Worth it?

[Damasus]

After purchasing and playing MTW2, I must say I was disappointed. The AI on and off the battle field was shoddy at best, the Inquisition was insanely overpowered, and economic dominance was incredibly easy, given the time and place. My question then is if Kingdoms is a signficant improvement to the core game. Is it more of the same, or does the AI act at least somewhat sane? Do enemy armies continue to besiege fully manned citadels with half stacks? Do armies just sit around and lose up to 3 out of every 4 men to your archers? Is there a modicum of historical realism, or is the Inquisition still capable of killing your faction leader every other turn? Sorry for all the questions, but I'd like to know how well Kingdoms stands up before I purchase it.

[Theseus1234]

kingdoms only adds on 4 campaigns and improves on those. with the 1.5 patch, the AI is significantly better, but still shoddy. my recommendation is that you get kingdoms if only to get mods from this forum, like SS 6.1 and others that require kingdoms. SS adds significant improvements to gameplay and adds historical accuracy. if you want a much better AI, my suggestion is to get Lusted's battle and campaign AI (no idea where it is on the the forums, but its there)

[alhoon]

...
with the 1.5 patch, the AI is significantly better, but still shoddy. my recommendation is that you get kingdoms if only to get mods from this forum, like SS 6.1 and others that require kingdoms
...
if you want a much better AI, my suggestion is to get Lusted's battle and campaign AI (no idea where it is on the the forums, but its there)

Lusted's mod is Lands to Conquer. The best AI I have seen so far.

[Gornard]

The inquisition, is just an annoyance. It can only attack people outside of cities and more often then not it fails. If you don't want them appearing, keep a priest aroudn your territories and kill the heretics.

[Double A]

Burn the Heritic! Burn him! Burn hiiiiiiiiimmm!

So you're disappointed with the AI? Aren't we all...

Don't hate the game because the AI sucks. Instead, play (wow I wrote "okay" instead of "play") the game online with other people. The battles are harder. Or get a mod...

[Anglo-Pole]

I would suggest getting a mod like SS 6.1 it significantly improves the AI and historical accuracy. You will need Kingdoms to use that mod however (I think the highest version for non-kingdoms is SS 4.1 but correct me if I'm wrong). Using said mod gave me a greater interest in the game.

Or like Double A said you could play battles online so you'd be playing people rather than the AI. Also if you get Kingdoms you can play a hotseat campaign with others. I'm not too sure on how that works but I think there is a sticky in the Multiplayer forum for Kingdoms.

[Double A]

With people online? That would take forever... probably the English campaign.

[Theseus1234]

a hotseat campaign is playing a campaign with a friend (if you have any after playing this game) and sharing the same seat. like you do all of your stuff, then your friend does his or her (if you're lucky) stuff, then you end turn. battles between you and your friend are strictly auto resolve, though i think battles wiht the AI are not. what you can do on these forums is play your turn, then post the save file here, then someone else goes, then posts their file here and so on. theres a couple already on the forum

[Anglo-Pole]

Thanks theseus1234 for clearing that up

[NobleNick]

After purchasing and playing MTW2, I must say I was disappointed. The AI on and off the battle field was shoddy at best, the Inquisition was insanely overpowered, and economic dominance was incredibly easy... My question then is if Kingdoms is a signficant improvement to the core game. Is it more of the same, or does the AI act at least somewhat sane? Do enemy armies continue to besiege fully manned citadels with half stacks? Do armies just sit around and lose up to 3 out of every 4 men to your archers? Is there a modicum of historical realism, or is the Inquisition still capable of killing your faction leader every other turn? Sorry for all the questions, but I'd like to know how well Kingdoms stands up before I purchase it.

Damasus, welcome to the forums!

I've been researching (some of) the very questions you ask. I J*U*S*T bought Kingdoms, but have not yet played. THere are several reasons I would suggest you buy it, now:

1.) From what I read, Kingdoms improves little, if any, on the AI. However, there are mods which do improve the battle AI and the campaign AI greatly, and the latest versions of the more popular mods need you to have Kingdoms installed. (Darthmod is said to improve the battle AI to the point you would think you are playing against an expert human player. Darth mod is available as a standalone mod; and several of the more popular mods include Darthmod.)

2.) Kingdoms includes new units and several enhancements sorely missing from M2TW, like gates protected by boiling oil.

3.) There is a mod which back annotates the Kingdoms improvements to M2TW.

4.) The Americas are essentially unplayable in M2TW, since the "Earth is Round" event is still in the future when a good player has won the long campaign. Kingdoms allows playing in the new world from the start.

5.) There are mods which attempt to be very historically accurate. Again, you will want Kingdoms installed to take advantage of the latest of these.

6.) The price of Kingdoms just fell from $29.82 to $19.82 at the local Walmart (I am in Alabama, USA); and I have noticed that it is very hard to find Kingdoms anymore, except as packaged with M2TW. Get it while you can.

-------------

As to your inquisition problems: They can be cleared up via several means. First, take care of (i.e. kill) heretics quickly. Second build churches and use priests to keep your religious fervor high. Third, save game and assassinate inquisitors (reload game if you fail). Fourth, click on inquisitor and see how far he can travel. Keep your generals outside that area. (I love watching inquisitors roam the countryside aimlessly, never quite able to do anything.) Five, play a non-catholic faction.

Hope that helps.

[Double A]

There are Wal-Marts in Alabama!?!

kidding...

[Celsius]

There are Wal-Marts in Alabama!?!

kidding...

[Theseus1234]

also with your inquisitor problem, is to keep a priest with low-piety generals at all times, so that their piety will increase and thus rendering inquisitors useless. OR you can just, you know, be nice to the pope once in a while

[Kiljaden]

Get Kingdoms, and one of the many fantastic mods available from this great community. I played vanilla M2TW for a long time, thinking mods were just going to mess up the game, but I finally broke down and I'm loving the mods - they're so much more fun than vanilla!

I'm currently using SS6.1 and loving it. Broken Crescent is great as well! I can't vouch for any other mods since I haven't played them but another I have an eye on is Third Age (lord of the rings mod) which I believe is requiring Kingdoms, as the added features of Kingdoms are great.

OR you can just, you know, be nice to the pope once in a while

NEVAR!!

lol... seriously though, when I first started playing, I was like DREAD DREAD EVIL EXTERMINATE RAWR! It was after reading about the benefits of chivalry, that I tried the "good" side of things, and the game's now a lot better for the following reasons:

1. The inquisitors aren't knocking on your door constantly when you don't get excommunicated

2. Keeping good relations with the pope is great for when you do go to war with catholic factions as you can usually ignore the first or second request to cease hostilities.

3. Chivalry bonuses to city growth are freakin awesome!

4. Not sacking\exterminating gives more chivalry and doesn't set your cities back in development so you can get the high\late units quicker.

5. Regularly going on crusades (and being able to call them yourself) is great for getting your faction leader\heir some great stats and traits.

[Yojimbo]

After purchasing and playing MTW2, I must say I was disappointed. The AI on and off the battle field was shoddy at best, the Inquisition was insanely overpowered, and economic dominance was incredibly easy, given the time and place. My question then is if Kingdoms is a signficant improvement to the core game. Is it more of the same, or does the AI act at least somewhat sane? Do enemy armies continue to besiege fully manned citadels with half stacks? Do armies just sit around and lose up to 3 out of every 4 men to your archers? Is there a modicum of historical realism, or is the Inquisition still capable of killing your faction leader every other turn? Sorry for all the questions, but I'd like to know how well Kingdoms stands up before I purchase it.

i share your feelings. kingdoms is better it is less buggy tho the ai is still just as shoddy.

The inquisition can be fixed by patching the patch tones them way way down they were completely insane in vanilla

also a very easy way to get the pope on your side when he starts bothering you is to just gift him (read bribe him) with a few thousand florins then go about your business before giving him some more hush money it works wonders.

[Grimmy]

Inquisitors causing you quivering, you say?

Just send out a crew of your hand picked bully boys to grab them up, roll em in a dirty old carpet and sell em off to the arabys.

meaning, I use the move char cheat to send any overly troublesome inquis down to an empty strip of desert in the far south east corner of the map.

[Darwin Savoye]

So, the Stainless Steel Mod is worth installing and the Darthmod ?
Where can I find the Darthmod please ?

In some hours my M2TW+K copy should be delivered, hurry up postman!

Regards,

[Old Geezer]

Well if Wallys is selling Kingdoms that proves that the game has been fixed satisfactorily. Wallys only sells the best.

[Empress Meg]

Kingdoms did not do anything but drop a few bucks out of my pocket. Not worht it for gameplay. The only reason I bought it was for the scripting class here!

Devoirs The Empress

[sparty]

I felt the same way you did!

I isntalled SS 6.1 and have felt much better. No AI is ever going to give you the same challenge that a live human opponent will, but the Stainless Steel 6.1 mod will go a long way for you!

Hope that helps and welcome!