The thing with any Total War game is that on the harder campaigns you've got to be a total monster to succeed. Doing silly things like shouting "Burn the Heretic!" just makes it a bit more palatable and drives in the absurdity of the entire simulation. I'm fully, deeply aware that the Teutonic Order were cowards, thieves, and psychopaths of the highest order. Hell, the Battle of Grunwald occurred because the Teutonic Order had been so colossally cruel to the Polish.
Give you another example. I mentioned earlier that I finished Barbarian Invasion as the Western Roman Empire on Very Hard/Very Hard. To make it interesting, I wanted a Pagan Western Roman Empire, which required purging Christianity from my lands. This required engineering riots so that I could massacre entire populations, sending out Christian Generals into completely suicidal battles, and generally behaving like an utter monster. My Faction Leader was called Eutropius the Cruel after a certain point, until he became known as Eutropius the Killer. I made Julius Caesar's massacre of over a million Gauls seem like brief capital punishment compared to the barbarity I engaged in.
It's ultimately all a game. A highly abstract game that represents a brutal, unpleasant period of history. Just roll with it, have a laugh, make an inappropriate joke from time and time. It's far more enjoyable that way.
I guess it’s just the way of things, hell they make video games and movies about current conflicts anyways.
Plus I concede it’s a bit hypocritical of me to complain while I am currently thoroughly enjoying the America's campaign as the Spaniards.
Streltsy on
0
PharezonStruggle is an illusion.Victory is in the Qun.Registered Userregular
Don't want be a dick here, but I'd just like to remind people this is not warhammer. Playing the game and stuff is cool, but I find it sort of odd that people wish to roleplay the Teutonic butchering.
Talking about ridiculous stats, I am not sure I like the changes to cavalry stainless steel introduced. Cavalry has been made more powerful, which is supposedly countered by spearmen being similarly improved against them. This means that even a light cavalry unit can usually rip apart archer and light infantry units with minimal losses, and makes General Bodyguard units insanely powerful against practically all infantry.
Totally surrounded I think the Danish king killed about 100 of my mixed heavy and light infantry before we got him down.
Those changes are a good thing, really. In vanilla MTW 2, light cav is worthless. And spearmen are really common, most factions start with no other kind of infantry.
Talking about ridiculous stats, I am not sure I like the changes to cavalry stainless steel introduced. Cavalry has been made more powerful, which is supposedly countered by spearmen being similarly improved against them. This means that even a light cavalry unit can usually rip apart archer and light infantry units with minimal losses, and makes General Bodyguard units insanely powerful against practically all infantry.
Totally surrounded I think the Danish king killed about 100 of my mixed heavy and light infantry before we got him down.
Those changes are a good thing, really. In vanilla MTW 2, light cav is worthless. And spearmen are really common, most factions start with no other kind of infantry.
Light cavalry was never worthless! It couldn't kill anything other than archers, but thats not what I used it for. Light cav is best for routing enemies through flank charges and hunting down fleeing troops.
Light cavalry was never worthless! It couldn't kill anything other than archers, but thats not what I used it for. Light cav is best for routing enemies through flank charges and hunting down fleeing troops.
But yeah, the change is not too bad.
Its ok for flank charging, but Heavy Cavalry isn't much more expensive, so I never bother with light unless I don't have access to the other. Now, horse archers are a different story.
Light cavalry was never worthless! It couldn't kill anything other than archers, but thats not what I used it for. Light cav is best for routing enemies through flank charges and hunting down fleeing troops.
But yeah, the change is not too bad.
Its ok for flank charging, but Heavy Cavalry isn't much more expensive, so I never bother with light unless I don't have access to the other. Now, horse archers are a different story.
I've never played MTW, but in RTW I always liked having a light cav unit around that could run down a fleeing general.
lowlylowlycook on
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
And yeah. Light Cavalry were fantastic. Not because they were decent in combat they weren't. The point is they didn't need to be. They are great for harassing the enemy and drawing troops out of position. They are also brilliant for running down fleeing troops. In fact, thats what I principally used them for. Once the enemy breaks, just sic a unit or 2 or Light Cav on them and then you don't have to worry about them rallying.
I was trying to try out the Stainless Steel mod today, but it was nothing but constant crashes. Oh boy.
Don't know if this is it but the biggest crash problem for me was when I switched to fast from one empire to another when selecting which to play as for the campaign.
The solution is just to switch slower.
Streltsy on
0
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited June 2008
Oh man I love Spearmen.
I was playing as Russia and the Mongols invaded. I quickly reinforced my outlying town Ryazan. Shortly after the reinforcements arrived the Mongols show up at my door step. They had 3 full stack armies and Generals with so many stars to make the night sky jealous.
My town had a full stack army made up of 5 Peasant Archers, 5 or 6 Woodsmen, 3 Spearmen, 2 Durzhina, and 1 unit of Boyar sons. I might be missing some, but that was the general make up of my army.
The Mongols send 2 of their armies to siege my town. During the battle prep I have my 2 Peasant Archer units on each side of the horse-shoe my wall forms. The gate is in the center of the horse-shoe. I line my 3 Spearmen units in a horse-shoe around the inside of the gate with my 2 Durzhinai heavy cavalry on the left and right side of the horse-shoe of spearmen. My Woodsmen units are set up at each spot where the Mongols 2 Towers will arrive and were their 2 ladder teams will arrive.
The Mongols have 2 armies on the field. The first one is at my front gate and they have all the siege equipment. The second army is at my back gate and they have no siege equipment so I decided not to put any soldiers there.
The battle begins. So many arrows! Just. . . so many arrows! The Mongols ladders reach my wall first and my Woodsmen set about their bloody work. Next the towers arrive. One of the towers stops at a spot I did not expect them to go so I have to quickly send my Woodsmen to intercept the Mongols. Unfortunately the Mongols were able to unload most of their soldiers on my wall before the Woodsmen got there.
Next their Ram reaches my gate. Now begin the real fight. My gate is knocked down and the enemy begins to flood into my horse-shoe of spearmen. The slaughter begins. My spearmen begin to destroy wave after wave of Mongols while the spearmen themselves take very little casualties. A grand stroke of luck befalls me as the Mongol General enters the meat grinder. He is quickly cut down. Huzzah!
With their General defeated the rest of the army begins to scatter. I take this time to regroup my forces around the gate. Some of my archer units are out of ammo. Most of the Mongols on the wall have been defeated , but a pocket of them remains at one of their ladder points and my Woodsmen are having a tough time defeating them. Still, they are holding them off and its a minor concern of mine at the moment.
I get my men regrouped and ready to take on the second army. Once again they flood through the gate only to be meet with pointy death. A second stroke of luck shines on me when the second Mongol General leads the charge through the gate only to be slaughter like the pig he is! Still the enemy greatly outnumbers me and my Spearmen are starting to show their weariness. With the wall secure I send 2 units of Woodsmen to reinforce my beleaguered Spearmen. This proves a great boon to my defense as my Spearmen, aided by fresh and eager Woodsmen, begin to easily battle back the Mongol hordes.
Finally the gate is secured and many of the Mongol forces begin to route. There are a few pockets of Mongol archers causing me stress so I decide its time to put my General to work. My General and his body guard easily run down whats left of the Mongol forces and victory is mine!
At the end of the day out of my ~1200 soldiers only ~300 were killed. All 3 of my Spearmen units survived with about half a unit left in each. Bless their hearts. The Mongols had a combined total of ~2400. Only ~800 survived.
Now the third Mongol army has lay siege to the town and the remnants of the first 2 armies has joined them. I am not sure my men are ready for a second siege against this powerful enemy.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
As for strategic considerations, I'm gonna go on a weird suggestion here and say take Gotland to the north as early as possible before the Danes take it. It can become a mighty trade city considering its trade lane connections to the financially rich Republic of Novgorod. It's also a requirement to hold the city to form the Hanseatic League, and if you can deny Denmark from doing that, it makes fighting them later much easier.
Also, about this!
This might be stupid, and I am stupid, so it's okay, but which settlement are you talking about? I've found a few with similar names, but looking all over the map, I don't know which exactly you're talking about.
Okay, this is really starting to piss me off a great deal.
In Rome, I'm sure that diplomacy was less... rigged. This feels like its sole aim is to fuck me over. My allies never hold, or help me, and almost everywhere I try diplomacy - friend or foe - it's batted away, despite perfectly reasonable terms.
It doesn't make sense no matter how you look at it (eg, I'm also the largest military power in the world, why are people so ready to dick with me?), and now Sicily has sent an army of 700 to besiege an already battered Bologna because they're fuck-buddies with Venice, who - somehow - manage to churn out armies of 400-500 more or less at will despite them having, oh, two cities.
In Rome I tended to feel that my alliances and general diplomacy made sense. In this game, logic doesn't seem to apply. It feels totally unfair.
Basically what you need to do is....
Burn the Heretic,
Kill the Mutant,
Purge the Unclean
.
The Emperor Protects....
BS aside, if you *really* want a challenge in this game, play chivalrously instead of going the dred route. Obey the pope, honor alliances which means no trade treaties with nations you want to war with, no assassinations, and don't sack or exterminate towns (unless the Pope says you can via crusades against Islam or Euro nations disobedient to the Apolostic See).
It can work in your favor after a lot of investment as the A.I. tends to tell the pope to jog on quite frequently. Once they get excommunicated, ask for a crusade and, well...
Burn the Heretic,
Kill the Mutant,
Purge the Unclean
...but since the Pope says you can, you're not wrong for doing so. Right? I guess...
I gotta try this stainless steel mod. Does it still crash a lot?
Oh my. Hochmeister Seigfried huh? Talk about quick elevation. They way you are writing suggests some loyalty problems within the order. What are the chances of a rebellion or civil war in the near future?
As for Dietrich, I always find it darkly amusing when generals manage to get themselves killed by something that shouldn't be a threat, usually during an easy battle as well.
Do you have time to train/retrain any troops for Hans in Hrodna before the Lithuanians attack? I'm looking forward to see whether Hans can actually hold the city, or whether this plan was a mistake.
Would it be possible to get shots of some of the summary screens? It would be interesting to see the state of the Order.
You know what though? Fuck the Mongols. Fuck them so hard. Jesus Christ, they're the one thing that makes a normal campaign challenging.
I tried to take on Mongols once, at a river crossing. I figured, "hey, their AI will rush me, since they outnumber me 4 to 1, and while I won't win, I can take out a shitload before I go..."
...
You remember that scene from 300, where the sky is filled with arrows coming in towards the screen? That's exactly what it looked like, and that was all they needed to do...
There is a way to beat horse archers in the open field, based off of real military history.
Most generals who beat horse archers pinned them against a natural feature so they had nowhere to run (or built one like the Chineese), fought them from behind fortifications, or waited until winter when their horse were half dead from cold and lack of grass for grazing.
There was one Chineese general, I forget who, that tried a "living fortress" tactic and advanced in a big friggin spearman brick that crossbowmen darted in and out of to shoot at Mongols who got too close. X-bows outrange and outpower short composite bows.
He eventually lost because he ran out of bolts, but somehow still made it back alive.
Anyhow, I adapted that for this game and found that, yeah, like real history, Crossbowmen outrange and outdamage mongol bowmen. I use a 5-horse, 8 advanced x-bowmen, 7 heavy armored footmen stack.
First, the x-bowmen shoot further and better if they have a clear Line of Sight to the target. I form a skirmish line with the heavies right behind them so they can run in front of the x-bowmen in case a mongol tries something stupid.
The heavy pins them in place and the h-cav hits their flanks and they break. Don't purse (that's what hosed many armies when they fought the mongols in reality; see also, the Kingdom of Hungry) just reform ranks and let your x-bows pour heavy fire into their asses.
It's the only time I've ever fought the mongols outnumbered and won. Once, I got attacked with two stacks, but was lucky to have ended my turn in a rocky hex (always end turns in rocky hexes when fighting mongols) so I was at the top of a nice, steep hill.
Shot 90% of my bolts, but both mongol stacks took 80% losses and fled
These screenshots are big, but you can see everything. Or something.
Our border with Lithuania, newly expanded to include Hrodna.
Once Hans took it, the Lithuanians seemed to abandon the idea of attacking him again.
You may also notice that the fucking Mongols have appeared in the south.
This is Hrodna right now. It's not doing too poorly, but it doesn't have the infrastructure to retrain most of our units.
This is our northern border with Lithuania and further north, with the Danes.
And Riga, the biggest settlement we have in the north.
Our money is low right now, but that's because I had spent a lot of it building town halls and things in the smaller settlements. We're actually making money now. Not in huge amounts, but that will change. We're no longer in the red anymore, which is good.
Where do you want to go from here, though? Progress hasn't been too slow so far and we haven't worked up any outstanding debts so we're doing fairly well. I've done much, much worse.
I still say you should grab Gotland (sorry about not being specific, as the exact city name was Visby). It's an island in the middle of the Baltic Sea so it won't be able to support your other cities militarily. But if you grab it at early game, it can seriously become a major economic center for the Teutonic Order. And it can later become a base of operations for some serious thrusts into Denmark. Grabbing Kalmar further into the Danish mainland will net you another highly rewarding port city, but that would be committing yourself to a campaign against the Danish and ignoring your much more immediate Lithuanian and Russian foes.
Taking Gotland isn't too much of a stretch for you right now, so I think you should go for it to just get a better economic base, which you really need when playing Teutonic Knights (upkeep costs are a bitch). Then keep a garrison there to hold off the inevitable Danish assault, but still focus your military efforts against the Lithuanians.
I'd say aim for taking Palanga, as it's the easiest way of unifying the 2 seperate territories.
This also a good idea, and one I completely forgot about. The corridor between your two territories means that you need to ferry troops by sea so that they can arrive without risk of being ambushed and encircled. Grabbing Palanga is a solid choice, and gives you more breathing room in territory management. The Lithuanians have a habit of garrisoning the hell out of it though, and seeing as it's a castle, it could easily turn into a Pyrrhic victory for you. If the Lithuanians haven't garrisoned it strongly yet, then strike quickly.
One of my peeves about Rome and Medieval II is that Besieging Castles always takes the same time for them to surrender. In Medieval 1, it took into account things like number of defenders and how many siege weapons you had, so if you had a huge army with trebuchets and the castle was poorly defended it usually fell really quickly, saving you the effort of actually having to launch a costly assault.
Palanga defies the mighty will of the Teutonic Order, and I heartily recommend you annex it. Not only will it create a unified border for the Order, as Asher and darksteel have pointed out, but it's also a coastal territory. They almost universally have fantastic trade incomes, so you'll be enhancing your own position whilst seriously crippling the Lithuanian economy.
Also, I'd start preparing for the Mongols right now. Have a good defensive army waiting for them, or at least enough soldiers such that you can quickly make one if need be.
Siegfried shows great promise; such a rapid rise to Hochmeister after only one battle! Hopefully he gets the chance to bloody himself more against the Mongols, as he definitely shows the potential to be brutal enough to give the Golden Horde pause for thought.
Finally, and this might be a bit radical, but decide carefully which cities are going to produce troops and which are going to produce money. Concentrating your troop efforts on only a few towns means that they'll be producing elite soldiers far more quickly.
So, I'm looking at steam and it has Rome: TW Gold and Medieval 2. I played and liked Medieval: TW, which should I go for?
Rome Gold is only $20, where if I get M:TW 2, I want to get the expansion, making it $50.
Personally I think they are pretty much the same, except for some minor differences. It really comes down to which you like more, Roman history or Medieval history?
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Finally, and this might be a bit radical, but decide carefully which cities are going to produce troops and which are going to produce money. Concentrating your troop efforts on only a few towns means that they'll be producing elite soldiers far more quickly.
It's not that radical. I usually try to do that anyway, usually focusing castles more on army building and such and towns on pumping out money since castles are horrible for money making anyway.
This is my favourite kind of Lets Play. A bit of Fluff, clear, consice descriptions and lots of good Screnshots. I'm not a huge fan of video/audio LPs, mostly because my internet is too crappy to make them worthwhile.
So, I'm looking at steam and it has Rome: TW Gold and Medieval 2. I played and liked Medieval: TW, which should I go for?
Rome Gold is only $20, where if I get M:TW 2, I want to get the expansion, making it $50.
Personally I think they are pretty much the same, except for some minor differences. It really comes done to which you like more, Roman history or Medieval history?
Not really. Medieval 2 is a drastic improvement. Especially graphically. I gave Rome another whirl yesterday, inspired by this and oh boy it was fugly. I'd say go for Medieval II.
Finally, and this might be a bit radical, but decide carefully which cities are going to produce troops and which are going to produce money. Concentrating your troop efforts on only a few towns means that they'll be producing elite soldiers far more quickly.
It's not that radical. I usually try to do that anyway, usually focusing castles more on army building and such and towns on pumping out money since castles are horrible for money making anyway.
Well, for me it generally involves mass demolition because mostly a larger starting nation has terribly outfitted cities. Unless the Teutonic Order have their cities set of decently to begin with, I'd just go about a smash and grab to make the military cities more military, and the cash making cities more profitable. It sounds like you're already doing that, so I'll leave the management of the psychotic zealot's administrative affairs in your capable hands.
Also Pancake your av/sig inspired me to play some Dark Forces and Jedi Knight recently. I just beat the falling ship level.
I loathed that level. Mostly because I was young when playing it and having a time limit while on a crashing space ship was not nice. Looking at it objectively, its pretty fantastic. I was pretty happen to find Dark Forces in a second hand games shop a year or so back. Worth all $20 I paid for it.
Also Pancake your av/sig inspired me to play some Dark Forces and Jedi Knight recently. I just beat the falling ship level.
I loathed that level. Mostly because I was young when playing it and having a time limit while on a crashing space ship was not nice. Looking at it objectively, its pretty fantastic. I was pretty happen to find Dark Forces in a second hand games shop a year or so back. Worth all $20 I paid for it.
I don't think it actually does have a time limit. I always assumed it did, but I never failed it due to time.
I distinctly remember a vocal countdown. "Five minutes to impact" or something like that. I *think* I remember running out of time and dying because of that, but it was like 10 years ago, so I may very well be wrong.
So, I'm looking at steam and it has Rome: TW Gold and Medieval 2. I played and liked Medieval: TW, which should I go for?
Rome Gold is only $20, where if I get M:TW 2, I want to get the expansion, making it $50.
Personally I think they are pretty much the same, except for some minor differences. It really comes done to which you like more, Roman history or Medieval history?
Not really. Medieval 2 is a drastic improvement. Especially graphically. I gave Rome another whirl yesterday, inspired by this and oh boy it was fugly. I'd say go for Medieval II.
When Rome came out, I didn't bother getting it because the whole time period is completely uninteresting to me, but I remembered that when it came out, it was beautiful and it was even used on the History Channel to reenact battles instead of doing something that cost more than $50.
So I went and looked at screenshots today. And wow. That looks horrible.
I knew there was a graphical jump between M2TW and RTW, but I didn't realize it was that big. At least neither looks like Shogun or Medieval.
Posts
I guess it’s just the way of things, hell they make video games and movies about current conflicts anyways.
Plus I concede it’s a bit hypocritical of me to complain while I am currently thoroughly enjoying the America's campaign as the Spaniards.
Shut your filthy heathen mouth. You're next.
Those changes are a good thing, really. In vanilla MTW 2, light cav is worthless. And spearmen are really common, most factions start with no other kind of infantry.
Light cavalry was never worthless! It couldn't kill anything other than archers, but thats not what I used it for. Light cav is best for routing enemies through flank charges and hunting down fleeing troops.
But yeah, the change is not too bad.
It crashed for me about 5 times during faction selection, so I was worried at first, but has yet to crash in game.
Its ok for flank charging, but Heavy Cavalry isn't much more expensive, so I never bother with light unless I don't have access to the other. Now, horse archers are a different story.
I've never played MTW, but in RTW I always liked having a light cav unit around that could run down a fleeing general.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Maybe you would believe it. But I'm going to say you wouldn't.
And yeah. Light Cavalry were fantastic. Not because they were decent in combat they weren't. The point is they didn't need to be. They are great for harassing the enemy and drawing troops out of position. They are also brilliant for running down fleeing troops. In fact, thats what I principally used them for. Once the enemy breaks, just sic a unit or 2 or Light Cav on them and then you don't have to worry about them rallying.
Don't know if this is it but the biggest crash problem for me was when I switched to fast from one empire to another when selecting which to play as for the campaign.
The solution is just to switch slower.
I was playing as Russia and the Mongols invaded. I quickly reinforced my outlying town Ryazan. Shortly after the reinforcements arrived the Mongols show up at my door step. They had 3 full stack armies and Generals with so many stars to make the night sky jealous.
My town had a full stack army made up of 5 Peasant Archers, 5 or 6 Woodsmen, 3 Spearmen, 2 Durzhina, and 1 unit of Boyar sons. I might be missing some, but that was the general make up of my army.
The Mongols send 2 of their armies to siege my town. During the battle prep I have my 2 Peasant Archer units on each side of the horse-shoe my wall forms. The gate is in the center of the horse-shoe. I line my 3 Spearmen units in a horse-shoe around the inside of the gate with my 2 Durzhinai heavy cavalry on the left and right side of the horse-shoe of spearmen. My Woodsmen units are set up at each spot where the Mongols 2 Towers will arrive and were their 2 ladder teams will arrive.
The Mongols have 2 armies on the field. The first one is at my front gate and they have all the siege equipment. The second army is at my back gate and they have no siege equipment so I decided not to put any soldiers there.
The battle begins. So many arrows! Just. . . so many arrows! The Mongols ladders reach my wall first and my Woodsmen set about their bloody work. Next the towers arrive. One of the towers stops at a spot I did not expect them to go so I have to quickly send my Woodsmen to intercept the Mongols. Unfortunately the Mongols were able to unload most of their soldiers on my wall before the Woodsmen got there.
Next their Ram reaches my gate. Now begin the real fight. My gate is knocked down and the enemy begins to flood into my horse-shoe of spearmen. The slaughter begins. My spearmen begin to destroy wave after wave of Mongols while the spearmen themselves take very little casualties. A grand stroke of luck befalls me as the Mongol General enters the meat grinder. He is quickly cut down. Huzzah!
With their General defeated the rest of the army begins to scatter. I take this time to regroup my forces around the gate. Some of my archer units are out of ammo. Most of the Mongols on the wall have been defeated , but a pocket of them remains at one of their ladder points and my Woodsmen are having a tough time defeating them. Still, they are holding them off and its a minor concern of mine at the moment.
I get my men regrouped and ready to take on the second army. Once again they flood through the gate only to be meet with pointy death. A second stroke of luck shines on me when the second Mongol General leads the charge through the gate only to be slaughter like the pig he is! Still the enemy greatly outnumbers me and my Spearmen are starting to show their weariness. With the wall secure I send 2 units of Woodsmen to reinforce my beleaguered Spearmen. This proves a great boon to my defense as my Spearmen, aided by fresh and eager Woodsmen, begin to easily battle back the Mongol hordes.
Finally the gate is secured and many of the Mongol forces begin to route. There are a few pockets of Mongol archers causing me stress so I decide its time to put my General to work. My General and his body guard easily run down whats left of the Mongol forces and victory is mine!
At the end of the day out of my ~1200 soldiers only ~300 were killed. All 3 of my Spearmen units survived with about half a unit left in each. Bless their hearts. The Mongols had a combined total of ~2400. Only ~800 survived.
Now the third Mongol army has lay siege to the town and the remnants of the first 2 armies has joined them. I am not sure my men are ready for a second siege against this powerful enemy.
Also, about this!
This might be stupid, and I am stupid, so it's okay, but which settlement are you talking about? I've found a few with similar names, but looking all over the map, I don't know which exactly you're talking about.
EDIT: Nevermind, I found it!
The Emperor Protects....
BS aside, if you *really* want a challenge in this game, play chivalrously instead of going the dred route. Obey the pope, honor alliances which means no trade treaties with nations you want to war with, no assassinations, and don't sack or exterminate towns (unless the Pope says you can via crusades against Islam or Euro nations disobedient to the Apolostic See).
It can work in your favor after a lot of investment as the A.I. tends to tell the pope to jog on quite frequently. Once they get excommunicated, ask for a crusade and, well...
Burn the Heretic,
Kill the Mutant,
Purge the Unclean
...but since the Pope says you can, you're not wrong for doing so. Right? I guess...
I gotta try this stainless steel mod. Does it still crash a lot?
Margaret Thatcher
My experience says yes. Crashes at faction selection, crashes at loading screens, and crashes when entering battles.
Fun stuff.
As for Dietrich, I always find it darkly amusing when generals manage to get themselves killed by something that shouldn't be a threat, usually during an easy battle as well.
Do you have time to train/retrain any troops for Hans in Hrodna before the Lithuanians attack? I'm looking forward to see whether Hans can actually hold the city, or whether this plan was a mistake.
Would it be possible to get shots of some of the summary screens? It would be interesting to see the state of the Order.
Oh boy, I blame you Widow!
And yeah summary screens sound neat.
There is a way to beat horse archers in the open field, based off of real military history.
Most generals who beat horse archers pinned them against a natural feature so they had nowhere to run (or built one like the Chineese), fought them from behind fortifications, or waited until winter when their horse were half dead from cold and lack of grass for grazing.
There was one Chineese general, I forget who, that tried a "living fortress" tactic and advanced in a big friggin spearman brick that crossbowmen darted in and out of to shoot at Mongols who got too close. X-bows outrange and outpower short composite bows.
He eventually lost because he ran out of bolts, but somehow still made it back alive.
Anyhow, I adapted that for this game and found that, yeah, like real history, Crossbowmen outrange and outdamage mongol bowmen. I use a 5-horse, 8 advanced x-bowmen, 7 heavy armored footmen stack.
First, the x-bowmen shoot further and better if they have a clear Line of Sight to the target. I form a skirmish line with the heavies right behind them so they can run in front of the x-bowmen in case a mongol tries something stupid.
The heavy pins them in place and the h-cav hits their flanks and they break. Don't purse (that's what hosed many armies when they fought the mongols in reality; see also, the Kingdom of Hungry) just reform ranks and let your x-bows pour heavy fire into their asses.
It's the only time I've ever fought the mongols outnumbered and won. Once, I got attacked with two stacks, but was lucky to have ended my turn in a rocky hex (always end turns in rocky hexes when fighting mongols) so I was at the top of a nice, steep hill.
Shot 90% of my bolts, but both mongol stacks took 80% losses and fled
Margaret Thatcher
Shit, you running 6.1?
I really wanted to try it. Reminds me of how much fun I had with the Rome:Total Realism mod....
Margaret Thatcher
These screenshots are big, but you can see everything. Or something.
Our border with Lithuania, newly expanded to include Hrodna.
Once Hans took it, the Lithuanians seemed to abandon the idea of attacking him again.
You may also notice that the fucking Mongols have appeared in the south.
This is Hrodna right now. It's not doing too poorly, but it doesn't have the infrastructure to retrain most of our units.
This is our northern border with Lithuania and further north, with the Danes.
And Riga, the biggest settlement we have in the north.
Our money is low right now, but that's because I had spent a lot of it building town halls and things in the smaller settlements. We're actually making money now. Not in huge amounts, but that will change. We're no longer in the red anymore, which is good.
Where do you want to go from here, though? Progress hasn't been too slow so far and we haven't worked up any outstanding debts so we're doing fairly well. I've done much, much worse.
Taking Gotland isn't too much of a stretch for you right now, so I think you should go for it to just get a better economic base, which you really need when playing Teutonic Knights (upkeep costs are a bitch). Then keep a garrison there to hold off the inevitable Danish assault, but still focus your military efforts against the Lithuanians.
This also a good idea, and one I completely forgot about. The corridor between your two territories means that you need to ferry troops by sea so that they can arrive without risk of being ambushed and encircled. Grabbing Palanga is a solid choice, and gives you more breathing room in territory management. The Lithuanians have a habit of garrisoning the hell out of it though, and seeing as it's a castle, it could easily turn into a Pyrrhic victory for you. If the Lithuanians haven't garrisoned it strongly yet, then strike quickly.
Then try it.
Also, I'd start preparing for the Mongols right now. Have a good defensive army waiting for them, or at least enough soldiers such that you can quickly make one if need be.
Siegfried shows great promise; such a rapid rise to Hochmeister after only one battle! Hopefully he gets the chance to bloody himself more against the Mongols, as he definitely shows the potential to be brutal enough to give the Golden Horde pause for thought.
Finally, and this might be a bit radical, but decide carefully which cities are going to produce troops and which are going to produce money. Concentrating your troop efforts on only a few towns means that they'll be producing elite soldiers far more quickly.
Rome Gold is only $20, where if I get M:TW 2, I want to get the expansion, making it $50.
I don't trust him.
Personally I think they are pretty much the same, except for some minor differences. It really comes down to which you like more, Roman history or Medieval history?
It's not that radical. I usually try to do that anyway, usually focusing castles more on army building and such and towns on pumping out money since castles are horrible for money making anyway.
I also think, though, that Rome is slightly less intent on screwing you over, and that it's almost certainly more mod-riffic.
Not really. Medieval 2 is a drastic improvement. Especially graphically. I gave Rome another whirl yesterday, inspired by this and oh boy it was fugly. I'd say go for Medieval II.
Also Pancake your av/sig inspired me to play some Dark Forces and Jedi Knight recently. I just beat the falling ship level.
Well, for me it generally involves mass demolition because mostly a larger starting nation has terribly outfitted cities. Unless the Teutonic Order have their cities set of decently to begin with, I'd just go about a smash and grab to make the military cities more military, and the cash making cities more profitable. It sounds like you're already doing that, so I'll leave the management of the psychotic zealot's administrative affairs in your capable hands.
I loathed that level. Mostly because I was young when playing it and having a time limit while on a crashing space ship was not nice. Looking at it objectively, its pretty fantastic. I was pretty happen to find Dark Forces in a second hand games shop a year or so back. Worth all $20 I paid for it.
There, I said it.
I don't think it actually does have a time limit. I always assumed it did, but I never failed it due to time.
When Rome came out, I didn't bother getting it because the whole time period is completely uninteresting to me, but I remembered that when it came out, it was beautiful and it was even used on the History Channel to reenact battles instead of doing something that cost more than $50.
So I went and looked at screenshots today. And wow. That looks horrible.
I knew there was a graphical jump between M2TW and RTW, but I didn't realize it was that big. At least neither looks like Shogun or Medieval.