Medieval II Total War, anyone?

[Divided_Mind]

Does anyone here play M2TW? I've finished the grand campaign twice with France and now would be the time of some ideas. Don't get me wrong, filling the enemy with crossbow bolts and charging them down with cavalry is fun but I'd like to try something different. Which faction should I try next? All of them are unlocked.

[Faded Enmity]

I don't know anyone else who plays this game, but I do. I'm not much a gamer, but games like this appeal to me. You can play for 5 minutes or 5 hours (and those 5 hours seem to pass quicky o_o) and it doesn't matter when you stop for the most part.

I never seem to do well with cavalry. I can't seem to use them properly except for hit-and-run, and they seem to do more damage to my troops than the should (lost two units of pikemen and inflicted minimal damage). I like infantry and archers who can stand up to melee (Venetian Archers, especially).

I finished the campaign with the English--that one was far too easy and I might suggest increasing the difficulty above your normal for them. They've gotta be a beginner faction or something. Or maybe I'm just best with their troop types. Also played through twice with Venice, the first time losing by one region, and winning the second. Venice is by far my favorite faction. I recently started a Scotland campaign, but it's, like, really hard.

I'd suggest Venice if you want to get away from cavalry. Crossbowmen are still there, but Venice has pretty poor cavalry for the most part. They have nice late-period units, though (Venetian Heavy Infantry, gunpowder infantry, Venetian Archers).

[Divided_Mind]

Thanks, Faded Enmity! I tried Venice and it really was different in a refreshing way. The fact that the battles have become a bit slower doesn't hurt too much since I have more time to make my moves when there's no cavalry running around.

I also tried the Papal States (with a little fixing of descr_strat.txt of course) but it seemed a bit pointless to have your enemies automatically excommunicated.

[Ryynanen007]

Papal states is not bad. Think of all the nice things you can do to your enemy with an army of Inquisitors.

[Divided_Mind]

Indeed, Ryynanen. I gave it a try some time ago but it's pretty weird to play the campaign if all of your enemies are immedeately excommunicated. Suddenly I was facing an excommunicated coalition of France, Spain and Sicily; luckily I was able to calm them down by offering a reconciliation for a relatively low price.

[Ryynanen007]

It gives you a nice negotiation leverage, when everyone wants to get back in touch with the church. I'm not too crazy about the Papal army though. The Swiss guard is just for show and the cavalry does nothing good. The best reason to play with the Papal States is that then you don't need to worry about the Pope and his insane requests.