...for $9 AUD. Great bargain. :D Great game, as well! I'm a bit under the pump at the moment (playing as the Danes) but I'm starting to get the hang of it. I have a few questions however:

1. how does everyone keep track of where all their emissaries, armies, etc all are? It's not like Civ where units flash when it's their turn to move. I'm sure some armies are wasting away somewhere while others die due to a lack of reinforcements.

2. How do you know who's married into your family? I've got quite a few heirs, but they're mainly royal princes - my actual heir (he's 52) has just assumed the throne and he doesn't have a wife yet. Now some of my younger princes have married outside the faction, how do I know who they got married to (I can't remember who the princesses were). The alliance screen doesn't tell you who's married to who...

3. How useful are these marriages anyway?

4. How come I can't travel from Norway (which has a port) to Mercia (which also has a port) but I can travel to Flanders (which has a port). Does this have something to do with dominating shipping lanes?

This is an awesome game isn't it. :D

This is one of my favorite games!

Ass far as I know, you can't know who your princes wed. The usefullness of it, is that if a faction lose all kings and princes, their lands all become neutral rebels. You might get some of those automatically. Mostly usefull if you use assasins.

To travel by ship, you need to have a ship in each sea square from the starting port to the other. If there is an ennemy ship on one of those, your units won't be able to cross. Non-military units can cross on ship from any country I think.

I just use the minimap to keep track of my lands, but I think there is a button to see your troops.

I must admit Medieval is probably the best strategy empire builder I've played. And I would really suggest that you further invest in the viking invasion expansion as you can then play as the Hungarians, Sicilians and Aragonese. Not to mention you can play as the Vikings in the British scenario.

I just played it for eight hours STRAIGHT. :eek: Haven't done that with any game other than Civ (I and III). So far I've destroyed the Byzantine faction (after three MASSIVE battles, one a siege) and the Sicilian faction (stupid idiot refused to marry my daughter) and pretty much have the Hungarians, French, Polish and German factions all under my boot.

I decided not to worry about the princesses [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] I decided to marry them all off to my generals to improve their loyalty (got tired of having to send them all over the continent to try and find men - besides you get betrayed by your in-laws anyway).

Some more questions:

1. WHAT is the best way to keep track of who needs to move where (aside from me manually making notes). For example I was trying to attack Mercia (as the Danes) as I'd already taken Scotland and the loser English were holding out in their castle, unfortunately I didn't have any seige machinery and it looked like they were going to be there for at least 5 years. The Pope had already warned me about going to war against fellow Christians, but I figured I had 2 years to get them, so I started building catapults in Denmark. Unfortunately next round I forgot all about them (they just appeared in Denmark but there was nothing to alert me of it) and I ended up waiting too long and got excommunicated!!! :mad:

There's a huge amount of detail to be managed - I'm starting to find the info screens useful but it's hard to know where all my bishops/princesses/emissaries are (the Subterfuge screen isn't that userfriendly). I'm SURE that a lot of times some resources are just sitting there idle...

Another thing, with ships - what's the value of haivng a fleet as opposed to individual ships? I suppose it's to increase your chances of survival if you're attacked?

What's the penalty for being excommunicated btw? And how do you reverse it? Is it for life? I've been excommunicated twice. :D

AWESOME GAME. Can't believe it missed it the first time. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

You should really download the medmod. It greatly balances the game and fixes some issues as well as letting you play some factions that aren't available in the regular game.

Being execommunicated means that the Christian factions might launch crusades on you which could be very bad. If your Emperor is old then you should go for a land grab amongst the Christian lands as once he dies the excommunication is rendered void.

You should uncheck the option that tidies up units after battles. It makes it easier to remember which unit is where, which army is which as the game seems to mess that up badly. (click the little gray rectangle right beside the mini map to see those options).

Keeping track of who to move where.. keep your army units tight and units that are guarding provinces in the castles so they don't clutter the map up.

Having a fleet is useful only against warring factions and to maintain naval superiority in a given sea area.

And by the way if you think Medieval is good.. Rome: Total War is coming out the end of September and by all accounts it looks to blow Medieval off the map!

Gee, this must be the most addictive game EVER - I don't think I've played anything this addictive!! I've been bleary eyed at work because I've been playing it non-stop practically. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

I got excommunicated, but the funny thing is nobody's decided to attack me - I'm too powerful I think. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

I still can't work out how to keep track of where all my bishops/assassins/troops are, the Info boxes aren't that userfriendly, but I reckon that it was just like that in history...for want of a good computer system Rome collapsed... :D :D :D

Djinn, what tidy up option? And what's the medmod?

You've been excomunicated again? Why is the pope still alive? Time to show him who's the boss...

I have to get through Hungarian lands to get to him, and unfortunately every assassin I've sent has gotten caught and hanged. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

I'm thinking of attacking the Hungarians anyway since I'm excommunicated, everyone's still allied with me, they're scared of me I think...but my daughter (one of the many I've sent out) is married to the Hungarian king. Will this be a problem?

Attacking the Hungarians will only tarnish your reputation but it sounds that it doesn't really matter with the amount of power you hold. Killing the pope is one way of stopping further excomunications but the destuction of the papacy causes seriously strong revolts in rome every few years. So as long as you are willing to maintain a large garrison there then good luck to you. The first time I completed the game with the Poles I decided just to push the pope into the less productive papal states and let him rot. With the natural death of the pope your excomuniction will be removed until any further conflicts with the holy father.

[ 08-11-2004, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: General Nosaj ]

Memnoch if you look at the minimap in the top left corner of the strategy map, there is a small greyish rectangle with an arrow on it. Like this:

http://www.frontierworlds.com/images/med.jpg

Click on that arrow and a little panel of options will open up. Uncheck the checkbox that says tidy up units after battle. It's an extremely annoying feature.

The medmod can be found here. Check the readme out for the changes it makes which are quite considerable and imo balance the game out nicely including improving the naval system.

With your assassins you should concentrate on killing priests, emmisarries and young women. That will give them some experience and after you have a few good assassins their ability in killing enemy generals will be that much better.

[ 08-11-2004, 12:44 PM: Message edited by: Djinn Raffo ]

I'll tell you one thing I find annoying...it's forgetting that you've been training all these assassins/bishops/emmissaries in a province and then finding about six of them all huddled together... :rolleyes: :D

That's never a problem Mem, the enemies assassins always get to them before you notice. [img]smile.gif[/img]
On the other hand, I once got two 4 star spies from just standing in one region protecting my emmissaries and holy men. :D

I once made an assasin, and made him kill someone every turn. At the end he was so powerfull he kept killing princes all the time.

Once I sent him to a faraway country I had no way to get my troops to. He must have killed 4 princes and about as many princess. [img]smile.gif[/img] I always only have one assasin at a time, it's easier to keep track of him.

Yes, the keeping track of things is the only thing that's annoying me with this game - everything else is EXCELLENT. :D This would have to be the best strategy game I've played since CivIII, and it's got that realtime battle aspect as well. And to think I got it for $9.99!! [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

The problem is that I'm playing as the Danes, and all their names end in -son or something like that, so I can't ever remember which assassin succeeded, which general got promoted, who my princesses married, or even which royal princes became mere knights when their nephews ascended the throne...I've worked out that the name of my House is House Ericsson though...

I'll tell you how involved I've been getting in this game - I've started to make up a family tree to keep track of my royal lineage, princesses and all. :D

Here's a fact that's not well known...

Did you know that over time your generals die of old age? The game don't tell you this, but Lord Kulvart the Duke of Normandy might be Lord Donaldson the Duke of Normandy in a couple game turn. What this does is usually raise their stats with time. Over time, I've had general with maxed out stats. So it's important to give out every titles you have, and give them to decent unit. There's really no point of having a peasant unit with max command, for example.

I noticed this when one of my king died, and his sons became regular generals. They still had the same name, but had the royalty icon still. Then later I saw the same unit, but he didn't have my familly name and crown anymore, and he had better stats, but it was still the same unit with the same titles.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/manuel.lortie/general.gif

This guy isn't the best one I've had, his dread suck. I believe he used to be a prince. Over time your general keep gaining vices and virtues, and you can even end up with two rows of them.

[ 08-12-2004, 02:28 AM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

Hey, how did you do a screenshot? Is it the Print Screen button? And where does it go?

Geez that command is pretty good mate...the most I've had so far is 7...my really good generals keep getting assassinated.

I'm trying to figure out what use Piety is...if it's low does it mean the chance they'll join a Crusade (just another form of conscription eh!) is less?

Piety is simply how religious they are, it determines how likely they are to join crusades, and how likely they are to revolt if you're excommunicated. Also if you capture a country of another religion, they will be more likely to revolt if your leader is highly religious.

danes rule memnoch!!! :D . we should go on multiplayer if your interested. want a challenge :D .

I might be, once I get better at it - don't want you to kick my ass. :D

As for crusades, there's this one crusade that's been going through Poland (one of my provinces) for about 10 turns now - all it does it go to Hungary, then Poland, then back to Hungary, then Poland and so on and so on. It's supposed to go to Palestine, not that it will ever get there - it's basically bleeding my province dry of all my good Royal Knights. :mad: How do I get rid of it??

Well the easiest option is to declare war on the crusading faction but that could be quite disasterous if you lack troops in the area.

The same thing happened to me once as the Hungarians as many crusades pass that way. If you can afford to move all your decent troops out and place peasents to make up the numbers then it will save you losing good soldiers. Eventually the crusade will disapear as men leave a crusade if it is going nowhere. However this can take a long time.

The last option is to invade the province they are trynig to progress to as their army moves in. Together you can win the province and let him take the land. If you're feeling very generous.

The Magyars are probably not letting the Crusaders passage through there province and winning the fight against them repelling them back to your polish province.

On top of it, he's an expert attacker and defender, so he's got +2 command in attack, and defense.

You really need to get the expansion, it add more things, like a control panel before fights, so that you can preview some of the ennemies's troops and chose your starting units and reserve. It also add a new map, england. I like that map better because games are shorter.

For the screenshot I just used printscreen and pasted in photoshop. The game might save it somewhere, because when I presed print screen the game froze for a fraction of a second, the way it usually does for games that have a screenshot function, but I didn't see it anywhere in the game folder.

I really love this game. I talked so much about it I had to start a new game. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 08-12-2004, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

Well, the silly Germans have attacked me, which was really really silly, I've been coveting their lands for a while now, this is the perfect excuse to invade. [img]graemlins/evillaughter2.gif[/img]

I just got excommunicated AGAIN!!! [img]graemlins/madhell.gif[/img]

All I was doing was defending myself from these invading Germans...they started it, I'm finishing it. [img]graemlins/cool.gif[/img] So why am *I* all of a sudden the guilty party?? Is it because I'm bigger than them?

I'm thinking of rolling all the way over to Rome and getting rid of the Pope, what a scheming non-Christian he is anyway...what happens when you get rid of the Pope? Does the excommunication stand?

Interestingly enough everyone has broken their alliances with the Germans, and remained allies with me...

You should have waited for the Pope to excommunicate them. The Germans suckered you big time.

Well, it was a matter of pride...I wasn't going to sit there and concede my province to them, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take some of those lands I coveted - it will open up the entire West to me.

So stuff him...I've decided to ignore the excommunication - my assassin who I've been training up, getting him to off hapless emissary newbies, has now gotten up to 6th rank and is on his way to Rome. [img]graemlins/evillaughter2.gif[/img] In any case, Pope Nicholas II is 82 and should croak soon.

So far the Germans have been conceding their provinces because I've got too many troops invading, though it's been a bit of a pain having to uproot them from their castles. I lost a 7 star general in a siege where I outnumbered them by 25 to 1, just because a lucky shot from their catapult happen to hit him while I was positioning him for the charge. Bugger. [img]graemlins/awcrap.gif[/img]

When you kill the pope, you put a pupet Pope in place (not in a physical place, they have no more lands), so all excomunication are cancelled, and there will be no more.

Of course, there will be some rebelions from time to time in rome, but nothing fantastic. If they were to succedd in a rebelion they would put a real pope out again.

I'm stumped, what do I have to do to get the longbowmen when playing as the English?

I'm not 100% (typing this off of memory and i haven't played the English in quite awhile) but i don't think you can get them until the high period (and that's in Wales only, late for English iirc). Then for buildings I think you only need a Master Bowyer which you need a castle for first to build.

Hmmm, this is getting pretty rough now - the Pope, after excommunicating me has now asked Catholic nations to declare a Crusade against me. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

What he doesn't know is that I've got an invasion army building up in Greece, lots of chivalric men-at-arms (I'm still in early/middle period) from Constantinople, Royal Knights from Saxony, Vikings (my fodder) from Scandinavia, Chivalric Spearmen from Poland and mangonels/catapults/ballistae from Bulgaria (I own all those provinces) - and very shortly we're going to take a trip to Rome. [img]graemlins/evillaughter2.gif[/img]

Not only that, the war against the Germans is going really well - I've taken Freisland, Bohemia and Franconia, and have gotten them holed up in their castle in Swabia. Plus I killed the Holy Roman Emperor in battle during the attack on Franconia - I was sieging their castle with 600 men when they sallied forth with reinforcements from Austria (I think) and all of a sudden I was facing 1300 men. I had 60 Royal Knights who took some grievous losses but they were led by a prince who was literally the last knight left, but he killed the German Emperor in personal combat. :eek: It was beautiful to watch him chase this fleeing bloke down and kill him. :D

This is a totally awesome game. I'm starting to develop a system for keeping track of all my stuff now. Love it. :D :D

[ 08-14-2004, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

That can be when you get into trouble when Crusades start coming your way.

Right now i'm playing the Almohads. They have one of the best, if not the best, units in the game. They start in an easily defensible position with some expansion options.. but you quickly run into a wall. I like playing them though.

Memnoch you should load up a game as one of the Moslem factions just to hear the different music.

There's nothing funnier than seeing a crusade move into one of your land, and then retreat because it realise it can't win. [img]smile.gif[/img]

wait till you see ROME total war :D . Its coming out end of the year. Its a good timing for you since you just started and enjoying Medival total war ;) .

They have been using the realtime battle graphics from ROME total war on the history channel.. in an over-used word (but true) - AWESOME!

Damn those princes.
I'm playing as the Danish and the third heir to the throne was just so much better that I sent his two older brothers alone (with their bodyguards of course, 40 men in total) to Finland to fight the 1800 peasants and fanatics there. First time around they killed 900 enemies and only the first heir managed to escape, I of course sent him back as I tolerate no retreat (Eg. I wanted him dead) and he actually killed 587, took 125 prisoners and forced the enemy to retreat, thus conquering Finland single handedly. By the time he went home he was a valour 16 cavalry unit. Sadly he was lost in his attempt to conquer Pomerania as well.

Yes, those are powerfull units.

It remind me of one of my favorite game ever. I was showing the game to a friend, so I started a new game as the french and attacked the english land beside it. I only used my king, and I won the fight, taking one of their best land. That was so cool I continued the game, and kept that tactic for a while. The French king singlehandedly conquered 3 provinces and killed the english king in duel. [img]smile.gif[/img]

After that he had no more guards in his unit, she I let him sit back and watch.

I found that he was actually a better unit once he had no other troops, losing his men is bad for his morale and causes him to run away, once he's on his own, the only worry in the world he has is his flanks. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Hey, does anyone know if people have customised/modded this game?

I wouldn't mind creating a map of Westeros (George Martin A Song of Ice and Fire) as a custom map...

PS. Nobody's launched a Crusade against me yet, and my army to wipe out the Papal States sails very shortly. [img]graemlins/evillaughter2.gif[/img]

There are mods out there including some conversions. I've played a Napoleon mod and a Hellenic mod which were both ok. But i think that the map and some other elements are hard coded and you have to work around them which limits what you can do. For balancing and improving gameplay the medmod is number 1.