Medieval:Total War

[Shakermaker]

This weekend I bought the Medieval + Vikings Invasion War Pack. Nice to play a different genre besides fps's again! Anyone have any tips and pointers for me? I haven't really started a campaign yet, coz I am not sure if I want to start the Medieval or the Vikings campaign first. Great game!

 

[dawdler]

Tip: Always adapt. If you cant adapt to the enemy, you will loose. Or you where just unlucky

I've been trying to get the game for a long time, but the damn stores here dont have it... Meh, suppose I have to order it from the net, since I havent "found" it elsewhere

 

[Dedalus]

i love this game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

post your replay files everyone! share your greatest battles.

here's a tip: never underestimate archers. it's always good to have at least 5 units of archers, they can seriously damage the enemy, especially Longbowmen.

let us know how you're getting on.

 

[Mr.Magnetichead]

I could never get on with those games.

Commanding that many troops was far too impersonal for my tastes.

 

[dawdler]

I could never get on with those games.

Commanding that many troops was far too impersonal for my tastes.

That's only graphical. You could say you command only half a dozen or so men in combat, cause that's what you technically do

 

[Dedalus]

here's my favourite replay for anyone bothered to watch it. put it into : "C:\Program Files\Total War\Medieval - Total War\SaveGames\Battles"

 

[Top Secret]

Tip:

Flank everything.

 

[dawdler]

Tip:

Flank everything.

Just remember to flank the flank, not the front. If the front seems flanked, its most likely the flank that's been flanked, or it wouldnt have been flanked. In which case you wanna turn that flank to the front. If you actually have been front flanked, you're probably delirious.

 

[Stormy]

i love this game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

post your replay files everyone! share your greatest battles.

here's a tip: never underestimate archers. it's always good to have at least 5 units of archers, they can seriously damage the enemy, especially Longbowmen.

let us know how you're getting on.

ahh 5 is to many what i do is:

2 sets of cross bows set on full back at the frount, behind them good spear men then behind them arches set on hold position. some stuff conveing flanks and then just hope for the best

 

[Sui]

i bought the battle pack too. i love the game but find it rather time consuming and i hardley ever play it. i have it simply because its one of the best (if not the best) RTS, and i save it for a rainy day. Generals then warcraft 3 are my favorite RTS followed by medieval.
I HATE it when armies come back even larger: denmark had 1 province and had a army consisting of 200: i killed their king and they disbanded. then 5 hours of gameplay later (like 30- 50 years later) they come back with an army of 2000

 

[Sorze]

I really didn't understand Medieval War...

Don't get me wrong, I'm a patient player, and I'm not stupid either, but the battles in MW were completely, 100% random for me! I mean it!
I've got an army four times larger than the enemy, and my (superior!) units are hacking away at the enemy, but the enemy just doesn't die!! :flame:

And then they wuss out and start running around and crap... sheesh

Didn't stay on my hardrive for longer than a week...

 

[dawdler]

I really didn't understand Medieval War...

Don't get me wrong, I'm a patient player, and I'm not stupid either, but the battles in MW were completely, 100% random for me! I mean it!
I've got an army four times larger than the enemy, and my (superior!) units are hacking away at the enemy, but the enemy just doesn't die!! :flame:

And then they wuss out and start running around and crap... sheesh

Didn't stay on my hardrive for longer than a week...

Unless they scrapped the AI in Shogun and replaced it with "if ( see_enemy ) attack_enemy", AI shouldnt be that bad. Most likely the one in the other end that's bad
Keep in mind that its rock-paper-scissor here, its a true wargame. I've been able (in Shogun) to literally plow down the enemy, when outnumbered 3 to 1 (one time even 10 to 1, that was intense), just by using archers and a few no good infantry unit for keeping the enemy at bay. A VERY large part of the games are routing your enemy, not killing them.

 

[Sorze]

Unless they scrapped the AI in Shogun and replaced it with "if ( see_enemy ) attack_enemy", AI shouldnt be that bad. Most likely the one in the other end that's bad
Keep in mind that its rock-paper-scissor here, its a true wargame. I've been able (in Shogun) to literally plow down the enemy, when outnumbered 3 to 1 (one time even 10 to 1, that was intense), just by using archers and a few no good infantry unit for keeping the enemy at bay. A VERY large part of the games are routing your enemy, not killing them.

Hmm.. Might've been Shogun that I tried, but I think I tried both...

Routing..? But it's war? Atleast some part of the enemy force has to die, right?
My guys seemed to die just fine ...

 

[dawdler]

Routing is easier than killing

But true, sometimes its just a slaughter field. I've seen like 98% casualties on the field... And I've seen 2%, heh.

 

[theGreenBunny]

That's why some horsies to charge their flanks with are always useful, their troops usually don't appreciate that and tend to make a run for it.

The battles in M:TW are good, but I don't like the campaign/world map thing much. I played a campaign as Italy once, took out the pope, but every couple of turns a new large pope-led rebellion army turned up :| So I quit playing campaign, and just did some skirmishes and the like.
Now I'm waiting for Rome: Total War, finally a real 3D engine! Those half assed sprites got old very fast.

 

[Dedalus]

no-one else got any replays

TW is good tactically, but i find it a bit awkward sometimes. one point is that back in medieval times, the english went out with armies of around 20,000 to raid france. of that 20,000 force around 18,000 were archers and 2,000 were knights. think about that for a second. that's 90% archers and 10% knights. or, if you had an army of 10 men, 9 of them would be archers and 1 would be a knight. that sounds absurd but the english beat the french so many times using this tactic. anyway, my point is if you try and use this tactic in the game it doesn't work. the AI is a bit too literal in it's approach i think. if you field 800 archers and 100 knights you'll get slaughtered. dunno whether it's just me, but now i always have equal knight/archer unit counts, and of course at least 2 units on horseback to take care of any routing units and 'help things along'.

can't wait for Rome: Total War.

 

[snark^]

I had a pile of replays but they're useless with the Viking Invasion and subsequent patches. I'll stick up a few screenies of my grapest victories later though.

Tips:

1. Don't ever grow complacent and begin thinking that your armies of ultra-leet troops are unbeatable -- they can still be buried under overwhelming numbers of peasantry. Overwhelming odds bring a tactical mobility advantage that even superior armour/weapons/training can't begin to match. No unit in the game can fight off a hit to both flanks/rear at the same time -- they either get mushed outright or lose too many (even if it says they're 'winning' the melee).
   
2. As said above it's rock-paper-scissors: cavalry kills everything but walls of spearmen; spearwalls are vulnerable to MAA; but the MAA can be hurt drastically by charging cav. Billmen/pikemen can hurt cav badly but can also get hurt in return (depends on who attacks first). Archers are vulnerable to everyone but they can seriously reduce the fighting effectiveness of enemy units before they get to the melees.
   
3. Use light cavalry as scouts and routers. Most people overlook Hobilar/Jinette type units but at minimum they can be used to force the enemy to deploy troops to cover them -- and once their lines are broken there's nothing better for running them all down. Also great for chasing the enemy's archers around the field while you get down to the nitty gritty of crashing their lines with heavies.
   
4. Mounted archers can be devastating if used right. Sort of a really, really, useful light cav...
   
5. Artillery is still useful in attacking situations; point it at a hill that you don't want them defending from. It might be that your arty never fires at all during the battle but at least it prevents them from moving through/to certain places.
   
6. Longbowmen rule. Absolutely. They'll mince even armoured targets (eg., those annoying Royal Knights that keep routing your lines of MAA or spears) within 4-5 volleys. Unlike real life however (where the English stationed their longbowmen unprotected in /\ formations just infront of lines of billmen) you have to protect your 3x20 lines of longbowmen with a spearwall or the AI will run straight for them. By rights if it were an ultra-realistic game the longbows should be doing even more damage at close range (which is why they could be left out in the open IRL) but I suppose for issues of game balace it's fair enough -- hence the requirement to protect them with a spearwall. Sell your soul to buy them if you aren't playing as the English (otherwise you're dependent on the much slower arbalests).
   
7. For defensive formations make sure you set your spearwall about 20 feet in front of your archers where possible -- for reason of freedom to maneuvre (it slows things right down if you have to move units through each other) and also set your bowmen to 'hold' instead of 'skirmish' so they don't waste anytime retreating to a safe distance before firing. Trust in your spearwall to hold the enemy off while they continue to fire.
   
8. Never have your missile troops firing into the enemy unit that's engaged with one of your own, unless you're absolutely desperate, because they will cause some serious friendly fire problems.
   
9. Never spread your units too far apart or their morale will suffer. If you have to station some troops well off from your main formation then make sure they're leet enough to handle it without chickening out. Important that you do cover the flanks of units in your main walls. Occasionally you'll see a "worried about our flanks' message when you drift the mouse atop them. Position your cavalry to cover them (it's what they're there for really).
   
10. Find the GNOME unit editor and give all the archer/crossbow units some 60 arrows each, rather than the pitiful 24 the game gives them.

... really looking forward to Rome:TW myself. :imu:

 

[Sui]

I had a pile of replays but they're useless with the Viking Invasion and subsequent patches. I'll stick up a few screenies of my grapest victories later though.

Tips:

LOADS OF TIPS R HERE!!!

... really looking forward to Rome:TW myself. :imu:

did u type all that out urself or did u copy it off a website? coz i wouldnt bother typin all that out myself lol
and rome: total war will own everything, ever.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Oooooh. i lvoe this game. Ok first off, have you sued berserkers in viking? Man they are crazy. I once used a group to kill 500 peasants, 100 Fyrdmen and some archers.....it was a good battle indeed. Ok so they didnt do all the work, i had some peasents to distract enemy troops while the berserkers did their thing.

Anyway, i love MTW so much, im glad some people here are finally talking about it.

One of my favourite battles involved me (The English) and of course, the French . I didnt have the majority of men but i managed a huge victory. My army consisted of 38 Knights Templar (Left over from a crusade which was attacking an almohad invasion that had worked up to Aquitaine)300 long bowmen, 60 Chivalric men at arms, 60 Gallowglasses and 100 billmen. The French had, I think, 80 Chivalric Knights, 400 peasants, 60 Chivalric men at arms, 200 spearmen and 20 Royal knights with the french king.

I was attacking...

Fortunately my billmen were actually split into two groups of 60 and 40, which meant i could engage all the cavalry. First of all i moved all my units into a nice attacking position. I had the majority of my bowmen advace at the front, with two units going either side of the enemy. The knights templar were set off to the left with the chivalric men at arms. The gallowglasses were off to the right next to the billmen. I sent the right unit of archers around in a long curve until they were stood above the enemy position on the same hill. Because the main body of archers and Knights Templar were advancing through trees in the centre, the French basically ignored them. As i had anticipated, he sent his knights for the archers on the right which were for the time being the closed and apparently most vulnerable. I let the archers fire for a short while until i pulled them back a little way and sent the billmen charging down the hill. The knights, which now numbered at around 60 because of the archers, simply couldnt stand against the billmen who matched their numbers and were also higher up. while that was going on i halted all my central units in the forrest and moved my left archers into position. This time they reigned down on the peasants who didnt counter attack but instead tried to move back. At that point i decided to move my central archers forward. Because they were firing up hill, their range was very short meaning the enemy could quite easily send down any units if he wished. However, before he had the chance i moved my second unit of billmen in along with the gallowglasses. I sent the billmen into the royal knights and the gallowglasses into the spearmen. At first it seemed like i may lose the irish warriors to the large number of spearmen, however the chivalric knights my other billmen were engaging, began to retreat that meant i could attack the rear of the spearmen killing the gallowglasses. While they were marching down, i brought my knights templar into play. They went for the main body of peasants and chivalric mean at arms, i also sent a group of longbowmen to support them. Once my men at arms had dealt with their group of peasents i sent them in to attack more peasants and pulled back my knights. Once they men at arms engaged the french i sent the knights in again. After that is was basically a case of clearing them up. The French knights rallied but i made them run away again.

It was a fun battle indeed, however the french king managed to escape...unfortunately for him he was killed by the Almohads who in an unprecidented move managed to get right into middle Europe and engage the Polish, who had somehow taken all the lands of the HRE. Come to think of it, that whole campaing was great fun with a massive super power war between me, the almohads the polish and funnily enought he byzantines who completely out of character expanded into eastern europe and parts of the middle east.

Anyway, im sure everyone has read anough spelling mistake for now.

Oh yeah and Rome: Total war will be fantastic. Did anyone see Time Commanders? Thats was quite cool, although some of the people on it were annoyingly rubbish.

 

[Stormy]

no-one else got any replays

TW is good tactically, but i find it a bit awkward sometimes. one point is that back in medieval times, the english went out with armies of around 20,000 to raid france. of that 20,000 force around 18,000 were archers and 2,000 were knights. think about that for a second. that's 90% archers and 10% knights. or, if you had an army of 10 men, 9 of them would be archers and 1 would be a knight. that sounds absurd but the english beat the french so many times using this tactic. anyway, my point is if you try and use this tactic in the game it doesn't work. the AI is a bit too literal in it's approach i think. if you field 800 archers and 100 knights you'll get slaughtered. dunno whether it's just me, but now i always have equal knight/archer unit counts, and of course at least 2 units on horseback to take care of any routing units and 'help things along'.

can't wait for Rome: Total War.

maby my computer is just generaly more intelagent then the french

 

[snark^]

.... [snip] .... that's 90% archers and 10% knights. or, if you had an army of 10 men, 9 of them would be archers and 1 would be a knight. that sounds absurd but the english beat the french so many times using this tactic. anyway, my point is if you try and use this tactic in the game it doesn't work. the AI is a bit too literal in it's approach i think. if you field 800 archers and 100 knights you'll get slaughtered. dunno whether it's just me, but now i always have equal knight/archer unit counts, and of course at least 2 units on horseback to take care of any routing units and 'help things along'.

The reason is that IRL anyone advancing on a line of longbowmen would start collecting volleys of arrows: 150 yards away and the advancing unit starts losing its unarmoured people, getting worse the closer they approach; at 80 yards distance the 'clothyard shafts' that the 100+lb longbows can loose start punching through even plate armour and killing/incapacitating the well armoured. By the time they actually reach the longbowmen there's not enough of them left to do anything. At longer ranges (400+ yards) the arrows didn't hit as hard but you could bury the enemy in hailstorms of feathered wood (causing some casualties) -- which could prevent them from moving about the battlefield freely.

The traditional English line setup was:

Enemy: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

English: /\ _ _ /\ _ _ /\

... with the archers forming the outflung V's and the billmen the flat walls inbetween. The idea (which generally worked) was for the longbowmen to force/funnel the attacking enemy into the waiting walls of murderous armoured bastards with the large bills/pikes -- all the while taking huge raking volleys of arrows from the flanks.

This happened even to armoured cavalry, which is why the French hated the English and Welsh longbowman -- war was supposed to be about heroic cavalry charges and the slaughter of defenceless enemy soldiers, but even peasants could kill nobles with those bows. The French could never mount and effective longbow force of their own simply because they couldn't trust to arm the requisite large numbers of their own peasants with such a weapon -- they'd have revolutions everyother week. Sucks to mercilessly oppress your own people to the point where you can't rely on them in war, eh?...

In MTW game terms the longbowmen/archers aren't that powerful, maybe because the developers thought it would overbalance the game in that regard (they had to make them vulnerable to things other than other archers I suppose). To make them work as a viable tactic ingame you have to hide them behind a group of spearmen or footsoldiers. Hence your armies aren't going to reflect the 6:1 archer ratio. Note that MTW's 'Men At Arms' units are also fairly unrealistic too -- nobody went to war in those days armed only with swords, it was bills, pikes, polearms, maces, of any kind mainly -- swords were a backup weapon.

 

[snark^]

Oooooh. i lvoe this game. Ok first off, have you sued berserkers in viking? Man they are crazy. I once used a group to kill 500 peasants, 100 Fyrdmen and some archers.....it was a good battle indeed. Ok so they didnt do all the work, i had some peasents to distract enemy troops while the berserkers did their thing.

I'm using those ultra-heavy Housecarl's as my armoured bastard brigade at present. Raising them in Norway and attaching them to my far flung armies in Egypt, Antioch, Flanderses, etc. Allied with some fyrdmen (which are an early-occuring unit of feudal footmen in all but name) and a lot of longbowmen it's a fun life in the ever expanding English Empire. My current 'standard' army is roughly 5x longbowmen, 3x fyrdmen, 2x huscarls, 2x heavy cav, 2x light cav. Garrison armies being half the size but still the same mix of units.

I did watch a unit of berserkers start taking out some groups of my early spearmen in one battle. There were 3 blocks of my infantry (slowly retreating and beginning to panic) surrounding a thin expanding ring of vikings. I was cutting their numbers down something drastic (got them to 50%) but still all 3 of mine were retreating and losing. Situation solved by ramming some royal knights into their rear; first impact knocked another 8 vikings off immediately and it was a slaughter from there on in.

Another tip: never use heavily armoured (Chivalric or above) units in desert maps because they tire far too quickly (and thus are only good in defensive battles). Stick to Feudal level units instead, or locally raised units where possible. Camel jockeys of any description are worth their weight in gold on the sands.

 

[Shakermaker]

Nice, all those reactions. I am hooked by now. I played 'till 3 'o clock last night and am finally the wealthiest ruler of Europe. I am playing with Egypt since this is my first serieus campaign. I love this game!!!

 

[lePobz]

Anyone know when Rome:TW is out?

 

[Dedalus]

The traditional English line setup was:

Enemy: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

English: /\ _ _ /\ _ _ /\

... with the archers forming the outflung V's and the billmen the flat walls inbetween. The idea (which generally worked) was for the longbowmen to force/funnel the attacking enemy into the waiting walls of murderous armoured bastards with the large bills/pikes -- all the while taking huge raking volleys of arrows from the flanks.

yep, i see someone is an astute tactician. i would love to mess around with GNOME and change a load of things but i haven't got time.

i have so many great battle stories for MTW. one that springs to mind was my titanic battle with pretty much the whole of europe. i had managed to piss off the papacy by fighting the french (can you blame me?) so they called a holy war against me (the english). and it just so happened that at the exact moment i had claimed victory in Flanders, the french, spanish, germans, papacy, polish and italians all invaded at the same bloody time. so it was my meagre and battle worn force of 900 odd versus 6000 odd. i shat my pants. i considered loading my previous save but i'd saved quite a few turns ago so i though ahhh feck it, i'll make them pay. by pure luck i was fielded on a map that had a river with two bridges (thank you god!). i had 10 units of longbowmen, 4 units of billmen, 1 unit of royal guard (with a prince as general) and a unit of chilvaric knights. all i did was place a unit of billmen at the mouth of each bridge, and placed 5 units of longbowmen around each bridge. i arranged my remaining troops behind them to cover any losses. oh man you should've seen how high the dead bodies piled up! by the time the french attacked (they attacked last...) you couldn't even see the units they were sending because the bodies were piled so high. that was an awesome victory. my longbowmen got an average unit kill of 4300...amazing stuff. and i only lost 60 men (only billmen).

one tactic i like doing is having your archers out on the sides. whenever i've played online the other players love to have a really long battle line. i prefer a tighter and organised one. especially when deploying longbowmen, i always keep them in a tight square or even a wedge. this has the effect of concentrating their arrow fire into a dense pocket so it has a higher chance of hitting the enemy, as opposed to spreading your archer line out and having the odd man hit.


- \ \ _ _ _ _ _ / / -

\ / = archers
_ _ = skirmishers
- = cavalry protecting the flanks.

that normally works as a defensive tactic.

i'd love to hear some more stories, farrow yours was interesting especially how you described it, more!

 

[Wolf]

Yeah - Egypt is one of my favourites. They're a bit too easy though.

Once you succeed with an early push toward the iron provinces before the Almohad can build many of their uber urban militia - you can dominate the world completely unopposed with super Saracen spearmen infantry. Seriously, nothing can stop you... In the mean time you have plenty of cash to pump out Nubian Spearman, Bedouin camel warriors and Desert Archers.

Never ceases to amaze me how many people play Catholics first and write the game off because of the Pope. If you use Alims to proselytise Islam around the world and keep a steady hand at balancing on tax and governors/generals - rebellion just isn't an issue...

 

[snark^]

The Ottoman's are a good challenge. If you can last long enough to develop Janissaries you can then stomp everyone else into the dirt. Denmark is surprisingly easy once you grab the rest of Scandinavia and start on the neutral coastal Baltic states too.

My best win:
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/snark/images/defgreece-1206-1550-214.jpg
I started atop that really steep hill at the top of the minimap. They just couldn't get their archers near enough without me raining arrows down on everything. Must have 'subbed' all 3 arty crews + 3 units of longbowmen (no arrows left) out for those jinettes hobilars and landsmen to chase them off the map with.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Anyone messed around with the text files? Its liek the rules.ini in Command and Conquer and you can effectively create a minimod. Its quite cool actually, I remember one time i made it look more like modern day europe (Without most of the baltic states and mini countries) So France was wholy French, the british iles were English, Germany was a more normaly shape, the papacy was only in Rome and italy was all Italian. The Byzantines were basically replced by the Turkish, Hungarians, and Russians. Spain was whole again and the almohads had part of North africa.

It turned out to be an interesting campaign.

 

[Dedalus]

ok i just had the most awesome titanic battle ever. i had launched a crusade to georgia and it was successful so i sent my king there to reinforce, and as luck would have it the mongol invasion started that very same year in georgia and in ryazan. thankfully i didn't own ryazan but georgia was another story, and the invasion of georgia also had the mongol king. i added up the number of units in each of their armies and it came to roughly 12000. yep, that's right...12,000. insane. i managed to move pretty much every single army i had to reinforce. this meant i had to dismantle my armies in france and spain and at home so i was pretty much vulnerable. i could've easily abandoned the province but i worked hard for that dammit! so anyway, managed to get a shitload of armies in the help my king out.

as it turned out i didn't need to call for reinforcements at all. billmen + longbowmen = best defensive army ever. wave after wave of mongol cavalry and they either got shot down or mutilated. took me about 5 hours to finish this battle...longest one yet. here's a little screeny i took at the end. i've got the replay if anyone wants it.

btw, farrow how do you mess around with the ini files? i had a poke around but couldn't find any ini files for MTW, any help?

 

[csmighty1]

I am not familiar with the first installment because I'm not really into stratagy. But I think Rome: TW may change that. Can't wait until it's released