Medieval Ii: Total War

Hell Yea!!! This Games Is Just So Amazing!

I just want to know how would that treasure run on a nvidia 7600 with 256mb, a core duo 2, at 2ghz, and 2047Mb ram!!

may i get decent fps at highest settings, 1024 x 768?

 

i also have similar specs...great to hear its working so well. What res do u currently have it at?

 

emmmm

i still havent played, that was i was asking, how would it run on the laptop stated above

 

Download the gold demo and see how that runs.

It seems to vary a lot, depending on GPU driver and other factors, but most people seem to report the final game running quite a lot better than the demo.

So if you can run the demo at decent settings, you should have no problems with the full game at higher settings.

I have a 6800 GT (256MB), 2Ghz Athlon 64, 1GB RAM, and I can run it smoothly with all settings on medium at 1024x768. I'm not sure exactly how a 7600 compares to my video card though... You might be able to raise the settings a bit more.

Your CPU and RAM obviously beats the crap out of mine, but I don't know how much that will help. I suspect the main bottleneck is the GPU.

Still, you should be able to run the game with no problems. Maybe at high settings, maybe a bit lower. But hell, it looks pretty amazing even at medium settings. I used low in the demo, and even that looked great.

 

but i still dont have the lappy

it was just to know "How" would it run

 

Is Medieval II much more demanding than Rome?

If it's similar, your configuration should be able to run at fairly high settings. I play Rome with rather high settings at 1680x1050, so 1024x768 should be no problem. No overclocking, and it runs very smooth unless there are crazy numbers of soldiers onscreen at 3x battle speed (2x and 1x would be fine in those cases).

That information may or may not be helpful.

 

No it's more optimized than Rome Total War and the games loves Nvidia cards, it seems optimized for Nvidia cards. I run it on my Laptop a Dell XPS M170 with 2GB memory and a 7800GTX and can even run the game in 1920x1200. Natively I run the game now in 1680x1050 with almost all settings on max and the game looks and runs beautiful So I think you'll be able to run the game pretty well on your 7600.

Also maybe the game is optimized for dual core.

 

Magnus72: Some NVidia owners have had problems with performance. The demo ran like crap on my NV card, though the final game runs fine. But a lot of people have reported pretty lousy performance with the latest NVidia drivers.

It's about as demanding as Rome. Looks a lot better, but is better optimized as well, so overall, it runs about the same as Rome.

 

I use TweaksRus extreme drivers, very good performance with that driver.

 

What Jalf says is unfortunatly not true. I have both games and Rome runs much more smoothly. I have a AMD64 3400+ 1GB 128MB 6600GT and Rome runs fine on high with units set to huge. I have units on huge as well in MedII but all settings otherwise on medium or low. Shadows I have turned off altogether as that slowed things down to a slideshow (that may be a bug).

More importantly however, where I could get rome to run fine with about 6000-6500 men on the field, MedII only allows some 3500 on the field before it starts slowing down. I even get a report that reinforcements are delayed because my computer cannot handle them all at once and that I should upgrade my CPU. In otherwords MedII is more intensive for both the CPU and GPU and running Rome flawlesly is no garentee that MedII will run fine as well.

Btw the game badly needs a patch. As with Rome before it and Medieval 1 before that CA have released a beta version that is only playable in the mildest sense of the word.

 

Well, I also mentioned that some people have much lower performance, (which seems to mainly depend on driver issues). So I don't really see how it can be not true. You're right though, for some people it runs a lot worse than Rome (The demo ran like crap for me, but for some reason I have no problems in the final game). But the fact that some people can run it and get similar performance kinda hints that once the bugs get sorted out, it will run about as well as Rome did.

My CPU is slightly slower than yours, and for me it runs about the same.

But yes, it definitely needs a patch. The AI in particular is horrible. I wouldn't agree that it's unplayable though. It's good fun, but the AI is a huge disappointment a lot of the time.

 

Well, i only tryed demo version of Medieval 2, but it worked fine for me with everything on max and native resolution 1440x900, so it should run fine with gf7600 and 1024x768.

 

Runs very smooth on my machine (listed in sig) at 1024x768 mostly high, some medium settings. I can say it certainly runs at least as well as Rome on my rig.

 

Hey anybody know how to get the mouse to scroll sideways instead of turning? I find it extremely annoying not to be able to navigate normally using the mouse in battles. Also anyone know why double right clicking enemy troops doesnt cause your knights to charge?

 

Again, I've only played Rome but I assume controls are somewhat similar. To scroll, I use the arrow keys. The mouse is configured to be more of a rotate-type control. You can also click on a unit and then rotate around it.

 

Don't know if that's possible. If the mouse is at the edge of the the lower half of the screen (That is, on the interface bar), it will scroll rather than turn.
Other than that, yes, use the arrow keys. Much easier. I find the combination of arrow keys for moving the camera, and mouse for turning/looking around to be very useful. Almost as intuitive as playing a FPS.

Yep, because the AI is bugged.
A patch should be out in the next couple of days.
However, to stand the best chance of a successful charge, do the following:
- Make sure you have enough distance between you and your target.
- Make sure your cavalry are facing the target
- Preferably attack a stationary target. Units that are moving means your cavalry will have to turn, often ruining the charge.

When you've done all the above, you have a decent chance of successfully charging.
I'm holding out for the patch though. The AI is just too messed up as it is now.

For example, 120 mailed knights ran up and entered combat with my 23 spearmen militia. The cavalry ran up next to my guys, and then stopped. In the end I won on timeout (I was the defender, so being still standing when the time ran out meant I won.

That happened 3 turns in a row.
After one of the battles, my captain even got promoted to general (man of the hour), even though not a single enemy had been killed.

 

Lol thanks Jalf. Hope they put in an "AutoCalc" feature for battles too, the combat in this game is just too messy for me. I was hoping for Lords of The Realm type combat, but all this camera panning and buggy controls really mess with my head. Oh well.

 

Play around with the different control schemes. I've found I prefer Total War style, but you might like RTS style better (Actually, I think that might do what you want. Can't remember exactly, I just know it annoyed me)

In any case, get used to using the arrow keys, they make it so much easier to navigate around the battlefield.

 

Here's a simple shot of M2: TW on my system:



Nothing special, I know. Just thought I'd share.

I'll try for some better ones soon!

 

Ooh, screenshots! I wanna play too! (All screenshots are taken on a 2GHz Athlon 64 3200+ with 1GB RAM, Geforce 6800 GT 256MB. Most settings are set to mid/high, runs smoothly at those specs)

crossbow militia don't last long when outnumbered 4-1
Halberds might suck as a weapon (My halberdiers got wiped out completely by those peasants you can see charging), but they do look cool
My general is the only survivor after my halberdiers got slaughtered... Doesn't stop him from charging
Shoo! Find your own mountain! I am the king of the hill!
Spearmen are your friends... Those horsies are in big trouble

Sucks to be the first guy on the siege ladder
Crusade! Unarmed pilgrims charging Jerusalem
Lots of people in such a crusade...
The battlefield post-siege
When in doubt, set their battering ram on fire. Teach them not to do it again
... And don't come back!
Slightly outnumbered...
What do you do when the enemy is bringing ladders to a siege? Your cavalry rushes out to take care of it, obviously! Even if you only have two cavalry soldiers left...

Umm... My general is weird
My general is... uh...

 

Yay, the long awaited patch is out! No more cavalry charges slowing down right before hitting the enemy! No longer will the enemy just stand there and wait for the battle to time out!

At least, so I hope... In any case, any MTW players definitely ought to download it and see what happens.

 

Is the game good?

 

Darn, no more winning every battle with just a handful of archers and a couple calvary units.

But it did kinda bug me how my enemy would just stand there and take my storm of arrows and not move an inch. Not exactly the most realistic Medieval battles...

 

Pft, how do you know? Were you there?

Anyway, looks good so far. Apart from a few minor setbacks, like the army I was hoping to conquer Sweden with deserting, and my heir getting killed in riots in a city, my plans for achieving world domination are proceeding as planned.

Cavalry is a lot more reliable now that the worst charge bugs have been fixed. On the other hand, the enemy infantry is a pain now that they actually move around and chase you....
Good fun though.

And yes, the game is good.

 

As a matter of fact, I was.

And we didn't just sit back and take wave after wave of arrows into our ranks like little p**sies, we charged and kicked a**!

Ain't that just the most annoying thing? I had a massive collection of troops heading towards Jeruselum under a Holy Crusade, and all of a sudden they decided they didn't like me anymore and became Rebel units. Great. Now my king and faction heir are stuck in Russia all alone, surrounded by Timurids...

 

I miss how in the original game, half your empire could rebel... If you had a strong but illoyal general you weren't careful with, he'd start a revolution and take roughly half your cities. You'd then get a dialog box asking whether you wanted to continue playing as the loyalists or rebels... Awesome stuff...

 

Shader Model 1 vs. Shader Model 2. has great impact on performance. Obviously model 1 is way faster, but it doesn't look as good.

 

You can't always rely on that though. SM2.0 allows some effects to be rendered much more efficiently (Just like SM3.0 makes some things more efficient over SM2.0)

Haven't tried SM1 in this game though, so you're probably right in this case.

 

I just ended my second Grand Campaign, and both times I had a large and powerful empire going, until the these Timurids show up with their elephants and crush everything in their path. I mean in about 50 turns they drove me from controlling all of Africa and most of Europe to a little hideaway in Aztec territory. They are way too freaking powerful!

So is there anyway to stop them? Or are they ALWAYS going to the dominant faction in the Campaign game? If so, that really blows.

 

So I tried the Demo!

Its awesome!

Cant wait till I get the full copy.

I run it almost maxed except shadows, grass, and vegetation, with 2xAA + AF!


Any recommendations for the graphics settings?

 

Lol. I don't know the game that well still, so humor me: is this a regular occurence in Medieval 2?

 

Only if you're not careful.
Riots are always a risk when you've just conquered a city (or just if people are unhappy). Mostly they just damage a few buildings and kill some regular soldiers. But if you're unlucky, a general in the city might get killed as well. That one pretty much came out of the blue though. Surprised me a bit, otherwise I'd have lowered taxes in advance to keep people happy.

As for the Sweden thing, it's a risk if you send your army without a proper general to lead them, or if the general has low loyalty. (Always keep illoyal generals near you where they don't feel too alone. Sending them far away with too few troops is just asking for trouble). In my case it was the former though. I'd just grabbed four units of regular troops, and sent them to take Sweden. Didn't have a general to spare, so halfway there, the army deserted and went rebel...

Only happened to me twice so far though. (And you get a message about it)

 

Any chance of this running on my laptop on medium settings? I really need a new game, but it seems like my laptop is down the drain already as far as gpu support goes. So many good games came out recently that i don't think i can play without turning my graphics on low - which i refuse to do.

 

Don't know, but I'd say it's worth a shot. (In any case, it looks very nice even at low settings)

 

Anybody have any good tips for a noob player?

A little help would be appreciated!

 

Um, anything more specific you need help with?

In general, I fully believe in these words of wisdom. They're about the original game, but still as true as ever...

 

Basically how to get started, a little help on that and ill be good!

thx

 

anyone have some cool screenshots?

 

Jalf had some cool ones. I'll post a few once I have a minute to dig them out from the bowels of my computer.

 

Yeah, I posted some screenshots on page 2 in this thread.

usapatriot: Have you played the tutorial? That might be a good starting point
Other than that, it's fairly simple to get started, really. The campaign map works a bit like Civilization. You can doubleclick on cities to set their build orders (troops and buildings), and move armies around. Pick an army consisting of a general, and a good handful of other troops, then right click on an enemy city or army or whatever you have nearby. When you reach them, you'll enter combat. Then it's basically just a RTS. Select the units you want to move, tell them where to move. And remember you can turn the speed up or down, or pause the game when giving orders.

And other than that, you just have to be tactical. You can hide troops in woods to ambush the enemy, higher ground gives you an advantage (if you're on a hill and being attacked, the attackers will move towards you slower, your archers will have an excellent field of fire, and the enemy will be tired when they reach you. If you're attacking downhill, you'll get a more powerful charge.

And keep in mind the different unit types. Cavalry is for charging. They're at their best when they can get a good run up to smash into the flank or rear of a enemy unit. Afterwards, it may sometimes be best to pull them away and charge again, rather than stay and fight. And if they attack spearmen from the front, they're dead. Either flank them (and run away immediately after your charge, before the spearmen have time to turn around to face you), or leave them to your infantry/archers

Infantry just have to do all the grunt work. Plain and simple. They're what you need to keep up a long fight.

And archers... Keep them out of melee, and have them rain arrows on everyone in the area. Keep in mind that if they don't have a clear line of sight, they shoot into the air, and their accuracy becomes nonexistent. And they can hit your own troops if they get in the way.

 

Ok, alright thx!

 

I was about to buy this game today...but then just downloaded the demo to see how it goes. It looks awesome, even with just the battle scenes and not the grand campaign which I think will interest me more...but it seems near impossible. I only tried a few times, so I'm sure it gets easier...or does it not? Should I being using the pause button a lot or what? Random thoughts...just wondering if its just from starting out, or if the battles are always so hard

 

Yeah, I use the pause button constantly. It's there for a reason...

Also it helps to understand the combat system.
On the whole, it's made as realistic as possible, which means:
- Attacking people from behind, or the sides is much more effective than a frontal assault
- Different unit types have very different strengths (spearmen > cavalry, cavalry > light infantry, charging cavalry > heavy infantry, heavy infantry > spearmen and so on), so be careful how you use your units. If your cavalry absolutely has to fight spearmen, make sure you get a good long straight charge, and that you don't hit them from the front. And then run away before they can surround you, or you're dead.
- Morale plays a huge role. If a unit routs, nearby units are more likely to follow. If the general dies or flees, everyone takes a morale hit. If the general is nearby (and if he's a good leader), everyone gets a morale boost. Hitting people from behind, or surrounding and outnumbering them also takes good care of morale. Once a unit is broken, it will retreat for a bit, and if it gets a moments peace, they will usually try to rally. So it may be a good idea to send some light cavalry or similar to keep harrassing them (they won't rally as long as they're being attacked), to keep them out of the battle.
- Ranged units (archers, musketmen crossbows) are very useful for harrassing the enemy and gradually wearing them down. But they won't be able to do enough damage to defend themselves. If a melee unit charges against them, it might lose 10% or so (at most) before it reaches the archers, so always keep some melee troops just behind the archers as support (not in front, because that makes it harder for your archers to shoot, and they'll probably hit your own men). That said, archers are brutal if they're given time to rain arrows on the enemy.

And use the terrain. Charging downhill gives extra momentum. Charging uphill gives less (and tires your men).
High terrain gives your ranged units better range. And most units can hide in forests (don't try to hide everyone, but scattering a few units around so they can flank and hit the enemy from behind can be very effective)

But mostly, use the pause button, and have patience. Some battles require you to really pay attention to details and always consider your next move very carefully...

(Of course, in the full game, you kinda decide how hard the battles are, because you choose how many troops to bring to a fight
And the battles in the demo are picket to show some epic, and pretty even, fights. You have lots of easy ones in the full game (your 500 man army attacking a band of 60 spearmen, for example)

 

Yeah, I recently started out my grand campaign for England again and I took three rebel settlements early on. Now im probably going to move in on the Scots. I still have some trouble though in battles, I've read many guides but im just not that good yet, but im getting a little better.

Although I wish a patch is released soon because bugs seem to play a major role in me losing battles. Some troops dont follow orders, some just stay their, others follow orders after a minute or two, some dont defend themselves while under attack and things like that.

SEGA please patch MII:TW!!!

 

Haven't seen units fail to defend themselves... (Although some are horribly bad at it. Pikemen and halberdiers and similar in particular seem to be bugged. They do fight back though, they're just lousy)
Mostly they seem to follow orders too, although cavalry is still a bit wonky. (And units tend to forget their orders when they're attacked, although I think that's on purpose. Have to keep clicking (or just click retreat) to pull them out of a fight.

 

Yea a few more tries and it got a bit easier. I want the whole game now. The strategy is very interesting, plus I want to have some of those easier battles...
the hardest part for me is just making sure every unit is in use, sometimes I leave one behind on accident and it takes forever for them to catch up. Guarding your flanks is also fairly tough, but I guess it might just be because of the battles they chose for the demo

 

Yeah. Both battles in the demo are pretty tough. I got slaughtered in the Azincourt on (I think it was). I did well in the aztec one though, but that may have been just luck. Although gaining the high ground and using the impassable cliffs to protect my ranged units helped a lot

 

How do you get your spearmen to get their spears ready for an oncoming cavalry charge?

 

I haven't quite figured out the MTW II battle system (the units just seem to react weird to me), but back in RTW, the best way to defend against an oncoming cavalry charge was to have your spearmen stop whatever it was doing and let it idle. It will automatically enter a defensive position with spears out. Obviously, if it's too late for that then I've always just had them counter attack/charge if possible. Of course, with MTW II, I could be completely wrong. Give it a shot and tell me how it works out. I apologize in advance if my suggestions result in massive losses

 

Yeah, make sure your spearmen are standing still, facing the cavalry charge, and that they're not spread too thin. (A good charge can easily mow through the first couple of ranks, so make sure the unit is bunched together tightly)
They should ready their spears automatically (if they have time)

Alternatively, the schiltrom formation may help if you're surrounded or facing attacks from multiple sides.

The standing still bit is important though. They need to be stationary to be able to withstand a charge. Cavalry has quite a bit more momentum than your little stick men, so the best you can do is try to hold your ground and slow the cavalry down enough to let you poke holes in their horses.