Lands to Conquer

Overview

Lands to Conquer is a modification for Medieval II: Total War that focuses mainly on improving and balancing gameplay.

The modification utilises features from Kingdoms: boiling oil, controllable reinforcements and unit balances are all included in Lands to Conquer. The modification also takes advantage of several new possibilities that are able to be modified in the expansion. It also features improved campaign and battle AI.

Lands to Conquer replaces the tutorial and Grand Campaign and instead provides the player with a choice of six campaigns. There are the Early, High and Late Era campaigns that are based on the Grand Campaign map from the Medieval II: Total War and start in 1080, 1210 and 1320 respectively. There are also three regional campaigns based on the Hundred Years War, Italian City States and Reconquista, each with their own unique maps focusing on different parts of Europe.

While it uses the Kingdoms .exe, it does not modify the Kingdoms campaign.

Features

The Campaigns

• The modification features an Early, Late and High Era campaign, each based on the original Grand Campaign map. They each have separate starting dates, starting in 1080, 1210 and 1321 respectively. The factions in each campaign have different starting territories, alliances and military entanglements. Settlement names also vary from Era to Era.
• The modification also features three regional campaigns:
  • Hundred Years War (1337 - 1450) campaign which focuses on England, France and Scotland. The player must, in order to win, hold 20 provinces and is allowed 75 turns to do so. This campaign is designed to be fast-paced and challenging.
  • Reconquista (1146 - 1280) campaign focusing on Spain and the warfare involved between Europeans and the Moors. This campaign is designed with a greater emphasis on religion and longer time-frame in mind. It features the factions of Spain, Portugal and the Moors.
  • Italian City States (1280 - 1450) campaign focuses on Italy featuring the factions of Venice, Milane, the Holy Roman Empire, Sicily, Hungary and the Papal States. It is designed to be the longest campaign, with the Holy Roman Empire being the clear superpower at the beginning of the campaign.

AI

The artificial intelligence in Lands to Conquer has been greatly improved on both the battle map and campaign map. Units have been rebalanced in order to make battles more challenging. Terrain and weather also plays a greater role in strategy.

The campaign AI has been improved and balanced as well. Alliances are now stronger, more functional and more mutually beneficial and the AI factions have a better sense of survivability in terms of diplomacy and surrender. The faction standings mechanic has been changed so that the player is not reduced to always being seen as 'untrustworthy' by other factions. Alliances between Catholic and Islamic factions are now rarer, with religion having a greater impact on unrest.

In terms of strategy, the AI in Lands to Conquer has a better grasp of defending its territory using garrisons and forts. It also handles invasions better than the vanilla AI. AI factions will also be more aggressive against the independent factions, leading to quicker expansion on the part of the AI factions.

Campaign Map

• The campaign map operates on a 1.5 years per turn basis.
• The effect of religion and corruption have been greatly increased.
• Recruitment slots, upkeep and building costs have been balanced to emphasise the difference between cities and castles.]
• More historically accurate province names.

External Links

Lands to Conquer Forum at TWC Release Thread for Lands to Conquer Gold