feel like C+C but like a poor warcraft or starcraft clone.

Pugsley

Canis Lupus wrote:

Evolution, not revolution perhaps but the Total War series is stagnating as far as I'm concerned.

You seem to be forgetting Cavelry archers, skirmishers, chariots, elephants, the difference between 3 rank and 5 rank phalanx's, and how they compare to short spear men, swords men are both sword and shield and 2 handed (havent played Vanilla R:TW in so long, was 2H swords/axe men in it? play Rome:Total Realism and Europa Barbarorum these days, both mod's), axe/sword/spear based cavelry all have diffrent use's aswell. Its not a literal rock paper scissors where theres 3 weapon types to choose from, it started out with not much over 3 Ill admit, but in M:TW, and more so in R:TW theres so many diffrent unit type's it cant really be played with set in stone tactics you describe, especially if you try out RTR or Europa Barbarorum, which are both total overhauls of the game and add even more units and strategy's.

Oh yes and all that Blitzkrieg said too on the new campaign map

Canis Lupus

Maybe I just don't get involved enough. Playing Shogun was: cover the high ground with archers and just throw everyone into a fight, I rarely lost. Key idea is to prevent a flank.

Medieval was the same as above.

Rome is barely different.

YES I get lots of nice little units but why bother with cavalry archers or skirmishers or chariots or elephants when I don't need to use them to win. Just have some cavalry to run round the back and as much in the way of hastati (or equiv) you can get your hands on as cannon fodder for the front. Archers are purely optional.

So, I end up playing the game, doing the battles, getting bored of the battles repeating themselves and turning into a war of numbers as the AI attacks the same province over and over and over, I start letting the computer guess the outcome of battles to just uninstalling the game.

My point is yes I can use ambushes and bottlenecks and fancy pincer movements, I can even arrange my army to spell my own name should I feel the need to but why bother, you still win if you use the most basic of tactics.

EDIT: I'm only talking about the standard unmodded game here.

BlitzKrieg

So, I end up playing the game, doing the battles, getting bored of the battles repeating themselves and turning into a war of numbers as the AI attacks the same province over and over and over, I start letting the computer guess the outcome of battles to just uninstalling the game.

and thats why both medieval and Rome brought so many changes to the campaign section of the game, they made the above situation less and less common, yes Medieval did not get rid of it entiraly, but it was nowhere near as bad as Shogun (If i remember correctly you can hit that rut by your 5th turn in shogun.) And Rome has almost gotten rid of it completely because of the freedom your troops are given. (you still get some situations of constant sieges, but they are nowhere near as infuriating as an entire continent being denied to you because some warlord dumped 800 troops in one provance you need to cross.).

My point is yes I can use ambushes and bottlenecks and fancy pincer movements, I can even arrange my army to spell my own name should I feel the need to but why bother, you still win if you use the most basic of tactics.

There's a difference between just winning and having an absolute victory and a great time.

Canis Lupus

BlitzKrieg wrote:

There's a difference between just winning and having an absolute victory and a great time.

Agree but the game doesn't force you to think specially when it comes to the battle AI. Have you ever tried being on defend. Line your men out in formation and wait for the enemy to advance (this works best with no enemy archers) and just wait. The enemy will come against you close enough to wave a sword under your nose and often won't engage but will keep readjusting his men. Often, it will turn an enemy unit so it's flank is completely exposed. It's a farce. The AI will only use the basic rules I gave in my above post, it never uses anything you could remotely call flair and I'm never surprised by it.

I have never played the game against a person however and seriously need to get around to it to see if humans present more of a challenge.

Sand

I kinda agree with Canis - The series needs a good kick up the arse, which is half the reason Im not all that pleased with the retreat to nostalgia in MTW2. The problem with the battle AI is becoming a real, real issue. AI troops are often exhausted even before you engage them because they are racing back and forth altering their lines or running at you before turning around and running back.

Its blatantly obvious the AI has no idea how to employ a hoplite army for example - I beat a more numberous, entirely hoplite/armoured hoplite army with a smaller carthage force of low tech round shield, iberian infantry and baleric slingers on flat terrain. If they simply kept a line and advanced, game over. But it was easy to pull them out of position, and then surround, stone and slaughter them one by one. The AI never recognised that its formation was weaker when pulled out of line, or that it was bad to expose its flanks chasing a faster target. While RTW is denounced for this sort of bad AI, I remember my favourite use of MTW light cav being to "hook" the best enemy infantry unit and get them to chase the cav around the map whilst I killed the rest of the army.

Half the problem with the AI is that it builds bad, scattered armies, or starts wars its not ready to fight thanks to the lousy strategic map AI. If the enemy has a balanced force of solid infantry, upgraded archers, and strong cavalry and all you have is light infantry & peasants all the AI in the world isnt going to help. Again, I remember the all peasant stacks from MTW fondly.

I like the series but they do need to work on presenting a real challenge. Even a rethink on mechanics like army recruitment if it helps the AI out. A player can min-max and leverage advantage far better than an AI ever can, so maybe recognise historical reality and present players with the army that is available to them as generals, rather than the army theyve fine tuned themselves. At a time of war, vassals/citizen soldiers/whatever appear to be recruited like mercenaries but for "free". They vanish afterwards. So if the player invades the Gauls, the Gauls can be provided with a prepackaged balanced army to compete on a more even footing, without "cheating". They did something vaguely similar with Crusades/Jihads in MTW.

Now, even if you give both sides equivalent access to armies, you still have to teach the AI how to use them properly and how to recognise and deal with common problems - but that can only be solved with decent coding.

Pugsley

Sand wrote:

If the enemy has a balanced force of solid infantry, upgraded archers, and strong cavalry and all you have is light infantry & peasants all the AI in the world isnt going to help.

Disagree, in vanilla RTW I was fighting with 160 militia hoplites, sieging a city containing the entire egyptian army (give or take, had a full army anyway). When the enemy tried to break the siege by attacking, my 160 militia hoplites had racked up over 1500 kills by the time the time ran out, and they just sat there for the 7 turns needed to siege the city, and by the time I had the town 2600 odd egyptians had died to my 40 deaths, have screenies of it too, their somewhat funny. Also managed to beat 635 gauls with 280 greek's I only lost 6 men and he lost every single soldier.

The problem with the AI in a game like the TW series is its not as simple as a C&C or WC3 AI, in them its just a rough build order, spam military and then just charge with everything without much thought put into it, it would be nigh on impossable to program an AI to do all the things needed for a TW game, holding phalanx's lines, covering flanks, protecting archers, etc etc, even on hardest AI the battle's are too easy, if they dont out number you at least 4-1 they dont usually get anything done, and when they can lose with a relative strenght of 27-1, somethings wrong.

Some MOD's do touch up the AI though, the AI in Europa Barbarorum seems to be pretty decent, maybe Im not used to the new armies (playing as Casse [start in south england], never used a barbarian army for a campaign), but they can hold their own anyway.

madrab

well for me i am never that good at military sstrategy so the ai in this game wasnt too easy for me, but then again sending an army of incendiary pigs & attack dogs against heavy cavillery seemed like the correct move at the time



OT
fav rtw pic ever



ill get my coat

Zillah

Hahaha...

Lesbian Rebels(Heavy Cavalry).

Sand

Disagree, in vanilla RTW I was fighting with 160 militia hoplites, sieging a city containing the entire egyptian army (give or take, had a full army anyway). When the enemy tried to break the siege by attacking, my 160 militia hoplites had racked up over 1500 kills by the time the time ran out, and they just sat there for the 7 turns needed to siege the city, and by the time I had the town 2600 odd egyptians had died to my 40 deaths, have screenies of it too, their somewhat funny. Also managed to beat 635 gauls with 280 greek's I only lost 6 men and he lost every single soldier.

I meant it the other way round - If the AI has a bad army, and they usually do, fighting a teched up elite army is always going to be uphill no matter how good it is. That its possible to beat the AI when grossly outmanned and outgunned is a demonstration of bad it is.

The problem with the AI in a game like the TW series is its not as simple as a C&C or WC3 AI, in them its just a rough build order, spam military and then just charge with everything without much thought put into it, it would be nigh on impossable to program an AI to do all the things needed for a TW game, holding phalanx's lines, covering flanks, protecting archers, etc etc, even on hardest AI the battle's are too easy, if they dont out number you at least 4-1 they dont usually get anything done, and when they can lose with a relative strenght of 27-1, somethings wrong.

I disagree, I think its very possible to program a decent AI that isnt a collection of scripts and build orders, but can actually detect, evaluate and counter player moves. I was reading the designers journal on Galciv 2 where he went through a sample game playtesting and debugging/tweaking the AI to the point where it will be able to actually recognise conditions and react to them rather than just be based on build orders. Given the standard set by Galciv 1 I believe him.

In terms of battles in TW - It cant be impossible to get the AI to put up a decent fight and use its army properly. Theres no excuse for something as simple as "Keep hoplites in order, dont break formation until contact, use reserve to plug gaps, protect flanks, running aimlessly around the place is silly"