Medieval Total War 2 (or some combo of those words)

[Ashaman DeRouge]

This game is awesome. I am so late to catch the hype, as per normal, but god damn it is just awesome.

 

Huge boxy military ranks crashing into each other, cavalry flankings that for once actually work in a game, and ... gugh... I have trouble conveying the vastness of some of the battles I've had.

 

Anyone else ever played this?

[Lanthirrhos]

All Total War games are incredible. They even used the game engine for a TV series to depict ancient battles.

 

I have Medieval 2 and it's expansion on my computer now ;D Rome was good too... but comparatively to Medieval 2 it's lacking... though I still love it. You could probably pick up older Total War games pretty cheap... they're worth it.

 

Also, Empire Total War brings us into the beginning of the gun age, brand new engine, and even Sea Battles now... you should check it out. (make sure it'll work on your computer before you buy it though... I've heard people absolutely rave on it when they have the proper hardware). And keep an eye on the newest installment still being developed: Napoleon Total War.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUDCg9bHzVg (trailer)

[Corki]

I've spent many an hour burning heretcis...and in my current game, nearly have total control of the Vatican...not difficult when there are only 6 current Cardinals and I have 3! lol!

 

Once my latest set of exams are over, I think I will spend time playing again!

[Werthead]

MEDIEVAL II is excellent. Also remember to grab the expansion, KINGDOMS, which is pretty good as well.

 

Once you have the expansion, remember to check out some of the mods. The ones based on GAME OF THRONES and particularly the amazing one based on LORD OF THE RINGS are incredible.

[SinisterDeath]

I thought Rome was better than Medival 2. The engine was more stable, you had more lands to concur, they streamlined the empire building parts, ect.

 

Empire was... Okay but I think it was one of the waekest ones of the total war games. They backtracked on the streamlining of Rome empire building. Client became very unstable. (Longer you play the more slow it plays, you basically have to turn off AI turns just to be able to click 'next turn' and not wait a half hour. And I got a GOOD PC. ;)) IN the actual combat part though, they reall, really screwed up in Empire Total War...

 

Normally if you had say, 6 units of 150 Infantry, and you went to move them straight ahead 100 yards, You'd see there 'line arrows' pointing directly ahead.

IN Empire Total War. those lines, would spaz out. And all of a sudden you'd have infantry in places that... didn't make any sense.. Like 800 yards to the left, turned with there back to the enemy...

Boats, it was even worse, if you selected a fleet, and tried to click anywhere, they would zig-zag and collide into each other.

 

THey may have slightly fixed this problem but it still exists... Hopefully they fix it up for Napoleon Total War.

Also, which Napoleon? Cause there were like 50,000. SPecially during the french revolution... Every leader tried to call themselves Napoleon... ^_^

[Silver]

I preferred Shogun Total War...

[Haxorsist]

Sin, you're doing it wrong. I don't know how, but it's very wrong. Empire is awesome and controlling units is easy. I run it on a 2 year old laptop and I haven't experienced the slowness.

I prefer the first Medieval. The strategic AI handles the risk-type map so well and the crusades are awesome.

[SinisterDeath]

Sin, you're doing it wrong. I don't know how, but it's very wrong. Empire is awesome and controlling units is easy. I run it on a 2 year old laptop and I haven't experienced the slowness.

I prefer the first Medieval. The strategic AI handles the risk-type map so well and the crusades are awesome.

 

I have the steam version of Empire: Total War.

I'm talking about the main 'campiegn' slow down issue, not acutal 'Combat', combat always works.

On the map, units go where I tell them to

IN Battle, they criss-cross alot.

 

I'm not doing anything wrong, I've played medival 1&2, Rome, and Empire. I think I KNOW how to play the game.

[Lanthirrhos]

Heh, I completely agree that I probably like Rome better than Medieval 2... mostly because I prefer the era, and there were more cities to conquer... that said, Med 2 has never given me any problems what so ever, and some of the 'new' (now not so new) features were a nice (and appropriate) additions.

 

Can't speak for Empire... I knew my computer wouldn't handle it and never got it... I need a Desktop again for higher end games. My Laptop is mostly college oriented... and I purposefully made it so... for the very reason of not getting sucked into games when I really don't have time for them :P

[Barmacral]

Sin, you're doing it wrong. I don't know how, but it's very wrong. Empire is awesome and controlling units is easy. I run it on a 2 year old laptop and I haven't experienced the slowness.

I prefer the first Medieval. The strategic AI handles the risk-type map so well and the crusades are awesome.

 

I have the steam version of Empire: Total War.

I'm talking about the main 'campiegn' slow down issue, not acutal 'Combat', combat always works.

On the map, units go where I tell them to

IN Battle, they criss-cross alot.

 

I'm not doing anything wrong, I've played medival 1&2, Rome, and Empire. I think I KNOW how to play the game.

 

Lets accuse Sin of not knowing how to play other computer games! This appears to set him off.

[SinisterDeath]

Sin, you're doing it wrong. I don't know how, but it's very wrong. Empire is awesome and controlling units is easy. I run it on a 2 year old laptop and I haven't experienced the slowness.

I prefer the first Medieval. The strategic AI handles the risk-type map so well and the crusades are awesome.

 

I have the steam version of Empire: Total War.

I'm talking about the main 'campiegn' slow down issue, not acutal 'Combat', combat always works.

On the map, units go where I tell them to

IN Battle, they criss-cross alot.

 

I'm not doing anything wrong, I've played medival 1&2, Rome, and Empire. I think I KNOW how to play the game.

 

Lets accuse Sin of not knowing how to play other computer games! This appears to set him off.

 

As opposed to you not being A funny Canadian? Two things that are ussually a require trait of canadians?

[Ashaman DeRouge]

I once saw SinisterDeath try to jump over a barrel playing halo, but he threw a grendade and blew himself up instead :P

 

 

Anyway, whats so great about Rome? It seems slower paced and maybe not as epic, but I could be wrong.

[Lanthirrhos]

Is it slower paced? Or just different? I'd say the latter. Sure, there is a lot more build up to take over rome (which takes a long time if playing as one of the Roman Families...) Even the other factions seeking to take Rome have to wait a while because lets be honest... all 4 Roman factions RULE in that game. Very few units from other factions compare, and if they do, they're a long time in the making and expensive as hell.

 

Always had to have a good general and great troops to take on any of the Romans... especially as they all become your enemy as soon as you attack one of them...

 

I dunno... it was just more fun. ;D

[SinisterDeath]

I once saw SinisterDeath try to jump over a barrel playing halo, but he threw a grendade and blew himself up instead :P

I don't own an Xbox, and don't own a POS game like halo. I play real shooters, Like Counter-Strike, And Battlefield 2142. HL2 also = better than Halo in terms of Campiegn

 

Anyway, whats so great about Rome? It seems slower paced and maybe not as epic, but I could be wrong.

 

Compared to Medieval, More units, better graphics basically.

City management was easier. I believe in Rome they stopped seperating everything and put it all under one city. (So instead of having to click on a port to build the port, or gold mines, they would all be found under the city).

Rome was just in a much funner time period than Medieval. Course at that time, everyone was doing 'medeval' movies, but now the romans/greeks are the new 'craze' or something....

Course, It had my favorite Faction, the Byzantine Empire. :P

 

As for the pace.. I dunno It felt the same as medival 1&2. Empire however, is 4x as slow for me. Mostly cause an end of turn 'used' to take almost 15 minutes to go through the moves In Europe. And if you controled 90% of the world, it crawled...

 

Though, I think in Medival each turn = 1 year. In Rome 2 turns = 1 year. (summer/winter) In emipire 4 turns = 1 year. I believe Empire timeframe is also 4x shorter than the other ones...

 

Best part about Medival total war though, Is you could actually train super-assassins by having them pitted against each other. I'd make like, 30 every turn just to have them slaughtered in a free-for-all leveling contest to make a 20 star Assassin of death, that could kill a King with a 90% chance. ;)

[Lanthirrhos]

I did that with the Pope... dang guy was my own bishop and still excommunicated me :P Bad move on his part. :P

[Werthead]

Rome is more stable, certainly, and it's far better optimised than M2. Rome is a real joy to play now on a newer PC as it can be run with everything turned up to 100% and still look fantastic. Also, although it's a cosmetic thing, it's cool that you can see cities on the horizon or the Colossus of Rhodes or the Pyramids in the distance on the battle map if you are a few squares away on the campaign map. Makes things feel more connected. In M2 it's weird if you are fighting on the bridge next to Venice and when you look behind you you can see the big island that Venice sits on in the neighbouring square but there's nothing else there, just a big empty space.

 

However, Medieval II's map is bigger and has more cities and more playable factions, 17 to Rome's 11. The graphics are notably superior, although also not very well-optimised. M2 is three years old and my PC which can run CRYSIS with no major issues should be able to throw it around with everything turned up easily, but this is not the case, and I've resorted to dropping everything down to medium-level just to get a decent framerate in battles. This is annoying but not a game-breaker.

 

In addition, M2 simply has a lot more longevity to it. Playing ROME, once you've won as one of the three Roman sides going to the the non-Roman factions can be a bit of a shock. The Seleucids and Egyptians aside, no-one can really stand up to the Romans after the Marian reforms and if you do conquer Rome with the Britons or the Gauls, it's more because the Roman AI is inept than because those sides are any good, which makes the victory feel a bit hollow.

 

In M2, however, playing as Britain is a notably different experience to playing as the Holy Roman Empire or Spain, for example, and just as the game gets into the boring end-game phase you can hop over to America and do some conquering and setting up some lucrative trade routes there. It's a bit of a gimmick, but it does keep things fresh. In addition, M2's expansion, KINGDOMS, wipes the floor with ROME's rather tepid BARBARIAN INVASIONS (the dullest TOTAL WAR expansion yet), although I did enjoy ROME's other expansion, ALEXANDER, which was a lot of fun.

 

Finally, M2's mods are generally a lot better and a lot more interesting than ROME's, excellent although those are. I'm in the middle of playing THIRD AGE: TOTAL WAR at the moment, forging an Empire of the East using the Kingdom of Dale to conquer Rhun and Mirkwood before attacking Mordor from the north. Great fun. I'm hoping a team picks up the baton from the guys who were doing the WHEEL OF TIME mod for ROME and do a mod for M2, as that should be great.

 

City management was easier. I believe in Rome they stopped seperating everything and put it all under one city. (So instead of having to click on a port to build the port, or gold mines, they would all be found under the city).

 

Not sure what you are talking about here. The building interface in ROME and MEDIEVAL II is completely identical. Everything is built from the same menu. You might be talking about EMPIRE (haven't played it yet), but in M2 you build ports from the city itself, not from the port square.

[SinisterDeath]

Not sure what you are talking about here. The building interface in ROME and MEDIEVAL II is completely identical. Everything is built from the same menu. You might be talking about EMPIRE (haven't played it yet), but in M2 you build ports from the city itself, not from the port square.

Meant from Medival 1 to rome.

 

Its odd though that in Empire they went back to an older system of it. which makes city/state managment a bit more annoying. Specially when you have those annoying towns right on the border and can't find em. :P

 

Course, I think Rome was easier to upgrade buildings than in Medieval 2. (cheaper that is)

Its been aloong time since i've played either, Never bought any of the expansions either... (for medieval 1 or 2, Or Rome)

Empire, I bought the native american micro-expansion.... which sucked probably worse than that barbarian one you talked about.

All it did was give the americas actual Indian factions aside from your typical mindless Rebel forces. Gave them actual 'tech' trees.

But they get no boat technology, can't go over to europe if you wanted to... Almost impossible to build up troops since they cost an insane amount, and your income is Fairly limited. (And sadly, the average infantry in the game, just obliterates the average native troop, and the AI on the autobattles has no concept of 'using the terrign' nor 'hit and run' tactics.

 

I ussually do autobattles since i'm trying to win the game asap, but I do the occasional actual in-game battle. (Those things can take hours to actually complete, and they are a nice repreive from taking a 1 hour turn in Empire :P)

[Haxorsist]

The reason they put some of the buildings outside the cities in ETW was to prevent players from hiding behind their fortifications. You have to sally forth and intercept the enemy or it'll cost ya. In M2 you quickly realise you're mostly playing siege battles and little field battles, which sucks if you're one of those guys who like to time the perfect cavalry charge.

[SinisterDeath]

The reason they put some of the buildings outside the cities in ETW was to prevent players from hiding behind their fortifications. You have to sally forth and intercept the enemy or it'll cost ya. In M2 you quickly realise you're mostly playing siege battles and little field battles, which sucks if you're one of those guys who like to time the perfect cavalry charge.

Yea, but its just as easy to make the changes at the 'capital' affect the towns outside of it. Thats why in Rome, when you upgraded the mines in the capital buildings, it would automatically build that mine for ya.

I don't know about that 'hid behind there fortifications' thing, Thats not really a complaint that can happen in ETW, there are no 'fortifications', cannons made those pointless.

 

On the world map,I've had NPC's rush out of there cities to attack me, or been flanked.

In the actual sieges, if the enemy stood in the middle of the town (which happens with retarded AI) I ussually used cannons + hit and run techniques to goat units into chasing calvery into the middle of the hive.

Rome/Medival I just destroyed there fortifications, put my main force on one hole, and a smaller force on another side to flank the people inside. :P

Really, the fortifications just mark there tombstone in those games...

 

Course, I always do sieges in that game with 5:1 odds stacked in my favor...

Really, who conquers the world in that game without, '5' full stack armies?

 

Though, one thing still bugs me about that game... If i'm seiging, I have an army in front, another behind. Why is it in actual battle, I don't have troops on both sides of the enemy? There are battles that would be VERY useful in. :(