Finishing campaign tips?

[Monkey-Melon]

Hey I was just curious if anyone had tips on what they tend to do,to finish campaigns through to the end goals set up for each faction,and how to keep things fun for the entire playthrough.

I have played Rome TW,and Medieval 2 TW a lot over the years,probably 300 to 500 hours for each game,so a lot,yet I've never finished a full campaign,mainy due to things getting tedious around 20+ settlements,where you are just rolling over the other factions,it's generally after destroying 2 factions and then being attacked by some other nearby faction that is a lot weaker than I am,then I usually get bored and tune out.

I just get tired of the heavily outnumbered battles where you have a full stack evenly thought out Army,and are going up against tons of the same light infantry and siege units......Like Milan and France tend to do against me,with 7 or 8 light infantry and missile units,and 5 ballista / catapults.


And it just becomes a game of taking 1 or 2 settlements at a time,then retraining,and repeating over and over again with very few fun battles to be had.


I tend to play on Hard Campaign and Medium Battle difficulty,I find that the most fun for me personally,Very Hard for campaigns seems way less realistic in the diplomacy aspect where multiple factions try and destroy you right from the start for no reason whatsoever.


So if you guys have any ideas,suggestions or things that you tend to do to keep things fun or interesting then I'd be happy to listen,I'm not looking for Mod suggestions,I'm aware of most of the Mods out there,I'm mainly just wanting to get the most out of Medieval 2 TW.

Thanks. :)

[[VN] Michael Doan]

I'm like you too, but I always play on VH campaign, normal battle difficulty, I'm currently replaying on a english campaign

On very hard, you will see things like this, my late english campaign every AI stacks containing at least 3 elite infantry units (mostly dismounted knights), some range units, some faction specific units, the rest is elite heavy cav, 2 to 4 siege units (max to 8 in the case of AI becoming desperate), favor heavily the catapult, trebuchet, gunpowder batteries, the rest is militia. France will recruit voulgier infantry, dismounted knights, elite crossbowmen, super uber heavy cav (I still have nightmares about those guys), Spain will have lots of sword and bukler militia, conquisador, javelin horseman, HRE will include gothic knights (I once see 6 of them, they slaughter my gold medal militia lines in seconds before being routed by my second armored swordmen @@), milan with pasive crossbowman, many dismounted knights, italian militia (best militia in the world), Danish invades with a whole punch of "norse something" elite Armor piercing units, sicily always invade me by sea with a whole stacks of dismounted knights, super uber heavy knights, muslism archer/ crossbowman, some siege weapons (full elite stack/ death squad stack I called them). What I'm saying is AI will put more unit combinations, elite units in their stacks, more diverse battles, more faction special units and lots of stacks for you to fight (not impossible in any way), there will be less time sitting in a 100000 coffer, my citadels always have to train units every turn and I still struggle to expand without exposing myself to further danger, AI will fight in citadel, city whenever they have a chance, they will not attack mindlessly when you're camping on a bridge, they spent 3 stacks attack my 1 stack camping on a bridge

The diplomacy game will be easy, just send your assassins to track and kill every cardinals, I'm currently having 6-7 cardinals in the circle, that made sure the next pope is always my friend, papal state became my puppet, portugal and Spain and Milan, sicily nearly always became excomunated when they attack me. And by the way, the auto resolve will be in favor of AI heavily so you will think twice before auto resolve a battle

Here is some screeshot I kept from 3 heroic battles I got, look at the AI numbers, that's pretty normal on VH, I always used trebuchet cow carcass, fire arrow, dread general to debuff morale, so the 60 casuality battle is where the Milan got desperate and amass italian militia, pasive crossbowmen and 8 catapults, that's quite a memorable battle where their whole 2 - 3 lines of Italian militia clashed against my lines and mass rout before my cav get into their crossbow, catapult line

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=404846038
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=404845908
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=403728584

Sorry for my english, unit, faction name, I never payed attention to the details :)

[NeverOdd]

Alright so sorry i know you said you were not looking for mod suggestions, but just hear me out. Im a vannila kinda guy when it comes to my games. Theres a mod called "Lands to Conquer" and all it does is litteraly enhances this game while keeping it extremely vannila as possible. In fact you wouldnt even know you were playing a modded game. I think if you checked it out you might like what you find. Its the only mod i use for this game. Now i only say this because every issue you had listed, it actually fixes. No more lame army stacks, diplomacy and having allies function correctly,etc etc..
Again i apologies for this, its just when you said you were looking to get the most out of Medieval 2 i couldnt help to think of this.

[Monkey-Melon]

Yeah I'll have to try a campaign on Very Hard again,last time I played as Scotland and was attacked by England and Portugal within the first 5 turns,which turned me off on the idea of Very Hard Campaigns,as it seems like they just throw more enemies and factions at you for the sake of being hard,instead of a enemy or two with a legit reason to war with you,that prepares more realistically,but maybe I'm just asking a lot from the games AI.


I'm not looking for tons of pointless battles,mainly I just want suggestions on things that make the Long Campaigns more fun and engaging throughout,as I find myself getting bored,from the tedious landgrabs that tend to occur once a factions declares war on me,as it becomes less a game of units vs. units,and more who has the best economy and can afford the better units,and thus makes the battles very one sided and then just time consuming,as we all know that leaving the battle's fate to auto resolve,in this game tends to favor the enemy,and usualy means a your Army takes way too many casulties.



So if you guys have anymore thoughts on ways of making the base Medieval 2 TW game,more enjoyable or more realistic then I'd be happy to listen,as for Mods I'll look into them,but I still woud like to finish the base games campaign just once,while having fun of course.


I've tried placing rules on mysef in the past,like migration campaigns,not being able to swap castles to cities,only having one army ( full stack ) on the map at a time.

But that stuff still doesn't do much for me and my current issue of boredom,when facing the AI's horrible mindset of city and unit management,it just becomes a game of clean up,both on the campaign map and in the battles,like when dealing with pesky rebel armies. :p

[NeverOdd]

Dude im telling you, "Lands of Conquer", is exactly (and i mean exactly) what you're looking for.

But anyways, yeah, the base game does naturaly get tedious and feels like grinding in the long run. It just happens. I suggest if you want to spice it up, you should settle out in the far east. Start a few crusades, deal with the mongols, etc.

[Inardesco]

Well, for starters, it seems you're talking about the long campaign and not the short campaign? Since short campaigns are easy as long as you focus on the necessary factions to be destroyed (though destroying Moors as Egypt might be taking a while but on the other hand, Portugal and Spain and Sicily do most of the job already).

Yes, it might get boring after an X amount of turns because stack after stack after stack after stack, etc, will be thrown at you by the AI. That doesn't mean however, that it's impossible to win (I play Very Hard/Very Hard). Even on Very Hard it's possible to faceroll the AI in battles so the only thing you're supposed to do is take your chances. Split their forces into two, focus on a particular route to conquer and if you're looking for a breather and some faction demands you to become a vassal, accept.

Watch how the Papal States become the dominant power (I've seen them conquer all of Italy, Southern France and Iberia in one campaign before I was tired of them) or wait for the game to advance and move to the New World. There are plenty of ways to deal with this, depending on what faction you choose to start with. Russia and Egypt are fairly isolated and you won't be attacked very soon into the game. Holy Roman Empire is just madness when Denmark, France, Poland, Hungary, Venice, Milan all declare war on you. So even on Very Hard campaign difficulty, it's still possible not to get overwhelmed/bored as long as you have a gameplan.