@@isleofthecheetah cant like this comment enough, upgraded weapons changed seperately too, its so satisfying to see your investments realized like that I really wish they leaned more into that in the other games
I've played about 2,000 hours of Medieval 2. I can confirm that putting cavalry in loose formation stops them charging effectively. Never put cavalry in loose formation.
I put cavalry in loose formation when they are being attacked by artillery or other missiles, until I'm ready to do melee with them, especially when they are generals bodyguard units.
@@SimonAshworthWood yeah your infantry should be the ones having fire focused and skirmishing with ranged. your horses shouldn't need to ever be put in loose formation if used correctly. i must add mistakes do happen and sometimes your horses can get caught once a battle starts becoming messy, but at that point, loose formation would never have been able to be used effectively.
@@midshipman8654 thats a good point if you are skirmishing with other missile cav. ideally though you want missile cav to be used against infantry or non ranged cav since foot ranged are a hardcounter to missle cav. let inf be targetted by missle cav and use your missile cav to flank them. if not and your cav skirmishers are superior then yeah you could use loose formation..
Being able to take loans would be an interesting mechanic. Achieve a short term goal but be hit with interest and have a doom stack of mercs come your way if you renege on the payment
'the most important stat in medieval 2 is morale, not armour' - Legend of Total War ' In war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four.' - Napoléon Bonaparte War. War never changes.
This is why I love the battle mechanics of Med II more than any other total war. The newer games are about getting kills, while med II was about driving them off the field, killing the enemy troops was secondary to this.
@@JakeBaldwin1And even if you fought a battle of annihilation it actually mattered. The recruitment and economic systems allowed you to cripple your enemies with decisive battles. Now you destroy one doom stack you get another one attacking you 5 turns later
@@LeftToWrite006 I believe that was the quotes' meaning, but anachronistically put. You'd have to find out what it originally was in French to be sure though.
Glad to see you doing both Medieval 2 AND Saving a disaster campaign again. Hope that you aren't too burned out on disaster campaigns to keep them going. They are very entertaining.
And this is great. I once played Poland and gathered all my units on first turn, then went down to conquer Rome as quickly as I could and started campain from there. That was fun.
i've watched nothing but your warhammer videos but in the absence of immortal empires i really enjoy these videos (being saving disaster campaigns) they are perfect for listening in the background as i game !
Another *big* mistake is that he converted a lot of his cities to castles. Settlements that have good farmland and a lot of resources to trade, such as Prague and Krakow, are essentially licenses to print money. The only time a city should be converted is when you're building it up to a castle to then change it to a large town (e.g. using this trick to build up York and Stockholm quickly).
You should keep a few castles strategically for recruiting though. Castles and cities give different units. Some factions like the Italians you can kind of get away with only cities cause a lot of their good units come from cities.
@@ihaveachihuahau of course places like Bern and Toulouse should be like recruitment hubs, your armies gotta come from somewhere. It's also the only buildings I invest in armour buildings
How did you find it later in game when you had almost conquered all the map, I used to never upgrade farms because city would eventually grow to big and rebel against you later in game
@@s55558There’s a lot to consider in answering this question, but I will do my best to explain. Upgrading farms is *critical* in the early game because (1) they increase your population, (2) a larger population means more tax revenue, and (3) they provide revenue on their own, though I don’t know if it’s a flat rate or if it scales with population. They are the cheapest and most consistent forms of income early on (aside from mines) so you need to build them regardless of public order issues later on. Regarding the late-game when you own half the map (or even the whole map and are just fighting the Mongols and Timurids) rebellions from squalor are just part of the deal. However, at that point you should be wealthy enough and technologically advanced enough to quickly build large armies that can deal with rebellions. And the easiest way to deal with public order issues is to remove the garrison, let the settlement rebel, then retake it and exterminate the population. It’s a pain from a micromanagement standpoint but again, you’ll have the money and recruiting capabilities to do it. Another option, as you mentioned, is to not upgrade farms all the way. This is what I did back in the day when I played M2TW a lot more; I would only ever go up to the third (or sometimes fourth) level of farms, then raise or lower taxes depending on whether I wanted more money or more population growth. There are a lot of different income sources to juggle (farms, mines, merchants, sacking, trade, etc.) and you can tweak your builds as the game progresses. Hopefully that answers your question.
@Michael-on3ku thank you for the tips, I haven't played in a while but now talking about it I want to start playing again LOL I will be trying out the removing the army tip and then retaking settlement
At 51:10, Legend says the "guns" [infantry gunpowder weapons] in Medieval 2 don't do much damage. I thought less of them once too, but I learned through PvP that this is not entirely the case. Legend has said many times that the best way to win the game is to hit the enemy hard and fast rather than wasting time developing, since the enemy will be getting stronger as well, and you can't argue with his results. Nevertheless, I think that this philosophy and his avoidance of PvP may have kept him from encountering the higher quality gunpowder infantry very much, just as I hardly encountered them before a friend got me into PvP. They benefit greatly from an intelligent commander who will play them to their strengths, of course, and I will also say that Arquebusiers like the ones he uses here are an earlier compromise version of the musketmen with more armor but less weapon range and power, but I have learned not to underestimate Musketmen and other late gunpowder units--they can tear apart even the best units of knights.
Late game max armored knights and heavy infantry are very resistant even to high end archers. But even simple arquebusiers completely ignore hundreds of turns and 10ks of florins of development by simply bypassing armor. They are more unwieldy than archers but will decimate a far more expensive unit if placed correctly. For this reason I often stop investing into archers as the gunpowder event approaches. Things like mercenary pavise crossbows bridge the gap.
Even hand gunners have a devastating effect of morale. Merc Arquebusiers are great. Once facing the Mongols head on with Khan's Guard trotting towards my apprehensive Cossack Mussketeers and Dismounted Dvor I thought I was gonna be pasted. Under the Cossack's fire the Khan's Guard routed before they reached my lines.
"Don't listen to the Pope" Legend how could you this is a game for pure innocent Christian children. You need to teach them the ways of the College of Cardinals. Also the master guild of Assassins.
Also at 56:02 you mention that you can't move your custom formation in an ordeally manner but you actually cab If you hold down alt with your units secreted and order them to March somewhere, all units will keep their custom formation. So you don't have to right+click and drag a bunch of units
If you group your units in formation, then tell that group to move, they will maintain their formation, or at least end their movement in that formation. However this may cause infantry to run and get worn out more quickly.
Rebaults are my favorite street sweepers, the piercing effect of those rounds cut through hordes of enemy's effortlessly. I prefer playing Milan so i can have legions of Crossbows with Rebaults guarding the flanks.
@@lewiscarter1083 I'm going to have to argue against that. Bridge battles are very flat and if the enemy has artillery. They can and will counter your Rebaults. That's why i prefer fighting in the city. By the time their artillery catches up to the main force. Their army is already decimated.
@SGTvolcan Yes I do agree. However for the most part I've found that the AI generally is a bit slow to use its artillery effectively, and that they tend to send all of their inf/cav all at once across the bridge from the start. That is to say, with a little bit of luck, you can generally get a few rebault volleys off (which are devistating on tightly packed troops on the bridge) before the artillery takes out your rebaults. You are correct though they are more effective in cities where the AI really struggles to move their artillery into position.
@@skyrim654 You can easily build up coastal cities to over 6k income, while landlocked ones often fall in the 4k range. A coastal region with good trade goods is a gold mine...which gets cut off if your ports get blockaded (also, other factions will see you as weak if you have no navy but high port-based trade income, and declare war on you by blockading your ports.)
"Not everyone is going to be as agressive as me, that takes years to develop" Me: with a few hundred hours of experience just throwing my armies at things immediately bc I don't like waiting around
In the year 1474 from our Lord Jesus Christ's birth our land was blessed by a new king, Legend of total war, a wise and noble man. Blessed by God and his holy Church he begane his rule by stopping needless construction and demolishing devil-inspired vile structures. "That's just not the way of our Lord", he said, "We're going to take Constantinople from mongol pagans".
seriously...how have you gotten so cracked at this game. I have been playing total war for a decade and recently got back into medieval 2 and oh my god im getting my ass handed to me
Waiiiiiiit! I played hundreds of hours and never noticed that only Militia-units were free of upkeep with walls. Because of that I always used Ballistas as Garrison, because if you blob up the enemy at the gate the are devastating and the firebolts not only are good against moral but seam to increase their hitbox.
i always 1 catapult. you plug the road to center square with spear milita, position the catapult behind them and fire away down the straight road. you can kill whole armies like this with little effort.
I’ve been getting into Medieval 2 recently and I like the core principles you went over. Playing M2 after being used to Empire and later games is a doozy.
Same. I remember when I was about 11 (24 now), a friend of mine always used to say; "yeah, RTW is great, but it's getting kinda boring, you should try M2TW". Never played it until half a year ago. I kind of like it (not so much as RTW or ETW though), but the pathfinding is the worst I've ever seen. I was in a siege battle, put all my troops in an alley, took a few to set up near the citysquare and they ran outside the walls on the other side of the city. I litterally had to take them one by one, placing them constantly a few steps forward to get there, otherwise they would get back outside the walls to some random spot. So yeah... I don't know.
@@kaanjel it’s an old ass game with buggy AI, so yeah you’re gonna have to move individual units lol especially when you’re trying to run down units. Run ahead of them then attack them lol. Just janky old school PC game stuff
On the surface its simple, but many mechanics like managing settlement population are more complex than in later games. Population growth is percentage based and influenced by tax rate, buildings, governors. Recruiting units from a settlement takes them from the population, so if you want to level up a settlement you need to try to avoid recruiting units there. You can also get specific traits on generals in specific cases, for example if a general is in a town on a turn where a building finishes, and the public order is at 80%, you have a chance to get a trait that increases tax income. If you really want to optimize a playthrough you will need to have a spreadsheet and take notes every turn. Compared to that, Rome 2 and Warhammer have much simpler tax and population mechanics.
I'd say armor upgrades are important to get your Defence Stat up for when you will occasionally wish to auto resolve battles, defence skill very important factor in judging outcome of nok manual hattles
It's also helpful against Eastern factions and Mongols/Timurids to upgrade armor. Any factions that lean heavily on missiles will cause less damage if you upgrade. Also, if your units lose men slower because of the armor upgrades, morale stays stable. Might be the one thing I disagree with Legend on. Armor is important in Med2. You can win without upgrades, but if you like to keep your men alive, it is essential.
Les retraining too especially when most of your armies are castle troops as well and it’s helpful in places you may not have a castle nearby to retrain and reinforce
Most family members come of age in your capital, and I think if your princess marries a random dude, the general spawns in the capital. Can be useful if you stack your capital with trait-providing buildings (like universities).
the building queue is a nice feature, but it has to be handled with care...I usually only put low cost stuff in there that I would build anyway, like roads
I haven't used it since Rome1 where you wanted to be "poor" to keep your generals from accruing bad traits, so you stockpiled your economy in the build queue which 'each' reserved their cost actively instead of just the first building in queue. Also the recruited units did the same thing AND drew from the population pool. So if you wanted to delay upgrading the town/city, you just kept recruiting units. Also a great anti-squalor tactic. Whereas in M2TW you just drip feed one unit or one building at a time. It makes for a different experience. I do like having increasing recruitment slots though. That's a nifty addition.
If one's economy can't carry whatever he wants to build with queue in 15-20 turns, he is playing this game wrong way. Just spamming good militia units is broken part of this game.
What a nice surprise! Of course I still like warhammer 2, but it's cool to see an Medieval 2 disaster campaign. I was really wishing I could have seen you take it all the way.
Imo ultra unit scale is not the best experience. The maps aren't designed for ultra scale and don't scale in any way. Units get so large that (especially with the old engine) they start getting clogged up in tighter spaces and their movement starts to break. It can even be hard to issue orders because the game can't find a spot to fit the unit (mostly in siege battles). The smaller unit sizes make the game a bit easier but they also make it way less janky. Just don't go to the actually small sizes since those break the balance.
if you can get past finnicky siege pathfinding, larger unit sizes are actually ideal since public order depends on the number of soldiers in the settlement, not the number of units (though notably, peasants are coded to provide half the usual public order through the "is_peasant" trait in the EDU)
@@Walkingfenixsmall unit size makes siege battles manageable, 16 horse squad can actually charge inside the city walls, 60 archers squad can actually stand on a wall and shoot, and 100 spears unit is fast for moving on and off the walls by ledder or door. It looks like sieges was designed around small size
13:40 I thought it was pretty realistic. If you shout a command in battle, it's gonna take a second for the men to respond and make an opening for themselves to reposition. Not to mention the fact that some men might not hear the order. I see it more as a feature than a bug honestly. Sure, it's inconvenient, but how do you think a real war would have gone down in those days, trying to shout commands over the roar of men and horses. It feels very immersive lol
I think someone made a challenge for you, deliberate. 32:00 It's easier to move armies around when you have naval superiority. And you can block trade lanes with a fleet. 40:00 Could've used a pincher movement with your cav on some of the enemy units. That would end the fight quickly.
One of the best games ever made. And some of Legend's old, best content comes from this game. Go back and check it out if you don't know what I'm talking about.
The AI was so bad when it was released, that I ended my first ever campaign after a few turns and never look at Medieval 2 ever again. Probably a mistake in hindsight.
@@TheGerudan if you play many total war titles, quitting because the AI is dumb must be a common occurrence for you. That was a mistake. You should definitely go back and play it.
@@ThePhillydon22 No, that AI back then was an outlier in stupidity even for TW AI. It was an AI offering me an alliance (which I took) and then attacking me with a single general unit in the span of 2 turns only 10 or so turns after the start of the game.
Its still crazy for backstabbing allies...just beware iv played lots of this game any your ally will eventually betray you eventually 99 out of 100 times
I am the one that sent in the campaign, I was a complete noob, didn’t know how to manage my cities, my armies and I was afraid to attack any catholic nations due to excommunication. Whenever I did capture settlements, I lost them immediately due to rebellion or the AI attacked me. I finally learned how to play the game and I have like 500 hours in the game.
Do you enjoy the thumbnail bro😂? I mean the whole "mongol" "Constantinople" "Florins Florins"😂😂 irs the fastest way to patch your economy a bit. Everyone was a noob at the beginning, relax
He's said a few times that "generals are cheap and easy to get". How? The only ways I know is having a daughter try to steal an enemy general, adoption, coming of age, bribing enemy generals with a diplomat (I rarely have success in this), the seemingly rare promotion after a battle or a daughter marrying someone who then becomes a general. Are there other ways to get them I am unaware of?
So if you have more settlements than generals, there is a chance of "man of an hour" event. That can trigger if you win a battle by using army without general. It does not matter the who or how you fought, the general you can get is random. So when the rebels are spawned in your land (3 spear militias) fought them without your general to get free general. Also you can get adopt a dude in the start of the turn. Children can get old enough. And Princess trick. That's it.
Feel like the cover should just say 'range cav, range cav and more range cav'. For real, Strzelcy is cheap, armour piercing and in mass could dumpster most other infantry and cavalry. Not to mention AI seem to think it's trash which means a heavy infantry only garrison would Sally out to fight you
I was thinking maybe the guy wanted to make a "historically accurate" Poland by keeping it generally within Poland's borders. It at least looks like that's what he was doing
this video is super useful, i’ve just started playing med 2 cus of ur livestreams. But don’t know what to do etc, so this vid is helpful for me to get better thanks!
there is one question i have: why isn't the guy sending you this campaign, not using watch towers for vision? i always make sure to have full vision over all my lands
13:50 I think the delay here is intentional by the game designer. You will see an improvement in agility and less delay when your troops are led by an experienced general or your troops have experience fighting in previous battles.
30:55 I have noticed that when I select "Occupy Settlement" my reputation with the other factions decrease like as if I had chosen "Sack Settlement" like you did here with Constantinople.
I've owned this game for a LONG time, and never really took the time to learn to play. So, I'm what you might call "trash" at this. After watching this video while i did chores, when i sat to play last night I had a blast putting it to use. Thanks for the lessons.
The most important melee stat in Medieval 2 is neither armor NOR morale, it is the Defense Skill. Even 1 point of that stat makes a huge difference. It’s the stat that makes all eastern cavalry so hard to kill and the lack of this stat is what makes dismounted gothic knights & polearms so easy to kill. You can test it out yourself, giving any melee unit even 1 extra point of Defense Skill is always making it noticeably tougher.
@@LegendofTotalWar yo Legend. Can you please at least try to play a Parthian campaign in Divide et Impera? That is by far THE ABSOLUTE HARDEST Total War campaign I’ve ever played. I’m telling you, you’re going to LOVE IT. At least consider it.
How can you improve Merchants? I always seem to have low ranking Merchants who get poached pretty much every time. I don't really bother with them because they seem like a waste of time.
Question: my Holy Roman Empire campaign is not going well, I wanted to go back to a previous save file in my game to rewrite some mistakes. But I can’t seem to access the files, all they say is to delete them and other usuless buttons. What should I do and how
4:30 I'd disagree on ballistas being useless. Artillery in med2 is really inaccurate and sadly this can't be fixed with unit experience. But ballistas got decent enough accuracy AND since they are firing at a low arc plenty of their misses become juicy hits nevertheless. In addition such hits greatly contribute to morale loss. Also due to AI silliness it's possible to crush full-stack armies besieging your settlements with barely any losses using ballistas. Sally out, put ballistas to the sides of the enemy, and watch ballistas making the biggest european skewers. AI expects YOU to engage and it won't try to counter-attack with melee units anything that shoots at artillery range. Enemy missile units will still go for a skirmish, but in most cases this issue can be solved with one melee cavalry unit. Or just soak missiles with shields. But AI in general doesn't have a tendency to bring missile units.
I never retrain units outside of my main armies used for heavily defended castle taking. I just recruit new ones and combine the current ones to fill out their ranks
I'm a pretty veteran player of Medieval 2 and I didn't even know that the pope will only get mad if you invade another Christian. I thought the pope got mad whenever you fought another Christian faction no matter what terroritory you're in
@@zombbieslayerpl I never really understood the mechanic myself. Like I get it from trying to limit the player and provide challenge, but it just didn't really work. Since I never listened to the pope anyway 😅
If I ever got the pope on my side I could do pretty much anything I wanted without having war declared on me cause the other Christian factions wouldn't risk getting excommunicated.
Yes, the Pope will not stop you from defending your own territory. Still how often does it happen that a halfway decent player is on the defensive against the AI? Still his unilateral cease fire declaration does not stop you from putting an army in enemy territory just attacking with it. Also, the army wont tear up the countryside as much. Another interesting fact is that if the enemies city has no armies in it you can move in and take it without getting exocommunicated since thier is no battle to trigger it. SO if the city just had a general and you knock him off with an assasinn you can move in and the Pope can't do anything.
@@zombbieslayerplI know if I dare play as England and France attacks in Normandy and I defend my self I get the stick from the pope but not France it’s very annoying at times
Watched this video to see if i can learn something.... already at 1:45 i just learned about this city viewer tab.... i have been playing total war since rome. This will save me so much time from scolling the map.
Recently came back to this game, started up a HRE campaign and wanted to focus on maxing out my economy while doing away with the surrounding Rebels, what do you knw on turn 10 (I think) Venice attacks me out of the blue. This continued, I build up my economy and Milan, Denmark, France and England attacked me for no reason. Result: I'm filthy rich and have lots of territory that I got from other Christians and the Pope still likes me even though I ignore his commands to stop wars with this or that faction cause I built a few huge Cathedrals and finished two Crusades. Having the time of my life bullying Egypt by putting priests in their provinces to incite religious unrest right now.
why dont any of the other total war games show visual upgrades fro armour and weapons in battle... its such a cool feature of medieval which cements it as my favourti
5:15
Objection, Armor Upgrades are high value because of the Drip and style your soldiers get.
Turkish heavy armor upgrade is always nice
Yes, so they can rout in fashion.
Look the newer TWs don't have anything that updates your troops appearance so I want to appreciate it in the game that does...
@@isleofthecheetah cant like this comment enough, upgraded weapons changed seperately too, its so satisfying to see your investments realized like that I really wish they leaned more into that in the other games
True
I've played about 2,000 hours of Medieval 2. I can confirm that putting cavalry in loose formation stops them charging effectively. Never put cavalry in loose formation.
I put cavalry in loose formation when they are being attacked by artillery or other missiles, until I'm ready to do melee with them, especially when they are generals bodyguard units.
That said, I do try to keep my cavalry out of range of artillery/missiles, or if in range, I try to keep my cavalry moving, to minimise my casualties.
@@SimonAshworthWood yeah your infantry should be the ones having fire focused and skirmishing with ranged. your horses shouldn't need to ever be put in loose formation if used correctly. i must add mistakes do happen and sometimes your horses can get caught once a battle starts becoming messy, but at that point, loose formation would never have been able to be used effectively.
@@cslantz4020 what if they are missle cav? in that case they might often be skirmishing while taking missle fire from other missle cav
@@midshipman8654 thats a good point if you are skirmishing with other missile cav. ideally though you want missile cav to be used against infantry or non ranged cav since foot ranged are a hardcounter to missle cav. let inf be targetted by missle cav and use your missile cav to flank them. if not and your cav skirmishers are superior then yeah you could use loose formation..
"It's fine, I'll take a loan and pay it back once we sack Constantinople."
Ah, the 'Fourth Crusade Method!' very good!
Being able to take loans would be an interesting mechanic. Achieve a short term goal but be hit with interest and have a doom stack of mercs come your way if you renege on the payment
'the most important stat in medieval 2 is morale, not armour' - Legend of Total War
' In war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four.' - Napoléon Bonaparte
War. War never changes.
This is why I love the battle mechanics of Med II more than any other total war.
The newer games are about getting kills, while med II was about driving them off the field, killing the enemy troops was secondary to this.
@@JakeBaldwin1And even if you fought a battle of annihilation it actually mattered. The recruitment and economic systems allowed you to cripple your enemies with decisive battles. Now you destroy one doom stack you get another one attacking you 5 turns later
You sir are not an uncultured swine and i am pleased by this fact.
I think you mean "morale" because "moral" is different.
@@LeftToWrite006 I believe that was the quotes' meaning, but anachronistically put. You'd have to find out what it originally was in French to be sure though.
"completely broken economy, everythings falling apart"
For Poland this is not slow! Dude is like, 300 years ahead
Funny fact about Poland. Medieval era began (almost) 500 years later. To be more accurate in 966
Dude is speed-running the partitions
@@witchking1918 Before Polans' rise to power there was only a bunch of slavic tribes in these lands
Glad to see you doing both Medieval 2 AND Saving a disaster campaign again. Hope that you aren't too burned out on disaster campaigns to keep them going. They are very entertaining.
“Don’t worry about excommunication.”
*1 turn later, gets Crusade declared on my faction*
eventually you just camp some assassins in rome and take out the pope when they get in your way
That just makes the game more exciting and fun.
The goal is to put your own Pope in the Papal seat and call crusades on the other Christian kingdoms. Lol
@@NinjaSushi2the goal is to play Moors and stack cash
And this is great. I once played Poland and gathered all my units on first turn, then went down to conquer Rome as quickly as I could and started campain from there. That was fun.
i've watched nothing but your warhammer videos but in the absence of immortal empires i really enjoy these videos (being saving disaster campaigns) they are perfect for listening in the background as i game !
Warhammer is shit literally.
Another *big* mistake is that he converted a lot of his cities to castles. Settlements that have good farmland and a lot of resources to trade, such as Prague and Krakow, are essentially licenses to print money. The only time a city should be converted is when you're building it up to a castle to then change it to a large town (e.g. using this trick to build up York and Stockholm quickly).
You should keep a few castles strategically for recruiting though. Castles and cities give different units. Some factions like the Italians you can kind of get away with only cities cause a lot of their good units come from cities.
@@ihaveachihuahau of course places like Bern and Toulouse should be like recruitment hubs, your armies gotta come from somewhere. It's also the only buildings I invest in armour buildings
How did you find it later in game when you had almost conquered all the map, I used to never upgrade farms because city would eventually grow to big and rebel against you later in game
@@s55558There’s a lot to consider in answering this question, but I will do my best to explain.
Upgrading farms is *critical* in the early game because (1) they increase your population, (2) a larger population means more tax revenue, and (3) they provide revenue on their own, though I don’t know if it’s a flat rate or if it scales with population. They are the cheapest and most consistent forms of income early on (aside from mines) so you need to build them regardless of public order issues later on.
Regarding the late-game when you own half the map (or even the whole map and are just fighting the Mongols and Timurids) rebellions from squalor are just part of the deal. However, at that point you should be wealthy enough and technologically advanced enough to quickly build large armies that can deal with rebellions. And the easiest way to deal with public order issues is to remove the garrison, let the settlement rebel, then retake it and exterminate the population. It’s a pain from a micromanagement standpoint but again, you’ll have the money and recruiting capabilities to do it.
Another option, as you mentioned, is to not upgrade farms all the way. This is what I did back in the day when I played M2TW a lot more; I would only ever go up to the third (or sometimes fourth) level of farms, then raise or lower taxes depending on whether I wanted more money or more population growth. There are a lot of different income sources to juggle (farms, mines, merchants, sacking, trade, etc.) and you can tweak your builds as the game progresses.
Hopefully that answers your question.
@Michael-on3ku thank you for the tips, I haven't played in a while but now talking about it I want to start playing again LOL I will be trying out the removing the army tip and then retaking settlement
My friend named “dummies” found this very helpful. Thank you.
"it doesn't matter if they get exhausted"
"Why won't they just charge the enemy?"
At 51:10, Legend says the "guns" [infantry gunpowder weapons] in Medieval 2 don't do much damage. I thought less of them once too, but I learned through PvP that this is not entirely the case.
Legend has said many times that the best way to win the game is to hit the enemy hard and fast rather than wasting time developing, since the enemy will be getting stronger as well, and you can't argue with his results. Nevertheless, I think that this philosophy and his avoidance of PvP may have kept him from encountering the higher quality gunpowder infantry very much, just as I hardly encountered them before a friend got me into PvP. They benefit greatly from an intelligent commander who will play them to their strengths, of course, and I will also say that Arquebusiers like the ones he uses here are an earlier compromise version of the musketmen with more armor but less weapon range and power, but I have learned not to underestimate Musketmen and other late gunpowder units--they can tear apart even the best units of knights.
Watch Legends Warhammer multiplayer videos.
Late game max armored knights and heavy infantry are very resistant even to high end archers. But even simple arquebusiers completely ignore hundreds of turns and 10ks of florins of development by simply bypassing armor. They are more unwieldy than archers but will decimate a far more expensive unit if placed correctly. For this reason I often stop investing into archers as the gunpowder event approaches. Things like mercenary pavise crossbows bridge the gap.
Even hand gunners have a devastating effect of morale. Merc Arquebusiers are great. Once facing the Mongols head on with Khan's Guard trotting towards my apprehensive Cossack Mussketeers and Dismounted Dvor I thought I was gonna be pasted. Under the Cossack's fire the Khan's Guard routed before they reached my lines.
@@SmokeyBCN You know crossbow exists, right? Gunners are cool, but kinda suck
If only he had used merchants
He was 28 turns from the end of the game. Very little point in that situation.
@@ElHipokondriako you dont say?
LMAO 💀
On rough and steep terrain, it is realistic that cavalry are slow and difficult to keep in formation.
"Don't listen to the Pope"
Legend how could you this is a game for pure innocent Christian children.
You need to teach them the ways of the College of Cardinals. Also the master guild of Assassins.
They being children is enough for them to get in the College of Cardinals.
Virgin Chivalrous Catholic VS Chad Dread protestant
Man! I just discovered your channel, i must be under a rock for the last couple of years😅. This is amazing. Love your content, keep up the good work!
I'd love to watch you salvage this campaign to a victory in 25ish turns left on the clock, would make a nice mini series or a stream even
Also at 56:02 you mention that you can't move your custom formation in an ordeally manner but you actually cab
If you hold down alt with your units secreted and order them to March somewhere, all units will keep their custom formation. So you don't have to right+click and drag a bunch of units
If you group your units in formation, then tell that group to move, they will maintain their formation, or at least end their movement in that formation. However this may cause infantry to run and get worn out more quickly.
Dope!
Rebaults are my favorite street sweepers, the piercing effect of those rounds cut through hordes of enemy's effortlessly. I prefer playing Milan so i can have legions of Crossbows with Rebaults guarding the flanks.
Rebaults on a defensive bridge-crossing battle are the best
@@lewiscarter1083 I'm going to have to argue against that. Bridge battles are very flat and if the enemy has artillery. They can and will counter your Rebaults.
That's why i prefer fighting in the city. By the time their artillery catches up to the main force. Their army is already decimated.
@SGTvolcan Yes I do agree. However for the most part I've found that the AI generally is a bit slow to use its artillery effectively, and that they tend to send all of their inf/cav all at once across the bridge from the start. That is to say, with a little bit of luck, you can generally get a few rebault volleys off (which are devistating on tightly packed troops on the bridge) before the artillery takes out your rebaults. You are correct though they are more effective in cities where the AI really struggles to move their artillery into position.
I love both Warhammer 2 and Medieval 2, really happy to see it back on your channel :D
In my games, enemies use their fleets to blockade my ports. That does have a significant economic effect, so I build fleets to destroy enemy fleets.
I don't know about Medieval 2 but in Rome Total War naval trade is the best form of economy.
@NinjaSushi2 a bit late to the party with the reply. But just from my own experiences, ocean based cities really are the best source of trade income.
@@skyrim654 You can easily build up coastal cities to over 6k income, while landlocked ones often fall in the 4k range. A coastal region with good trade goods is a gold mine...which gets cut off if your ports get blockaded (also, other factions will see you as weak if you have no navy but high port-based trade income, and declare war on you by blockading your ports.)
"Not everyone is going to be as agressive as me, that takes years to develop"
Me: with a few hundred hours of experience just throwing my armies at things immediately bc I don't like waiting around
It's Total War not Total City Builder
I find it funny how it took about 100 archers like 3 volleys to kill 1 guy manning that catapult lol
Its realistic
@@MD-yd8lh 300 arrows for one bro. He must have maxed his luck out.
In the year 1474 from our Lord Jesus Christ's birth our land was blessed by a new king, Legend of total war, a wise and noble man. Blessed by God and his holy Church he begane his rule by stopping needless construction and demolishing devil-inspired vile structures. "That's just not the way of our Lord", he said, "We're going to take Constantinople from mongol pagans".
Armor upgrades are high value! You need the stylish look you get for your soldiers!
Love your saving your disaster campaigns for medieval 2, great seeing you playing it again
seriously...how have you gotten so cracked at this game. I have been playing total war for a decade and recently got back into medieval 2 and oh my god im getting my ass handed to me
Waiiiiiiit! I played hundreds of hours and never noticed that only Militia-units were free of upkeep with walls. Because of that I always used Ballistas as Garrison, because if you blob up the enemy at the gate the are devastating and the firebolts not only are good against moral but seam to increase their hitbox.
i always 1 catapult. you plug the road to center square with spear milita, position the catapult behind them and fire away down the straight road. you can kill whole armies like this with little effort.
@@Rogdub Catapults feel so much riskier you shoot short and half your militia dies while the other half runs
@@Aetherion_ you position them right behind them. that way they never hit your units.
Seem*
It's not just militia units, it's any units that can be built in a town or City. You also don't pay for ship maintenance if the ship is in port
I’ve been getting into Medieval 2 recently and I like the core principles you went over. Playing M2 after being used to Empire and later games is a doozy.
Same. I remember when I was about 11 (24 now), a friend of mine always used to say; "yeah, RTW is great, but it's getting kinda boring, you should try M2TW". Never played it until half a year ago. I kind of like it (not so much as RTW or ETW though), but the pathfinding is the worst I've ever seen.
I was in a siege battle, put all my troops in an alley, took a few to set up near the citysquare and they ran outside the walls on the other side of the city. I litterally had to take them one by one, placing them constantly a few steps forward to get there, otherwise they would get back outside the walls to some random spot.
So yeah... I don't know.
@@kaanjel M2 pathing is better than R2 pathing by a wide margin though.
@@kaanjel it’s an old ass game with buggy AI, so yeah you’re gonna have to move individual units lol especially when you’re trying to run down units. Run ahead of them then attack them lol. Just janky old school PC game stuff
@@kaanjel the amount of archer units that have clipped into the walls for me
On the surface its simple, but many mechanics like managing settlement population are more complex than in later games. Population growth is percentage based and influenced by tax rate, buildings, governors. Recruiting units from a settlement takes them from the population, so if you want to level up a settlement you need to try to avoid recruiting units there. You can also get specific traits on generals in specific cases, for example if a general is in a town on a turn where a building finishes, and the public order is at 80%, you have a chance to get a trait that increases tax income. If you really want to optimize a playthrough you will need to have a spreadsheet and take notes every turn.
Compared to that, Rome 2 and Warhammer have much simpler tax and population mechanics.
"Lets see your diplomatic situation... Okay you're at war with a lot of people, yep that's common for Medieval 2"
I'd say armor upgrades are important to get your Defence Stat up for when you will occasionally wish to auto resolve battles, defence skill very important factor in judging outcome of nok manual hattles
It's also helpful against Eastern factions and Mongols/Timurids to upgrade armor. Any factions that lean heavily on missiles will cause less damage if you upgrade.
Also, if your units lose men slower because of the armor upgrades, morale stays stable.
Might be the one thing I disagree with Legend on. Armor is important in Med2.
You can win without upgrades, but if you like to keep your men alive, it is essential.
Les retraining too especially when most of your armies are castle troops as well and it’s helpful in places you may not have a castle nearby to retrain and reinforce
Why all of his generals were in one city? Some kingdom counsil meeting or what?
Most family members come of age in your capital, and I think if your princess marries a random dude, the general spawns in the capital. Can be useful if you stack your capital with trait-providing buildings (like universities).
I just got this game on Android and this was super insightful. I used to love playing RTS but never played total war so thanks for this!
the building queue is a nice feature, but it has to be handled with care...I usually only put low cost stuff in there that I would build anyway, like roads
I haven't used it since Rome1 where you wanted to be "poor" to keep your generals from accruing bad traits, so you stockpiled your economy in the build queue which 'each' reserved their cost actively instead of just the first building in queue. Also the recruited units did the same thing AND drew from the population pool. So if you wanted to delay upgrading the town/city, you just kept recruiting units. Also a great anti-squalor tactic.
Whereas in M2TW you just drip feed one unit or one building at a time. It makes for a different experience. I do like having increasing recruitment slots though. That's a nifty addition.
If one's economy can't carry whatever he wants to build with queue in 15-20 turns, he is playing this game wrong way. Just spamming good militia units is broken part of this game.
i enjoyed this medieval 2 video a lot legend! when you mentioned in the video that its been 1 hour in i didnt even notice that myself
What a nice surprise! Of course I still like warhammer 2, but it's cool to see an Medieval 2 disaster campaign. I was really wishing I could have seen you take it all the way.
Imo ultra unit scale is not the best experience. The maps aren't designed for ultra scale and don't scale in any way. Units get so large that (especially with the old engine) they start getting clogged up in tighter spaces and their movement starts to break. It can even be hard to issue orders because the game can't find a spot to fit the unit (mostly in siege battles).
The smaller unit sizes make the game a bit easier but they also make it way less janky. Just don't go to the actually small sizes since those break the balance.
if you can get past finnicky siege pathfinding, larger unit sizes are actually ideal since public order depends on the number of soldiers in the settlement, not the number of units (though notably, peasants are coded to provide half the usual public order through the "is_peasant" trait in the EDU)
Large or huge unit scale are ideal but that’s just me
Small unit sizes make sieges a nightmare to fight. Overstates the power of the keep and towers for the defenders.
@@Walkingfenixsmall unit size makes siege battles manageable, 16 horse squad can actually charge inside the city walls, 60 archers squad can actually stand on a wall and shoot, and 100 spears unit is fast for moving on and off the walls by ledder or door. It looks like sieges was designed around small size
The hardest thing about medieval 2 for me is trying to get through an hour without crashing
Those German long sword knights I could never seem to figure out how to recruit them but their my fav unit in the game
Amazing one! Any chance you could also tackle Shogun 2 this way? Would love to see special Tactics there!
13:40 I thought it was pretty realistic. If you shout a command in battle, it's gonna take a second for the men to respond and make an opening for themselves to reposition. Not to mention the fact that some men might not hear the order. I see it more as a feature than a bug honestly. Sure, it's inconvenient, but how do you think a real war would have gone down in those days, trying to shout commands over the roar of men and horses. It feels very immersive lol
I think someone made a challenge for you, deliberate.
32:00 It's easier to move armies around when you have naval superiority. And you can block trade lanes with a fleet.
40:00 Could've used a pincher movement with your cav on some of the enemy units. That would end the fight quickly.
I'm playing this back at 1.5x speed and the "But Legend..." bits are even more entertaining than usual.
One of the best games ever made. And some of Legend's old, best content comes from this game. Go back and check it out if you don't know what I'm talking about.
The AI was so bad when it was released, that I ended my first ever campaign after a few turns and never look at Medieval 2 ever again. Probably a mistake in hindsight.
@@TheGerudan if you play many total war titles, quitting because the AI is dumb must be a common occurrence for you. That was a mistake. You should definitely go back and play it.
@@ThePhillydon22 No, that AI back then was an outlier in stupidity even for TW AI. It was an AI offering me an alliance (which I took) and then attacking me with a single general unit in the span of 2 turns only 10 or so turns after the start of the game.
Its still crazy for backstabbing allies...just beware iv played lots of this game any your ally will eventually betray you eventually 99 out of 100 times
I am the one that sent in the campaign, I was a complete noob, didn’t know how to manage my cities, my armies and I was afraid to attack any catholic nations due to excommunication. Whenever I did capture settlements, I lost them immediately due to rebellion or the AI attacked me. I finally learned how to play the game and I have like 500 hours in the game.
Do you enjoy the thumbnail bro😂?
I mean the whole "mongol" "Constantinople" "Florins Florins"😂😂 irs the fastest way to patch your economy a bit.
Everyone was a noob at the beginning, relax
He's said a few times that "generals are cheap and easy to get". How? The only ways I know is having a daughter try to steal an enemy general, adoption, coming of age, bribing enemy generals with a diplomat (I rarely have success in this), the seemingly rare promotion after a battle or a daughter marrying someone who then becomes a general. Are there other ways to get them I am unaware of?
Fortress let's you train them for less than the cost of a mailed knights unit.
@@erikseidler793How? I've never seen the option.
@@LeftToWrite006 it might only be in stainless steel, and it might only come up in a certain era.
@@erikseidler793it's stainless steel exclusive option
So if you have more settlements than generals, there is a chance of "man of an hour" event. That can trigger if you win a battle by using army without general. It does not matter the who or how you fought, the general you can get is random.
So when the rebels are spawned in your land (3 spear militias) fought them without your general to get free general.
Also you can get adopt a dude in the start of the turn.
Children can get old enough.
And Princess trick.
That's it.
Feel like the cover should just say 'range cav, range cav and more range cav'. For real, Strzelcy is cheap, armour piercing and in mass could dumpster most other infantry and cavalry. Not to mention AI seem to think it's trash which means a heavy infantry only garrison would Sally out to fight you
Its nice to see medieval 2 video on the channel after all that time.
13:31 don't troops get tired after running a lot and lose speed and combat efficiency?
Yeah they get tired if you make them run and fight too much. Then they surrender and ditch you
Yep what’s funny is it linked to the morale system too so with high morale sure they can run and fight longer but not much longer
as someone who has been strugling with the call of warhammer campaign, this helps, thank you
Medieval 2 and negative authority: Max Authority!!
Civilization 1 and over max peace: Nuke Fest!!
The guy was both upgrading cities and putting the castle convertion in queue. WTF
I love how the Holy Roman Emperor was literally so bad he looped back and became good
Turns out the HRE was just being ruled by a giga Chad and his subjects respect his grind
21:47
>Run out with a 200 man army
>Kill one guy
>Run back in
You know, I watch these videos and just think to myself, "These guys have to be like 6 years old to be running a campaign like this."
Or just deliberate
I was thinking maybe the guy wanted to make a "historically accurate" Poland by keeping it generally within Poland's borders. It at least looks like that's what he was doing
"Don't listen to the Pope." - Legendoftotalwar, 2022
gotta love med 2, personally I prefer divide and conquer med 2 but vanilla is awesome aswell
I just came back to this game after many years. Finished great campaign as Venice in 51 turns. This game is awesome.
Thanks!
A surprise to be sure but a welcome one
this video is super useful, i’ve just started playing med 2 cus of ur livestreams.
But don’t know what to do etc, so this vid is helpful for me to get better
thanks!
there is one question i have: why isn't the guy sending you this campaign, not using watch towers for vision? i always make sure to have full vision over all my lands
I think the guy was just a total noob seeing how he kept most of his commanders in 1 settlement instead of distributing as governors when suitable.
Loving the back to the roots content! If I recall SYDYC started with MII.
13:50 I think the delay here is intentional by the game designer. You will see an improvement in agility and less delay when your troops are led by an experienced general or your troops have experience fighting in previous battles.
That video made me enjoy warhammer's control even more.
Wet dream come true! Was waiting for this series to come again, especially in m2tw
So... are there any chances that you'll do medieval 2 factions tierlist?
30:55 I have noticed that when I select "Occupy Settlement" my reputation with the other factions decrease like as if I had chosen "Sack Settlement" like you did here with Constantinople.
Known bug with the game
“To nerd is to human” has a video on it
However your chivalry rating goes up for occupy and your dread rating goes up for sacking
I've owned this game for a LONG time, and never really took the time to learn to play. So, I'm what you might call "trash" at this. After watching this video while i did chores, when i sat to play last night I had a blast putting it to use. Thanks for the lessons.
This video got me to try out Medieval 2. Thanks!
The most important melee stat in Medieval 2 is neither armor NOR morale, it is the Defense Skill. Even 1 point of that stat makes a huge difference. It’s the stat that makes all eastern cavalry so hard to kill and the lack of this stat is what makes dismounted gothic knights & polearms so easy to kill. You can test it out yourself, giving any melee unit even 1 extra point of Defense Skill is always making it noticeably tougher.
No it's morale. No stat matters when a unit has routed and all units can be routed quite easily with a good rear charge and a dreaded general.
@@LegendofTotalWar yo Legend. Can you please at least try to play a Parthian campaign in Divide et Impera? That is by far THE ABSOLUTE HARDEST Total War campaign I’ve ever played. I’m telling you, you’re going to LOVE IT. At least consider it.
@@sarmatiancougar7556 No. I don't like rome 2.
Thank you for not subjecting us to the building deconstruction earrape
Wait wait. Legend is doing a saving your disaster campaign, on MTW2? Hell must have frozen over
More med2 content, please!
Damn this guy must be brand new to the game (the one who played the campaign at the beginning)
So happy to see more medieval content
How can you improve Merchants? I always seem to have low ranking Merchants who get poached pretty much every time. I don't really bother with them because they seem like a waste of time.
“blah blah armor” **dwarves of Moria angry noises**
WHAT!??? Saving your disaster campaigns is back!!!!
43:19 sounds like the Civilization-Ghandi-Atombomb-Bug, Wouldn's have thought this would happen someone again...
More medieval two saves please
Question: my Holy Roman Empire campaign is not going well, I wanted to go back to a previous save file in my game to rewrite some mistakes. But I can’t seem to access the files, all they say is to delete them and other usuless buttons. What should I do and how
4:30 I'd disagree on ballistas being useless. Artillery in med2 is really inaccurate and sadly this can't be fixed with unit experience. But ballistas got decent enough accuracy AND since they are firing at a low arc plenty of their misses become juicy hits nevertheless. In addition such hits greatly contribute to morale loss.
Also due to AI silliness it's possible to crush full-stack armies besieging your settlements with barely any losses using ballistas. Sally out, put ballistas to the sides of the enemy, and watch ballistas making the biggest european skewers. AI expects YOU to engage and it won't try to counter-attack with melee units anything that shoots at artillery range. Enemy missile units will still go for a skirmish, but in most cases this issue can be solved with one melee cavalry unit. Or just soak missiles with shields. But AI in general doesn't have a tendency to bring missile units.
I never retrain units outside of my main armies used for heavily defended castle taking. I just recruit new ones and combine the current ones to fill out their ranks
It's like going 4 years back in time
I'm a pretty veteran player of Medieval 2 and I didn't even know that the pope will only get mad if you invade another Christian. I thought the pope got mad whenever you fought another Christian faction no matter what terroritory you're in
From my experience pope got mad at me breathing in any direction :D
Not to mention him getting mad when I was attacked and dared to protect myself
@@zombbieslayerpl I never really understood the mechanic myself. Like I get it from trying to limit the player and provide challenge, but it just didn't really work. Since I never listened to the pope anyway 😅
If I ever got the pope on my side I could do pretty much anything I wanted without having war declared on me cause the other Christian factions wouldn't risk getting excommunicated.
Yes, the Pope will not stop you from defending your own territory. Still how often does it happen that a halfway decent player is on the defensive against the AI? Still his unilateral cease fire declaration does not stop you from putting an army in enemy territory just attacking with it. Also, the army wont tear up the countryside as much. Another interesting fact is that if the enemies city has no armies in it you can move in and take it without getting exocommunicated since thier is no battle to trigger it. SO if the city just had a general and you knock him off with an assasinn you can move in and the Pope can't do anything.
@@zombbieslayerplI know if I dare play as England and France attacks in Normandy and I defend my self I get the stick from the pope but not France it’s very annoying at times
Watched this video to see if i can learn something.... already at 1:45 i just learned about this city viewer tab.... i have been playing total war since rome. This will save me so much time from scolling the map.
Where did you get mod for 2022 poland in game?
So excited to see saving your disaster campaigns again!!!!!!!
Finally!!! I missed the good old save your disaster campaigns
HOW to zoom forward to your cursor is with mouse wheel instead of just moving camera up and down on vertical axis?
love medieval 2 content need more!
commenting and watching ads for support
legend you're the best
Last accual classic total war youtuber
Does Legend have a similar vid for Warhammer 2? I've searched his vids and can't find anything other than for specific races.
Recently came back to this game, started up a HRE campaign and wanted to focus on maxing out my economy while doing away with the surrounding Rebels, what do you knw on turn 10 (I think) Venice attacks me out of the blue. This continued, I build up my economy and Milan, Denmark, France and England attacked me for no reason. Result: I'm filthy rich and have lots of territory that I got from other Christians and the Pope still likes me even though I ignore his commands to stop wars with this or that faction cause I built a few huge Cathedrals and finished two Crusades.
Having the time of my life bullying Egypt by putting priests in their provinces to incite religious unrest right now.
Geee, dat boy had way too many castles
I’m rewatching oldies just seen the peasant only campaign
why dont any of the other total war games show visual upgrades fro armour and weapons in battle... its such a cool feature of medieval which cements it as my favourti
Im watching this video so i can play on mobile lmao
The mobile ports are surprisingly not terrible