Medieval 2: Team Co-op Crusades

[Phil Rodrigues]

Hi all,

I am checking interest on a co-operative turn-based computer strategy game. The concept is to play Medieval 2 Total War hotseat via play by email. We will each take one of the central European kingdoms at the start of 1220 AD and wage a Crusade against the heathens.

The players can choose from Denmark, the Teutonic Order, Poland, Hungary, Venice or Genoa (which all share a border with the east). We will team up against the Orthodox, Islamic, Pagan and Heretic kingdoms including Byzantium, Novgorod, Kievian Rus, Lithuania, the Cumans, Suljuk Turks and the Mongol Horde. The goal will be to take as much territory from the heathens as possible while keeping the traditional Western powers of England, France, Germany, Spain, etc at bay.

It will consist of three phases:

1. Testing. I think it all works, but we should get a few people to try and take 10 or so turns and iron out any issues. Matt and I are players one and two, we only need another one or two to start testing.

2. Co-op game. This is a traditional one turn at a time PBEM, so 4 to 6 players at most for sanity. We will play less than 1 turn per day which is a casual pace. I think 100 turns over 4-5 months is realistic, including breaks for holidays.

3. If that is fun we can expand this to PvP where one group of players take the European powers and fight the other group of players who are in control of the Eastern powers.

Medieval 2 Total War was originally released in 2006-07 and is very stable and runs on most systems. We will use the Stainless Steel mod, which is actively supported and adds a lot of depth. I was surprised by how detailed the game world was and how realistic it felt (the computer kicked my butt). Here are links for more info:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/medieval-ii-total-war

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?417435-Stainless-Steel-6-4-Released

Let me know if you are interested in helping us test to see if this is fun.

Phil