So Total War

[Burning Bridges]

This could fit into this discussion: Takeda 3 official site. Looks more and more Shogun - like. Does anyone have experience with the earlier parts?

 

[mlc82]

Here's a link to an article I wrote and posted in the Wargamer forum that (long windedly) sums up my view on the TW games so far.

http://wargamer.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=306912&high=empire

I think the series was at it's peak with MTW, then just crashed downhill, as both Rome and M2 dramatically upgraded the graphics but trashed the AI so badly that the games are neither challenging or fun anymore (unmodded I mean, I love EB as well for Rome).

The above link explains my feeling completely. I don't want to copy and paste it here as it'll take up an entire page.

Lovely. Just lovely. Did you send it to CA already?

I started with Shogun just around when MTW was released and it really made my day. I think I played a full campaign with all of the factions as they did have their own nyances and differences even though the unit rosters were mostly the same. The differences came from the training bonuses for different units and geographical settings among other things.

I didn't really get like MTW as much as I liked Shogun back then...propably because the map was too huge for me :p Then came the viking invasion which I again played until I had conquered all the provinces with all the factions
I eventually got more into the main campaign with mods and some "house rules" that restricted personal steamrolling early. Good times.

Rome was a letdown for me too as I have said earlier. Completed one campaign and then had a long break until the mods started coming. I was totally put off by the fantasy units and the general feeling the hame had. Later Rome Total Realism was a saviour to all us who liked more historical approach and bit more difficulty. But it's true that the AI didn't get much better until later with EB and others. I haven't followed the mod scene for Rome much these days but I bet there is some mod that improves the AI and gets rid of the unhistorical units without altering the vanilla experince too much if skyway is looking for something in that direction. But if you like ancient history and challenging gameplay, EB is the way to go.

When MTW2 was released I was serving my mandatory conscription service in the army so I didn't get into that one until the late 2007. By then Kingdoms was released and the mods were in a good condition so I went straight to those :p Lands to conquer is excellent if you want to experience the vanilla feeling of MTW2 with much improved AI and difficulty. Stainless Steel is a more total overhaul approach and it's the most popular by far I think. Deus lo Vult I have tried also but I didn't like it for some reason. It seemed a bit too heavy and I'd say even an amateurish attempt to make the game too complex for the engine used. I'd rather play Crusader Kings :p

But I don't think it's a bad idea to try the vanilla versions for once and then jump to the mods to see the improvements yourself if you haven't played TW games before.

Oh believe me, I posted it smack in the middle of the TWCenter Empire forum, and it was like the Bethesda forums right after Oblivion came out all over again.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Does that topic still exist? Link would be nice.

 

[oldschool]

Shogun and Medieval were two of my favorite games of all time. Rome made me nerdrage. Don't know what the rest of the series is like, but I'm guessing more like Rome than not.

 

[mlc82]

Does that topic still exist? Link would be nice.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... ost3565131


"wow what a waste of thread yo. if you dont like the game just dont even show up in this forum dude. this forums only for info and ideas for the game."
- CA's new core sales demographic

GhostRyder's responses when he finally chimes in are hilarious, and you guys should really like him swerving OT into Oblivion bashing

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

13 pages of shit-storm, something nice to read for today.

 

[JarlFrank]

This could fit into this discussion: Takeda 3 official site. Looks more and more Shogun - like. Does anyone have experience with the earlier parts?

I really like how the castles look like.

I've played Sango 2 which seems to be made by the same company. Didn't play it a lot yet, but the battles are quite simple [not many different units] and feel much closer to the original Shogun feel than the newer TW games. AI seems to be better, too, at least winning a battle is more difficult in Sango 2 than it is in Rome or Med2.

 

[MetalCraze]

I've been playing Rome Total War custom battles for a while now. Pretty epic looking (13.5k units though put my old system on knees p. much - not something unexpected of course) - but I've noticed that enemy general during most hot battles tends to die in the first 2-3 minutes - and as I've read in this thread there is a mod that fixes AI while not harming vanilla experience much. Any tips for how it is called?

 

[Zuikov]

I've been playing Rome Total War custom battles for a while now. Pretty epic looking (13.5k units though put my old system on knees p. much - not something unexpected of course) - but I've noticed that enemy general during most hot battles tends to die in the first 2-3 minutes - and as I've read in this thread there is a mod that fixes AI while not harming vanilla experience much. Any tips for how it is called?

I found a couple:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=63256

It doesn't really say it improves the AI but at least it does bring changes to the formations the AI uses which are almost as important. The bug fixes and other changes seem fine also.



http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=46790

I have tried this one briefly and it seemed to be on the right track. It does however, change more that the previous one.



http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=114

This one might be good but I haven't tried it. It's made by Lusted who's known for his excellent MTW2 AI mods.

These mods are a bit dated but each of them tries to stay close to the feel of vanilla Rome.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I've played Sango 2 which seems to be made by the same company. Didn't play it a lot yet, but the battles are quite simple [not many different units] and feel much closer to the original Shogun feel than the newer TW games. AI seems to be better, too, at least winning a battle is more difficult in Sango 2 than it is in Rome or Med2.

Interesting. Then why doesnt this get more attention here and elsewhere? The small number of unit types is certainly a good thing. Shogun had only about 10 units, perfectly balanced for rock-paper-scissor gameplay (think of it, chess has only 6).

Now for think of RTW, ETW, etc. An inflation of meaningless shit units like "Prussian Death Hussars", when it should be: Medium Cavalry (+xp +armor +weapons).

I downloaded the Sango2 demo once before and it was corrupt .. Seems I will have to try again. What about the campaign? My first gripe is that from the screens this looks too spreadsheet like, I would for instance prefer to "see" my army through some pictograms, and not just numbers.

Anyway, shouldn't we gather information about TW like games in this or maybe a dedicated thread? I for instance think every TW player of old should like TC2M.

 

[Zyrxil]

Does that topic still exist? Link would be nice.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... ost3565131


"wow what a waste of thread yo. if you dont like the game just dont even show up in this forum dude. this forums only for info and ideas for the game."
- CA's new core sales demographic

GhostRyder's responses when he finally chimes in are hilarious, and you guys should really like him swerving OT into Oblivion bashing

Dramatic much? It's 13 pages of people agreeing with you, and like 5 trolls.

 

[JarlFrank]

I downloaded the Sango2 demo once before and it was corrupt .. Seems I will have to try again. What about the campaign? My first gripe is that from the screens this looks too spreadsheet like, I would for instance prefer to "see" my army through some pictograms, and not just numbers.

It is very spreadsheet-like, yes. It's not really so much comparable to the TW games in the campaign screen, more with... hmm, say, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI [which is the only one in the series I played]. Maybe I just make that connection because the setting is the same, dunno. Haven't played much of the game yet, as I said, so I haven't had any in-depth experience with the campaign screen yet. You should try to download the demo again and see for yourself. The battles were definitely more challenging than the new TW games.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Ok, so considering that Takeda3 is supposed to release Feb 27th and there will be a demo in a week, I will get that one and see if it's good. Certainly appreciate that comment that the battles are harder than TW, just hope that does not mean unfair-hard. And yeah the battle maps look pretty look darn small to me.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Does that topic still exist? Link would be nice.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... ost3565131


"wow what a waste of thread yo. if you dont like the game just dont even show up in this forum dude. this forums only for info and ideas for the game."
- CA's new core sales demographic

GhostRyder's responses when he finally chimes in are hilarious, and you guys should really like him swerving OT into Oblivion bashing

Dramatic much? It's 13 pages of people agreeing with you, and like 5 trolls.

That's what I thought.

 

[mlc82]

Does that topic still exist? Link would be nice.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... ost3565131


"wow what a waste of thread yo. if you dont like the game just dont even show up in this forum dude. this forums only for info and ideas for the game."
- CA's new core sales demographic

GhostRyder's responses when he finally chimes in are hilarious, and you guys should really like him swerving OT into Oblivion bashing

Dramatic much? It's 13 pages of people agreeing with you, and like 5 trolls.

The unintentional trolling on the same level of "Oblivion is a total RPG- you can LARP as a tree!" is what gave me a kick.

 

[JarlFrank]

Ok, so considering that Takeda3 is supposed to release Feb 27th and there will be a demo in a week, I will get that one and see if it's good. Certainly appreciate that comment that the battles are harder than TW, just hope that does not mean unfair-hard. And yeah the battle maps look pretty look darn small to me.

The battle maps are pretty darn small, actually. At least in Sango 2.
Dunno about Takeda 3.

 

[Panthera]

I actually really enjoyed Sango 2, as insanely hard as it is.

Looking forward to the next Takeda and Strength & Honor games.

 

[mlc82]

I REALLY wanted to try the Sango II demo, but on both my desktop and laptop (with different vid cards), when I start it the screen just garbles up and then the whole PC freezes.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

So, is there a Codex consensus on what the best mod is for M2TW?

I'm looking for something on the scale of Europa Barbarorum.

 

[ever]

My Recommendation is Broken Crescent with the 1.05 patch and minor fixes.

If you have kingdoms then upgrade to Broken Crescent Kingdoms sub-mod and add in the XBAI

Pretty darn good mod. There'll be patch 1.5 soon and a version 2.0 later.

 

[mlc82]

So, is there a Codex consensus on what the best mod is for M2TW?

I'm looking for something on the scale of Europa Barbarorum.

Dominion of the Sword isn't out yet but looks like it will be the Medieval equivalent of Europa Barbarorum (My favorite game mod to date), and of course EB2 is coming as well.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=492

For now, I'd say check out "Chivalry II: The Sicilian Vespers", it's my favorite M2 mod and a new update should be out for it soon.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=354

 

[Trash]

Most of the MTW2 mods overburden the game with lots of new and often dull features and reduce the game itself to something akin to a mmorpg grind. RTW had the same problem, especially with the Rome Total Realism mod.

Lands to Conquer is the most lightweight mod. It just adds all of the Kingdom features to MTW and improves the AI. It hasn't been improved since 2007 however, so it lacks a lot of the new stuff the later mods have. Though I do believe that Lusted's battle AI is still the best out there.

Stainless Steel is the most popular mod that really imrpoves the AI and adds tons of changes to the core gameplay while keeping the biggest entirely optional. I do however find it a bit boring since all of the units have become rather samey and they totally screwed around with settlement growth and the like.

 

[Burning Bridges]

The battle maps are pretty darn small, actually. At least in Sango 2.
Dunno about Takeda 3.

Same, if you look at the screens. I'd say about 1/4 of TW. But to me they look nice.

What exactly makes the Sango 2 battles hard?

My problem with the demo it is just too damn large. Tip to self-publishing companies that nobody knows: strip your demos of some graphics and videos so they are not over a gigabyte. I get no more than ~70kb at the romanian mirror, which realistically means 5-8 hours. No wonder many folks torrent right away.

 

[AzraelCC]

Very nice thread, and kudos to the heads up on Knights of Honor. I've bought it and it is pretty good game.

 

[mlc82]

IIRC the "Kingdoms Grand Campaign Mod" is similar to Lands to Conquer and is said to have the best overall AI performance of any mod out there- unfortunately, like LTC, it's basically a souped up vanilla M2, and vanilla M2 felt more like whack a mole than Medieval 1 to me. If you just want to sling non-stop stacks of units at each other and watch militia spearmen hold their own without trouble against any and all heavy cavalry (unless said cavalry charge, in which ONE charging cavalryman can kill 20-25 men in a single pass somehow), then you'll love it.