Questions:

1) Are there different modes of play (eg. Campaign) as well as a freeform country-building?
There are two types of campaign, first is victory through conquest where you have to conquer atleast 70% of the (known) world, the second is victory through glorious achievement, where you accumulate points for doing various things depending on which nation you play. Besides those you can chose to play single battles and there's a few other options I think, but I've never given those too much attention. But a real free build mode is not available I'm afraid. (Just like there's no multiplayer campaign :( )

2) When you go into battle, is it realtime where you control all your units and use tactics and strategy?
Two types of battle, first one is controlling the battle yourself, which is realtime, but with the option to pause the events to give orders and such. The second option is letting the computer calculate the results, the outcome then greatly depends on your general and what troops he has available.


And I have a question more that I'd like to know myself:
How do I make feudal foot knights? I simply cannot find the requirements for them anywhere, I've seen them used by rebels and in crusades, but I've never actually been able to build them myself. :(

I think you can make your knights dismount before a battle? I've never tried this though (I like my cavalry :D )

Thanks Memnoch and StigTC [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

If I'm able to get out, I will buy it. If not, definitely tomorrow! Thanks for introducing me to what sounds like a kickass game. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Speaking of battles, how to you normally array your forces for attack (or defence)? As you call know I'm just starting but wouldn't mind seeing what everyone else does.

For attack I normally have heavy footmen (best I have available at the moment is Chivalric Men At Arms) in my vanguard, followed by the bulk of my army (either more heavy foot but more often Vikings, which still make the bulk of my infantry, GREAT troops and CHEAP!) at the centre. I usually have heavy cavalry on both wings, with spearmen behind them to make sure my centre doesn't get flanked. I usually hold back my cavalry until the initial engagement, then I drive them into the flanks of the enemy, or use them to head off enemy cavalry.

In my main body, just behind my van I have my archers/arbalesters, strung out in a double line, with a row of spearmen in front of them. I ALWAYS have spearmen protecting them - I forgot in one battle and a bunch of peasants got through my initial wall and took my crossbowmen out of the fight when I REALLY needed their covering fire. [img]graemlins/awcrap.gif[/img]

I also make sure I have a reserve of cavalry (if possible) and footmen held back in case certain troops are getting decimated and need support.

Some questions though:

1. Which are better, Pavise Crossbowmen or arbalesters?

2. As above, Royal Knights or Feudal Knights? It looks like they're the same type of unit, but Feudal Knights come in groups of 40.

3. When the enemy breaks and runs, how do I stop my troops from chasing them to the horizon (aside from manually making them reform)?

4. How do I repenish a prince/general's personal unit? One of my princes had 19 Royal Knights at the start but he got decimated during a battle until only he was left. How do I replenish his unit with more Royal Knights (I merge units into his army but his unit stays at 1).

[ 08-22-2004, 10:13 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

I always set up all my spearmen at the front to prevent the enemy from charging me with cavalry.
Right behind them, I set up my archers (if I have any, I usually don't) just so that they're protected, but still have good reach.
Then my swordsmen, standing ready to charge when the enemy has gotten close enough to me. This usually means that they end up fighting a few cavalry units as well, because the enemy holds his horses untill they have some easier prey. :(
And at the back I have my cavalry, mostly because at the back they have the most mobility and can move to either side and then move out and flank the enemy or simply charge enemy archers.
I think your setup is better though.

As for your other questions.
1. Pavise are better if the enemy has archers that shoot back, the shield is great protection, arbalesters are however better if they can stand somewhere safe without being shot, the arbalest is simply much stronger than a crossbow.

2. I usually prefer smaller groups of cavalry because they have an easier time crossing bridges, and they allow for more troops of other unit types. (There's that annoying max army size remember [img]smile.gif[/img] ) The bigger groups don't get decimated as easily though since they can better afford to lose a man or 10.

3. I usually tell my troops to run in the other direction in cases like that or tell them to attack someone else. The "halt" button to the top left in the control panel might actually work too, not sure. The problem (I think) is that the unit can charge the enemy without orders (and readily does so) and continues to do so as long as they're within range. Selecting hold and then halt for the unit should stop them completely now that I think about it.

4. The problem might be that when hitting M the computer simply places him out of the hierarky for merging since he has higher valour and they don't want to reduce his quality (or something like that), I'd try dragging a royal knight unit and dropping it on him by hand and see if that works.

Another question from me then. How long after the invention of gunpowder can you start building cannon ships?

To answer StigTC's question, you need some 20 years before the cannon ships are available, then some 6 years to produce one(I might be terribly off, I don't build overwhelming and powerfull fleets, just numerous).
A tip for Memnoch, if you haven't noticed already, Vikings have low morale, when using three troups of Vikings against a foe and their(viking's) formation get's broken they run. But, if you couple a Viking with some strong morale unit like a quality spearmen or a swordsman and move them in a formation that keeps everyone close Vikings will never even think of running and then you'll see the true strength of the berserking turtle [img]smile.gif[/img] .

I don't know anything about gunpowder yet...I'm still only in 1190. [img]graemlins/awcrap.gif[/img]

Tsk tsk Bozo, your fleet is your most important tool, it's pretty much an unlimited supply of money. :D

And I really need those bigger ships before I go head to head against the Danish fleet, they have so many ships that my current fleet would be swimming with the fishies before the year was over.

I didn't say I don't build a fleet, I just don't maximise it. I have numerous low-tech ships, I don't invest in technology about ships because the hordes of ships I have standing are enough to clear any shore to land my troops.

Turned out that I didn't need a big and impressive fleet to beat the Danish anyway.

My four valour **** grand inquisitors simply prosecuted the entire royal family one by one as heretics, and voila, no more Danish empire, I simply scooped up the rebel areas after that. :D

I think so far I've had 4 rulers and more than twice that number in heirs burned as heretics. Those grand inquisitors are their wight worth in gold.

In other news, the English treasury just recently went past the 1,000,000 florin mark and I'm now the empire with the biggest yearly income and the biggest army. I also occupy Scandinavia the entire western Europe except for Portugal which the Spanish has just decided to make a new start in and have made my first moves into northern Africa.

It's good to be the king. :D

I always use heavy cavalry in combination with longbowmen, a deadly combination. I'm not sure if that's an option for you Memnoch, since that would force you to be English. :D

And of course you don't have those type of units early in the game, so you'll have to improvise until the moment comes. Cavalry is my favourite choice anyway, so from early on my armies mostly consist out of hobilars, plus a few cohorts of spearmen to stop the enemies' cavalry. Hobilars don't have a very powerful charge however, so prepare to lose a battle or two, especially when your opponents are Arabic fighters on camels. Also important is to control all waterways surrounding your lands so you can drop armies whereever they are mostly needed.

Rome Total War demo comes out on Monday.

Maybe we should start warming up then, play the Medieval campaign as the Italians. :D

he just pulled the same s**t on me!
if i got this right, his troops show up in provinces with zeal over 90%? (or it was just a strange coincidence in my case).

anyway, the guy just shows up with ~10k troops (everything from archers and spearmen to royal cavalry, mounted archers and a couple different kinds of riflemen) in four of my provinces, so i'm like 'WTF?!?!?!' [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] . luckily, i had one of my armies in one of those provinces and two other armies are nearby (will engage him the next turn). the one army that was already there however, was attacked by some 3900+ troops, against my 1900; but i figure i'm on defense so i should be able to take them [img]smile.gif[/img] . so i start with 4x20 royal cavalry (including my king) and 12x60 chivalric men@arms. i grab a good defensive position in a big forrest on top of a hill and about four hours (!!!) later the last unit of enemy spearmen are fleeing from the battlefield. end result - 3150 enemy killed or captured against just 185 of my own killed!

a brilliant strategic victory if i do say so myself :D . that po(o)pe can just kiss this [img]graemlins/finger.gif[/img] . as soon as i kick the crap out of his three remaining armies that is. one of which is about 4-4.5k troops, the other two are about 1.5-2k. can't wait to take them on [img]smile.gif[/img] . i can always eat and sleep another day... god i love this game!

Yeeeeaaaaahhhh!!!!

(I got the game [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

And I have to say, I am VERY impressed! I've started a game as the Egyptians. My initial plan was to send two armies - one heading west along the north of Africa, taking Spain from the bottom to sweep over Europe. And another to head north and do a circular motion opposite to the other route. Eventually, they would meet up and move out throughout the rest of Europe. Oh, how wrong I was...

Almost immediately, my neighbour to the west offered an allegience. Of course, I could not refuse this - I would gain guaranteed protection of anyone invading from Africa or some Spanish explorers. With that taken care of, I focused my attention on going the other way around. However, one country went a bit out of their way to stop that from happening as much as possible.

... The Turks [img]tongue.gif[/img] . It took a lot of battles and reinforcements, but eventually I sieged their forts and forced them off the land... and the neutral Byzantines just spectated happily [img]smile.gif[/img] .

Well, that's about all that's happened so far. I'm thinking of starting a separate game as more of a European country so that I can experience conquering very well known places ASAP.

And I haven't tried any of the real-time battles yet (except in the tutorial) because I'd get my ass kicked [img]tongue.gif[/img] .

*Sigh*... nothing can stop my thousands of camels...

Good onya J! Welcome to the ranks of the converted. :D

But you should play some of the real time battles - they're heaps of fun!

And they aren't that difficult once you get the hang of it, you just have to remember which troops to use against each enemy.
Cavalry against swordsmen. (usually called men-at-arms or footknights)
Swordsmen against spearmen. (usually called spearmen or sergeants)
Spearmen against cavalry. (usually called knights, but they're the guys on horses, you can spot them pretty easily)
And archers are just for causing disruptions in the enemies formations, you can do without them, but they're nice to have in some cases.

And Egypt isn't such a bad nation to play as, they get some nice trade, and you can make it even better by conquering Constantinople.

CATASTROPHE!!!

My king died last year, and his heir assumed the throne - and he looked like he was going to be a GREAT king. Guess what happened this year - he croaked it!!! :mad:

End of game apparently...how unLUCKY can you get...my empire's now degenerated into a bunch of rival squabbling factions apparently, because he died of an illness without an heir. Just when I'd started my attack on the Turks, after disposing of the Germans and Italians. I must have about 65% of the total land area, and my empire disintegrated just like that. :(

Thank God I have a save from a few years earlier. [img]graemlins/showoff.gif[/img]

and don't forget that if you let the computer handle the battles you will usually loose a lot more troops than if you take control yourself. using terain to your advantage, flanking the enemy and using proper unit combos will take down your losses several fold!

I'm glad I save regularly (after each turn) - I can't believe your game can be over, just like that... [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

Grats on beating him. I wasn't able to do it. He had the 5k or so units all on Rome. Rome was very far from my current areas of activities, so I had only a light garison there and in all the surrounding areas. By taking all of the troups in all the surounding areas, I was able to get around 2k soldiers, about 100 of those were Royal Knights, while the rest were mostly Spearmen and Militia Guards. The pope's army was way more advanced, His was made of chivalric sergents, men at arms, and way more Royal Knights than me.

My Spearmen and Militia was getting butchered in melee, so I reloaded, and decided another tactic. I positioned my Royal Knights so that they flanked the Pope's army and I put my crappy foder in the front. When the fight started his army went for my foder, while my Knights went for the pope. They killed him, then I took my 100 grouped Royal knights, and had them charge the same ennemy unit. They'd capture some, and I'd execute them. They'd panic and start runing away, then I'd do the same with another unit. It didn't take long for the panic to spread, and all of his troops were running away from my knights.

I was able to make about 4k of them run that way, but each new wave of units had to be attacked for a while before they would panic, and by the time I had routed that many, my knights were out of stamina and almost all dead. The last wave destroyed my knights and my Spearmen ran away.

Thas was a very heroic fight, but I only killed maybe 100 or so of his units, and they just named a new pope, while I had lost all the units in that area of the map, so I reloaded, destroyed everything in Rome and surounded it. :D

[ 08-23-2004, 02:30 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

I never use that execute enemies tactic, because it seems that whenever I do my general ends up with a vice that say something like he resorts to drastic measures whenever he's fighting a losing battle.
Doesn't matter if he's winning or not.
Otherwise I'd use it every single time just to prevent the enemy from buying his captured troops back after the battle, I rarely need the money anyway.

[EDIT] WHOA! Those lancers rock, they pretty much run down anything in a charge, I charged into the back of a group of chivalric sergeants and they all ran, allowing me to just scoop them up as prisoners.
I really should have a way to say "take no prisoners, kill them all" [img]smile.gif[/img] [/EDIT]

[ 08-23-2004, 04:16 PM: Message edited by: StigTC ]

You do.. down in the lower right corner of the screen should be a small square image of a hand holding a knife with a number right by it. The number is how many prisoners you have captured. If you hit this button you will kill all the prisoners and increase your dread or gain a vice/virtue of merciless or something like that. If you don't kill them you might be able to ransom them off after the battle.

It's not a bad vice, your general will only get one more Dread point. In fact, I get it for all my generals.

Just don't do it again if you are winning a fight, or your general will get a upgrade to that perk, it's going to be +2 Dread, -1 Morale. Of course sometimes it's worth it. I had a Max Command Max Dread general I called "The Butcher". The only role of his army was to destroy the ennemy units.

I know about that button Djinn, but it has the unfortunate side effects described by Luvian.
I just want my troops to do it automatically, so that it doesn't fall back on my general.

Ah well, I guess I'll just have to do it when it's an army that might actually be able to fight back if it's sold back to the enemy. :(

And just a bonus question. :D

What troops do you consider to be the best of each kind (Cavalry, infantry, spear and archers) in each era (Early, high, late)?

The Rome Total War Demo is out btw. Sadly it's only available from fileplanet so far, with a huge download queue.

I tried my luck getting from a p2p program. If all goes well my download will be complete in 2 hours.

Edit: I found a website with a Direct download link and I'm downloading at 260ko/sec ! I'll test it when it's complete in 10 mins and post the link here if it work.

Edit 2: Here are the Minimum System Requirements for Rome Total War:


English version of Microsoft(r) Windows(r) 98SE/ME/2000/XP

Pentium(r) III 1.0GHz (1000MHz) or Athlon(tm) 1.0GHz (1000MHz) processor or higher

256MB RAM

8x Speed CD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers

300MB of uncompressed free hard disk space

100% DirectX(r) 9.0b compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers

100% Windows(r) 98SE/ME/2000/XP compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers

DirectX(r) 9.0b

3D hardware Accelerator Card Required - 100% DirectX(r) 9.0b compatible 64MB Hardware Accelerated video card and the latest drivers.

Eidt 3: The file is working. Here's the link to it. The website is in french, but the demo in english http://www.clubic.fr/t/jeux/demo/829.html

It's the first Download link.

[ 08-23-2004, 08:26 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

Great! Thanks for that link, Luvian. Downloading it right now. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

This is gonna be sooooo cool! :D

Played the demo, it's totally awesome. Oh man this game is going to be great. it runs better for me than Medieval does! :D

I've just started to download it now, gee it's a big file. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] Thank goodness I'm downloading at 200Kb/sec - it'll only take about 10 mins. I have a feeling my video card won't be up for it...I've only got a MX400...

[ 08-24-2004, 01:10 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

If your video card doesn't handle it, rearrange your schedule and make getting a new one a top priority - this game is worth it! :D

Words cannot describe how cool the battles are in that game. The music. The atmosphere. The intensity. Not to mention the huge amounts of tactics and strategy involved.

And the 3D-ness! *Rocking on chair* Yes... so pretty... with the killing and the stabbing and the "Oh my gosh it hurts me!"

I Especially liked zooming on the War Elephants and watching them throw people around.

But what I'm really looking foward to trying is the Empire building map.

Hahaha, classic! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

*Sigh* ... if only you could have an entire army of elephants. Have you seen how high and far they send the men? They literally go flying several yards behind their unit. [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

Hmmm... I need to go and get a screenshot of that in action, and set it as my wallpaper [img]smile.gif[/img]

How's it working, Memnoch? ADD) He's probably too addicted to exit [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Does anybody know if it will feature the country-conquering thing like Medieval does? Or is it just battles?

[ 08-24-2004, 06:34 AM: Message edited by: Jaradu ]

Downloading the R:TW demo now :D Thanks Link. In the meanwhile, this thread has inspired me to give Medieval another shot. I'm playing as the English this time, which should be more challenging then the Egyptians. I got lucky though, the neighbours of France immediately declared war on the country, so it crushed between the Germans and the Spanish. I waited a few turns, then stabbed them in the back and snatched most of the French coastal regions. All your base are belong to moi :D Unfortunately, the Pople has excommunicated me :ohoh1:. Fortunately, the also excommunicated my neighbours Germany and Spain, so I don't expect an invasion army just yet.

Yes, there is a real map in the game, the same as in Mediaval Total War. Look at the flash page they added in the demo folder, you can see some of it in screenshots. It look great. You can trade now too.

The demo ran on my MX400 Mem, so no reason to sweat just yet, we'll wait for the full game for that. :D

Is there a multiplayer in Medieval btw ? Seems to me there's plenty of interrest in that game here to organize a session sometime.

Yes, but I can only imagine real-time battles to come alive, or an e-mail based turn system.
Thanks for the link, Luvian!

Multiplayer is only for battles I'm affraid, I've been wanting a multiplayer campaign for a long time.
Anyone know if they'll have it in Rome: Total War?

Sacred Band Cavalry ownz! The game is so great I just can't wait for it to come! It's always a good feeling to lose 108 men and kill 1435.