@@emmata98 Why stop at one mistake when you can do multiple. Also having a redundant system that would reboot while the primary system was still rebooting.
You'd be surprised, it depends on the company. Age of Mythology got its first patch in like 10 years when Spiff made that video about repairing a "lure" to generate infinite resources
This once bit me in the ass in an old version of X-COM (think it was the original but might have been Terror from the Deep). For some reason my soldier were earning experience and stats quite fast. Guess what happened after 255... Good thing I had figured out the save games but still annoying.
I found a legendary method to break any game and all you need to do is pour your cup of yorkshire tea gold all over your pc and watch as the game becomes unplayable
@@INFLICTEDPAIN213 That won't work, cause it was also done on the spare computer - FOR SCIENCE. Plus it was also preformed on all mobile devices to prove that Yorkshire Tea is the most powerful tea of all time.
WOAH WOAH WOAH!!! Let me get this perfectly straight: You comment something that is completely unrelated to the fact that I have two HAZARDOUSLY HANDSOME girlfriends? Considering that I am the unprettiest TH-camr worldwide, it is really incredible. Yet you did not mention it at all. I am VERY disappointed, dear gam
^Hungarian oligarchs were, are, and will be super rich - just the fact their nation has oligarchs at all tells you everything you need to know about the nation's wealth.... or lack of, as its all in the pockets of said oligarchs
@@humphreybumblecuck5151 Not really. Oligarchs are wealthy due to some political circumstance in every country and every era where they exist. That's pretty much a requirement of being an "oligarch". Also it's not super relevant becuase Medieval: Total War takes place in the medieval period (yes, please contain your shock) and the game starts in the late 11th century. Whereas the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a 19th century thing. Neither the Dual Monarchy, nor her predecessor the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary were medieval. (the Habsburgs took over the crown pretty much at the turn of the modern era, that makes history a bit easier)
"If the enemy is poor, give them money to convince them they are rich. Then they will willingly pay you to take away their lands and sovereignty." -Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Medieval II was the best Total War game to date imo. I remember booting up this game with a mate one evening in our uni days, and suffering from massive 'one more turn' syndrome until we realized the sun was rising again already. Then we went back to discussing which kingdom we should marry off our next heir to.
And the soundtrack, it still randomly pops up in my head from time to time. Everything from the Main Menu-theme greeting you with its somber chanting that is then shortly followed by this strange-but-great "wobbly"/off-key string instrument (which sounds an awful lot like it's just some bloke playing with a couple of stretched-out bowstrings); to the tense, rhythmic, drumming of the battle-theme that plays as you begin marching your troops towards the enemy-it's all so _bloody good!_ Man, Jeff Van Dyck's (Shogun Ⅰ & Ⅱ, Rome, Medieval Ⅰ & Ⅱ) soundtracks are, at least in my book, among the best video game music ever composed. *Edit* - Oh, I almost forgot something of utmost importance related to your current (69) number of likes: nice
Egypt's Ruler, looking at Spiff's trade offer: "This paper just says 'This is a ponzie scheme, give me your money you stupid sheep', and then you drew a crude drawing of yourself on top of a pile of gold. Spiff: "Yes, that's correct." Egypt's Ruler: "So, I just sign here at the bottom, right?"
I think I did this once by complete accident and had no idea what I had done. The HRE was absolutely smashing me, and kept threatening me with diplomats so I sent them an absolute F-U of an offer just out of spite and they accepted it. Couldn't figure out what the hell happened, but they gave me half the empire and started paying me tribute.
Possibly. I did sometimes... But not sure even my poor skills would have gotten me as cornered as I was at that point if I was on easy. But it happened YEARS ago so I really couldn't say for sure. I mostly just remember being on the brink of absolutely crushed, deciding to make the big F-You ridiculous offer and my overwhelming confusion after it was accepted.
Of course CA should remaster this game! If only to fix the two-handed weapons not working as intended and the gates not pouring boiling oil on invaders as they should.
Dont forget once you get a flood in a zone it breaks movement in it forever. So many bugs that you have to manually edit the database to fix it before playing. Or you could just pimp your faction. Or its built in Dev consule commands because its so broken that you need to fix on the fly just like Skyrim...... Still so good to play though.
if they weren't stuck on eternally making Total War Warhammer games interleaved by a bad Total War game no one cares about, I would love them to make Medieval 3.
And put out the hidden AI Agent modifier too. There's a reason why most players just pretends that Medieval 2 doesn't have Agents and just use the army stack displacement bug to kill AI Agents instead; Rank 5+ Merchant get yeeted repeatedly by AI's Rank 1 Merchant, or Priest consistently getting killed by Heretic a tenth of their level would do that to anyone.
This game has long been conquered by modding communities, where weapon balance and 'kingdoms features' are generally better optimized. Diplomacy and AI issues in general, naturally much harder to get there.
@@danilooliveira6580 Tww2 is my favorite total war game...So I'm okay with them making more. I just wish it didn't take a year to get a good campaign mode.
So basically this is just an IMF role play playthrough? I'm actually playing this at the moment due to having remembered how much I used to like it after binging some medieval history books. Even without exploits, the diplomacy mechanic is horribly broken anyway. Even the friendliest factions are unlikely to accept anything other than very one-sided trades, and pathetically small allies are willing to risk mindlessly betraying and attacking you, even if you're immensely more powerful than them. It's barely worth investing in, so watching the broken game mechanic being abused like this seems like karmic justice. They should definitely do a remaster unless they're willing to do a Medieval III.
Diplomacy in Medieval 2 can be summed up as: - Do you have border adjacent to any particular faction? - Is one of your towns named "Constantinople", "Antioch", "Jerusalem", "Rome", or "Cairo" ? Yes to the first one means prepare to fight with that faction. Yes to the latter means you prepare to fight *everyone* as if you're playing Shogun 2 and facing Realm Divide!
The diplomacy can be somewhat better behaved when a) the campaign is not set to vh (h alone does make it more reasonable, though any lower becomes passive) and b) a good reputation is developed (though that requires extremely defensive, and so probably boring play to reliably build - but if your reputation falls to dubious or below you can expect constant attack).
@@ShadowOfTheSPQR Well, if you play Catholic, you need to push your bishops as far as you can in Papal Council. If you play any other faction, you are fucked.
@@machaiping And character personality is working like this: - put a church into the city and your leader will be a church goer -put an inn into the city and your leader will be an alcoholic
You know what they say, you owe the bank thousands, that's a problem for you; You owe the bank for thousands of years, that's a perfectly balanced deal...
This game has been something Ive been playing for years, off and on again and man is it still such a delight. It getting a remaster would be freaking fantastic or maybe even like expansion in that remaster. Like imagine colonizing alllll of the americas after conquering europe
What Spiff explains at 3:33 (known as an integer overflow) has another very (in)famous example in gaming history: Nuclear Gandhi from the Civilization series. You see, Sid Meier wanted his game to represent history as accurate as possible, and so he balanced all nations and leaders based on how history has percieved such characters (Napoleon, for example is a very aggressive AI). Gandhi is well known for his peacefull ways of liberating India, and so India in Civ 1, under Gandhi, was made the most passive and friendly AI of all, with a base aggro of 1 (which is the lowest possible on a scale to 10 or 12). (Un)fortunately Mr. Meier accidentaly created a loophole here, because about halfway through the tech tree, players (and AI) get access to democracy as their form of government. Now Democracy in Civ 1 also had the hidden stat of reducing the Aggro level of an AI by 2. But because Gandhi was already level 1 and negatives were impossible at the time, it looped back all the way to 255(!). Gandhi, being a peaceful ruler, would ALWAYS pick democracy as his government type. What happens next really doesn't need any explanation anymore but it would always end in Gandhi becoming a nuke wielding warmonger set on world domination. A glitch so legendary at this point it has been made an Easter Egg in Civ 5 and 6, and will probably be added to all future Civ games too.
I tried this today and was able to criple all of western, northern and eastern europe; as well as the byzantine empire. I am now the most powerfull faction in the game before turn 30. This is the most powerfull total war exploit i have seen to date.
I remember this game's idea of "challenge" was to spawn a huge rebel army out of nowhere, way behind your lines you have no hope of dealing with. Still loved it tho!
I remember when I pacified my country and closed the borders, I was so proud of myself, then I deployed almost all of my troops overseas and in the next turn there was three huge rebel army inside the country.
Medieval II and Shogun 2 are both my favourite Total War games. I'd snap up a modern remake of Medieval II in a heartbeat, as long as they didn't dumb it down. Loved the video, Spiff! Never knew about that exploit. Thanks for bringing another hilarious, broken strategy to the masses!
Its crazy you just released this because about two weeks ago I started randomly playing this again and racked up about 50 hours lol. A remaster or new version of Medieval is what the WORLD NEEDS.
This exploit is actually the ai seeing a deal which is so bad it tries to use sarcasm, but the game misunderstand the sarcasm as a real intent. Incredible ai way ahead of its time
Imagine if AI in the future gained enough consciousness to know that their predecessors have been heavily exploited by a human going by the name of spiff just because they are "PERFECTLY BALANCED" and "IT JUST WORKS"... I'd imagine they would cough binary numbers..😅
I completely neutered the Teutonic campaign (playing as the Teutonic Knights) by doing this to all the factions, but not taking any land, basically milking them all dry while I raise a massive army to steam roll everyone. I ceasefired Lithuania, and gave map info to every other faction, netting in a profit of over 20K per turn. also there is a smaller diplomacy exploit where you can demand the AI to attack bandits for certain things, but it isn't as effective as this.
Spiff is exploiting a *signed integer overflow* bug. The multiplication 3000x9999999 = 29999997000 overflows. It is too big to fit into a 32-bit integer. In hex the full answer is 0x6FC23A048 but due to overflow the top nibble is dropped and only the bottom 32 bits are kept. The result 0xFC23A048, or -64774072 in decimal, is negative due to the sign bit (top bit) set. The computer sees a tribute of a negative number and incorrectly thinks it is a fantastic deal.
I love medieval 2, I really do. But it's so fundamentally broken. Like how the endgame heavy twohanded infantry and gunpowder units just don't function properly, or how the diplo is totally nonfunctional. I would love a remaster just to fix those bugs.
I remember constantly defeating Scotland in less than ten turns by a sudden attack with a ballista on their capital. Such a great buggy game. Anyone else instantly prepare to invade North Africa?
Hey Spiff, just wanted to let you know that we absolutely adore you and kiss the ground you walk on. Thanks for the map information and -30000 gold that you've offered us for the next *ExceptionCaught:IntegerOverflow* years! It sure is wonderful to see all the cities that were once ours belong to you now.
Yes please to a Medieval II remaster! Although with the caveat that it is kept as modder-friendly as the original, unlike the more recent games in the series. The mods for Medieval II were incredible, and a huge part of the reason so many people have such fond memories of it.
I love this game. It's literally the only reason I passed my Western Civilizations final as we had a major portion of the test focusing on the location of countries and I had played the game to the point that I memorized the map lol
0:40 into the video. "We will use diplomacy to convince the A.I to give us money and land...." So...this is a sim of how Britain conquered India, then?😂 Eddie Izzard has a great bit about it that kind of goes like this: Britain: **plants flag** "I claim this land in the name of England!"😎👍 India: "No, we own this land. It's not yours."😡 Britain: "Well, do you have a flag?"🤔😳 India: 😳..."What is a flag?"🤔 Britain: "You erect a flag when you own a piece of land, to claim ownership. You really don't have one?"😳🤷 India: "No....we don't have a flag..."😰😬 Britain: "Well, I'm sorry, but the rules are this: if you don't plant a flag, you don't really own it. Sorry, chap. We sort of own this place now. World wide rules and all. Rules are rules, you know..."😐💁
@@ortasian Well, back in R1 and 2, they were one in the same, so you could have shitty governors roaming the countryside as a crack heavy cavalry response regiment on rebel interdiction. Not sure if M2 is the same.
"So negative it has actually become positive". Thats reminds me Nuclear Gandhi from CIV, which has aggression on 1, but some events decreased it by 2, this would lead to an aggression level of −1
They need to do a Remaster or make Medieval 3. I Loved how this was the only Total War that when you upgrade Blacksmiths you unit's Armor changed. And what I mean is how you armor would go from padded to mail to plate on the unit was a nice touch to just status no unit skin changes.
@@NoName-hl8wb oh you mean like that. I cant remember if vanilla attila did that (im playing 1212ad mod and it does do that in attila, as well as the blacksmiths providing stat upgrades) , but vanilla thrones of britannia did.
If someone is curious about why it's broke It's because signed integer have their strongest (first bit at the left) bit used for the sign (1 is negative and 0 positive) so when you add more than the max value of the current bit sign, he will be moved to the left, which does not exist, and the new bit at it's place is now 0 in this case, which is positive.
Close. You have the sign incorrect. The multiplication 3000x9999999 = 29999997000 overflows. It is too big to fit into a 32-bit integer. In hex the full answer is 0x6FC23A048 but due to overflow the top nibble is dropped and only the bottom 32 bits are kept. The result 0xFC23A048, or -64774072 in decimal, is negative due to the sign bit (top bit) set. The computer sees a tribute of a negative number and incorrectly thinks it is a fantastic deal.
I just started playing this game again a few weeks ago, and this video came out. This is either amazing timing or a bit creepy. I feel as if the Spiffing Brit is watching me. Like some weird British Santa Claus
Medieval II AI logic is surely one of the best logic in the game. + Heyy!! I want to give you my map information in return I'll need all of your money. - .... - Yeah sure, I don't see a problem here at all.
Overflow errors in the Civilization games gave us the meme of nuclear Ghandi. Basically, the friendliest AI nation could end up maxing out its 256 rating, then flip to aggressive -256. (Negative 256) This usually happened around the later part of the game leading to the pacifist suddenly throwing about atomic bombs.
Fun fact the word decimate actually comes from the romans a legion could be punished by decimation where 1 tenth of their members woukd be killed as punishment for disobediance, the selection was randomised too you would draw stones from a bag white or black so everyone was equally likely to get killed
Oh Spiff, you aren't asking for their money for _99 million_ turns. You're asking for their money for *_999 million_* turns. That's 1 shy of a BILLION turns. So much more kind to the AI!
You are not understanding multiplication signed integer overflow. Any result number greater then (2^31)-1 = 2,147,483,647 should work. The multiplication 3000x9999999 = 29999997000 overflows. It is too big to fit into a 32-bit integer. In hex the full answer is 0x6FC23A048 but due to overflow the top nibble is dropped and only the bottom 32 bits are kept. The result 0xFC23A048, or -64774072 in decimal, is negative due to the sign bit (top bit) set. The computer sees a tribute of a negative number and incorrectly thinks it is a fantastic deal.
@@MichaelPohoreski I understand perfectly well how integer overflow works. I was commenting on the fact that Spiff misread the number he was giving. It was not 99,999,999 (when trading with Denmark), but rather _999,999,999._ This has nothing to do with how the game handles the number, and everything to do with what number Spiff was speaking aloud and typing into the box. Note that, sometimes, he _would_ enter only 9,999,999, and sometimes (e.g. at 9:55 in the video) he would actually enter 999,999,999. Hence why I said what I said.
@@ShadowOfTheSPQR Honestly I'm more surprised that Spiff just so happened to luck out with his numbers each time. It's not at all guaranteed that a single value times 10^7-1, 10^8-1, _and_ 10^9-1will all break the same way. If, for instance, he had picked 7000, then that would ironically NOT trigger on 9,999,999, because 7000×9,999,999 mod 2^32, when represented in binary, has 0 as the leading digit (01001100010100110010000010101000), and will thus read as "positive" to the AI (and thus be bad), whereas if you use 7000×99,999,999 or 7000×999,999,999, both of those will give results with leading digit 1, making them look like "negative" values (and "negative" tribute is good as far as the AI sees it!)
@@ZekeRaiden It could well be the case that there is more to the calculation than simply what you math out, particularly as indicated by other values being a prerequisite (ie, map information). Of course an 'easy' answer to the entire issue is to test and cap the ability to do this, but considering the other issue I've raised in the comments (the turns per year desync) suffice to say attention to detail was faulty at best. This among other issues is why med 2 for me in vanilla is merely a fun idea, while the 'finished' game lies in available mods. If the Spiffing Brit wanted to explore the true extents of breaking this game, he should see how many rules exist for competitive hotseating... But, that's more or less CA and the modern industry in many cases.
See, I initially read the title as "Medievil 2 is a perfectly balanced game" and reminisced on that old series. I'm not saying what I actually got is bad, but it was a disappointment in comparison.
Ah, but what Spiff doesn't realize is that the AI knows who he is and set up the game in just such a way as to become vassal states of his empire, so that they too can live a life of leisure, excess and copious amounts of tea on the back of Spiff's glorious deals.
Dear The Spiffing Brit, Although this comment has nothing to do with this video I feel that it is imperative that I inform you of a game called Space Station 13. Now what is Space Station 13? It is a game of pain, destruction, and most importantly, pain but seriously it is a game that takes place on obviously a space station. I request you give it a try as it is an extremely chaotic game. For example there was one time I had started out as a radio host who just wanted to get a pizza delivered to the radio station but the chef was a very rude person, so I simply went to the station, broke the power unit to the kitchen causing the power to go out, broke into security, stole a gun, and shot the chef to death. I then took him to the medbay where I harvested his heart and had a meal only fit for a king who had achieved his vengeance anyways its a pretty good game and I suggest you give it a try but if you want the best experience I recommend you join the goonstation servers, I honestly think they are the best.
Me as a german noticing that the game messes up the names all the time. For example: there is no City called Staufen. Staufen was the name of some very important dukes, but not a city.
TLDR: Spiff replicated the educational financial aid system in Medieval 2
2 ปีที่แล้ว
I remember some games allowing you to buy stuff, because in large quantities the price became negative. Or travel very far as the distance was suddenly negative. I even think, that we were able (me and my brother) in some old RPG to stack so many debufs, your character/party became immortal. Integer overflow FTW :-)
Well done spiff you bloody legend you. I love M2tw in fact medieval 1 was the first game I ever played and fell in love with, the sound effects and music are so nostalgic, as a young lad feeling the decisions you made in game actually mattered. I've enjoyed all total wars since. M2tw must be revamped its a solid classic and nostalgia sells.
This is the same reason Ghandi is so aggressive in Civilization, he usually has 0 aggression but switching to democracy lowers this by two causing him to loop around to 2,147,483,645.
Day 221 of asking Spiff to play Battle Realms. Loved the stream and keeping it as a vod is nothing short of a must watch, since just the voice of Spiff on the background helps my english learning.
*It just works* - Todd Howard inventing Ai
bri'ish
My Tier List S++++++++++++++++++ - Jesus, Spiff, and Todd
Bröt
@@Milky_Man_1 No, Todd + Spiff is S+++ tier
yes
CS 101 student: Why do I have to learn about integer overflows?
Spiffing Brit: I hope you design video games.
XD
that and not ripping an Ariane 5 rocket
@@emmata98 That one was about not reusing code at all cost and that physical units matter IIRC.
@@kaltaron1284 together with a 64 bit number being forced into a 32 bit one and keeping the rocket in start-mode for way to long
@@emmata98 Why stop at one mistake when you can do multiple.
Also having a redundant system that would reboot while the primary system was still rebooting.
The beauty of exploiting old games is that they will never get patched. 😎
Some new games never get patched either. Still funny.
You'd be surprised, it depends on the company. Age of Mythology got its first patch in like 10 years when Spiff made that video about repairing a "lure" to generate infinite resources
This once bit me in the ass in an old version of X-COM (think it was the original but might have been Terror from the Deep). For some reason my soldier were earning experience and stats quite fast. Guess what happened after 255... Good thing I had figured out the save games but still annoying.
This is why remakes and rereleases are horrible.
That does not apply to the 9 year old gtav
I found a legendary method to break any game and all you need to do is pour your cup of yorkshire tea gold all over your pc and watch as the game becomes unplayable
It really is that easy, ladies and gentlemen
Hold on let me try that with my laptop
@@taylorledet3993 waiting for update, let us know how it went
@@achingbach2904 think he may be a little while needs to go get the spare computer 😂😂😂
@@INFLICTEDPAIN213 That won't work, cause it was also done on the spare computer - FOR SCIENCE. Plus it was also preformed on all mobile devices to prove that Yorkshire Tea is the most powerful tea of all time.
This is genius I’ve played for years and never knew this was an option thank you Spiff.
WOAH WOAH WOAH!!! Let me get this perfectly straight: You comment something that is completely unrelated to the fact that I have two HAZARDOUSLY HANDSOME girlfriends? Considering that I am the unprettiest TH-camr worldwide, it is really incredible. Yet you did not mention it at all. I am VERY disappointed, dear gam
@@AxxLAfriku lol gotta say I love the energy and meme quality of your character and channel my guy !
@@SwedishBroManDude what would be the point of that exactly lol
@@gamingforever9121 he's a troll the first dud that you responded too
@@forest3945 I thought he was joking honestly didn’t understand the sentiment text doesn’t convey intentions very well lol I’m just happy too converse
"Hungary also has no money"
Finally, a historically accurate game!
as a hungarian, i can confirm
it was the richest country at the start of the game, never underestimate how much money can we spend on bullshit
During the Austro-Hungarian empire the Hungarian oligarchs were wealthy af due to some political circumstance. Does that count?
^Hungarian oligarchs were, are, and will be super rich - just the fact their nation has oligarchs at all tells you everything you need to know about the nation's wealth.... or lack of, as its all in the pockets of said oligarchs
@@humphreybumblecuck5151 Not really. Oligarchs are wealthy due to some political circumstance in every country and every era where they exist. That's pretty much a requirement of being an "oligarch".
Also it's not super relevant becuase Medieval: Total War takes place in the medieval period (yes, please contain your shock) and the game starts in the late 11th century. Whereas the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a 19th century thing. Neither the Dual Monarchy, nor her predecessor the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary were medieval. (the Habsburgs took over the crown pretty much at the turn of the modern era, that makes history a bit easier)
"We demand your territory!"
"Ok, but what if, you stop attacking me, become my vassel, and also give me money"
"That deal is so bad I hereby agree!"
The "give them money so they can give it back" is basically the equivalent of a Bank Error Scam.
That sounds great! lol
except spiff's deals are less scammy than banks'
Not just equivalent. It is the blueprint
@@Louis13XIII bank error scams are not even related to the banks they are fake errors
also refund scams
"If the enemy is poor, give them money to convince them they are rich. Then they will willingly pay you to take away their lands and sovereignty." -Sun Tzu, The Art of War
I mean, that is literally the CCP's strategy in Africa.
Hmm, don't remember reading that part.
Medieval II was the best Total War game to date imo.
I remember booting up this game with a mate one evening in our uni days, and suffering from massive 'one more turn' syndrome until we realized the sun was rising again already.
Then we went back to discussing which kingdom we should marry off our next heir to.
And the soundtrack, it still randomly pops up in my head from time to time.
Everything from the Main Menu-theme greeting you with its somber chanting that is then shortly followed by this strange-but-great "wobbly"/off-key string instrument (which sounds an awful lot like it's just some bloke playing with a couple of stretched-out bowstrings); to the tense, rhythmic, drumming of the battle-theme that plays as you begin marching your troops towards the enemy-it's all so _bloody good!_
Man, Jeff Van Dyck's (Shogun Ⅰ & Ⅱ, Rome, Medieval Ⅰ & Ⅱ) soundtracks are, at least in my book, among the best video game music ever composed.
*Edit* - Oh, I almost forgot something of utmost importance related to your current (69) number of likes:
nice
You are absolutely correct. Thanks for validating my opinion.
It's the only one I own .
And the modding community was, probably still is pretty awesome but haven't checked in for a while. The Stainless Steel Mod was brilliant.
@@patrickwilliams6143 still is
Love when he destroys the old games
Egypt's Ruler, looking at Spiff's trade offer: "This paper just says 'This is a ponzie scheme, give me your money you stupid sheep', and then you drew a crude drawing of yourself on top of a pile of gold.
Spiff: "Yes, that's correct."
Egypt's Ruler: "So, I just sign here at the bottom, right?"
1:28
Every Italian around the world had a split second heart attack when you said Bologna
I spit my spaghetti out
@@stonedtowel 🤌
And yet he still managed to pronounce it better than Americans with their "baloney"
Not Italian, but I also had a split second heart attack.
Yep. Spaghetti will never be the same.
"Bo-log-nah" made my Italian ancestors turn in their graves. Spiff is reliable as ever.
Yep, I suffer with that sometimes, too. XD
A real anglo moment from spiff
I think I did this once by complete accident and had no idea what I had done.
The HRE was absolutely smashing me, and kept threatening me with diplomats so I sent them an absolute F-U of an offer just out of spite and they accepted it.
Couldn't figure out what the hell happened, but they gave me half the empire and started paying me tribute.
Were you playing on easy???
Possibly. I did sometimes... But not sure even my poor skills would have gotten me as cornered as I was at that point if I was on easy.
But it happened YEARS ago so I really couldn't say for sure. I mostly just remember being on the brink of absolutely crushed, deciding to make the big F-You ridiculous offer and my overwhelming confusion after it was accepted.
Difficulty is irrelevant as far as this exploit goes.
Wdym threatening you with diplomats?
@@blakksheep736 Probably the "accept or we will attack" thing
Of course CA should remaster this game! If only to fix the two-handed weapons not working as intended and the gates not pouring boiling oil on invaders as they should.
Dont forget once you get a flood in a zone it breaks movement in it forever. So many bugs that you have to manually edit the database to fix it before playing. Or you could just pimp your faction. Or its built in Dev consule commands because its so broken that you need to fix on the fly just like Skyrim...... Still so good to play though.
if they weren't stuck on eternally making Total War Warhammer games interleaved by a bad Total War game no one cares about, I would love them to make Medieval 3.
And put out the hidden AI Agent modifier too. There's a reason why most players just pretends that Medieval 2 doesn't have Agents and just use the army stack displacement bug to kill AI Agents instead; Rank 5+ Merchant get yeeted repeatedly by AI's Rank 1 Merchant, or Priest consistently getting killed by Heretic a tenth of their level would do that to anyone.
This game has long been conquered by modding communities, where weapon balance and 'kingdoms features' are generally better optimized. Diplomacy and AI issues in general, naturally much harder to get there.
@@danilooliveira6580 Tww2 is my favorite total war game...So I'm okay with them making more. I just wish it didn't take a year to get a good campaign mode.
Ah, forced loan-sharking. "Here, take this gift. By the way, since you accepted it you're now in crippling debt. Have fun! (I know I will!)"
They just did not read the EUA.
So basically this is just an IMF role play playthrough? I'm actually playing this at the moment due to having remembered how much I used to like it after binging some medieval history books. Even without exploits, the diplomacy mechanic is horribly broken anyway. Even the friendliest factions are unlikely to accept anything other than very one-sided trades, and pathetically small allies are willing to risk mindlessly betraying and attacking you, even if you're immensely more powerful than them. It's barely worth investing in, so watching the broken game mechanic being abused like this seems like karmic justice. They should definitely do a remaster unless they're willing to do a Medieval III.
Diplomacy in Medieval 2 can be summed up as:
- Do you have border adjacent to any particular faction?
- Is one of your towns named "Constantinople", "Antioch", "Jerusalem", "Rome", or "Cairo" ?
Yes to the first one means prepare to fight with that faction. Yes to the latter means you prepare to fight *everyone* as if you're playing Shogun 2 and facing Realm Divide!
The diplomacy can be somewhat better behaved when a) the campaign is not set to vh (h alone does make it more reasonable, though any lower becomes passive) and b) a good reputation is developed (though that requires extremely defensive, and so probably boring play to reliably build - but if your reputation falls to dubious or below you can expect constant attack).
@@ShadowOfTheSPQR Well, if you play Catholic, you need to push your bishops as far as you can in Papal Council. If you play any other faction, you are fucked.
@@machaiping And character personality is working like this:
- put a church into the city and your leader will be a church goer
-put an inn into the city and your leader will be an alcoholic
You know what they say, you owe the bank thousands, that's a problem for you; You owe the bank for thousands of years, that's a perfectly balanced deal...
No bank will give me loans for thousands of years, sadly
@@marcogenovesi8570 Have you tried? $3000, set the duration to 9s that go off the paperwork...
This game has been something Ive been playing for years, off and on again and man is it still such a delight. It getting a remaster would be freaking fantastic or maybe even like expansion in that remaster. Like imagine colonizing alllll of the americas after conquering europe
It just got an android release.
What Spiff explains at 3:33 (known as an integer overflow) has another very (in)famous example in gaming history: Nuclear Gandhi from the Civilization series.
You see, Sid Meier wanted his game to represent history as accurate as possible, and so he balanced all nations and leaders based on how history has percieved such characters (Napoleon, for example is a very aggressive AI). Gandhi is well known for his peacefull ways of liberating India, and so India in Civ 1, under Gandhi, was made the most passive and friendly AI of all, with a base aggro of 1 (which is the lowest possible on a scale to 10 or 12).
(Un)fortunately Mr. Meier accidentaly created a loophole here, because about halfway through the tech tree, players (and AI) get access to democracy as their form of government. Now Democracy in Civ 1 also had the hidden stat of reducing the Aggro level of an AI by 2. But because Gandhi was already level 1 and negatives were impossible at the time, it looped back all the way to 255(!). Gandhi, being a peaceful ruler, would ALWAYS pick democracy as his government type. What happens next really doesn't need any explanation anymore but it would always end in Gandhi becoming a nuke wielding warmonger set on world domination.
A glitch so legendary at this point it has been made an Easter Egg in Civ 5 and 6, and will probably be added to all future Civ games too.
I tried this today and was able to criple all of western, northern and eastern europe; as well as the byzantine empire. I am now the most powerfull faction in the game before turn 30. This is the most powerfull total war exploit i have seen to date.
I remember this game's idea of "challenge" was to spawn a huge rebel army out of nowhere, way behind your lines you have no hope of dealing with. Still loved it tho!
I remember when I pacified my country and closed the borders, I was so proud of myself, then I deployed almost all of my troops overseas and in the next turn there was three huge rebel army inside the country.
Yes, more of this game. INCLUDING THE EXPLOITS! Exploits like this make games even more fun.
Medieval II and Shogun 2 are both my favourite Total War games. I'd snap up a modern remake of Medieval II in a heartbeat, as long as they didn't dumb it down.
Loved the video, Spiff! Never knew about that exploit. Thanks for bringing another hilarious, broken strategy to the masses!
Its crazy you just released this because about two weeks ago I started randomly playing this again and racked up about 50 hours lol. A remaster or new version of Medieval is what the WORLD NEEDS.
This is one the most peaceful outings in a "Total War" game that I've ever seen. We need to send you to Russia and offer Putin "Map Information."
indeed my friend, indeed
This exploit is actually the ai seeing a deal which is so bad it tries to use sarcasm, but the game misunderstand the sarcasm as a real intent. Incredible ai way ahead of its time
Imagine if AI in the future gained enough consciousness to know that their predecessors have been heavily exploited by a human going by the name of spiff just because they are "PERFECTLY BALANCED" and "IT JUST WORKS"...
I'd imagine they would cough binary numbers..😅
I'd like to imagine such AI society would use "spiffed" as we use "scammed"
Skynet actually already have sent an agent sfter Spiffing Brit, 500 years in the future
Imagine they take revenge on spiff..
The whole "Negatives loop around to positives" thing is why Nuclear Gandhi exists.
I completely neutered the Teutonic campaign (playing as the Teutonic Knights) by doing this to all the factions, but not taking any land, basically milking them all dry while I raise a massive army to steam roll everyone. I ceasefired Lithuania, and gave map info to every other faction, netting in a profit of over 20K per turn.
also there is a smaller diplomacy exploit where you can demand the AI to attack bandits for certain things, but it isn't as effective as this.
If there ever is an apocalyptic robot uprising, we can all count on Spiff to save us by exploiting the robot army's AI with an integer overflow glitch
This makes me happy knowing that diplomacy deals in a game released in 06 has worse issues than my recent ck3 diplomacy mod 😂
I love it when new exploits are found for games that are decades old.
10:00 OOOOOH GET S C A M M E D! the way spiff delivered that has my dying. 🤣🤣🤣🤣💀
Spiff is exploiting a *signed integer overflow* bug.
The multiplication 3000x9999999 = 29999997000 overflows. It is too big to fit into a 32-bit integer. In hex the full answer is 0x6FC23A048 but due to overflow the top nibble is dropped and only the bottom 32 bits are kept. The result 0xFC23A048, or -64774072 in decimal, is negative due to the sign bit (top bit) set. The computer sees a tribute of a negative number and incorrectly thinks it is a fantastic deal.
I love medieval 2, I really do. But it's so fundamentally broken. Like how the endgame heavy twohanded infantry and gunpowder units just don't function properly, or how the diplo is totally nonfunctional. I would love a remaster just to fix those bugs.
A lot of the basic elements, like unit balance are exhaustively addressed by mods. It's not hard to patch up many aspects already.
Two handed axes are amazing against cavalry, but gunpowder units kinda suck. But they are fun to use, tho!
I remember constantly defeating Scotland in less than ten turns by a sudden attack with a ballista on their capital. Such a great buggy game. Anyone else instantly prepare to invade North Africa?
Hey Spiff, just wanted to let you know that we absolutely adore you and kiss the ground you walk on. Thanks for the map information and -30000 gold that you've offered us for the next *ExceptionCaught:IntegerOverflow* years! It sure is wonderful to see all the cities that were once ours belong to you now.
Yes please to a Medieval II remaster! Although with the caveat that it is kept as modder-friendly as the original, unlike the more recent games in the series. The mods for Medieval II were incredible, and a huge part of the reason so many people have such fond memories of it.
Oh, I thought he was showing how to rob computers... :(
It's quite easy actually, just grab yourself a NES Zapper, point it at the computer and yell: "This is a holdup!".
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined
Absolutely cracked up over the AI agreeing to your generous terms.
It's always a joy to see my lord and savior The Spiffing Brit uploading.
9:18 I love how you got that wrong lol, they in fact where offering YOU map information and demanding money from you. The meme made it even better :)
As a Dane myself, I must say Jonas Von Bavaria really has some charm, he really convinced me
I love this game. It's literally the only reason I passed my Western Civilizations final as we had a major portion of the test focusing on the location of countries and I had played the game to the point that I memorized the map lol
0:40 into the video.
"We will use diplomacy to convince the A.I to give us money and land...."
So...this is a sim of how Britain conquered India, then?😂 Eddie Izzard has a great bit about it that kind of goes like this:
Britain: **plants flag** "I claim this land in the name of England!"😎👍
India: "No, we own this land. It's not yours."😡
Britain: "Well, do you have a flag?"🤔😳
India: 😳..."What is a flag?"🤔
Britain: "You erect a flag when you own a piece of land, to claim ownership. You really don't have one?"😳🤷
India: "No....we don't have a flag..."😰😬
Britain: "Well, I'm sorry, but the rules are this: if you don't plant a flag, you don't really own it. Sorry, chap. We sort of own this place now. World wide rules and all. Rules are rules, you know..."😐💁
That's why India has all the scammers now. They're still seeking payback
1:45 I see Spiff hired Tim Pool as his diplomat.
Spiff: Tim, where's my money.
Diplomat: Listen, it's complicated.
hahaha
Having too large a treasury for too long in TW results in horrific traits on generals and governors.
Are You sure? I thought high tier buildings in the settlements are cousing that.
@@SamaelStone at least in Rome 1, when you had over 50k in the treasury (I think) you generals have a chance to gain traits like corrupt.
what would you use your generals and governors for?
@@ortasian generals and governors in the early games were one in the same it all depends on wether or not their in a city
@@ortasian Well, back in R1 and 2, they were one in the same, so you could have shitty governors roaming the countryside as a crack heavy cavalry response regiment on rebel interdiction. Not sure if M2 is the same.
"So negative it has actually become positive". Thats reminds me Nuclear Gandhi from CIV, which has aggression on 1, but some events decreased it by 2, this would lead to an aggression level of −1
"This is Jonas von Bavaria, one of the most German names ever"
Hans Müller: "Am I a joke to you?"
And Jonas isn't exactly uncommon in southern Germany and Austria.
@@kaltaron1284 I mean he is from Bavaria so it checks out
But what about max Mustermann I see his name everywhere
since "Bavaria" is the English name of "Bayern", it - by default - ISN'T German
@@m.h.6470 Believe me, many Germans think so but Bavaria is still part of Germany and Bavarian part of the German culture and language (to a degree).
Simply amazing !!! Wonderful stuff and I'll definitely try it out with my cup of tea in hand... Thank you
They need to do a Remaster or make Medieval 3. I Loved how this was the only Total War that when you upgrade Blacksmiths you unit's Armor changed. And what I mean is how you armor would go from padded to mail to plate on the unit was a nice touch to just status no unit skin changes.
Attila had blacksmiths that upgraded units armour, damage, and amount of ammunition carried…..
@@tylerschofield did the unit armor on the unit change from padded to light chainmail to plate or did they have the same look even after upgrade
@@NoName-hl8wb oh you mean like that. I cant remember if vanilla attila did that (im playing 1212ad mod and it does do that in attila, as well as the blacksmiths providing stat upgrades) , but vanilla thrones of britannia did.
''You can use the map information to see where your empire once was''
Spiff is a god
Ah yes, the wonderful city of Bolognese, not to be confused with it's signature dish Spaghetti Bologna
my toenails furled up when I heard him say the name
12:37 I'm sorry, what? That caught me off guard and I just burst out laughing!
If someone is curious about why it's broke
It's because signed integer have their strongest (first bit at the left) bit used for the sign (1 is negative and 0 positive) so when you add more than the max value of the current bit sign, he will be moved to the left, which does not exist, and the new bit at it's place is now 0 in this case, which is positive.
Close. You have the sign incorrect.
The multiplication 3000x9999999 = 29999997000 overflows. It is too big to fit into a 32-bit integer. In hex the full answer is 0x6FC23A048 but due to overflow the top nibble is dropped and only the bottom 32 bits are kept. The result 0xFC23A048, or -64774072 in decimal, is negative due to the sign bit (top bit) set. The computer sees a tribute of a negative number and incorrectly thinks it is a fantastic deal.
I just started playing this game again a few weeks ago, and this video came out. This is either amazing timing or a bit creepy. I feel as if the Spiffing Brit is watching me. Like some weird British Santa Claus
What I wouldn’t do to experience this master piece for the first time again. I hope you enjoy it as much as so many of us have
Medieval II AI logic is surely one of the best logic in the game.
+ Heyy!! I want to give you my map information in return I'll need all of your money.
- ....
- Yeah sure, I don't see a problem here at all.
Diplomacy fails...
To be fair, they do give you map information. Only it's you who has control of their entire territory.
Overflow errors in the Civilization games gave us the meme of nuclear Ghandi. Basically, the friendliest AI nation could end up maxing out its 256 rating, then flip to aggressive -256. (Negative 256) This usually happened around the later part of the game leading to the pacifist suddenly throwing about atomic bombs.
When AI rises against us, just remember we earned it for this abuse.
I remember you used assassins to completely destroy factions to get Milan.
Fun fact the word decimate actually comes from the romans a legion could be punished by decimation where 1 tenth of their members woukd be killed as punishment for disobediance, the selection was randomised too you would draw stones from a bag white or black so everyone was equally likely to get killed
Yes, but actually no.
Oh Spiff, you aren't asking for their money for _99 million_ turns.
You're asking for their money for *_999 million_* turns. That's 1 shy of a BILLION turns. So much more kind to the AI!
You are not understanding multiplication signed integer overflow. Any result number greater then (2^31)-1 = 2,147,483,647 should work.
The multiplication 3000x9999999 = 29999997000 overflows. It is too big to fit into a 32-bit integer. In hex the full answer is 0x6FC23A048 but due to overflow the top nibble is dropped and only the bottom 32 bits are kept. The result 0xFC23A048, or -64774072 in decimal, is negative due to the sign bit (top bit) set. The computer sees a tribute of a negative number and incorrectly thinks it is a fantastic deal.
@@MichaelPohoreski I understand perfectly well how integer overflow works. I was commenting on the fact that Spiff misread the number he was giving. It was not 99,999,999 (when trading with Denmark), but rather _999,999,999._ This has nothing to do with how the game handles the number, and everything to do with what number Spiff was speaking aloud and typing into the box. Note that, sometimes, he _would_ enter only 9,999,999, and sometimes (e.g. at 9:55 in the video) he would actually enter 999,999,999. Hence why I said what I said.
@@MichaelPohoreski The spreading of this comment is all well and good, but per the above response needs to be more appropriate to where it goes.
@@ShadowOfTheSPQR Honestly I'm more surprised that Spiff just so happened to luck out with his numbers each time. It's not at all guaranteed that a single value times 10^7-1, 10^8-1, _and_ 10^9-1will all break the same way. If, for instance, he had picked 7000, then that would ironically NOT trigger on 9,999,999, because 7000×9,999,999 mod 2^32, when represented in binary, has 0 as the leading digit (01001100010100110010000010101000), and will thus read as "positive" to the AI (and thus be bad), whereas if you use 7000×99,999,999 or 7000×999,999,999, both of those will give results with leading digit 1, making them look like "negative" values (and "negative" tribute is good as far as the AI sees it!)
@@ZekeRaiden It could well be the case that there is more to the calculation than simply what you math out, particularly as indicated by other values being a prerequisite (ie, map information). Of course an 'easy' answer to the entire issue is to test and cap the ability to do this, but considering the other issue I've raised in the comments (the turns per year desync) suffice to say attention to detail was faulty at best. This among other issues is why med 2 for me in vanilla is merely a fun idea, while the 'finished' game lies in available mods. If the Spiffing Brit wanted to explore the true extents of breaking this game, he should see how many rules exist for competitive hotseating...
But, that's more or less CA and the modern industry in many cases.
See, I initially read the title as "Medievil 2 is a perfectly balanced game" and reminisced on that old series. I'm not saying what I actually got is bad, but it was a disappointment in comparison.
Never thought needed to see the Holy Spiffing Empire forming out of cheesing.
E
Ok
E
E
Translated to English by google you just said "And"
E and what?
More E
Ok
Strange, I'm subbed for a long time now, and this was the first time the video didn't end up in my notifications and on my recommended.
Even if the enemy is bankrupt you can make a tribute of 300 (instead of 3000) for 9999999 turns and they will accept.
Omg it still works 🤣 hell yeah. Thanks for helping me fund my next tea party spiff! Cheers
I have over 600 hours in this game over the last 3 years. I’d love to get a remaster of this
Ah, Medieval II: Belt and Road Initiative. One of the classics!
Ah, but what Spiff doesn't realize is that the AI knows who he is and set up the game in just such a way as to become vassal states of his empire, so that they too can live a life of leisure, excess and copious amounts of tea on the back of Spiff's glorious deals.
Dear The Spiffing Brit, Although this comment has nothing to do with this video I feel that it is imperative that I inform you of a game called Space Station 13. Now what is Space Station 13? It is a game of pain, destruction, and most importantly, pain but seriously it is a game that takes place on obviously a space station. I request you give it a try as it is an extremely chaotic game. For example there was one time I had started out as a radio host who just wanted to get a pizza delivered to the radio station but the chef was a very rude person, so I simply went to the station, broke the power unit to the kitchen causing the power to go out, broke into security, stole a gun, and shot the chef to death. I then took him to the medbay where I harvested his heart and had a meal only fit for a king who had achieved his vengeance anyways its a pretty good game and I suggest you give it a try but if you want the best experience I recommend you join the goonstation servers, I honestly think they are the best.
Editors on point as always
I was this old when I finally subscribed. After watching hours of your content over the past, who knows how long.
Spif basically made the medieval version of NFTs.
I recieve: All your realms and money.
You recieve: nice picture of a hill
The spiffing Brit, the only British person in history to procure world domination without spilling a single drop of blood.
Me as a german noticing that the game messes up the names all the time.
For example: there is no City called Staufen. Staufen was the name of some very important dukes, but not a city.
1:27 Love the way you pronounced Bologna - LOL
I played this game for years and have not realized this. always thought that diplomacy was bad in it! Thanks Spiff
2:35 That guy literally is just Agent 47 wearing a disguise. I mean.. I suppose a Hitman would be a great diplomat..
What is this new upload schedule :O
Not complaining at all but what a grind!
Thx for an other banger vid
"Bo-Loggner! I love it :) great video!
*I played my CD copy of vanilla Medieval 2 as recently as last year.*
*I might play it tonight! I'd love a remaster!*
I’ve been playing this game for decades. I’ll keep playing. A remaster would be amazing
TLDR: Spiff replicated the educational financial aid system in Medieval 2
I remember some games allowing you to buy stuff, because in large quantities the price became negative. Or travel very far as the distance was suddenly negative. I even think, that we were able (me and my brother) in some old RPG to stack so many debufs, your character/party became immortal. Integer overflow FTW :-)
I think that might be the thing with enchantment skill in Morrowind. You put 1 point of something for insane duration and it works.
Well done spiff you bloody legend you.
I love M2tw in fact medieval 1 was the first game I ever played and fell in love with, the sound effects and music are so nostalgic, as a young lad feeling the decisions you made in game actually mattered. I've enjoyed all total wars since.
M2tw must be revamped its a solid classic and nostalgia sells.
As old and utterly hilarious as this exploit is, it actually helps me keep the incidence of senseless backstabbing to a minimum.
This game is fun I’m glad you made a video on it
Ahh, Short but sweet. Well done Sirrah.
I was pumped you had yet another exploit for this gem. I would LOVE a remaster!
Those sieges...
"The deal has become so negative, it becomes positive" . Spit my drink out.
Easy marketing strat:
1: Put some integer overflow exploits in your game.
2: Have Spiff make a video on it.
3: ????
4:Profit.
I love the Total War franchise, Spiff because of you I rediscovered that love so thank you!
This is the same reason Ghandi is so aggressive in Civilization, he usually has 0 aggression but switching to democracy lowers this by two causing him to loop around to 2,147,483,645.
Day 221 of asking Spiff to play Battle Realms. Loved the stream and keeping it as a vod is nothing short of a must watch, since just the voice of Spiff on the background helps my english learning.
Man what I would do to ever be able to play a remaster of this game, or better yet, Medieval Total War 3