[Mentalist]

heh

in my abortive playthrough of Medieval II (it ended when my external hard drive crashed) once had to storm a city in a very short amount of time, before the reinforcing army that was already on the map could get to it
I was English, fighting a much larger force of the Danes. I stormed a side wall with towers to gain control of a gate, and then ended up shooting up the entire relief force from the wals.
it was simply glorious.

[CortillionsLeftSlipper]

I feel slightly gutted if I'm honest. I never played the series until I got Empire :TW. I purchased Medievil and Rome but just couldn't get into them due to the older lay out. Which one in your opinions is the best to crack on with?

[General King]

The layout is pretty similar in all the games just Empire is looking smarter that it.

But Rome and medieval 2 have the better battles, just feel better than the battles in Empire, don't get me wrong the battles in empire are fantastic, but they don't have the same energy.

Medieval 2 is a mix of rome heavy melee combined with the basics of gunpowder. Also the army size is the same.

But Rome you end up with these amazing battles that remind you of the opening scene in gladiator. Especially with the mods that updates the graphics and the AI. Play the Darth Mod for Rome, it own campaign for the Roman republic, first battle I lost. Quite a shock let me tell you and I was playing on medium. Darth Mod for Empire is brilliant.

Medieval 2 is brilliant with the long road mod. Scottish armies are more realistic which makes playing as them a challenge against late game armies.

There are lord of the rings mods for rome and medieval, there both realism mods for both games, which add more factions, more diverse units. There loads of fantasy mods for both games, from warhammer to warcraft.

I like medieval as there nice things they had, like blood spray which was just awesome. But for the big battles rome all the way.

[Gothos]

I think there's even a rather neat Westeros mod for Medieval II, right? Or was it for Kingdoms?

[CortillionsLeftSlipper]

Thank you for the replies. I'll have to give them another go. Not to sure if I can get the modded versions as I have these all on steam. I like to think of myself as Tech Savvy but when it comes to this I'm as ignorant as... as ....a goat?*


* Lack of witty comment.

[General King]

Westeros is for kingdoms if I'm correct one of the reasons to get kingdoms. (it a alpha)

About the Lotr mods.

The Lord of The rings mod for rome uses the alexander expansion pack, simply it is awesome as the ring does have to be destroyed. It the only way to destroy Mordor for sure.

The third age uses medieval 2 less factions i believe, but graphically better looking.

This post has been edited by General King: 30 May 2010 - 02:37 PM

[Mentalist]

I'm playing Kingdoms right now, unmodded. playing Britannia for the Welsh, because I love the longbow.

Medieveal 2 is awesome, though the heavy cavalry is too overpowering. the battles are fairly tactical, as long as you can place a heavy cavalry charge well, you can win even when outnumbered.

had a battle yesterday against 2 english armies that outnumbered me about 650 to 350. had to break the 2 armies separately, fought off the 450-storng one first, then the second one showed up and flanked me. I lost all catapults, all infantry, 3/4 of my bowmen, but in the end the leftovers of 4 units of heavy cavalry (about 50 units strong altogether) sucessively broke and ran down 2 bunches of spearmen and a mailed knights unit.

greatest part: the second army was a garrison of a castle I was besegieng (Gloucester), so after the battle I got to take the city without a fight, too.

[Gothos]

I find myself autocalcing land battles more and more in Empire. It just somehow isn't nearly as appealing as it was in Medieval and Rome.
Anyway, a plan backfired. France declared war on me for some reason, so I felt obliged to go and take Paris, which fell to an assault on Turn 2 of the war. I couldn't be bothered with trying to hold it with like -19 happiness on the population, so I gave it to one of the few factions (others being Maratha, Mughals and Ottomans) that like me - Great Britain. They, however, couldn't hold it and lost it to Spain after several turns. So now I've got Spain at my doorstep again, just as I was moving towards a combined attack on their trade fleets and their holdings in America... Their galleons are, btw, ridiculously strong for trade ships - their current galleons are about as strong as a Third Rate ship of the line, which is quite annoying. I'm pumping all my cash into Second Rates in Flandres, Trinidad and Leeward Islands, while building up more colonial line infantry from Curacao, Trinidad and Leewards as well. Got to make the big push - it's 1735 already and I'm still missing 5 regions to the short campaign victory conditions, including New York, Carnatica and New Andalusia... Damn, time's getting short.
Also, WTH do you have to do to exchange fucking regions in this game? Great Britain wouldn't even hear about exchanging New York for motherfucking France, with Paris raking in a 10k a turn income. Nothing I do seems to sway Marathas to give away Carnatica either. Do I have to just conquer everything? Shit!

Also, a bug? A tonne of countries have a large minus in relations with me due to "dishonoring treaties"... wth? I never left an ally without help when they went to war. Or is that because I backstabbed Austria?

[beru]

proably austria thing...

also region exstange rates are redicukus

[Tapper]

Gothos, on 31 May 2010 - 08:47 AM, said:

I find myself autocalcing land battles more and more in Empire. It just somehow isn't nearly as appealing as it was in Medieval and Rome.
Anyway, a plan backfired. France declared war on me for some reason, so I felt obliged to go and take Paris, which fell to an assault on Turn 2 of the war. I couldn't be bothered with trying to hold it with like -19 happiness on the population, so I gave it to one of the few factions (others being Maratha, Mughals and Ottomans) that like me - Great Britain. They, however, couldn't hold it and lost it to Spain after several turns. So now I've got Spain at my doorstep again, just as I was moving towards a combined attack on their trade fleets and their holdings in America... Their galleons are, btw, ridiculously strong for trade ships - their current galleons are about as strong as a Third Rate ship of the line, which is quite annoying. I'm pumping all my cash into Second Rates in Flandres, Trinidad and Leeward Islands, while building up more colonial line infantry from Curacao, Trinidad and Leewards as well. Got to make the big push - it's 1735 already and I'm still missing 5 regions to the short campaign victory conditions, including New York, Carnatica and New Andalusia... Damn, time's getting short.
Also, WTH do you have to do to exchange fucking regions in this game? Great Britain wouldn't even hear about exchanging New York for motherfucking France, with Paris raking in a 10k a turn income. Nothing I do seems to sway Marathas to give away Carnatica either. Do I have to just conquer everything? Shit!

Also, a bug? A tonne of countries have a large minus in relations with me due to "dishonoring treaties"... wth? I never left an ally without help when they went to war. Or is that because I backstabbed Austria?

Doesn't NY count as a home region or something for GB? If so, they may not be willing to swap no matter what you offer.

[Cause]

Diplomacy is a joke in empire. 9 out of ten nations are programmed to hate expansionist empires. So almost everyone ends up hating you no matter what you do. I realize its not a diplomatic game at heart and I dont want it to be but they really need to fix the way diplomacy plays out.

Also remember getting annoyed that I think France once kept offering me money for some of my territories. It was a bad deal, a very bad deal. Yet by keeping on refusing it set them against me. How the computer can ask you to trade away your colonies for almost no cash and than think your unreasonable is beyond me.

[General King]

Lord of the rings mod is one of the few times I went with archer heavy armies (as the elves)

[Tapper]

General King, on 31 May 2010 - 06:22 PM, said:

Lord of the rings mod is one of the few times I went with archer heavy armies (as the elves)

oh man, they rock versus the AI. The one thing you do have to time is the staying power, so mix crossbowmen with you archers. A rain of death is guaranteed and the casualty rate is massively in your favor.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Gothos, on 31 May 2010 - 08:47 AM, said:

I find myself autocalcing land battles more and more in Empire. It just somehow isn't nearly as appealing as it was in Medieval and Rome.
Anyway, a plan backfired. France declared war on me for some reason, so I felt obliged to go and take Paris, which fell to an assault on Turn 2 of the war. I couldn't be bothered with trying to hold it with like -19 happiness on the population, so I gave it to one of the few factions (others being Maratha, Mughals and Ottomans) that like me - Great Britain. They, however, couldn't hold it and lost it to Spain after several turns. So now I've got Spain at my doorstep again, just as I was moving towards a combined attack on their trade fleets and their holdings in America... Their galleons are, btw, ridiculously strong for trade ships - their current galleons are about as strong as a Third Rate ship of the line, which is quite annoying. I'm pumping all my cash into Second Rates in Flandres, Trinidad and Leeward Islands, while building up more colonial line infantry from Curacao, Trinidad and Leewards as well. Got to make the big push - it's 1735 already and I'm still missing 5 regions to the short campaign victory conditions, including New York, Carnatica and New Andalusia... Damn, time's getting short.
Also, WTH do you have to do to exchange fucking regions in this game? Great Britain wouldn't even hear about exchanging New York for motherfucking France, with Paris raking in a 10k a turn income. Nothing I do seems to sway Marathas to give away Carnatica either. Do I have to just conquer everything? Shit!

Also, a bug? A tonne of countries have a large minus in relations with me due to "dishonoring treaties"... wth? I never left an ally without help when they went to war. Or is that because I backstabbed Austria?

When you try to hold an enemy capital territory, they've got massive unhappiness problems. You'll have to put down 2 or 3 rebellions until they calm down. That'll be 2 or 3 years. Worst I ever had it was as Austria, I finally took Istanbul, and the lower classes were at negative 32 happiness. I had to put down 7 rebellions.

Also, Galleons are the only way that Spain survives navally.

Also, nations' unwillingness to trade territory is proportional to how much money they've invested in the region's economy. That's why you can get very early game trades, or new conquests (rarely), but usually nothing they've held for any non-trivial amount of time.

Dishonoring treaties you get for backstabbing, with the diplomacy penalty proportional to how long you had the agreement. One game, as Sweden, I backstabbed the Ottomans in about 1775 (having had an alliance the WHOLE game), and the diplomacy penalty was -200 for some people.

This post has been edited by Adjutant Stormy: 01 June 2010 - 01:23 AM

[Fist Gamet]

Love the TW series right up until Empire, which just bugged the living crap out of me. The AI was a pain in the arse, the battles far less exciting than previous games, the fleet engagements dull and the diplomacy was a joke. I find I drift back to the odd venture in Rome with the Total Realism Mod, which is great fun, and still the best Did try one Mod that had awesome Carthaginian units as well as classic Spartan Hoplites but I can't bloody remember what it was called. Kept crashing in after a while anyway.
I always thought that a Fantasy TW was the next obvious choice, or a remake of Shogun.

[Gothos]

Sweden got beaten by Prussia in Hanover and now Prussia is at my doorstep. I'll mark that I've been at war with Prussia for half the game for no apparent reason. And they've got armies.
I'm really considering discontinuing this game. Without rational diplomacy, this is pointless. You'll end up as one vs the world, and that's that.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

In lieu of the failures in diplomacy, you have to play one of two ways: Be strong enough to fight all of your neighbors at once, or ensure that you negotiate good alliances.

[General King]

crossbows as elves, are you mad, good old bows all the way.

[caladanbrood]

Gothos, on 01 June 2010 - 06:43 AM, said:

Sweden got beaten by Prussia in Hanover and now Prussia is at my doorstep. I'll mark that I've been at war with Prussia for half the game for no apparent reason. And they've got armies.
I'm really considering discontinuing this game. Without rational diplomacy, this is pointless. You'll end up as one vs the world, and that's that.

Eventually, yeah. But if you're horrendously expansionist, as intended, isn't that a fairly realistic response from everyone else? The diplomacy has a few stupid bits, and the deals are a bit one-sided often, but the whole thing actually seemed a bit better to me than some previous games.

[Gothos]

If everyone fucking hates the expansionist, why make it impossible to achieve victory conditions in any other way?
Not to mention that CPU players are bloodthirsty warmongers themselves and can't sit tight for 5 turns without declaring war or someone. Yet they don't seem to hate each other for their own expansionism.
The weak diplomacy really makes half the game redundant - governments, building, upgrading, choosing your conquests - all of that isn't worth shit because at the end of the day you're better off just taking everyone in the field. You've just secured peace on your eastern border to focus more on the western front? BAM here come Ridiculous Demand, BAM here comes a new war.
Your "allies" never help you. The only way to make them fight in your joint wars is if their territories are between the enemy and you.
Kick an enemy's ass to bail out another faction from trouble and certain defeat? Nope, they still hate your guts and ally with their almost-conquerer to wage war on you instead.
Want to coordinate attack plans and long-term strategy with a steadfast ally? Wrong game, pal. Want to call for aid, well, call all you want.
Are your ports being blockaded by some lame-ass band of brigs and sloops? Nope, that full stack fleet of your buddies won't help.

Seriously. AI HUNDREDS OF TIMES BETTER has been implemented in games for YEARS, often games from some small, little-known developer. CA is just sitting on their past success with a fat ass and a cigar in their mouth and cashing the cash cow with minimum effort.
Fuck you, Creative Assembly.