Da, comunitatea de modderi din M2TW e foarte numeroasă, de multe ori făcând treaba pe care cei de la CA trebuiau s-o facă în privința anumitor aspecte ale jocului.
Iar existența unor mod-uri foarte ofertante a făcut ca Medieval II să fie unul dintre cele mai jucate și comentate jocuri din seria Total War chiar și-n ziua de azi, la decenii distanță de la lansare.
Personal, n-am încercat încă niciun mod dar întotdeauna am fost tentat de faimosul Stainless Steel precum și de Tsardoms, creația unei echipe în care erau parcă și ceva români, o minunăție vizuală la care sper să fi rezolvat toate problemele din trecut ce duceau la ‘crășuirea’ jocului.
În altă ordine de idei, în continuarea istorisirilor mele am să copy+paste-uiesc pe-aci cele mai relevante postări despre gameplay-ul din vanilla pe care le-am făcut de-a lungul timpului pe forumul ’principal’ al Medievalului, Total War Center. Nu le mai traduc pentru că mi-ar lua foarte mult timp, în plus nu cred că-i cazul, sunt convins că cei interesați de M II TW înțeleg limba engleză cel puțin la același nivel ca mine (care-am învățat-o singur, din filme și muzică, n-am făcut nici măcar o oră la școală).
Și-am să încep cu...
Guidelines for new and inexperienced players (but not only)
I decided to open this topic hoping that it will help new (or inexperienced) players, because I remember how hard this game can be when you’re trying it for the very first time and have no experience with other games from the Total War series.
I’ll try to be as short as possible, don’t want this post to be a tl;dr wall of text, but I have the strange impression it will end up quite massive because there are so many things to say, so your patience will be tested here.
If you want to master the game, you must understand it first.
When you’re starting your first campaign, your main goal should be rather to observe than to win.
Pay attention not only to game mechanics but also to AI behavior (which is overcheating anyway. Well, except that, notice its moves and its preferences).
From my point of view, there are certain guidelines that I recommend someone to follow in every single game on Vanilla:
FRIEND OR FOE
Don’t ask any advice during the campaign on the strategical map.
That female advisor knows nothing.
She’ll tell you to build the wrong buildings and recruit the wrong units all the time.
Just forget about her.
On the other hand, the military advisor can inform you about some interesting things during the battles. Pay attention to what he says but proceed as you think it’s best for you.
Sometimes I really ask myself if the Council of Nobles isn’t infested with enemy spies, so troublemaking are some missions they give me. Treat it with extreme caution, a bad mission failed doesn’t mean a loss, on the contrary.
USEFUL AND USELESS BUILDINGS
I made
a topic with that name some while ago, I do recommend you to read it because it’s very important to know what to build and especially what not to build during the campaign.
And in what order, what you should build first and what can wait for later.
Also, if you want a certain Guild in a certain settlement, create all the specific agents only in that town (for example, you want the Theologians Guild in Milan? Recruit a priest/imam every single turn from that place) until the Guild offers its services. Plus constantly upgrade that particular building-chain, as it'll create more skilled agents (for example, from a Cathedral you can create bishops, which are better than priests. Same with their muslim counterparts).
Oh, and a crucial lesson I learned from the all-time greatest TBS game (Heroes of Might and Magic III): always be building. Every single turn.
Make sure you have the necessary funds to do it.
MANIPULATE THE DIPLOMACY
The diplomacy is crucial in this game, without a high reputation this game can quickly become a tragedy for the human player.
Unfortunately, the diplomacy is the weakest link of M2TW and a source of infinite frustrations for everybody, due to the fact that sometimes has nothing to do with any common sense or human-logic at all, so you better manipulate it in your advantage.
Although I didn’t believe it in the past, now I think it’s very important to ally as many factions as you can (at least 5). Ofc, avoid antagonistic alliances (like Venice and the Byzantines or England and France) and be prepared for some allies to declare war to each other (mostly only to sink your rep, they’ll cease fire quickly after).
I try to aim for 8 alliances in my short campaigns and at least 5 on my long campaigns but inevitably lose a couple along the way (especially in short campaigns).
The factions that are good allies according to my game-experience are the following: the Papal States (truth bein' told, this alliance is rather a necessity than a good alliance. You simply need to be allied with the Papal States, even if you’re a muslim faction. Especially if you’re a muslim faction, actually), Hungary (even if you’re Poland on long campaign, there can be peace and harmony between your factions), Denmark (even if you’re the Holy Roman Empire - long campaign, ofc. In the short campaign you must eliminate them), Spain/Portugal (there is a possibility for them to attack each other and you'll be forced to choose which alliance to keep. If you're lucky they might not, everything will run smooth - especially on short campaigns - and you won't be losing reputation for being forced to break an alliance) and the Turks.
Potential good allies could also be Venice (although they could start some trouble with Hungary or - later on - Papal States) and Russia (although a conflict with Denmark might occur).
The grey zone is formed by England, Scotland, France and Poland.
You could ally with one (or more) of them, short or medium term depending by the situation, under certain circumstances.
For example, it's hard to believe that you can be long-term ally with Hungary, Poland, Russia and Denmark at the same time and none of them to ever attack another.
However, there can be situations (like in one of my experiments with The Holy Roman Empire long campaign on Very Hard/Very Hard) in which after some fighting (Denmark with Poland, HRE with Poland, Denmark with Russia) things will settle down for a period of time (Poland bein’ vassal of HRE and Russia to Denmark, so HRE re-allied with all 4 of them). Longer or shorter, it remains to be seen.
Ofc, it all depends by what faction you’re playing with and the victory conditions.
I also think it’s important to know what factions you better avoid allying with. Imo those are Egypt (NEVER ally with Egypt. Ever. They always make the mistake of conquering Jerusalem and Antioch and the Pope wants to Crusade the living Jesus out of them! So Egypt will fight most of your allies all the time), Milan, Sicily, Moors, the Byzantines, HRE, the Mongols (actually, you can ally with the Mongols if you have Immaculate reputation, but they’ll betray you – if you’re in their path. The good news is you can “cash-milk” them, so you can use their treacherous behavior to fill your coffers), the Timurids (same as Mongols). Regarding Aztecs, if you're playin' long enough for them to appear, just do what the spanish did in real history. No offense, it's just business.
Another thing that’s worth to be mentioned here, you get better deals by negotiating with captains than with generals/family members or towns/castles.
PINCH THEIR CHUNK
In the beginning of the game when you start makin’ the usual diplomatic agreements (map info exchange, trade etc.) try to also ask very small sums of money (like 10 or 15 or even 20 florins), especially from factions that you know you won’t ally with them.
For example, if the Map Information exchange is regarded balanced, try to also ask 10 florins from them for that deal.
You might think it’s insignificant, well, theoretically it is but practically it could help quite a lot in the early stages of the game when finances are so tight.
There’s nothing more frustrating than missing just 3 florins when you want to start building something crucial right away (and that happened to me more than you’d think).
PUT THE SEAT BELT ON
Save the game a lot during the campaign; at the beginning of each turn, after reading all the messages (but before agreeing on marriage proposals or deciding to accept the Guild offers or picking between those allies that went to war only to ruin your reputation), save.
Have 4 or 5 saves for the current campaign and if it’s necessary, use all of them in one turn;
Before you move anything on the map,
think. And after you took a good decision,
save.
When in doubt, save as version 2 (or 3 or 4 or 5); always need a solid go-back point and that should be save no. 1, the one from the beginning of the current turn, which should be left untouched until next turn;
Before using important spies and assassins in missions, save; after they succeed, save; before an important battle - save; after a major success - save; before tryin' a merchant-acquisition, save; after... yeah, you guessed it right.
It’s not Total War, it’s Total Save Game.
Last save of the turn should be after you’ve done everything except retraining; there is a bug in the game that takes your money but doesn’t retrain your troops if you save
after retraining, so always do it
before.
Save -> retrain -> end turn.
LOVE AND MARRIAGE GO TOGETHER LIKE A HORSE AND CARRIAGE
Don’t rush to marry your princess, especially the one you got in the beginning of the game; it’s better to use her in diplomacy and even to forge an alliance through marriage. Those kind of alliances tend to be a little more stable than the regular ones.
Same with your heir, better save him for an exotic foreign princess.
IF YOU WANT BLOOD, YOU GOT IT
It’s a good idea to let allies room to expand, don’t be too greedy in your land grabbing, otherwise you risk bein’ attacked by those you considered your best friends.
Be aware that there are certain “trap-provinces” you better stay away from, except the situations you really want to go to war with the factions that want those lands as well (just some examples – Ajaccio, Cagliari, Tunis, Antwerp, Bruges, Dijon, Durazzo and Kiev. Or, if you’re muslim, Jerusalem and Antioch).
A faction can attack you regardless of your common religion, high reputation, alliance or relations-level, if you possess a territory that they want. And AI factions’ victory conditions are different than the ones set in the campaigns for the human player, they are oriented towards conquering certain provinces and hating certain factions. So, no matter what you do, if you get in their way you’ll be hated.
DON’T STEP ON THE BUG
A famous bug that makes occupying a settlement hurt your reputation more than if you sacked it.
This guy
here provided a solution to that, and I also gotta add what Vampiresbane says
here, in Chapter 10
Actual Point Values for Reputation and Relations under the Reputation spoiler ”you don't need to unpack M2TW to make this file work-just place it in the folder specified”.
But honestly speakin', occupyin' is counterproductive, you're much better with sackin' anyway.
KEEP THE FAITH
If you’re catholic, make sure the Pope is your friend, otherwise you’ll be in big trouble.
Create lots of priests and send them in territories with different faith than yours (but not on your allies’ lands, it can be considered a hostile act) so that they’ll raise piety faster and become cardinals; denouncing heretics and witches also can raise piety. Once a priest reaches 5 piety, it becomes eligible for the College of Cardinals. It's crucial to have as many guys in there as possible.
On a papal election, try to anticipate who has the best chances to win and vote for that particular preferati, but keep in mind that your goal is to put the pointy hat on one of your cardinals; if it gets to one of your allies it’s just as good (actually most of the times it's even better, if you have Perfect relations with that long-term ally).
Build churches, if the Pope demands that from you.
Join the Crusades when His Holiness calls them (but it's much better if you are the one that requests them, according to your strategic interests) and try to conquer the targets if they're at hand, this will give you great benefits; but God forbid to use the Crusade as an excuse to conquer Constantinople, it’ll end up extremely bad for you.
You can also manipulate the Pope (if your relations-level is high enough) by persuading him to call a Crusade against your excommunicated catholic enemy.
In case that you have a low-piety general and see an Inquisitor lurking around in that area, attach a priest to that general. The priest will be the one burned and the general will escape... for the time being.
If you’re muslim, you should also try to raise the piety of your imams; an imam with at least 4 piety can request a Jihad. Jihads (just like Crusades) can be used to add more movement to your armies, but make sure you move those armies to Jihad/Crusade target every turn, or else your men will start deserting.
If you’re orthodox, just keep the faith, there’s nothing else you can do.
Joking aside, Crusades and Jihads can be powerful tools that you should use as weapons, always in your advantage and against your enemies.
REBELS WITHOUT A CLUE
The rebels can be a curse but also a blessing. They negatively affect your province income and cause unrest, but on the other hand they also are great practice-targets to level up your spies, assassins and Dread generals. Plus, as well an income source almost every turn by selling your allies attacks against rebels. Use them wisely and if you can, try to push them just a little bit over the border, but not too far away from your towns producing spying/killing agents.
And if you can push them to a mountain pass, bridge or other narrow strategic point, they will „guard” that area for you. Well, that until they decide to move to another place so you better keep an eye on them. I also noticed that they seem very attracted by watchtowers, blocking the revealed area those towers provide.
You can spot the rebels location by that grey devastation area that they create around them over time.
Be careful though not to let your own men become rebels; if your faction leader has low authority (0 to 3 or 4) don’t send armies without a general in the open; Hell, don’t even send low loyalty (0-3) generals out of the settlements, there is a chance they’ll become deserters.
EQUILIBRIUM
In the beginning of the game don’t conquer too much too fast (if you’re a new player you probably need more time to learn how to blitz, anyway); other factions don’t see that with good eyes and you’ll be considered an aggressor-nation; even laying siege will have the same effect, just like you already took the settlement you’re sieging; as for starting a war with another nation, if it's no emergency it's better to wait until you have a positive reputation and some good allies;
Be very careful to keep the balance between your income and your army upkeep; don’t create more army than your economy can support, otherwise you’ll go into debt; Militia units, besides havin' decent fighting-skills, also have free upkeep as long as they’re garrisoned in towns that can produce them; keep that in mind and act accordingly; Mercenaries on the other hand are good soldiers with high upkeep so they should always be fighting - their place is on the front line, all the time;
Cities produce more income than castles; in order to have a balanced economy, you need to aim for a (at least) 3 to 1 towns/castles-ratio; once you have a certain number of provinces (like 10+), transform the unnecessary castles into towns.
TO TAX OR NOT TO TAX
That is the question. And the answer is – it depends by the situation but on the long term is better to keep your taxes at low in the beginning of your campaign.
The lower the tax-level is, the faster your population grows. More people = more money. And the towns grow too which brings more money also by allowing you to construct sooner those useful economical buildings.
So, what you lose on short term by lowering the taxes, you gain on long term. And gain even more.
After your towns get to 24.000 people, enough to reach the Huge City level, you can set them to high or very high, depending on the public order.
But there are certain situations when you desperately need cash and you need it right then and there. In those occasions you can temporary raise the tax level, just be careful not to provoke riots in towns.
And remember to bring them down again, once your emergency passed.
THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A CAT
You can win a short campaign by eliminating certain factions and controlling a specified number of provinces.
First thing that comes to one’s mind when it comes to eliminate a faction is to take by force all their settlements; well, there are also other ways around that.
Some factions have the tendency to sell some provinces in exchange of a kinda limited amount of florins; better take advantage of this situation and buy as much land from them as you can; in several turns (like 5 or so) you can gain back the money you paid from those provinces’ income only. It’s a very good deal.
You should also seriously consider eliminating a faction by assassinating all their family members; or kill all of them on the battlefield.
KNIGHTS AND MERCHANTS
Merchants are pretty important in this game, they’re definitely worth having and using.
Explore the map to see where are the resources they can gain more money from and park them there until they level up.
After they gain enough finances (like 5-7), take a couple of them and go merchant-hunting! Try to acquire every low lvl AI-merchant (doesn’t matter if ally or not, you won’t get punish for this) in sight. You can make serious money that way.
Money you can use for the upkeep of your knights. With a serious army of knights, a determined man with military skills can achieve great deeds, methinks.
But be careful not to leave your low lvl mercs undefended, the AI will often try to take you out of business as well.
Important note: the AI will try to acquire your merchants only when they are on a resource. To avoid that, move them off and when the danger had pass put them back on. Be careful thought, the AI may return.
DON’T FEAR THE REAPER
Don’t be afraid to go the Dread path, I personally rather have an enemy who fears me (and will be likely to rout in the battle) than having a moral boost for my army (which is given anyway by a high-star general).
Ofc, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to execute prisoners and exterminate settlements, overwhelming the enemy on the battlefield (by simply bringing a larger army than his) does the trick just fine.
You don’t have to seek that path, just go along it when you have the chance.
I also noticed that if you assassinate a lot, your Faction Leader will have not only more dread but also more authority, which is always a good thing.
STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP WILL BE SCATTERED
If you want to get rid of an enemy once and for all, don’t try to kill every single army that enemy has; it’s better to concentrate on his towns/castles.
Besides, the overcheating AI pulls armies out of thin air most of the time, but if you conquer all its settlements there’s nothing it can do.
Also, in battles try to kill the enemy general (or captain) first; it'll be much easier to make the rest of them rout afterwards.
SAY HELLO TO MY LIL’ FRIENDS
You probably noticed that unfortunately in this game allies are almost useless, didn’t you?
Well, the key word is
almost.
While they don’t help you with anything (plus they sometimes betray you for no reason and without warning) you can still persuade them to give you a nice amount of florins. Ofc, in exchange of attacking rebels (most profitable deals) or other factions.
Gotta add that you can sell those attacks only to factions with whom you have at least Amiable relations, and doesn’t matter if they’re your allies or just neutrals.
Actually, in M2TW allies are not real allies, they’re truly just neutral factions good for nothing except cash-milking (plus raising your reputation) and that's exactly what you should use them for, remorseless.
I SPY (and occasionally assassinate, but hey, who are you to judge, „One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, right?
)
Spies have their importance to the game, it’s always a good idea to see every single thing that’s movin’ within your kingdom, in all your neighbors' provinces and even beyond. Information is power, spotting in time an enemy army that approaches your borders can be a life-savior.
You need to be like Sauron, to see everything.
So, build some watchtowers and don’t neglect to place spies in strategical spots, revealing the map as much as possible.
Plus, you can assign some of them to counterintelligence, in order to protect your border-cities from enemy spies that cause unrest. If population happiness suddenly drops for no reason, there's only one logical explanation: a foreign spy is infiltrated there. So, send your own spy inside that city and wait for the secret agent to expose himself. He will, sooner or later.
Don’t forget about assassins either (that if you don’t insist on role-playing a chivalry ruler), it’s always useful to have a few max-skilled ones at hand. You never know who crosses your path at midnight on a dark alley.
During the game you can encounter a very annoying situation, you want a certain town but you can’t take it, either because it belongs to one of your allies or to a neutral faction that you simply don’t want to go to war with.
What can you do, what can you do...?!
Ofc, try to buy it, but if that fails there’s only one option left: „liberate” it from their current „oppressors”, so you can bring „democracy” there a little later.
Infiltrate shítloads of spies in that town/city. The more the merrier. Bring a horde of assassins along (plus a couple of priests) and sabotage every pop-happiness building from there. You can also try to kill generals/family members that are present, if the odds are favorable.
If you’re lucky that settlement will rebel, so keep an army nearby to start sieging it asap.
(Note that it’s not very effective for castles, they don’t rebel much)
If you’re not lucky, you’ll lose some assassins and that faction will even become upset with you and declare war, but there’s always the „erase and rewind” option. Simply reload the game and give it another try. If you don't succeed, do something different, save, reload and then try again.
AND WE ASK THE STRANGER NOT TO KILL US IN OUR BEDS TONIGHT FOR NO DAMN REASON AT ALL
If a faction declares war to you out of the blue (starts sieging or just blockades a port) and you think that a war would be unnecessary, don’t retaliate (especially if the attacking force is small, it’ll only decrease your relations with that faction, making negotiations harder); instead send a diplomat and see if they are willing to cease fire (that’s why it’s so important to have diplomats all over the map, so they can reach in a single turn every faction).
I noticed that most of the time the AI factions are just attention-whores and your Ceasefire offer is regarded more than generous; you can use that in your advantage to ask them to attack a faction or rebels (if you need to increase your reputation) or just ask some money (cash or regular tribute) or even land.
An obvious, common sense thing is never to attack an ally (no matter what stupid missions the Council of Nobles is giving you).
Let them have this "honor" of betraying (they love to do it anyway) and take a 2-3 levels reputation-hit.
If you want to get rid of an alliance (assuming that you simply need to conquer the lands your ally has and he refuses to sell them to you), it's best to put a diplomat to negotiate the end of it. Offer that faction a tribute (you'll automatically stop payin' it anyway when the war starts) plus attacks vs. rebels and one of their enemies and if they don't agree just make the declaration that you want to break the alliance, your reputation will suffer less (decreases just one level if you unilaterally break it).
DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP
And some dirty tricks you can use: reloading the game when something goes wrong (assassination fails, merchant acquisition fails, spying fails etc.), the Crusade/Jihad experience trick and the running trick.
As you know, after a successful Jihad/Crusade all the units that participate to it gain one chevron of experience, no matter if they actually contributed to that achievement or not. How can you take advantage of that and give most of your armies that bonus? Well, by planning things ahead. You need to take in consideration that after a successful (or failed) Crusade/Jihad it takes 10 turns 'till you can start another, so you have plenty of time to prepare. The basic strategy is that you'd want to conquer your target in just one turn. So, start producin' spies asap and keep sending them to infiltrate the settlement you want to acquire. Also, move your generals that you like to get more chivalrous near the armies you want to upgrade, so when the moment is right to be able to "load" them. The army that will give the decisive blow should take a position from where it could reach the target in one turn. Once you have enough spies infiltrated, declare the Jihad/Crusade and in the next turn join it with all the generals and armies you want, and then immediately take the settlement.
And now you'll be the happy owner of a more experienced army with more chivalrous generals.
The running trick works when you have battle-time limit on, the enemy attacks and you’re hugely outnumbered (meaning, „No way in Hell I’m gonna win this, not 1 vs. 40!”).
All you have to do is run your general (but also your entire small army if your units are fast enough) away from your enemy forces (run from one corner to the other on the battlemap, clockwise or counterclockwise), so he won’t get killed until the time expires. The battle will be considered a win for you (small victory) and the enemy army will retreat.
Ofc, this doesn’t mean I encourage you to avoid fights all the time. You definitely need to learn how to crush your opponent square and fair on the battlefield. But there are certain moments when the overcheating AI simply needs to taste its own medicine.
) și am observat cu surprindere că nu există un topic pe forum despre Medieval II Total War (da, știu că numele oficial e invers, da’ sună ca dracu’, e mai bine M2TW imo), am luat o anumită decizie ale cărei consecințe se vor vedea aci, pe parcursul anului.
), mai puțin cele legate de funcția respectivă. Și asta la vreo 6-7 ani de la lansarea Medievalului!