What went wrong from MTW to MTW2
Medieval Total War 2 was no doubt a very good game. But it never got me stuck to the pc as much as the first Medieval Total War did, and it never made me feel that those two games had much to do with each other. This happened for a number of reasons, which mostly show that its designers lost touch with the essence, and focused more on the graphics and other superficial things like voices.
1. Unit Roster
In MTW2 there was a roster of units that functioned similarly with units of other factions, but had a bit of a different name/character. The way they were produced was also problematic, because with the HRE for instance you could field swordsmen (their anti-spearmen unit) much much later than the Danes could field huscarls (start of the game), and therefore, in infantry battles (such as castle assaults) you were forced to play with spearmen. In reality, is it so hard to just give a guy a sword or an axe? They could at least have some poor sword/axe units, but the designers decided that they wanted the game to be stupidly arcade. In MTW though, everybody had almost the same units, with very few 'special' units, so you could really design your armies and your strategies according to what tactics you wanted to use, not based on the 2 different units your castle has decided to be producing.
2. Mercenaries
Mercenary recruitment became a hoax. There were heavy spearmen and crossbowmen everywhere, waiting for you to recruit them! In MTW however, the idea with the inns was surely more realistic, having as mercenaries the disbanded soldiers. Not totally realistic, but surely more, and it gave the game another atmosphere, with roaming mercenaries in search of employment. Plus it wasn't so easy to recruit them as in MTW2, where you go to your enemy's capital, and all of a sudden you appear with 6 heavy spearmen and 4 crossbowmen extra (a whole bloody army), because you had enough cash, as if all those soldiers were just wandering around in search for an invading army to recruit them on spot. In MTW, where things were more realistic, you couldn't produce troops in any way if you didn't have some kind of infrastructure, such as an inn or barracks. If you ended up with 20 Byzantine Infantrymen in the desert surrounded by enemy regions that produced troops, you were screwed. As it should be realistically.
3. Chivalry/Dread
A good idea, but implemented in the wrong way. I simply believe that it is possible that your men will love you and your enemies will fear you, and there are examples of that such as Alexander the Great. However, in the game, this was not possible. You would either be feared by everyone (dread) or loved by everyone (chivalry).
4. Useless Castles
Castles in MTW were almost impregnable barriers, and you didn't stand much of a chance to take an upgraded one if you didn't bring siege machinery. In MTW2 however, castles became just a set of walls, that eventually fire an arrow or two. For some strange universal law no soldier was allowed anymore to pour burning oil onto the attackers, no cannon or trebuchet could be mounted on the walls, and the ones that were 'hidden inside towers' could only fire at siege equipment and not troops... No gunpowder defences, nothing to create the mayhem and destruction that the previous castles did. This is an area where they could focus a bit more and do some serious work.
5. Battle Mechanics
In MTW you knew that the stats (attack, defence, armour etc) corresponded perfectly to the value of the unit. In MTW2 they tried to make it more complex, with shiled bonuses, defence bonuses, armour bonuses, all from different directions, and mixing attack skill with the attack animations, and from all this came a buggy mess of units whose stats don't mean anything anymore. Seeing the stats, armoured swordsmen should easily kill highlanders. Send them against a group of highlanders and watch them turning to dust. Not to mention the disgrace of two handed weapon wielders...
6. Voices & Animations
MTW had an atmosphere, and big part of that was because it didn't have any funny voices and ridiculous strategy map animations. Goofy Germans calling themselves 'dummkopf', rebels swearing at you once the cursor passes over them, and of course many mistakes like choosing your king and him responding 'my king!'. In some cases silence is gold, and comic relief has a point when it is a comic relief, short and very scarce, not an annoying and constant repetition of silly phrases. Oh, plus there should be an option to execute the 'battle advisor' who appeared in Rome and MTW2 and keeps screaming that you should hunt the enemies and run them down in the voice of a maniac...
There were additions that I like in MTW2, such as apart from the superior graphics, the broader use of princesses and the fair system of trade income, but I do believe that if they had based MTW2 on MTW and had just improved that already existing masterpiece, the result would be many times better than what it finally was.
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Originally Posted by Justice and Mercy
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