The lost features (long read)

**Aradiel** · December 06, 2006, 05:56 PM

I have been playing 4 different campaigns in med2 (and any of its decendants) and i think i pretty much have a decent overview of the game now. In shogun and med 1 we had some very nice features which are actually missing in RTW and MED2 naming the following:

Extermination of Royal family, Reappearance of a bloodline, agressive rebels and religious uprising/revolution. I probably missed one but those are the ones im missing most. First of all if you killed every royal family member of a faction the faction was destroyed, no matter how many settlements or armys they had which is quite realistic. 2nd In med 1 there was a good chance that a destroyed faction spawns a heir who claims the throne in one of the former provinces, and it was much much harder to maintain peace in conquered provinces with a different religion. so it could spawn a rebel army which actually attacks citys. In med 2 i never have been attacked by rebels once

3rd religion played a major role in medival history, simply sending a few priests which convert the population in 10 turns is just redicioulos. I remember playing shogun tw as the christiancized japanese trying to spread the religion which ocasionally led to a rebellion led by warmonks, now we can simply claim some of the holiest sights in islam and nothing happens ?

All of these features are essential for a more realistic gameplay and i can give you examples for all of them. In my current campaign as venice i took egypt with an army of just 300 men while the assanids had 1 and a half stack. I conquered gaza cairo and alexandria with just one single fight against a small band of their troops while the rest was chilling around in the desert. Just before their major army with their heir arrived at cairo i sacked it and their faction was destroyed. Now what happens the heir and his army thinks oh dear we have been destroyed now lets just chill around in the desert some more instead of retaking our country

So why the hell the faction must be destroyed without a chance to reappear especially when their prince is still alive with an army and the right to rule ? Its a shame all of these things are missing and i hope theres a way to mod them in if ca does not add them.

Finally some words to the factions... Spain/Portugal is a joke there was no spain nor portugal in 1080 wheres navarre and aragon ?!
The moors are way too weak the always loose their grip quickly.
The ai never uses naval landings, at least i never saw them using it exept for diplomats, so england needs a landbridge or good old tommy gets kicked out by scotland always. France is way too weak they always end up getting beaten by at least 3 factions. Milan is insanely too strong, no matter how many they fight they still win even if they are relatively small. The danes are too strong too, in med 1 they never got out of god old danemark, now they usually steamroll the hre which is not that quite realistic which leads me to the hre. The hre is probably the weakest faction in western europe, they need a real tuning since it dominated every sorounding kingdom most of the time if they where not fighting each other for the crown of course. Hungary or actually Magyars are too weak also, they where the terror of the balkans and the steppes and where just barely kept abay by the hre.

The turks ?! or probably better Ottomans are gimped also. By 1523 they arrived vienna for the first time which was the end of their expansion, in my games they never ever won against the byzantine empire even if they fight the magyars and them at the same time

I think they simply didnt care for the eastern factions at all since they are usually ended by the mongols or timurids ? However, i know these things have been discussed in other threads so i focus on the thread title: What happened to the lost features ?

greets

Aradiel

**GODzilla** · December 06, 2006, 06:07 PM

The funny thing about the missing feature of respawning factions is that people used to whine about it in Medieval I. Many said it would be unfair, it would go on their nerves, they hate it and so on.

So CA took it out in rtw. I may have just missed it, but I cannot remember that someone said he would miss the feature back in the rtw days...it seemedto me that everybody is happy playing rtw without respawning factions!

I agree that CA shouldn't have been so foolish and fully believe people don't want it in Medieval II just like in rtw. These are two totally different games imho, but CA most likely see Medieval II as a further development of rtw, not of Medieval I. Most fans believe the opposite though ^^ or at least they wish it would be the opposite. A simple question to the community would have been a simple solution to find this out. Too late now.

At least it would be cool if it was an option that you could switch on and off, wouldn't it? Would be the best of both worlds and everybody would be happy...

would, would, would...:hmmm:

**Aradiel** · December 06, 2006, 06:11 PM

Well my opinion is if the game is too strong your too weak, simply taking out essential parts of the game just because some ppl complain about it cant be the way. Yes it would have been wise if they add some more options to the campaign so everyone can decide what he wants and what he does not. for example on VH difficulty all options are on while on normal those things dont happen, simply as that.

**edders** · December 06, 2006, 06:09 PM

I agree with you 100% on the civil wars, faction re-emergences etc. - I loved those in MTW - not only did they help curb steamrolling one province after another without worrying about leaving major threats behind, they were just so damn fun. Oh, and let me marry relatives again CA - that was an amusing side-show to my empire building...

**SigniferOne** · December 06, 2006, 06:15 PM

The reappearance feature IS IN M2TW. You can set factions to reappear, you can create shadow factions etc. Religious wars are actually quite easy to create with scripting; I agree they weren't in Campaign, but creating them yourself with a scripting engine that CA DID create will not be difficult. Aggressive rebels are right now, as we speak, being developed by modders due to the new AI file which allows us to completely regulate how campaign AI works in the game. Expect to see soon aggresive rebels.

Some of these features were left out, true, and we don't know if it's because they weren't finished or because CA was trying not to scare off the casual gamers who would really be daunted by such things. But CA did create the scripting and AI files that allow us to mod the game up the wazoo, so practically all of your concerns can be fully addressed.

**edders** · December 06, 2006, 06:20 PM

Didn't someone say in the modding section setting shadow factions requires 2 slots for each faction and counter-faction? And they're are only 30/31 slots available. Anyway, the point is that they're still not actually 'in' the game. Just there might be limited potential to mod them in.

**Niccolo Machiavelli** · December 06, 2006, 06:41 PM

Yeah - it's really a pity - however I think lots can be modded - I mostly miss titles as they were in MTW and I'm afraid those can't be modded in. The rest, like wrong factions, poor balance etc... is currently worked on by a great modding community.

Just compare Vanilla MTW to Wesmod - it was rubbish. But from what I've seen, MTW2 has great potential to become a great game (mod).

**eventhorizen** · December 06, 2006, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by Niccolo Machiavelli

Just compare Vanilla MTW to Wesmod - it was rubbish. But from what I've seen, MTW2 has great potential to become a great game (mod).

From what I have been reading MTW2 has the potential to become many fundamentally different and great mods, not just through skins and unit balance and faction names etc.

Take diplomacy, and what the guy above said about re-emergant factions etc.

They released a game that would basiclly show off all the cool stuff quickly, i.e. instant gratification. This is how the games industry seems to be working now, but the potential for modding seems to be immense, and thats something you dont see in a lot of instant gratification games.

The life and eventual scope of MTW2 through mods could be something that breathes totally new life into the series.

Maybe.

**edders** · December 06, 2006, 06:44 PM

Forgot about the titles. They also helped me get a bit more attached to my characters - e.g. carefully choosing who would be chancellor etc.

**VaultDweller** · December 06, 2006, 07:38 PM

There are some old features I'd like to see return, but re-emerging factions is not one of them. I was all in favor of that feature in MTW, but only as a abstract work-around for a problem in both STW and MTW: the royal families were all suicidal. I don't know if I ever played a single campaign in either game where large, powerful factions weren't eliminated when their leader and heirs got killed in battle. Re-emerging factions helped avoid the common STW scenario where faction leaders died, and there was nothing left on the rest of the map but rebels.

**SirGrotius** · December 06, 2006, 09:51 PM

I love that factions do not re-emerge, it was like clockwork before, and that was just so predictable and annoying.

**johnhughthom** · December 06, 2006, 09:56 PM

It was easy to make sure they didn't reappear before, just keep loyalty above 125 in their old provinces.

**Lavastein** · December 06, 2006, 10:59 PM

i dont like the lack of Byzantine might. Constantinope is a garbage city with garbage power. The Huns actually conqer the east so i dont see your problem with em. I also dont feel atached to the characters. They dont feel like kings or emperors. I just want to feel like i made an accomplishment by taking Constantinople or Venice. I want to go "yes, I lost 3 family member and 1 thousand troops but the city is mine"

**Gelgoog** · December 06, 2006, 11:34 PM

Originally Posted by Lavastein

i dont like the lack of Byzantine might. Constantinope is a garbage city with garbage power. The Huns actually conqer the east so i dont see your problem with em. I also dont feel atached to the characters. They dont feel like kings or emperors. I just want to feel like i made an accomplishment by taking Constantinople or Venice. I want to go "yes, I lost 3 family member and 1 thousand troops but the city is mine"

yea it would be nice for some of the richard the lionheart crusading in the holyland feeling to rub off, or the black prince rampaging through france, or hey even the mighty turks seige of constantinople. this game it totally lacking in that department for me, the way MTW did. i was so afraid of having to invade the middle east because they put up such a good fight, now i crusade there and there are 3 units defending the acre or jerusalem..wtf. this game is totally lacking the atmosphere of the middleages. its just a modded RTW.

when attacking a castle it should not only be very hard to get close to, but i should be taking fire from every angle, and have huge loses. the only successful way should either be through sheer massive numbers, careful strategy ( tunneling ect) or by a peicemeal inching my way closer and closer to the walls by way of moveable defenses like pavise archers, and barricades.

i mean especially early europe with its abundance of large wooden castles dotting the lands and a lack of tactics, is missing. what MTW might have been missing in graphics and nifty features, it more then made up for it in strategy and atmosphere.

**Gelgoog** · December 06, 2006, 10:57 PM

ive got a few, mainly non movable siege equipment, dismountable troops ( be nice to have the horse still on the battlefield in which you could remount during a fight), missle balance with crossbow/shortbow at smallest range , then regular bows at the medium range, and longbow and arbalest at long range ( with arbalest having the punch while longbow has rate of fire increase, abalest is super slow). this really gave a good dimension to ranged weapons.

ability to pick and chose reinforcements before battle and how they will be sent in, and be able to retire troops more effectively. this allowed signicant use in tactical reserves, even allowed me to survive against 10k mongols with onl 2 k of longbows and billmen.