Polish Power Hour! NEW UPDATE: 1/14/2010 PAGE 22! NSF56K

Volucrisus Aedrius

Good evening ladies, gentlemen, and welcome to the lobby.

I am your host, Volucrisus Aedrius.

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Our intrepid Anjin-San has begun a playthrough as Spain, which will use the same thread. I will attempt to keep it updated for him.

Part 1: The Traveler Embarks
Part 2: My Boots of Tyranny Weren't Made in Asia, Miguel

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Are you familiar with Medieval II? No? Say no more. Click the spoiler under this text for a brief overview.

Spoiler:

Medieval II is split into two games. The turn based campaign map where you move your armies, plan your cities, assassinate papal envoys, marry your princesses, and engage in all manner of diplomacy.

When battle is joined, however, you lead in a real-time environment with hundreds and even thousands of soldiers on a single battlefield. Is it in-depth? You bet your tuckas.

Settlements come in two flavors: Castle and City. Cities are economic hubs, and are capable of garrisoning neat little militia troops for free. Cities have walls and towers and all that jazz, but they're big and hard to defend if your enemy chooses to strike from two opposite angles. Castles, on the other hand, are fucking rocks. They are smaller, are economically stable (no riots and shit) and instead of militiamen they can recruit the finest soldiers of your faction's repertoire.

In this game you cannot choose your settlement locations, but you can choose if they are castle or city (if you've got the cash to convert them, of course). Thats really all you need to understand to (hopefully) enjoy the rest of this playthough.

Tonight, and for probably a few more nights, I will be showcasing a playthrough of Medieval II: Total War, featuring the Retrofit Kingdoms mod. I'll be playing as everyone's favorite underdog - Poland! (Actually, at the Battle of Grunwald (aka Tannenberg) the hapless Polacks called their banners and kicked Teutonic ass in what was probably the second-largest battle of the Middle Ages.

But thats not really an issue because I intend to Ally with the Reich and stand back-to-back with them against the rest of the world. Convenient, no?

Here's our world map.

The off-white splattermark? Thats Poland at the start of our campaign. The bright green underneath us is Hungary, the dark blue far to our North is Russia. Those are our objectives - to wipe those people out, stamp them out completely.

Insert: The Campaign!



Krakow is our little capital city, with Halych being our nearby starter castle. Good King Wladyslaw (Vladislav) rules with a polite-but-iron fist. Lets call him Coleslaw because its fun to do so.


The next few turns were me consolidating territories, marrying my princess to the German prince (Holy Roman Empire) to reinforce our burgeoning alliance. Mostly boring shit (I forgot to take screenshots - sorry!)

Fast forward a few turns and we're making our move on Bohemia. King Coleslaw will lead the army - comprised of a few units of militia spearmen, some mounted crossbowmen "Shooters" (technically Strenychy or whatever the Godawful Polish name for them is) and a couple of catapults. Prague is a rebel province, so I can attack it without getting into a war, which is important in the early stage of the game.

Just so we're clear, my men are in the white and red livery with the gold-on-white eagle flags over their units. Also, the text at the top of each image is the corresponding commentary.

Episode 1: Battle: Assaulting the city of Prague

Spoiler:

The catapults begin the barrage of the enemy walls. Fuck yeah! Lucky shot!



After a few more shots the walls to the right of the gate come down.



My plan is to open a hole in the walls on either side of the gate to get my cavalry inside the walls as quickly as possible to overwhelm the defenders.

Fuck, somebody is shooting fire arrows at my catapults! Get out of range you fucknauts!



One of the crewmen got hit with a fire arrow. His charred corpse was left behind. His name was Steve. Poor Steve



The walls are breached! Send in the troops!



My cavalry are racing through the streets, firing crossbows at the Praguist defenders:



It is some fierce fighting in the streets. The rebels are holding onto every inch. I've sent King Coleslaw and his cavalry around the city to flank from another angle while the main body of my troops engage the defending spearmen from the rear:



King Coleslaw launches headlong at the enemy and manages to get caught in an alleyway while the rest of his men retreat to launch a second charge. He is stabbed to death by militia spearmen. My fucking king is dead. Goddamnit.



Despite losing their General and King our valiant Polish heroes keep at it. Vowing to avenge their fallen monarch they fall upon the enemy remnant and butcher every last one of the pricks.

Victory for Poland! Victory for Coleslaw! Victory for Social Entropy!

Episode 2: Campaign:

Spoiler:

With Prague now part of the glorious empire the throne in Krakow now controls six territories within the first two dozen turns. Not too shabby, eh?



Unfortunately our military isn't anything to be terribly proud of. Less than 1200 soldiers in the entirety of the kingdom - if you subtract about 150-200 troops to garrison each city that doesn't leave me much spare for campaigning purposes.



It seems the Knights Templar have decided they like our style - maybe they just think we look cool in our white and red uniforms - maybe they thought Coleslaw was such a cool dude they'd check it out. In any event Krakow is now host to a chapter house of the Knights Templar, a religious order of knighthood. We can now recruit some of the finest heavy cavalry of the game at our capital - woohoo!



Seriously these dudes are awesome:



Alright our next target is a place called Magdeburg, a castle on the border with the Holy Roman Empire (our allies). If you look back at the campaign map you'll notice that all our castles are facing toward the East with no fortresses to defend us to the West. The HRE may be our ally but Denmark isn't and the Danes are nothing if not an ambitious people. For our empire to be secure we must take Magdeburg!



Unfortunately as you can see in the above screenshot Magdeburg has a fairly hefty garrison force, and they are defending from a castle. In order to take the castle I'm going to need a sizable force of powerful infantry and some catapults or trebuchets. But as you can see our logistics situation has much improved over the past few turns:



Oh hey a mission from the Council of Nobles? What do these landed gentry want of a humble regent like myself? Oh they want me to take a rebel castle, and they're gonna pay me to do it! How great!

Except they chose the wrong fucking castle.



See the castle with the green outline? Thats Magdeburg. Thats the one I want to take because it is bigger, landlocked, and closer to Denmark. But no, the council wants me to take Stettin (outlined in white) because they're a bunch of inbred retards.



Finally two factions have declared war with each other! I was worried this campaign was going nowhere. Luckily we're not affiliated with any of these factions, but if you know your geography you know that the fighting isn't that far away from us:



I took Stettin with minimal effort and then marched the majority of that army southwest to take Magdeburg. Unfortunately I didn't have a family member in charge of the army, so the captain-in-charge decided to pile sand in my cunt and defect to the rebel cause. Fuck, there goes my entire Northern army.



Magdeburg is archaic German for "full of traitorous bastards."



Well I better draw this campaign section to a close with a shot of our current empire. We're on the up-and-up!

Next week(tomorrow)'s episode: War with Denmark - or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Sword



Special thanks to Szechuanosaurus for compiling a list of all the updates. I will attempt to keep this updated as I go along.

Szechuanosaurus wrote: »

Episode 3: Denmark Sucks, Episode 4: Stockholm by Christmas

Episode 5: Florida Doesn't Get a Recount in a Papal Election, Episode 6: Coleslaw Fiddles While Oslo Burns

Episode 7: Master Blaster Rule Bartertwerp

Episode 8: The Last Norsefighter AD 1212

Episode 9: Vicar Victoria, a Musical Tale of Papal Tomfoolery set in the year AD 1216

Episode 10: Incompetence or Incontinence: The Siege of Bran 1238AD

Episode 11: Prelude to Ribbentrop AD 1248

Episode 12: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross. AD 1258

Update 13: Pt 1: Godrotting Germans All Up In My Grill AD 1260

Episode 13: Pt 2: Ёб твою мать, Россия!

Episode 14: Florins for the Ferryman AD 1268

Episode 15: The Siege of Breslau AD 1278

Episode 16: Nobody's business but the Turks AD 1286

Episode 17: Overwhelming Odds AD 1292

Episode 18: Frankfurt or Bust AD 1300

Episode 19: Mongolian Roadblocks or How the Khan Szechuaned the Seljuks AD 1324

Episode 20: Slaughter in the Steppes AD 1328

Pharezon

Futore wrote: »

I love that the two resident history buffs are the only ones that have viewed and posted in here.

What does that make you?

Futore

Pharezon wrote: »

Futore wrote: »

I love that the two resident history buffs are the only ones that have viewed and posted in here.

What does that make you?

The son of a history buff, actually

Pharezon

Futore wrote: »

Pharezon wrote: »

Futore wrote: »

I love that the two resident history buffs are the only ones that have viewed and posted in here.

What does that make you?

The son of a history buff, actually

Give me history books please. :winky:

Ranx

history is actually quite interesting

Pharezon

Ranx wrote: »

history is actually quite interesting

Who would have thought?

Futore

Pharezon wrote: »

Futore wrote: »

Pharezon wrote: »

Futore wrote: »

I love that the two resident history buffs are the only ones that have viewed and posted in here.

What does that make you?

The son of a history buff, actually

Give me history books please. :winky:

I'm suprised we don't have too many books around here though. I think his masters might be in history and something else, actually.

DodgeBlan

History is for dead people

Mosana

As a pretend history buff, I actively encourage this

Ranx

Pharezon wrote: »

Ranx wrote: »

history is actually quite interesting

Who would have thought?

you'd be surprised at the amount of people who take the "history sucks man" approach

almost as bad as the "we shouldn't even have to learn history" viewpoint

Pharezon

Ranx wrote: »

Pharezon wrote: »

Ranx wrote: »

history is actually quite interesting

Who would have thought?

you'd be surprised at the amount of people who take the "history sucks man" approach

almost as bad as the "we shouldn't even have to learn history" viewpoint

Those people should be locked up in a mall.

Captain K

pharezon post that protest sign you showed me

Penguin Incarnate

History: Quit complaing or they'll teach us more algebra.

Fallout

FUCKING

AWESOME

THREAD

Cosmic Sombrero

Fuck yeah, Medieval Total War 2. Volyu, I love you, but you lost your king on the first episode and your army on the second.



I've never actually had an army defect, and I got excommunicated. Funny story, actually. I was at war with Denmark for a while, until a new pope rolled into town and demanded we cease fire. I did, but some sort of bug made it so that he could still attack my navy. "Welp, fuck this." I sez. I take an excommunication on the chin, and so begins my quest to destroy every Catholic faction so that I could become the sole member of the church, and restore my status there. Let me tell you, there is nothing as hilarious as sacking Rome and having the Pope ride into battle against you. I got several Crusades called against me, but for some reason they only targeted my strongest Citadels, which were well defended enough to take on two fully-stacked armies at once. It's really awesome to see your last group of weary defenders raise their weapons and cheer from the smashed gates over the corpses of thousands of Portuguese and Sicilian soldiers.

My favorite part of this game is the stories your family members build for themselves. My favorite was Christophe the Scarred, who took a savage beating in one of my early battles against the HRE, but kept on ticking. From then on he was near indestructible, and kicked their ass all the way down the Apennine Peninsula. The only thing is that it seems like your bloodline dilutes as the years go by, and instead of getting Louis the Terrible, you get Markus the Dickwad, or whatever.

I really want to start a new game designed solely around beating back the Mongols. God, those assholes are ridiculous.

Penguin Incarnate

I quit the game because I got bored not fighting the Aztecs. I mean, they're right on the map, why can't I kill them? Plus, my addiction to it was ruining my life.

Cosmic Sombrero

Penguin Incarnate wrote: »

I quit the game because I got bored not fighting the Aztecs. I mean, they're right on the map, why can't I kill them? Plus, my addiction to it was ruining my life.

The expansion fixes that.

Yeah, it did get pretty awful for me. "JUST A FEW MORE TURNS MAN, THEN I'M GOING CLEAN!"

Penguin Incarnate

Also, I was really into heroin at the time.

Fallout

once again, wishing things would run on macs

sigh

the cheat

you know this game has multiplayer. you would have us watch your dumb single player instead of playing with us?

Shifty Fister

Goddamnit I love a well played campaign, shit is fucking awesome.

Mister Longbaugh

i wonder what time period the next total war game is going to take place in.

Penguin Incarnate

There's nothing better than crushing France into dust despite outcries from the Vatican. Eat culverin and die, Eurotrash.

Shifty Fister

Empire Total War is the next one isn't it? 18th century or some shit

Penguin Incarnate

Yup. Napoleon and all that.

Mister Longbaugh

is that confirmed, though? because people were saying that total war 2 was going to be a napoleanic game before it was announced otherwise.

Shifty Fister

Yeah I'm pretty sure it's confirmed. There's info on the game 'n' stuff.

Mister Longbaugh

o ok

Fallout

making me want to install Rome: Total War

remembering i don't have a PC that run anything

sobbing quietly

the cheat

fallout this is exactly my situation, except i also have a gloop nagging me constantly about mailing my defective video card in for a replacement.

Volucrisus Aedrius

the cheat wrote: »

fallout this is exactly my situation, except i also have a gloop nagging me constantly about mailing my defective video card in for a replacement.

Oh so you were just leading me on when you talked about multiplayer.

Jerkface.

PS. My friend and I are working on a pen-and-paper campaign for Medieval II that features different settlement levels and troop levels and terrain and all that jazz that simulate the actual campaign, but with all battles being fought real-time over multiplayer, kinda like a FPS "world war" tourney.

Shifty Fister

That sounds pretty goddamn geeky I mean fun and awesome. Perhaps all of those things.

Volucrisus Aedrius

Oh its hellishly geeky.

But it also sates the desire to wage a campaign against a living human opponent. Its like Risk but about eight kinds of more-complicated.

Fallout

the cheat wrote: »

fallout this is exactly my situation, except i also have a gloop nagging me constantly about mailing my defective video card in for a replacement.

what do gloops even know!

mine isn't defective i think it just died

the fan won't work anymore

it was a GeForce 5200 FX anyways so who gives a....!!!

Mister Longbaugh

i really want to play videogames right now but this computer can't run anything and the only game i have for 360 is mass effect and i don't know if i want to play that.

the cheat

Volucrisus Aedrius wrote: »

the cheat wrote: »

fallout this is exactly my situation, except i also have a gloop nagging me constantly about mailing my defective video card in for a replacement.

Oh so you were just leading me on when you talked about multiplayer.

Jerkface.

PS. My friend and I are working on a pen-and-paper campaign for Medieval II that features different settlement levels and troop levels and terrain and all that jazz that simulate the actual campaign, but with all battles being fought real-time over multiplayer, kinda like a FPS "world war" tourney.

well once i get around to getting a replacement, it is game the fuck on. so many games i have been missing, world in conflict, orange box, rome, nwn2, midievals... even garry's mod!

L|ama

Mister Longbaugh wrote: »

is that confirmed, though? because people were saying that total war 2 was going to be a napoleanic game before it was announced otherwise.

there are videos and shit and it has real time naval warfare with different kinds of shit and oh my god I am so hard

some teaser shit:

Spoiler:

1



interviewy shit

Shifty Fister

Volucrisus Aedrius wrote: »

Oh its hellishly geeky.

But it also sates the desire to wage a campaign against a living human opponent. Its like Risk but about eight kinds of more-complicated.

If it's anything like Risk it wouldn't be healthy for me to play. Every time I play Risk it always seems to end with me flipping the board after a hellish number of bad dice rolls.

NotASenator

I hate you Volyu.

Jedoc

I really wish I didn't suck so hard at this game. I want to love it so.

NotASenator

I actually have some video I was going to edit together for my playthrough of this.