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1[[quoteright:256:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Medieval_II_Total_War_pc_9145.jpg]]
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3''Medieval II: Total War'' is the fourth installment in the ''VideoGame/TotalWar'' series of strategy games. Like all the other games in the series, it features a mixture of turn-based strategy on a campaign map and real-time tactics on a battlefield. It is essentially a remake of the original ''VideoGame/MedievalTotalWar'' with updated graphics and the more detailed campaign map introduced in its direct predecessor, ''VideoGame/RomeTotalWar''.
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5As such, the player controls one of many kingdoms in [[TheMiddleAges medieval Europe]], starting in the [[TheHighMiddleAges late 11th century]] (shortly before the First Crusade). The goal is to prevail over ones neighbors and carve out an empire to rival [[AncientRome Rome]]. In addition to the lands covered in the first ''[[VideoGame/MedievalTotalWar Medieval]]'', this game allows the player to discover America and face the mighty Aztec Empire while expanding his kingdom to the New World.
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7An expansion pack, ''Kingdoms'' introduced four new campaigns in addition to the main European one: The Crusades, the British Isles, the Americas and the wars of UsefulNotes/TheTeutonicKnights. These all focus on a smaller area than the main campaign, while providing greater detail.
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9[[foldercontrol]]
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11[[folder:Notable Mods for Medieval II: Total War]]
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13%% I've noticed a lot of game mods have been made for this game - some of them even have their own pages, and thought it might be good to list them. Feel free to add to the list, but make sure to provide a link to the mod in question, and a brief description. Thank you!
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15* ''VideoGame/HyruleTotalWar'': Mod introducing total war to the world of [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Hyrule]] with a DarkerAndEdgier storyline.
16* ''VideoGame/ThirdAgeTotalWar'': Set just before the [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings War of the Ring]], either lead one of the forces of good to march into Mordor and destroy the One Ring, or lead one of the forces of evil to envelop all of Middle Earth in shadow.
17* ''[[VideoGame/{{Thera}} Thera: Legacy of the Great Torment]]'': The Great Torment may have ravaged the world of Thera and reduced all the old kingdoms to ruin, [[AfterTheEnd but nobody said that this was the end]]. Choose from one of many colourful factions to have emerged after the destruction and lead them to world conquest in a LowFantasy world.
18* ''VideoGame/SilmarillionTotalWar'': In contrast to ''Third Age Total War'', ''Silmarillion: Total War'' depicts the First Age of Middle Earth, and is based on the titular ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', and the all-out war that ensued between the Free Peoples and the forces of Morgoth.
19* ''[[http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?314-Stainless-Steel Stainless Steel (Latest Vers. 6.4)]]'': ''Stainless Steel'' greatly expands the scope of the original vanilla campaign, with a longer game and a larger European map. Every existing faction is reworked and re-designed, with new factions such as Aragon, the Kievan Rus and the Knights Templar.
20* ''[[http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?346-Broken-Crescent Broken Crescent (Latest Vers. 2.3)]]'': This mod shifts focus away from Europe and moves into central Asia, from Egypt and Turkey through Gaza and Persia all the way to the far reaches of India, and featuring Muslim, Hindu and Pagan factions with hundreds of new units.
21* ''[[http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?1793-Rule-Britannia-(RB) Rule Britannia (Latest Vers. 1.7)]]'': A reworked and expanded version of the ''Kingdoms: Britannia'' expansion campaign. Featuring a new Danish faction, added mechanics for religion, papal intervention, army supplies and mercenary hire, and over three hundred new scripted events.
22* ''[[http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?293-DarthMod-for-M2TW DarthMod for M2TW (Latest Vers. 1.4)]]'': [=DarthMod=] offers enhanced battle realism along with a smarter and more challenging campaign and battle AI.
23* ''[[http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?1377-Call-of-Warhammer Rage of the Dark Gods (previously Call of Warhammer) (Latest Vers. 1.6 beta)]]'': Global conversion based on TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyBattle setting.
24* ''[[https://www.moddb.com/mods/planetwar-total-war Planet War]]'': A... rather interesting mod that was set in a distant planet in the distant furture, and featured a large scale map consisting of a myriad of dinosaur, robot, and "alien"[[labelnote:read]][[IntercontinuityCrossover Characters from several franchises]] such as ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'', ''Series/{{Teletubbies}}'', ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'', ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'', etc.[[/labelnote]] factions to choose from. Sadly, the mod creator seemingly fell down the alt-right pipeline and turned the mod into what could only be described as a horrifically racist mess. After a [[https://old.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/xprwq2/this_mod_made_me_feel_unclean/?sort=top post on the TotalWar subreddit]] brought this to light (screenshots of the mod are in the comments), the mod was deleted from ModDB.
25* ''[[https://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?1105-The-Elder-Scrolls-Total-War Elder Scrolls: Total War (Latest Vers. 2.0)]]'': This mod is set in the world of [[Franchise/TheElderScrolls Tamriel]], specifically the waning years of the Third Era, [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion just in time for the Oblivion Crisis]]. Version 2.0 adds another campaign set in the [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Fourth Era]], in the backdrop of the Skyrim CivilWar.
26[[/folder]]
27----
28!!This game provides examples of:
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30[[foldercontrol]]
31
32[[folder:#-D]]
33
34* ZeroPercentApprovalRating
35** Conquering the world and committing evil and underhanded actions such as bribery, betraying alliances, assassination, and extermination will cause your faction's reputation to plummet into "despicable". But as this IS Total War, why should you care about what your enemies think about you?
36** Waging long and fruitless wars against factions of the same faith and failing to stay on good terms with your religion can result in an excommunication or crusade/jihad against you.
37* AbsoluteXenophobe: This and its inversion are possible traits for family members, generals, diplomats, merchants, and priests. It either helps or hurts the person's ability to do their job depending on their role. For example, being a xenophobe helps generals kill other races, it hurts business potential for merchants, it makes priests less susceptible to conversion to heresy, and it hurts diplomats' ability to deal with foreign nations.
38* {{Acrofatic}}: You can have a greedy, ugly, cheap pig who loves luxuries (implying fat) and still the general can have enough experience and upgrades to run down entire platoons with ease (it helps that he is ALWAYS the hardest unit to kill in his retinue).
39* ACommanderIsYou: See the main page for a full list.
40* ActionGirl:
41** The Delicate Knife retinue is a princess exclusive retinue that indicates she keeps a knife on her at all times. It raises personal security, [[MenAreTheExpendableGender not that she needs it.]]
42** Furthermore, failed assassination attempts have a chance of giving her the "Brave Woman" trait. It's next level, Dauntless Woman, implies that the princess takes care of her attacker herself.
43** If the Pope has the "Secretly Female" trait, then she can lead armies into battle.
44* AdaptationalHeroism: In the ''Kingdoms'' campaigns, the Teutonic Order and New Spain are both portrayed in faction descriptions and the campaign intros as cruel villains, but there's nothing preventing the player from playing these factions as [[TheGoodKingdom just realms]] characterized by low taxes, chivalrous governors, and mercy to defeated enemies.
45* AerithAndBob: England suffers from this a lot; despite ostensibly starting as Norman and Plantagenet England, you can have members of your royal family with Anglo-Saxon names like Tostig, Morcar and Uhtred well into the 15th Century. It gets even worse when you have a general with a very Anglo-Saxon first name and a very Norman surname, such as "Aelfgar Beaufort". The ''Britannia'' expansion generally averts this, with the curious exception of English lords being named "Alphonso." This one at least is [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] -- during the time period in which the campaign is set, Alphonso was the name of Edward I's heir.
46* AfraidOfBlood: This trait gives the general an "unmanly" reputation and decreases soldier morale. The inversion, love of blood, hurts public order by creeping out the citizens.
47* AgentPeacock: You can have assassins and spies like this or you can have their retinue be like this.
48* AggressiveNegotiations: Can be used to force enemies into a settlement if you start conquering them really quickly.
49* AloofAlly: It is incredibly hard to get an ally to seriously attack a mutual enemy... unless you start a crusade.
50* AlphaBitch: A princess or wife can be so bad, it can drive a city of thousands into rebellion.
51* AlreadyDoneForYou:
52** When someone else finishes a crusade, after you personally head to the city location and find that an ally conquered it (and now they are mad at you for trespassing in their territory without permission).
53** By the time it takes to establish trade with every faction, at least one of them tends to get wiped out while others are so weak it's not worth the effort.
54* AlternateHistory: Pretty much a given for any campaign you play, [[EnforcedTrope campaign victory conditions outright require it]] if playing a faction other than the one that came out on top in said campaign (i.e. any faction other than Spain in the Americas campaign or England in the Britannia one).
55** Most victory conditions for long campaigns include eliminating a chief rival and taking control of particular cities. This usually means the rival faction is eliminated years, if not centuries earlier than real life and your faction of choice conquers lands they never did in real life.
56* AlwaysABiggerFish: No matter how much you build up and how high you are ranked in a category, there is probably a faction ranked higher. Especially in Military and Financial when the Mongols and Timurids arrive.
57* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: See AlwaysABiggerFish.
58* AmazonChaser: The "Brave Woman" line of traits has a princess be bold despite attempts on their lives and its second version even implies she deals with the assassin herself. This raises both Personal Security and Charm.
59* AmbiguouslyEvil: It is pretty easy to make a general like this.
60* AmbiguouslyGay: Another trait and it hurts popularity and fertility.
61* AndShowItToYou: Implied when the followers of the Sun God religion in the Americas campaign decide to kill their prisoners.
62* AnimalAssassin: One possible assassination method is to put a venomous snake in someone's bedroom. Of course, it's always possible that the snake will just leave the room, or worse yet, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard bite the assassin instead]].
63* AnnoyingArrows: It should be noted that it takes skill to use bowmen in Medieval 2 as the arrows are tweaked to do much less damage than in any of the other games in the series. It gets somewhat ridiculous when a peasant walks off the 10th arrow in a row like it was a friendly punch. Nevertheless, the sheer power of their archers gives England an absurd edge over its neighbours, thanks to their longbowmen coupled with reasonably strong cavalrymen and good infantry. See the arrow exploitation in analysis.
64* AntiCavalry:
65** Spears, as in other VideoGame/TotalWar titles, but they have to be good quality spears. Heavy cavalry will just roll straight over weak spear units once their charge is rolling and you really need pikes or very heavy spears to guarantee bringing a cavalry charge to a grinding halt. Even then, a cavalry cycle might fail, but heavy cavalry will always be a problem for infantry if they are allowed to repeatedly charge them. Spears really come into their own as a counter if the cavalry can become bogged down in rough terrain or city streets.
66** Certain archers have an option to deploy stakes pre-battle, which can murder any cavalry that tries to cross them, but are immobile. Stakes are particularly useful in siege battles, as they can block off whole streets, and completely deny cavalry units entry if put just behind a gate. If the archers need to relocate or the cavalry flanks them, they're useless.
67* ApocalypseHow: [[SarcasmMode You will have so much fun when the plague hits.]]
68* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit
69** Only twenty units can be in combat on a side at once. This can be frustrating if the units you need on the battle field are unable to join by reinforcements under your control, reinforce you as units are destroyed in the order that you DON'T want, or if a few units have a lot of experience but are numbered in the ones (making you lose hard-earned units). All units have the problem that experience is spread to every person in the unit. You could have a unit with five experience, but have only ten men. When you put fresh recruits in the unit, the average experience per person goes down making you lose experience. Also, every experience point is represented by a guy with a unit flag. For every flag bearer that is killed, you lose an experience point.
70*** The twenty unit limit only applies to an army. It is entirely possible to have multiple full stack armies fight in the same battle, but only if you put them under AI control. If you choose not to put them under AI control and you already command 20 units, they will have to wait until a unit routs off the field or gets wiped out before entering the battle.
71** The number of agents you can have depends on the number of requisite buildings you have. For example, having 10 Markets will allow you to recruit and field 10 Merchants. Losing a region with a Market will drop your Merchant limit to 9 but you will still keep all 10 of your currently existing Merchants.
72** Each family member can have an absolute maximum of 4 children. It's possible to decrease this through modding, but trying to increase it makes the game crash when a 5th child is born.
73* AristocratsAreEvil: Some members of the royal family may certainly count, though it's completely mutable... [[MoralEventHorizon up to a point.]]
74* ArmourIsUseless: Averted for a while. Bullet-proof armor started with plate armor, so guns don't work as well as you would think when they first start off. However, as guns become better, they can ignore ALL armor points.
75* ArmorPiercingAttack: Available to every faction (though some have much more than others). Axes, maces, most polearms other than spears/pikes, longbows, crossbows, and javelins all halve the target's armor rating. It may be a good idea to keep a few unarmoured units around specifically because of the vast range of units who ''actually get a bonus'' fighting heavily armoured troopers. This is particularly problematic for nations who invested heavily in upgrading their soldiers armour via the various armoury buildings, as even their militia may be armoured in plate.
76* TheArtfulDodger: It's possible for a spy to have one of these as a follower.
77* ArtificialBrilliance:
78** Enemy units will end their turn on your watch towers, allowing them to use them instead of you.
79** The AI loves their special agents. Diplomats aren't just going to accept any offer and will make counter-offers that will benefit them. Merchants will try to buy you out and will use very high level merchants to do so. Spies will infiltrate you. Priests will mass convert your population into revolt. Ships will blockade your ports, while armies block your roads, and attack your cities just to hurt your economy.
80** Enemy armies will flee if they spot an army larger than their own. They will also bunch up or combine so that if you attack one, you have to deal with reinforcements.
81** They will hide large armies behind the fog of war and blitz you.
82** The enemy will use terrain and unit placement to easily flee battles they can't win or to fatigue your units.
83** They will attack your siege weapons first (in a city battle).
84** The enemy gets smarter, not stronger when you increase the difficulty.
85** They'll retreat from a battle and as you pursue you'll end up fighting the force you're pursuing and reinforcements hiding in the woods.
86* ArtificialStupidity:
87** The AI will march a vast army straight across a narrow bridge at you if the battle takes place on one. All you have to do is position at your end of the bridge a pair of Mangonels, which are catapults that lob barrels of oil that explode and rain hot death, or if you're lucky, explode on contact with the ground instead, right in the middle of a tightly packed formation of multiple troop divisions in a confined space. It is embarrassingly easy to wipe out a 2000 man AI army this way as they keep sending their troops across the bridge until more than half of them die from the exploding barrels and the other half panic and rout.
88** Does the enemy army have a ton of cavalry? Have your archers plant stakes at your end of the bridge, and watch the mass of horsemen throw themselves upon the wooden spikes in an attempt to reach your battle-line.
89** Horizontal-firing artillery is a bit of a liability. Artillery teams see no problem continuing to fire even when the general himself is standing four feet from the mouth of the cannon.
90** Deploy your longbowmen or Janissaries' stakes behind the gates and watch as the enemy General comes charging through and impales himself, along with all the best cavalry in the opponent's army. This is most fun against the Mongols, since they will inevitably send all of their cavalry through. However, your own cavalry can suffer from this. If you order your cavalry to return back through the same gate (most likely after dealing with enemy catapults or archers), they will happily impale themselves on the stakes.
91** If a Siege Tower is set alight after it reaches your walls but before the ramps drop, the units pushing it will ''still'' try to run up to your walls ''while the siege tower is engulfed in flames.''
92** The arrow exploitation in analysis.
93** If a city or castle that's under siege has cannon towers then immediately enter battle with the army waiting outside. They'll stand around waiting for you to arrive while your towers eventually cause them to rout.
94** Units set to skirmish will try to run from approaching enemies... by sometimes running straight into another enemy unit. The skirmish AI can't seem to handle enemy coming from multiple directions.
95* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Largely subtle.
96** Helsinki is portrayed as a castle and the main settlement in Finland. In reality it was only a fishing village throughout the Middle Ages.
97** The Byzantine Empire is much weaker at the start of the game than in reality to preserve CompetitiveBalance. In 1080 it had about 10 million subjects (50% more than France, twice as much as Germany, and x5-10 greater than smaller states like Poland, England, Hungary, or Portugal) and a standing field army of 50,000 soldiers, plus a generally higher GDP per capita than any other state in Europe,[[note]]World Bank economist Branko Milanovic estimated it to range between $680 and $770 in 1990 international dollars in the year 1000, as opposed to $427 for Western Europe.[[/note]] while the game depicts it as pretty much equal to the other starting factions.
98** Scotland is portrayed as essentially "Film/{{Braveheart}} Land". Scotland's special units are mostly Highlanders (medieval Scottish armies actually consisted mainly of Scots from the Lowlands and border areas) who all seem to be variants on Creator/MelGibson's William Wallace, complete with ahistorical kilt and woad, Averted by their Noble and Heavy pikemen and Swordsmen units later on and their Scots Pike Militia and non-unique units earlier on (And the Highland noble units also somewhat avert it as soon as they have their armour upgraded, trading in their kilts for heavy mail).
99** Rennes (Brittany), Dijon (Burgundy), and Bordeaux (Guyenne/Aquitaine) are generic rebel settlements, while Angers (Anjou) is solidly French. In reality, all three were vassals of the French crown, and "France" itself wasn't really much of a united entity in the HighMiddleAges.
100** The Turks are a generic faction, implied to be Seljuk in the earlier period with Ottoman units later on.
101** Likewise, Egypt and the Moors are playable factions in the game yet their real-life counterparts in the 1100s were known as the Fatimids and the Almoravids respectively.
102** English generals are often given names that are pure Anglo-Saxon, which no Plantagenet lord would ever give to their children. Also, seeing as every English monarch from 1066-1399 spoke French as their native tongue, they really wouldn't be speaking English with an English accent, if they spoke English at all.
103*** And in the Crusades expansion, the Kingdom of Jerusalem reuses the English voices, despite the kings of Jerusalem being Franks from Lorraine (which at the time was a Frankish part of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire). [[note]] The Principality of Antioch was ruled by the Hauteville family, who were Normans that ruled Sicily, so it makes sense for them to use the French voices [[/note]]
104** Being able to capture the entirety of Ireland by just taking Dublin is a gross oversimplification. It took the English some four hundred years to actually establish political control over the entire island. The Britannia expansions splits Ireland up into 8 provinces (and Wales into 4, etc).
105** Spain exists as a playable faction at the 1100 AD start date for the game. Historically, Spain did not exist as a fully unified nation until 1469. At the start of the 10th century, there were numerous Spanish-speaking Catholic kingdoms that existed in the Muslim-dominated Iberian Peninsula such as Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Navarre.
106** Portugal is a fully independent nation at the start of the game. In real life, they were a vassal to the Spanish kingdoms.
107** In the base game, the player can select Russia despite the fact that it wasn't a fully formed country in the 1100s with much of its area at the time controlled by the Novgorod Republic and the Grand Duchy of Moscow respectively. Averted with the Teutonic campaign of the ''Kingdoms'' expansion pack which changes the name of the Russian faction into the period-accurate Novgorod.
108** Likewise, the city of Kiev is a rebel-controlled settlement in-game. However, it was the capital of the Kievan Rus.
109** Unlike later installments in the series, the tech level of units is determined by building in your settlements. This can lead to a faction with a strong economy being able to field musketeers and advanced plate equipped soldiers before the 14th (or 13th!) century is out.
110** A lot of the ruling dynasties are anachronistic. For example, Alexios I Komnenos is the 48-year old ruler of the Byzantine Empire despite the game being set in 1080, a year before his accession to the throne at the age of 25.
111*** Sicily is a kingdom controlling both Naples (Southern Italy) and Palermo (Sicily) under King Roger, whose heir is Prince Simon. Roger I of Sicily was only Count of Sicily and it was his son, Roger II, who made Sicily a Kingdom in 1130. At the same time, his brother, Robert Guiscard, controlled Southern Italy, but as Duke of Apulia and Calabria[[note]]The toe and heel of the Boot[[/note]] centered on the city of Salerno, and Naples would be part of its own small, but separate, principality that wouldn't be annexed by Roger II until 1137.
112** Every faction is portrayed as having the exact same system of monarchical governance, including the ''Republics'' of Venice and Novgorod/Russia.
113** Succession is based on the Authority statistic[[note]]Only visible on your faction leader, but present on all generals[[/note]], which means that more often than not your king's sons will be completely passed over for the throne in favor of his brothers/nephews/random commoners he decided to adopt.
114** The religion of the Mongols is Islam, even though they were practitioners of Tengriism (a Turkic religion). In fact, they only converted to Islam in the 14th century and only among the western branches like the Ilkhanate and Golden Horde.
115** The Late era campaign of the ''Stainless Steel'' mod depicts the Byzantine Empire as being splintered into three isolated but still united territories. In reality, those three territories became new nations in their own rights and considered each other to be pretenders to the throne of Byzantium.
116* AscendedExtra: Captains are the commanders when a general or family member is not present and they are vastly weaker; occupying whatever the first unit in your army's lineup is and sharing that unit's stats. HOWEVER, if you win a major battle with one (and he survives, isn't knocked out of combat, or is a reinforcement unit), then he can be given the honor of a name, an offer to be welcomed into the family, and an immediate bonus to commanding skills due to his amazing victory.
117* ATeamFiring: Very common with siege equipment attacking units, inexperienced ranged units, and early ranged units (the first guns and peasant archers).
118* AtopAMountainOfCorpses: Fallen and captured units form a nice texture effect of corpses that do not in any way slow down running speed or effect fighting ability among them.
119* AttackAttackRetreatRetreat: Very possible with controlled retreats or when using units that have naturally low morale. A unit can suddenly break and become impossible to command, then they can regroup and charge again. If a unit is surrounded (when being run down), they will go into desperation mode and start a fight to the death.
120* AwesomeButImpractical: Early artillery units like catapults and trebuchets are usually too inaccurate to be of effective use in field battles. Plus, they slow down your entire army. But sometimes they might get a lucky hit that lands right in the middle of a blob of infantry, and it feels ''so'' satisfying when it does.
121* AxCrazy: So common that there are SEVERAL traits that describe various types of AxCrazy.
122* BackFromTheBrink: The Late Campaign in the ''Stainless Steel'' mod allows you to play as the post-Fouth Crusade Byzantine "Empire", which consists of some towns in Western Asia Minor and Albania, as well as Trebizond. With some creative political maneuvering, and some heroic victories against the militarily superior Latin Empire, it is completely possible to not only take back the Empire's heartland from the Crusaders, but also to reestablish them as a superpower in both the East and West. Easily one of the most desperate and epic campaigns of any ''Total War'' game or related mod.
123* BadassBookworm: Generals can have the smart trait, the educated trait, the mentor retinue, the tutor etinue, etc. And he will refer to this if he makes a speech before a battle.
124* BadassBureaucrat: Generals can have nice bonuses to civil keeping while being able to crush their enemies.
125* BadassFamily: This is a given if you know what you are doing.
126* BadassPacifist: This is a possible playing style and is very possible. You can have a horrifically scarred general (+4 to hitpoints) who is a very good peacekeeper who rules through love.
127* BadassPreacher: Denmark and Norway have Norse War clerics, which are heavy cavalrymen who also happen to be clergy. They carry war maces to [[ExactWords skirt the prohibition on priests drawing blood]].
128* BadassTeacher: A few of the retinue units can count like the seasoned veteran who provides the general with knowledge and command ability.
129* BadassUnintentional: The captains that are caught off guard and pull so awesome a victory that they are offered entrance into the royal family.
130* BadassBoast: Quite frequent.
131** Especially common in pre-battle speeches, for example the Mongol's have "Kill everything who fights you! If a man runs, let him! Cowards die a thousand times inside!"
132** Upon winning a Heroic Battle as a non-Christian faction: "Even the God of our enemies has fled, so great has been our victory".
133* BattleInTheRain: Possible and it does affect the units.
134* BeingGoodSucks: It's actually easier to go down the path of dread than it is to go up the path of chivalry. Going up the path of Chivalry requires you to refrain from using spies to collect intelligence and conducting yourself honorably in combat by releasing prisoners and not decimating enemy armies down to the very last man, letting them get away and possibly return threaten your cities.
135* TheBerserker: A possible trait for generals.
136* BestialityIsDepraved: In pre-battle speeches, it's not uncommon for generals to accuse the French of getting intimate with farm animals.
137* BewareTheHonestOnes: You never expect the trustworthy ones to stab you in the back which makes it jarring when they do. Worse yet, they can ally with your enemy, breaking your alliance without hurting their status.
138* BewareTheNiceOnes: If you are excommunicated, even the nicest, most benevolent rulers will sic an huge army on you.
139* {{Bifauxnen}}: The "Secretly Female" trait for priests.
140* {{BFG}}: The monster bombard, also known as the Dardanelles gun, available to the Turks and in mercenary form. Not only it is [[RuleOfCool awesome]] but it is also the best artillery in the game against fortifications, able to destroy most walls with a single direct hit. [[CripplingOverspecialization It however, is horribly inaccurate against troops]].
141* BigBad: If a king or general has high enough dread, they can get a [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast sufficiently intimidating title]] to match.
142* BigDamnHeroes: A possibility when you bring in reinforcements.
143* BigEater: A negative character trait.
144* BigGood: If you king has a high piety and/or a high chivalry level, he will receive a appropriate title to match.
145* BigScrewedUpFamily:
146** Children of generals that have high dread will get dread as a starting points.
147** Princes can [[RoyalInbreeding marry]] their [[KissingCousins cousins]], aunts, [[CreepyUncle nieces]], and even [[BrotherSisterIncest sisters]] in some mods. The children produced by such unions rarely grow up with all their [[RoyallyScrewedUp physical and mental faculties intact]].
148* BlatantLies: A prince of a ruined kingdom will offer to reward you if you kill his family. He is ObviouslyEvil and betrays you if you succeed.
149* BlessedWithSuck: There are some. E.g. traits that increases public order at the cost of vastly increasing an assassin's likelihood to succeed at killing you. Another traits that increase combat prowess at the expense of public order due to creeping people out. This is unfortunate if you have way better or younger generals and you need this one to manage a city.
150* BloodKnight: They come in family members, commanders, special agents, traits, and retinue.
151** A high-Dread general will almost always be itching for battle, and loves nothing more than to see his enemies crushed.
152* BloodLust: A few traits describe this and all of them have some negative effect. At lower levels, it describes courage in battle, granting additional command stars. At higher levels, not only does the general start giving creepy speeches, but any soldier under his command starts to worry that he's a violent maniac.
153* BlueBlood: Your generals. Common soldiers who captain armies and bring in heroic victories and survive may be adopted into the royal family.
154* BodyguardCrush: At least one trait is like this.
155* BodyguardingABadass: A horrifically scarred, battle hardened general still needs to sleep...
156* BookDumb: A trait you never want ANY of your characters to have. It hurts trade income to any city they happen to govern and makes them a liability to your treasury.
157* BoomerangBigot: Rebels are looked down to as scum. Hilariously though, a general with almost no points in loyalty will still give a speech about how "these rebellious knaves" need to be wiped off the face of the earth, then they can become rebels in between turns due to not being in the presence of another loyal general.
158* BoringButPractical:
159** Mercenary Crossbowmen outclass almost all starting missile units (in fact for some factions they are equal to or better than ''all'' your regular missile infantry) and are recruitable everywhere in Europe bar Greece, meaning they can replenish casualties in almost any holding. Similarly, Mercenary Spearmen are equal to Armored Sergeants and recruitable/replenishable everywhere in Europe but Greece and the Balkans; factions which struggle with early melee infantry or the income needed to build up castle barracks will rely on them heavily.
160** English Longbowmen. Not especially great to look at, but until you start seeing the more expensive Pavise Crossbowmen that Central European factions get or get ahold of some really late-game cannon units, they're unbeatable at range. They're also capable of planting anti-cavalry wooden stakes in front of them.
161** All Italian factions have beefed up militia units which are just as cheap as their generic counterparts while capable of slugging it out with more expensive castle units. For example, Italian Spear Militia are available from turn one and statistically equal to Armored Sergeants and useful right up until the end of the game if properly outfitted.
162** The isolated cities of Timbuktu and Arguin, separated from the rest of the map by thousands of miles of trackless wasteland south of Spain, can produce thousands of florins each turn with the construction of a single mine in each city, with no serious risk of losing either to invaders, especially if you wipe out the Moors.
163* BrainlessBeauty: A negative trait for princesses.
164* BraveScot: The ideal talk of enemy Scots is this.
165--> '''"I'LL CUT OFF YA HEAD AND SPIT DOWN YA NECK!"'''
166** The Scots that you control are this too.
167* BribeBackfire: An inexperienced Diplomat that gets rejected too many times upon offering a bribe can turn into a useless and incompetent Diplomat.
168* BribingYourWayToVictory: While it is possible to turn enemy armies and settlements this way, you need a fairly competent Diplomat to ensure a good chance at a successful offer and the asking prices are RIDICULOUSLY expensive (+20000) on the very rare occasions you can convince them to consider it. It's usually easier (and cheaper) to just kill them. In the early-game, you can definitely do this with settlements, using your starting funds to buy up settlements in the possession of neighboring factions, rather than risking papal censure by warring with them.
169* BringMyBrownPants: Being cowardly and having a fear of blood are terrible traits, which not only reduce troop morale but actually reduce the general's hitpoints.
170* BrotherSisterIncest: You can't have the royalty of a dozen plus countries not get into this eventually.
171* BullyingADragon: Attempting to fight a stronger agent with a weaker one tends to make them even stronger. Furthermore attempting to assassinate a witch unsuccessfully will anger her, increasing her magic rating and making her more likely to curse your nearby family members.
172* BurnTheWitch: Or [[TheHeretic heretic]]. If your priest isn't skilled enough (or has bad luck) this can backfire, with your priest sent to burn a witch instead turning back up as a charred husk on the side of the road, or a priest sent to burn a heretic instead being seduced by the heretic's teachings and becoming a heretic themselves.
173* ButchLesbian: There are two levels of the lesbian trait for princesses. It goes without saying that marrying them off to a general is harder and makes the pair mostly infertile.
174** Yet the only anti-trait for lesbians is that of a passionate woman, so it's possible to have a 10 charms lesbian as a princess. A waste in regards of heir-making certainly, but possible.
175* CadreOfForeignBodyguards: Moorish Christian Guard, French Scots Guard, Papal Swiss Guard, and Byzantine Varangian Guard. Naturally they tend to be extremely strong units.
176* CainAndAbel: Can happen if one family member turns coat and you decide to kill the rebel.
177* TheCaligula: You don't want your generals to be this. It will make them cripple any city they govern.
178* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: Averted. The French are the bane of anyone playing the Moors or the Holy Roman Empire. They're always able to pull armies of elite heavy infantry out from nowhere and butcher your forces with ease, and they're very hard to counter early-game. They're also one of the most aggressive factions in the game, sending huge armies against Muslim factions during Crusades and waging war on neighbors for no reason at all.
179* ChristianityIsCatholic: Averted, Christianity is accurately split into Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox and Heresy appears as a minor faith. However Oriental Orthodox churches such as the Copts and Armenian Apostolics are completely absent, even from the Crusades campaign where they had an [[HufflepuffHouse important presence historically]].
180** However Islam very much gets this treatment, with no distinction made between Sunni and Shia let alone any of the smaller movements. Granted most of the Muslim factions present were largely Sunni.
181* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: The popular view of the Milan faction, with experienced players hating and distrusting them innately like {{VideoGame/Civilization}} players on Montezuma. It's practically reached MemeticMutation levels.
182* ChurchMilitant:
183** The Norse war clerics available to Denmark and Norway are very much this.
184** Priests and imams are available as units on the campaign map. As well as improving piety and happiness in the kingdom's provinces, they can also burn heretics at the stake. Having a priest in your army increases conversion rates of the area you army is in. The priest will not say anything about slaughtering civilians ([[ValuesDissonance which is not as inaccurate as it sounds]]).
185** The Pope is fully capable of leading armies into battle like any other king or general. But where a king or general is depicted in armour and a fancy surcoat and carries a sword with which to attack cities on the map, the Pope appears in full Papal regalia. When he besieges a city, instead of hitting it with a sword he hits it with his crucifix-topped scepter. If a faction falls out of the Pope's favour and gets excommunicated, be prepared for Crusades to such far off lands as... France.
186** In the Kingdoms expansion, the Teutonic Orders Clergymen unit has the second highest attack of all their melee infantry, better than several units of trained swordsmen and knights, despite being armed with only a cross on a pole. They are still not an effective fighting force, since their unit size is ''very'' small and they wear no armour.
187* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: Possibly. A priest's Piety rating not only affects how good he is at conversion and killing heretics, it'll also protect him from assassins. That's right, in this game, quite literally Jesus Saves (or Allah, for the Muslims). It's implied that he's so widely considered a saint that people don't dare attack him for fear of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket reprisal]]. It's also shown in assassination attempt cinematics that your agents travel with retinues of armed guards who may or may not stop your assassins. Since more pious priests would be considered more important, it can be assumed that their assigned bodyguards would be better and/or more numerous.
188** A similar case could be made for the supposedly supernatural "witches" that may crop up in heavily heretical regions. They seem able to curse characters with all kinds of misfortune, but never anything that truly couldn't happen by a combination of the right, natural circumstances. Do they truly have magic powers, or are they simply such frightful women operating in such a superstitious setting that someone under a "curse" would simply begin attributing their every mundane misery to it, possibly even to the point of [[SelfFulfillingProphecy stressing themselves out into failure, poor health and social alienation?]]
189* CorruptCorporateExecutive: The merchants are ancestors to this trope - when facing other merchant factions they attempt outright fraud to seize the holdings of them and drive them bankrupt with failure resulting in themselves going bankrupt. Successful defense against has a chance to boosts the paperwork of the surviving merchants.
190* CrazyPrepared: There are many traits for this.
191* CreepyCrossdresser: The "Foreign Fruitcake" who will sometimes join your generals' retinue. On one hand, it increases Dread, but it also decreases Authority, Command, Piety, morale, chance of having children ''and'' public order. A general without many other redeeming qualities who gains this retinue member can become totally useless.
192* CripplingOverspecialization: Many nations have their own unique fighting styles and tactics: England are masters of the longbow and heavy brawling infantry; Spain specializes in pikes and gunpowder troops; Germany develops anti-armor mace weapons and greatsword infantry to fight pikes. France stands out however, as masters of heavy lance on horseback combat: they field the [[KnightInShiningArmor finest mounted knights]] in the world through all ages culminating in the plate-armored heavy lancers. Unfortunately, this specialization is mostly only effective against the old medieval tactics of light armored spear infantry armies. The French mounted knights all carry swords in brawling combat which are weak against armor, making them all but useless against their equally armored mace-wielding German counterparts; English longbowmen can pick them off at a distance, and charging them against Spanish pikemen is an act of pure suicide. The French try to compensate for this in later ages by adopting some of the weapons and tactics of their neighbors, however they are still MasterOfNone.
193* CrutchCharacter: Byzantium starts with very strong professional units while everyone else is making do with militia and rabble. They have strong archers despite the lack of armour-piercing crossbows and longbows, competitive heavy cavalry with the Latinkons and Kataphraktoi; the Vardariotai, the best missile cavalry in the game available right from the start, and of course the famous Varangian Guard, devastating nordic heavy infantry armed with mighty two-handed axes. They have unique access to Fireboats, making early naval battles entirely one-sided affairs. But they are also completely lacking in strong late-game units and technologies. No late period gunpowder infantry or artillery for you; in real life Byzantium didn't make it that far. To overcome this, a Byzantine player must ensure they keep hold of veteran units with plenty of upgrades and experience to make up the technology deficit.
194* CulturedWarrior: Some generals appreciate the arts. Those that do tend to be more popular governors.
195* DarkIsNotEvil:
196** In the Teutonic campaign, the super-intimidating Teutonic Order can also have Chivalrous generals. Ditto followers of the Sun God in the Americas campaign.
197** Wallachia (in one mod) can still have Chivalrous generals and family members, despite their [[{{Dracula}} reputation]] and iconography.
198* DarkerAndEdgier: The game is noticeably more graphic in its presentation compare to the original. And tellingly, this is also the first game in the series where blood and grime are rendered on-screen.
199** The Teutonic campaign. You know it's this when the subject is forced conversion, and possibly extermination. Notably, the music featured in the menu and campaign is more ominous and martial sounding than for the main game, to emphasize the theme of [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything militaristic Germans invading Eastern Europe]].
200* DavidVersusGoliath: Wales in the ''Britannia'' expansion is absolutely dwarfed by England - controlling just three provinces to England's twenty-two. Wales' long campaign also requires the tiny country to overwhelm (or at least outlast) England. This discrepancy is reflected in their doctrine to war, as the Welsh need to use the craggy and forested terrain of their home and their superior light infantry and missile units to beat the English juggernaut. And of course also helping Wales is the fact England ''also'' has to deal with a looming Scotland, possible coastal invasions from Norway, open rebellion in Ireland, and internal strife and civil war.
201* DeathFromAbove:
202** The English longbowmen are pretty much the epitome of this. You'll be hard-pressed to find ''any'' ranged unit that can consistently cause as much damage at long range, short of extreme late-game artillery units like the culverin. Longbowmen can get into shooting matches with multiple ''artillery'' units and consistently ''win''. Taken even further in [[GameMod the ''Stainless Steel'' mod]], where the longbowmen have range comparable to most artillery units. And in that mod, [[GameBreaker Scotland can use them, too]]. Given the longbowmen's historical successes, this is pretty much TruthInTelevision.
203** God help you if you need to face the Mongols and their THOUSANDS of archers, many of which have compound bows and are mounted, making them impossible to run down. It's not a matter of if they surround you, it's when.
204** All factions can bring this to the field with a healthy contingent of artillery. A constant stream of explosive shot from catapults, trebuchets or cannons are highly discouraging for an army forced to withstand it. This allows them to be used to great effect in [[TakeItToTheBridge bridge battles,]] where units get bottlenecked and have no choice but to wait their turn to slug it out, with boulders and cannonballs raining down on their heads.
205* DecadentCourt: You can put your own together if you have a king and his generals with high dread, tax the population into abject poverty, build brothels and pleasure palaces, and always RapePillageAndBurn when you conquer castles and cities.
206* DefeatMeansPlayable: When you first start the game, you can only play as a few different factions in the grand campaign. You unlock more playable factions by wiping them out in a campaign game.
207* DeliberateValuesDissonance:
208** Homosexuals are scorned, tomboys are hated, being bigoted is considered a good trait, and a whole lot of other things that are contrast with today's values.
209** There is almost no possibility of female military leaders, even though it happened (admittedly rarely) in the setting of the game.
210** No matter how good of a diplomat a princess is, she'll retire to the life of a married woman and disappear as a deployable agent when you marry her off. If you ''don't'' marry her off eventually she'll be forced to join a convent, which is treated like a horrible fate, complete with sobbing and dark remarks on her lack of children. There's just no politically correct end for her.
211*** That a forced retirement to a convent would be a horrible thing is in itself a form of values dissonance. It is now, but in the Middle Ages this wasn't a bad deal for both parties. The princesses themselves enjoyed a relatively comfortable life as head of a convent, far away from the cut-throat life at court, while their family benefitted from their increased political and religious influence.
212*** Most likely the desired outcome for a lesbian princess. Being locked in a females-only convent, fuck ye... I mean, the horror!
213* DevelopersForesight: Nearly anything your generals do can earn them one form of trait or another. Have a general visit or become governor to a town with a brothel? He might pick up a trait about becoming a womanizer. Have your general travel a lot? He might gain a trait regarding logistics. Stick around a town with a church/mosque? Religious traits. Constantly suffer assassination attempts? Become paranoid and insane. Have tons of money in the treasury? Your generals will start to become corrupt and extravagant. Have a general regularly fight armies of a particular faction, and they'll earn a trait that has them ''hate'' that particular faction and get a bonus commanding against them. On the other hand, a general that regularly loses to a particular faction can start to ''fear'' that faction and get a command ''penalty'' against them. Hire mercenaries and get a mercenary captain in the retinue, visit a town with an artist's studio and the general becomes a patron of the arts, visit a region with high Pagan religion and get a pagan astrologer or magician in your retinue, and so on. This even applies to agents; for example, a diplomat from an area with majority of one particular religion will be religiously intolerant, while ones from mixed-religion regions will be religiously tolerant.
214* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: While difficult, it is possible to destroy the Mongols and/or Timurids. If you succeed in such a monumental task, it will feel like this trope.
215* DifficultButAwesome: Capturing the settlements of Arguin and Timbuktu. It takes nearly ten turns to march an army to Timbuktu from the nearest settlement at Marrakesh, and another six to reach Arguin, and both are completely cut off from the sea until ocean-faring ships are invented in the 15th century. That said, [[MagikarpPower if captured and babied a little]], their valuable trade resources of gold, ivory, and slaves may provide thousands of florins each turn without any fear of capture, while adding additional merchants to the area can increase that by thousands more, ''each''.
216** Winning a Heroic Victory against the odds, it can even give your generals good traits!
217* DirtyCoward: Commanders and agents can have traits like this. Obviously, it makes them less effective.
218* DiscOneNuke: The basic English longbowmen have low-tier construction requirements, but have high-tier value. With maxed out armor, they are a capable check against almost any enemy, and highly cost-effective.
219* TheDitz: A dimwitted princess will be worse at her job, and thus have lower Charm.
220* TheDogBitesBack: Many traits with a history of screwing people over like merchants will make them more susceptible to assassination as they have a long trail of enemies who want them dead.
221* TheDoorSlamsYou: One possible cutscene shows an assassination failing because his target accidentally does this to the assassin. Sometimes, this kills the assassin when he accidentally stabs himself.
222* DoorStopper: The victory cutscene is ended with a monk writing into a book before he closes it and puts it on a bookshelf to reveal the name of your faction is written on its spine (and therefore the book is implicitly about the history of your faction). Said book is ''massive'', with the width of the its spine being around the width of the monk's hand from his pinky finger to his thumb, and the other dimensions make it look to be about the size of the monk's torso when he starts picking it up.
223* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: Averted. "Wife is a Bitch" is a negative trait that hurts public order.
224* TheDreaded: A character can keep order with a high Dread rating. Dreaded characters lower the morale of entire enemy armies by their mere presence. This is very annoying when fighting the Mongols, who all have high Dread generals. Use Chivalrous generals to balance it up... or use a general of your own with ''[[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame even higher]]'' [[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame Dread to make the]] ''[[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame Mongols]]'' [[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame break first]]. With a general whose Dread is maxed out, it's possible to break an entire enemy army by simply charging them. You don't even have to hit them; simply charge the entire army straight at them, and there's a pretty good chance that the lower-morale units break immediately, starting a chain reaction of routing that sends the entire army fleeing. With your faction leader, if you push the Dread high enough and execute enough prisoners/exterminate enough populations, he'll end up with the moniker ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "The Lord of Terror."]]'
225* DrillSergeantNasty: A possible trait which increases moving speed on the world map, but decreases morale on the battle field.
226[[/folder]]
227
228[[folder:E-L]]
229* {{Elopement}}: Can be the result of a proposal by a Princess. If she succeeds, the enemy general will elope and join your faction. If she fails, she falls in love for her target, elopes and actually joins the enemy general's faction.
230* EmbarrassingNickname: Characters can be shackled with undesirable nicknames if they get too many negative traits and ancillaries.
231** Family Members: Cuckold, Idiot. Homosexual faction leaders can be called "the Queen."
232** Princesses: Snob, Man Hunter
233** Priests/Imams: the Corrupt
234* EndOfAnAge: The Americas campaign for ''Medieval II: Kingdoms'' is essentially this for the Native American factions: you ''could'' successfully fight off if not outright force out the encroaching European arrivals from the New World... but even if you do, life would never be the same.
235** Also the case for the Lithuanians in the Teutonic campaign. The Lithuanians are the last pagan peoples left in Europe, and the [[ChurchMilitant Teutonic Order]] is furiously knocking on the door. Accepting the new faith brings modernisation and access to knights and gunpowder, and clinging to the old ways may see them wiped out to the last man... or lead to a resurgence of the pagan way of life.
236* EnemyCivilWar: Catholic factions who have been excommunicated may suffer from widespread hostility from Papal loyalists, which can be seen as an Enemy Civil War from the perspective of any Muslim factions holding the Holy Land at that point. When the French are sending crusaders to Frankfurt, they're not sending them to Jerusalem...
237* AnEntrepreneurIsYou: See GoodFeelsGood on the [[Analysis/MedievalIITotalWar Analysis]] page.
238* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Implied if your general is attractive enough.
239* EvilOverlord: Rulers can gain high Dread by executing prisoners and exterminating settlements, and might very well become evil overlords in their own right.
240* EvilPaysBetter: Instead of occupying a settlement with a minimum of fuss, you can choose to exterminate it, looting and tearing up the place while eliminating part of the troublesome population. This kills off lots of people, gives you the same amount of money as occupation and brings the settlement's public order up a lot due to fear and a large reduction in squalor. Sacking the settlement is a less extreme version of exterminating that still takes care of most of the unrest and also gives you more money. See analysis for more detailed information.
241* {{Expy}}: The Scottish, claymore guy on the boxart of the Kingdoms expansion and the menu screen of the Britannia Campaign who has woad paint covering part of the left side and the entire right side of his face is definitely a carbon copy of William Wallace from {{Film/Braveheart}}.
242* ExtremeOmnisexual: A taunt often directed at the French.
243* TheExtremistWasRight: If you send your priests to kill a witch, there is a chance he'll be found burned alive. This implies that all the witches are real (instead of innocent old women).
244* FaceHeelTurn: Even if you max out a character's chivalry rating, you can still go the other way and max out his dread by making him perform wicked deeds. Forcing a chivalrous general to act against their principles may result in them becoming disillusioned and losing loyalty though, making them more likely to defect from you.
245* FalseFriend: The Papal States. You can be allied with them and have maximum approval, but that won't stop them from throwing a wrench in your campaign with a ceasefire ultimatum, nor will it prevent inquisitors from killing your generals. Or, if you're an Islamic faction, a crusade being called on your settlements.
246* AFatherToHisMen: High Chivalry provides bonuses in morale and makes units less likely to flee. Low levels of Drillmaster trait implies they train their men well, and not harshly.
247* FemmeFataleSpy: A princess that makes a family member or a general elope.
248* FightingIrish: Ireland is a playable nation in the ''Britannia'' expansion, noteworthy for its rather strong cavalry and skirmisher units, fierce (if unreliable) infantry, and open rebellion against English rule - most English-controlled cities on the island are already halfway to revolt by the start.
249* FirearmsAreRevolutionary: PlayedWith. Gunpower is discovered in game during the mid 13th century and acknowledged as "a new discovery that could change the course of warfare". However, the initial handgun units available are quite weak and the cannons, whilst powerful, are only so much so than other siege engines (as well as carrying the danger of exploding). It requires being quite far down in the technology tree (which often takes factions quite a while to accomplish) for gunpower units to become a truly clear advantage, and even by the end of the game they are still outdone in several areas (such as range and speed) by other missile units. Cannons on the other hand become the most power siege weapons available and drastically increase the ease of sieges.
250* FourStarBadass: Standard issue. At campaign start, Generals and their bodyguards are by far the strongest units.
251* FromNobodyToNightmare: A successful campaign sees this happening with your faction. In the beginning, your faction will likely be a piddly backwater. By the end, it will be a magnificent empire that all the other factions are struggling to overcome, or simply resist.
252** By winning battles, executing prisoners, and razing settlements to the ground, a nobody general can develop a feared reputation for their cruelty through their actions.
253* GameBreakingBug:
254** While not quite game-breaking, the infamous and never-fixed 'two-handed glitch' damaged a whole swath of units so heavily that it warped the meta around it. It is a combination of two errors: two-handed weapons animate their attack slightly more slowly than one-handed ones; units struck while in the middle of their attack animation are staggered and their attack fails. The result is that units with two-handed weapons, which stat-wise were clearly intended to be harder-hitting to make up for the lack of shield, actually will frequently put out ''less'' damage than a one-handed unit they're engaged with. This ruins many units which were intended to be elite, and cripples some factions' heavy infantry (e.g. England, whose Dismounted English Knights and 4 varieties of billmen all underperform, and the HRE, whose top-tier infantry are all two-handed swordsmen).
255** There is a bug that affects reputation when occupying settlements. Your faction's reputation and relations with the former owner and their allies are supposed to increase for peacefully occupying settlements. However, due to some leftover code from ''VideoGame/RomeTotalWar'' occupying settlements does not give a reputation bonus, and actually gives a significant relations ''penalty'' with the former owner and their allies. This bug eliminates a major source of positive reputation (the other 2 options, Sack and Exterminate, lower your reputation), and over time all that looting, pillaging, betrayal, and executing prisoners adds up with no way to counteract the reputation loss which is why sometimes the late game devolves into a massive free-for-all [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder as no one can trust anyone else.]]
256* GameMod:
257** The ''Stainless Steel'' mod adds new units, retexturing many of the units, adding more historically accurate troops, a wider range of traits and titles, a realistic ageing system, and including several of the ''Kingdoms'' factions while adding a few others (including the Mongols!)
258** ''VideoGame/ThirdAgeTotalWar'', a total conversion that places the game in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' setting.
259** ''Call of TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}''
260** ''[[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Westeros]]: Total War''
261** The ''{{VideoGame/Thera}}'' campaign mod places the campaign map in an alternate LowFantasy universe.
262** 'De Bello mundi' essentially recreates the world of [[VideoGame/RomeTotalWar Rome: Total War]] with the Medieval 2 engine, adding in Princesses, new factions and a bucket load of historical accuracy.
263** Broken Crescent, which moves the game to the Middle East.
264** VideoGame/HyruleTotalWar, which revamps the game to mimic the land and races of [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Hyrule]], and expands on them in ways often far beyond what Nintendo has ever dreamed of.
265* GeniusBruiser: A good general will be both an intelligent and savvy commander and a personal death machine who leads his men into battle.
266** The Mongols in particular are notorious for this. When they first arrive, nearly all of their generals will have maxed out ratings in Command and Dread. Autoresolving battles is not recommended.
267* GiantMook: Cavalry can have some fun with the peasants. Also, the elephants, OH GOD THE ELEPHANTS. The only thing worse than elephants is elephants that have SIEGE EQUIPMENT ON THEIR BACKS.
268* GirlOnGirlIsHot: If a princess has lower-tier lesbian traits, it raises her charm. Inverted if it progresses into a higher tier. If it's obvious than her charm will lower a lot.
269* GoingDownWithTheShip: The results of having units stored on a boat. In sea battles, it seems meaningless if you have a few dozen units of spearmen that can board the enemy...
270* GoodIsNotSoft: Even the most chivalrous generals are perfectly willing to fight to the death.
271* TheGoodKing: Rulers with high Chivalry tend to be this.
272* TheGoodKingdom: It's possible to build a Kingdom like this by keeping taxes low, building lots of entertainment and law buildings, and fostering chivalry in as many of your governors as possible.
273* GoodPaysBetter: Making your people happy and keeping chivalrous generals around can be very profitable in the long run, as it reduces the chances of revolts and allows higher taxation. See analysis for more detailed information.
274* GoingNative: During the Americas expansion campaign, it is possible to invoke this by playing as a native faction and bribing a European General to join your side.
275* GovernmentInExile: Taking control of Rome and defeating the Pope will result in the immediate election of a new Pope, who generally appears right next to Rome with a sizeable army.
276* GratuitousFrench: They throw a few French words into the dialogue of units from France (Main Campaign), New France (Americas Campaign) and the Principality of Antioch (Crusades Campaign).
277* GuideDangIt: Managing your generals' traits and retinues without a guide handy is quite frustrating, both for gaining good traits and avoiding bad (frequently crippling) ones. This is also true of acquiring guild houses.
278* GunsAreWorthless: Played straight initially. Early gunpowder units are woefully inaccurate, underpowered and only really good at scaring enemy units. Averted later on, since arquebusiers and musketeers can make mincemeat of whole armies when positioned right. Averted with the Prototype Gun retinue for assassins which make them more likely to succeed in assassinations (they provide no bonuses to sabotage).
279* HairTriggerTemper: One can sometimes find a very anger-prone general, which increases their dread and command. Especially bad-tempered ones may earn the epithet "the Wrathful".
280* TheHashshashin: Islamic factions can recruit them.
281* HeWhoFightsMonsters: It's very easy for your chivalrous generals to become dreaded from going too far when fighting the Mongols, Timurids, or other warmongering factions.
282* HeelFaceTurn: Even if you maxed out a character's dread rating, you can still go the other way and max out his chivalry rating by performing good deeds.
283* HelloSailor: If you leave a general on a ship for too long, he can turn gay.
284* TheHeretic: They can pop up from time to time. It's best to get rid of them quickly, because they can lower your people's piety. Worse they can potentially convert your priests to heresy.
285* HiredGuns: Mercenaries are available to hire by any General on the campaign map, ranging from cannon fodder to high-tier units like ''landsknecht'' pikemen. At game start they are frequently better than your native units, and depending on your faction and where you are fighting, some will remain relevant throughout the game. On the other hand, they tend to cost more than equivalent units to recruit and maintain.
286* HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: It's not unusual for Spanish generals to be named "El Cid," like it's a name any Spanish parents would give.
287* HistoricalBadassUpgrade: The Aztecs' troops with their flint/wood/bone weapons, soft armor, tribal organization, and complete lack of cavalry can at least somewhat stand toe-to-toe with those of Late Medieval to Early Modern polities. This... is not how it played out in reality. They're also treated as a [[SpaceFillingEmpire unified faction]] rather than a city-state ruling over some rebellion-prone tributaries.
288* HordesFromTheEast: The Mongols and Timurids each arrive from the east in great numbers at allotted times in the main campaign, requiring those factions already present to refocus their defenses and fight them off, or else be completely overrun.
289* HornyVikings: While the main campaign takes place well after the heyday of the Viking raiders, the warriors of Denmark (and Norway, in the ''Britannia'' and ''Teutonic'' expansion) still bear a good deal of resemblance to the Norsemen of old. However, they correctly do not wear horned helmets.
290* {{Hunk}}: Attractiveness can help improve a general's command ability and popularity.
291* IceQueen: Princesses can have this trait. Naturally, it lowers their charm.
292* InTheBlood: If a character has a high enough dread rating, than his sons will also start out with a good amount of dread. The same principle applies to those whose fathers have high chivalry. [[SubvertedTrope This only applies to reputation, however; the son of a living saint can still be known for ripping his foe's throats out with his teeth.]]
293* InvoluntaryBattleToTheDeath: When a unit is routing, the enemy will capture them instead of killing them. However, if the routing unit is surrounded and can not escape, then they will fight to the death forcing the other side to kill them.
294* JoinOrDie: This is a possible option to give enemies, but they will VERY rarely accept to becoming a vassal. You can get offered this choice as well, but it's never really worth it.
295* TheJuggernaut: England in the ''Britannia'' expansion, which starts out with the most land and deepest economy. Playing as them generally consists of building economy, stockpiling troops, and then steamrolling the other kingdoms.
296** While England has a huge advantage over the other nations in economy and manpower, it can very easily find itself in a war on multiple fronts and in a lot of trouble: Wales is in open rebellion and the terrain lends itself well to guerrilla warfare (which the famed inventors of the longbow happen to be ''very'' good at), Ireland is so in rebellion that English-controlled cities are being ransacked and it is separated by the sea to boot, Scotland covets territory on the border that can see them break their starting neutrality, and the Baron's Alliance rebellion can see English home territory under threat too. An alliance with Norway can alleviate some of the pressure but that is a DealWithTheDevil: it was not long ago that the dreaded northmen were thrown out of England and they would certainly like to see portions of the country back under their domain.
297* KavorkaMan: It's possible for unattractive princesses to have high Charm stats.
298* KarmaMeter: The game has a Chivalry-Dread axis. Releasing prisoners, building churches and town halls in settlements your general is governing, and honorably attacking the enemy head-on[[note]]Whether a general fougt honorably or ruthlessly is decided by a coin flip at the end of the battle and your commands have no effect on it[[/note]] builds Chivalry points, which makes characters better administrators (boosting order and population growth) and boosts their armies' morale on the battlefield. Dread points are built by performing heinous acts such as butchering prisoners, 'fighting dirty' by using assassins or spies as a faction leader, keeping the tax rate high when governing (but only if the treasury is full!), accepting bribes, slaughtering civilians. Dreaded characters are much worse in cities (they boost order but retard population growth, which cripples a settlement over time), but enemy armies who face them will have lowered morale. As damaging enemy morale is better than boosting friendly morale (since it leads to more captured prisoners and fewer casualties taken), Dread is better for field commanders while Chivalry is better for governors.
299* LadyAndKnight: Kind of given in a medieval game.
300* LastOfHisKind: The ''Teutonic'' campaign in the ''Kingdoms'' expansion allows you to play as the Lithuanians, the last pagan people group in Europe. While this grants them access to uniquely pagan units, it also makes them a primary target of the Teutonic crusaders. You can defy this trope by converting to christianity, which is [[EasyEvangelism as easy as pressing the yes button when the option comes up]].
301* LargeHam:
302** Dreaded generals, regardless of nationality.
303--> '''Mongol general: "ORDER ME NOT! I'M BUSY TORTURIN' CAPTIVES!"'''
304--> '''Muslim general: "INFIDELS TO KILL, SULTAN?!"'''
305--> '''Muslim general: "THE INFIDELS DO NOT DESERVE LIFE! TAKE IT FROM THEM!!!"'''
306--> '''Southern European general: "WE SHALL SEND THEM TO HELL, [[FateWorseThanDeath OR WORSE!!!]] MARCH!"'''
307--> '''Southern European general: "THEY STOOD NO CHANCE! I HAVE SILENCED THEM!"'''
308--> '''Eastern European general: "THEY DESERVE NOTHING LESS THAN DEATH!"'''
309--> '''English general: "VICTORY!!! THESE PEOPLE NOW KNEEEEEEL BEFORE US, SIRE!"'''
310** Chivalrous ones as well, sometimes.
311--> '''German general: "GOTT EHRE VATERLAND! TO BATTLE!"'''
312** When you send a priest to execute a heretic or witch when you're playing as Denmark, Poland, Hungary, or Russia:
313--> '''"MAY GOD EXPOOOOSE THE UNCLEEEEAAAN!"'''
314* LeeroyJenkins: Some infantry units or knights will charge without being ordered. Most of the time this is what you were planning to do in the first place but sometimes it will mess you up like a unit charging to the other side of the battlefield up a hill and arriving tired or opening the gate to charge opponents on the other side instead of letting archers take potshots at them first.
315* LightIsNotGood: The menu song is called "Kyrie Eleison" because it's sung by a Greek Orthodox choir that is chanting "Lord, have mercy." But given how much it sounds so hostile and ominous, the intention that the choir is trying to relay is to ruthlessly smite all enemies of Christianity.
316* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Whether or not a unit has a shield makes a great difference for its survivability, particularly against armor-piercing attacks such as from crossbows or axes, as the AP ability does not reduce shield protection. In particular, the shielded Pavise Crossbowmen and their variants (Pavise Crossbow Militia, and the Milan-unique Genoese Crossbowmen and Genoese crossbow militia) are renowned for winning archery duels against unshielded missile units.
317[[/folder]]
318
319[[folder:M-Z]]
320* MacrossMissileMassacre:
321** Even before the formal invention of gunpowder, the Mongols in ''Medieval II'' have access to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha crude rocket launchers]].
322** If "missile" can be defined to include arrows, then an English army with a large company of longbowmen certtainly counts as this. In fact, it's quite possible to defeat most enemy armies with nothing but a full stack of longbowmen.
323* MagikarpPower:
324** Portugal. In the early game, they have good militia and skirmisher units, but that's about it. By the end, they have the best unit roster in the game along with Spain.
325** Scotland starts off very poorly to say the least. One impoverished town province at the start, bad archers, bad cavalry, no gunpowder units ''at all'' and respectable but not exactly remarkable melee infantry. The Scotland faction at first resembles the half-finished barbarian factions from ''Rome: Total War'', and usually under the AI, they just get steam-rolled by England in the first few stages of the game. However, if you hang in there, the rewards are great. Highland Nobles are amazing heavy infantry for a low price tag, Noble Swordsmen are Dismounted Chivalric Knights but cheaper and on steroids, Noble Pikemen are the second-best pikemen in the whole game, Highland Noble Archers provide decent ranged support once you have the industrial and logistical base to make a good number of them, and Scotland's decent cannon options blow gaping holes in enemy lines and render the mightiest wall a joke.
326** The Russians. They start off with a handful of relatively poor territories close to the map's edge and the early unit roster that isn't all that special - poorly armed and armoured eastern peasant rabble making up with numbers and enthusiasm. This also makes then potentially easy prey for the Mongols once they show up unless the player really builds up their defenses. But come the mid and late-game, Russia's units become on par with their equivalents in any western kingdom, especially in regards to medium and missile cavalry. Dvor fight on horseback or on foot as combined archers and heavy infantry, in melee they perform nearly as well as Dismounted Feudal Knights. Cossack Musketeers provide withering fire either atop a city wall or in the field supporting the cavalry, [[DiscOneNuke and they are available]] ''[[DiscOneNuke automatically]]'' [[DiscOneNuke from the moment you upgrade a city to maximum size]]. You have great cavalry options in the Druzhina, Boyar Sons (a slight upgrade) and the almighty Tsar's Guard.
327* TheMagnificent: Generals can gain these type of epithets, dependent on their character traits (and, indirectly, success as a leader). They range from the embarrassing ("the Cowardly" or "the Cuckold") to the admirable ("the Just", "the Kind") to the impressive ("the Brave", "the Great", "the Mighty") to the hilarious ("the Lewd", "the Queen", "the Idiot") to the downright [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast terrifying]] ("the Bloody-Handed", "the Tyrant", "The Lord of Terror"). Sadly, the game only ever uses the most recently acquired epithet, making it entirely possible that a general goes from "the Conqueror" to "the Mean".
328* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane:
329** Do witches ''really'' {{curse}} people? Or are they just skilled enough with poisons and the like to cause harm that way?
330** The more pious a priest (no matter what religion he is), the greater his survival rate against assassins. Is it because he has better and/or more numerous bodyguards? Is he viewed highly enough that assassins fear reprisals? Or is his piety giving him divine protection?
331* {{Mayincatec}}: Refreshingly averted in the ''Kingdoms'' expansion, where it's repeatedly shown that the Mayans and Aztecs are two very different cultures (the Incas don't appear since the map doesn't extend that far south).
332** The Inca don't appear but the Tarascans, who orignated in the Andes before settling in Mexico, do.
333** The Aztecs aren't [[SmallReferencePools the only Nahuatl speakers present]], the Tlaxcala and the Chichimec are also appear as playable factions.
334* MercyRewarded: Releasing captives after a battle gives a general chivalry points, which help improve popularity and morale.
335* TheMiddleAges: As the title suggests, this game mainly takes place in this period.
336** TheHighMiddleAges: The game begins in the late 11th century...
337** TheLateMiddleAges: ...and continues through the 14th and 15th centuries...
338** UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance: ...before ending in the early 16th century.
339* MightyGlacier: Heavy Western European-style cavalry. While relatively slow compared to basically all other cavalry, given a proper running start a regiment of heavies will flatten basically anything stupid enough to get in its way, unless [[AntiCavalry they're carrying pikes]].
340* MightyWhitey: You can do this in the Americas Expansion. Play as a native faction, bribe a European General to join your side, lose all your other relatives, and suddenly a European General is in charge of your native faction.
341* MilitaryMashupMachine: For a Middle Ages variant, there is the Timurid rocket elephant, an armored war elephant with a hwacha in the howdah. The description for it runs along the lines of "what sort of sick person would add a rocket launcher to an elephant?!" The Timurids also have cannon elephants.
342* MistressAndServantBoy: Implied with the Secret Lover retinue for princesses and the "Cuckold" trait that the general gets when marrying a princess with the Secret Lover.
343* MoraleMechanic: Morale is a massive part of battles and manipulating it is the key to winning what would otherwise be impossible battles. Things like being outnumbered, losing a fight, being flanked, being surrounded, suffering the death of the general, being forced to fight terrifying units (like Elephants) or coming under artillery fire all reduce morale and if a unit's morale drops low enough they break and try to run from the battle. Oh, and units also lose morale for seeing nearby allies rout, so one unit routing can spread panic and cause their entire army to start routing too. Units that are not too badly damaged can rally and stop routing once they think they're safe, but if enemies are pursuing them closely, or there are too few men left in the unit, or ALL units in the army are routing, they won't come back.
344** The Italian factions' infantry are [[LosingTheTeamSpirit susceptible to break]] in prolonged fights, forcing them to rely on the Carroccio Standard (a wagon with a bell and a banner on it) to keep their spirit high. Unsurprisingly, expect it to be the [[ShootTheMedicFirst attention of the enemy's angry cavalry]].
345*** [[ButtMonkey Sicily]] doesn't even have the standard to help with her infantry's morale. Apparently, her Italian neighbors refused to share the secret of the bell wagon with her.
346* MoreDakka: Apart from building your entire army out of ranged troops (a poor choice, by the way) there are 2 units who are this.
347** The monster ribault. 36 guns on a wooden chassis. Which is very nice against enemy infantry charges, by the way.
348** The hwacha rocket launcher. Yes, it's historically accurate. It is however very much AwesomeButImpractical in which it doesn't do really much damage to troops, mostly due to it's [[ATeamFiring wild inaccuracy]]. [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman Castle and City walls, however]], [[OpenSaysMe are another matter entirely]].
349* MovesetClone: There are three sets of factions in the base game that are VERY similar to each other, roster-wise, with a few differences: the Iberian factions (Spain & Portugal), the Italian Factions (Venice, Milan, Sicily, Papal States), and the Horde Factions (The Mongols, The Timurids)
350* MisterMuffykins: A possible retinue member for princesses is a yappy little dog that gives a -1 penalty to charm due to how annoying it is.
351* MultiMeleeMaster: If caught in close combat, pikemen will drop their spears and engage the enemy with side-arms (albeit not especially effectively).
352* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Ordering a chivalrous general to massacre a town or execute a sizable number of captured soldiers causes them to become discontent with their ruler and lose loyalty.
353* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: It's possible for characters to get some terrifying epithets, like "the Wrathful" or "the Lord of Terror".
354* NotTheIntendedUse: While the campaign is intended to emulate RealLife historical rivalries and areas of conflict, you are perfectly free (and even encouraged in some cases) to avoid that. For example, when playing as Russia, several campaign guides advise that you load your starting forces onto a ship and take them to Scotland. There are several Rebel settlements present to gain a foothold and, being an Eastern Orthodox rather than Catholic faction, you don't have to worry about excommunication when the time comes to wage war on your Catholic neighbors. Russia's biggest weakness is its [[EarlyGameHell impoverished, resource-poor territories]] which keep it from reaching its [[MagikarpPower elite, late-game roster units]] for a very long time. The territories of the British Isles and western Europe generally don't have this problem, turning Russia into a juggernaut. Plus, you'll be very far from the eastern edge of the map when the Mongols show up, another major obstacle for the Russians when remaining in their historical territories.
355* ObnoxiousInLaws: Sometimes, a general's mother-in-law will travel with him. She might be such a harridan that it actually hurts his authority and his army's morale.
356* OfficerAndAGentleman: Chivalry points.
357* OneManArmy: While generals and their bodyguards are strong (and free) heavy cavalry to begin with, a general with high Dread can cause entire larger and less disciplined armies to rout through charges before they even close to melee.
358* OnlySixFaces: Your generals and agents are given a rather small of avatar portraits.
359* OptionalBoss: The Aztecs could count as such. Their continent shows up late in the game with several full stacks of units guarding their territory, and unlike real life, those huge armies don't crumble as soon as you get a few horses and guns on the field with them. It helps that the game doesn't simulate their forces being ravaged by European diseases.
360* ParentalNeglect: It doesn't always have to be a parent, but the Feels Unappreciated perk which lowers loyalty.
361* PedophilePriest: Implied if a priest has the retinue member "Choir Boy", which has -1 Purity effect for that priest.
362--> "This child's voice is a gift from God! One which I must keep close at hand..."
363** Game file data explicitly lists "Choir Boy" as a Sex type ancillary.
364* PenPushingPresident: A meta example; as the leader of a nation, the need to micromanage one's kingdom will rise with every territory gained. Building a vast empire through conquest is far simpler than keeping it running smoothly over the decades of the medieval period. That includes finding the most competent generals to govern the most valuable towns, managing and replacing agents like merchants and spies, continuing the [[HeirClubForMen royal bloodline]] and keeping it from getting RoyallyScrewedUp, and most importantly: controlling a large enough standing army and city garrisons to wage war and still prevent uprisings while maintaining a positive cashflow. The player can of course choose to ignore the VastBureaucracy needed to keep the empire standing, until they find it [[DystopiaIsHard collapsing under the weight]] of its own mismanagement.
365* PerilousOldFool: Once your generals reach a certain age, they gain a trait called "Beyond Battle" which gives a penalty to their hitpoints, movement points, command skill and troop morale. You can still have them command armies and die in battle, thus proving the point.
366* PoliticallyActivePrincess: Princesses can act as diplomats and negotiate with other factions, though there are some important differences to note. You can have your princess try to seduce a foreign general over to your faction with a matrilineal marriage, though with a chance of the princess defecting over to the other faction instead if they fail. When negotiating, if you are at peace with the other faction and their faction heir is unmarried, the unique option appears to "Marry faction heir to princess" to forge a strong alliance between your two factions. Once this happens, though, your princess will join the other faction's family and cease to act as an agent.
367* PowerfulAndHelpless: You could have the strongest empire in the game with territory spanning all of Europe, a treasury packed with gold and an army that even the [[HordesFromTheEast golden horde]] fears to challenge - and none of it will matter when TheBlackDeath strikes. You will be utterly screwed. Your cities will slowly die off, producing a fraction of the gold they once did. Your armies will shrivel and die as your best soldiers are taken by the plague. You're going to need that enormous treasury, because it will be drained dry by the time the plague is finally over. Nothing can prepare you for the onslaught of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yersinia_pestis Yersinia pestis]]. You're in the middle ages; there is no germ theory of disease and won't be one for another 700 years. There is no cure and no way to prevent the spread. All you can do is move all your generals and elite professional troops out of your towns or load them on transport ships before the plague strikes to keep them alive and wait it out while your population is slowly halved over the course of half a century. The one upside is that your enemies will be equally ruined by the plague, and you can infect your own spies and send them to enemy cities to infect them too, making them easier to conquer later.
368* PowerUpLetdown: There are plenty of bad ancillaries that you really don't want on your generals and agents.
369** A Pagan Magician drops your General's faith in his religion which will invite the suspicious eyes of the Inquisition.
370** Ornamental Armor is good for making a General look nice to his people but it drops the morale of his troops since they know he looks silly and unprotected. It also decreases his hitpoints by ''-2'' (Generals have base 2 hitpoints), making him far easier to kill in battle if he has no other traits that increase hitpoints.
371** A Princess with a Secret Lover is essentially an uncharming and cheating infidel after marriage, and this carries over even after they're married off to a general; they will gain negative traits that reflect their wife's traits.
372** Homosexual and dreaded generals can pick up a [[CreepyCrossdresser Foreign Fruitcake.]] Any respect his troops may have had for him evaporates when this follower appears.
373* PrettyBoy: A possible character trait... which can be passed from father to son.
374* PrettyPrincessPowerhouse: Well-dressed princess with high charm stats can carry knives to increase security and it's also possible for them to have traits that help them defend themselves.
375* PrincessClassic: Very possible for high-charm princesses.
376* ProperLady: Provides some nice negotiating points to Princesses and nice bonuses when married to generals.
377* ProudWarriorRaceGuy:
378** Your general's pre-battle speeches may give this vibe especially with the right traits. (Brave, Driven by Rage, Bloodthirsty, Berserk).
379** The Danes, according to their enemy banter. Fitting since in this game they're borderline Vikings.
380** The Mongols. You know when an admiral says "Come ! Let us stain the seas red !" he is one.
381* PurposefullyOverpowered: Heavy cavalry, as befit the time period. They take a long time to recruit and cost a lot to upkeep, but in return, will demolish any infantry short of braced pikemen.
382* RagsToRoyalty: Captains who win amazing victories can be adopted into the royal family and even inherit the crown, even if the unit that they were in charge of was a peasant mob. If adopted by the faction leader or heir, that promoted captain could one day ascend to the throne.
383* RandomNumberGod: On a few occasions during the campaign, the game will spit in your face by killing off your high-level spies whenever they attempt a spying/infiltration mission ''on a 95% chance of success''.
384* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Implied with certain traits. Most of them give positive effects (being too trusting can give you a decrease to personal security).
385* RebelliousPrincess: An eloping princess.
386* RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver: Well, the "Evil" part is [[MoralityKitchenSink debatable]], but the Timurids, who have a notable Red-and-Black color scheme, and are a powerful horde that may serve as the FinalBoss in the game.
387* ReligionOfEvil: Paganism and Heresy are both universally intolerable religions, one being a holdout of ancient times and the other being an active and willful deviation of the local faith spread by errant priests and imams (Heretics).
388* RockBeatsLaser: Playing as the Aztecs (along with other Native American factions in ''Kingdoms'') can definitely give this impression. Especially since your likely enemies are heavily armored and brandishing swords, horses and guns. Averted with the Apaches and Chichimenics who can capture guns and horses from defeated European armies.
389* RoyallyScrewedUp: The highest level the trait Incest can get is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Betrothed to Mother.]]
390* RuleOfCool: ''Rocket launcher elephants'' ! Too bad it is pretty impractical and a cheat unit.
391* RunningGag: The two guards who are always there whenever you fail an assassination/infiltration/sabotage attempt.
392* SchizoTech: In the spirit of the Renaissance, many late-game armies will have high medieval archers and knights backed up with late medieval militiamen, arqubusiers and culverin teams.
393* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules
394** Family Members with positive traits that raise Loyalty and the Cost of Bribery can make them highly resistant to the most skilled enemy diplomats that would try to sway them.
395** High-quality religious buildings will turn out better priests/imams upon recruitment. However, they will harm recruitment of Merchants by imparting moral values to them which lowers their ability to do business.
396* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney:
397** Family Members with negative traits that drop Loyalty and the Cost of Bribery will gladly leave you for the modest offerings of even an inexperienced enemy diplomat.
398** Your Priests/Imams can inherit negative traits, such as corruption, depending on where you recruit them.
399** With enough money in your coffers, it is possible to station a diplomat constantly near Rome (or wherever the seat of the Papacy is) for the sole purpose of bribing the Pope with so much money that he will turn a blind eye to you burning and pillaging through Catholic lands. This requires Outstanding or Perfect relations and can be expensive, but with high enough relations, you only get a slap on the wrist (slightly reduced relations which you can easily regain with more bribery) instead of a full blown excommunication for breaking a papal ceasefire. Another reason to bribe the Pope is that with good enough relations, he will accept any and all proposed crusades, even if it's to a backwater village. Without good relations, the Pope will turn down crusade requests against all but the most important settlements, such as Jerusalem and Cairo.
400* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Having an enemy join a crusade, but taking too long to get to your destination can cause units to start becoming disgruntled and abandoning your army. Making a crusading army abandon the cause or taking the general out of the crusade will put all your units (in the crusade) in danger of abandoning you in the next few turns if you don't reinstate their crusade status. If you are attacking a far off place, you probably should use a boat, but units can still abandon you at sea, leading to the hilarious implication that your insanely zealous troops are maniacally hopping off your transport ships in an attempt to ''swim all the way'' to the holy land.
401* TheScrooge: A possible trait for generals, which comes into play when they're in charge of settlements. It makes construction cheaper, but at a cost of lower public order and higher squalor as they cut corners to get things done cheaply, but not at the best quality.
402* ScriptedEvent: ''Medieval II'' has five: the Mongol Invasion, the Black Death, the invention of gunpowder, the Timurid Invasion, and the discovery of the New World. There are also a few dozen other minor events that shed some light on the history of the medieval era including the invention of the paper mill, the wheelbarrow, the compass, the windmill, a cataclysmic earthquake in Aleppo, and even an event about "the football craze" being banned in England.
403* ServantRace: The option to become another kingdom's vassal.
404* SilkHidingSteel: The Delicate Blade retinue for princesses, which increases their (already high baseline) chance of surviving assassinations.
405* SinisterMinister:
406** It is possible for a priest to become more and more corrupt. This obviously lowers their piety rating, and if you are a Catholic Nation than it makes them more likely to get [[KarmicDeath executed by the inquisition]].
407** Some heretics and witches also fit this description.
408* SirSwearsALot: Some generals are known for their foul mouths.
409* SlaveToPR
410** You will need to build lots of Churches and play nice with neighboring factions of the same faith if you intend to remain in the good graces of the Pope. Participating in Crusades is also sometimes MANDATORY if the Pope demands that your faction leader go on the crusade or be excommunicated. This usually happens if you already have bad relations with the Papacy.
411** Establishing Trade Rights does improve relations, but prolonged diplomatic inactivity between you and your trading partners will slowly cause your relations with them to decay back to what it was before.
412** Orthodox factions don't have to worry about the Pope as he only calls for ceasefires among infighting Catholic factions. They do have to worry about being the target of a Crusade/Jihad however, ESPECIALLY if they take a settlement of religious importance like Rome or Jerusalem.
413* SoldierVsWarrior: The main difference between the early feudal levy armies with knights on horseback supporting weak spearmen infantries, and the late-game troops armed with halberds, longbows, arbalests, pikes, [[HandCannon handheld cannons]] and backed with heavy gunpowder artillery. It's possible in the 1400s to see old medieval forces fight the new professional troops and watch the latter wipe the floor with the former. Even the most advanced plate-armored lancers on horseback belonging to France that represent the ultimate evolution of the charging knight are hopelessly ineffective against pike-wielding militias.
414* SpaceFillingEmpire: States that were fiercely independent in reality are folded into single macro-factions for the sake of simplicity, such as the "Russia" faction which in actuality encompasses multiple Rus city-states even from the start of the campaign.
415* SpitefulAI: It is obvious at times that the AI prioritize annoying the player over its own survability, declaring war if you so much as share a border with them and rarely, if ever, accepting a ceasefire (and if they propose one, they'll make ''you'' pay through the nose for it).
416* SpringtimeForHitler: Unlike ''Rome'', where it was possible to change your faction heir (at the cost of some Influence,) you cannot change your faction heir here. Presumably it was done for historical accuracy, with the computer typically selecting the oldest son of your Faction Leader if one is available. (If not, his next oldest brother is typically chosen.) This can lead to scenarios where a greedy/corrupt/disloyal governor of a backwater territory is named heir over his much more qualified brother/cousin who is a loyal conquering general. Your only option at that point is to have your faction heir killed as described in UriahGambit below. However, if he survives, there is a good chance that he'll come away with a trait that makes him even ''harder'' to kill in the future. Good luck with that...
417* StealingFromTheTill: Some governors will dig through the tax revenues of the areas they govern.
418* StormingTheCastle: If you're a Catholic faction fighting another Catholic faction, you pretty much ''have'' to do this if your Papal favor isn't very high, lest you face excommunication next turn when you either don't lift the siege or assault the walls. This is, of course, why packing siege equipment with your army is always a good investment, so you can snatch the city/castle before the Pope gets noisy.
419* SuicidalOverconfidence: Just like ''Rome'', the campaign AI takes this up to eleven. Factions with no chance of even winning a single battle against you will declare war on your continent-expanding empire and will refuse even the most reasonable ceasefire treaties. The battle AI tends to avert this, however.
420* SweetPollyOliver: Priests with the trait "Secretly Female". This raises her Piety rating, as she is so devoted to her faith that she would risk discovery and death for it. With careful maneuvering, you can even get her elected Pope! This actually reflects a medieval legend about Pope Joan.
421* TacticalRockPaperScissors: Somewhat. However, morale, experience, equipment, positioning, and numbers (especially numbers) affect things.
422** [[LightningBruiser Heavy cavalry]] ''completely slaughters'' light cavalry (if it can catch it), most infantry, [[GameBreaker as well as most units in the game]]. It does less spectacularly against spearmen and even worse against a pike wall. However, the hard counter to heavy cavalry is [[HorseArcher missile cavalry]] which can outrun and harass them with impunity, and heavy cavalry will suffer if caught in a place where it can't maneuver or cycle charge, like the confined streets of a city or castle, or a river crossing, or mountainous terrain.
423** [[FragileSpeedster Light cavalry]] is best used to flank, capture routing enemies, charge archers, peasants or Siege weapons. They can perform fine against light troops, but do not expect them to survive long against heavier troops.
424** [[JackOfAllStats Spearmen]] have the edge over cavalry and can hold their own against most infantry. Pikemen, if deployed into pike walls, will completely negate cavalry charges and do well in chokepoints, but are generally poor against anything else.
425** [[ZergRush Light infantry]] are generally poor on their own, but are cheap, quick and good for flanking enemy infantry and running down heavy infantry and archers.
426** [[MightyGlacier Heavy infantry]] beats most other things, except for good Ranged units (especially if mounted) and charging heavy cavalry.
427** Early ranged infantry are offensive support units, they will wear down anything that doesn't reach it : however [[GlassCannon when melee units DO reach them in melee]]...
428** [[GlassCannon Late-game gunpowder troops]] is specially effective against heavy armour, although they still die if they enter melee against Cavalry or good archers.
429** Peasants [[JokeCharacter are just plain bad]]. However, they are cheap and effective at being CannonFodder, restricting your opponent's movement and harassing ranged troops mostly because they are cheap, numerous and [[WeHaveReserves expendable]]. Basically, they're made to be GoddamnedBats.
430** [[HorseArcher Missile cavalry]] is essentially fast archers and light cavalry in a convenient package. Very DifficultButAwesome in that they can completely shut down heavy cavalry and most melee infantry, but need a lot of micromanagement to do so effectively. They do very poorly against enemy archer infantry, though, due to the fact that they'll be outnumbered greatly man-for-man and they're individually larger targets.
431** [[{{BFG}} Artillery]] (both pre- and post-gunpowder varieties) will will quickly cut down slow moving infantry and the only units able to destroy walls and towers in sieges, but will die in seconds as soon as they enter melee with anything other than over artillery.
432* TalkToTheFist: Oh so possible and oh so satisfying after a diplomat offers you a ridiculous treaty like becoming a vassal.
433* TemptingFate: The final line in the campaign description of the Turks: ''"After all, how likely is it that [[HordesFromTheEast an even more fierce and formidable race of nomadic warriors sweep down from the steppes]]?"''
434* AThicketOfSpears: Spear units of some sort are available to nearly any faction, and are good at dealing with cavalry if you can manage to bog them down in a prolonged fight.
435* ThievesGuild: Building one enhances your spies and assassins. Conditions have to be right for it to appear however.
436* TomboyPrincess: A possible trait that's usually negative given the DeliberateValuesDissonance. [[TomboyWithAGirlyStreak She can still have a yappy dog, though]].
437* TooDumbToLive: A Crusading Army that becomes leaderless during a naval voyage ''will throw themselves into the ocean''.
438* UpperClassTwit: A trait you never want your generals and princesses to have.
439* UriahGambit: Just as in ''Rome'', it's possible and even ''recommended'' as a way to get rid of troublesome family members who have mostly detrimental traits. If they die, they won't be around lowering the morale of your armies, adding to the corruption of your cities, and potentially corrupting your family line by passing these traits on to equally useless offspring. [[SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder If by some miracle they actually win, they'll gain positive traits in combat, actually making them useful at least as a heavy cavalry unit]].
440* VideoGameCaringPotential: Pay your captured soldiers' ransoms and hear them sigh in relief and cheer, or free captured enemies to earn Chivalry points. Peacefully occupy cities that you conquer to ensure the continued prosperity of your new subjects, and spend your treasury to build markets, ports, aqueducts, bathhouses, churches, taverns, and more...
441* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: ...or refuse to pay for your underlings' failures and butcher captured foes so they may never oppose you again. Assassinate your own family members, or send them out alone on a boat to get sunk by pirates or enemy fleets. Order your [[BrotherSisterIncest princesses to marry their brothers]]. Deny adopted sons and distant relatives freedom to marry in order to purify the bloodline. If the Pope excommunicates you, order him assassinated. [[RapePillageAndBurn Sack your neighbors' cities or exterminate the population]]. Order a Spy from a plague-infested town to spread his contagion through your enemy's empire as one final act of spite. Send [[UriahGambit units or family members you don't want]] in charges against vastly superior forces. Conquer and sack a city in the Middle East between two Muslim nations, sell it to the Papacy for a few thousand florins and watch the hilarity ensue. Bribe an enemy army to join you and then send them on a suicide assault against their former masters. It's sometimes quite a bit harder to not be extremely cruel and effective than it is to become globally notorious and effective.
442* VestigialEmpire: The Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire, although it's possible to avert its fate in real life. Also notable in that while it has access to strong and outright formidable units early on (like the Cataphracts), it's almost wholly lacking in late game technologies and units, which can put them at a disadvantage unless they're sufficiently trained.
443** The Maya and Norwegians in the New World and Britannia campaigns respectively are also this, something invoked in the opening cinematics. If you play as them you can [[AlternateHistory restore their former glory]].
444** Each campaign starts off with formidable empires like the Aztecs or Holy Romans who can end up vestigial or outright eliminated far earlier then they were in real life.
445* VideoGameTime: The discrepancy between time scales and character aging. As ''Medieval II'' was built on ''Rome'''s engine, characters still age by one "year" every two turns (the same as in ''Rome''), but for balance purposes each turn lasts two years. Thus the impression that [[Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance characters only turn a year older every four years]].
446* VillainProtagonist: Though the Teutonic Order are the main playable faction in the Teutonic Campaign, the game pulls no punches in portraying them as a nigh genocidal ChurchMilitant organization whose fanatical aggression has made them feared and hated by nearly everyone around them, including their fellow Christians.
447** Your Faction leader will be this if his dread value is high enough.
448* ViolationOfCommonSense: If you send a Crusading Army by sea and their one and only general inconveniently dies of old age, the crusading units will threaten to desert even though you cannot disband units inside a naval transport. Next turn, the crusading units are all gone due to desertion, ''having thrown themselves into the water'' because there is no one to lead them on their sacred pilgrimage.
449* ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption: The AI never seems to learn. You'll be thrashing it, then either the Pope will make you stop or they will offer you a substantial amount of gold to let them go. Then a few turns later, they seem to forget this and attack you again. This can lead to several long and costly wars throughout the campaign. The AI in general is famously stubborn. At times, it will not even accept a ''gift'' of all the territories the player has seized in a war, and that is a ''gift'', with no ''ceasefire''. You enemy will NEVER accept becoming a vassal even when their last city is surrounded and you decide to spare them. You can offer them (using a diplomat with the highest negotiation level) so much in return that the offer can become "very generous" and they will still refuse.
450* ViolentGlaswegian: When you click on a dreaded Scottish general:
451--> '''"I'll rep off yer head an' spet down yer neck!"'''
452* WickedWitch: They can put curses on your characters. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Or so the game says]].
453* WomenAreWiser: A rare combo, but it is possible. You can have the general have an idiot trait and a trait for a smart wife. Having a smart wife increases tax revenue.
454* YouHaveFailedMe: The Pope's Inquisition will attempt to hold your faction responsible for to high levels of paganism and heresy - targeting first the Priests and then dynasty members in order of preference. Unless their piety is higher they stand a good chance of being burnt at the stake for it.
455* ZergRush:
456** Zerging is a viable strategy against the Mongols and Timurids. When they first appear, they're just unsupported armies with no cities backing them up, which means that any Mongol or Timurid warrior you kill ''stays'' dead and cannot be replaced. [[WeHaveReserves You can replace your losses]]; ''they'' can't.
457** During tactical battles, zerging is an effective way to quickly end a siege if you're willing to trade a lot of casualties for a decisive assault. Pour everything you've got into a breach in the walls to force the defenders back due to the sheer mass of your troops. Then, send entire units of heavy infantry to charge through the enemy lines at full speed. This will usually result in heavy losses, but if you send enough men charging through the enemy formation, they will eventually break through, causing a general rout.
458** This is perhaps one of the few viable strategies you can employ with Peasants. Although they will quickly die in droves against a superior enemy, and are prone to routing at the first sign of trouble, they are extremely cheap (110 florins per unit!) and easy to spam. Intelligently used (and ideally backed with a capable Chivalrous general to raise their morale), a horde of peasants can tie up enemy units so that other peasants (or other higher quality troops) can swing around and hit them in the flanks. With enough peasants, you can literally surround, envelop, and drown your enemies in men, breaking their morale even though the peasants should have been slaughtered in a fair fight. This strategy works slightly less well in sieges due to most melee fights happening in narrow streets or on the walls, though having large numbers of peasants on the assault does help in constructing and manning siege equipment in support of better troops.
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