Medieval II: Kingdoms

**Prince Toad** · 12-10-2007, 12:52 AM

The ass-kicking expansion to an already awesome game. Four new campaigns, including Britannia, the rise of the Teutonic Order, the Crusades, and the New World. (Granted, it's been out for a few months, but I just got it.)

So far I've only played the Britannia campaign. I'm doing Very Hard/Hard with Wales, which according to the manual, is one of the two harder factions (the other being Norway). England and Scotland are easy, and Ireland is medium. It's going pretty well so far. I've taken all but five or six of England's provinces in England itself. The Irish haven't been doing much, though, so I'll have to cross the Irish Sea and finish off the English in Ireland. Wales is sorta cool-- they only start with three provinces, and England is this huge looming juggernaut, so it's fun to fight through that. Their unit selection isn't very interesting, except they have kickass longbowmen, as could be expected... and all the names look crazy, cuz they're Welsh (Saethwyr, Meirionydd Spearmen, Rhyfelwyr, etc.).

I'll probably check out the New World once I've finished this, but that should be a while. The campaigns look like each one will last a while, though shorter than a normal game, but I can see myself playing them more than once with different factions.

Anyone else pick it up?

betasoldier · 12-10-2007, 08:03 PM

It looks like an awesome game. Especially since they added in the option for a multiplayer campaign finally! Even if it does have to be a hotseat game. However, sadly I do not even own MTWII, but it is something I will be getting for Christmas most likely, and if so I'll be buying the expansion immediately as well.

**Prince Toad** · 12-12-2007, 07:17 PM

Cool. Unfortunately, none of my friends owns the game (yet), so I haven't gotten a chance to try out the multiplayer campaign. (edit: Oh. You play on the same computer. Never mind.)

Wales is going well. I finished up England, although they went down fighting surprisingly hard. What's cool about that is that since the Baron's Alliance arises, taking a few of England's provinces, after you've conquered all of England initially, the Baron's Alliance actually takes over as the faction of England. The odd thing is that they retain all English military forces and diplomatic stances, so even though I'd been their allies forever, we were instantly at war when I defeated the "old order."

Luckily they weren't much of a problem. Actually, I killed their king(s? They had two for some reason, probably a bug with the "demise of the old order" thing) and their settlements went rebel. I captured both and have decided to bypass Scotland to attack Norway. The Scots, my longtime allies, have been fighting a losing war with the Norwegians, whom I've been neutral towards, so I negotiated a deal with Scotland for military access and updated maps (important so I know who owns which places) in exchange for a great deal of money and a promise to attack Norway. Now, strictly, I could have just betrayed my alliance and attacked Scotland, since they're closer and weaker, but I was feeling honorable.

As it turned out, Ireland was reconquering their isle while I wasn't looking. In fact, they managed to expel the English entirely. We've also been allies the whole game, and I've given them no reason to be worried, so they seem content to just sort of sit around building up their forces. That's good, though-- I think their military is stronger than mine, and I don't need a two-front war. Once I've dealt with Norway, I'll need to take Dublin as part of my victory conditions, but I'll try and make that one of my last actions. No need to fight an unnecessarily hard war. (I don't think I need anything in Scotland to win, so I'll let them be as long as they don't attack me.)

Good thing I finished off England when I did. My crappy spearmen were beginning to show their poor quality as the English started making better, more heavily armored units. No other faction has units that are quite as good, so I'm glad not to have to worry about them. (Plus Montgomery will be a huge city soon, so I'll be able to get Magnelwyr, the Welsh gunner unit. That'll be cool.)

Caveat: Siege battles are still horribly broken and retarded. That hasn't changed since Medieval II came out. (They worked so well in Rome, I don't know why CA decided to make them incredibly ****ty.)

betasoldier · 01-02-2008, 03:29 AM

Alright, got it and the expansion for my birthday. Freaking AWESOME. I love it. The graphics are amazing and the AI is better than it used to be. Still isn't great, but eh, I'll take small miracles. Haven't explored much into the new campaigns yet as I'm still working on the grand campaign. Although I have to admit, I will definitely still be going back to Rome Total Realism because even this can't quite match that.

**Prince Toad** · 01-02-2008, 07:57 PM

Well, I finished my Welsh campaign. I have to say, the whole culture system started to piss me off. It takes far too long to be able to retrain your armies once you take a city, which bothers me because I like to take more or less full-strength units around. Also, by the end, my units had really begun to flag in terms of quality relative to the Scottish and Norwegian units. Since so much of the fighting was done in cities, my lack of heavy infantry became a big issue.

Right, so, the Scots let me fight the Norwegians for a little while, but eventually turned on me. Before, I had a decent invasion plan to cope with the fact that I had to go around Scotland: I landed troops on the islands to the west of Britain, as well as in the northeastern corner at Wick (a barely garrisoned citadel) and one army that actually marched through Scotland. This worked out pretty well, as I was able to attack them from all sides. The Scottish betrayal was a bit of an annoyance, but nothing I couldn't handle. After all, I had about 20 provinces by then, so I just outproduced them, even though my armies kinda sucked.

By the end, I conquered all of the isle of Britain except for Aberdeen, Scotland's only remaining city. I also had most of the little surrounding islands. I ended up killing the entire Norwegian nobility and knocking them out, although I didn't have all their settlements. I had to take Dublin to win, since it's a requirement. Ireland had retaken their isle and seemed content to just sit there, loyal allies that they were. Odd thing about taking Dublin was, the Irish had had giant swarms of armies sitting in the countryside around the city practically the whole game... until I started transporting troops over. Then they kind of evacuated, and the fight to take the city proved pretty easy. I don't know why they did that.

Now I'm in the Americas. I tried being the Apachean Tribes, since they get horses and guns eventually, but they kind of sucked. The settlements around their initial province are really far apart, I didn't understand their system of buildings (something with tents... I dunno), and there wasn't much strategy involved in conquering all the little rebel settlements. I just kinda swarmed in. I would have dealt with it anyway, figuring that it would get cooler once I got horses and guns, but one of my three armies randomly deserted, and I didn't feel like dealing with that.

So I just went with New Spain. I have to say, I don't feel all that challenged, but it's still a lot of fun. There's a fair amount of strategy in conserving your tiny forces while still actually winning battles over and over. And you have to win plenty of battles... the Aztecs and Maya have huge armies, and lots of them. The cannons, guns, and horses make it possible, as do the huge treasury you start with and the native mercenaries you can hire as expendable infantry.

Spoiler Below

And things really start to get interesting once other Europeans enter the picture.

...anyway, I've always liked fighting continuous waves of huge armies. That's why the Alexander expansion to Rome was probably my favorite installment in the series. Being New Spain provides something of a similar experience, although I think Alexander involved a greater imbalance (and was therefore still better). Currently I've got 24 out of the 30 provinces necessary, and I've beaten the Aztecs back to only five cities. Bastards actually took Vera Cruz, and I got a promotion while they still had it, so it's worse than it would otherwise have been. Oh well.

12-10-2007, 12:52 AM	#1
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,428 Thanks: 43 Thanked 59 Times in 50 Posts Points: 46,013.55 Bank: 26,666.46 Total Points: 72,680.01 Donate	Medieval II: Kingdoms The ass-kicking expansion to an already awesome game. Four new campaigns, including Britannia, the rise of the Teutonic Order, the Crusades, and the New World. (Granted, it's been out for a few months, but I just got it.) So far I've only played the Britannia campaign. I'm doing Very Hard/Hard with Wales, which according to the manual, is one of the two harder factions (the other being Norway). England and Scotland are easy, and Ireland is medium. It's going pretty well so far. I've taken all but five or six of England's provinces in England itself. The Irish haven't been doing much, though, so I'll have to cross the Irish Sea and finish off the English in Ireland. Wales is sorta cool-- they only start with three provinces, and England is this huge looming juggernaut, so it's fun to fight through that. Their unit selection isn't very interesting, except they have kickass longbowmen, as could be expected... and all the names look crazy, cuz they're Welsh (Saethwyr, Meirionydd Spearmen, Rhyfelwyr, etc.). I'll probably check out the New World once I've finished this, but that should be a while. The campaigns look like each one will last a while, though shorter than a normal game, but I can see myself playing them more than once with different factions. Anyone else pick it up?

12-12-2007, 07:17 PM	#3
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,428 Thanks: 43 Thanked 59 Times in 50 Posts Points: 46,013.55 Bank: 26,666.46 Total Points: 72,680.01 Donate	Cool. Unfortunately, none of my friends owns the game (yet), so I haven't gotten a chance to try out the multiplayer campaign. (edit: Oh. You play on the same computer. Never mind.) Wales is going well. I finished up England, although they went down fighting surprisingly hard. What's cool about that is that since the Baron's Alliance arises, taking a few of England's provinces, after you've conquered all of England initially, the Baron's Alliance actually takes over as the faction of England. The odd thing is that they retain all English military forces and diplomatic stances, so even though I'd been their allies forever, we were instantly at war when I defeated the "old order." Luckily they weren't much of a problem. Actually, I killed their king(s? They had two for some reason, probably a bug with the "demise of the old order" thing) and their settlements went rebel. I captured both and have decided to bypass Scotland to attack Norway. The Scots, my longtime allies, have been fighting a losing war with the Norwegians, whom I've been neutral towards, so I negotiated a deal with Scotland for military access and updated maps (important so I know who owns which places) in exchange for a great deal of money and a promise to attack Norway. Now, strictly, I could have just betrayed my alliance and attacked Scotland, since they're closer and weaker, but I was feeling honorable. As it turned out, Ireland was reconquering their isle while I wasn't looking. In fact, they managed to expel the English entirely. We've also been allies the whole game, and I've given them no reason to be worried, so they seem content to just sort of sit around building up their forces. That's good, though-- I think their military is stronger than mine, and I don't need a two-front war. Once I've dealt with Norway, I'll need to take Dublin as part of my victory conditions, but I'll try and make that one of my last actions. No need to fight an unnecessarily hard war. (I don't think I need anything in Scotland to win, so I'll let them be as long as they don't attack me.) Good thing I finished off England when I did. My crappy spearmen were beginning to show their poor quality as the English started making better, more heavily armored units. No other faction has units that are quite as good, so I'm glad not to have to worry about them. (Plus Montgomery will be a huge city soon, so I'll be able to get Magnelwyr, the Welsh gunner unit. That'll be cool.) Caveat: Siege battles are still horribly broken and retarded. That hasn't changed since Medieval II came out. (They worked so well in Rome, I don't know why CA decided to make them incredibly ***ty.) Last edited by Prince Toad; 12-17-2007 at 08:29 PM.*

12-10-2007, 08:03 PM	#2
betasoldier Junior Member Join Date: May 2007 Gender: Posts: 106 Thanks: 10 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Points: 3,003.66 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 3,003.66 Donate	It looks like an awesome game. Especially since they added in the option for a multiplayer campaign finally! Even if it does have to be a hotseat game. However, sadly I do not even own MTWII, but it is something I will be getting for Christmas most likely, and if so I'll be buying the expansion immediately as well.

01-02-2008, 03:29 AM	#4
betasoldier Junior Member Join Date: May 2007 Gender: Posts: 106 Thanks: 10 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Points: 3,003.66 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 3,003.66 Donate	Alright, got it and the expansion for my birthday. Freaking AWESOME. I love it. The graphics are amazing and the AI is better than it used to be. Still isn't great, but eh, I'll take small miracles. Haven't explored much into the new campaigns yet as I'm still working on the grand campaign. Although I have to admit, I will definitely still be going back to Rome Total Realism because even this can't quite match that.

01-02-2008, 07:57 PM	#5
Prince Toad PC Mod Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,428 Thanks: 43 Thanked 59 Times in 50 Posts Points: 46,013.55 Bank: 26,666.46 Total Points: 72,680.01 Donate	Well, I finished my Welsh campaign. I have to say, the whole culture system started to piss me off. It takes far too long to be able to retrain your armies once you take a city, which bothers me because I like to take more or less full-strength units around. Also, by the end, my units had really begun to flag in terms of quality relative to the Scottish and Norwegian units. Since so much of the fighting was done in cities, my lack of heavy infantry became a big issue. Right, so, the Scots let me fight the Norwegians for a little while, but eventually turned on me. Before, I had a decent invasion plan to cope with the fact that I had to go around Scotland: I landed troops on the islands to the west of Britain, as well as in the northeastern corner at Wick (a barely garrisoned citadel) and one army that actually marched through Scotland. This worked out pretty well, as I was able to attack them from all sides. The Scottish betrayal was a bit of an annoyance, but nothing I couldn't handle. After all, I had about 20 provinces by then, so I just outproduced them, even though my armies kinda sucked. By the end, I conquered all of the isle of Britain except for Aberdeen, Scotland's only remaining city. I also had most of the little surrounding islands. I ended up killing the entire Norwegian nobility and knocking them out, although I didn't have all their settlements. I had to take Dublin to win, since it's a requirement. Ireland had retaken their isle and seemed content to just sit there, loyal allies that they were. Odd thing about taking Dublin was, the Irish had had giant swarms of armies sitting in the countryside around the city practically the whole game... until I started transporting troops over. Then they kind of evacuated, and the fight to take the city proved pretty easy. I don't know why they did that. Now I'm in the Americas. I tried being the Apachean Tribes, since they get horses and guns eventually, but they kind of sucked. The settlements around their initial province are really far apart, I didn't understand their system of buildings (something with tents... I dunno), and there wasn't much strategy involved in conquering all the little rebel settlements. I just kinda swarmed in. I would have dealt with it anyway, figuring that it would get cooler once I got horses and guns, but one of my three armies randomly deserted, and I didn't feel like dealing with that. So I just went with New Spain. I have to say, I don't feel all that challenged, but it's still a lot of fun. There's a fair amount of strategy in conserving your tiny forces while still actually winning battles over and over. And you have to win plenty of battles... the Aztecs and Maya have huge armies, and lots of them. The cannons, guns, and horses make it possible, as do the huge treasury you start with and the native mercenaries you can hire as expendable infantry. Spoiler Below And things really start to get interesting once other Europeans enter the picture. ...anyway, I've always liked fighting continuous waves of huge armies. That's why the Alexander expansion to Rome was probably my favorite installment in the series. Being New Spain provides something of a similar experience, although I think Alexander involved a greater imbalance (and was therefore still better). Currently I've got 24 out of the 30 provinces necessary, and I've beaten the Aztecs back to only five cities. Bastards actually took Vera Cruz, and I got a promotion while they still had it, so it's worse than it would otherwise have been. Oh well.