Medieval 2: Total War

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2006/...tal_War/1.html

[bllt2bnry]

A really enjoyable read.

I'll see if I enjoy Rome Total War before I consider getting this as I have only just got that.

[Houck]

Great Review. I need to go and Buy more RAM

[specofdust]

Good review.

Two things in reverse order though.

How long will people keep coming back? Indefinately. I won't buy a new one every 6 months, they shouldn't do an EA on this series, but they could easily release one every 2-4 years and I'd probably get them just for the updated graphics and depth.

Where can they go now? China! I know many uninformed people will just think it'd be exactly like shogun, but the two nations are highly different, and the combat would be too. It would be easy enough to use regional units, it's a large country and could include conquest of other parts of Asia, it's pretty much the only option I can think of that they havn't already covered yet.

[LEAX]

hmm i wonder how it would look like with DX 10

[topher]

I just got my new 8800 gtx any idea's when the new dx 10 is out. MED total war would look awesome in DX 10

[mclean007]

Originally Posted by topher

I just got my new 8800 gtx any idea's when the new dx 10 is out. MED total war would look awesome in DX 10

DX10 will ship with Vista, so end of January. You'll need Vista to get it (no XP version will be launched).

If a game isn't coded for DX10, it isn't going to look any better with DX10 installed, so Medieval 2 Total War will look the same with DX9.0c as it will with DX10, unless the engine is patched to DX10 (unlikely). To see the real benefits, you'll need to wait for DX10 games such as Crysis to hit the market.

[specofdust]

'tis amazing the confusion that exists over DX10, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but when we're talking about spending £400-500 on something, I kinda am.

[Garside]

Little update, at an event I attended last night a few journalists were chatting about the Total War games. Rumour has it (and this is rumour mind) that the next game will feature Napoleonic Wars. I think it's most probably just speculation but it would make sense - introduction of naval battles anyone?

So there's your gaming gossip for the day

[specofdust]

I guess that'll be just do-able. I doubt they'll be able to cover a huge ammount of time, but maybe I'll be proven wrong. Given the increasing supremecy of guns over the period from the napoleonics to the 1st world war though, things could get a little boring unless they do it very well. I guess their only other options are a China one or a full on Greece one, but that's been partially done and about 50% of greeces history would have to be unplayable(given that the greeks fought without any actual unit tactics for a long time).

[impar]

Greetings!

Two things that should have been mentioned:

You start by selecting a nation, one of England, France, Venice, Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire.

You can easily play all the 17 factions editing the descr_strat.txt file located in ...\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign
Just cut&paste the unlockable factions to the playable factions section in that same .txt.
Make a backup of the original file, just in case.

Another annoyance is the default 2D map movement settings. First off you need to change the options in the menu so that you don't watch all the other country's movements – this ends up taking 5 minutes every turn and is a complete waste of time.

Dont do that!
You leave the option of seeing the AI movements but, while in the Campaign map, press the space bar.
All movements are now sped up and an AI turn takes 10-20 seconds.

Also, after starting a game you can edit out the ugly selected units green markers in the medieval2.preferences.cfg, using Notepad.
Just make: disable_arrow_markers = 1

Enjoy!

[Garside]

Thanks for the tips. I still stand by turning off the AI movements. I used to press space bar and it was still pretty slow, especially when you have a presence across large portions of Europe!

[specofdust]

I gotta agree, I turn AI movements off. For people who are very serious about playing the game though leaving it on is probably a better idea.

Much more vitally imo, is the toggle fog of war cheat. To access it, just bring down the console(@) and type "toggle_fow". I don't know about the rest of you but the idea that I'm running a massive empire of hundreds of thousands of people but can't tell who controls paris when I'm in london strikes me as ridiculous. It's a cheat I don't use all the time, sometimes it's nice to use spies and stuff, but sometimes you just feel how stupid it is that you have zero knowledge without having about 50 spies covering the map.

[Garside]

I find it easy to just ignore what the other countries are doing. Essentially the only really important countries are the ones surrounding you or the ones your looking to take over. I didn't find the AI was clever enough to perform a long distance assault, it is always too busy dealing with the battles going on at the time.

[Hovis]

I think you were a bit mean about princesses. Apart from marrying them off (which fair dos, even I've never managed to do) they do work as Emissaries too (although without the bribe ability) so they are not completely useless. Also foreign princesses make excellent target practice for low level assassins.

[specofdust]

Originally Posted by Garside

I find it easy to just ignore what the other countries are doing. Essentially the only really important countries are the ones surrounding you or the ones your looking to take over. I didn't find the AI was clever enough to perform a long distance assault, it is always too busy dealing with the battles going on at the time.

I'd agree there, but for long term planning advance knowledge is neccesary. I was playing as the scots in one of my early campaigns, and after wiping out the English(ho-hum) I was preparing to move over to France. I broke off diplomatic relations with them, start assasinating them - all the usual jazz. I move an army in, take two settlements in and then I disocovered something, Milan controlled about half of central europe and was very very deadly. When you've got armies of thousands of men it just seems silly that you can walk into an empire that you didn't know existed.

[Cheap Mod Wannabe]

Having played the game for a week now I would not have rated this game so high. The actual battles are just amazing, however the game is a bit buggy and crashes often enough for this to be a problem. My biggest problem with the game is the Campaign mode where there are too many missions thrown at you and some have weird flaws. I chose England (OH YEAH!!), and the mission gave me 5 turns to get to Egypt for a Crusade (which is impossible). And I think there is a way to get more countries to join the Crusade and thus extend the time limit, but its not clear how to achieve that.
I think the Campaign mode could've been more developed.

[Hovis]

Originally Posted by specofdust

I'd agree there, but for long term planning advance knowledge is neccesary. I was playing as the scots in one of my early campaigns, and after wiping out the English(ho-hum) I was preparing to move over to France. I broke off diplomatic relations with them, start assasinating them - all the usual jazz. I move an army in, take two settlements in and then I disocovered something, Milan controlled about half of central europe and was very very deadly. When you've got armies of thousands of men it just seems silly that you can walk into an empire that you didn't know existed.

The thing is if you look how the computer plays it there are agents all over the place keeping an eye on you (one of the main reasons I have my assassins work overtime), the computer will have priests, spys, emissaries, princesses and merchants all over the place nosing around. If you've got the time and the energy (which granted you don't really need in the easier difficulty settings) then you can get a great understanding of what's what by using this yourself. I find merchants best for this as they make more money the further away from your cities they are and they gain experience just from doing their job, which in itself is neither dangerous nor an act of war. To use a merchant you just get him to stand on one of those trade resource things that appear on the map, he then sends you the money home from it. I send these little blokes off all over the world, as once they are in place they will live a full and happy life usually, and I know what's what and I make fat piles of gold into the bargain. Happy days.

Other than this I try to get map information from friendly nations as much as possible. If they are willing to tell you what's what then that's often a big help, and if you get an update every few turns it helps build relations. If a nation that is usually friendly is being cagey about it's map information then this, in my experience, tends to mean they've got something to hide and that usually means they are being squeezed out and are on the brink of extinction.

[impar]

Greetings!

A Zero-day patch was scheduled but was postponed 2-3 weeks.
It addressed a lot of issues Creative Assembly only found after sending the game to the DVD burners.

[Veles]

Originally Posted by Cheap Mod Wannabe

however the game is a bit buggy and crashes often enough for this to be a problem. My biggest problem with the game is the Campaign mode where there are too many missions thrown at you and some have weird flaws. I chose England (OH YEAH!!), and the mission gave me 5 turns to get to Egypt for a Crusade (which is impossible). And I think there is a way to get more countries to join the Crusade and thus extend the time limit, but its not clear how to achieve that.
I think the Campaign mode could've been more developed.

Too many missions? Have you played Rome? The senate threw missions at you almost every turn, this one has hardly any. With the crusade, you actually have 5 turns to JOIN the crusade, not get down to the city and take it.

I also havn't seen a single bug in this game, CA are probably one of the best developers I've seen for lack of bugs in thier games.

I do think that if they try and release another game like previous Total Wars, I probably wont get it unless it's a pretty radical change in era.