Medieval II: Total War

**Prince Toad** · 11-28-2006, 09:18 PM

Creative Assembly has released the newest in their critically acclaimed Total War series of historical strategy/tactical games. I loved the previous installment, Rome: Total War, and the expansions were also excellent. I'm finding Medieval II to be every bit as fun and addictive as the previous game.

Now, there are a few negatives. It doesn't run so well when there's a ton of people on screen, but there's a lot of graphical tweaking possible, so it's not such an issue. Diplomacy is a little bothersome (why won't Hungary make peace with me? Why won't Byzantium acknowledge that I've all but annihilated them?) but it's a nice improvement over Rome, which had a really terrible system. There are a few issues with units being complete idiots, such as the members of my ballista crew which chose to stand right in front of their engine as it was being fired. I lost about four guys this way before I caught them and fixed the problem (they didn't like standing in an open gateway-- easily enough remedied). I also wish my generals were a little tougher, but I can deal with that by keeping them more or less out of danger.

But, as in Rome, the positives far outweigh the negatives. Battles look beautiful and units look cool. The event movies are a nice little touch, although you see most of them pretty quickly. The music and sound are high quality-- I believe there are even unique speeches against each faction for every "voice" in the game. (My Venetian generals have been heard, in their Italian accents, specifically insulting Hungarians, Milanese, and Sicilians, so I can safely assume that everyone has a similar thing-- very impressive.) Most importantly, Total War games just have the most fun tactical battles I've ever played. I want to lead my troops, fight after fight, whether in little skirmishes or epic clashes. The new fortifications are awesome, and so is knocking them down. Nothing like wrecking a massive castle wall with a pair of trebuchets... well, except maybe doing it with cannons, but I haven't progressed that far as yet.

All in all, I highly recommend it if you have a decent computer to run it on. Does anyone else have it?

Ahem. Spoke too soon. I was in the middle of a battle, and for absolutely no reason it began to run like s***. There is no explanation, nor excuse, for this. What the f***.

Lurch1982 · 12-01-2006, 01:23 AM

Because the game is massive. The graphic card requirements are bloated, and honestly I'd say that you'd logistically need a minimum of a gig of ram to run that thing smoothly.

PlotTwistMastermindFore · 12-01-2006, 05:15 PM

Heh, if my machine wasn't so useless, I'd pick it up, because I loced the original Medieval. (Marching on the pope is still a running joke between me and several friends.) Yet, I recently had to take Heroes of Might and Magic Five back because my damn computer couldn't handle it. Therefore, I'm pretty much stuck until I can afford to upgrade. Oh well, glad to see it's a worthy follow-up.

**Prince Toad** · 12-02-2006, 06:43 PM

^^Actually it's just a bug, which they will theoretically fix with the patch because a lot of people have complained about it on their forums, which the devs read regularly. Like I said, everything else runs smoothly. I have 512 MB and it's fine.

Lurch1982 · 12-09-2006, 11:58 PM

Look man, I'm just saying that in my lengthy experience in PC gaming, you want to generally double the minimum RAM requirements to be safe, modern games especially. Medieval II gets really hectic when you get tons of people on the screen, and I'm sure it does the same thing WoW would do on my old computer when I was in Ironforge during peak hours (bog down, lag, framerates dropping to single digits, etc). RAM's by far the cheapest upgrade you can do on a machine, and it can bring it the best returns.

**Prince Toad** · 12-10-2006, 07:53 PM

Yeah, I might try and get some for the holidays. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Even if there's a couple thousand soldiers in the battle, I don't have to pay close attention to everything that's going on. If I've set everything in motion and want to watch the combat up close, I can usually find an angle where only about 100-200 of them are actually on the screen, which lets it run at top speed, even if there's tons of other crap going on. If I do need a view of the whole thing, I can generally just pause it. I'm not sure how it'd work with multiplayer, but it has never run all that poorly, even with tons of people on the screen.

There are a bunch of other bugs, but most of them are just the computer being stupid. I don't think it's ever crashed, for instance. I do wish they'd fix cavalry's charging and running down routing units, though. But they claim there'll be a patch very soon, so that's good.

apascalon · 01-10-2007, 11:47 PM

Hi Everyone,

Would you know why it takes 2yrs for every turn you make on MTW2 ?

I mean, each time you make a turn it is already equal to two years, and your characters' age does not increment by one. Sounds stupid, right? Or is there a fix for this one ..

Thanks a lot ..

**Prince Toad** · 01-11-2007, 07:53 PM

Pretty simple. They wanted the game to run from 1080 to 1530, but also wanted to keep game length to a reasonable number of turns; otherwise it would be too easy. I guess they decided that 225 was about the right number of turns. As for why characters still age six months at a time, I suppose they decided that characters would be dying off too fast if they aged two years at a time, so they kept the old system. It was a bit jarring to me at first too, but I got used to it and now I think it was a good decision. It'd be annoying if all my best generals, assassins, etc. were dropping like flies. They'd only have a quarter of the lifespan they have now, after all.

There might be some sort of mod that changes the aging system, but I don't know. Check the TotalWar.com website.

In other news, this game still rules. They've released a patch, which helps with that particular problem I mentioned before, and I'm still playing it. I beat a Normal/Normal game as Venice and a Hard/Normal game as Russia, and am now faring decently in a Very Hard/Hard game as Scotland.

Bartman101 · 01-12-2007, 04:17 PM

Awesome, I can run this.

**Prince Toad** · 01-13-2007, 12:03 AM

...what?

**Prince Toad** · 05-05-2007, 12:04 PM

Patch 1.2 out... finally. 650 MB or so, but it fixes a ton of stuff and includes a new Cinematic Editor. Woot.

betasoldier · 05-06-2007, 02:20 PM

So is this worth picking up PT? This is d or General_D if you remember me. Still playing RTW right now.

**Prince Toad** · 05-06-2007, 05:06 PM

Yeah, it's worth getting. It's better than Rome. However, it has its flaws. For instance, occasionally I'll order a missile unit with skirmish mode on to run away from an advancing infantry unit, which they should be doing anyway. However, neither my move order nor the skirmish mode seems to affect them, and they stand there and get slaughtered. I think skirmish mode might actually confuse them-- I'll see if they do any better with it off. Pathfinding in general is... in need of improvement, and the patch doesn't seem to have helped much.

But there's significant upgrades too. Gunpowder makes everything more fun. It's a lot more fair now-- in Rome, your only serious competitors were usually Egypt, the Seleucids, and the Roman factions, but pretty much anyone can become powerful in Medieval. Diplomacy is actually a viable option... not too viable (especially if you've been at war with the Papal States for 200 years), but you can certainly build alliances to guard your borders when you're too weak to cover yourself at the beginning of the game. Apparently with the patch, the computer is better about honoring alliances... I'll believe that when I see it. However, it did seem to put at least some stock in them even before the patch, enough that they're useful.

I could go on about the specifics, but I'll just tell you this-- I bought the game six months ago and I'm still playing it. I'm finishing up my fourth campaign. (I take a long time on them.) I suppose that's as good a testament as any to the quality of the game.

Can't tell you much about multiplayer, whether it's well-balanced or runs well or anything, since I haven't played any. My connection is probably too crappy, though I haven't tried.

betasoldier · 05-06-2007, 06:10 PM

In that case, I'll probably pick it up, soon or in a month, depending on how much money I have left after prom.

**Prince Toad** · 05-06-2007, 09:28 PM

Oh. Apparently the f***ing patch makes the game randomly f***ing crash when you're going through your Construction Report. Goddammit. If they're going to release the stupid thing a month late, they might as well not have it make the game crash. Idiots.

...not that it happened more than once. But it happened once and that's too many times. Argh.

betasoldier · 05-06-2007, 09:46 PM

After I get it I'll wait before I download the latest patch then. Alright, 15 posts.

11-28-2006, 09:18 PM	#1
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,412 Thanks: 43 Thanked 56 Times in 47 Posts Points: 43,981.10 Bank: 20,209.85 Total Points: 64,190.95 Donate	Medieval II: Total War Creative Assembly has released the newest in their critically acclaimed Total War series of historical strategy/tactical games. I loved the previous installment, Rome: Total War, and the expansions were also excellent. I'm finding Medieval II to be every bit as fun and addictive as the previous game. Now, there are a few negatives. It doesn't run so well when there's a ton of people on screen, but there's a lot of graphical tweaking possible, so it's not such an issue. Diplomacy is a little bothersome (why won't Hungary make peace with me? Why won't Byzantium acknowledge that I've all but annihilated them?) but it's a nice improvement over Rome, which had a really terrible system. There are a few issues with units being complete idiots, such as the members of my ballista crew which chose to stand right in front of their engine as it was being fired. I lost about four guys this way before I caught them and fixed the problem (they didn't like standing in an open gateway-- easily enough remedied). I also wish my generals were a little tougher, but I can deal with that by keeping them more or less out of danger. But, as in Rome, the positives far outweigh the negatives. Battles look beautiful and units look cool. The event movies are a nice little touch, although you see most of them pretty quickly. The music and sound are high quality-- I believe there are even unique speeches against each faction for every "voice" in the game. (My Venetian generals have been heard, in their Italian accents, specifically insulting Hungarians, Milanese, and Sicilians, so I can safely assume that everyone has a similar thing-- very impressive.) Most importantly, Total War games just have the most fun tactical battles I've ever played. I want to lead my troops, fight after fight, whether in little skirmishes or epic clashes. The new fortifications are awesome, and so is knocking them down. Nothing like wrecking a massive castle wall with a pair of trebuchets... well, except maybe doing it with cannons, but I haven't progressed that far as yet. All in all, I highly recommend it if you have a decent computer to run it on. Does anyone else have it? Ahem. Spoke too soon. I was in the middle of a battle, and for absolutely no reason it began to run like s*. There is no explanation, nor excuse, for this. What the f. Last edited by Prince Toad; 11-28-2006 at 10:16 PM.*

01-10-2007, 11:47 PM	#7
apascalon Newbie Join Date: Jan 2007 Gender: Posts: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Points: 280.82 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 280.82 Donate	Medieval II Total War --- turning issue Hi Everyone, Would you know why it takes 2yrs for every turn you make on MTW2 ? I mean, each time you make a turn it is already equal to two years, and your characters' age does not increment by one. Sounds stupid, right? Or is there a fix for this one .. Thanks a lot ..

12-01-2006, 01:23 AM	#2
Lurch1982 Senior Member Join Date: May 2000 Location: Katrinaland, USA Gender: Posts: 9,142 Thanks: 119 Thanked 199 Times in 123 Posts Points: 26,713.35 Bank: 153,405.36 Total Points: 180,118.71 Donate	Because the game is massive. The graphic card requirements are bloated, and honestly I'd say that you'd logistically need a minimum of a gig of ram to run that thing smoothly.

12-01-2006, 05:15 PM	#3
PlotTwistMastermindFore Gunjinkeeper Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Behind a Drum Set Gender: Posts: 5,619 Thanks: 639 Thanked 361 Times in 280 Posts Blog Entries: 2 Points: 5,169.89 Bank: 32,735.23 Total Points: 37,905.12 Donate	Heh, if my machine wasn't so useless, I'd pick it up, because I loced the original Medieval. (Marching on the pope is still a running joke between me and several friends.) Yet, I recently had to take Heroes of Might and Magic Five back because my damn computer couldn't handle it. Therefore, I'm pretty much stuck until I can afford to upgrade. Oh well, glad to see it's a worthy follow-up.

12-02-2006, 06:43 PM	#4
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,412 Thanks: 43 Thanked 56 Times in 47 Posts Points: 43,981.10 Bank: 20,209.85 Total Points: 64,190.95 Donate	^^Actually it's just a bug, which they will theoretically fix with the patch because a lot of people have complained about it on their forums, which the devs read regularly. Like I said, everything else runs smoothly. I have 512 MB and it's fine.

12-09-2006, 11:58 PM	#5
Lurch1982 Senior Member Join Date: May 2000 Location: Katrinaland, USA Gender: Posts: 9,142 Thanks: 119 Thanked 199 Times in 123 Posts Points: 26,713.35 Bank: 153,405.36 Total Points: 180,118.71 Donate	Look man, I'm just saying that in my lengthy experience in PC gaming, you want to generally double the minimum RAM requirements to be safe, modern games especially. Medieval II gets really hectic when you get tons of people on the screen, and I'm sure it does the same thing WoW would do on my old computer when I was in Ironforge during peak hours (bog down, lag, framerates dropping to single digits, etc). RAM's by far the cheapest upgrade you can do on a machine, and it can bring it the best returns.

12-10-2006, 07:53 PM	#6
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,412 Thanks: 43 Thanked 56 Times in 47 Posts Points: 43,981.10 Bank: 20,209.85 Total Points: 64,190.95 Donate	Yeah, I might try and get some for the holidays. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Even if there's a couple thousand soldiers in the battle, I don't have to pay close attention to everything that's going on. If I've set everything in motion and want to watch the combat up close, I can usually find an angle where only about 100-200 of them are actually on the screen, which lets it run at top speed, even if there's tons of other crap going on. If I do need a view of the whole thing, I can generally just pause it. I'm not sure how it'd work with multiplayer, but it has never run all that poorly, even with tons of people on the screen. There are a bunch of other bugs, but most of them are just the computer being stupid. I don't think it's ever crashed, for instance. I do wish they'd fix cavalry's charging and running down routing units, though. But they claim there'll be a patch very soon, so that's good.

01-11-2007, 07:53 PM	#8
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,412 Thanks: 43 Thanked 56 Times in 47 Posts Points: 43,981.10 Bank: 20,209.85 Total Points: 64,190.95 Donate	Pretty simple. They wanted the game to run from 1080 to 1530, but also wanted to keep game length to a reasonable number of turns; otherwise it would be too easy. I guess they decided that 225 was about the right number of turns. As for why characters still age six months at a time, I suppose they decided that characters would be dying off too fast if they aged two years at a time, so they kept the old system. It was a bit jarring to me at first too, but I got used to it and now I think it was a good decision. It'd be annoying if all my best generals, assassins, etc. were dropping like flies. They'd only have a quarter of the lifespan they have now, after all. There might be some sort of mod that changes the aging system, but I don't know. Check the TotalWar.com website. In other news, this game still rules. They've released a patch, which helps with that particular problem I mentioned before, and I'm still playing it. I beat a Normal/Normal game as Venice and a Hard/Normal game as Russia, and am now faring decently in a Very Hard/Hard game as Scotland.

01-12-2007, 04:17 PM	#9
Bartman101 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: I'm Bartman, ya fool Gender: Posts: 5,805 Thanks: 385 Thanked 124 Times in 100 Posts Blog Entries: 1 Points: 3,228.77 Bank: 52,588.51 Total Points: 55,817.28 Donate	Awesome, I can run this.

01-13-2007, 12:03 AM	#10
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,412 Thanks: 43 Thanked 56 Times in 47 Posts Points: 43,981.10 Bank: 20,209.85 Total Points: 64,190.95 Donate	...what?

05-05-2007, 12:04 PM	#11
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,412 Thanks: 43 Thanked 56 Times in 47 Posts Points: 43,981.10 Bank: 20,209.85 Total Points: 64,190.95 Donate	Patch 1.2 out... finally. 650 MB or so, but it fixes a ton of stuff and includes a new Cinematic Editor. Woot.

05-06-2007, 02:20 PM	#12
betasoldier Junior Member Join Date: May 2007 Gender: Posts: 106 Thanks: 10 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Points: 2,902.66 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 2,902.66 Donate	So is this worth picking up PT? This is d or General_D if you remember me. Still playing RTW right now.

05-06-2007, 05:06 PM	#13
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,412 Thanks: 43 Thanked 56 Times in 47 Posts Points: 43,981.10 Bank: 20,209.85 Total Points: 64,190.95 Donate	Yeah, it's worth getting. It's better than Rome. However, it has its flaws. For instance, occasionally I'll order a missile unit with skirmish mode on to run away from an advancing infantry unit, which they should be doing anyway. However, neither my move order nor the skirmish mode seems to affect them, and they stand there and get slaughtered. I think skirmish mode might actually confuse them-- I'll see if they do any better with it off. Pathfinding in general is... in need of improvement, and the patch doesn't seem to have helped much. But there's significant upgrades too. Gunpowder makes everything more fun. It's a lot more fair now-- in Rome, your only serious competitors were usually Egypt, the Seleucids, and the Roman factions, but pretty much anyone can become powerful in Medieval. Diplomacy is actually a viable option... not too viable (especially if you've been at war with the Papal States for 200 years), but you can certainly build alliances to guard your borders when you're too weak to cover yourself at the beginning of the game. Apparently with the patch, the computer is better about honoring alliances... I'll believe that when I see it. However, it did seem to put at least some stock in them even before the patch, enough that they're useful. I could go on about the specifics, but I'll just tell you this-- I bought the game six months ago and I'm still playing it. I'm finishing up my fourth campaign. (I take a long time on them.) I suppose that's as good a testament as any to the quality of the game. Can't tell you much about multiplayer, whether it's well-balanced or runs well or anything, since I haven't played any. My connection is probably too crappy, though I haven't tried.

05-06-2007, 06:10 PM	#14
betasoldier Junior Member Join Date: May 2007 Gender: Posts: 106 Thanks: 10 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Points: 2,902.66 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 2,902.66 Donate	In that case, I'll probably pick it up, soon or in a month, depending on how much money I have left after prom.

05-06-2007, 09:28 PM	#15
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,412 Thanks: 43 Thanked 56 Times in 47 Posts Points: 43,981.10 Bank: 20,209.85 Total Points: 64,190.95 Donate	Oh. Apparently the f*ing patch makes the game randomly f*ing crash when you're going through your Construction Report. Goddammit. If they're going to release the stupid thing a month late, they might as well not have it make the game crash. Idiots. ...not that it happened more than once. But it happened once and that's too many times. Argh.

05-06-2007, 09:46 PM	#16
betasoldier Junior Member Join Date: May 2007 Gender: Posts: 106 Thanks: 10 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Points: 2,902.66 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 2,902.66 Donate	After I get it I'll wait before I download the latest patch then. Alright, 15 posts.