Medieval: Total War

Rating:
Summary: Very good at battle, poor at strategy and history
Review: This game is supposed to allow you to conquer medieval Europe by choosing one of the several kingdoms. However, this is simply impossible at the expert level. The reasons why the conquest strategy fail and the historical background is inaccurate are the following:
a) The Muslim kingdoms ( Almohads, Egyptians and Turkish) are always more powerful than the Christians.
b) Despite the fact that France didn't get rid of the English till the end of the Hundred Years War (about 1453) because the English controlled 2/3 of France, in this game the English are quickly smashed by the French
c) The Holy Roman Empire is a decorative kingdom more or less, when if fact the emperor of Germany was more powerful than the rest of medieval kings
d)Spanish kingdoms are wrongly conceived because the game has simply passed over the complexity of the unification process of Christian kingdoms and the variety of Islamic kingdoms in the Peninsula
e)The so-called Italians doesn't exist in the Middle Ages because Italy wasn't a nation until 1870, so Italy was fragmented in princedoms like Milan, Ferrara, Mantua, Naples and Sicily, Florence, Venice, the Papal States, ... Just as the Sicilians are quite an invention of the game, because Sicily belonged to the House of Anjou, and after to the kings of Aragon
f) It is impossible to keep a good profit out of cultivated lands, trade and mines. Sooner or later, by an unexplained cause, your profit turns negative and your economy ruined
g) Whatever happens when you smash a rival, it appears afterwards and quite illogically, like, for instance, smashing the French and appearing fifty years after in Prussia
h) When the Papacy is conquered, it always happens that the Pope manages to call a rebellion from the exile afterwards
i) There is a huge disproportion between kingdoms. For instance, the Aragonese are one of the weakest, when the truth is that the kingdom of Aragon controlled half the Mediterranean, including Sicily and Naples
j) The ship design is poor and the naval battles poorly conceived.
k) The diplomacy is very weak and the alliances are a joke
l) Unlike Shogun, in this game assassins are quite useless, and princesses even more useless if possible. Cardinals come after you've built a cathedral, a lot of money to invest in a figure which serves the same purpose as the bishop, being the latter much cheaper

And there is much more I can't remember just now. However, the battles, graphics and deployment of troops are excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Best Game Series
Review: I haven't yet played the new expansion pack to the award winning game Medieval Total War but I love the series and they are by far the best games on the market. An expansion pack can only make things better by fixing the few problems that their are in the game and also to make more options open to the player. I recommend this game to anyone that likes strategy games.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: before I tell you all how amazing this game is let me tell all you readers of these reviews that you CANNOT compare this game to anything ANYTHING. It is in a league of its own. The gameplay is terrific. The graphics are absolutely superb and contrary to popular belief it doesn't take months to complete. I finished this game in 2 weeks tops after I figured out how to control my armies and keep the peace. There are 12 different countries to play and 3 different times to play in. the Early, High or Late ages. The best way to win I have found is to play in the High ahe as the Byzantines but each to his/her own eh. This game brings out the Meglomaniac in you. There is nothing better than hearing the music in the background as your armies march into battle against undefeatable odds only to hear the words "their general has been killed in battle before the Pox could get him". Once he falls so does the army. You will be drawn into a world of strategy, empire building and best of all fantastic blood spilling battles. If you love history you will love crushing the Franch at Agincourt in one of the historic battles or routing the German armies. Get this game. Even if it requires selling your younger brother/sister into slavery to get the money. This game is a MUST.

Rating:
Summary: Best Game of the Year
Review: This game is the best I have played in months. I am a serious gamer and I love historical games like Age of Empires 2, but this is ultimate. This game combines a super complex awesome risklike gameplay and the best battle system I have every seen. Some people have said that this game does not work well on laptops. Well guess what, the reason is that this is a BIG game. I mean it takes almost two gigabytes of disk space. Most older laptops don't even have that much on their computer. Basically, look at the memory requirments first. This is a game that will take a long time to get old.

Rating:
Summary: The wait is over; buy this game
Review: I've waited years for a game like this. It is both a tactical level and strategic level game set in the middle ages and I highly recommend it. I've spent hours and hours playing this game.

Yes, the install can be a little tricky but be sure to follow the advice on how to do a better install. Be sure you have defraged and scandisked your hard drive before trying to install.

After you get past that install, a glorious world awaits for your to conquer.

Rating:
Summary: An Easy Game That Will Keep You Addicted
Review: This game is awesome! You do need a good machine. A little bit over the minimum requirements will play the game good (unlike Battlefield: 1942 where over the recommended requirement will play the game slow). Medieval Total War is so real! You choose from over 12 empires and conqure lands and improve your lands to make a strong military or for other purposes. It simple to get used to. Just read the 77 page manual and do the training and after one campaign, you'll be a master at this game. And its not all stradgy. There a lot of action. This is a must get game!

Rating:
Summary: I'm sorry sir, are you trying to use this game on a laptop ?
Review: No laptop support, no warning about lack of laptop support, no willingness to commit to a patch.

There is something incredibly ridiculous about a product whose 3D, multi-view complex battle engine works just fine but crashes on the relatively low-tech campaign map. The less than helpful Activision techies tried to blame it on a lack of my video cards DirectX 8.1 support (I'm sure that news to the ATI folks not to mention the rest of the laptop manufacturing world). I found this assertion surprising given the host of other DX required games I run without issue.

To sum it up, looks like the game has great potential if the CA and Activision staff would commit to getting off their posterior ends and debug it.

Rating:
Summary: Great tactical game, poor strategic game
Review: I like this game, as I liked Shogun before it. The Total War games have the best tactical (battle control) interface I have seen. Each battle can take hours with shifting fortunes. The types of troops you field and match against the enemy really matter. For the battles, the game is worth the time and money.

The game is weak at the strategic level. The territories of the Europe map are too large for medieval Europe. There are too few active governments for an age in which innumerable feudal barons and kings contended with each other. The idea that any medieval prince could have conquered, and held, Europe in the medieval era is absurd. Diplomacy is stilted and irritating. Army movements pay no attention to the relationships between travel time, distance, army size and supplies. All in all, the strategic level is not a serious part of the game. It serves as a transition point to the next battle. Buy the game for the battles if you can ignore that your need for strategic challenges won't be met.

Rating:
Summary: MTW is a MUST for any tactical addicts.
Review: I have to say that computer games with enough AI to actually keep me from sleeping can be counted on one hand. This game's AI is outstanding. Flanking, moral, terrain, armor, artillery, etc. all create a veritable buffet of tactical bliss.

Shogun amazed me to no end with the outstanding music and graphics. I was as well amazed with how little it taxed my 400Mhz computer with a 16 meg graphics card.

Bravo to the code team for making an epic game that the average Joe could play on his machine.

MTW is a well done graduation from Shogun. It's not just another copy of the game in a different historical setting. When your spies can actually uncover the vices of an enemy general to cause moral and loyalty decrease, that's great.

I constantly wear my headphones so I can turn the music up loud. I get a rush out of the immersion of this game.

I tell everyone who asks about strategy or tactical games to play this. I've NEVER played a game where the computer will back off of an unsuccessful attack and attempt to change it's tactics mid-stream.

Formations work well in this game, and the graphics have been improved from Shogun.

If you even remotely enjoy military strategy or tactical games, you really should at least give this a try.

Rating:
Summary: MTW is so great, I can't stay awake.....
Review: It's pretty tough keeping my eyes open at the office after staying up to play Medieval: Total War. I keep telling myself, "One more turn, then I'm going to bed." Next thing I know, 3 hours have passed and I have to worry about when my alarm is going to go off.

With the tutorials and the included instructions, one can pretty easily play the strategy component of the game. For the battle component, I recommend picking up the strategy guide. It explains in depth the different types of troops as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Come to think of it, it's pretty darn helpful with the stretegy game too, explaining the technology tree and the role of strategic agents.

In short, pick this game up. You won't regret it.