Medieval II Total War Attila's Battle Guide

Here is my Christmas gift for the Total War Fans. It's a guide that explains and shows how to effectively win a battle in Medieval 2 Total War. It shows the strategy and principle to use to win, all commented by the adviser and showing contextual information.

For those who would have missed it, here is also the Small Siege Guide I create sometime ago, explaining siege tactic.




Also for new visitor, here are some useful link you might enjoy.

Here is the filter for the Polish Chronicles

Here is the filter for Sicilian Chronicles

Here is the Filter for the German Chronicle in Rome Total War, It's full of good advise.

I also must say, that I will now take a pause in the chronicles publishing process so that I can fully enjoy my vacation. That will allow you to check archive, learn tips and trick from old battle, ask question in comment that I plan to keep reading and answering.

So Merry Christmas! And feel free to tell me your first contact that many of you will live on the 25 December with Medieval 2 Total War.

I will be back in a couple of days. =)

Rome Total War German Chronicle 77 Post Victory Tour

German Chronicle 76
envoyé par Attila16

Here is the final video of the German Chronicles. This time there is no statistic in them but I offer people to see by them self the campaign by downloading the saved game of the victory. This way you can explore my campaign as much as you want. And try to expend the empire even more =)
Enjoy!
Download Post German Chronicles saved Campaign for Rome Total War

Rome Total War German Chronicle 76 Under the Sun of Dacia, The Victory

This battle is the end of the German Chronicles. I capture the last Dacian city.

What is special in the battle is the number of archer I have. They decimate the enemies very fast. As you might notice I use flaming arrows. There was many debate about what is the best, flaming arrows or normal arrows. From my experience it depend the context. Flaming arrow is shooting slower, but makes more damage and has a moral effect. Normal arrows are fired faster and hurt a little less.

So my advice is in a Quick Battle use normal arrows, in a medium size battle use a mix of the 2 type of arrows, half archer fire normal and half fire. And in a long battle use Fire arrows since you won't end up out of arrows as fast and then you can fire longer and have a moral effect on the enemies.

Rome Total War German Chronicle 75 Taking controle of Italie

The battle is the final battle against the Scipii. After conquering Sicily I turned myself against the main Scipii battle force and last city. So I started the siege and was certain that the Scipii would send an army to engage my army outside the wall. That's what they did as planned. The first army was engaged mostly by my strong cavalry and my archer and spearman. I would like to point out the fact that I did not engage my Berserker. The reason is simple, once in battle you lost control of them. So I kept them in reserve against the second army.

The second are was really important to destroy since it was the garrison from the city. Meaning that if I left none alive the city was easily conquer without any fight and this is what happened. My berserker and cavalry decimated the enemies and the city was mine destroying the Scipii for good.

Rome Total War German Chronicle 74 Sieged on the far East

This battle show the effectiveness of the V formation when you know where the enemies will come from. So the interesting thing in that battle is not soo much the battle itself but why the gate was open.

The Reason is very simple. The enemy had a spy in my city that opened it. The impact of this is that my city probably has some unrest. But more then that is that the gate was open. This is supposed to have a very bad effect from the game designer point of view. But in fact it turns out very positive for the defender.

When the gate open, you know where the enemies come in. you can put archer on the wall and decimate enemies without risk. You can deploy all you troop to cut the enemies in piece at the gate. So basically. While enemies spy are annoying. They are actually of great help for you!

Rome Total War German Chronicle 73 Carthaginian Rebellion

This battle was an important one. Since my city revolted with Carthaginian troop in it. I was pushed out of the city and was force to make this battle. But by wining this battle I the was able to take back the city I had lost and kill all the population. That allowed me to bring back the order for good in Spain and eliminate all risk to lose ground in Spain.

In the tactical level I have choose a kind of "n"defensive position mainly because the enemies were more then me. That could have been a risky tactic and my troop could have panic. But in the end it worked out well, but I think it was lucky. The "n" formation is very reliable when you have an army of hoplite or armoured hoplite.

Rome Total War German Chronicle 72 All Quiet on the Eastern Front

This battle is not what I would call an important battle. But it had some interesting stuff in it.

I think the most important aspect of the battle is my movement that created a --^-- in my line, that caused the enemies to panic. The enemy also did some damage to my army, but it was fixed in the following turn.

Rome Total War German Chronicle 71 Exterminating Scipii Army

This Battle is the result of a tactical retreat I did. Since Brutii did bride Rome I redeployed my army to a river. By doing so, It allowed me to have a serious strategic advantage over scipii army. And they Falled into the trap as planned and I decimated the Scipii army. After that I could take back Rome with no fighting at all.

Rome Total War German Chronicle 70 Invading Sicily

This is the episode where I capture a first city in Sicily. As you might quickly notice, Scipii armies are still on mainland Italy. So Sicily is badly defended and I take that opportunity to invade it easy.

On the tactical level, you can mostly notice the effectiveness of combining a heavy arrow fire and a cavalry charge. This is devastating for the enemies moral. So Arrow might kill some friendly troop. But overall those are very superficial lost and if it bring you victory many of those fallen from friendly fire will get healed. So never be afraid of friendly fire.

Rome Total War German Chronicle 69 Hunting Brutii in Thracia

This battle wasn't an important one, neither from a strategic point of view or a tactical point of view. The goal was mostly to keep Brutii busy so that I could consolidate some army in the region to start a more effective advance on the Thracian region of the Brutii faction.

On the tactical level, you might notice that the enemy army seem to walk away from my army at the start. This is the result of a quick flanking I did at the very beginning of the battle. I rushed my army on the Left flank to take control of the Hills. This way my archer could become more effective and my defence could also gain some advantage of it.

The decisive moment in that battle is probably when my army routed the enemy general. Once that was done the rest of the battle was mostly hunting down the enemies

Rome Total War German Chronicle 68 Invading South Italy

In this episode I annexe the south Italy. As you might quickly noticed I did not destroy Scipii at this point. South Italy was also a great target of opportunity for many reasons. Most Brutii Armies were busy fighting my troop in Greece and Tracia. So I had a nearly free path to the south Italy. South Italy is also a very developed part of Romans faction, so it's like a money making cow. Scipii were very well defended around the capital, so I could have won against them but with lot of dead soldier. So South Italy was an easy prey.

South Italy also give be a good starting ground to invade Sicily. Targeting Sicily is my goal before capturing the Scipii Capital for the main reason that it's not well defended either. So while most Scipii armies defend the capital on mainland Italy, my troop will be able to take 2 Brutii cities, and all 3 Scipii cities in Sicily. So this episode is in a way the start of that "long term" strategy on the strategic level.

On the Tactical level this battle wasn't really hard I lost most of my troop against the Romans cavalry, but at no point my victory was in danger, so I don't have so much to explain about it this time. Exept that my cavalry did most of the job. =)

Rome Total War German Chronicle 67 The Broken Alliance

This battle started a short war against Carthage. I violated an alliance treaty with Carthage to take the only Carthaginian city in Spain. By starting a war I was making sure to keep peace. Because if I had left my ally alone in Spain, he would have started a war as soon as Spain would have been badly defended. So by capturing this city I was sure that any future treaty with Carthage would be respected, because water would have separated our respective territory.

On the tactical level this battle was interesting especially at the beginning. I started by enter on the Right flank, so that all enemies would concentrate them self on my phalanxes, and as you can see, the Carthaginian Sacred Band took good care to nearly decimating all a unit. So I had to move kick and attack those Sacred Band in the Back. So I rushed with all I had inside the wall engaging at the same time the poenie infantry. Once that poenie infantry broken I charged the sacred band in the back and did make sure none escape. Then I hunted as much troop as possible and prepared myself carefully to engage the town center. Some might think I was maybe too carefully. Well that's because the enemy had 2 level of gold peasant, that mean they were stronger then any of my melee units. So I wanted to make sure I would not get routed by peasant... The rest was historie.

Rome Total War German Chronicle 66 The Siege of Salona

The Siege of Salona is a relatively not important siege from a campaign point of view, because it is a minor city, but it had a lot of Brutii troops in it. By winning this battle I made a good "defensive" move by preventing any siege on my cities by those Brutii troops.

From a tactical stand point, I think that battle is a very well executed siege. One interesting aspect of it is my use of the Chosen Axeman as a distracting force to gain some time to deploy my phalanxes. As you might also notice, my phalanxes didn't really form well due to some kind of bug... but they still did what they had to do.

Rome Total War German Chronicle 65 The End of Spain

This battle shows the effectiveness of the general's bodyguard and also some tricks to attract the enemies outside the walls. So I tried to bait them out of the city and finally succeeded and even killed the general after a long fight. Over all it was a very challenging battle. It was a very hard battle because for some reason, the enemies had very strong morale, and my troops were always shaken by the enemies. I had to advance very carefully with a very close formation. This way every unit could consider themselves well backed up by my other units.

Rome Total War German Chronicle 64 The Brutii's counter Attack on Apollonia

This is the siege where the Brutii try to retake the city of Apollonia with a full size army. In this siege I deployed in a very advanced position because I was very confident my troop would be able to resist against overwhelming enemies. That's what they did. I think what is important to learn from this battle is that even if you really dominate the battle in an advanced position, it is important to at least keep one unit on the town center. The reasons for that are plentiful. The first reason is that, if the enemies flank you, you will have some troops to hold the center against them. The second reason is that if your army panics and flees for some reason, there will always be this one unit in the center that can't panic, so your troops will be able to rally in the center without you losing the battle because your entire army panicked. The third reason would be that that unit will fight to the death, so they will be able to inflict more losses to the enemies.

Rome Total War German Chronicles 63 The siege of Scallabis

There is not much to say about this siege except the fact that you realize how powerful the generals bodyguards are at Very Hard. They killed more troop then my troops killed.

Rome Total War German Chronicles 61 and 62 The siege of Apollonia

The siege of Appolonia is interesting on many aspects. From a Campaign point of view, it wasn't so much useful to lay siege to it at this point. The main reason why I attacked it was because I had the miss conception that victory was closer then it was. So I sieged many heavily protected cities to gain a faster victory.

On the tactical stand point I think this siege is really a great example of a progressive and methodical way to conquer a city that contains a lot of troops. The tactic I used is really what we could call a defensive offence. I advance by defending against counter attacks. The other other really interesting aspect was my way of deploying the units one after the other in what we could compare to the Roman tactic of changing the frontal row of the cohort so that the front line troops were always fresh.

So that tactic had many advantages. It kept the morale of my troops high, their stamina lasted longer, and the enemy could not break my advancing wall of spears. When my unit reached the street where most of the Romans were, I then could deploy the rest of my army to go fight for the town center, knowing my back was well protected.



As you can see in the second part I kept advancing in the streets to keep the enemy busy while my main battle force moved to the center of the city. The center of the city wasn't so hard to take, but still could have been risky since many Romans were legionaries. The decisive moment was my flanking maneuver with my axeman that decimated the enemies from behind.

Rome Total War German Chronicles 60 Siege of Rome (again)

Here is another siege of Rome. Same strategy as usual, but I think I never explained why I deploy the phalanxes in a / formation in front of the street on my right flank.

Well, deploying this way make at least 50% of your phalanx make a kind of "flank" attack, stopping the enemies charge. The rest kill the slowed down enemies.

Also by deploying this way your unit have a foot on the center, that means they can't panic, so they can resist overwhelming forces.

Rome Total War German Chronicles 59 destroying spains military power

This is one of 2 battles where Spain sent all of their forces against my troops. As you can imagine from this battle the second had similar results. You can see in this battle the effectiveness of the V formation. Those 2 battles gave me a free path to conquer a Spanish city on the West.

Rome Total War German Chronicles 58 Last battle against the Julii

This battle is the last against the Julii faction. My army took advantage of the sacrifice of my previous army in Episode 49. The Julii, now weakened, sent two armies against my army. I destroyed the first one with my cavalry and the second one received the same treatment with some help from my berserkers. So I don't have much to say about that battle.