Total war

Shogun 2 has very little variety though.

Are you retarded? Shogun 2 suffers from most of the problems of Empire and Rome 2, the devs were just smart enough to tweak the mechanics for you not to notice it most of the time.

The atrocious AI is circumvented by limiting mobility and creating plenty of chokepoints, castle sieges are "fixed" by using Japanese castle assaults, you'll rarely notice the godawful 1-on-1 duels because the combat is fast paced and units rout before it gets to the point where a single soldier is killing dozens of your troops and holding the whole formation in place because soldiers can only ever fight 1-on-1.

This + S1 and M1.

This is the worst fucking TW meme.

Medival 2
Empire with Darthmod
Shogun 2 with expansion
I heard Atilla is pretty good
Warhammer is decent

WaWa is superior to attila.

I like unit variety, but you can only have it in the ancient period. By medieval times most European armies were very homogenized, China's armies were always homogeneous, ditto for Japan, and the further into the present you go the more samey they get.

I didnt played attila so i dont know

It was the worst thing about medieval 2. Just spearmen and more spearmen and pevese archers.

WaWa is the archetypal case of style over substance.

I'd play them in this order:
Empire is nowhere near as bad as faggots say it was fucking horrible on release though, worst case slap Darthmod on it. Naval battles are great if you group your units and learn basic period stuff about using the wind and sailing in an S formation, crossing the T etc (I hated them before I did).

Shogun 2 is really only worth it for coop and Fall of the Samurai. Shogun 1 and Medieval are fine but pretty much obsolete next to Rom and Medieval 2. Everything that comes afterwards varies from terrible to thoroughly average timewasters.

At least its playable
It could be much worse

This means play both, don't just play Kingdoms.
If you can be arsed I highly recommend you read this and decide for yourself if you want to apply the fix it talks about: t-a-w.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/why-everyone-hates-you-in-medieval-2.html (or this if you don't want to give that fag clicks archive.is/sYGMe).

Rome
Medieval 2 + expansions
Shogun 2
Warhammer

avoid Rome 2 and Empire they suck
Napoleon is meh

It's better than R2, Attila and unmodded Empire in my mind, but that just makes it the shiniest turd.

Now now, theres no reason to call it a turd other than DLC kikery, it fixed lots of the problems warscape has.

Thankfully they are all free just like the game itself :^)

I'll say this about WaWa. It was a step in the right direction and made fundamental changes that have needed to happen for a long time. Namely: removing matched combat animations and improving the unit collision. Sucks that WaWa came with the absolute worst siege battles of any Total War game.

Actually come to think of it Medieval 2 also has some pretty major issues with 2handers and Pikes that were never satisfyingly fixed outside of mods. Empire has a reputation for being a bit buggy but, now that it's been patched, it's no worse than Medieval 2. In fact if it had working Siege battles Empire would be the less buggy game.

It fixed next to nothing and still has all the garbage game mechanics from R2. As someone who used to play WHFB and has played TW since S1, I can say that WaWa is a turd as both a Warhammer game and as a Total War game.

Other than Empires*

Have you not seen a single gameplay video?
Are you the same oen that keeps saying that charges dotn work when they clearly do?

Don't care at what people say, it's one of the legit strategy series that is still good and it's pretty much singlehandly carrying the genre.

this

Rome I
Medieval II
then it's a matter of how autistic you want to be, if you're into "muh history" go for Europa Barbarorum or Alexander, if you are a fucking dweeb go for Shogun 2 and if you don't like the battles but want to micromanage shit go for Napoleon, if you want some more of the same go for the Byzantium one or for the Crusaders one.

Avoid Empire, Rome 2 and everything that will come from Rome 2 onward.

There's so much flavor text that goes unnoticed and no one ever ripped the sounds from each game. It feels so bad. My only complaint about the series is that diplomacy is basically useless and hiring mercs on the run is OP with certain factions.

You had one job

Are there any other games that have a similar structure to Total War titles?

I'm under the impression that the King Arthur games play similarly for some reason but I have no idea if they actually do.

Try ultimate general civil war

Why does everybody hate Rome 2? I downloaded the emperor edition to try it out and it plays pretty much like WaWa but seems to have a lot more stuff like random maps, bigger siege battles and such.

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It was a disaster on launch and was a massive step back in every way when even compared to Shogun 2.

Best Medieval 2 mods?

hyrule total war. its too bad med2 engine is so shit that the modder is going to be giving up and making some shitty rts about it instead

If the engine is so bad why is it the most modded game?

why don't you ask that about skyrim?

From what I understand Skyrim's engine is supposed to be the best in the series for modding.
I'm not a modder so I don't know if that's true or not.

yes you can mod it well although they tried to limit animations so someone had to do their best to make a workaround. but even making an engine moddable you still have limits to what you can do and horrible instability. like you can't give units more than 1 magic spell in med2 because "magic" in mods is just editing the unit ability function

It is average now but it took something like a year and a half to get to that state. It soured a lot of people to the game.

Especially since in the games with more unit variety you end up just using a couple of different units because everything else is shit.

Third Age Total War or Shogun 2

Rome 1 (Note: It had a retarded system where you had to defeat factions before you could play as them look up how to unlock them all if you can't be asked to do this)

Medieval 2 plus expansions (Often considered the best in the series tons of great mods including a Legend of Zelda one)

Empire (Only if your interested in the black powder era)

Shogun 2 + Fall of the Samurai

Warhammer (Only if you're interested in the Warhammer/ fantasy setting)

The original Shogun/Medieval Total Wars are ok but are a bit dated.

rome 2 with patches is an very enjoyable experience

This. It's not as good as Rome 1, but it's a fun game. Just type in Rome 2 in any tracker and get the Ultimate edition or some shit like that.

There are aspects of it I liked such as having smaller goals to complete helping the grind against 40 easy small factions, as well as upgrading armies to do specific things for attack/defence. They are nice ideas.
The problem is that the base foundation is still crappy and the AI is still lacking even now.
Go play through vanilla medieval 2 and imagine what medieval 3 would be like if it was made now, that should give you an idea of why people don't like Rome 2

I never got the hate ETW and RTW2 got because having played em all since Shogun 1 I thought they were pretty fun

Post the modlist, i want to get in on this. I know rome 2 was a disastrous launch but if the game is good right now i don't care.

Shut your fuckhole. Warhammer has absolutely no substance.

Vanilla, yes. With mods it's good. Plus they removed 1v1 animations and unit collisions are satisfying again.

I liked Attila

MEDIEVAL 2 STAINLESS STEEL

Top Tier:

Mid Tier:

Absolute shit tier:

End your life tier:

fuck me

You have to go back.

To where?

Napoopan maybe but Empire is just complete trash

To the past

Why tho? Napoleon is just a scaled down version of Empire. Empire was actually pretty decent once they fixed it. Play it with darthmod.

I like the original Warhammer mod the most, it's very hard but the battles gives that right mix of desperation and triumph

Actually it's a mod for a free to play RTS that plays like AoE I used to bug test for Hyrule TW, even worked directly with Neph to fix one of it's worse glitches, I do not blame him for switching

Because it was the best game, and it has more room for modding than other games except Rome 1

It runs like shit for me, can't enjoy it

It's a shame really, Empire had everything it needed to be amazing but was weighed down by so many garbage decisions, like siege battles that unironically make WaWa's look good

Warhammer could wind up being one of the best games in the series- but ONLY after all it's content is out, mods included, until then you are much better off just sticking with the old games, pirating WaWa, or maybe paying when they are on sale for dirt cheep

This is true, Darthmod Empire is better than Darthmod Napoleon

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Epic Total War stories bread?
Epic Total War stories bread

1/2

Most importantly, when leave the city he is able to maintain some semblance of order.

Thank you, Holla Forums for being content stealing faggots and inadvertenty archiving this for me, thought it was lost forever

2/2

Another quick one:

This fucking game, man. I swear.

I never get the argument "it's shit but with mods it's good".

Mods and community patches are the bread and butter of PC gaming and what elevates PC well beyond consoles.

You can take a great game and make it legendary with the right mods. You can iron out bugs to make stellar games close to perfect (looking at you Master of Magic).

Why oh why then, would I spend my time polishing turds when I can just get the games in the series that are already awesome in vanilla and then further enhance them?

Because console fags moved in and don't know shit about shit but pretend they do anyway.

You wouldn't find anything else in the series that is close to Warhammer Total War though, unless you wait for the sequel.

It's a fantasy TW so it's pretty fucking unique.

And yes, it plays different than even the Medieval 2 LOTR mod and Warhammer mod.

It's also a meme to hate TW post-Empire.

Napoleon, Shogun 2, Attila and Warhammer are great.

shogun 2 is the best
rome 1 is a bit harder (for me at least), but it sort of lacks some features compared to shogun

Any tips for someone who started playing Total War Warhammer?

I'm playing as The Empire, Middenheim has been brought to heel along with Hochland, I integrated Talabheim but now I'm at war with the vampires to my east.

So far its a lot better than i expected after the pretty abysmally feeling tutorial. But I still feel a bit overwhelmed since I feel like making a third army would strain me hugely.

Any ideas on Empire army composition? Should I ignore the vampires if they ignore me and focus on conquering my fellow imperial neighbours (Marienburg included)

The diplomacy in TWW is borked. Just remove whoever is fucking with you and declare war with random folk off in bumfuck nowhere just to have them pay you their treasury for peace.

Westernizing japan and bringing some culture and civilization to the savages was the most fun I've ever had with a strategy game.

Rome, Medieval 2, maybe Shogun 2 and a big maybe Warhammer.

Eliminating the Vampires saves you a lot of headaches down the line.

Too bad they crop back up at some of the worst times though. The Med 2 diplomacy is so frustrating. In the (mostly) vanilla my Byzantine game was rekt by two mechanics.

Other countries attack when there are smaller armies near the border despite having no line of sight even with spies and despite having good relations, trade, and even being the same religion.

If you get too large, everyone will start attacking you and everyone starts getting rebellious for no discernible reason, captains will defect right after leaving a city and enemy assassins are suddenly everywhere and super effective. Assuming you put down the threat completely by destroying the country, every other country will go after you.

These don't make the game hard, just not fun in the campaign because it doesn't radically change the power dynamics except by giving the AI doomstacks that target the most retarded places.

It's a huge shame because Med 2 was my favorite for the battles, though Rome: Barb Invasion was my favorite setting (West Romans were intense to play). Plus, Third Age, Warhammer End Times, and Hyrule TW were a lot of fun. The grand campaign mechanics were just so bad late game.

Played Shogun 2 and that was fun but less engaging for me, have they fixed some of the worst parts without just limiting player options?

god tier:
Rome with Europa Barbororum

S tier:
Rome, Medieval 2, Shogun 2

Good tier:
Medieval

Pozz my shit up tier:
Rome 2 and anything after

Haven't played tier;
Shogun and >muh guns

What's wrong with that guy? I read a ck2 AAR of his once, he seems alright.

Vamps don't come back if you eliminate them, the only respawning factions are chaos, beastmen & horde orcs.

Also med 2 has a bug that makes everyone gank up on you after enough turns pass. t-a-w.blogspot.com.br/2009/11/why-everyone-hates-you-in-medieval-2.html

I'm into my second game as empire now, around 109 turns in now.

I played the game in a very different way, being far more diplomatic. Conquered Marienburg, allied Middenland which is now so strong its leading assults into Norsca all by itself. Confederated Wissenland, conquered a conquered Averland and also conquered Stirland.

Yeah as Empire you want to spend the mid game knocking out the Vampire counts and reclaiming sylvania, it was pretty easy after a few battles and as long as you aggressively reduce corruption.

Now I'm just dealing with Chaos. How many armies do they get? Any idea when Archaon spawns?

You get a cutscene and a event when he spawns, I think he starts with 3 full stacks.

I really don't like Rome 1 EB because shit's horribly slow.

And

LOUIE!!!!

what a genius system
at least it isn't present in FOTS, too bad in that game explosive shells take away the fun of pummeling enemy ships with solid shot and turns it into 2-volleys-dead fights because apparently explosives are 97% incendiary

let me fucking reply goddamnit

Amazing

Hey man, those wooden ships have boilers full of hot stuff to be fair. I never had the problem of enemy Ironclads catching alight.

tfw you either have to play ottoman or beeline your warpath for that small crossing the AI derps out at creating as many 1 unit stacks as possible to mill around there and fuck with pathing slowing the game turns down to a crawl

But Shitgun 2 is awful.

Rome 1 and Medieval 2 are the best games.
Maybe try Medieval 1 for the sake of comparing it to the other games.

The only way they could do a correct Med:3 is by keeping the everything in med:2 and improving the UI and making family trees easier to navigate and manage, give princesses something more (or less) important to do (and remove all the flavor text that makes them whores, i swear a good 1/5th of princess attributes are her being a whore).

Also integrate most of the general improvements from SS 6.4, and add some kind of system where you must feed and maintain your army. They must not add provinces, they must not add the rock paper scissors hero unit type things.

They could try doing some extra rpg-esq stuff with the generals and family members but CA could fuck that up too easily.
Also you know they're going to make it so women are randomly dispersed through all your units, just wait.

We all know they're doing more "modern settings" though.

ww1

And by fixing pikemen, fixing the diplomacy bug(s), fixing two handed weapons, fixing the shield bug (I forget if Med 2 ever did resolve that one).

Nothing as far as I know, I just make it a policy to provide archive links for the anons who want them.

So what do you guys think of the new campaign intros?

20% seems low.

SHAMEFUR DISPRAY

Here's the real list

Top Tier:
Mid tier:
Shit tier:
Never played tier:

I think they're better than the first games inengine cutscenes. Mostly because of the voice actors.

Warhammer is the most pozzed shit out of all of them. If you unironically like it you should kill yourself.

It's not that bad, you just hate it because of the jew shit that the faggots who own it are pulling. Like the blood DLC. When we look at it as a video game it's not bad, especially since they finally removed that animated combat shit and fixed the cavalry charges.

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swigty swag give me that Morathi`s ara ass I still can`t believe a CURRENT YEAR game made that model

Kill yourself

Good shit

Made by Britbongs as well
can't wait for daemonettes when the third game comes out and its about Chaos Divided

So this chaos divided game will be an all chaos game? What's the point?

Nigger have you seen the variety of Chaos Divided?

Different faction for each chaos god right? Will I get disgusting blobs of nurgle troops?

Thats the plan
At least the supposed leaked one

It should also come with Chaos Dwarfs and Ogres as well

Rome 1, Med 2 are best. Some people like Shogun 2, Empire, and Warhammer, but I'm not really into them:
- Shogun 2 is just makeup applied to Medieval 2, only they seemed to be trying to make combat matter less. Agents are OP, diplomacy is in a weird half-assed state where it sort of but still not really matters, and castle sieges suck dick.
- Empire has good bones but they never really put in the time to fix the game. It's the most tragic of the bunch, it could have been so good. I still play this from time to time but I can never finish it. Still… if you were dead set on more Total War after Rome 1/Med 2, it's worth considering.
- Warhammer throws a lot of choices at you about your heroes, your tech, your buildings, and your leaders, but the fact is most of it doesn't matter: it's all bullshit. Warhammer would honestly be better if it just stuck to its roots: good fights between interesting and varied factions. Even a series with a strategic campaign as streamlined as Total War might not be a good fit.

Honestly the relative lack of unit variety barely bothered me. It was how overpowered fucking agents are that drove me insane. What the fuck is up with that?

I think it's a good system in theory in the sense that you can't just have your territories have level 200 castles everywhere and become impregnable. The problem is that it means there's no point in upgrading castles that aren't on the frontlines since it will take forever for you to mobilise units.

Hopefully not as underpowered in multiplayer as the normal dwarves.

My first Total War game was Medieval 1 when I was a wee lad. I've played everyone of them since then with the exception of Warhammer and Atilla. Believe it or not, not everyone is a fucking pleb like yourself. I'm glad I haven't played Warhammer, I didn't need to play it to realize its complete garbage. I didn't need to play Fallout 4 to recognize it as complete garbage either. Enjoy spending $200 in DLC to make your shitty children's game more playable.

If Norsca was in then they're in
I'm still waiting for Tilea and Kislev though
They better go throught with those

CD should have a much better time in multi than the normal Dwarfs, given how they have proper magic, cavalry, monsters, and canon fodder greenskins they should have a waaaaay easier time in multi than their one trick pony counterpart.

I have a few doubts whether or not we are getting Tilea or Estalia, but I feel pretty confident about Kislev and Araby being playable in the future.

Being a dwarf is fucking suffering. At least make those shitty helicopters have 8 models instead of 4 so that they can actually do some damage with their shitty cannons.

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They wanted to revolt for years but after all that planning you had the nerve to just legalize it? Nah, this isn't going to waste nigga.

You forgot to mention how their anti large unit is the single WORST one in the game, bar none
Their is no reason to use them except for their unbreakable trait, and even the you can get more useful shit for cheaper.

Medieval and Rome. Maybe Medieval 2.

I remember my first total war game, Rome. Twas magical, I had such a massive boner playing the game, and conquering provinces made me glee with joy. Only other games to capture that feeling were gsgs.

Rome, medieval 2 are good

shogun 2 if you want something more modern

Which of the many if I may ask?

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I don't think you know what the word "decline" means.

I meant 1000 years

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How about the fact that the gameplay is shit and dumbed down, the graphics are shit and run like shit? It's made for normalfaggots with a 2 minute attention span

Kill yourself faggot. If you like this game you need to go to /r/gaming where you and your kind belong.

You know what I miss about the newer total wars?
The animations for spying/assassinations. Why did CA decide to let those go?

That's somewhat true, but doesn't make the game pozzed. Do you even know what that means?

Do you understand what the word figurative means?

The micro intensive gameplay was intended, they want that multiplayer revival and it`s not like total war ever had a high skill celling, hammer and anvil was the only thing going for it. Color pallets I agree they are fucking shit even the devs agree, the new game has a lot of color going for the units and the banner thing, their sizes can be changed on options. Low morale values are shit too only mods fix that.

Now I am not shilling for the game, absolutely isn`t a must buy but you are looking for engaging PvP on a total war title confuses me, it was never about that.

All of the Total War games had a plenty high skill ceiling, the difference is that the skill shifted from tactics to how fast you can micro and how many hotkeys you can use. The games also had a great dynamic with how all the different unit compositions worked to create different tactics, but now that's been dumbed down to this all the different units being specifically designed as hard counters to other units in a stupid rock paper scissors way.

But any way, I was never even talking about PvP specifically, I was talking about battles in general, which are the core of Total War. If you want to play a grand strategy game, play Europa Universalis or some shit. The newer games' battles are just completely inferior to old total war, it's not any single issue of low morale or something like that, the engine is bad to the bones. No matter how many units you have on the field, you don't feel like you're commanding an army, you feel like you're commanding arcade soldiers. There is absolutely zero redeeming features for the new games.

Clearly you haven't played Rome 1 MP.

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tough luck if your enemy has anything but light infantry

and so on

Pikemen = Phalanxes, too much Med 2 mp recently. Try Rome 1 MP, it's great fun and still alive to this day. It's worth looking up CWB rules but not all fags play that anyway.

talking about Rome 1, anyone want to play a mp match?

MY LIEGE

I WILL SPEAK WITH THEM AT ONCE

Im in a mood for some empire building as Rome

With mod is better, Europa Barbarorum 2 for Total War Medieval 2 or Europa Barbarorum for Total War Rome?

Not sure really. Some people say EB2 is better, but I've always found the Med 2 engine a lot more clunky than the rome one, with things like cavalry charges and sieges and such.

Going to level with you OP. If you want a fun campaign game where you don't care about the battles, play Medieval 2. If you want fun battles, which is why people actually play Total War games, play Shogun 2, as it is by and far the best battles in the entire series.

Shogun 2 has superior controls to earlier titles by and far, and the units are much snappier and responsive. Earlier games are plagued with control issues such as poor camera control and units clipping against walls or siege weapons and becoming idle and uncontrollable. Also, the cavalry control very well.

Shogun 2 also has the most balanced combat of any of the Total War games. A lot of the units you encounter are the same as other factions, since all factions can make things like Yari Ashigaru, Bow Ashigaru, etc, although a lot of factions have special unique units, like the Long Yaris, Heavy Gunners, or the Loan Swords. This makes battles actually have some variation between factions (once they are far enough to build their favorite units, at least) while also making you extremely familiar with what to expect from units. People throw a pissy fit about the units from Shogun 2 all the time, and I never understood why, because when you play Rome 1, you just fight stacks of militia hoplites and the same shitty quality barbarian infantry every battle with your own stack of multiples of the same 3 units. Meanwhile, every faction in Warhammer is supposed to have unique armies, but the army composition for each race is the exact same for all of that race's armies. Compare to Shogun 2 where you want a good mix of units depending on your strategy and faction bonuses.

Fall of the Samurai is the best DLC ever released for a Total War game, and is the only good implementation of guns they've ever done. Melee actually remains relevant, and navies are awesome because they can bombard your enemies on land while you are in battle with them. There are three possible endings to this campaign, you can either win the war for the Shogun, win the war for the Emperor, or win the war for yourself as an independent nation.

Shogun 2 and all DLCs have the best naval combats of the series as well. It isn't dominated by ramming attacks like Rome 2,the ships all have well-defined roles, and an inferior fleet can win a battle through good command. Ships can be captured if you break them so hard they shatter, which is easiest when you board enemy ships.

Finally, Shogun 2 remains the best-looking Total War game to date. It has better graphics than it's predecessors and successors. It's just downright the prettiest game they've made. It runs very smoothly in comparison to later games as well.

Shogun 2 is the best Total War. Everything about battles is better than any of the other Total War games. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a little delusional and probably can't clearly explain why they even think so. Fall of the Samurai is even better in some aspects. Rise of the Samurai is just okay, but it's designed around playing co-op, and isn't very exciting in comparison to the base campaign. I wouldn't recommend Rise of the Samurai unless you're hooked.

I've been watching WaWa2 early access gameplay and from what I'm seeing, the AI in battles is looking exceptionally retarded. Rome 2 tier. WaWa1 AI usually did an okay job executing basic battle tactics: sending cavalry to harass your flanks, forming cohesive front lines, etc. WaWa2 AI will send its cavalry charging headfirst into your front line of spearmen and loves to blob up its infantry.

Genuinely don't see Rome is somehow better looking or easier to see than Warhammer.

The issue with Warhammer seems to be that the shader is too brown for that exact picture (which is cherry picking).

On a sunny day, everything in Warhammer in clean.

Plebius Maximus detected, I played Shogun 2 first and Rome 1 and Medieval 2 after and I enjoyed them both immensely and played them more than Shogun 2. Not to say that Shogun 2 is bad but saying that you can't enjoy the older ones anymore is fucking autistic.

Right now, it really comes down to which game you prefer – Rome or Medieval 2.

EB2 is fantastic, but unfinished and crashes at times.
Don't right-click too much, use the check marks instead to close tabs, quicksave after everything and you should be fine.

Those got nerfed a lot to prevent super cavalry horde blobbing that you could do in Rome and decimate everything effortlessly.
As for sieges, in my opinion, they are a lot better in Med2, if only because the AI responds to your movements and the fact that you don't have to waste your time capturing towers just to be able to move around the city without taking casualties.

Shogun 2 and Warhammer got better battles than Med 2 simply because Med 2 vanilla is bugged to shit.

Modded med 2 is okay though, though depending on the mod.

What are the best mods you recommend for Med2?

Stainless Steel, Broken Crescent, Third Age Total War, Call of Warhammer (super duper buggy but fun).

Except it isn't.
It has a few noteworthy bugs, but you will rarely see them in normal play.

Enjoy your shitty sieges.

Stainless Steel and Europa Barbarorum 2 are the best.
There is also Third Age and Call of Warhammer, but I never played the former and the latter is buggy.

Med 2 have those bugs where two-handed infantry just sucks and phalanx doesn't fucking work.

How? Why?

This really surprises me seeing as Medieval 2 was always the best running Total War.

Nah, that's Rome 1.

2h unit complaint is valid, but those are few in number, so it barely even matters.
Other than that, I don't think that's a good enough reason to drop it and put Shogun 2 on a pedestal.
But again, that's just my own opinion and I have a strong aversion towards S2 because of all the cancer that it introduced and continued to perpetuate from Empire days.
Not to mention that the cancer has only gotten worse over the years.

Try lowering AA, shadows and unit quality by one degree.
The game might be rendering the distant soldiers in full 3d, which it was not made to do.

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Shogun 2 FOTS is probably the best gunpowder game in the series.

Total War only gets real bad with Empire tbh, even Rome 2 is fixed, somehow.

I don't know, the battle had about 4000 men in total and it gave me a performance warning before starting, I just assumed the game was being retarded and disregarded it, but when the battle started the framerate was noticeably very choppy, felt close to 30 fps. I have no idea why the game runs so shitty, Rome 2 and Shogun 2 never dropped below 60 fps with ultra units and two standard armies. I guess I'll fuck around with the settings later.

Maybe your GPU is too damn new and is not compatible with the older games.

Shogun 2 though has an incredibly small battlefield compared to Medieval 2.

That ain't true nigga.

every Total War game is Rock Paper Scissors, and Shogun 2 is less Rock Paper Scissors than Medieval 2
But that's pretending that fights are a challenge, because the AI constantly splits all of it's units into tiny stacks for you to attack one at a time. Unless you want to manually fight every 100 vs 1000 battle, you'll auto resolve most of your fights and never even have battles.

Medieval 2 has the shittiest combat of the entire series sans Napoleon and Empire. Rome 1 has the second best because Shogun 2 exists.

There's a cap to how well the old Total War games will run. You will need to patch the medieval2.exe and kingdoms.exe files to be able to have access to more memory. I forgot what the program was called though. Google something like "Medieval 2 4gb patch" and you should get a relevant result.

You don't understand what rock paper scissors means. Medieval 2 has no hard counters, it's a dynamic where each unit has a different utility in different situations and when combined with other units, you know, just like real life. Spearmen aren't a hard counter to cavalry, more they are a cheap meat shield against all units. Crossbowmen behind infantry will be able to ward off cavalry - they won't do much damage against heavy infantry from the front, however if the infantry has no support they are sitting ducks against ranged units. Et cetera.

You mean that's how warfare works, right?
Except that Med2 does not have literal "dev-approved" counters. There are simply preferred ways to deal with things.
Even shitty huntsmen with 2h axes and 0 defence can pose a serious threat to well-armoured professional units if used properly.
And it's not like you cannot charge into spearmen with cavalry, just don't do it from the front like a dumbass and make sure they're tied up with your own spearmen.

As for your siege adventure, I've never seen anything like that and I've been playing the game since release.
Then again, I've seen this only recently.

You must be fucking something up seriously when you cannot handle a game as simple as Med2.
I guess CA was right to streamline and simplify things for you lot.

You're a lost cause.

I don't think you know what cost efficiency is. Any commander would gladly trade the decimation of 420 cost spearmen to rout 800 cost cavalry. That's a trade anyone would be crazy not to take. These units, however, do not have more utility than this. You could take armored sergeants instead and hope to fight drastically inferior infantry, but the fact of the matter is, there are hidden weapon modifiers that the player isn't aware of unless they're long-time veterans or read the game files, which is why Italian militia hold walls better than Italian spear militia, despite spear militia having higher stats. Units with spears just perform very poorly against infantry in general. Armored sergeants can hold out a long time against infantry, but not any more than equally armored infantry. That's definition rock paper scissors.

Meanwhile, using spears against infantry in Shogun 2 has the utility of all spearmen being designed to have a very long holdout time, letting you anvil&hammer meme them. It's viable to use naginata samurai to climb walls against katana samurai to gain enough ground to get all of your units up the walls so they're not being slaughtered as they climb. Yari samurai by design can find an enemy and pin them down, especially with their high speed. Both naginata and yari samurai are not going to win direct fights against katana samurai, but they perform roles against katanas that no other unit can. Spearmen in Medieval 2 cannot do this.

Thinking Medieval 2 Spearmen have other purposes like being meat shields only exists because some factions low-tier units only consist of spearmen. If you're playing an army with literally any other unit, they're superior.

This goes doubly for you and your
Yeah, you use the unit designed to do the most damage at the best cost against the unit you want to fight. The actual definition of countering.

Yeah, because they're designed to counter expensive units. They're literally the exact same as other two-handed weapon users in every Total War - they hit something really hard and then crumble. It's the same role in every game. If you think they're different, then you're delusional. No amount of pretending will make it change.

You're not the only one, sweet cheeks. Doesn't make the game any less shitty. It just means you're latched on to a shitty game.

I've already explained thoroughly why Shogun 2 has the best combat, and all I'm getting is people stating things that are identical in every Total War game. Enjoy your dumbed down game about knights where cavalry control like piss and 90% of units are unused filler.

And it's worth adding on that people who say "haha I can use these units to stalemate these much cheaper units or lose to but slow down these other better units" are people who are actually retarded and like throwing away money. You can throw away inferior units that are poorly designed for the situation in literally every game ever. That just makes you a shit player.

When is a new good total war coming out which is historical

They have a Kingdoms ripoff coming out last year, but we'll probably not get a full historical game again until at least 2021 since there's still Warhammer 3 to come out.

Fixed.

No. Spearmen are not "a counter against cavalry" and "countered by infantry". What idiot actually charges his cavalry at spearmen and keeps them engaged? The whole point of cavalry is that it's mobile. And if you've actually tested it, heavy cavalry can beat a unit of armoured sergeants with repeated charges. The point of spearmen is that they're cheap fodder, they are not supposed to be part of a counter system, they represent the typical peasant soldier in the middle ages, they are not designed to fit in to some arbitrary paper-rock-scissors dynamic. The good thing about spearmen is that they are cheap, easily-accessible, and can hold the battle line while your superior units flank. They are better than other low-tier infantry because other low-tier infantry will get annihilated by cavalry or archers, and are unsuitable for holding the main battle line.

Old Testament Total War would be cool.

It would trigger all the butthurt atheists, foaming at the mouth.

I'll repeat what I said: they're cheap fodder to some factions because some factions lower tier units consist of peasants and low-grade spearmen, and peasants are trash. Italian spear militia have no benefit over Italian militia when fighting against infantry because they are countered by infantry, aka Italian militia. This is because their weapons (long spears) provide hidden penalties against infantry. This is despite Italian spear militia costing more money. Italian militia in this sense is cheaper 'fodder' than Italian spear militia.

Another example is the Byzantines. Will you tell me that Byzantine spearmen have roles that Byzantine infantry cannot fill, other than battling cavalry? Byzantine infantry cost 90 more to build but cost 30 less upkeep per turn.Do you play Byzantine and build spearmen to throw away against units that their non-spear equivalent should have fought instead? The answer should be no.

If you're spamming spearmen to picket your units, it's not because spearmen are good meat shields - spearmen in future games are better meat shields due to their stacked defense values. It's because you have no unit production capacity or can't afford anything else.

Sure, Reiksguard cavalry can break Empire shielded spearmen with repeated charges, and Takeda Fire Cavalry can break Yari Ashigaru with repeated charges. This isn't because spearmen aren't countering cavalry, it's because you're throwing a unit that costs 300% of what the unit you're fighting costs. See

Yeah because spearmen counter cavalry.

Archers don't correspond to this at all. Italian spear militia have armor that the Italian militia doesn't, just as Byzantine infantry are much more armored than Byzantine spearmen. Spearmen are not typically more armored or shielded than other counterparts. And if you're talking about spearmen who get into formations, then you're wrong, because spearmen who form special formations are extra weak to ranged combat in Medieval 2.

No, that's units equipped with light spears, a different weapon that is not penalized against infantry and barely effective against cavalry, like Italian militia and town militia. Sergeant spearmen do not represent typical peasant soldiers.

If the difference between light spears and spears is the point of confusion here, then consider why Byzantine spearmen are less effective against infantry than their town militia despite having the exact same numeric stats, and consider why town militia cost significantly less. The answer is that town militia are not spearmen but peasants equipped with light spears.

Something isnt quite right here

Fuck, feels cyberpunk as fuck

In all seriousness i'm upset Rome 2 has cucked me out of what looked to be a really great conflict with spain, how can this game be more unstable with years of updates than the original Rome straight from the disk?

Just use mods

And that's the fastest I've lost a campaing on any Total War games, holy shit. Who thought putting the initial player position near TWO STARTING ENEMIES was a good idea? All I can hire is shitty bows and maybe spearmans (read: guys with forks) and yet the initial guide for the faction states I must go forth and win "chivalrous battles".
This shit is precisely the reason I play Dwarves and dwarves only, fuck everyone else.

shogun 2 is nothing BUT rock paper scissors

Git gud
First 20 turns you get events for orc revolts so you need at least one lord with at least 6 decent units to curb stomp every attempt at rebelion via autobattle
Secondly you wont be able to take orks and the empire niggers both at the same time, so just wait them out and ambush them, marienburg shits out radicilous amount of armies so dont even think about sieging them and orks are just not worth it, try to buckle up and develop tech and your city
In tech tree there is a route for dyplo annexing every other horse pseudo french nigger on your side of the map via confederation, so just wait long enough and blob later on

Damn right it's wrong.
Fucking Affirmative Action in the church.

It has pretty accurately modeled combat for its time period, eg cavalry curbstomps everything
If you look after "muh counters" instead of historical accuracy then you are a nigger who should play something more casual

Nigga, I know how to play. I killed thousands of greenskins with Dwarves. You know, the proper green-killing way.
What I didn't expect was for Marillion to actually act me when they have an Ork city right next door and the shitty recruit options
For fuck sake, Bretonnia is present as the Horsefucker nation, everyone and their grandmother is suposed to ride a horse at childbirth so the the baby can ride out of their cunt straight into battle. They have call the Weed Knight on the Weed Horse. It's HORSES HORSES HORSES and all I get to recruit is shitty peasants. I'll make do with the plebs, but goddamn, this shity is crazy after playing some of the other factions.
I did realize that investing in my economy isntead really needed since unlike most other races I played, I can make 6 trade deals right at the start meaning I can keep myself extra rich with little effort. Time to hunt river jews, french boats and horsefuckers in general.
At least the Emperor came to my aid, that guy is a fucking A grade pal.

Also, I did notice the dyplomacy shit in the tech tree, but there's two things:
How the fuck am I gonna do this when half my arm are illeterate fucks that don't which side of the bow the arrow comes out of?
This is not Knightly or chivalrous! This is letting Greenskins running rampant, the jews jewing around and the french horsefuckers HONHONHONing all over the place until I pretend I care enough about their cheese scented saddles.

Your sick quip really destroyed my detailed explanation, friend.

Learn to read. Literally nobody is arguing about historical accuracy. The discussion is whether or not the game falls into rock paper scissors like every other Total War. It does.

Medieval 2 is one of the most casual Total War games in existance. Most of the pressure applied to a player is self-inflicted, and the AI is incapable of forming an effective army or choosing a good battle, and when it does, combat is so slow that it's incredibly forgiving even without pausing. There is little player decision making outside of combat. The family system is so simple that the majority of players literally ignore it. Not even traits really matter unless you're trying to stack chivalry to grow a town or castle quickly. The only good things about the game are the retention of settlement building, the visibility of armor upgrades on units in battle, and the music. The game is otherwise a tremendous downgrade from Rome 1.

They have multiple teams working on different games, so we'll probable see one sooner than thought

Alright nigger let me teach you how to Total War as the King of Bretonnia:
With this you will have conquered a very profitable city from where you can then strike at the Greenskins from and end the infestation problems you've been having
If you somehow fuck all this up and keep whining about it; then here are some training wheels for you steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=715954328, fucking casual

I thought it was unfair of me to discuss the innate spearman penalty against infantry, so I went ahead and ran a few custom battles for some added value here. The Italian militia are equipped with armor upgrades to bring it close to the Italian spear militia - the spear militia still have identical stats everywhere and even higher armor. The italian spear militia regularly (4/5 times in my case) lose combat against the normal italian militia.

When battling against Italian militia with no armor upgrades, it the battle comes down to dice rolls. Having 4 more armor than the opponent seems to equalize the battle a bit more. This fight is a toss up.

Last picture is of an army of Italian militia with no armor upgrade matching the formation of (no out-maneuvering or flanking) an equal-size army of Italian spear militia. The consistent results speak for themselves. Having 4 more armor doesn't prevent the infantry with lower stats from countering the army of spears.

This is important because apparently the average Medieval 2 player doesn't realize that there are invisible modifiers for weapons, causing units equipped with long spears to perform poorly against infantry that are otherwise designed to combat other infantry, despite similar unit strengths. Spears have great cavalry bonuses and improved bracing capability, but are bad against infantry, performing worse than their visible stats suggest. They are developer designed to combat cavalry and to be defeated by other infantry.

This is not a bad thing. The question is that people pretend it doesn't happen and attack other games for making these things visible to the player. It doesn't make those games casual - it makes these people super fucking casual because they all insist they've been playing the same game for a decade and never knew basic game mechanics.

How to use medieval 2 dlc? i am using pirated copy and can't figure it out, i tried looking it up and i can find nothing

Use luncher in M2TW folder, not the one named "kingdoms" but the one named "luncher"

Nope. I don't know why you were fucking around with Italians when you can test town militia vs spear militia, exactly the game except spear militia uses spear instead of light_spear. And what do you know, they do exactly the same amount of damage to one another. Spearmen in Med 2 aren't hard counters to cavalry because they can't ATTACK cavalry, they can only DEFEND against cavalry. The point is the spearmen are not designed as a hard counter to cavalry, they operate in a dynamic, and they represent a typical peasant soldier. Yes there were a few exceptions, but the fact is that professional soldiers were relatively rare in the feudal period, armies were typically made out of the nobility and peasant levies. And no commander expected peasant spearmen to counter a heavy cavalry charge. Professional foot soldiers that could take on cavalry, like swiss halberdiers, only really came in to being in the latter medieval period.

This is unlike Shogun 2, where "katana samurai" somehow are an infantry counter, when in reality no samurai ever used a katana as a main battlefield weapon because the idea of using a short sword without even a shield against yari and naginata is stupid. And you also have cavalry stupidly divided in too "anti infantry cavalry" and "anti-cavalry cavalry", which is the most stupid fucking concept but seemed to stick for some reason. Not that Shogun 2 was bad, because it wasn't, but every game after Shogun continued to magnify everything shitty about Shogun and get rid of everything good about the previous games.

ftfy. I don't know why so many people fail to specifiy between S1 and S1 when everyone does it for Rome but it's fucking confusing for anyone who actually played/plays S1.

Because of context and the fact that S1 is irrelevant?

That's not true is it? Katana is not a short sword, and it's meant to be used two handed with armor, there are literal painting of samurai charging using katana as the main weapon.
It's sword infantry and lance cavalry, actual concepts in Napoleonic warfare where cuirasseurs used swords while lancers used…lances.

Also the double yari wall in shogun 2 is pretty much invincible from the front in melee, even against specialized anti-infantry units.

Really? Could they stand against like the Date no-dachi samurai?

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All nodachi units have is a charge bonus, which I think gets negated by yari wall, so I think they'd lose even harder than katana samurai.

That cannot be true.

Yari-wall does not negate charge bonus by infantry.

Age of Sigmar sure but Warhammer Fantasy
Do I need to bring up John Blanche's influences for his shit

It's kinda funny GW killed WHFB just before Warhammer gets real popular due to TW.

I hope GW brings back WHFB.

I can't remember specifically if I ever fought the Date clan with a double yari wall, but every time I've bothered with the micro of making a double wall (usually with Oda long yari units) absolutely no melee units could get through, it was just a matter of setting up the formation so that it couldn't be flanked and then watching the AI suicide all its melee units by attacking the wall, the only thing I needed to worry about were ranged units.

You're forgetting that cuirassiers used guns.

So, you're telling me that you're going to take that sword, without a shield or anything, not wearing particularly good armour, and go charge head first into a formation of spearmen or into charging cavalry? The katana was ceremonial and a sidearm.

Chaos in general has about as many factions as all the good guys and dark elves
Need I remind you there is Undivided, Khorne mortals, Khorne Daemons, Tzeentch Mortals, Tzeentch Daemons, Nurgle Mortals, Nurgle Daemons, Slaanesh Mortals, Slaanesh Daemons, Skaven Verminus, Skaven Eshin, Skaven Skyre, Skaven Pestilins, Skaven Masterclan, Beastmen, Chaos Dorfs and Beasts of Chaos

That's actually very strange, then again, the AI is never smart enough to do a double yari-wall against me.

My Date no-dachi with 6 charge bonus just melts spearman.

Well the Horus Heresy book series is going to end kinda soon and I'd say there probably will be another 2-3 books of the game
So maybe Forge World will do Fantasy again

Cuirassiers used guns but in Napoleonic period, they forsake the guns and went fully sabre.

And the samurai with katana usually wield good armor, just like knight in mid-age who use longsword also wear good armor.

The shogitai also charges headfist using katana in the Boshin war, but that's in a more urban setting.

Stop this fucking myth, of all the swords, the katana were clearly meant to be used as a main weapon because it's a two-handed weapon, and stuff like wakizashi/shorter katana were used as actual sidearms.

Clearly you don't know what you're talking about.

But I do.

Wow your one image of a stylised representation proves that.

And here is the shogitai I was talking about.

But this is the boshin war, and swords were relatively popular in this period.

That is not a stylized representation, that's a fucking painiting.

What do you think paintings are?

Some paintings are meant to be accurate representation of historical events, and that certain painting is that.

It's certainly not some abstract shit.

That's why I said stylisied, not abstract. You can't trust painters not to use artistic licence. Nevertheless, the katana might be used in an urban setting, but it wasn't a battlefield weapon. For the simple fact that in any head on head confrontation the side using yaris would annihilate the side using katanas. And as for your pictures, even if they were 100% accurate it would still be besides the point, gunpowder weapons were widespread by then so it isn't a representation of typical 16th century warfare.

Pretty much every old painting of samurai battle have certain samurai using katana as main weapon, so they were absolutely battlefield weapons, and no, the idea of sword infantry charging spear infantry are not as black & white as you think, after all, they were many cases of sword infantries breaking spear infantries in European warfare.

The idea of spear-wall being unbeatable is a ahistorical argument.

Irrelevant. It's a sidearm, faggot.
Soldiers only used swords as a last resort and the same goes for muh samurays.

Artistic depiction =/= reality

Why the fuck do you think swords are so popular in art?
Because painters never were on an actual battlefield and only ever saw soldiers drag around those useless long iron rods, and on some rare occasions use them as duelling weapons. Since that is what swords are.

Unless we're talking about the gigantic two-handed swords some mercenaries/nobles used, and the only reason those saw any action was thanks to their reach.
Having the bigger stick is important and so is being cost-effective, thus the prevalence of spears and lances.

The katana can be used a sidearm, but as it stands, the samurai used them as main battlefield, this argument is supported by both historical paintings and the actual techniques taught in kenjutsu.
They are more authentic than your deluded head who think knows more of history than actual people who live at the time.

Very super wrong, considering how easily pole weapons break in the battlefield.

Because they were widely used in warfare?
Ironic, they were useless long iron rods, yet everyone carry them, in every cultures that know warfare. What a nonsense argument.

If they were useless, nobody would bother carry them.

Have you done any research at all? Just look it up; the main weapon of a Samurai was the Yari and Yumi, Katana's were secondaries used in extreme close quarters for better maneuverability and speed or if you lost your weapon

Main weapon of a samurai was the yari, yumi, naginata, tanegashima and the katana actually.

And yet, I have done my research.

So this is the mind of the average Shogun 2 player.
What part of "last resort sidearm and duelling weapon" is not getting to you?

And what part of "being used as main battlefield weapon" not getting to you?

EB2 team didn't change the cavalry charges though beyond just statistics. Rome 1 had cavalry that could turn 180 degrees on the drop of a hat, Medieval 2 just changed that entirely. EB2 team just changed the standard armour piercing values of the cavalry and the speed of them, making them much better suited against less armoured targets and for running down routing units. Even just attacking a flank with cavalry now is risky, since many times they can't disengage from a fight properly.

This is a nice argument and all, but there is something I don't understand: which Uchiha Madara are you guys talking about?

I love that vid, it's a pretty good summary of what happened to the franchise

I wish he made vids about other total war tittles

Does it just happen without anyone speaking about it, like it's some massive taboo topic? GoT and the Witcher are constantly bringing up matters of that ilk; rape, child murder.. Even in the warhammer fluff rape doesn't seem to be touched upon, and even Slaanesh's perversion is about seduction and giving in, not rape as far as I can tell.

Is this a joke? All those tentacles must be for something.

Archaon the Everchosen is a rape baby of a Kislev woman and a Norsca warchief. It was in the lore at one point that Beastmen reproduced by raping the shit out of human villages.

It's also canon that the Fimir females cannot reproduce and the only way they can is to kidnap and rape women of other species.
And don't the Witch Elves have what are basically murder orgies?

I never knew Warhammer was this lewd, kinda makes me wish for some strong cuddling mods in WaWa.

Warhammer is sullied by the shitfest that is Rome 2, but it actually has the most strategic and tactical diversity because CA actually tried and incorporated literally every new mechanic they came up with throughout the entire franchise whereas other games had some and omitted others due to muh historical accuracy

I dislike the campaign map though, but I dislike the 3d campaign map since I played Rome 1. Only difference is that it is more annoying in Warhammer because there are more hazardous terrain types and crazy paths for the pathfinding to fuck up on.

Everything up through Medieval 2 is good. Shogun 2 is okay. Skip the rest.

Swords arn't useless, your correct that they arn't the main weapon used by a knight or samurai etc, but they were a great personal defense for the man about town or as a handy backup if your lance/spear/halbard is lost or broken or the situation is such that its not practical to use.

To summarize, swords arn't shit, they work very well for the purposes they are intended for.

Swords became a status symbol more than anything with the prevalence of metal armor. The knight could use them to slaughter scrub men at arms that he considered beneath and same goes for the samurai. This is why there are entire German manuals written about how to fight a man in heavy armor with a sword, because it was fucking impractical and difficult. Swords never truly went away because armor was expensive and the noble classes of both Europe and Japan continued to revere them as tradition in duels.

Yeah, nah.

Europa Barbarorum 1 has GREAT soundtrack.

When I played it for the first time it was like I was transported back to 270 BC, it's an autism simulator with book-long texts on each unit and building description.

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...

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EB was incredible and it was an interesting experience hearing the redone Roman voices speak "real Latin". Each of the building description offered insight into Roman culture. My hats are off to the autism of that historian.

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It's too bad EB 2 will most likely never be finished. I really appreciate their effort and everytime I play that mod I end up reading hours worth of random antiquity history, I even picked up a couple Steven Pressfield books because of that mod. Though he gets the premise of the phalanx incorrect, implying that it was some sort of shoving match between the formations which I think is far-fetched and is probably due to him being American and watching too much football, Gates of Fire was one of the best books I've ever read.

Weren't phalanx battles shoving matches though? At least the early hoplites were, until Alexander's father updated the army with those huge ass sarissa spears.

The shoving match bullshit is a common theory and I don't know why. Lindybeige also has a good video about that I think.

No formation can fight effectively if it's too densely packed. I cite the battle of Cannae which forced the larger army into a dense pocket which was torn to pieces due to the lack of maneuverability afforded to the Romans. That's not just a unit's mobility, but down to individual soldiers being so densely packed together that they were unable to either find proper footing or swing their swords effectively. (Think Japanese/Chinese train station)

I'd also cite the battle between Thebes and Sparta which name escapes me right now, but basically the way the Thebans beat the Spartans was by thinning out their entire line and concentrating their manpower on the Spartan's right flank. They did this because the Spartans (as pretty much every Greek Phalanx) put their best soldiers on that flank due to the natural shifting that occurs because of the lack of shield cover on the right. Basically the Thebans were able to overwhelm the experienced and loyal Spartans while the rest of their line held. The question is, how is it that the Theban line was able to hold if it was significantly less deep than the Spartan line (I think the estimates were 4-men deep on the Theban line and 16-men deep on the Spartan line) If they really did do literal shoving matches, this strategy would've never functioned because the Spartans would've been able to outpush them and topple them over and surround the remaining dense pocket on the right.

So the idea that these infantry were trained to literally push eachother over and brace their shields against their own allies to push against their backs is silly. Often when military's talk of "pushing" they don't mean a literal shoving match, but a steady advance.

It's most likely modern historians read about a "push" being made during a battle and it's taken literally.

That faggot has probably never even been in a fist fight, what would he know about combat?

Imma let you finsih but med 2 was the best TW game of all time.

True tfw your system is now too advanced for Rome 1 to work properly but Med 2 still works fine

I was down my main computer for two months and went back to rome 1 on a old laptop but never went bpact the first few turns.

med2 is a game that I will play forever.

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Sad! Also it turns out that Skaven can in to space

So fam, where would like like the next historical title set in and what time frame? My favorites choices would be during the Victorian Era or the 30 years war

I disagree, while it is up there with the top 3 (Shogun 2, Rome, Med 2), the unresponsive gunpowder infantry and the built-in order delay kind of killed the game for me.
Compare moving units in Med 2 with moving units in Rome, the latter has a much faster build up to its speed, while the former needs to build their speed up.

That being said, Med 2 Kingdoms has legendary mods such as Call of Warhammer and Hyrule:TW

medieval2 is the magnum opus of tw

30 year war would just be auto raze. I like it but it would be sad.

what about China? or tw: asia? try to take over all of asia. or TW mongol? try to take over the entire world as mongols?

TW:W2 is unpacking now. ere we go

Anyone else having the game stuck visually on the title (before even the logos and intro videos)?

I'd really appreciate if anyone here who has had this problem and fixed it, share what they've done.

My main problem with Medieval 2 is the bright/glossy bloom graphics. It looks like everything is smeared in vaseline, similar to Rome 2.

Medieval 1 has a dark and gritty atmosphere, perfect for the time period it's supposed to represent.

None.
/thread

Warhammer 2 is now out and I am installing it now. Have someone here played it already? How it is? What are your thoughts?

I still cant understand why they had to name it Warhammer 2 instead of just calling it an expansion and making it standalone

I really don't understand why they haven't done a Chinese one yet, it's a underutilized setting with a fuck ton of potential given all the warring periods and various invasions

They're going for a constant stream of revenue with the DLC model but there's a very real risk of even die-hard fanboys becoming fatigued with that, so every so often a DLC has to be marketed as a real game

Come on it's an entire continent and 4 new factions, it's worthy of a new game.

I haven't gotten that one, game moves slowly the first time you boot it up, maybe try and wait it out?

Swords weren't status symbols, they were dirt fucking cheap past the Viking era.

They were used because they were useful, that's about it.

Or because the sword is versatile and popular, thus people make new techniques for them.

You would be hard to find detailed treaties about mace/hammer because they weren't as popular as swords.

Swords are used as main weapons for knight and samurai though, large swords were.

That's one of the things that people here don't seem to understand. I hate that they are doing it, but I understand why. This isn't some copy paste with some variation, this is around a dozen unique factions with their own models, playstyles and animations with a land that is not even remotely close to what is ours. You can't look at a map of Asia and go off of that while you make one samurai unit and copy paste it with purple instead of blue.

People are just too burned by modern devs, but I feel CA is still one of the few western devs worth supporting.

I was expecting some generic shclock but the trailer is actually hype as shit

Currently playing M2 with stainless steel. I like how the game heavily limits noble tier troops and elite troops so you, like in history would had a reliance on peasantry to form the bulk of your army unless your economy is really good and you can manage to turtle up and form a standing army over a decade or so of training up elite troops.

Or because they were weapons of the peasant. I believe a popular weapon of the period was variants of a spiked polemace/polehammer. Peasants don't have a lifetime of military training and martial arts, so a weapon that has most versatility does well for them, whereas the sword was heavily romanticized to the weapon of heroes, so more martial arts were dedicated towards that weapon.

And if we were to get into the subject of katanas, katanas were actually pretty short for a battlefield sword given that the standard blade is 2 shaku or about 70-73 cm. There's plenty of variants of the japanese blade that were actually deployed in a charge like a straight daito, or the not commonly used curved odachi/nodachi family of blades. Not to mention the nagamaki is among the most prominent battlefield blades used once you discount the limits of the shape of the sword.

Whoa, since when has that been a feature on youtube?

late 2015 I think

Started playing as the Lizardmen as Mazdimundi, it feels like a very slow start so far, slower than in Warham 1. Maybe that's just the way the Lizardmen play? Also I made the mistake of letting the settlers survive, I should have gone after them after I was done with skeggi.

I miss the power of money.

Mace and warhammer weren't peasant weapons, they were specialist weapons employed by cavalry, the mace was also a status symbol of authority.
Except the sword were widely used because it's much more versatile than something like mace and warhammer which lacked reaches and were only good for anti-armor warfare, the average robber and animals don't wear armor.
Back in the sengoku period, I don't think there were perfect length of katana, and swordsmith just make whatever their customers feel like, kinda like longswords in the renaissance.

You have a point in the edo period, but that's where katana really shines because most combat were in urban areas and the medium size of the katana shines.

I remember a greek campaign in RTW 1 where after conquering asia minor I was making so much money per turn I could just keep a few diplomats bribing the full stacks the romans kept sending at me so they would disband, didn't even have to fight them head on until I actually invaded Italy.

No, they actually were, to the point where threshing flails and evening stars were the symbol of pre-swiss mountain peasant resistant fighters. You're thinking about warhammers in their specialized forms like a ravens beak but the peasantry used plenty of metal strip reinforced maces and hammers throughout the history of europe's peasant uprisings.

Two things wrong with that statement. One, bludgeoning works better on unarmoured opponents than armored. Historical accounts where peasants managed to kill knights always have them pulling a knight off his horse, surrounding him and pinning him to the ground before gangbanging him to death with bludgeoning weapons, one guy with a dagger or one guy with a solid spear. There's plenty of padding under armor and it actually helps massively against all sorts of weaponry, swords included. So get that vidya logic out of your head. By the middle ages, most people, peasants included could afford to field gambeson provided it's not a straight up farmer's uprising where yes, they would show up in tunics and other normal day wear. About range, it's mostly military styled warhammers and maces that lacked range because they were designed for heavy infantry combat. The ones used by peasants have their origins in polearms rather than straight up maces and hammers so I'm calling you out there. On robbers and animals, no european peasant would go hunting or village patrolling with a hammer or mace, true. But that's because there's a better tool for that, namely the spear or later partisan, voulge family of blade polearms etc. In the absence of a proper hunting spear, a billhook can be used, but hillhooks are probably not as efficient for hunting as they are for combat.
Secondly, unlike Japan where they don't have a tradition of padded armor, the peasants of Europe do wear gambesons when they go off to war and contrary to popular belief, the gambeson is actually really resilient to all sorts of attacks but not at the magnitude of a fully armored soldier.

There actually was, which is where the shaku comes into play.

Wrong. Unlike europe where longsword production was always being innovated, the nips had a system in place, which is why a blade lower than a certain amount of curvature, but with the length of a katana of more of less 2 shakus will not be considered a katana, but a tachi. This is not to mention the amounts of experimental warblades lengths and curvatures that didn't fall under preexisting categories so they were instead labelled under the name of their smith/smith's style of blademaking.

By the edo period, the sword ban was already in place. Due to that the only people carrying blades around were landed samurai families or brigands so it plays into the european notion of the longsword being the mark of a landed noble. However unlike the longsword which was later replaced with the shorter backsword, sidesword or broadsword with the optional buckler, the shorter length of the katana made it a convenient blade for day to day use. Not only that, but quite a few modern western martial artist postulated that the decline of the longsword was due to the longsword being primarily a 2 handed sword was designed for fighting in armor during war and most manuals do show as such. And thus the nobility carrying around the longsword would had felt a reduction in its efficiency given that the longsword would not only had taken more time to draw and prepare but also would fail if someone or someones would come up to you with daggers given that you're unarmored.

There are many things wrong or debatable in that post.
1. Tool hammers were not used much in warfare, even in peasant uprising, the favored weapon of peasants were actually spear or re-forged scythes or wooden maces, the tool hammer were short and heavy, which make them awful weapons. The actual military mace and warhammer were made of all steel, and were even more expensive than swords to make.

2. No, sword is a much more efficient tool to kill the unarmored opponent than the armored, there's no vidya logic here, a sword is light, has reach and you can carry it easily, one can thrust and cut an opponent easier with a sword than a mace/hammer of similar length, and I assure you no fucking one carries a polearm length mace for self defense, shit's too cumbersome and stands out, a sword, a knife or a spear are better.
3. About the bits about robbers regularly wearing gamberson, that shit is straight out fantasy, the average peasant carries a knife or a sword or a spear for defense, if every robbers wear gamberson, the peasants ought to carry a mace or hammer with them at all times if they want to defend themselves, this is straight out banal and ahistorical.

4. The shaku system is true, but during the sengoku period, there were a shit load of swords and they were called different names, so yes, you are right that the katana would be considered swords, but sengoku-era samurai would carry longer swords as main weapons.

5. Regarding the edo bit, it's true that there was a sword ban, but the samurai were allowed to carry sword, and this is where most of the conflicts come in. Most of edo conflict comes from dueling or assassination in closed rooms, and this is where the short length of katana shines, this is why stuff like iaijutsu/battojutsu were prominent during this era.

And no, the decline of the longsword is about the fact guns were invented, so there's no point in carrying a large sword, a large axe/halberd, or a spear when it's better to just carry a pike or a gun, and have a shorter sword as sidearm.

The longsword itself is not a noble weapon, average peasant and men at arms can afford a longsword.

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A few things wrong on your end.
Mauls. Just like the military counterpart had different troops for different jobs, so did their peasant counterparts and mauls were a mainstay whenever the peasants in question would need to go a campaign that either included a siege or they know they will be fighting heavily armored professional troops. On that front, I think it was pretty much establish in the non-polearm length weapons, axes are the popular winner.

Only applies for the scythes is they were being levied for war, which implies being able to properly prepare for a war. Spears on the other hand depended on if the village had a dedicated smith or if the village already has a watch/militia, thus having a stockpile of spears which are otherwise useless as a tool except for the hunters. Not to mention, the ownership of martial weapons such as spears were generally frowned upon by their landlords unless they were already part of the lord's garrison forces, or they were nordic who placed more importance on martial tradition.

Except no one's not talking about self defense. We're talking about the mainstay of armaments in military history and conflict. Prior to the advancement of metalworking in the 1300s, a good sword isn't cheap at all. It's generally unaffordable to peasants and even men at arms (who were essentially geared by their liege as part of the standing feudal army unless they did come from minor nobility). Reminder that a good sword would qualify as a heirloom even in a minor nobility family before the end of the early medieval period, so the outlook of a sword on the 12th century would obviously be very different to say, the 15th century. On the part where no one carries a polearm length mace, they do and have done so whenever spears are unavailable. But it's for open combat so I have no idea why you suddenly shifted the goal post to self defense. On the subject of the efficiency of the sword on killing unarmored opponents, no one's denying that. But people are pretty disagreeing with you that swords are the mainstay arms for armies considering the historical worth or a sword and what I was saying is that bludgeon actually a less effective on armored opponents than on unarmored opponents, because an armored opponent would be able to negate or grit through your glancing hits while the same couldn't be said for your unarmored opponents.

You seem to have no idea how armor works. The gambeson is there to deflect/take glancing blows and partially protect from blows that would otherwise put an unarmored opponent out of commission. In this sense carrying a short spear or a knife is nothing wrong. Again you're moving the goalpost and being disingenuous. A gambeson would not had stopped a full stab from a knife or a spear, but the decrease in penetration increased the likelihood of its wearer to not be incapacitated from the strike. Plus it gives you the ability to protect yourself against glancing strikes that would leave an unarmored person bleeding a lot. And the gambeson is honestly much more common that people give them credit for given that it's one of the most prominent types of armor that have been there since the classical period. If your robber is a highwayman who deserted from his liege, guess what he's wearing? In early medieval periods your probably looking at an arming cap and a suit of gambeson. If you have a short spear can you defeat him? Yes. But it'll be challenge. But what if he has a shield? Then you're probably looking from "I might survive this" to "Oh shit". Unlike hollywood, armor isn't made of tissue paper. This includes blows from swords, especially when said sword is being struck at an opponent who's also actively defending himself.

The longsword declined long before the prominence of a gun you could carry around with you outside of the battlefield. Reminder that in context, the decline of the longsword came not when it was still used as a battlefield weapon, but about 100 something years after. In the 14th century leading up to the 15th, it was the age of the versatile polearm ie. a halberd. The use of swords on the battlefield was left instead to specialized units, with the greatsword family coming into mind, so the longsword already didn't see use outside of a sidearm for armored units. However it was still carried around as the everyday sword during that age. It was only towards the end of the 15th century that the philosophy of use of the longsword fully stopped being used for armored warfare, instead being worn by unarmored soldiers and mercs, marking then the widespread carrying of longswords which later leads into my earlier post of it being phased out in favour of shorter blades. This all happened before guns come into play and even then, we saw the use and rise of pikes, crossbows and sword and buckler formations instead of the longsword being thrown in there. The gun later came to replace the crossbow and phased out the use of swords in the formation entirely.

Depends on what time period you're talking about really. Like I said earlier, consider that the longsword was in use from the 12th to 17th century, with the 13th to 15th being the most prominent. A 12th century peasant would never be able to afford a longsword while a 15th century common man would.

Also, I forgot to add this in somewhere with the post. The way a sword can easily defeat armor by the ways of both striking or stabbing is indeed in the tip. Also indirectly I was trying to say the sword wasn't a weapon that peasants of say, the 12th to 14th century would prefer to carry around given that I can tell you from experience that trying to make sure you land a tip strike on a moving target with a longsword isn't easy. Even harder on a one hander like a knightly or arming pattern sword. You definitely need much more training to use it to the full potential compared to a spear or a knife.

Thanks for replying user, after investigating in in CA's forums it seems that it's a issue with certain high refresh rate monitors which some can only be solved by not using a DisplayPort cable but HDMI instead. Bought a HDMI cable and i can play it fine now.

OK, for the fact you think maul is some kind of mainstay weapon, that is deeply wrong. Mauls were brought by archers and troops to set up stakes and make camps, they were not made for warfare, they can be improvised as weapons but only when nothing is there. No one actually carries a maul for battle, the same shit for two-handed warhammer, shit's simply too heavy to be used as a weapon against human.

And the shit about sword being expensive. Deep, deeply wrong.
luminarium.org/medlit/medprice.htm

By the 14th century, swords were already damn cheap, as they were in made of many different qualities. The 13th century, sword might be a bit more expensive, but would be affordable considering every archers can afford a sword with their wage.

And swords were mainstay arms in the battlefields down to the 19th centuries, come on, they were versatile. People only stop using swords when guns get to fire accurately and repeatedly. Many people try to dispute this, but every darn mercs ever carry a sword because they know their pole weapons (especially the pikes) are useless in close quarter.

I mention self defense because swords are also widely used for self defense since they are so easy to carry around.

And the halberd comes to prominent use during the renaissance era i.e the late 15th to 16th centuries, by the time, longsword did fail into decline because a greater short of longsword exists, the zweihander, and guns were getting better.

But during the 13th and 14th, longswords were used prominent along with the poleaxes by knights in full armor.

Spear is the easiest weapon to carry around, but a sword requires less technical skill than a knife to use, simply because a sword has reach.

Knife fighting is not an easy art.

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But we were discussing about the roles of a maul in a peasant army instead of a standing army no? Mauls are by no means just a sledgehammer. They're actually pretty famous as weapons of peasant armies. At least 1 rebellion in the 14th century featured prominent use of mauls (it was french I believe) and men at arms were recorded to use mauls in at least 1 battle (also 14th century I believe, name slips my mind).

Plus on your source, the price of the cheap sword at 6 pence is during the mid 14th century, which is arguably the height of the prominence of the longsword.

You need to reread the disclaimer of your source. Household pricing =/= actual price. It's more likely that price is based on the wage of the smith if the materials are provided by the lord in the case of a standing feudal army.

As a sidearm

Polearms like the halberd are actually by no means useless in close quarters, especially if said close combat happens in a melee instead of say, a cramped hallway. However, the mercs did wore the sword because the sword was easier to carry around than a polearm and it's easily deployed.

On the subject of guns, I would partially disagree. The decline of swords being seen in the battlefield altogether was the increase of the engagement range of a battle (meaning a disproportionately high risk and death toll should one choose to charge) rather than the guns being more accurate given that until the rifled barrel was created guns were inaccurate and had to be deployed in a massed formation. The use of spears for a final (or desperate) charge was instead replaced with the bayonet and the sword was relegated to the officer instead as a symbol of authority.

Again dependent on time period due to price. Your source was quoted pretty much during the prominent age of the sword, so it wouldn't be strange for it to be common then. If we take Japan into context then yes, they seem to have a fascination for swords as the ultimate weapon outside of the battlefield.

The poleaxe actually came into existence around the 15th and 16th century to defeat the then modern plate armor but yeah they saw prominence of use among knights fighting on foot. But for the dismounted knights, longswords were still their backup as their quarterstaff training fed directly into the use of their poleaxe.

The medieval knife I believe is a lot longer and wider than what we consider a knife today. That or somewhere down the line we started calling oversized knifes a dagger. However a common trend should be a shorter blade, lack of a prominent guard and having a small or no pommel when compared to a sword. It saw prominent use to the point where a baselard was also called a knightly dagger, but stuff I read usually had stuff we would call a dagger called a knife and stuff we would call a short sword, a dagger.

Roma Surrectum
Medieval 2
Empire heavily modded
Warhammer heavily modded

I hate Japanese shit so I skipped shogun 2.

mfw Warhammer 2 is already cracked.

It feels way to arcade for me for a roman/realistic setting. Warhammer suffers the same fate but it's fucking warhammer, realism doesn't really matter to me that much.

I'm pretty sure for knights and samurai the main weapons are lances or spears or halberds. Great swords were used but i think that main weapon im almost sure was a long weapon used from the back of a horse.

Total War: Arena isn't awful if you have a team that works together, which is very rare. For some reason I can't adjust the ranks of my units which is weird.

As armor got more sophisticated the arms race caused actual knights to resort to blunt weapons. Also halbers were a rank weapon, wielding one outside of a line of soldiers is as smart as wielding a pike on your own.

What the fuck guys

I see the wikipedia article about maul and yes it was used in rebellion as improvised weapons, but I find no other sources that suggest it is a staple of peasant's rebellion weapons. In fact from various peasant rebellion pictures/paintings, they seem to use conventional weapons such as straightened scythes, hunting spears, wooden club and swords regularly.

About the pricing of sword, I did read the disclaimer, and this is said:
So in fact, freemen (the majority of people in Medieval times) actually have to have a weapon in their household, so it's not really a stretch to consider they would have a spear or a sword. And while I quote the price of sword in the 14th century, swords cannot be much, much expensive in the 13th or even the 12th, because back in the 11th, every knights and squires already ought to have a sword in the crusader wars.

And what about this sidearm business? Never mind that some swords were just too damn long to be used as sidearms, the fact some were sidearms do not mean they weren't used.

And swords weren't decline in use until the end of Napoleonic warfare, cuirasseurs and light cavalries still use swords as the main weapon until guns become too accurate and even cavalry charges become deadly.

The poleaxe did not come into around the 15th centuries, it was much earlier, Richard the Lionheart was described to carry a big fucking axe (though it could be just a big axe). Robert de Bruce (scottish king) used one as well. Longswords were used ALONG with poleaxes for dismounted knights and men at arms, as recorded by the swiss.

Regarding the knife comment, people only carry long knives when swords were banned, there's pretty much no point in carrying a fighting knife when you can carry a sword, never mind the fact that a dagger is not a hunting knife and is useless for every day task.

Knight (as in cavalries) used lances and swords as main weapons, the mace/warhammer are actually specialist weapons reserved for that anti-armor role alone.

Knights also used guns.

In fact, there wasn't a uniform loadout back then, they just carry whatever weapons they want to battle. The professional army only starts AFTER the 14th centuries (the Hundred Year's war).

Misleading advertisement bullshit. The 360 camera doesn't hide how much After Effects bullshit they're applying over the top of this.

Hey I missed that part and it also answers a long arse question I had for a while now, which was if feudal non-standing armies weren't considered levies, when did they even had time to practice given that most of them would had been land owning peasants.

There's something I read or possibly even heard on youtube which said at the start of the 12th century (so after the initial crusader wars), there was a revolution in metallurgy, causing the prices of swords to plummet as much 90% in the coming century. So you are right about the prices there.

Sidearms means they were not the weapon of choice while in rank (which is most of the time in battle), but something they would choose once a melee breaks out.

There's equal amounts of documentation pointing towards the pride of the nobles as much as practicality in the resilience of cavalry charges. I wouldn't actually chalk it up to swords and cavalry charges being the main factor influence that phenomenon as much as politics.

Bardiches came earlier, that's your big axe variant. A poleaxe comes with a hammer, a spear point and a small axe with a long shaft.

Well, here's to settle the whole sidearm vs main arm bullshit.

It's not like modern warfare where your rifle is perfectly adequate for everything and the pistol can be left behind. In ancient and medieval warfare, the sidearm is something you must always have on you due to the fact your main weapon can be easily lost during the chaotic of battle, or the fact some of your main weapons (the pike, the knight lance) are not made for CQC at all.

So the game has been out for a day now, you can either buy it or pirate it since it was cracked in a record of 10 hours, what do you make of it so far?
Performance wise the the battles feel a bit smoother, frames don't dip as much in my experience, but for some reason the main menu has incredibly shitty frames. Haven't seen much of a difference in the campaign.
Balance wise I haven't gotten too much of a feel for it yet, but I think the Lizardmen are the strongest right now.
Also free for all battles are multiplayer only, for some retarded reason.

I played 12 hours straight through Queek's campaign for my first play though. Until Tomb Kings and Araby are added, the Southlands is fairly dull place to play in. Other than that, I'm loving the improved load times and the Skaven are pretty fun to play. The food mechanic is stupid though.

this is a fair point, however it doesn't happen when the ship is penetrated by solid shot, but happens ALL the time with HE

researching HE allows you to destroy every single enemy fleet that doesn't have HE with extreme ease even if you are outnumbered fairly badly, your only real enemy is ships that decide to rout for no reason when they feel seperated or whatever

it's okay that it's an upgrade and great against wooden ships, but solid shot fights were fun because you could position and enjoy the massive impacts of broadsides tearing up the enemy hull, meanwhile enemy ships take about 1-2 volleys to set ablaze and then they just die, and if not, usually rout, which turns ship battles into less enjoyable clusterfucks. i might be wrong, i haven't really tested flammability against copper plated (that dont even have models with copper on them for some reason) and iron plated ships.

the growth means you can afford more garrissons, which you can put along to coast and have a very good defense still. it just seems a bit too much to me is all, given if you own 20 provinces that's 20 growth across all castle towns, which is pretty big in say, fall of the samurai where the food system doesn't exist.

oops