Sega PC GAMES MEDIEVAL: TOTAL WAR User Manual

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CONTENTS

Welcome to

Medieval: Total War™

…………………………………………………4

Installing the Game……………………………………………………………………5

Installation ……………………………………………………………………5

Your CD Key ………………………………………………………………………5

Starting Play: The Main Menu ………………………………………………………6

The Options Menu…………………………………………………………………7

The Campaign Game …………………………………………………………………9

Quick Start ……………………………………………………………………9 The Campaign Tutorial ……………………………………………………10

The Campaign Map Screen ……………………………………………………10

Changing Your View of the Campaign Map ………………………………12 Getting More Information on the Campaign Map ………………………12 Quickly Managing Your Faction ……………………………………………12 Moving Units on the Campaign Map………………………………………13 A Game Year …………………………………………………………………14 The Tour………………………………………………………………………14 The In-Game Menu …………………………………………………………14

Factions …………………………………………………………………………15

Faction Leaders ……………………………………………………………15 Heirs: Princes and Generals ………………………………………………17 The Rest of the Family: Princesses ………………………………………18 The Death of Kings …………………………………………………………18

Provinces …………………………………………………………………………19

Resources ……………………………………………………………………20 Tax and Income ……………………………………………………………20 Improving Provinces…………………………………………………………21 Trade Routes…………………………………………………………………22

Loyalty and Revolts ……………………………………………………………22

Provincial Loyalty Ratings …………………………………………………22 Changing Loyalty ……………………………………………………………23 Revolts ………………………………………………………………………24

Provincial Titles …………………………………………………………………24

Offices of State………………………………………………………………25

Armies & Generals ………………………………………………………………25

Training Units ………………………………………………………………25 Generals………………………………………………………………………27 Vices and Virtues ……………………………………………………………28 Who’s in Command? ………………………………………………………28 Armies and the Review Panel………………………………………………28 Merging Units ………………………………………………………………29

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Re-organising Armies ………………………………………………………30 Retraining and Re-equipping Military Units ……………………………30 Castles and Garrisons ………………………………………………………30 Sieges…………………………………………………………………………31 Bribes…………………………………………………………………………31 Battles in the Campaign Game ……………………………………………32 After a Battle and Retreats…………………………………………………32

Baronial Revolts and Civil Wars ……………………………………………33 Fleets ……………………………………………………………………………33 Buildings and the Technology Tree ……………………………………………34

Buildings and the Review Panel …………………………………………35

Constructing Buildings ……………………………………………………35

Castles and the Battle System ……………………………………………37

Destroying Buildings ………………………………………………………37 Strategic Agents …………………………………………………………………37

Emissaries ……………………………………………………………………38

Princesses ……………………………………………………………………38

Spies …………………………………………………………………………39

Assassins ……………………………………………………………………39

Religious Agents ……………………………………………………………40 Religion …………………………………………………………………………40

Generals: Piety ………………………………………………………………41

Provinces: Faith and Zeal …………………………………………………41

Religious Buildings …………………………………………………………41

Catholic Excommunication …………………………………………………41

Heretics ………………………………………………………………………42

Crusades ……………………………………………………………………42

Jihads…………………………………………………………………………42 Information Buttons and Parchments …………………………………………43

Battles ………………………………………………………………………………44

The Battle Tutorials …………………………………………………………45 Before a Battle …………………………………………………………………45

Weather and Climate ………………………………………………………45

The Battle Screen …………………………………………………………46

The Battlefield Camera ……………………………………………………46

The Mini-Map Display ………………………………………………………47

Army Formation ……………………………………………………………47 Basic Battle Controls ……………………………………………………………48

Unit Information Panels ……………………………………………………48

Unit Menus …………………………………………………………………49

Tool Tips and Unit Reports …………………………………………………50

Command Buttons …………………………………………………………50

Changing a Unit’s Formation ………………………………………………51

Unit Facing …………………………………………………………………51

Generals in Battle …………………………………………………………52

Other Basic Controls ………………………………………………………52 The Art of Command ……………………………………………………………52

Alternate Attacks ……………………………………………………………52

Withdrawing from Combat …………………………………………………53

Route Marches and Waypoints ……………………………………………53

Selecting Multiple Units ……………………………………………………53

Grouping ……………………………………………………………………54

Group formations ……………………………………………………………54 Advanced Generalship …………………………………………………………55

Artillery ………………………………………………………………………55

Reinforcements………………………………………………………………56 Reinforcements Before a Battle……………………………………………56 Prisoners ……………………………………………………………………56 Royalty in Battle ……………………………………………………………57

Sieges, Castles and Buildings …………………………………………………57

Custom Battles …………………………………………………………………58

Select Era ……………………………………………………………………58 Select Factions ………………………………………………………………58 Battlefield Conditions ………………………………………………………59 Buying Your Forces …………………………………………………………59

Historical Battles and Campaigns …………………………………………………60

Historical Battles ……………………………………………………………61 Historical Campaigns ………………………………………………………61

Multiplayer Games …………………………………………………………………62

Play On GameSpy ………………………………………………………………63

Chat Rooms …………………………………………………………………63 Internet Games ………………………………………………………………63 Check GameSpy for

Medieval: Total War

Updates ………………………64 Log Off ………………………………………………………………………64 Register On GameSpy ………………………………………………………64

LAN Game ………………………………………………………………………64

Host Game Options …………………………………………………………64 Join Game Options …………………………………………………………65 Multiplayer Lobby……………………………………………………………65

Customise LAN Armies …………………………………………………………66

Medieval: Total War

Website ……………………………………………………66

Medieval: Total War

News Server ………………………………………………66

Appendix 1: Units……………………………………………………………………67

Spearmen ……………………………………………………………………67 Missile ………………………………………………………………………67 Skirmishers …………………………………………………………………67 Infantry ………………………………………………………………………67 Heavy Infantry ………………………………………………………………67 Peasants ……………………………………………………………………67 Heavy Cavalry ………………………………………………………………68 Light Cavalry …………………………………………………………………68 Horse Archers ………………………………………………………………68 Artillery ………………………………………………………………………68 Gunpowder …………………………………………………………………68

Appendix 2: Controls & Keys ………………………………………………………69 Hints and Tips ………………………………………………………………………70 Credits ………………………………………………………………………………73 Limited Warranty ……………………………………………………………………75

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INSTALLING THE GAME

Please make sure your PC has the minimum specification listed on the outside of the packaging.

Medieval: Total War

has been programmed to run on as many PCs as possible,

but it cannot run on a machine with less than the minimum system requirements.

• Your PC should be 100% Windows-compatible, and be using Windows 98 or later (Windows 98, 2000, ME or XP).

Medieval: Total War

will not work with Windows 3.1, 95 or any other operating system. The game also requires that you have DirectX 8.1 or later and DirectXcompatible drivers for your sound card, video card and any other peripheral devices you use.

• You will need 1700Mb of free hard disk space for a full install of

Medieval: Total War

. You may find that running a disk defragmenter on your hard disk before installation will free some space and speed up your machine slightly.

• Before installing

Medieval: Total War

make sure that all other applications are closed.

• Make sure that Virtual Memory is enabled (if you’ve turned if off in the past). Right click on the

My Computer

icon on your desktop and select

Properties

. Select the

Performance

tab, and

then click on the

Virtual Memory

button. Make sure that the

Disable

check box is empty. On

Windows XP computers,

Virtual Memory

is handled by the operating system, but if you have

changed the settings to turn it off you’ll need to allocate some disk space to VM once more.

INSTALLATION

• Insert the first

Medieval: Total War

CD in a CD or DVD drive in your PC. The set up program will start. If you have disabled Autoplay double-click on My Computer on the desktop and then double-click the CD drive containing the

Medieval: Total War

CD.

• Click the Install button on the title screen to begin the set up process.

• Follow the on-screen instructions that will guide you through the remainder of the installation.

• The set up routine will install DirectX 8.1 if it is not already installed on your system.

Should there be any problems with running the game, the most likely cause will be incompatible or old sound and/or video drivers. Check out manufacturers’ websites for the latest drivers.

YOUR CD KEY

Your copy of

Medieval: Total War

was shipped with a unique CD key. When attempting to play a multiplayer game on GameSpy you will be asked for this key code. When asked for the code, please enter it exactly as it appears on the CD key card included in the package, otherwise the multiplayer game will not launch. Your key is unique to you. Don’t let anyone else use it.

You will need to insert the

Medieval: Total War

CD when

requested to play the game.

WELCOME TO MEDIEVAL: TOTAL WAR

™

Medieval: Total War

is a game of empire building and epic real time battles set in the Middle Ages, a period of some 400 years when Europe, the lands around the Mediterranean and the Middle East were in a state of constant upheaval. This period – starting in 1087 and finishing in 1453 – is the time of Crusaders and Saracens, the Hundred Years War, the Holy Roman Emperors, heresy and inquisitions, the

Reconquista

in Spain, Teutonic Knights and boyars, the rise of a new, Turkish Empire and the final fall of Constantinople… It is a time of intense competition between the kings, princes, religions, new nations and radical new ideas that were to make Europe the cockpit of the world.

The game gives you the chance to experience the Middle Ages in all their bloody magnificence, to command medieval armies of knights, men-at-arms, archers and peasants and make your people the new masters of Europe. The successful game ‘split’ first seen in

Shogun: Total War™

between a turn-based strategy element and a real-time battle system

has been kept and enhanced for

Medieval: Total War

. There are more than 100 different types of soldiers available for the epic battles that can feature more than 10,000 men in a single battle.

Medieval: Total War

adds new levels of depth, accessibility, gameplay and strategy. In the game, you control one of twelve aspiring nations as they fight for control through a fascinating mixture of war, trade, diplomacy, dynastic entanglements and good oldfashioned dirty tricks! You’ll have to think in medieval terms about warfare, about positioning your royal family through marriage and alliances, about keeping your peasants profitably content, and about how to do down your rivals.

The strategic part of the game puts you in charge of the fate of a

faction

– an emerging people or nation – the English, the Germans, the Egyptians, etc. on the world stage. Here, you can plan your grand campaign to take over Europe and the Mediterranean world, build castles, recruit armies and manage the diplomatic and dynastic affairs of a royal house. In addition to armies, you’ll have spies, emissaries, holy men, and other agents to help you bring your schemes of domination to a successful and triumphant conclusion.

You’ll also have the chance to command your armies in the heat of battle as it took place in medieval Europe – bloody, glorious and chivalrous (but only to a point). As you lead your men they’ll gain

valour

and skill at arms, and be better warriors as a result. Their desire to fight under your command makes the difference between creating a powerful, all-conquering faction, or of seeing your people live under new feudal masters, your once-loyal followers no better than leaderless rebels!

If you’ve played

Shogun: Total War

, then be prepared for a few surprises.

Medieval: Total War

might look like its cousin, but it does seemingly familiar things in new and exciting ways. Strategies and tactics that worked in

Shogun: Total War

can sometimes lead to defeat here. Take a few minutes to learn the differences between the two games, and you’ll soon be grinding Europe beneath your armoured heel! If you haven’t played

Shogun: Total War

, then

prepare for the experience that is Total War!

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Battle Tutorial: The battle tutorials introduce the concepts of battlefield command and give you the chance to practice crushing your enemies. If you’re having difficulty playing the game, then we recommend you play through these battles at least once.

Options: Allows you to adjust video, audio, performance, controls and game settings. This is discussed in more detail in the next section of the manual.

Quit: Return to Windows. Remember to save your current game before quitting – unless you’re running from your enemies like a whipped cur, of course!

Menu options that are unavailable will be greyed out.

THE OPTIONS MENU

The options menu allows you to alter the behaviour of the game to suit your PC. The selections on this screen are:

Video: Change the video card (if you have more than one), alter screen resolutions for the campaign and battle maps and change the gamma correction (brightness) of the screen. Click on the relevant slider to change a setting.

The

Test Display Mode

option at the bottom allows you to check that your video card and

drivers will cope with any changes you make.

Audio: Change the separate volume settings of the music and sound effects, and change the overall audio quality, by clicking-and-dragging the relevant slider. You can also mute the volume (which is very useful if you’re conquering Europe when you should be doing a spreadsheet for the boss!).

Performance: These options apply to battles. Click on the relevant boxes to turn on/off smoke and fauna on the battlefield. Turning off these effects will make the game run slightly faster, but you’ll miss seeing crows circling over the dead!

Click-and-drag the slider to change the number of men in a unit. Changing from the default size of ‘small’ to ‘huge’ will double the number of men in a unit. Medium increases the number of men by a third, and large by two-thirds.

Controls: These sub-options allow you to change the way you control the game in battles:

• Click on

Mouselook

and

Mousemove

to turn these features on/off.

• Click-and-drag the relevant sliders to change the camera rotation and movement speeds in battle.

• Assign keys allows you to change the key assignment for any battle command. Click on the command you want to change, and then press the key(s) you want to use for that particular command. You can also reset the commands to their default values. You’ll find a complete list of the key commands in Appendix 3 of this manual.

STARTING PLAY: THE MAIN MENU

Once the introductory movie has finished, you’ll be presented with the Main Menu screen. The options on this menu allow you to choose the game you want to play, adjust settings and even create your own battle maps. If you haven’t played this game before, we recommend starting with the tutorials. The menu options are:

Quick Battle: Get straight into the game and fight an instant battle. Your forces and the field of battle are chosen for you, and it’s up to you to lead your men to victory!

Single Player: Begin a new game of

Medieval: Total War

. You’ll then be given the option of choosing the style of game you want to play. This option brings up a new parchment. Click on the option that you want to play:

• New Campaign: Start a new game, ruling your faction in the strategic campaign game and

then using the battle system to resolve conflicts. Use the main menu Load Game option (see below) to return to an earlier game. See the

Campaign Game

section (later) for full details.

• Load Game: Load a previously saved campaign game. We recommend that you save your

game whenever you take a break from the demands of ruling a kingdom to do mundane everyday stuff, like work, sleep or eat...

• Custom Battle: This option allows you to fight a one-off battle. Set a budget, buy up

enough soldiers for two armies, and go to it on the battlefield of your choice! This is a great way of perfecting your grasp of battlefield tactics. See the

Custom Battles

section

for more details.

• Historical Battles: Fight one of the standalone battles based on a famous historical event.

These set piece ‘missions’ give you the chance to change history or do better than the original commanders. See the

Historical Battles

section for full details, and you can visit

the website to download more historical battles.

• Historical Campaigns: Fight through a series of battles covering the career of a great

leader, or fight the key engagements of an important campaign. See the

Historical

Campaigns

section for complete instructions.

• View Replays: The Battle system allows you to save a record of the action. Here, you can

watch re-runs of your greatest triumphs or, should the medieval idea of (virtual) flagellation appeal, your greatest defeats!

• Map Editor: This allows you to use one of the game creation tools to create your own

battlefields. We suggest that you look at the Map Editor README.TXT file for full details of how the editor works before attempting to use it.

If you decide you don’t want to do any of these, click on the back arrow in the bottom left hand corner of the parchment. This ‘go back’ option is standard on menu screens.

Multiplayer: Search for servers/hosts or act as one for a multiplayer game of

Medieval: Total

War

. This allows you to play against other human opponents over a LAN or the Internet providing you have a suitable network connection. Multiplayer games are covered in further in their own section of this manual.

Campaign Tutorial: This is a guided tutorial through the full campaign game. We recommend that you play through the tutorial to get a feel for the gameplay.

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THE CAMPAIGN GAME

Selecting Single Player from the Main Menu and then Full Campaign starts a new campaign game, your chance to lead a faction to greatness as you conquer Europe. Before you can start, you’ll need to select a few options about your game:

Difficulty: You’ll next be asked to select the difficulty setting for your game. Click on the setting you want, which applies to all parts of the game – expect enemies to be very smart and tough on

Hard

and

Expert

settings, and rebellions to be more likely.

Campaign Selection: This allows you to choose the starting date for your campaign to conquer Europe: the

Early, High

Late

medieval periods. Click on the period you want. These are the years 1087, 1205 and 1321. You’ll notice that the map of Europe changes to show the distribution of territory at each date. There’s also an overview of the period to give you an idea of the situation. In later periods Europe is more developed, but there’s less time to make your ultimate grab for power!

In each case the game ends in 1453, and that’s the date at which victory or defeat will be judged.

You can also choose how you want to win the game here:

• Domination: You need to conquer two-thirds of the provinces in the game.

• Glorious achievements: You don’t have to be a conqueror, although it will help! Instead,

your victory is measured against the historical achievements of your chosen faction. For example, playing as the Germans of the Holy Roman Empire you’ll be expected to keep control of what was Imperial territory, take some land from your neighbours and dominate the trade of northern Europe and the Baltic.

Click on

Continue

to confirm your choices.

Faction Selection: There are 12 playable factions in

Medieval: Total War

. Left click on a

faction’s name to see the provinces it controls and read a brief description of its strengths and prospects. The factions are not identical by any measure, but each faction’s ratio of resources to threats and opportunities is about the same: if a faction has many provinces and armies, it faces many threats and has many opportunities for glory!

Click on

Continue

to confirm your choice and begin the game.

As before, click on the ‘go back’ arrow at the bottom of any dialogue panel or parchment to return to previous options.

QUICK START

If you want to get started quickly, play the

Campaign Tutorial

, the

Battle Tutorial

and then start a full campaign at easy difficulty as the English in 1087. Europe awaits your conqueror’s tread…

We also recommend that you automate many strategy game elements and concentrate on the military aspects of play. This can be done at any time during play by opening the automation panel next to the campaign mini-map (this is all explained shortly).

Game: This sub-menu allows you to alter some aspects of the battle game interface and

gameplay.

• Click the relevant tick boxes to turn on/off the relevant feature. See Battles for an explanation of what the icon bar and overview map are and do.

• Select

widescreen

fullscreen

to change the overall look of a battle.

We recommend that you leave the realism settings on. If you turn them off, the game will be easier but less accurate and possibly not as much fun.

• Morale: Troops will be scared, want to run away or feel confident and ready to take on all comers when this is on. In effect, your soldiers will act like people and be brave or cowards as their overall situation demands!

• Fatigue: Troops will become tired though marching about and fighting, reducing their combat effectiveness when this is on.

• Limited Ammo: All missile troops and artillery can run out of arrows, bullets, javelins or big rocks to hurl at the enemy when this is on.

• Restrict Camera: While the camera can still move around the battle fairly freely, it cannot move too far away from one of your units, neatly simulating what your men can see and know about on a battlefield.

• Finally, having Campaign Battle Time Limit on means that battles that happen in a full campaign game are fought against the clock. This can be useful if your faction is involved in many battles each year. When this is switched on the defender in a battle wins if the time runs out.

As before, left click on the back arrow in the bottom left hand corner of any parchment or press the ESCape key to return to the previous screen. This ‘go back’ option is standard on all the options sub-menus.

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• Armies and Fleets: These are the basic military forces of the game. Armies are made up of

units

and are commanded by a

general

. These are described in more detail below, but they are the tools used to conquer new provinces and defend those you already own. The amount of colour in the large white banner of a fleet or army shows the number of soldiers in an army, or the number of ships in a fleet. Only armies and fleets have these banners. You may also notice that some armies have a column of stars. This is the command rating of the general in charge of the army, and the more stars he has, the better! One army is shown as a mounted knight or cavalryman – this is the army commanded by your

faction leader

• Agents: Strategic units

without

banners are the spies, emissaries, assassins and others that can help further your plans of conquest. Each of these agent types has abilities that are discussed fully later.

• Castles and Ports: These are the only buildings to appear on the campaign map itself, as

they are the most important. The size and grandeur of the castle shows exactly the nature of the defences in the province. The amount of colour in the large white banner of a castle shows the number of soldiers in the

garrison

. Castles can also have a column of stars if the garrison commander is a good general. Other buildings in the province may be shown in the review panel (see below) – you might need an agent in a province to have full information about it if you don’t own the province.

• Mini-Map: This gives a complete overview of the game world. The red-bordered trapezium

shows you the boundary of the main view, so you can orientate yourself. Areas that you own, or where have an agent, or you can see into from an adjacent province are highlighted in the appropriate faction colour.

• Automation menu: This gives you the choice of how many features in the game are automated.

You can let the computer look after all or some of the detailed management of your growing empire, while you concentrate on crushing your enemies through military conquest! Each of the automation options can be turned on or off at any time during the campaign game.

The bottom strip across the screen includes all the other controls you need to play

Medieval: Total War

. These are:

• Information buttons: These bring up information parchments to help you manage your

realm, its armies and agents.

• Building Construction button: This brings up the construction parchment where you can

order the creation of buildings, including fortifications and castle upgrades, in a province.

• Unit Training button: This brings up the training parchment where you can order the

creation of new military units and agents in a province.

• The Review Panel: When a

province

is selected, the review panel shows all the buildings

that have been constructed in that province. When an

army

is selected, the review panel

shows the units that make up the army; the same is true for the ships in a

fleet

• Treasury: The number of florins that you currently have in your treasury. This money will

be spent on many things, including buildings, training units and the upkeep of existing forces. Be careful not to completely run out of money!

THE CAMPAIGN TUTORIAL

We recommend that you have a look at the Campaign Tutorial before launching yourself into the harsh, cruel world of medieval war and power politics.

Medieval: Total War

is a big game with many gameplay options, some of which are quite subtle – although some, it has to be said, are brutally simple and simply brutal! The Campaign Tutorial will familiarise you with the campaign game’s controls and underlying ideas.

THE CAMPAIGN MAP SCREEN

The campaign map screen is your window onto the detailed world of

Medieval: Total War

. This map is divided into a number of provinces and represents all of medieval Europe, the Middle East and the Mediterranean Coast of North Africa. Not all provinces in the game will have the ‘modern’ name you might think belongs to a region – modern countries have yet to come into being when the game starts!

Here, you can plan your conquests at your leisure; there are no time pressures as your moves can be changed right up to the moment you end the turn. It’s from this screen and its assorted information parchments that you control your provinces, issue orders to your armies, assassinate and bribe enemies, train new soldiers and keep track of diplomacy, your royal family and your finances. It may sound like a lot to look after, but we’ve organised everything to make your life as a medieval warlord easy. This section is an overview of how the game works. You’ll find a detailed description of each aspect of the game over the next few pages.

For a start, everything you see on screen has an associated tool tip if you get stuck. Just hold the cursor over an item for a moment and a mini-explanation of what you can do with a button, item, province (or whatever!) will appear.

• Provinces: These are the lands that you are fighting to control. Provinces generate tax

income that you then spend to construct defensive buildings, training facilities and to train new military forces.

• Sea Regions: These zones cannot be conquered in the same way as lands, but can be

occupied by fleets, and then form part of trade routes and be used for sea-borne invasions. Their use can be denied to enemy forces as well by your fleets.

The Mini-Map

Automation Menu Button

A Province

A Sea Region

A Castle

Game Year

End Year Button

An Army

Review Panel

Treasury

A Strategic Agent

A Port

Information Buttons

Build Button

Faction Shield Training Button

A Fleet

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MOVING UNITS ON THE CAMPAIGN MAP

As a general rule in

Medieval: Total War

, left click on an army/fleet, agent or province to

select it. Whenever you do this, you’ll see a grey revolving highlight around the unit. The contents of the review panel at the bottom of the screen will change to show you what can be found in a province (buildings), an army (military units) or a fleet (ships). You’ll need some kind of agent in a province to get these details.

• Left click and hold to ‘pick up’ a strategic game piece belonging to your faction such as

an army/fleet or agent. The piece will be enlarged to show that you have ‘picked it up’.

• For an army, the provinces it can march to directly are highlighted. Drop the army by releasing the mouse button in a highlighted province to order it to move there. If the target province belongs to another faction, this may start a war. An army can contain up to 16

units

• You can also drop an army on a castle in its current province to order it to

garrison

the castle (that is, move inside and defend the castle). The size of a castle garrison is counted in the number of men it can hold, not the number of

units

• You can drag and drop an army onto a distant province and it will automatically find its own route to the destination over the course of a few (or many) turns. If necessary, a force will use fleets as transports to get itself to this destination.

• Armies can also be dropped onto other armies belonging to your faction, providing that both the dropped army and the target began in the same province. This unites the armies into one larger force. Some units in the two armies may merge if they are numerically weak. See

Merging Units and Armies

later for more details. We’ll talk about

Fleets

in more detail later.

• Picking up an agent works in exactly the same way. Left click and then drag-and-drop an agent in any highlighted province and he will move there.

• Some agents can be dropped on to other units. This will cause them to carry out some kind of special mission, depending on the agent involved and the nature of the target. The agent will be highlighted when held over the target if he or she can be dropped to carry out a mission. See

Strategic Agents

for more details of their missions.

So,

where

you drop a unit has important effects. Dropping an army in a province invades that province; dropping an assassin on someone may kill them and so on. All these different movement orders and their results are discussed in greater detail in the manual sections on specific unit types.

• Date: This is just the current game year. Remember that the game ends in 1453, so you

can run out of time!

• End Year button: This does exactly what you would expect – the game turn ends, and all

your orders and those of your rival factions are carried out.

CHANGING YOUR VIEW OF THE CAMPAIGN MAP

You can move your view round the map by using the arrow keys on your keyboard, by moving the cursor to the edge of the screen, or by clicking on the mini-map in the area that you want to see.

You can zoom into and out of the map by using the mousewheel if your mouse has one. You can also use the 1 and 3 keys on the numeric keypad to zoom the view as well.

GETTING MORE INFORMATION ON THE CAMPAIGN MAP

In all cases, you can right click on many items to bring up an information parchment on the item. You can do this with any:

• Province

• Agent

• Army

• Castle

• Fleet

• Sea Region

• Building – in the review panel when a province is selected.

• Military Unit – in the review panel when an army or fleet has been selected.

The information that you are given is explained over the next few pages.

QUICKLY MANAGING YOUR FACTION

Left click on the large arrow next to the mini-map to bring up the automation and interface options for the game, then left click on any of the tick boxes to change the relevant setting. Left click on the large arrow to close this menu box when you are happy with your choices. This is a great option if you want to concentrate on the military aspects of the game.

Medieval_Total_War_Manual.qxd 1/19/06 3:11 PM Page 12

• Options: This takes you to the options menu as discussed earlier, where you can change

game settings. You cannot change size of military units during a full campaign.

• Main Menu: Return to the main game menu. You will be prompted to save your current

campaign if you have not already done so.

• Quit: Exit the game and return to Windows.

As always, click on the ‘go back’ arrow at the bottom of any dialogue panel or parchment to return to the previous menu.

FACTIONS

There are 12 playable factions in the game, along with some non-playable factions (these vary, depending on the start date you choose). Each faction has its own strengths, weaknesses and potential for European dominance.

You’ll see that not all factions are the same by any means, and the game of

Medieval: Total

War

you experience will be different each time you play a different faction. Some factions are particularly suited to all-out military conquest, others need to use a combination of military force and subtler methods to achieve their goals, and some are particularly well positioned to become trading nations and use wealth to achieve political dominance. Just to make it all even more interesting, the different start positions for 1087, 1205 and 1321 reflect historical reality and the relative power of a faction can shift remarkably, even in a hundred years!

FACTION LEADERS

Your faction leader is the most important unit that you command. If he dies the effects can be catastrophic, including bringing the game and your plans of conquest to an abrupt end! A faction leader is called a king, sultan, khalifah, emperor, doge or grand prince, but no matter what his title, his abilities remain the same.

Regardless of his other abilities, a faction leader always acts as a

general

, (see the section

Armies

and

Generals

) and will always lead any army that he is part of in a battle, even if

there is another general in the force who is a better commander!

On the campaign map the faction leader is always shown as being mounted on a horse. They are the only cavalry generals on the map, so you can always spot faction leaders easily.

You can left click on the large faction shield in the bottom left corner of the screen to centre the campaign map view on your faction leader.

Left click on a faction leader to select him. As with all units on the campaign map, you’ll see a grey highlight marker revolving around him to show that he’s been selected.

For the moment, we only need to worry about the principle of ‘dragging and dropping’ units on the campaign map as the way you issue orders to all your forces in the game.

A GAME YEAR

There are no time pressures on your strategic decisions in

Medieval: Total

War

. You are not committed to a course of action until you click on the end year button. At that point, orders are carried out and plans, for good or ill, are set in motion. You can’t cancel any orders once you’ve committed to the end of a turn.

Pressing the return or enter keys on your keyboard will also end a turn.

THE TOUR

After you end the turn, and before the beginning of your next year, you will be shown what’s happening in provinces you can see – those adjacent to your realm, and those where you have agents.

You’ll see a row of portraits at the bottom of the screen. These are the leaders of all the factions in the game and they are highlighted as your computer carries out the orders for each faction.

The tour can be very useful for gauging the military and political climate, as well as keeping an eye on what your neighbours may be planning. You may well spot an invasion force massing for an attack, for example. Press the spacebar to skip the tour.

You’ll also be informed of important events as they occur, such as the completion of a castle or building, a miraculous happening, or even the discovery of gunpowder. Historical events that changed the middle ages also occur in the game at (approximately) the right time, but don’t bank on something unfolding just as it did in reality. Left click on the

red

wax seal

icon on an event parchment when you have finished reading it.

THE IN-GAME MENU

Press the ESCape key at any point to go to the in-game menu. This allows you to do the following:

• Resume game: Return to the game in the same state as you left it.

• Load game: This allows you to load (or reload!) a game should you think that something

has gone horribly wrong with your plans of conquest. The game automatically saves your progress at regular intervals, and you can load the

Last Autosave

saved game in the same way as any other saved game. You can sort the list of saved games by name or by date – but this means the date you were playing, and

not

the year in the game!

• Save game: The game defaults to the name of the faction plus the year number as a title for

a saved game, but you can edit this to suit yourself. Just type in a new title for the saved game. Once you are happy, click on Save at the bottom of the screen. There are 99 ‘slots’ available for saved games, so you shouldn’t run out! You can return directly to the game from here. As before, you can show the list in name or date (your playing date) order.

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If a faction leader doesn’t have a wife and it doesn’t look likely that he will find a princess, he will marry one of the young women of his court. He’ll do this for himself, and you’ll see a message telling you this has happened. Once he is married, a faction leader will start having children. His sons will become heirs to the faction; his daughters will be princesses, diplomatic pawns and agents to be married off to his generals and into other factions. You can’t influence the children produced by a royal marriage, but you may like to be careful of the risks you take with the faction leader until he has at least two adult sons (the traditional ‘heir and spare’).

Left click on the silver arrowhead on the left to see the faction leader’s

vices and virtues

These are quirks of character that the man has picked up over the course of his life, as a result of both events during play and his increasing years. Move the cursor over any vice or virtue for an explanation. Left click again on the arrowhead to return to the leader’s traits. You can find out more about vice and virtues in the

Vices and Virtues

sub-section, but there isn’t

enough room in this manual to explain them all.

As with all information parchments, left click the red X in the top right hand corner of the parchment to close it and return to the main campaign map.

HEIRS: PRINCES AND GENERALS

When an heir is born it is an important event for a faction. It secures the future of the nation beyond the life of the current faction leader. However, heirs must come of age at 16 before they can inherit their father’s lands and, once old enough to be active, they can be as vulnerable as any other general to the twists and turns of fate.

When a prince comes of age, a new army of one unit is created in the same province as the faction leader. This army is lead by the prince and consists of a bodyguard unit of the best cavalry available to the prince’s faction. The bodyguard unit of an heir cannot be disbanded. It comes ‘free’ with the prince when he comes of age, but the maintenance costs must still be paid. Unlike other generals, heirs are always loyal to their faction and cannot be bribed to change sides.

When an heir takes over his brothers (if any) remain as ‘princes of the blood’ and generals. However, when his son-and-heir inherits the throne, these ‘uncles’ are demoted from princely status to that of ordinary generals. They still have royal blood, but are no longer directly in line for the throne. Such a general can inherit the throne if there are no heirs left, but this may cause a civil war (see the sub-section on

Baronial Revolts and Civil Wars

, later).

You’ll also see that a military unit, the faction leader’s personal bodyguard, appears in the review panel. This unit costs nothing to train and comes into play automatically with the faction leader, but its maintenance cost must still be paid. A personal bodyguard is the best cavalry available to the faction, and it cannot be disbanded. The bodyguard will return to full numerical strength over a few years if it takes casualties in battle.

Right click on a faction leader unit on the campaign map to bring up the information parchment that describes his personality in detail. Move the cursor over most items on this parchment, and you’ll be shown an explanatory message. If you right click on his bodyguard unit in the Review Panel, you’ll bring up the information parchment about the unit, not the leader. See

Armies

and

Generals

below for more information on units.

The name and age of a faction leader are self-explanatory, but there is one bit of information you might find interesting. If a faction leader has the same name and (ordinal) number as a famous ruler of his people he will tend to have the same kind of abilities. Thus, Henry V of England will tend to be a great general, as will Alexander I of Russia (Alexander Nevsky) or al-Nasir I of Egypt (better known as Saladin).

As a faction leader becomes older there is a greater chance of him dying of natural causes.

The army size simply shows the number of men the faction leader currently has with him. Their type and quality can be seen in the review panel.

The faction leader’s traits are

influence, piety, dread, command

and

acumen

. Apart from

influence, these are the same as any other general and are explained in the

Character Traits

sub-section of

Armies

and

Generals

later. Generals normally have a

loyalty

trait, but faction

leaders have

influence

because they are assumed to be completely loyal to themselves!

Influence

is a measure of how powerful this faction leader is perceived to be by his fellow monarchs. Influence has an effect on whether treaty proposals are accepted, and on whether factions will offer treaties and alliances – everyone wants powerful friends! Influence is increased by conquering new areas, defeating foes in war and sometimes simply by surviving! A large part of a faction leader’s influence also dies with him, as the medieval world is one where personal power is all-important.

All faction leaders have royal blood, as do their heirs. The crown marker to the right of the portrait shows the character possesses royal blood. Some generals may also have royal blood too and its effects on generals are explained later.

If there is a large ring to the left of the portrait, the faction leader is married. A faction leader needs to be married in order to have any children. From time to time other factions in the game will offer a princess’ hand in marriage, and it is also possible to send out emissaries to look for a bride for a faction leader (see

Strategic Agents

Faction Allegiance

Married Status

Age

Portrait

Royal Blood

Army Size

Ratings

Name

Medieval_Total_War_Manual.qxd 1/19/06 3:11 PM Page 16

PROVINCES

Provinces are the places where you earn money and train troops. Without land, your faction will not last long in the face of harsh competition from other peoples. You’ll need to decide which provinces are important to your faction and hang onto them, and which provinces are ripe targets for your armies! Sooner or later final victory or ignominious defeat will depend on the number of provinces that your faction controls.

Left click on a province to select it – anywhere within its borders will do. You’ll see that any buildings in the province are now shown in the review panel at the bottom of the screen. If you can train (or are training) soldiers in the province, the train unit button will also have appeared next to your faction shield and coat-of-arms in the bottom left corner of the screen.

The province’s name is prominently displayed on the map. If there is a castle in the province this is shown on the map, as is the presence of a port for coastal provinces. Ownership of the province is shown by the border colour, which is the same as the main colour of the owning faction.

Right click on a province to bring up the information parchment that gives you details of the province.

Left click on the arrows on either side of the province name if you wish to look at the next or previous province belonging to your faction.

The governor is the general who has been given the provincial title for this province. He controls the day to day running of the land through his servants and can boost trade, or instil fear and loyalty. For a full explanation of governors see the

Provincial Titles

section.

You will find more information about taxes and income in the next section.

You can find out full details of religion and its effects in the

Religion

section later on.

As with all information parchments, left click the red X in the top right hand corner of the parchment to close it and return to the main campaign map.

THE REST OF THE FAMILY: PRINCESSES

Princesses are only available to Catholic and Orthodox factions. There are no Muslim princesses in

Medieval: Total War

. All princesses are valuable assets in the diplomatic

process, and marrying them to a member of a rival faction can cement an alliance.

Princesses are born rather than trained, and take time to come of age and be eligible for marriage at 15. Unlike male children, they can become too old to be marriageable and are then removed from play. Their twilight years are spent in quiet religious contemplation.

For full details of the abilities of princesses, see the

Strategic Agents

section.

THE DEATH OF KINGS

When a faction leader dies, his heir becomes the new faction leader, assuming the heir has come of age.

If there is no heir, the line of succession passes to a general with royal blood. It’s possible for there to be more than one claimant, and this can cause the faction to split apart in a civil war (see the sub-section on

Baronial Revolts and Civil Wars

, later). There’s also the possibility that other factions will have claims on your lands. If one or more of your faction’s princesses have married outside the faction, they have created a potential claim to some of your faction’s lands by marriage.

If a faction leader dies without heirs (or his heirs are too young, or his family only has daughters) and there are no generals of royal blood, things are more serious. All the provinces that made up his kingdom become independent, under the control of local rebel warlords. These rebels may not owe allegiance to anyone, but they will often fight when their lands are attacked. This is the end of the game, as your faction has fallen victim to destiny and is no more.

For computer-controlled factions there is a small chance that a very junior member of the royal family escaped the destruction of the kingdom caused when the faction leader died. This individual may reappear (possibly after several years) and rally people to his cause. If this happens, a faction can rise again in one of its former provinces and re-enter play. This won’t happen with the faction you control – once your leader dies without an heir, the game is over!

Faction Allegiance

Loyalty

Governor

Taxation

Zeal

Income

Religious Affiliations

Resources

Tradable Goods

Medieval_Total_War_Manual.qxd 1/19/06 3:11 PM Page 18

• Farming can be improved by up to +80%. Doing this will take a lot of money and time,

but can be very worthwhile in valuable agricultural areas.

• Trading Posts and Merchants improve trade by selling the goods from a province firstly to

their own people and then to foreign provinces overseas. See

Trade Routes

, below for a

full explanation.

• Ports improve income from trade by allowing exports through fleets. They also allow

imports

and your officials tax these (at a low level) as they come into one of your provinces.

• Mines and Mining Complexes exploit natural resources such as gold, silver, copper or salt.

These make money every turn they operate.

• Natural Disasters: It’s worth mentioning here that there are events that can cause a loss of

income. Famine and Flood will wipe out harvests, as you might expect. Storms at sea can also affect trade income because ships can be sunk, and this could break a link in a trade route.

Protect Your Income: The areas with the highest income, either from agriculture, mines or trade are your greatest assets. Without the money they produce, you will have no armies. They should be protected in depth.

• Castles: A castle allows you to hold out in a siege. The larger the fortification, the more

men you can garrison there and the longer they can hold out.

• Disputed Regions: If a region is disputed (there are armies belonging to more than one

faction, or there are rebels present) no faction derives any income until the conflict in the province has been resolved.

IMPROVING PROVINCES

Constructing buildings in a province always improves it in some way for your faction. This can be by raising income (by improving farmland, for example), by making the defences stronger (by building or improving a castle) or by allowing you to train military units and agents there. No building in the game makes a province weaker or damages its potential in any way.

Left click on the building to bring up the construction parchment. This is where you order new buildings for a province. You can find full details of the rest of the construction process in

Buildings and the Technology Tree

section

of this manual.

Medieval: Total War

has quite a complicated technology tree,

so it’s worth looking at this as a separate issue from provinces.

RESOURCES

Always check a province’s natural resources, whether you own it or not (this can be useful when deciding where to invade) as these can be exploited to raise income, or can be very useful in other ways:

• Income: The number of florins that the province generates as tax. This is a grand total, so

it is affected by the tax rate, the governor’s acumen rating, farming improvements and whether or not any trading posts, merchants or mines have been constructed.

• Trade goods: The number and type of trading goods gives some indication of the potential

income from a province when trade routes in place and functioning.

• Iron Deposits: Where iron is plentiful, you can build a Metalsmith to improve the quality of

weaponry for troops trained in the province.

• Other Factors: Some provinces are particularly noted for the soldiers they produce.

Switzerland produces superb Pikemen, for example, while Wales is noted for Longbowmen. It can often be worth invading a province to be able to train these specialists.

TAX AND INCOME

As Cicero wrote in Roman times,

Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam

(The sinews of war, unlimited

money), so goes warfare in

Medieval: Total War

. You’ll never have unlimited money, but making sure that you do have a strong treasury is very, very important in bringing your plans of conquest to a successful conclusion. Once you run out of money you won’t be able to construct new buildings, train more soldiers, bribe people or pay ransoms for your captured generals.

All factions in the game use the same currency in their treasuries: the

florin

, a type of coin first minted in the Italian city of Florence. In the middle ages, providing a coin contained the correct amount of gold or silver no one cared where it had been minted (some kings were not above ‘cheating’ when minting coins by putting cheaper metals into the mix).

Taxes are your faction’s only guaranteed income, and tax rates are set on a province-by-province basis. The default rate is

normal

, which yields a reasonable amount of cash without damaging

the loyalty of the locals too much. The rates are

very low, low, normal, high

and

very high

, and these equate to approximately 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, and 70% taxes. High taxes will give higher income, but the loyalty of any people being taxed to the hilt will be strained.

Left click on either of the arrows either side of the tax rate to change it for the province. You’ll see that the income and loyalty values change in response to any taxation change.

Tax rates don’t have to be the same across a whole kingdom or empire, so take a moment to look at your provinces regularly and see which can be squeezed for more money and which need to be given a reduction to keep them feeling loyal.

Remember that as well as costing money to construct buildings and train units, soldiers also cost money each turn in maintenance. Even peasants have to be provided with weapons and food when they are being soldiers, and some unit types can be very expensive to keep around. Maintenance money is always deducted first, before any tax income is added to your treasury.

Improving Tax Income: Taxes come from farming, trade and mines. All of these can be improved to bring in more income in future years:

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CHANGING LOYALTY

The loyalty of a province’s people is affected by the following:

• Taxes: High taxes reduce loyalty, and low taxes make people feel happier, it’s as simple as

that. You can alter the tax rate as often as you like before pressing the

end year

button and

see what the result on loyalty is before you commit to taking everyone’s money!

• Harvest: A good harvest makes peasants happy and contented under their master. A bad

harvest makes them disloyal, as they look for someone to blame for bringing down God’s punishment. Other than hoping for good harvests, there’s nothing you can do to influence the weather.

• The Governor: The general who holds the title of

Duke, Earl, Count, Margrave

Amir

of a province is its governor. His dread rating can make people loyal if it is high enough – he’s just frightening them into obedience!

• Occupying Armies: An army in a province helps to calm the peasantry. You should ensure

that you have particularly large occupation force in recently conquered areas. A weak leader is one that the populace will not respect.

• Spies: Enemy spies can stir trouble in your province by encouraging revolt. Your spies can

provide counter intelligence services in your own provinces, which can decrease the chance of revolt.

• The Faction Leader: The distance from the province to the faction leader affects how loyal

a population feels towards the faction. People like to bask in the glory of a king! His

dread

rating also has an effect on his people.

• Famine, Floods, Earthquakes and Pestilence: Though Acts of God, peasants don’t react

favourably to natural disasters and blame the bad habits of their rulers for God’s displeasure.

• Watchtowers and Border Forts: By closely watching your people you will be able to control

them. You will also be able to use the information gathered about your neighbours to incite unrest in their territories.

• Religion: When your faction’s religion doesn’t match a province’s religion, there may be

trouble and the people will obviously feel less loyalty to those who they feel follow the ‘wrong’ faith.

• Previous Loyalties: People are loyal to the ruler they know. If you conquer a province then its

peasants will be unsettled and prone to rebel as they chafe under your mastery. It can take several years for their loyalties to adjust to the new situation. This can sometimes work in your favour as people loyal to your faction may revolt in a province taken by an enemy!

TRADE ROUTES

Trade can be an extremely profitable activity, but you can only trade where there are goods available. These are distributed across the map to accurately reflect the pattern of medieval trade. Some provinces have no trade goods at all (which doesn’t mean that there’s no business being done, just that it isn’t significant enough to bother the King!). The larger and grander the Merchant involved in trade from a province, the greater the potential profits.

To sell goods overseas, you need a Port and a Trading Post or Merchant of some kind in a coastal province (inland provinces can’t trade other than locally). You then have to create a chain or network of sea regions with one of your fleets in each linking your port (a one-ship fleet will maintain the link) with a foreign port in another province. This is a

trade route

. Merchants won’t trade with provinces belonging to their faction, but all your merchants in coastal provinces who can connect to a trade route that leads to a foreign market will use it.

A Merchant will sell to as many foreign ports (provinces) as his goods can reach through a trade route (a chain of fleets). The higher-level merchants can trade goods more efficiently, trade more of them, trade more valuable goods, and so earn more money. You can then tax their trade earnings.

LOYALTY AND REVOLTS

Despite the real power in Medieval Europe being the iron fist in the plate-mailed glove, few rulers survived for long without the support of the people and the Church or Mosque. If the people withdrew their support for a ruler, his days would be numbered – and fearful.

In general, the people were loyal where they experienced strong –yet fair – rulers. There were many peasants’ revolts, but these usually occurred because a leader showed weakness, incredible cruelty or rank stupidity.

PROVINCIAL LOYALTY RATINGS

When you look at the Information Parchment for a province, you’ll see a Loyalty rating, shown as a percentage. This number represents how content the peasants are with the faction that controls their province. If the Loyalty is below 100 then there is a chance that there will be a revolt in the region.

You can also press the shift key at any time to show the current loyalty of all your provinces:

• Green: fully loyal.

• Yellow: marginally disloyal, but unlikely to rebel.

• Red: very disloyal, and highly likely to rebel soon, if it hasn’t happened already!

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OFFICES OF STATE

As well as provincial titles such as dukedoms there are also great

Offices of State

that can be given to generals. These positions give similar benefits as provincial titles. They are gained through constructing appropriate buildings: a Chancellery creates the office of Chancellor (or Vizier for Islamic states), for example. These appear as title markers in the same province as the building.

Left click on the office marker – a letters patent scroll – to select it, and drag-and-drop it on an army to make the commanding general governor of the relevant province. Right click on the office marker to bring up the information parchment about it. This will show you the bonuses given by the office to its recipient. Giving an Office of State to a general will usually boost his traits, particularly Loyalty, and make him better as a governor or commander.

Not all State Offices have identical names, but their effects on gameplay are broadly similar.

ARMIES & GENERALS

Armies are

the

tools of conquest you need to take over the world! But aside from such dreams of glory, you also need armies to defend your provinces, intimidate the locals to keep them loyal and make other factions consider attacking someone else instead.

Before you can train agents and units you’ll need to construct a basic castle and some sort of training facility or facilities. Some units need the skills inherent in more than one building, such as Feudal Knights who will need a

Horse Breeder

, an

Armourer’s Workshop

and

Royal Estates

in a province before they can be trained there.

TRAINING UNITS

This process works for both military and strategic agents, as they are trained in exactly the same way.

• Left click on the province where you want to train a unit or agent.

• Left click on the training button to the right of your faction shield

(shown left in its ‘empty’ and ‘busy’ states). This brings up the training parchment for the province, showing you all the units that can be trained. You can right click on any unit graphic to bring up the information parchment about it.

• Left click on the unit you want to train. It will then appear in the

province training queue

at the bottom of the parchment. Each province has a separate queue for units being trained. The number below the timer is the number of years it will take to complete the left-most unit or agent in the queue. You can also right click anything in the queue to look at its information parchment.

REVOLTS

If a province is disloyal, there is a chance a revolt will start, and the more disloyal it is, the greater the chance of trouble. Revolts influence neighbouring provinces and, once started, rebellion can soon spread to previously peaceful and tractable lands. There are several different types of revolt, each of which produces a different kind of rebel army:

• Peasant Revolt: The rebel army will be largely peasant rabble, and probably not very valorous.

• Loyalist Revolt: This is a revolt where the province is still loyal to the previous feudal lord.

The rebels are likely to be a fairly effective fighting force with a good mix of troops.

• Muslim Revolt: The rebel army will be a mixture of peasants, stiffened by a core of hardy

fighters.

• Catholic Revolt: The rebels will be a mix of peasants, often lead by knights or other lesser

feudal troops.

• Orthodox Revolt: The rebels will include a selection of Orthodox-specific units as well as a

great many peasants.

• Heretics: The rebel army will be mostly peasants, but could also include religious fanatics

of some kind and a core of better quality troops.

• Bandits: Bandits are often surprisingly well-equipped troops (if not that experienced), and

often don’t include many peasants in their ranks. Bandit armies come in three types: Catholic Bandits, Muslim Bandits and Orthodox Bandits.

If you crush a rebellion you’ll be asked to decide the fate of any captured rebels. The harsher your decision, the more likely it is that the general’s dread rating will increase, or he will gain some sort of cruelty-related virtue or vice.

PROVINCIAL TITLES

The medieval world was feudal, meaning that there was a strict hierarchy of obligation and duty where great kings gave land and authority to lesser men in return for service. In

Medieval: Total War

generals can be made provincial governors, most often called Dukes (for Christians) or Amirs (for Muslim factions). Other titles, such as Count, Earl, Margrave, Prince, Grand Prince and (lesser) King also exist in the game. The overall effect of granting titles to your generals is that titles make them both loyal and better able to serve.

Each province has a provincial title marker in it, shown as a rolled scroll. Left click on the marker to select it and drag-and-drop it on an army to make the commanding general governor of the relevant province. Right click on the title marker to bring up the information parchment about it. This will show you the bonuses given by the title to its recipient.

Once a general is given a title he will assist in running the province. The province will be more loyal when their duke is present. His dread and acumen will be used to calculate the province’s loyalty and taxes. The personal loyalty of the general will also increase thanks to so public a reward, and his other traits may also improve.

Medieval_Total_War_Manual.qxd 1/19/06 3:11 PM Page 24

GENERALS

Every unit in the game has a named commander, but not all of these commanders are equal in ability. When an army is created, a general is automatically picked to lead it. Right click on an army to see the general’s biography.

To find the unit he commands, left click the army and look at the review panel. The unit with a star in right-hand banner of a unit is a general. The number below the star is the general’s

command

rating, and this improves as he wins battles. It’s possible for there to be two or more generals in the same army, although only one will actually be in command. The others are treated as normal soldiers.

Generals are not simply identical leaders. Some are feared as bloodthirsty and ruthless, while others are renowned as being highly devout, good as provincial rulers, or particularly chivalrous. These differences are represented through a set of personality

traits

and their

vices and virtues.

Traits are used to determine how provinces and troops react to each general. The higher the value in a particular trait the greater ‘skill’ the general has in that area. Faction Leaders have these traits as well, but with

influence

instead of

loyalty

. In each case, the larger the

number of icons, the greater the value.

• Influence: Only Faction Leaders have influence. This represents how other

factions see his actions and whether they will respect his given word.

• Loyalty: Represents how likely the general is to accept a bribe from another

faction, or rebel against his monarch. The icon used shows the faction that attracts his loyalty.

• Piety: Represents how much public weight this general

gives to his religious beliefs, and consequently how much popular support he will receive when governing a zealous province. The icon used shows the man’s religion: Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Pagan or Heretic.

• Dread: The degree to which this man instils fear in the people of a province he

governs. This is useful for increasing loyalty.

• Command: Represents the general’s capability when commanding a fighting

force. A general with a high command rating will improve the valour of all the troops in his army, not just those in his own unit.

• Acumen: The quill pens represent how adept this man is at running an economy.

Giving a general with high acumen a title makes him a very effective governor, as he is able to generate more income from a province.

The two arrows to either side of the province name allow you to move quickly between provinces when training forces. Left click either arrow to change to another province.

Remember: you can have units training in as many provinces as you want, providing you have the money in your treasury to pay for them all.

When you’re finished, left click the red X in the top right corner of the parchment to close it, or click the training button again (it’s an on/off toggle for the parchment). It is possible to close the unit training panel by right-clicking the panel. There are a few other points to make about training:

• When there’s an

Inn

in a province, you may see a Hire Mercenaries button at the bottom

of the training parchment. Click this to see what mercenary units are available for hire. The advantages of mercenaries are (a) they are available immediately and (b) they can have high starting valour. Mercenaries are always drawn from disbanded units, so if you see a faction reducing the size of its armies, there’s a good chance that some of these soldiers will become mercenaries for hire.

• Once trained, new units appear in the garrison of the province castle until that is ‘full’ of men, then they are assigned to a new army in the province.

• Units are automatically equipped with the best armour and weaponry available in the province when they are trained. Thus a

Metalsmith

or an

Armourer

of some kind improves every military unit produced in a province. It is possible to re-equip units with better weapons and armour – see the

Retraining and Re-equipping Military Units

sub-section.

• All units have a

maintenance cost

, which depends on the size and type of the unit.

Maintenance costs have to be paid every turn and can quickly become quite substantial.

• Units have to be fully trained to have any effect in the game. Partially trained units do not exist.

• You’ll notice that the training queue has fives boxes in it, so you can pre-order up to five units or agents if you want. Just left click on another unit and it will appear in the leftmost empty box in the queue.

• You can change the order of the queue by dragging and dropping a unit in the queue into a different box. If you drop a unit in the leftmost box, all work done to date on the currently training unit will be lost!

• You don’t have to have the money to pay for training until it actually starts, so you can pre-order units if you know (or hope!) the money will be on hand. If you don’t have the full amount in your treasury at the start of training, it will not start, and the unit will wait in the queue until the cash is available.

• You can cancel a training order at any point. Left click a unit in the queue to cancel it. If you decide to cancel a unit that’s already being trained, all work done to date is wasted, and the next unit (if there is one in the queue) starts from scratch. However, the purchase price of the cancelled unit is returned to your treasury.

• You can see the progress of your new unit in the construction button. As the unit gets closer to completion, the area that is greyed out gets smaller. This will change as you select different provinces with different units being trained.

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• The unit portrait shows you the type of unit: a unit of Feudal Bowmen, Byzantine Cavalry, or Spearmen, etc.

• The top left number by picture is the number of men in the unit. Obviously, the bigger this number, the better! The maximum size of a unit depends on its general type – elite units tend to field smaller numbers of men in comparison to those made up from peasants and commoners.

• The number in the top left is the unit’s

valour

. This is a measure of just how well the unit

will fight: the soldiers’ training, experience and general willingness to get bloody in a fight!

• If the unit includes a

general

, then there is a banner with a star on the right hand side of

the unit picture. A number beneath the star shows the

command

rating of the general.

• If there is a banner on the left it will contain either a rolled-up scroll showing that the general has a provincial title or office of state, or it will show a sword-and-crown showing that the unit is lead by a faction heir (a prince).

• Finally, just below the unit portrait there could be small sword and shield icons. These indicate that the unit is armed (the sword) or armoured (shield) with high quality equipment. The icons are coloured black, bronze, silver and gold to indicate +1, +2, +3 and +4 quality.

MERGING UNITS

The review panel can be used to manage the units in an army by merging like units together. Drag and drop a unit in the review panel onto another unit of

exactly

the same type, and the target unit will be ‘filled up’ with men if it is under strength. Any ‘spare’ men are left in the original unit. This won’t work with different types of units. Once you’ve merged units you can’t split them apart again.

• Note that merging units like this can reduce their effectiveness, especially if a

low-valour

unit is merged with one that has high a

valour

rating.

Medieval: Total War

keeps track of every man’s valour separately in the game, and the unit valour is an average of the valour of its men.

You can also press the M key to merge all under strength units into the stronger ones automatically.

This kind of merging happens automatically when an army is dropped onto another army.

VICES AND VIRTUES

Many leaders and generals have quirks of personality that affect their behaviour for good or ill.

Vices and virtues are gained as a result of events during a game. If a general gets into the thick of combat, he might become a

Fine Leader

or be a

Good Runner

, depending on how his battles turned out. And, for example, if a general is the victim of repeated assassination attempts, he’s likely to become a little paranoid!

Left click on the down arrow on the right to scroll down to any vices or virtues that the general may have at present

and that are public knowledge

. There are some things that great men do that they want to keep secret, and such virtues and vices may not always be visible in a character’s details. You can find these out by dropping a spy onto the general’s strategic piece.

WHO’S IN COMMAND?

There’s a strict hierarchy among generals that is used to determine the man in overall command of an army. This can be very important, as it’s this general’s

command

rating that is used during any battles, not those of his subordinates, no matter how good they might be. Great Generals increase the effectiveness of all the soldiers under their command, not just those in their own unit.

All things being equal, it’s the general with the highest

command

rating that is in charge of

an army, but social preferences can be important:

• The faction leader: he takes precedence over all other generals, regardless of command

ratings. Being king does mean that people don’t argue with you!

• The general with the best command rating: is then chosen. Where this is tied between two

or more generals, the one who leads a unit of ‘peasantry’ or non-noble soldiers becomes the subordinate.

ARMIES AND THE REVIEW PANEL

When you have selected an army by left-clicking it, the review panel shows the units that make up that force.

Each one of the small review panel graphics shows you an individual unit.

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SIEGES

Invading a province with a castle usually means that the defenders will be able to hold out as a garrison, at least for a while. When this happens, you’ll have a number of options:

• Starve them out: Leave an army in the province to besiege the castle and wait for the

defenders to die of hunger and ‘natural wastage’. Depending on the castle and its upgrades, plus the number of defenders, this can be a long process, but it won’t cause you any casualties. Because it takes so long the defender may be able to bring in other armies in an attempt to break the siege.

• Storm the castle: Drag and drop an army onto the besieged castle to initiate an assault.

Remember that if the army doesn’t have artillery of some kind a storming attack is likely to be very costly in lives. Taking a castle by storm can be done, but many attacking soldiers are likely to die in the attempt! Like any other battle, you’ll be asked if you wish to command the action personally, or have the computer calculate the results for you.

• Send in a spy: You can drop a spy on the castle in an attempt to have the gates opened

from the inside. When you order this mission you’ll be told the chances of success before you are asked to confirm the attempt.

When one of your castles is under siege, your options are:

• Relieve the siege: Send an army from another province to attack the besieging force. The

defenders in the castle will automatically sally forth (leave) the castle to join in the battle.

• Sally forth: Select all of the troops in the castle as described in Re-organising Armies, and

drag and drop them outside the castle to form an army in the field. This army will do battle with the besieging army. As with any battle, you'll be asked if you wish to take personal command in the Battle system, or have results automatically calculated. You can choose to retreat and hand over control of the castle to your enemy, but only if there is another friendly province for a retreat.

• Hold out: Leave the garrison in place and hope that the besiegers leave of their own

accord. This can work if the besieging faction is under attack in another province and needs to use its siege army as reinforcements.

BRIBES

You can always drag and drop an emissary onto an army or castle to bribe the general and his men to join your forces. See the

Strategic Agents

section later for more details.

RE-ORGANISING ARMIES

You can quickly merge two armies together by dropping one army strategic piece onto another one on the campaign map. The two pieces must have started the turn in the same province for this to be possible, and the target army must have enough space for the units of the incoming army. Select a province and press the M key to merge armies in the province automatically. Again, the limits of 16 units per army apply.

You can split an army only by using the review panel:

• Select the unit or units you want to form a new army by left clicking as many or as few as

you want. Selected units are outlined in red.

• Left click again on any selected unit to deselect it if you change your mind.

• Finally, drag and drop the selected units onto their current province on the campaign

map. You can drop them on an existing army to merge them with that force, or drop them on a empty piece of terrain to create a new army.

RETRAINING AND RE-EQUIPPING MILITARY UNITS

Units that have lost men in combat can be sent back into training to have new recruits added to their strength. Retraining or re-equipping a military unit will cost money, depending upon the losses to be made good:

• Select an army in a province that you own, and then left click the training button to open

the training parchment.

• Select a unit (or units) in the review panel area and drop it (or them) onto the training

queue. The unit is removed from active service and replacements are added to it. Note that these new recruits will all have low

valour

, and could reduce the overall valour of the unit being retrained considerably. The unit being retrained may also get upgraded arms and armour if these are available in the province.

• Full-strength units can be re-equipped with better weapons and armour (if these are available) in the same way. Drag and drop the unit you want to re-equip from the review panel to the training queue. Again, this will cost money.

CASTLES AND GARRISONS

Every castle can have a garrison of troops stationed inside its walls. There can be up to 16 units in any garrison, but each level of fort can hold only a limited number of men, so the size of each unit is important in determining whether or not a unit can be part of a garrison.

• All mounted troops count as two men (one man plus one horse) when in a garrison.

• If only part of a unit will fit into a garrison, the whole unit will be excluded from the garrison. This can be important if a unit retreats into a castle – if there’s no room inside, it will be captured instead.

• In all other respects, a castle garrison acts as an army that can’t move. It can be reorganised and its units removed to other armies in the ways explained above.

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BARONIAL REVOLTS AND CIVIL WARS

You will also need to regularly review the loyalty of your generals. Army commanders with low loyalty may revolt if they can find a ringleader, and a civil war with the kingdom split from top to bottom can be the result.

Generals revolt only under the following conditions. There must be:

• One very powerful general with low loyalty to act as the ringleader, and he must be in a different province from the faction leader. A general with

royal blood

is often a good

candidate as a ringleader.

• A large number (not necessarily a majority) of other generals who have low loyalty to the faction.

A single disloyal general is unlikely to revolt on his own (but it is possible if he judges it worthwhile). There may well be warnings (from spies used as counter-intelligence agents) that a revolt is being talked about, and it is possible to stop it before it starts by improving the loyalty of the ringleader or by assassinating him.

If a civil war does erupt, the faction will split into two camps, rebels and loyalists, and each army decides where its loyalties lie: with the faction leader, or with the ringleader and his rebel followers. This split may be 50-50, or one side may have overwhelming support.

As the player, you can decide to control the loyalists or the revolutionaries, and the side you pick then become the faction for the remainder of play. The other side become rebels immediately, even if this was the ‘royal’ side in the civil war at the start. The dominant force in each province determines whether or not the province is controlled or in rebellion. Because you can pick which side to control in a civil war it is possible to engineer a rebellion to replace a particularly useless king!

FLEETS

Fleets work in exactly the same fashion as armies as far as organisation and movement are concerned. In fact it’s probably best to think of fleets as sea-going armies in

Medieval: Total War

. Fleets can contain up to 16 ships at any one time, and there are no restrictions about mixing ship types in a fleet.

When a ship is ‘trained’ (like any other military unit), it appears in the sea region connected by a port to the province where it was created. Fleets perform the following functions:

BATTLES IN THE CAMPAIGN GAME

When you’re in a battle to control a province, either because your lands have been invaded or you moved an army into another faction’s territory, you will be given a choice of how the fight is resolved:

• You can choose to command the attack personally, using the real time

Medieval: Total War

Battle system. This is what we recommend for the best experience of the game, and the best chance of winning! In this case, your military units are transferred onto the battlefield ready for you to command. See the second half of the manual on

Battles

for

details of how this part of the game functions.

• You can choose to have the game resolve the combat automatically. If you choose this

option be aware that your forces can suffer more casualties than they would in a played out battle. The computer takes into account the numbers of men involved and their relative strengths and weaknesses, but does not factor in any tactical ‘flair’.

• You can choose to retreat and abandon the attack. Where you retreat to depends on the

circumstances of the battle.

AFTER A BATTLE AND RETREATS

At the end of a battle you will be informed of the fate of any captives taken by your forces. Often, they will be ransomed back to their faction by your general and the florins paid for their safe return will be added to your treasury. There will be occasions when a faction doesn’t want to pay for its men, in which case their fate is not pleasant and we won’t go into it here.

If you’ve lost a battle, you’ll be given the chance to pay a ransom for any of your men held prisoner by the enemy. If you pay your men will be returned to your nearest province. If you decide not to pay, your men will be executed – you can go into debt (have a negative treasury) to pay a ransom if you wish. Be careful before rejecting a ransom demand, as you may be sentencing a valuable and skilful general to death!

Of course, you might have chosen to avoid battle altogether, or have been defeated but still have some men left. In this case, an army will try to retreat:

• If an army was defending a province with a castle, its men will retreat into the castle and

are now besieged.

• If an army was defending a province without a castle, its men will retreat to an adjacent

friendly province (i.e. one under their faction’s control).

• If an army was attacking, its men will retreat to their starting province.

• If an army was attacking from the sea, it has nowhere to retreat and will be captured

(and may be ransomed).

• If there is nowhere for a defeated army to retreat to on land, it is captured (and may be

ransomed). This could happen when a faction is reduced to its last province, or there are no adjacent friendly provinces. This is always the case when a castle’s defenders sally forth to break a siege.

Other factions’ armies use the same rules of retreat.

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There are also underlying relationships between buildings, so that some are dependent upon others. You can’t construct an Armourer in a province, for example, until you have already got a Spearmaker and a Bowyer. You’ll find a separate poster of the technology tree as part of the

Medieval: Total War

package. This shows the relationships between all the

buildings and the military units and agents they train.

When you upgrade a building to the next level it keeps all its previous training abilities – you’ll never lose the ability to train a unit as a result of upgrading a building.

BUILDINGS AND THE REVIEW PANEL

When you left click on a province to select it all the buildings in that province will be shown in the review panel in the centre bottom of the screen. You can right click on any picture of a building to bring up the information parchment about that building.

When there are more than 12 buildings in a province, you’ll see an arrowhead at the left hand end of the review panel. Left click the arrowhead to see more buildings in the province.

You can also see other buildings in a province by moving the cursor over the control panel and using your mousewheel (if your mouse is equipped with one).

CONSTRUCTING BUILDINGS

Your faction will need a substantial army to conquer Europe, and this means you’ll need to construct an infrastructure that can train troops and defend your lands. You’ll need a regular income to achieve these ends too. All of these activities mean that you must construct buildings in your provinces:

• Left click on the province where you want to construct a building.

• Left click on the construction button in the bottom left hand corner of

the screen (shown above in its ‘empty’ and ‘busy’ states). This brings up the construction parchment for the province, showing you all the buildings that could be ordered here. You can right click on any building graphic to bring up the information parchment about that building.

• Left click on the building you want to have constructed. It will then

appear in the

province construction queue

at the bottom of the parchment. Remember, each province has a separate queue for buildings. The number below the timer is the number of years it will take to complete the left-most building in the queue. You can also right click any building in the queue to look at its information parchment.

The two arrows either side of the province name allow you to move quickly between provinces when constructing buildings. Left click either arrow to change to another province.

Remember: you can have buildings under construction in as many provinces as you want, providing you have the money in your treasury.

• Trade: They set up trade routes from your provinces to foreign provinces, providing a

linked chain of fleets can be traced between the ‘selling’ merchant and a ‘buying’ port in a foreign province. The fleets provide protection to your merchants and their ships (which you can’t see or control).

• Blockade: When at war with another faction, your fleets prevent any of the enemy’s fleets

from carrying trade. The same is true of their fleets being able to blockade your trade, of course.

• Transporting armies: Fleets can transfer armies along a trade route between ports,

providing that no enemy fleets block your passage. Enemy fleets include those belonging to the owner of the province being invaded, even though they may be allied or neutral at the time. This means you can place fleets along your coastline to defend against naval invasions from both enemies and treacherous allies.

• Amphibious Attacks: You can invade a province from the sea with an army, providing that

there are no hostile ships or ships belonging to the defenders in the coastal waters off the target province.

There is no retreat for an army attacking from the sea in this fashion, so

they will be captured if they fail to take the target province!

• Battle: Drag and drop a fleet onto an enemy fleet to attack it. At the end of the turn (year)

you’ll be informed of the battle’s outcome. All naval battles take place within the campaign game.

Ships can be sunk by storms at sea. If such an event occurs, it can break trade routes or end blockades, so keep an eye out for this happening.

BUILDINGS AND THE TECHNOLOGY TREE

Despite seeming like a static period of history, the Middle Ages were actually an age when technology moved on and developed and much was rediscovered in manuscripts preserved in Arabic and Church libraries. But ‘technology’ of any kind does not appear out of thin air: developments can take years to bear fruit.

Every province can have buildings constructed in it. These enable the training of military units and strategic agents or give economic, religious and political benefits. Buildings must be paid for in florins, and can take several turns (years) to complete.

Construction options are not always the same in each and every province. They depend on geography, resources, trade goods (or their lack), external events, and the religious and factional identity of the builder. For example: without the discovery of gunpowder event, no one can build gunsmiths or foundries to make cannons; an Islamic faction cannot build any of the Christian churches; ports require a coast; and trading posts cannot be built where there’s nothing to trade.

There are a few buildings that can always be constructed in a province (such as farmland improvements). Generally, however, castles are the key buildings on the technology tree of

Medieval: Total War

. The level of the castle in a province is what determines the buildings

that can be constructed there (upgrades to the castle don’t matter in this context).

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CASTLES AND THE BATTLE SYSTEM

Forts, keeps, castles, citadels and fortresses are all referred to by the generic term of ‘castles’. Each level or type of castle can be upgraded twice by having extra defences such as improved outer curtain walls or better towers added to it.

When a siege takes place in the battle system the castle and upgrades present in a province are directly used to create the castle on the battle map. If you lay siege to a small fort and then storm the walls you’ll be attacking that fort in the battle game! Attacking a fully upgraded citadel with artillery towers and ramparts will be rather dangerous without the right artillery and troops!

DESTROYING BUILDINGS

You can destroy any building in a province by clicking on the Destroy button on its information parchment. You’ll get some of the cost of the building returned to you. There are a couple of reasons for doing this:

• There’s a pressing need to raise money quickly. Destroying buildings can result in enough

cash to train new military units.

• The province is about to be lost to an enemy attack. The buildings are likely to be lost

anyway, so you might as well get some money for them. This also denies the enemy the use of any facilities.

• The province has just been conquered, but there’s no need to retain control of it. In this

case, destroying all the buildings and getting some cash back is a smash-and-grab raid. Withdraw from the province after destroying everything, and another faction will conquer it and start rebuilding.

STRATEGIC AGENTS

Strategic agents never appear on battlefields. Although they have no military strength, their potential should not be underestimated.

All agents act as ‘spies’ to a limited extent, in that they will allow you to see details of the province where they are standing.

• Agents are moved around just like any other unit on the campaign map. Left click to pick

one up, and then drag and drop in the province required. You can also drag and drop agents onto other units; if the agent can perform a mission, he or she will be highlighted when hovering over a legitimate target. The nature of the mission and its results depend on the type of agent and the target involved.

• Agents who start a turn in a province with a port can be moved to any other province with

a port in a single move. (They can be assumed to be using the game’s inherent merchant shipping to move around).

Fleets are immune to the effects of agents, as no agent has the ability to walk on water!

When you’re finished, left click the red X in the top right corner of the construction parchment to close it, or click the construction button again (it’s actually an on/off toggle). It is possible to close the building construction panel by right-clicking the panel. There are a couple of other things you need to know about construction:

• Buildings have to be finished in order to have any effect on the game. Partially completed buildings have no effect whatsoever.

• You’ll notice that the construction queue has four boxes in it, so you can pre-order up to four buildings if you want to do so. Just left click on another building and it will appear in the leftmost empty box in the queue.

• You can reorder the queue by dragging and dropping a building already in the queue into a different box in the queue. If you drop a building in the leftmost box, all work done to date on the building it is replacing will be lost!

• You don’t have to have the money to pay for a building when you order it, only when construction starts. If you don’t have the money in your treasury, the building doesn’t get started and simply waits in its province construction queue until sufficient funds are on hand.

• You can cancel a construction order at any point. Left click a building in the queue to cancel. If you decide to cancel a building that’s already under construction, all work done to date is wasted, and the next building (if there is one in the queue) starts from scratch. The value of the cancelled building is returned to your treasury.

• You can see the progress of your new building in the construction button without returning to the construction parchment. As the building gets closer to completion, the area that is greyed out gets smaller. This will change as you select different provinces with different buildings under construction.

When a building is complete you’ll get a message during the end of turn tour telling you, and the building will be shown in the review panel when you select the province it is in.

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SPIES

Spies have a variety of uses, all of them sneaky:

• In your provinces a spy for your faction will act as a ‘secret policeman’ and let you intercept and kill enemy spies and assassins. The higher the valour of your spy, the greater the chance of intercepting enemy agents.

• In your provinces a spy for your faction will also improve the loyalty of the local population by spying on all their actions and ‘keeping them honest’.

• In an enemy province your spy will allow you to see full details of that province and any armies that occupy it.

• Drag and drop a spy onto any general to discover his personality traits along with his vices and virtues. This includes any secret vices and virtues that the general has so far managed to keep out of the public gaze – some of these can be quite embarrassing for a general!

• Drag and drop a spy onto an enemy castle that you are besieging and he will attempt to open the gate from the inside. If he succeeds, he will let you take the castle by treachery! This can be a lot cheaper in terms of lives than trying an assault.

ASSASSINS

Assassins, as might be expected, kill people.

• Drag and drop an assassin onto an army to try and kill the commanding general. This can include faction leaders and heirs, if they are in command.

• Drag and drop an assassin onto a strategic agent to attempt a killing. The target can be another assassin, a princess or holy man.

• You can drag and drop an assassin onto your own agents or armies, including your faction leader! This can be quite useful for removing a troublesome or vice-ridden general, or even a particularly weak monarch.

You’ll be told what the chances of success are before you commit your assassin to his murderous mission. The valour of the assassin and his target are taken into consideration when calculating the chance of success.

EMISSARIES

Emissaries have many tasks that they can perform:

• Drag and drop an emissary on a faction leader to propose an alliance, or to propose a ceasefire if you are at war with his faction. The chances that an emissary will be successful are related to the influence of your faction leader – a leader with high influence is less likely to have his messengers ignored! The emissary’s valour also has an impact on his chances of success.

• Drop an emissary on an enemy or neutral general to offer a bribe to change allegiance to your faction. The size of bribe required is related to the size of the army the general commands, his personal loyalty to his existing faction, and his personal vices and virtues. At times, your emissary will advise you to alter the amount offered after he has had a chance to see the general and his forces close up. An emissary cannot bribe a faction leader or an heir to a faction.

• Likewise, drop an emissary on a castle to bribe the garrison.

• Drop an emissary onto one of your own generals to strip the man of his title and office, if any. These can then be given to another general, but the man who is reduced in social rank is unlikely to be very pleased by this course of events and his loyalty will suffer.

• Drop an emissary on a foreign princess to propose that she marries into your faction’s royal family. If this is accepted, the marriage marks a new alliance between your faction and hers, and your faction may have some claim to the lands of her original faction if it is wiped out.

PRINCESSES

A princess is a type of emissary with her own extra abilities. Unlike other agents she doesn’t have to be trained, but is born into the royal family. She also has a limited useful lifespan, and will be removed from the game when she is too old to be a good match in marriage. Only Catholic and Orthodox factions have princesses.

• Drag and drop a princess onto a faction leader to propose a marriage. If the faction leader or one of his sons is unmarried, there is a chance that the marriage proposal will be accepted. If every potential husband has already been married off, the princess will act as an emissary and offer a ceasefire or alliance instead.

• Drag and drop a princess onto one of your own generals to improve his loyalty to the faction by linking him directly to the royal family.

• If you (accidentally) drop a princess on her father or one of her brothers she will be removed from the game and there will be other, unpleasant consequences.

Remember that all princesses give the faction she marries into a claim on the territory of her original faction. This can be important if the faction leader dies without immediate heirs to the throne.

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GENERALS: PIETY

Every general (including every king, sultan, emperor, khalifah and prince) has a piety value. This can be an influence on the level of support that general can expect from the people he rules, should they not see him as being sufficiently religious.

PROVINCES: FAITH AND ZEAL

Each province can have followers of any or all of the six religions in the game: Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, Pagan, Heretic and Jewish. The population that follows each faith in the province are shown on the province’s Info parchment. These values will change over time for various reasons:

• Holy men: A preacher (a Catholic Bishop or an Muslim Alim, for example) will convert

people to his faith.

• Events: Some events are particularly effective in converting people – the discovery of a

holy relic, for example.

• Ruler’s religion: There is a natural tendency for people to adopt the religion of the ruling

classes, but this can be a slow process.

Each province also has a Zeal value, shown as a percentage. This shows how dedicated and fanatical the whole population feel about their religion(s). In a Zealous province many soldiers may join a Crusade or Jihad that passes through. Zeal may also affect a province’s loyalty if the governor or the King isn’t particularly pious.

RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS

Christian Churches and Islamic Mosques: These slowly increase the percentage of the population in a province that follows their particular religion. Cathedrals and Great Mosques are even more effective.

Monasteries and Reliquaries: These Christian-only buildings increase the Piety of the King when they are built, because they are very public statements of religious affiliation.

Catholic Chapter Houses and Islamic Ribats: These special buildings allow the training of religious warriors. They also allow the creation of Catholic Crusades and Islamic Jihads (see below).

CATHOLIC EXCOMMUNICATION

The Pope can excommunicate Catholic factions. This happens when a Catholic faction makes war on the Pope’s allies, or ignores his advice to stop making war on fellow Catholics.

Once excommunicated, a faction is vulnerable to Crusades by other factions, and Papal restrictions on Catholic factions attacking their co-religionists are ignored.

RELIGIOUS AGENTS

Factions can train holy men to spread their own religious faiths. These men can also act as diplomats:

• Drag and drop a religious agent (other than an inquisitor) onto a faction leader to propose an alliance, or to propose a ceasefire if you are war with his faction. The chances that he will be successful are again related to the influence of your faction leader!

The full list of religious agents is:

• Priests and Bishops: Orthodox rulers can train these men to spread the Orthodox faith, bringing the religion of conquered provinces into line with that of the faction, or send them out into the world to convert others.

• Bishops and Cardinals: Catholic rulers can train these men to spread the Catholic faith, bringing the religion of conquered provinces into line with that of the faction. A bishop or cardinal will also make it harder for an inquisitor to convict and kill someone for heresy in the same province.

• Inquisitors: Catholic factions can also train a kind of religious ‘assassin’ called an inquisitor. These root out heresy among Catholics only. Drag and drop an inquisitor onto an army to put the commanding general (even a faction leader!) on trial for heresy. If the general has a low piety trait, he is likely to be executed for his heretical beliefs. Inquisitors also increase the Zeal of a province, because they are very, very scary guys! They will be less effective in provinces where there is a Catholic Bishop or Cardinal. The valour of an inquisitor affects how good he is at his appointed tasks.

• Alim and Imam: The ‘ulama’ (the plural for Alim and Imam) are Muslims who are truly learned in the Koran and Islamic doctrine. Muslim rulers can train these men to spread the Islamic faith, bringing the religion of conquered provinces into line with that of the faction, or send them out into the world to convert others.

RELIGION

Religion was a matter of vital importance to people in the medieval world. Three major religions were struggling for men’s souls in Europe during the period of

Medieval: Total War

– Catholic Christianity, Orthodox Christianity and Islam. Jews could be found throughout Europe, but particularly in Islamic countries where their learning was highly valued. At the edges of the continent the old, pagan religions lingered on. There were also heretics, willing to challenge the established order of things.

Religion drove men to perform both great deeds and terrible ones.

Medieval: Total War

reflects some of this truth.

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Once the jihad has started, it will move towards its target province. As a jihad moves, soldiers may join it in each province it passes through. The number of recruits depends on the Zeal of the province – only Muslim soldiers will join a jihad. A jihad can have deserters if it takes too long to reach its target, or if it suffers setbacks on the journey. Jihads that run out of warriors (for whatever reason) will end in failure, and if the Ribat in the Jihad’s home province is destroyed it will also fail.

Once a jihad has re-conquered its target province, it changes into an army or armies belonging to the faction that created the jihad.

INFORMATION BUTTONS AND PARCHMENTS

The information buttons are shortcuts to help you manage your faction. These buttons are located in the lower left corner of the screen, above the faction coat-of-arms. The information these buttons provide can help you make decisions that will speed you to victory.

In each case left click on the arrowheads on the left to move up and down the list of items on a parchment or use the mousewheel (if your mouse has one). For all information parchments, left clicking the red X in the top right hand corner of the parchment will close it and return you to the main campaign map view.

The Military information parchment is a list of all your generals and their armies, the provinces they occupy and the number of men lead by each general. The rank of each general is also given. Left click on a line in the list to centre the main campaign map view on that general.

The Alliances information parchment shows graphically the political state of the game world. Your faction is always at the top of the list. The large central shields show the coat-of-arms of each faction with a small symbol for the faction’s religion. The name of each faction’s ruler is also shown. The smaller shields to the left show the allies of a given faction, while those to right show the sworn enemies of the moment. Move the cursor over a shield to see which faction it represents. If a small faction shield is ‘missing’ as an ally or enemy it just means that faction is neutral at the moment. Relationships can change over time.

The Economy information parchment lists all the provinces controlled by your faction and all the sea regions where your faction has a fleet. There’s a summary of your complete financial state at the bottom of the parchment. The most important value is probably

expected profits

. If this number is negative, your

treasury, tax rates and military costs need to be looked at very carefully!

HERETICS

When a revolt breaks out in a province, there is a chance that it will be some kind of heresy, particularly if the number of heretics in the population is large. The revolt may start because people don’t like being taxed or there is no occupying army, but it can take on a religious aspect. The mix of rebel soldiers will be different if the rebels are heretics than might be expected from ‘ordinary’ rebels.

CRUSADES

Only Catholic factions can launch crusades, and they need a Chapter House to create a crusade marker, which appears as an option in the province’s training parchment.

Once it is built, units can be added to a crusade by dragging and dropping. However, once a unit is part of a crusade

it cannot be removed until the crusade ends

Drag and drop the crusade marker onto a target province to start a crusade. You’ll then be asked to pay a ‘contribution’ in florins to the Pope’s treasury to gain permission for the crusade – and this is usually expensive! The Pope won’t allow crusades to provinces belonging to ‘good’ Catholic factions, but excommunicated Catholics, rebels (and heretics!) and any non-Catholics are fair game! The Pope usually allows only one crusade at a time for a faction.

Once the crusade has permission, drop it directly on the target province again (in which case it will find its own route), or move it towards the target province-by-province taking any route you like. As the crusade moves, soldiers may join it in each province it passes through, depending on that province’s Zeal value. These recruits can even belong to other Catholic factions – when they join the crusade they forget past loyalties! A crusade can suffer desertions too, if it takes too long to reach its target or is defeated in battle.

When a crusade arrives at the target province, it will attempt to conquer it. If it does so, the crusade is over and the units within the crusade will become ordinary armies, under the control of the faction that built the crusade. These armies may include units from the Fighting Orders of Knighthood such as the Templars, Hospitallers and the Knights of Santiago.

Crusades that run out of soldiers (for whatever reason) will end in failure, and if the Chapter House in the crusade’s starting province is destroyed, it will also end.

Computer-controlled factions will also build crusades from time to time. When a foreign crusade enters your lands you will be given a choice of how to react. Crusades do not conquer provinces they pass through, only their target, but there is a chance that the crusading soldiers will loot a province and that your soldiers will join the crusade if you decide to let it through.

JIHADS

Only Muslim factions can launch jihads. Jihad means ‘struggle for the faith’ and unlike a crusade, a jihad cannot be used to conquer new territory. A jihad can only be targeted against a province that has been lost to an enemy – it can only try to re-conquer lost lands, not take new ones.

A Ribat is needed before the jihad marker appears on the province’s training parchment. Once a jihad is created units can be added to it just like any other army, but once a unit is part of a jihad

it cannot be removed until the jihad is over

. Drag and drop the jihad marker

onto a legitimate target province to launch the jihad.

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Regardless of whether you start a battle from the full campaign, play one of the historical campaigns or battles, or set up a custom battle, the interface for controlling your army is always the same. The tactics for using that army to best effect differ from faction to faction, and are something that you’ll discover for yourself.

Medieval: Total War

has been designed to make controlling an army fairly straightforward, as you’ll see shortly, so that you can concentrate on the tactical challenges and tricks of combat. The controls include on-screen buttons for commands and keyboard shortcuts, and you can mix-and-match your use of these as you see fit.

THE BATTLE TUTORIALS

We recommend that you play through the tutorial battles at least once to get a feel for the way the game interface works. They take you through a few battles to illustrate all the main features of controlling an army.

BEFORE A BATTLE

In the full campaign game the battlefield used is directly related to the terrain in the province or along its borders. If, for example, your army invades over a mountainous border, you’ll have to fight a battle in mountainous terrain. This could well favour the defender, and be highly unsuitable for cavalry. It’s a good idea to study the terrain shown on the campaign map before you invade a province and choose a border that suits the composition of your invading army.

In any case, you’ll be shown what the battlefield looks like before the battle itself starts. Take note of the general lie of the land, as this can be useful in selecting defensive positions, or in selecting ground that can be turned into a killing zone for disposing of the enemy. You can move the camera around the battlefield using the controls detailed in

The

Battlefield Camera

section. Click on the continue button when you are ready to proceed.

Every battle in

Medieval: Total War

has an attacking side and a defending side. Before the

battle starts, these designations have important effects.

In battles that come about through the full campaign game, the attacker is always the invading force – the one that doesn’t own the province where the battle is taking place. In custom and historical battles the attacker is designated by the game system:

• As the attacker, you are given a weather report for the coming day. Generally speaking,

the better the weather the more likely it is that all your forces will march and fight with their full effectiveness. You’ll have the choice to fight, or wait another day in the hope of better conditions. However, if you wait for too long the defending army will come onto your position, ready or not! It may even be advantageous to fight in dreadful weather if your opponents have many missile troops and you do not.

• As the defender you don’t have this operational flexibility, but you do get better ground for

your starting position on the battlefield. You also get the chance to ‘fine tune’ the deployment of your troops before the battle starts by changing the position of individual units within your set up area.

WEATHER AND CLIMATE

Weather and climate have all the effects common sense would lead you to expect. Ideally all battles would be fought in perfect weather but war rarely allows such luxuries, and commanders have to make the best of the conditions that they face.

Only provinces have loyalty and income values. Move the cursor over any of the province names and you’ll be given a breakdown of how the income is generated. Left click on a province and the campaign map view will centre there. If there’s a trading post or merchant in the province you’ll also be given a trade breakdown report. Move the cursor over any trade goods symbol to find out what is being traded.

The expenses column shows you the maintenance and support costs for military units in each of your provinces, and in sea regions where you have fleets. These numbers will change as you move armies around.

The Subterfuge information parchment lists all your strategic agents and the missions that they are currently carrying out. Left click on the agent’s line in the list to centre the campaign map view on that agent.

The Heir Status parchment is a list of members of your faction’s royal family. If this list is empty make sure your king, sultan or khalifah (the faction leader) is kept safe, because if he dies the royal line is at an end! Otherwise, the list shows all the leader’s children. Underage children will not appear on the campaign map as princes (generals) or princesses (strategic agents) until they come of age.

The Glorious Objectives parchment is a list of targets for your faction to achieve over the course of the game. If you chose to play glorious objectives variant of the Full Campaign, then you’ll need to make sure that these ‘missions’ are carried out. In general, glorious objectives expect you to at least match the achievements of historical rulers in making their countries mighty and respected. Typical objectives might be: to construct the Alhambra in Spain by a given date, conquer a certain set of provinces, or defend your faction’s heartland from outside aggressors. Left click on an item in the list to see its details.

BATTLES

The heart of

Medieval: Total War

game is the 3D battle system. The

Total War Engine

™ is capable of running spectacular battles with over 10,000 troops in real-time 3D combat. The engine has been ‘tweaked’ and optimised to incorporate the strategies, tactics, and units used in warfare throughout the medieval period.

Mini-Map

Infantry Units

Command Buttons

Unit Information Panels

Artillery Units

Archery Units

Cavalry Units

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THE MINI-MAP DISPLAY

The mini-map gives you a top-down view of the whole battlefield. Units that are hidden in the trees will not appear on the map (although you may get a clue on the battlefield that they are present by spotting circling birds!). The flashing dots on the map show the positions of the commanding generals in the field (one per army). You can also issue orders to your units by clicking on the mini-map as if you had clicked on the same destination on the battlefield.

• Left click in the top grey bar and drag to reposition the mini-map. Left click on the white

triangle in the bottom right corner and then drag to resize the mini-map, if desired.

• This top bar also shows the relative ‘kill ratio’ of each army. Your ‘kills’ are shown as a green bar, the enemy’s as a red one. The respective length of these bars is a rough indication of who is winning the battle at any given time, always bearing in mind that simply slaughtering the enemy may not be enough to secure victory.

• The bottom bar shows time acceleration in the battle. You may wish to speed up the passage of time in a battle (perhaps when your men are marching unopposed to a new position), so you can click-and-drag the ‘hourglass’ symbol to a point on the bar, or press Ctrl + T on the keyboard to toggle 100% time acceleration on or off.

ARMY FORMATION

Before you start a battle it’s often a good idea to review and possibly change the default formation that has been selected by the computer for your army. Just above the left-most unit information panel at the bottom of the screen is the army formations button when attacking. This allows you to set an overall layout for the units in your entire army.

•

When attacking,

right click on this banner to bring up the possible list of formations for

your army.

• Left click on the formation that you want you’re army to adopt. You can try as many of these as you like, as you’re not committed to any formation until you click on the begin battle button.

•

When defending

you can also select individual units and position them anywhere within

your army’s set up area, using the controls described in the next section,

Basic Battle

Controls

. A line of stakes on the battlefield shows you the boundaries of this start area.

• Finally, if you are fighting a battle as part of a full campaign and have more than 16 units in the province the reinforcements button will be active. You can find out full details of how this advanced feature works in the

Reinforcements Before a Battle

sub-

section of

Advanced Generalship

•

Both sides

can dismount knights (if they have them) and have these units fight on foot.

This decision has to be taken before the battle starts; once battle has started knights cannot remount. The choice is not permanent, but only for the current battle.

• When you’re happy with your army’s position, click on the begin battle button and ‘let slip the dogs of war’!

• Weather has major effects on visibility on the battlefield – seeing the enemy in the middle of a sandstorm or a snowstorm can be a challenge in itself! Fog and rain will also limit the distance that you can see.

• Missile fire from archers and gunners is subject to changes in the weather. Bows do not work well in the rain, and gunpowder weapons do not work at all in wet weather.

• Overall weather and climate conditions also affect how quickly units become tired. In hot weather (or desert conditions) you can expect heavily armoured knights to tire easily. In snow and cold, everyone tires more easily.

THE BATTLE SCREEN

The battle screen is your view onto the battlefield. Along the top and bottom edge of the screen you’ll find all the controls you need to command your army, either as a group or as individual units. The command buttons and unit banners will be explained in a moment.

THE BATTLEFIELD CAMERA

Your view onto the battlefield isn’t fixed or tied to any particular unit in the game.

Move the cursor to the left or right edge of the screen and the camera will

pan

(turn without

changing location) in that direction. Move it to the top of the screen to

track

(move) the

camera forwards; moving it to the bottom will make the camera track backwards. When no unit is selected right click to centre the camera view on the cursor position on the battlefield. Hold down the right button to turn the mouse into a camera-pointing device. When a unit is selected hold Ctrl + right click to make the camera point at that spot on the battlefield.

You can also use the arrow (cursor) keys or the numeric keypad to move the camera position. The up and down arrows plus numeric keys 2 and 5

track

the camera backwards and forwards;

keys 1 and 3 make the camera

track

(without changing its direction of view) to the left and

right respectively; and keys 4 and 6

pan

the camera left and right. For faster movements, 8 tracks the camera forwards at high speed while 7 and 9 are high-speed camera pans. Hold down the shift key with any of these commands to make the camera move quickly.

You can also move the camera by double clicking on a unit or its information panel. The camera will immediately fly to a position behind and above the chosen unit: ‘looking over its (collective) shoulder’ so to speak. The unit will also be selected. This is a great way of reviewing how and what a unit is doing in detail, rather than just relying on the unit’s banner.

The camera controls work even when the game is paused; your view onto the battlefield is not, allowing you to review how the battle is going without being too pressured by the clock or the need to issue orders.

The camera is normally constrained, so that (rather realistically) your view can’t move too far away from any of your units. If you try to move the camera too far from your nearest unit, you’ll see that it slows down and rebounds slightly, as if on elastic. If you want to see what’s on the other side of some trees or over a ridge, you have to send a unit out to see what’s there!

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• The unit personally lead by the army’s general has a gold star on its panel. This is the unit on the battlefield with a square banner or standard.

• At the top of the panel the (four) grey bars show how much energy the unit has left; as these disappear the men in the unit are getting tired by marching, fighting and running around. As you might expect, if you ask a unit to charge uphill and fight a battle at the top it will quickly become exhausted. Tired men are more likely to lose heart in battle and run away.

• Next to the fatigue bars there’s space for a variety of symbols to show what the unit is currently doing. This can include marching (a single upward triangle); running, galloping or charging (two triangles); fighting (crossed swords); firing missiles (a bow); under fire (incoming arrows); hiding in woods (a small tree); or even routing (a white flag). It’s quite possible for a unit to be doing more than one thing at once, in which case the panel will cycle through the appropriate symbols. If you see the white flag symbol flickering on and off, it means that the unit is close to breaking point, but hasn’t quite run away yet. This is a useful indication that it’s in trouble!

• The upper number is the

valour

of the unit. This is a measure of the unit’s experience, true grit and skill at arms. A unit with high valour will generally beat a low valour force, all other things being equal.

• Missile-armed troops are distinguished by having a vertical brown bar next to the unit portrait. This is the

ammunition bar

and it gradually empties as the unit fires arrows or bullets, throws spears, grenades or javelins, or even hurls huge rocks (in the case of artillery). Once the bar is empty, the unit cannot conduct any more missile attacks. You can give your units unlimited ammunition via the

Options Menu

before a battle, but this

also gives the enemy unlimited ammunition too!

• The number at the bottom of the panel is the number of men currently in the unit. As the unit takes casualties, this value will fall. If the number of men starts dropping rapidly then the unit is in deep trouble!

• Coloured icons showing a sword and/or shield indicate the unit is equipped with highquality weaponry and/or armour.

The unit panel will disappear from the screen if the unit leaves the battlefield as a result of routing (running away), or when its last man is killed or captured.

UNIT MENUS

Right click on a unit or its information panel to bring up a context-sensitive menu for the unit. Left click on the appropriate action you want the unit to take. You’ll see that many of these menu orders are the same as the command buttons, and the keyboard shortcuts discussed here (the keys are shown for each command). This is the third method of issuing orders to your troops.

There’s one order on the menu for missile and artillery units – follow projectiles – that can be more fun than is strictly necessary, in a crush-your-enemiesand-bray-with-demented-laughter kind of way. This option gives you an arrow’s eye view of the action when the selected unit fires, or a boulder’s eye view in the case of most artillery pieces!

BASIC BATTLE CONTROLS

The battle interface in

Medieval: Total War

is actually very simple. Any unit can be ordered

to march or attack with as few as two mouse clicks:

• Left click on a unit to

select

it. You’ll see that you have selected it because the unit’s flag or standard waves up and down, and the unit information banner at the bottom of the screen is also highlighted.

• Left click on a destination on the battlefield. You’ll see that the unit immediately turns towards this spot, dresses its ranks, and marches off. Double-click the destination to make your unit quick march or gallop there.

• If a unit can’t march to the spot you chosen, the movement arrow next to the cursor will turn red. This is usually because you’ve asked a unit to enter water or go into a tree! In a forest, move the cursor slightly until it changes to yellow, indicating that the unit can get into the forest.

• Or, you can left click on an enemy unit. The cursor changes to show a sword if the unit will attack in hand-to-hand combat, or a bow and arrow for a missile attack. If your missile troops are out of range the small action arrow below the cursor will be red; your men will advance until they are in firing range of the enemy. Double click a target to make your unit charge them, or run/gallop until they are within range (just remember that your men will get tired if they run everywhere!).

• Press the spacebar to see the future finishing positions of any units that you’ve ordered to move. This is a very useful reviewing tool for keeping track of where your army is heading.

If you can do this, you’ve mastered the absolute basics of command in

Medieval: Total War

Everything else in the interface builds on this straightforward concept of:

“Hey! You!”

[Click] “Go there!” [Click].

Finally as far as these utterly basic commands go, you can deselect any and all selected units by pressing the return or enter key.

UNIT INFORMATION PANELS

At the bottom of the screen are the

unit information panels

for your army, one per unit.

When you left click on a unit on the battlefield you’ll see that its information panel is highlighted, showing that the unit is selected. In the same way, you can left click on a unit panel to select the relevant unit, and you’ll see that the unit’s standard is raised to show that it has been selected. It’s possible to select multiple units too, as we’ll see in the section on

The Art of Command

The panels give you a quick summary of each unit’s status and activity at all times.

• The small portrait on the panel shows the unit type.

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• The engage at will button (E key) is an on/off toggle that determines whether or

not a unit will attack nearby enemy units when on the move, or pursue enemies when they flee, whether or not they have been directly ordered to do so.

• A unit given a hold position command (H key) will stand its ground at all times.

When a fight is finished they will resume their places on the battlefield, rather than forming up around their leader’s current location. This prevents units ‘creeping’ out of place in a battle line as they drive enemies back.

• The fire at will button (A key) is an on/off toggle that allows the selected unit

some discretion in when it will attack. If a unit is allowed to fire at will, then it will fire at any suitable target in range. This may not be desirable at all times, as this can use up limited ammunition quickly.

• The full effects of the reinforcements button are discussed in the section on

Advanced Generalship.

• The full effects of the group formations button (Ctrl + P keys) are discussed in the

section on

Advanced Generalship

CHANGING A UNIT’S FORMATION

As noted above, the Close, Loose and Wedge commands will change the overall shape and dispersion of a unit. You can also change the rectangular shape (number of rows by number of columns of men) of any unit during a battle.

Normally, only the front row a unit is in contact with the enemy and can fight. The men in the rows behind step forward to ‘fill in the gaps’ when there are casualties. The exceptions to this are spearmen (the first two rows can fight) and pikemen (the first four rows can fight) and missile troops.

• Left click where you want the

left flank

of the re-positioned unit to stand. Drag the mouse

towards the right and a ‘dummy’ unit of men will appear to show you the new column formation of your unit. When the unit has the desired width, let go of the mouse button.

• If you change your mind, press the ESCape key

before

letting go of the mouse button.

• Your unit will now march towards this location and adopt the new formation.

Re-sizing a missile unit into a wide but shallow formation maximises its firepower, as the greatest possible number of men can fire at the same time.

UNIT FACING

All units have a facing, and always attack enemies directly ahead. Units are also defensively vulnerable in the flanks (sides) and especially the rear. Sometimes you’ll need to change the direction of a unit’s

facing

to meet a threat

without necessarily changing its

position

the battlefield.

TOOL TIPS AND UNIT REPORTS

If you move the cursor over any unit you can see on the battlefield, you’ll see a tooltip-style comment appears. These are colour-coded to show to which faction/army the unit belongs, and include much useful information. Apart from identifying the unit type and the number of men in it, the tooltip will also tell you what it is currently doing, give you an indication of the unit’s combat abilities and specialisations, and give you some indication as to the state of its morale.

This feature works when the game is paused, so that you can review the action without being pressured by the clock.

COMMAND BUTTONS

Across the top of the screen are the command buttons. These are grouped into related sets of commands:

• As you might expect, the halt button (backspace key) causes the selected unit to

stop whatever it is doing and reform itself in its current position. This command doesn’t always work – some units can get ‘carried away’ by their own

impetuous

nature. Units that have panicked and routed cannot be halted either.

• The rally button (R key) is a call to panicked men to stop running away! This will

not work if the enemy are too close at the time the command is issued (fear makes even the most obedient soldiers deaf to orders!).

• The rout button is the exact opposite of the rally command. This causes the

selected unit(s) to run away from the enemy. It can be useful when faced by unexpectedly terrible odds and you hope to save at least part of your army, or when you want units to leave the battlefield to make way for reinforcements.

• When two or more units have been selected the group button (G key) will gather

them into a ‘collective unit’ that can be selected and issued orders as though it were a single unit.

• The close formation (C key) and loose formation (L key) buttons alter the

spacing between men in a unit. Close formation is useful for hand-tohand combat, where getting the most men into action is important. Loose formation is more use when under fire, as there’s more chance of a missile falling harmlessly in the spaces between men.

• The wedge formation button (W key) changes the overall shape of a selected unit

from a rectangular block to a triangular wedge formation. The wedge can be useful when charging into a melee to force a way into an enemy unit.

• The skirmish button (S key) is only active when the selected

unit has the appropriate ability. Units set to skirmish will avoid hand-to-hand contact with the enemy while continuing to attack them with missile fire.

• The hold formation button (F key) orders a unit to maintain its current formation

when it meets the enemy in melee. Men will stay in their assigned positions and not spread out to engage enemies in combat. This is particularly useful for units such as spearmen that gain combat power for being in tight, ordered ranks.

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WITHDRAWING FROM COMBAT

It can be necessary for a unit to stop fighting before an enemy unit has been broken or slaughtered to the last man. In the whirl of battle, being able to withdraw a unit from a fight can be extremely useful.

• Left click on a unit to select it, and then issue the withdraw command (ctrl + W keys) to

make it break off from a fight and move away from the enemy. You may need to issue a halt command later to stop the unit from moving too far. If it isn’t halted, the unit will leave the battlefield.

• You can also break off combat by double-clicking a safe destination for a unit away from

the fight. Often, you’ll need to repeat this command as the fight ebbs and flows.

ROUTE MARCHES AND WAYPOINTS

When you issue a movement or attack order to a unit by left clicking on target location or unit it will march there in a straight line. This may not always be the best route for a unit to take, as it could be that you want a unit to route round your own troops, or attack an enemy in the flank or rear, rather than simply pile into a melee.

• You can issue a series of movement orders to a unit (or units) and set up a series of

waypoints for it by holding down the shift key while you left click on a series of locations on the battlefield.

• The unit will then march to waypoints in order, finally coming to a halt at the last waypoint.

This command can be extremely useful in sending a unit on a march around an enemy’s flank to cut off any path of retreat.

SELECTING MULTIPLE UNITS

You can select more than one unit at a time and issue orders to every selected unit at the same time.

• Hold down Ctrl and left click on the units or on their unit information panels that you

wish to select. Left click again to deselect any unit if you make a mistake.

• You can select a single unit, hold down the shift key and then left click on a unit

information panel. All the units with information panels between the original unit and the one just clicked are selected.

• You can hold down Ctrl and right click and drag across the battlefield to select all the

units within the virtual box that this creates.

• Ctrl + A selects every unit in your army.

• Ctrl + B selects every artillery unit in your army.

• Ctrl + M selects every missile unit in your army.

• Ctrl + H selects every hand-to-hand unit in your army.

• Select a unit, and hold down the Alt key. Right click on the battlefield at the location you want the unit to face. You’ll then see it re-arrange its ranks to point in this new direction.

• Select a unit and hold down the Alt key and left click on a destination on the battlefield. The unit will move to this new position without changing its facing.

GENERALS IN BATTLE

The commanding general can be recognised instantly by the square banner carried by his unit. His is the most important unit in any battle, as his presence is often an inspiration to nearby friendly forces. If he should break and run away, or be captured or killed, there is a tremendous penalty to the morale of the whole force.

While a general is useful from a morale point of view, his personal unit is often composed of very good fighters, so there’s a tactical trade-off to be made: committing a general to a fight may well win that part of a battle, but it will put his life at risk.

OTHER BASIC CONTROLS

• The ESCape key gives you the option of ending the battle prematurely.

You always lose a

battle that you quit

. The computer then calculates the result of the battle taking into account troop numbers and quality, but ignores any tactical skill that you would have brought to the battle.

• The P key or pause command pauses the battle, should you need to do something less

interesting for a couple of minutes! While the game is paused all the other controls still work, so you can continue to issue orders to your troops, move the camera and so forth.

• The F1 key brings up an order of battle report, showing a detailed status of each of your units in the battle. Press F1 again to see if you achieved the victory conditions for the battle. Press F1 for a third time to dismiss the report. Pressing F1 does not pause the game.

• Press F2 to capture a screenshot of the battle. The screenshot will be found in the TGAs sub-directory of the

Medieval: Total War

directory on your PC.

THE ART OF COMMAND

This section covers some of the more advanced commands used in battle. For the most part, these are all to do with the way units are

organised

rather than what they do, and with

collecting units together into groups.

ALTERNATE ATTACKS

Most missile troops are capable of fighting in hand-to-hand combat, even if they aren’t usually very good at in-close fighting. There are a few units such as Byzantine Cavalry and Janissaries that can both use missile weapons and fight in close combat reasonably well.

• Select a unit and left click on a target to make it carry out its primary attack, which is usually a missile attack of some sort.

• Select a unit and press the Alt key and left click on a target to make it carry out its secondary (melee) attack.

52 53

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ADVANCED GENERALSHIP

This section covers the more advanced features of controlling your army. Given the way the technology tree works in the full campaign, you’ll probably be able to fight several battles before you need to master the ideas in this section.

ARTILLERY

Artillery units are slightly different from other unit types in the game. Each unit has two subcomponents: a single artillery piece, and the crew who serve it.

Once positioned on the battlefield, artillery pieces cannot move. Some can rotate to target units, fortifications, or buildings, but the truly enormous artillery units are also almost fixed in their firing directions too. There is a bit of leeway for their fire, but it’s a limited ‘cone’ extending away from them – potential targets outside the cone cannot be hit.

• When deploying artillery for a siege make sure you place it at a spot where the castle is in range! Emplace the artillery piece by selecting it and clicking a location, and then move the cursor over the castle walls and towers. If the cursor arrow is red, the artillery can’t shoot that far and you’ll need to place it closer to the target.

• Left click on the artillery piece or its information panel to select it. Any subsequent left

click with the artillery selected must be on a target, as the artillery piece cannot move. Ctrl + B is a shortcut to select all the artillery units in your army.

• The information panel for an artillery piece shows its

crew complement

, not the number

of artillery pieces. In all other respects, it is the same as every other panel.

• You can also left click on the crew. This selects them and not the artillery piece; they can be moved and ordered to attack in the same way as any other unit in the game. You may wish to do this to get the crew away from enemy units, because if they are killed the artillery piece is useless.

• The crew of an artillery piece are the only people who can operate it. Other units (including other artillery crews) cannot use an artillery piece. If the crew are reduced in number it will take them longer to reload their artillery piece.

• An artillery piece can be ‘destroyed’ on the battlefield and rendered useless. However, unless all the crew are killed as well, they will be able to carry out repairs after the battle, assuming that you are victorious. They will return the unit to working order for the next battle.

• Ctrl + C selects every cavalry unit in your army.

• Ctrl + double (left) click selects all the units of the identical type in your army, e.g. all the

Ghulam cavalry.

• You can treat these selected units as a single unit and issue movement or attack orders in the usual fashion.

• You can deselect units by pressing the return or enter key.

• When multiple units are selected and given a formation changing-order, they will all obey.

• Selected units can also be semi-permanently grouped into ‘super units’ or divisions within your army.

GROUPING

When more than one unit is selected they can be grouped together using the group button or the G key.

• Grouped units’ information panels are moved to the right hand end of the information panel display, and a grey bar appears above them.

• Left clicking on this grey bar will select all the units in a group. They can then be issued orders as usual.

• You can assign a selected group an identifying number by pressing Ctrl + shift + number 0- 9 (main keyboard). To instantly return to this group press Ctrl + assigned number.

• Groups can also be issued orders to adopt specific formations, as described below.

GROUP FORMATIONS

Formations can be very useful in getting the best out of units. No unit in

Medieval: Total

War

is unbeatable (although after facing a unit of elite Royal Knights, you may not believe this is true!), and by grouping them and then using an appropriate formation units can ‘cover’ for each other’s weaknesses.

When a group has been created you can order the units in that group to adopt an overall formation using the group formations button/command (Ctrl + P keys). This brings up a new set of buttons that allow you to order specific kinds of formations. Each button shows the arrangement of units that it orders.

• The 1 through 9 keys (main keyboard) are shortcuts for these formations. We recommend

that you experiment with the formations to discover which ones best suit your playing style and favourite mix of units in battle.

• When you issue a group formation order, the selected units are automatically grouped,

if this hasn’t already been done.

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• Killing prisoners means that you can’t ransom them back after the battle. Your general (and your faction leader) could also gain a certain reputation for ruthlessness and cruelty…

ROYALTY IN BATTLE

Any unit lead by a member of royalty is usually recognisable by its type: Royal Knights, Boyars, Ghulam Bodyguards, or Sipahi of the Porte (depending on the faction involved).

In the full campaign game attempting to kill or capture royalty can be a good strategy to pursue, as this weakens the long-term survival prospects of the whole faction. It’s also a strategy that can be employed against your units and royal family.

SIEGES, CASTLES AND BUILDINGS

Castles and forts can be attacked during a battle and demolished by artillery fire. They are divided up into areas by curtain walls and inner defences including internal gates. The number of areas depends on the castle’s size and upgrades.

• Walls, towers and gates can be targeted by artillery. Select an artillery unit or group of artillery units and then left click on the castle section you want to be attacked. These sections are all treated as separate structures in the game, and damage done to one part of a castle does not transfer to any other parts.

• Each hit by artillery does damage, and when a tower or wall has taken 100% damage, it will collapse. Any units standing behind the structure may take casualties as it collapses on top of them!

• Fortifications have armaments ‘built in’ to them, and their inherent garrisons will fire at attackers until they are destroyed.

• Fortifications will stop firing at attackers once the area they ‘belong’ to within the castle has fallen to the attackers.

• Melee units can attack castle gates and force them open, but this may be a costly business in terms of casualties. Artillery can also target a gate and force it to open.

Any other building on a battlefield can be attacked by artillery or through a melee attack. While satisfying to do, it will probably have absolutely no effect on the battle’s outcome!

REINFORCEMENTS

Where there are more than 16 units in a province (perhaps because there is more than one army or an army and a castle garrison) some units will be available during the battle as

reinforcements

• All reinforcements are brought onto the battlefield by pressing the reinforcements button.

You’ll then be told how many extra units are available and how many are ready to enter the battle (it takes a little time for reinforcements to reach you).

• During battle all reinforcements will appear at the edge of the battle map and then march towards the large flag in your initial set up area. You can reposition this flag as often as you want as the battle develops by clicking on the assembly point flag button.

• As soon as units are on the battlefield they are entirely under your command and can be issued orders like any of your other units.

• Reinforcements can only appear when there is a ‘slot’ available for them in your army. Remember that you can only have 16 units in an army at any one time. You can force weakened or broken units to rout (using the rout command) to create space in the army for reinforcements.

REINFORCEMENTS BEFORE A BATTLE

If you have more than 16

units

in a region – and this means that you must have at

least two

armies

in a region – you can alter the initial line up of your army before

the battle starts.

• Select the unit you wish to remove, and then click on the Replace Unit button at the top of the screen. The first unit in the ‘pool’ of reinforcements will then replace the selected unit. The selected unit is then added to the pool of reinforcements.

• You can repeatedly replace the selected unit to cycle through the complete replacement pool.

• You can replace artillery with a reinforcement unit, but there isn’t much point in the long run. Artillery units can’t move on the battlefield, so an artillery unit left in the reinforcement pool will never appear on the battlefield.

PRISONERS

As your units attack they not only kill the enemy but also take battlefield prisoners. Once an enemy army starts to break you’ll find that the opposing men are far more likely to surrender than fight on to the bitter end.

• When you start taking captives, the kill prisoners button appears above the leftmost unit information panel. The number on the button is the current number of prisoners that your men have taken.

• Press the kill prisoners button at any time to put your captives to the sword. It may be a good idea to do this if you are losing the battle, as they will escape and be able to fight against you again.

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• Left click on

Attacker

Defender

to change the basic posture of the faction. By default,

you’ll see that the system sets up attackers and defenders alternately.

When you’re happy with all your changes, left click on

to move on to the next stage:

choosing a battlefield.

BATTLEFIELD CONDITIONS

Here, you get to set up the physical conditions and ‘look’ of the battlefield.

• Left click on any map name to select that map. This choice sets the overall shape of the

land, not the vegetation or building style. The scroll bar at the left will move you up and down the list to see more maps. The left and right arrows below the list will load in a new subset of names if required. Extra maps that you’ve created with the map editor or downloaded from the Internet will be shown on this list.

• The scrolling view will show you the general landscape of the battlefield, and give you an idea of the terrain. It will not show you any seasonal changes or weather effects.

• The time limit can be set from 5-60 minutes, or no time limit, by left clicking on the left and right arrows.

• Left click on the tick box next to a season to change the weather probabilities. The weather is never guaranteed to be perfect, but it’s more likely to rain in spring and autumn than high summer. Likewise, in winter it can snow during a battle.

• Left click on the difficulty level of your choice. This will influence how aggressive the CPU players are during the battle.

• Finally, by left clicking on the left and right arrows for Terrain you can choose the environment for your battle. This sets the style for any buildings on the map, and also influences the weather – you’ll only get sandstorms in a desert, for example.

When your choices are finalised, left click

Continue

at the bottom of the screen.

BUYING YOUR FORCES

This screen allows you to choose the forces for each faction in a battle, and customise individual units.

• The faction shields show at a glance the two sides in the battle: attackers and defenders. Above each shield is the budget allocation in florins for that faction. Remember that this is divided equally between all the factions on the same side. Below the shields another number shows the men in that faction’s army. Left click on a faction shield to select units for that faction.

CUSTOM BATTLES

Selecting a

Custom Battle

on the Single Player Menu allows you to create exactly the battle you want to fight. Almost every aspect of a battle can be fine-tuned, saved for the future, played and replayed. Custom battles are an excellent way of learning the game, trying your hand against multiple opponents before venturing online, and testing your tactics against the various factions.

Left click on the return arrow in the bottom left of any parchment or screen to go back to an earlier part of the Custom Battles process.

SELECT ERA

This screen allows you to select a historical period for your battle, and re-use a previous battle configuration that you edited and saved away.

• The top half of the parchment allows you to select a time period for your custom game –

early, high

late

. This will influence the troops that are available for each faction. You’ll be limited to feudal troops in the early period, and only be able to pick gunpowder-related soldiers in the high or late periods, for example.

• The lower half of the parchment allows you to start a new custom battle by left clicking on

New Custom Game

, or you can left click on one of your existing custom games (if there

are any). Click on Use Selected Config to start the custom battle creation process.

You can sort the list of custom battle setups by name or date by left clicking on the appropriate line at the bottom of the screen. You can also delete custom setups from the list as well.

SELECT FACTIONS

This screen allows you to set up the basic parameters of your custom battle.

• Left click in either box beneath the

Florins

header to set a purchasing budget for troops by typing in a new value. Attacking and defending budgets do not have to be identical. This money for defending and attacking ‘sides’ is split equally among all the factions involved.

• Left click on the arrows besides CPU players to set the number of computer-controlled

factions in the battle. You can have up to 8 factions in a battle, including the one that you control. There will always be one human player. As you increase the number of CPU players, a new faction will be added to the list below.

• Left click the small shield on a faction line to select it. You can then click any of the

larger shields to change to that faction. Note that a faction can only appear once in any custom battle.

• Left click in the box on a faction line, and type in a new name for the faction if you want.

Changing the in-game name of a faction doesn’t change the troops it will be able to field. For example, an English army renamed to be “The Knights of the Round Table” will still be English.

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• Historical Campaigns: Choose this option to fight a sequence of battles illustrating the career

of a famous general, the course of a war, or even the onslaught of the Golden Horde! Not all the battles and campaigns in this section are available from the start of play – battles late in a campaign are locked until victory in earlier battles has been achieved.

HISTORICAL BATTLES

The

Historical Battles

screen is divided into three main sections. In each section, left click

on the relevant scroll bar or on the arrowheads to move up and down through a list, see more of the text or look at the rest of the units in your army. Each battle is presented from the point of view of one army – you can’t choose sides in an historical battle.

• The top section allows you to choose a battle from the list. Left click on the battle you

want to fight. You’ll be told the difficulty of the battle at this point.

• The text description sets the scene for the battle, and also tells you how to win. It will include the victory conditions for the battle, and these may include more than just killing or capturing enemy soldiers.

• Finally, the row of boxes at the bottom of the screen shows your units for the battle. The picture shows the type of troops in each unit, while the number in the top right corner of a box is the unit’s

valour

. A unit shown with a white banner that has a star is the

general’s unit. The number below the star is the general’s

command

rating.

When you’re happy with your choice of battle, left click on the

Fight Battle

notice at the bottom

of the screen. The Battle system will then start and you’ll be put in charge of your army.

Left click the arrow in the bottom left corner of any screen or press the ESCape key to return to the previous menu.

HISTORICAL CAMPAIGNS

The

Historical Campaigns

screen is divided into three sections. In each section, left click

on the scroll bar to move up and down through a list or see more of the text.

• The top section allows you to choose a campaign. Left click on the name of the campaign you want to fight. The portrait(s) will change to show you the commander(s) of the army you are about to lead. You can’t choose sides in a campaign – this has been done for you.

• The middle section shows you the battles that make up a particular historical campaign. Battles that you can fight are shown in black text. Any that are temporarily locked are shown greyed out. Generally speaking, you have to complete the first battle on the list in order to be able to play the second, and so on. The result of battles that you already attempted will be shown on a list here when appropriate. Left click on any battle shown in black to select it.

• The third section is a text description of the campaign. This is an overview of the political and military situation at the time and gives you the context for the battles that you’re about to fight.

Left click on

Reset Progress

to restart the selected campaign. Any battles that you’ve unlocked will be relocked at this point. Resetting progress in one campaign will have no effect on other campaigns that you may also be playing through.

• The three silhouettes allow you to look at the

infantry, cavalry

and

artillery

available to a

faction. Left click on the type of units that you wish to see, and the individual unit pictures immediately below will change.

• The unit pictures show the forces of a given type available to a faction in the time period you selected for your custom battle. Note that each faction has a slightly different collection of units available to it.

• Left click on a unit picture to add it to the army boxes at the bottom of the screen. As you move the cursor over an unit picture, you’ll be told what the unit is and how much it costs in florins. This cost includes modifications for improved valour, weapons and armour if appropriate.

• Any faction army can have a maximum of 16 units in its army in a custom battle.

Note

that the first unit selected for an army is always led by the general

. You might want to be careful with your first selection for a custom battle to avoid having a general in charge of an inferior unit.

• You can change the

valour, weapon

quality and

armour

quality of a unit before or after it

is selected by left clicking the appropriate left and right arrows. If you change any of these values, it or they remain changed for any subsequent units you purchase. Improving the quality of a unit can get very expensive, particularly when you wish to buy extremely high quality soldiers!

• Left click any unit already in one of the 16 boxes at the bottom of the screen if you wish

to select it. You can then modify its

valour, weapon

and

armour

quality as you wish, but

at a cost in florins.

• Right click on a unit in one of the 16 boxes if you wish to remove it from the army. Its

cost is refunded to the budget.

Remember that you

don’t

have to spend the full budget for an army, and an army

doesn’t

need 16 units. These are maximums, not requirements.

We’d recommend that you always save your Custom Battle before taking to the battlefield by left clicking Save Custom Battle Configuration.

Once you’re happy with the armies, left click

Ready

at the bottom of the screen to launch

your new custom game. Let battle commence!

HISTORICAL BATTLES AND CAMPAIGNS

As noted earlier, selecting

Single Player

on the Main Menu of the game gives you four

options for play. The last two of these options are:

• Historical Battles: Choose this option to fight a single, set-piece battle from medieval

times. There’s a selection of battles included in with

Medieval: Total War

, and you can download extra battles from the website. You can fight these battles in any order and as often as you like, and they can be very useful in learning the tricks and tactics of medieval command. They will also give you the chance to command some of the factions that are not playable in the main campaign game.

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PLAY ON GAMESPY

If you have a GameSpy ID this will enable you to battle straight away with up to three other players on the Internet. In order to play you will need a 56 Kbps or faster modem connection.

Enter the e-mail address, online name and password you used to register with GameSpy and type in the CD key code that can be found in the original packaging. After clicking on

Continue

you will then be logged on to GameSpy. Select from the following options:

CHAT ROOMS

This screen will only appear if there are enough players online at the time to need a second chat room.

• Click on

Chat Rooms

to enter the Chat Rooms screen. There is a table at the top of the screen containing the available chat rooms and another at the bottom where the messages are displayed. By default you join the chat room at the top of the list.

• To move between chat rooms simply select the one you wish to enter and click on the

Join Chat Room

button at the bottom of the screen.

• The lower half of the screen is the chat window itself. On the right-hand side is the

Room

Playerlist

section where you can choose whether to direct your message to all players, just your game allies, or send a private message to any one of the other players by clicking on them.

• The person or group you are chatting to is highlighted and displayed with the cursor in the chat box along the bottom of the screen.

• The space is divided into two halves – the upper half displays all general messages and the lower half displays just the private messages.

• You can exit the chat room at any time by left clicking on the return arrow in the bottom left of the parchment. This will return you to the GameSpy menu. Alternatively click on the Internet Games button to go straight to the Internet Games screen.

INTERNET GAMES

Click on

Internet Games

to see the Internet Games screen.

• If there are any

Medieval: Total War

Internet games being hosted by other players these

will appear here.

• Select one and click on the Join Game button to join it and then work through the Customise Armies screen. This screen functions in exactly the same way as the Custom Battle screen. See the relevant section of this manual.

• To host your own Internet game click on the Host Game button to enter the Host Game Options screen. See

LAN Game/Host Game Options

for more details.

When you are happy with your choices of campaign and battle, left click on

Re-enact This

Battle

at the bottom of the screen.

The

Battle

screen gives you a scrolling view of the battlefield, the commanders involved, a short description of how the battle came to be fought, and details of your army. Click on the scroll bar at the left to see more text.

• The text description will include the victory conditions for the battle. Make sure you

understand these, as killing or capturing enemy soldiers may be only part of what you have to do – and a small part at that. For example, if you are told to destroy particular units or take a particular piece of ground, you won’t win no matter how many of the enemy die beneath your soldiers’ swords.

• Units in your army are displayed at the bottom of the screen. The unit picture shows you

the type(s) of troops you’ll have at your command.

• The number in the top right hand corner of each box is the valour of the unit, and this is

a good indication of their fighting quality. Any value above zero indicates experienced soldiers; units with values higher than one are exceptionally tough-minded soldiers.

• The unit with a white banner that has a star and a number on it is the unit lead by the

general in this battle. It will usually be a superior unit type or have a good valour rating.

• Left click on either of the arrowheads to the left of your units to see the rest of your army.

When you’ve finished reviewing your force, click on

Fight Battle

at the bottom of the screen.

This will take you into the

Medieval: Total War

Battle system to command your troops!

As always, left clicking on the go-back arrow in the bottom left hand corner of any screen or pressing the ESCape key will return you to the previous menu or selection screen.

After the battle, you are given an after-action report, and offered three options:

• Re-fight this battle: Click on this option if you lost the battle and want to have another

chance at attaining victory. You can also do this, of course, to beat your previous results even if you won!

• Return to the Main Menu: This takes you out of the historical campaigns part of the game.

Your progress to date is automatically saved.

• Fight a new battle: Return to the

Historical Campaigns

screen and select a new battle. If you won, it’s likely that you will have unlocked one of the battles – or possibly a whole campaign – listed on that screen.

MULTIPLAYER GAMES

Selecting the Multiplayer option from the Main Menu enables you to play

Medieval: Total

War

against living, breathing opponents (notice that we’re not necessarily promising you

human

opponents here). The game supports up to eight players over a Local Area Network (LAN) and up to four players over the Internet. The Multiplayer menu also contains all the options you need to register on-line through www.gamespyid.com and check out the latest news and features on www.totalwar.com.

Once you have selected Multiplayer from the Main Menu you are presented with five options:

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• Finally, you can specify the environment for your battle: the season and the general vegetation/climate. This also determines the style of building architecture.

• Click on

Continue

when you have finished making your selections. This will take you to

the

Multiplayer Lobby

As always, you can return to the previous menu by clicking on the back arrow in the bottom left corner or by pressing the ESCape key.

JOIN GAME OPTIONS

If another player on the LAN has already hosted a game you can join by clicking on

Join

Game

. You will then be taken to the Multiplayer Lobby.

MULTIPLAYER LOBBY

The Multiplayer Lobby is where you decide which of the playable factions you will use, whether you will be attacker or defender and the name of your army. You will also be able to chat to the other players across the LAN through the chat function.

• Your name for a game defaults to your PC’s network ID. Left click on this and type in a new name if you wish.

• Left click on one of the shields in the top right-hand corner of the screen to select your faction.

• You can choose to be an attacker or defender. All players making the same choice are (initially) on the same side and are allies. It is, of course, always possible that a general will not honour his alliances…

• The lobby screen also includes a chat area with the same functionality as the chat screens already discussed.

• When all players have made their choices the message

Waiting For Players

will change to

. Click on this to progress to the

Customise Armies

screen.

• You can exit to the

LAN Game Selection

screen at any time by clicking on the Exit button.

CHECK GAMESPY FOR MEDIEVAL: TOTAL WAR UPDATES

This option gets any

Medieval: Total War

updates or patches, shutting down the game if necessary to download and restarting it afterwards. If this occurs you will be returned to the Main Menu and will be logged off GameSpy.

LOG OFF

Click on this to return to the

Medieval: Total War

Main Menu.

If you don’t already have a GameSpy ID this option will take you to www.gamespyid.com to enable you to get one. You will need to specify a working email address, online name and password. Keep a note of both, as they will be needed to play

Medieval: Total War

online.

LAN GAME

Medieval: Total War

allows up to eight people to play over a Local Area Network (LAN). In order to do this you will need your PC s linked by a TCP/IP compliant network and a legitimate copy (installed with a different CD-key for each) of

Medieval: Total War

for every

player/PC taking part.

• Clicking on the

LAN Game

option opens up the LAN Game Selection screen. Here you can play host to or join another’s battle scenario. You can exit the LAN Game option at any time by clicking the

Exit

button.

• The

Host Game Options

screen allows you to specify all the parameters needed to set up

a LAN battle.

HOST GAME OPTIONS

This screen sets up all the starting conditions for a battle you are hosting:

• On the left of the screen is a vertical list of maps within

Medieval: Total War

. Left click on

a map name to select it. The map name will then appear on the panoramic view.

• Enter a name for the battle in the

Server Name

field. You can enter a

password

in the field below if you wish, although it is not essential. Next you can set the number of players (up to a total of eight players including the host) and finally the amount of florins that are available for each player to spend on troops, up to 99,999.

• Left click on the arrows at the bottom right-hand side to select the era in which you want

to play.

• The default game type is

Last Man Standing

, where the last player on the battle field

wins. If the time limit runs out then the team with the most valour points wins the battle.

• You can also specify a time limit for the battle: 5-60 minutes or no time limit.

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APPENDIX 1: UNITS

There are over 100 different unit types in

Medieval: Total War

and although they all have different strengths and weaknesses, they can be organised into general categories or classes of soldier.

SPEARMEN

Spearmen are the defensive backbone of an army, as they can fend off most cavalry attacks from the front – no horse will ever willingly charge into a wall of spear points. With the front two ranks able to fight, spearmen can also be a useful offensive force too. Pikemen are even better, as even longer spears allow the front four ranks to fight at the same time.

MISSILE

For the most part missile troops are armed with bows and arrows, although the quality of these weapons varies tremendously. All of these troops are best used to kill enemies at a distance. Some can fight well in hand-tohand combat, but this is only a last resort or to ‘ambush’ an enemy from behind!

SKIRMISHERS

A sub-category of missile troops, these units are generally well able to look after themselves in combat against lightweight enemies. Heavy cavalry and infantry will roll right over them, but the dual ability to fire and then close and attack in a melee makes these forces useful in many situations.

INFANTRY

Infantry here is a catchall term for the men-at-arms and warriors who are the backbone of most armies. They have no particular strengths, but no appalling weaknesses either.

HEAVY INFANTRY

These units are heavily armed, armoured and slow compared to their contemporaries, but their job is not to chase down the enemy. Their job is to cut the enemy to pieces, and at this they are almost unmatched. These troops are the experts at hard, bloody assaults. When equipped with polearms, they can also reduce cavalry units to so much dog food!

PEASANTS

Peasant class units are not very tough, nor are they likely to stand for long when things start going wrong. They are, however, cheap to build and they appear early in the game before the infrastructure to train better units has been constructed. Not all ‘peasants’ are equally bad though. Irish Kerns and eastern European Woodsmen can be surprisingly effective as long as they aren’t thrown into head-on attacks. The militia units have better equipment and training, but shouldn’t be relied upon to fight as well as professional soldiers.

CUSTOMISE LAN ARMIES

The

Customise Armies

screen contains all the units available to your chosen faction in your specified era. Displayed at the top of the screen is the faction shield of your chosen faction, your faction name, your player name and the amount of florins available to you to spend on your army.

This screen functions in exactly the same way as the

Custom Battle

screen. See the

relevant section of this manual.

MEDIEVAL: TOTAL WAR WEBSITE

This option minimises

Medieval: Total War

and launches your internet browser, linking to

www.totalwar.com, where you can get news, features and downloads connected with

Medieval: Total War

and other games in the

Total War

series.

MEDIEVAL: TOTAL WAR NEWS SERVER

Connect directly to the

Medieval: Total War

online news server from within the game for upto-the-minute news and bulletins. Related messages will be displayed in the top half of the screen. Click on one and its text will be displayed in the lower half of the screen.

Medieval_Total_War_Manual.qxd 1/19/06 3:12 PM Page 66

APPENDIX 2: CONTROLS & KEYS

Key Campaign/Front End Command

Left Select an army, fleet, agent or province. mouse Click and drag to move armies and agents. button

Right Call up information parchments on any army, fleet, mouse province, fleet, castle, building or agent. button

ENTER or End yearly turn. RETURN Closes a message parchment when one is visible.

ESC Back to a previous screen or menu in the front end or

campaign game.

SHIFT Shows the current loyalty of all your provinces by

highlighting them all in appropriate colours:

• Green: fully loyal.

• Yellow: marginally disloyal, but unlikely to rebel.

• Red: very disloyal, and highly likely to rebel soon,

if it hasn’t happened already!

M Merge units when

army

selected.

Merge armies when

province

selected.

numeric

Zoom in on campaign map.

pad

numeric

Zoom out on campaign map.

pad

Mousewheel

Zoom on campaign map, move up and down lists on information parchments

SPACE Bypasses tour of yearly events.

CTRL + A Selects all units in the review panel.

Commands and keys for the Battle game can be found by selecting Controls on the in-game Options Menu.

HEAVY CAVALRY

All of these troops are primarily intended to do one thing: attack and defeat enemies using shock as their primary weapon. Heavy cavalry are at their best when they can charge into an attack, but deciding when to order a charge can be a tricky business – give the order too soon and your units will become exhausted too soon. But simply committing them to a charge may not be the best tactic, particularly against spearmen. A flanking or rear attack can be far deadlier! There can also be problems in holding back some of these troops, as the more ‘noble’ ones are often

impetuous

in battle and eager

for glory.

Kataphraktoi are some of the heaviest cavalry the world has ever known and while slow can have a tremendous impact when they do charge home!

LIGHT CAVALRY

Light cavalry are intended to act as a screen, to ride down lightly armed enemies and to pursue a beaten foe from the field – killing and capturing as many enemies in the process as possible. They are also extremely useful against fast opposition, and can keep horse archers away from slower, more vulnerable troops. They cannot – and really should not – expect to hold their own against heavy cavalry.

HORSE ARCHERS

Horse archers are the best harassing troops available, able to pepper an enemy with missile fire and then, hopefully, withdraw before any counter-attack can be executed. This harass-withdrawal-harass cycle can be repeated as often as necessary to wear down the enemy and break up his formation. Horse archers shouldn’t really get involved in melee, except in selfdefence and possibly when pursuing a broken enemy off the field. Spanish Jinettes and Byzantine Cavalry are exceptions to this general rule, and are competent attackers.

ARTILLERY

Artillery pieces cannot move during a battle, so positioning them properly from the start is vital. If besieging a castle, they need to be within range of the defences, but not so close that they can be attacked by fire from towers. In a defensive field battle, they need to be placed so that there is a ‘beaten zone’ that the enemy will have to cross. On the attack, tempting the enemy into coming into the ‘beaten zone’ of artillery fire is always a good tactic in an army that includes artillery, along with light cavalry or horse archers to act as goads.

GUNPOWDER

As a sub-category of missile troops, handguns have all the utility you would expect. They can be terrifying to enemies unused to them, but they are also useless in wet weather, when powder simply cannot be kept dry.

As with other artillery pieces, positioning guns on the battlefield is the key to success. Guns are quite effective during castle storming attempts and can do tremendous damage to attacking forces in other battles. Positioning them properly is the key to success, so that the enemy have few options but to come into range. Like other gunpowder weapons, they are useless in wet weather.

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Terrain: The campaign map shows the battle terrain that you can expect your armies to fight in quite accurately. If you invade across a province border that has mountains, any battle you fight there will be on mountainous terrain and the defender may well have a big positional advantage. Wherever possible, be aware of the easy routes for an invader to take, across flat or gently rolling countryside and either use or guard them well.

Beside the seaside: A province with a coastline can be more valuable than an equivalent landlocked one. By building a port (and then fleets of ships in a chain of sea regions) any traders in a coastal province can sell their goods to many people in distant lands, earning a large amount of money in the process. Ports and fleets also let you move agents and armies around quickly.

Executive action: A single knife in the hands of an assassin can do more damage than a thousand swords – when it is plunged into the right target! Assassinating a general paralyses his army; assassinating a king paralyses the whole country!

Money: Keep an eye on your income, as it’s easy to run out of money. There’s a lot to spend your money on: troop maintenance costs, new buildings, new units, bribes, ransoms, and crusades.

Princesses: Even if no one wants to marry a princess, keep her 'on tour', as she acts as a spy in the province she occupies. This can be very useful for picking the route your invading army will eventually take through someone else's kingdom!

Tax: Don't set a blanket tax rate across your entire kingdom. Take the time to use tax to keep people just loyal enough that they won't revolt.

Titles and Offices: At the start of the game look at every unit leader you have and give titles to the men with the highest Acumen. Make single unit armies if necessary to make sure the right man gets the title when you drop it onto an army. A governor with high acumen boosts the income from his province, and you need all the cash you can get at the start of play. Don't worry too much at this stage whether these men are great combat leaders; later you can strip these men of their titles, assassinate them to prevent a rebellion (just in case) and give the title to a high-ranking general whose loyalty is important! Ruthless? Perhaps, but very medieval…

Raids: It can be quite profitable to conquer an enemy province, destroy every building in it, get the payment for destroying the buildings, and then abandon the province. Often, the enemy will move back in and start rebuilding. Invade again to repeat this profitable ‘smash and grab’ operation once they’ve done the reconstruction work! The English specialised in just this tactic, - called a chevauchée – during the Hundred Years War against France.

Spying: Any agent (even a princess) can be used to gather information in enemy provinces, while watchtowers act as spies into neighbouring provinces. The longer you leave an agent in a province the more information he will gather.

HINTS AND TIPS

Good leaders leave as little as possible to chance, so here are a few important points to consider as you embark upon your conquests in medieval Europe:

Defend Provinces: Always keep a group of units in each province bordering enemy lands otherwise aggressive forces may well take it away from you. Provinces are the only thing that brings in money, so you can’t afford to lose too many of them. Some provinces you can’t afford to lose at all, so decide where you need to ‘draw a line in the sand’ and hang on to your rich provinces. You also need to defend provinces to attain some of the Glorious Objectives in the game. Remember: Land

equals

Money

equals

Army Pay!

Loyalty: Keep an eye on the loyalty of your subjects or they may revolt. To quickly see how

loyal your provinces are, hold down one of the Shift keys. Each province is highlighted in a colour showing how it feels towards your rule. Green provinces are loyal, yellow provinces are wavering, but red provinces are distinctly disloyal and ready for a rebellion. Don’t be afraid to drop the tax rate in an individual province to make its peasants more loyal for a while, and remember that moving troops into a disloyal province will forcibly increase their loyalty.

Watch Your Generals: Keep an eye on generals, especially those with many troops and high command ratings and/or royal blood. These are the men who can become ringleaders in a civil war if they aren’t very loyal. Give them provincial titles and offices of state, or drop a princess on them to offer them marriage into the royal family. All of these help to keep generals loyal, but if this doesn’t work sometimes you have to be ruthless. Drop an emissary on a general to strip his titles. Drop an inquisitor on a Catholic general with low piety to try him for heresy and (hopefully) send him to the stake (remember to move any bishops out of the province first). Drop an assassin on him to kill him and stop a civil war before it starts. It hurts to do this to your own side, but threats have to be countered.

Spy on Your Own Side: Drop spies on generals to find out their dirty little secrets. You don’t want to make a foully corrupt general governor of your richest province!

Provincial Specialisation: Some provinces on the map excel in producing certain types of units – Switzerland, for example, produces very good spearmen and pikemen. The province descriptions will give you details. There are also a few units that can only be trained in specific provinces: Bulgarian Brigands come - as you might just suspect from the name – from Bulgaria and nowhere else. Sometimes, it can be worth conquering a province just to train these specialised or superior troops.

Faction Advantages: Some factions have their own specialist units that only they can train, such as the English and their famous longbowmen. If you’re playing a faction, make the most of its specialist troops. If you’re fighting against a faction, pay attention to their special troops, and learn how to defeat them early on. There are no unbeatable units in the game, but you do need to adjust tactics in the face of a new threat.

Holy Men: Holy men can act as powerful stabilising forces in your provinces. Sent into enemy provinces, they can act as spies and start converting the population to your religion as well! This can mean an enemy province is likely to suffer a religious revolt.

Medieval_Total_War_Manual.qxd 1/19/06 3:12 PM Page 70

Project Director

Mike Simpson

PROGRAMMING: Lead Programmer

A.P. “Tag” Taglione

Battle Logic & AI

R.T. Smith

FE Core, Strategy Map UI and Infrastructure

Shane O’Brien

Multiplayer, FE, Castle AI

Gil Jaysmith

Historical Campaigns, FE, Agents, Mercs

Dan Parkes

Strategy MAP AI

Ting Li

Fleets, Glory Goals and Tutorial

Matteo Sartori

VnV’s & Heroes

Mike Simpson

Battle Tutorials & Pathfinding

Dan Triggs

Battle UI

John McFarlane

Events & Installation

Melvyn Quek

Core Code

The Shogun Team

Art: UI Graphics & Maps

Joss Adley

Battle Graphics, Textures & Maps

Howard Rayner

Event & PR Drawings, Textures & Maps

Nick Smith

Portraits, PR Art & Strategy Map

Ester Reeve

Glory Art & Buildings

Irina Rohvarger

Portraits, Textures & Maps

Greg Alston

Design

Mike Simpson and the Whole Team

Writing

Mike Brunton

Producer

Luci “Loki” Black

Product Evangelist

Michael de Plater

Executive Producer

Tim Ansell

Supporting Roles: QA Manager

Graham Axford

Testers

Jeff Woods James “Azimoth” Buckle Chris Morphew

Intro & PR Art

Alistair Hope Jude Bond

Programming

Richard Broadhurst (FLE) Dan Laviers

Manual

Mike Brunton

Webmaster

Richie “Web Dad” Skinner

PR & Marketing

Ian “Sorry to be a pest, but….” Roxburgh Cathy Campos, Panache PR

Tools

Richard Broadhurst (FLE) Mark Milton Nick Tresadern

Additional Content

Tim Ansell Ross Manton

Assistant Producer & Catering

Chris Gambold

Consultant on Muslim Culture:

Kaushar Tai, Chairman of the Inter-Faith Council

Disbanding units: Remember that any unit you disband may no longer cost you money, but it hasn’t completely disappeared from the game. It becomes a company of mercenaries and is available for hire by anyone with the cash. Be careful if you decide to get rid of a high valour unit – it could end up working for your enemies!

Castles: Large castles are not only defensive structures. They are the driving force behind your war machine and economy. Build your first castles where they will bring the maximum benefit: provinces with a large basic farm income that needs protecting, or where there are special benefits such as trade goods, iron deposits or specialist local troops.

Coup d’etat: Civil wars need not necessarily be a bad thing. If you have a particularly weak faction leader with a poor collection of heirs, it is possible to drive down the loyalty of your most powerful general in the hope that he will start a civil war and lead others in a rebellion. Remove his offices and titles, give him an enormous army to command, and wait for the revolution. If it happens, back the rebels rather than the current king!

Breeding: Good breeding, allegedly, tells. But more important to a successful royal line is fast breeding. Make sure your heirs are married! If foreign princesses don’t beat a path to your door, make sure you send emissaries to find them and propose marriage. That way, you have a much better chance of a king having the ‘heir and spare’ when they are needed at his death.

Artillery Emplacements: When deploying your army pay attention to where you place artillery, mechanical and gunpowder both. Once these are in place they can’t be moved, so you need to make sure that they are in the right place from the start of the battle. When besieging a castle make sure your artillery is close enough to actually hit the walls!

Killing zones: Artillery units should be set up to cover the likely attack routes of the enemy. Ideally, the enemy should have to approach your army through a killing zone of artillery fire. Even on the attack you can use light cavalry and horse archers to tempt the defenders into moving into artillery range.

Firing into melee: Arrows and artillery fire are no respecters of loyalty. If you order missile fire into a melee involving your own troops expect to take casualties from ‘friendly fire’.

Flanking attacks: Where possible, try to have cavalry units charge into the flank or rear of an enemy unit. This maximises the shock impact of the charge, and means that the cavalry will not start to take heavy casualties until their target can reorganise itself. There’s a good chance that the target unit will not recover from the shock of the initial impact.

Feigned Attack: You can also use the rout command for a feigned retreat. This is a dangerous (but often effective) tactic of pretending to run away to draw the enemy out of a strong position. When they follow, rally and attack! If it goes well, the enemy can be disorganised and cut to pieces; if it goes wrong, there’s little chance of recovering control of your army!

CREATIVE ASSEMBLY

Medieval_Total_War_Manual.qxd 1/19/06 3:12 PM Page 72

LIMITED WARRANTY:

SEGA of America, Inc. warrants to the original consumer purchaser that the game disc or cartridge shall be free from defects in material and workmanship for a period of 90-days from the original date of purchase. If a defect covered by this limited warranty occurs during this 90-day warranty period, the defective game disc or cartridge will be replaced free of charge. This limited warranty does not apply if the defects have been caused by negligence, accident, unreasonable use, modification, tampering, or any other causes not related to defective materials or manufacturing workmanship. This limited warranty does not apply to used software or to software acquired through private transactions between individuals or purchased from online auction sites. Please retain the original, or a photocopy, of your dated sales receipt to establish the date of purchase for in-warranty replacement. For replacement, return the product, with its original packaging and receipt, to the retailer from which the software was originally purchased. In the event that you cannot obtain a replacement from the retailer, please contact Sega to obtain support.

Obtaining technical support/service

To receive additional support, including troubleshooting assistance please contact Sega at:

• Website: www.sega.com/support

• E-mail: support@sega.com

• Telephone: 1-800-USA-SEGA

LIMITATIONS ON WARRANTY

ANY APPLICABLE IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ARE HEREBY LIMITED TO 90 DAYS FROM THE DATE OF PURCHASE AND ARE SUBJECT TO THE CONDITIONS SET FORTH HEREIN. IN NO EVENT SHALL SEGA OF AMERICA, INC., BE LIABLE FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE BREACH OF ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES. THE PROVISIONS OF THIS LIMITED WARRANTY ARE VALID IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA ONLY. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON HOW LONG AN IMPLIED WARRANTY LASTS, OR EXCLUSION OF CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY PROVIDES YOU WITH SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. YOU MAY HAVE OTHER RIGHTS THAT VARY FROM STATE TO STATE.

TO REGISTER THIS PRODUCT, PLEASE GO TO WWW.SEGA.COM

Audio: Music & Sound Effects

Jeff van Dyck (www.dnama.com)

Additional Music

Richard Vaughan Saki Kaskas

Additional Sound Effects

Richard Vaughan Nathan McGuiness Karl Learmont Sam Spanswick

Trumpet Fanfares

Dale Richardson

Special audio thanks to

Living History Australia for running around and screaming Di the camel lady at Bos Camel Farm for making her camels sing

Casting and Voice Production

Philip Morris at AllintheGame Ltd.

Voices

Sean Pertwee, Sulayman Al-Bassam, Boris Sosna, Nadim Sawalha

Audio Scripts

Mike Brunton

Special Thanks

Dr Ken Turner, Gareth Hailes

74 75

Medieval_Total_War_Manual.qxd 1/19/06 3:12 PM Page 74

NOTES

Medieval_Total_War_Manual.qxd 1/19/06 3:12 PM Page 76

Sega PC GAMES MEDIEVAL: TOTAL WAR User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual