Medeival 2: Total War, guilds and gunpowder

The Game Room
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The only real sure thing is that when it comes to M2:TW, you should really be playing Stainless Steel.

Seriously.

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I’ve started playing that. I like some of it.

Here are a number of problems, though:

  1. I despise exploring the map in this kind of game. It’s absurd that I’m running a diplomat around the map trying to figure out exactly where everybody’s cities are. I’m planning to wait until turn 50 and then bargain for everybody’s maps once they’ve explored a bit.

  2. I can’t play without a book at hand. Running a turn takes ages.

  3. I felt the base game had too many units with two much overlap. There realkly was no reasion to have all 5 different versions of knights, and not much to expand stables, because the base you get with castle, was sufficient. Stainless Steel goes too far the other way. I’ve had to hire armies of mercenaries because there simply isn’t anything else, and it takes eons to get new units. After 40 turns, I’ve had to capture several new locations just to get more Jinettes, and I only get about 1 per castle per 6 turns. This may change with increasing eras, but right now it’s just painful. Castles grow irritatingly slowly.

  4. Not sure why, but I’m playing the Portuguese. The I made a happy alliance with the Spanish, which is fuine, but it seems as though they have grossly huge armies. I can barely maintain one stack, full of mercenaries. They seem to have three. Well, I guess I can try spamming spearmen and crossbow militia, but that’s guaranteed to cost a fortune in treasure and blood against decent soldiers.

  5. Theoretically, it might have been a mistake, but I’ve been converting some castles to towns. The castles were completely useless, with no money, no infrastucture, and no growth. I kept only the ones with the best prospects, on the frontier.
    I did originally have the supply system in, but removed it because it was absurdly silly. My supplies ran out so fast that I couldn’t sustain a seige ten feet out my front door. I wouldn’t mind a real supply chain system, but this… did not work.

I installed Byg’s Real Recruitment 3.

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This reminded me of one of the funniest parts of the game, the random captains names that come up with some frequency. The hilarious ones I can remember:

Scotland:
Captain Kirk

Spain:
Captain Amerigo
Captain Jesus