Medieval II: Total War is another totally great game

I have spent a lot of very fun hours playing Rome: Total War and when Medieval II: Total War came out I was pretty excited. There were two problems. It was $60 and my computer was at the bottom end of minimum system requirements. Playing the demo convinced me that I was a long way off from enjoying this game. Well now the game has been out for over a year, the price has come down a bit, and I have a new computer. Medieval II: Total War did not disappoint.

Games tend to strain a system more than most any other software but the minimum requirements are generally pretty low by today’s standards. The minimum requirements are listed below.
Operating System: Windows 2000/XP or newer
CPU: Pentium 4 1.5GHz
RAM: 512MB
Drive: 8X DVD ROM
Hard Drive Space: 11 GB

My laptop had just about those exact specs and playing the demo was awful. I would not recommend this game if you only have the minimum system requirements. The battle was choppy, hard to follow, and hard to direct.

My current system has:
Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66GHz)
Memory: 3GB DDR2-667MHz dual channel SDRAM (2x1024,2x512)
Graphics card: 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS, DVI-I, TV-out, HDMI
Hard Drive: 500GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
CD/DVD Drive: LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive

There have been NO bugs with the game on my current system. I haven’t had a single lockup, just nothing. When I play it for hours and hours it doesn’t slow down. I just haven’t discovered a bug yet. I have played it all the way through once and have had a few starts and stops with various factions.

Gameplay
The basics of gameplay are the same between Medieval II: Total War and Rome: Total War. I really enjoyed Rome: Total War and so I consider this a good thing. The game is divided into two modes; campaign and battle.

Battle Mode
The game will load putting you on the field of battle with all of your forces. There will be an opportunity before battle starts to deploy your forces within an area of the battle map. Having a proper general in command (as opposed to a captain) will give you a few additional options such as a rally button, but otherwise there is no difference. If you initiated the battle you will have the option to wait or start at once. The only benefit I can see to waiting is that the weather might change. Different troops have different attributes and some fight better in the wet or snow, etc. I have never bothered with waiting.

After deploying your troops the real battle starts and you will see how your opponent has deployed his forces (as long as he hasn’t hidden them in the trees). It is then up to you to manage your various units to their strengths and against the enemy’s weaknesses while your computer opponent tries to do the same to you. Different units have varying attributes. Archers can kill from range, but are decimated quickly by either infantry or cavalry in hand-to-hand combat. Cavalry can charge to devastating affect, but don’t send them head on into a wall of spearmen, and so on.

During combat you can give your troops orders one unit at a time or in groups of units. You can select a unit by clicking on it, or drag the mouse to select multiple units. If you want to always command multiple units as a group you can group them together for the duration of the battle. The orders you can give your various units can be basically summarized into move them to a spot or attack. You also always have the choice to have them walk or run. Running will tire them out, which lowers their morale, which makes them more susceptible to breaking and fleeing. There is an awful lot to control, but the controls are pretty intuitive and it all comes together pretty easily. There is an added element of complexity when assaulting cities since your troops will need to use siege equipment (either made during the siege or that you brought with you). This equipment will help you scale or destroy a city’s walls. There are a lot of nuances to combat, but I think this gives you a general idea.

I don’t have too many tips for combat since I think everyone develops their own style and I haven’t found any gems that will let you conquer easily. Generally I try to pit a bunch of my troops against a few of theirs. That often means that theirs end up charging into the backs of mine, which is not good, but if you can swarm a lot on a few they generally route pretty quickly and you can turn around to face the reinforcements. It is also a good idea to pick on the weaker units. Routing weaker units is easier and routing units in general lowers the morale of the entire enemy force, making them easier to route as well. Just like in Rome: Total War I found that from time to time that when letting the CPU play the battle it can win where I have failed. I can’t explain this since I am generally way better than the CPU but it happens.


Campaign Mode
In campaign mode you are working from a world map. “The world” consists of Europe, part of Asia and part of Africa. I have heard that the Americas open up later in the game but I must have beaten it before that happened because I never saw the option to suddenly sail further west.

You will start out the game in control of a few cities. Different factions have different starting resources but you will have anywhere from 1 to about 5 cities at the beginning. Often you will have a small number of army units, and a few generals, as well as a diplomat and a spy. England starts with a princess and a merchant as well whereas Scotland does not. The Holy Roman Empire starts with a lot of cities and armies, but no princess or merchant.

Differing from Rome: Total War is how cities work. There are now two different kinds of cities. Each settlement will either be castle based (military focus) or city based (more of an economic focus). The good fighting units come from castles but there is less opportunity to build the kinds of things that will improve your economy. As you might imagine, in cities you can build up a thriving economy but you military units are not so good. You can change a city to castle and vice versa for a price, but I have never done this.

Within cities you have the ability to build buildings, train troops or train agents. You also have the ability to raise and lower tax rates, which will not only affect the revenue from your settlement but also affect population growth and public order of your populous. Buildings serve a number of purposes. Markets and mines will increase the revenue from your settlement. Walls make your city harder to take by force and also act as an upgrade, meaning that your city is growing. Barracks, stables, and archery ranges allow for the training of new or more advanced troops and also add to public order. Depending on what you have chosen to build you will have different troop types from which to choose. The size of the city (and I think overall population which are not the same) determines how many units you can train at once. In general small means one unit at a time and as you upgrade you can train two and then three units at once, etc. I think the population determines how many of those units are available. For instance, if you really want 4 units of dismounted knights you may only have 3 available at a given turn. If you wait a few turns more then more become available, I guess as the population of the settlement grows.

Other than managing the cities under your control there are a lot of things you can do from the campaign map. Everyone not housed in a city will be visible on the map. Spies can infiltrate a settlement and provide information and even have a chance of opening the gates for you during an attack, eliminating the time it would take for you to build siege engines. Diplomats can open dialogue with other factions, opening trade routes, bribing, threatening, extorting, and even sometimes making peace. Assassins are pretty self-explanatory. They kill generals and other assets from other factions and spread terror by damaging buildings in a settlement. Merchants are new in Medieval II: Total War can find natural resources and add revenue by trading in those or even attempt to takeover another merchant. Also new in this iteration is the princess. A princess has all of the powers of a diplomat with the additional powers of marriage. This can let you steal a general from another faction and add him to your own. A princess can be shamed if she fails to woo the general and is forcefully retired if she passes childbearing age without gaining a husband. Also Important in Medieval II: Total War are priests. Priests convert the population of a territory to your religion. This helps reduce religious unrest. Very pious priests can be promoted to Cardinal. The Cardinals elect the pope. Priests also fight heresy by denouncing heretics. Higher ratings of piety will help your priest denounce a heretic but if he fails he may fall to heresy himself.

When army units and/or generals are out of cities they too are visible on the campaign map. You select the unit by left clicking and pick a new spot by right clicking. Each faction has a different set of victory conditions but they all seem to feature taking over lots of territories. To attack, move an army to the spot occupied by an enemy army to city. If attacking a city you will have to get past the walls to actually fight the units. You can either have a spy open the gates for you, build siege equipment during the siege, or train siege units in your cities.

Starting out
The first thing you will have to do is pick a faction to control. The first time through you only have a few factions to choose from. I have no advice on whom to pick. I chose England and that seems a decent first choice. They get some measure of security from being on the island and Scotland is sort of a weak neighbor unless you leave them be for too long. I won’t name all the playable factions but off the top of my head you can play; England, France, Scotland, Milan, Venice, Sicily, Holy Roman Empire, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Egypt, Byzantine Empire, Moors, and the Turks.

In Rome: Total War you had the Senate but in Medieval II: Total War the Catholic factions have to answer to the Pope and the Papal States (a faction, but not a playable one). The Pope can assign missions (like build a church in this settlement) or call a crusade. Your relations with the Pope will impact your life in the game. The Pope can excommunicate your faction and other catholic factions will often declare open season on you. There are ways to help your relationship with the Pope such as joining a Crusade or completing his missions. Non-Catholic factions have a similar Jihad function, but there is no figure like the Pope. You can also receive missions from the council of nobles or a guild. All missions seem to carry a reward for success, a penalty for failure, or both.

Diplomacy has improved a bit from Rome to Medieval II. When constructing offers there is now an indication of whether your proposal is considered very generous through the range to very demanding. This is much better than just flying blind. The diplomacy scroll also indicates the demeanor with which your diplomat was received and how your offer was accepted or rejected, such as “barely accepted” or “happily accepted.”

Graphics
Medieval II: Total War is not really a graphics intensive game. Most of the time you are dealing from the high up view of a world map. The map looks nice but it isn’t as though you are running through enchanted worlds with created scenery flying by. During the battles you tend also to command form a high up view, although you can zoom in to the action. Zooming in to detail is gratifying since you can essentially watch hand-to-hand combat. In Medieval II: Total War the masses of people actually look and are dressed different and the AI seems to have them behaving ever so slightly individually. That is to say they don’t all do the same motions over and over. Overall I enjoy the graphics, but am not stunned or thrilled with them

Sound
Sound is sort of in the same boat as graphics. There isn’t a lot of intense sound in this slow paced strategy game. From the world map view there is usually a background song playing. If you view or click on another region the song may change to something more local. The ocean will play crashing waves while viewing the Nile river area will add some cricket and frog background noise. When you select a character they answer with a greeting in keeping with their nationality. I am called Kaiser when playing the Holy Roman Empire, etc. The sounds of battle sound appropriately battle like. Just as with the graphics, I am pleased with the sound but not bowled over.


Conclusion
I can’t write forever but despite all that I have told you there is still plenty for you to discover on your own. The very short version of this review is that I think it is a very fun game and also very similar to Rome: Total War. There are some improvements and tweaks but it is essentially the same game in a different setting. I personally like this about it, but some may be expecting more change. I paid about $35 plus tax and I think you could do better now. It is tough to assign a value grade since the price always goes down over time but if you like strategy games I don’t think you will be disappointed. Highly recommended.