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[Worldmaster27]

Does me dying of laughter count?

I was playing Medieval II: Total War, and I was attacking a rebel town with a new general. I decide to listen to his pre-battle speech, expecting the usual comments about how killing the rebels would be a blessing because it would get them away from the shrill whores they call wives, stuff like that.

Instead, the general launches into a clearly-not-at-all-prepared speech in which he forgets his lines, rambles about the weather and the food, and at one point realizes that yes, he's going into battle and it might not be a very nice experience. His soldiers clearly don't know what the fuck is going on, since they don't cheer once during the speech.
(spoiler alert: we win anyway)


Okay...actual death (or close enough, anyway). The Pope calls a crusade on Cairo, and I, being a good Catholic English King, decide to send my faction leader and a large army by ship. They draw closer and closer until, two turns away from landing in Egypt, the faction leader dies of supposedly-natural causes. This causes EVERY. SINGLE. UNIT in his army to desert on the next turn (despite still being on ships, and no I have no idea how they got away), which means I lost thousands of florins worth of soldiers and mercenaries, not to mention my faction leader, for absolutely no gain whatsoever. We never even freaking landed in Egypt.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Medieval II: Total War

Yep. Crusades suck that way.

Also, my generals never seem to give speeches. Are you using a mod for that, or am I missing something?

[blazing glory]

Does me dying of laughter count?

I was playing Medieval II: Total War, and I was attacking a rebel town with a new general. I decide to listen to his pre-battle speech, expecting the usual comments about how killing the rebels would be a blessing because it would get them away from the shrill whores they call wives, stuff like that.

Instead, the general launches into a clearly-not-at-all-prepared speech in which he forgets his lines, rambles about the weather and the food, and at one point realizes that yes, he's going into battle and it might not be a very nice experience. His soldiers clearly don't know what the fuck is going on, since they don't cheer once during the speech.
(spoiler alert: we win anyway)


Okay...actual death (or close enough, anyway). The Pope calls a crusade on Cairo, and I, being a good Catholic English King, decide to send my faction leader and a large army by ship. They draw closer and closer until, two turns away from landing in Egypt, the faction leader dies of supposedly-natural causes. This causes EVERY. SINGLE. UNIT in his army to desert on the next turn (despite still being on ships, and no I have no idea how they got away), which means I lost thousands of florins worth of soldiers and mercenaries, not to mention my faction leader, for absolutely no gain whatsoever. We never even freaking landed in Egypt.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Medieval II: Total War

Yep. Crusades suck that way.

Also, my generals never seem to give speeches. Are you using a mod for that, or am I missing something?

At the start of a battle (the very start, before you click ready and start deploying troops.) after a few seconds the game will zoom into your general and he will start his pre-battle speech, I'm pretty sure it varies with different traits and not just Dread/Chivalry.

Now I regret uninstalling Medieval II to make more space on my computer, now I have to install it again...

Why must this game torment me forever? I can never seem to drop it for more then 6 months before I start playing again, one of my favorite old-ish games, right up there with Silent Storm, 'cept this works without me going through any trouble.

[Sirus]

Yeah, I checked the general's traits afterwards. He's a "Poor Public Speaker", or something along those lines. Gives -1 Command, which sucks but he can still get the job done.

...

So. English Billmen. What good are they? I cannot seem to figure out how to use these guys, since they die in droves and don't seem able to fight effectively. Supposedly they have nice high attack ratings and are good against armor, but even archers can occasionally fight them off. This caused me to lose a siege when 4 units of billmen and 2 units of levy spearmen failed to break through a unit of pike and a unit of sergeants after knocking down the city gate. Then the enemy's Mailed Knights (another unit I can't seem to use properly) charge in and slaughter the remains, despite supposedly having a disadvantage against spearmen and, being armored, a weakness to Billmen.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Medieval II: Total War

[Akura]

I've never played it, but I assume they are anti-cavalry. The billhook that they're named for is historically useful for ripping a guy off his horse, is I recall.

[Worldmaster27]

They have the same defense rating as peasants, iirc, and they don't have a bonus against cav. They're shock troops, good for an attack but otherwise useless.

[Sirus]

That's all they're good for? Ugh. I shouldn't have trained so many -___-
It doesn't help that their flavor text mentions that A) The billhook is a good weapon for attack or defense and B) It can be used (as Akura said) to pull enemy horsemen out of their saddles, which implies some anti-cavalry potential.

[Worldmaster27]

I think they get a lot better once you can get the armored version, but until then I'm skipping over them.

I think the "good for attack and defense" part is trying to mean "the best defense is a good offense"

[Chosrau]

I do recall reading at some point that the main reason Billmen perform way worse then their stats imply was badly designed combat animations for them.

[Sirus]

I wouldn't have thought that the combat animations had anything to do with the number-crunching going on behind the scenes.

[Parsely]

The individual models need to interact in order to do damage, as opposed to the big man-amoebas having a large health bar that decreases as long as their membranes are in contact. So yeah the characters need to swing at each other in order to deal damage.

[blazing glory]

I wouldn't have thought that the combat animations had anything to do with the number-crunching going on behind the scenes.

They do, billmen use the twohanded weapon animations, which are slow to strike and usually let a enemy hit you, this is why I hate it when some enemy unit glitches out and starts blocking every single strike and killing everyone.

But yeah, you zoom into your unit's and you can see how much they are glitching out, I find the individual units/giant mass of stats is the main reason it takes so long to capture a castle's wall because only two unit's fight at a time, which of course is usually when one of the AI's two unit's glitches out and starts slowing the attack and killing dozen's of your men.

[Sergarr]

Fucking minotaurs jumping dozens of meters, how do they work?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dark Souls.

[Urist Imiknorris]

They can smell fear.

[EnigmaticHat]

I wouldn't have thought that the combat animations had anything to do with the number-crunching going on behind the scenes.

They do, billmen use the twohanded weapon animations, which are slow to strike and usually let a enemy hit you, this is why I hate it when some enemy unit glitches out and starts blocking every single strike and killing everyone.

But yeah, you zoom into your unit's and you can see how much they are glitching out, I find the individual units/giant mass of stats is the main reason it takes so long to capture a castle's wall because only two unit's fight at a time, which of course is usually when one of the AI's two unit's glitches out and starts slowing the attack and killing dozen's of your men.

Bolded for emphasis.

In M2 sieges, in any narrow part of the map (walls, gates, most city streets), it doesn't matter how many units you physically crowd in only one will actually fight from each side.  On top of this sieges tend to be hard on moral and the defender has infinite moral at the last point.  This means at the last chokepoint, if they rout they'll immediately run back to the "town center" and have their moral restored.

Basically, in the multipart sieges you can get REALLY fucked up at the last gate.  Its so bad in larger armies I'd leave a unit in reserve just so that I'd have a fresh unit to crack the citadel.  Its also more important to have elites in M2 than it is in other total wars, just because of how well they can perform at the gates.

[Sirus]

Hold the phone, when my units get into massive brawls at the city gates I can see multiple units taking casualties, even if the AI only has one unit holding the breach. Are you sure that didn't get patched at some point?