A welcome addition to the Total War franchise. It will grab you and hold you till you die.
THE CHANGES:
Before I get into more in detail about the game, let's start with the most important change that the player will see. Of course, that is if the player has played the original version. A huge change from the previous version is the graphical update. We finally get to experience the huge world of Medieval times in 3D realistic looking format! A welcomed enhancement. Another huge change, is the "strategy map." Its not the same as the orginal version, rather very similar to the one introduced in "Rome Total War." Now we get a realistic 3D map, which I will go into detail later. Another new change, the player can choose to build two things, Castles, or Cities. More on this later on. One last change, NO MORE CLONE WARS!!! This time, the new system allows for every battle unit displayed on the battle map to be unique in every way. Right then, let us move on:
THE GOOD: (quite a few)
- Map -
The first thing I would like to talk about is the strategy map. Players who have played Rome TW, will feel right at home with this map (feel free to skip this part), but for those who haven't, here's a quick reference to why this new map is cool. First off, now you have realistic 3D looking units, cities, and scenery. You will enjoy looking at the map more than anything else. It is as if you where flying through the sky, looking at the troubles that unfold below. Now you can see everything, from your trading carts, to a storm on the sea, nothing escapes your watchful eyes. Or rather, your line of sight. ;) Like many RTS games, you don't have a complete view of the map, instead you must explore to see what its going on, on different places of the world. So how do you see what your busy so-called-allies are doing? Well, build some towers. You can literally build watch towers in strategic places to expand your line of sight, that way you might just spot an on coming assault on time to prepare yourself. Also, all units in the strategy map have some sort of line of sight. For example, Spies. They have the biggest line of sight, so it might be wise to bring one or two with your armies, that way you can spot an enemy ambush beforehand. Enough about that, you want to learn about two new things, Castles and Cities.
- Expanding Your Nation -
There are a lot of ways to expand your nation, but since you are a great general, you already know that you need a strong economy to have a strong army. In Medieval 2, CA has given us two ways to accomplish this. First off, Cities, and what are its benefits and downfalls.
Cities allow for more income to come to your nation, in other words, more money. It allows for a small build of military units, but it is within a city where your agents are build. By that I mean, Spies, Merchants (more on them later) and so on. But don't look here for strong military units. A City is where your economy expands, your culture enriches and your people rejoice with happiness. So in brief, Cities give you more income for your nation. Now castles are a different thing. Castles have a modest income, but don't expect a lot. Rather, it is within the walls of a Castle where your weapons are builded, and your men are trained for war and chaos! Within these walls, you can upgrade your armor, swords and the like. Castles also provide a strong stronghold that your enemies must defeat before your nation is brought to ruins. So, you know what Castles do, you know what Cities do, but how to decide what to build? Easy. Use castles to defend your states that border other nations, sort of building a wall of fortresses on your borders. Have your cities safe and sound behind, or "inside" your nation, where you can safely develop your cities and get a bigger income. Once you expand your borders, build Castles on that new territory. Your old Castles that no longer need to be there can be better used for something else. Thankfuly, as a player, you are given the option to turn a Castle into a City, and a City into a Castle. So don't be afraid to do this. One last thing, always leave a Castle close to your orginial starting point, since most likely that Castle is fully developed. So its a good idea to keep a Castle like that. To sum my point up, build a wall of Castles around your nation and have your Cities safe inside that wall. Once you expand, your old wall becomes Cities, since you are already developing another wall on your new borders. And lastly, leave a Castle or two close by your original starting point, since most likely you will have fully developed this Castle(s), therefore, being able to build, and re-stock your armies with fresh advanced strong units.
Just remember this, a strong economy allows for a lot of people from different walks of life to be attracted to your nation, therefore helping you to expand your cities and castles. You need a certain number of population to "upgrade" your cities and castles. With a strong economy, you will be able to build a strong army. So have that in your mind at all times. But, just how do I build a strong economy?
- Your Economy -
Now, there are quite a few ways to expand your economy, either be by conquering other territories, or by conquering the world trading market. What ever your style is, here's a quick view at the ways provided.
Conquering other nations is a quick way to expand your economy, but to conquer other places requires money, money that you can loot out of cities and castles. Once you conquer a City or a Castle, you can choose three things, just enter the city (or castle), loot it, or exterminate the populace. Most likely you will choose option two, infact, I command you to! If you loot the new conquered territory, you get more money, but you don't kill as many populace. If you just enter, you get almost no money, and pretty much kill little, if not none of the populace. If you exterminate them all, you get little money at the cost of killing more than 2/3 of the populace. So option two is your best choice. That is one way to expand your economy, but upgrading your trading markets, ending corruption and making trade agreements with other nation its way better! A trade agreement can be made by sending one of your Emissaries to other nations and offering a mutual trade agreement. Once it is accepted, you will notice a small increase of trade as your market and docks recieve shipment from other nations and you send your shipments as well. Do note this, sea trading is faster, and bigger than land trading, so build docks my friend, lots of docks! Now, like every Total War game, your population happiness has a lot of effect on your economy. A happy person is more caplable of working to benefit your nation, but a mild manered one will think twice! So, a few places of worship, bars and playing arenas should solve this problem. Make sure to always check how the population is feeling because in the end you are not your nation, rather your people are. Merchants. Creative Assembly has introduced a new agent named Merchants. Like the name implies, they trade different resourses. Now Merchants can have a big impact in your economy, if you use them well. Since Merchants don't have a unit upkeep cost, feel free to make them until your hearts content. Send your merhcants to far away lands for the best income in trading. For example, if you are in Spain, send them off to resourses in Egypt or Turkey. Far away from Spain. The farther away a Merchant is from your nation, the more trading income it will produce. If you play your cards right and send a full army of Merchants to far away lands, you can easily produce up to 100k of money every turn. Which means a lot of money for expanding your nation. And that is only a small part of your income. There are a lot of ways to make a strong economy, so feel free to experiment around and choose your best way.
- The Military and The Guilds -
Another new enhancement to Medieval 2 are guilds. If your city or castle meets a certain criteria, a guild will approach you asking to make a headquarter in there which you will gladly accept. Guilds provide for a vareity of different bonuses ranging from army bonuses to economy bonuses. So make sure to take advantage of these. Now, a lot of new units have been introduced in this new installment. Every nation has at least one or two unique units to it. So most likely you will want to explore each nation and its benefits. Like I have said before, Castles is where you want to build your armies. So look there for your best military units. A good army should be balanced, consisting of infantry, cavalry and range units. There is a new way to build armies, well, I lie, it is new, but not soo new. For example, instead of being able to build thousands of the same unit, there is a limit per turn of how many of that unit you can command to train. So this means that you are forced to wait for the units to re-stock so you can build more. The more advance your Castles and Cities are, that limit of unit goes up. Be aware of this.
Once you have build a nice army, its time to move them. Your army, and pretty much every moveable unit, has a movement limit. Once this limit is met, your army cannot travel any further until the next turn. But what if you happened to accidentaly stop in a bad location and cannot go on? Well, build a fort for the night. It allows for your army to rest inside a secure wall of wood, and it forces the enemy to lay siege to the fort, allowing you time to think. To conquer other Cities and Castles, you first must lay siege on them, so make sure you bring some siege units to bring down their walls. Now, the good old battle map!
- Le Battle Map -
When your forces are attacked, or if yoy attack an army, the territory that you see on the strategy map, is the territory that will appear on the battle map. So be picky and find the best spots for your army to fight on. Once you choose to fight the battle yourself, you will be taking to the battle map. Now this is were the hearth of the game is. Since you can experience first hand the carnage of Medieval War! The first thing that you will note, its the cool realistic 3D units that are all unique in every way, so no more clones like in Rome Total War. The battle map controls and options have not changed a lot from different versions of the game, so players who have played this will feel right at home. Others new to it, I recommend that you take the tutorial offered by the game first. You still have your normal move order, stop and run, grouping orders and your special abilities that was introduced in Rome Total War.
Now, once the carnage begins, feel free to zoom in and see first hand how your brave men kill your enemies. Something that has been introduced are finishing moves. So you will literally see how your soldiers do a nice finishing move on an opposing unit. That is pretty much it for the battle map, other than the carnage, feel free to enjoy the scenery while the bloodshed goes on. The new realistic battle maps are a sight to see. - Other Good Stuff -
Make memory back to good old Shogun Total War. Remember those assasin movies? Well now they are back! Once your assasin is ready to kill its target, a nice little movie will pop up and you can see the fate of the target, or the fate of your assasin. Other good stuff, a senate like thing. In Rome TW, the Senate would send you into missions, this time, in Medieval 2, the Counsel of your Nation does the same. So make sure to do some of them. But they will not interfere with your plans, just make sure you make them happy, since they can give you nice rewards.
The Pope gets a nice role this time by. There are elections for the Papacy in which even one of your Cardinals can enter and perhaps win. So in retrospect, you can have some sort of influence in the papacy if your cardinal is voted in as Pope. So take advantage of this feature.
Another thing to add to the other, is the nations that will appear later on in the game. These two are the Mongols and the Tumurids. These are two formittable nations, so be prepare for hell once they come. Just to be safe, make sure you prepare yourself ahead of time, they come strong, very strong and will kick you.
Well I told you this game had a lot of Good to it, now to the bad:
THE BAD:
Nothing new with the bad, except the same problems as previous versions, bugs. The game has quite a few bugs, but not as much as when Rome Total War came out. They are minor bugs and things but nothing big as to influence your gaming experience. Just wait for the patch.
They AI is still toooooo weeeeaaakkk and dumb. For a better experience and challange, play with Very Hard/ Very Hard settings. That way you can be challanged. Now, the most biggest problem is Multiplayer. Multiplayer is similar, if not the same as in Rome total war. But thanks to the Gamespy servers, it will take you at least and hour to get a decent game going. The problem is the incredible lag you get, even if every player has a high speed connection. This a problem that must be fixed pronto! because the Total War series thrives in a rich multiplayer community. The last bad thing I will mention, its that sadly, you will have to upgrade your computer if you're running on 2+ year old technology. On my tests, I found that a low end computer has a lot of problems running this game, but a middle to high end will run it decently. So try to upgrade your set up to something better. Well that's is all, overall this game is very addictive and very enjoyable. You will spend a lot of time playing it, so make sure you free up some time in your schechule.
I give Medieval 2: Total War for the PC a 8.6/10.