| | |  | Action, Adventure | Home » » » Medieval II Total War | | | | | | | Description: | | Take complete control of your kingdom like never before and grow it into a continents-spanning empire through diplomacy, trade, espionage, and war! Join the Crusades as a Christian or Muslim empire and battle over the fate of the Holy Land. Raise mighty armies to crush your neighbors and conquer all of Europe and even the Americas to become the greatest power of the Middle Ages. | | | Features: | |
• Manage your empire in the turn-based Campaign Map, handling everything from building and improving cities to recruiting and training armies
• Employ diplomacy to manipulate allies and enemies, outsmart the dreaded Inquisition, and influence the Pope
• Lead the fight in the Crusades and bring victory to Islam or Christianity in the Holy War
• Improved combat choreography, larger armies, quicker pace, and spectacular finishing moves make this the most visceral and exciting Total War ever
• New epic campaign - The ambitious single player campaign will span three continents and let players sail across to the Americas to confront the Aztecs on their home soil
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Weight:
| 0.75 pounds | | Package Length:
| 7.5 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.3 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.6 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.25 pounds | | Release Date:
| November 21, 2006 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 128 reviews |
| | | Game Information: | | | Platform:
| Windows 98 / Windows 2000 / Windows Me / Windows XP | | Media:
| DVD-ROM | | Item Quantity:
| 1 |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 128 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
163 of 171 found the following review helpful:
When Portugal AttacksNov 18, 2006
By Sean Breazeal
When I first got this installed and running on my middle-of-the-road system I was expecting it to be a chugging, slow mess. I was happily surprised to find that except for battles against larger cities or against thousands of foes, it runs just fine. I have yet to have a crash, something which in this day and age of "shove it out the door broken and patch it later" game releases is to be commended.
The graphics are beautiful but are not the amazing leap forward like occurred from Medieval 1 to Rome. Think of it more as putting an extra coat of shiny polish on your car. The effects of firing flaming arrows and the pageantry of heraldric colors on the knights and other troops are beautiful to watch. The little movies showing events like weddings and your assassins' antics are often genuinely hilarious (until you've seen them all 100 times). But all that is also just eye candy, there's very little NEW here that wasn't in Rome. Also, the medieval setting has now been done to death in this game's predecessor and other games in the last few years and I'm praying that the next title WON'T be a remake of the original Shogun but will move the series squarely into the gunpowder age, culminating with Napoleon. Enough with the primitive and medieval weapons and tactics.
The AI has been improved marginally, but I am still attacked for ridiculously random reasons no matter the difficulty level I play on. As England I had developed into one of the largest powers on the map and Portugal inexplicably attacked me without provocation despite our neutral relations (not "poor" or "abysmal", mind you) and trade rights. Needless to say they were immediately squashed, but why would they even bother? This is not intelligent AI, it's just annoying AI. Alliances seem to be equally meaningless when they are made with the human and are difficult to achieve unless the AI brings it to you. I have yet to ever form one when I initiate the offer even when it would be a massive advantage to the comp.
Battle AI is more clever at using its archers as harassment and has no hesitation in squashing yours if you leave them unguarded. When outnumbered it does tend to sit there passively as one other reviewer wrote. I have nearly obliterated an entire force with archers while they just sat there in the corner before the general turned tail and withdrew.
Overall, it's a small step forward and the Rome engine is certainly beautiful to watch in action. The Total War series still is unparalleled in strategic enjoyment on both levels but the next offering in the series needs to be groundbreaking in both time period and AI complexity.
27 of 29 found the following review helpful:
Rome: TW with a Medieval twistNov 18, 2006
By Xantier M. Werner
Medieval 2 is a good game, but considering the last big technological break through already happend with Rome: TW and the fact that its been years since it came out means to me that the makers of Medieval 2 should have been striving a little harder to make the game more than what it is. There are some great new features, just as IGN's review explains, but I think IGN gave the game a little too much credit. I've been waiting for this game to come out for some time now and I am happy I purchased it, but for those of you who already have Rome: TW, expect pretty much the same thing with better graphics and slightly different interface. However, the strategy map is absolutely identical, no time put into that. Taking turns between the different factions will be just as tedious and mind-numbing as it was in all the other Total war games, something they really need to address before the next release.
Game itself comes with some nice features, like an audio CD including all the music from the game and several DVD's from the History Channel's "Crusades" series on TV. Enough to get you pumped to play? Yes. But not an excuse for some of the hangovers from Rome: TW to still exist. Over all good buy, just getting into my second day of play, ain't bored yet but not exactly stunned either.
8.5 - Presentation
Good classic Total War presentation, what else is there to say? Oh a few bugs do exist but nothing a quick patch won't fix.
9.0 - Graphics
Deffinately an improvment over the last Total War game, however I did experience a performance issue while running high anti-aliasing and Ansotropic settings with a NVidia 7800 BFG (256mb) card.
8.5 - Sound
Classic Total War game sound and music, however not my favorite soundtrack out of the series.
7.5 - Gameplay
Gameplay falls short of what it should be. While Med 2 builds on some key principles, I just didn't have that "wow" factor there was when Rome first came out. More of a Rome: TW with a Medieval mod.
8.0 - Lasting Appeal
Second day of play and still interested. Although I can see myself on to something else within the next few weeks. Questionable if its worth $50 for those of you who already have Rome.
23 of 26 found the following review helpful:
Medieval 1 vs. Medieval 2Nov 22, 2006
By Brian J. Mcmahon
I'm going to rate the game by comparing Medieval 1 to Medieval 2. In Medieval 2, the number of starting factions you can play as has been drastically reduced. Apparently you can unlock other starting faction when you first win the game. The starting options have been changed, for instance the starting time period is fixed. The strategic map is beefed up in Medieval 2 with a 3D look and feel. The option to not watch AI movement speeds up the time waiting between rounds. There are options for AI assistance in managing cities and castles as well as assisting with units in battle.
The strategic game in Medieval 2 is quite a bit more complex, but in many ways less tedious than Medieval 1. For one thing, you will find that your units fit withing castles and cities regardless of how developed they are. You will rarely have military units scattered all over the place, they will normally be clustered in cities or castles. Cities and castles have been seperated. Generally, cities are for money production and castles are for military production, but there is overlap with both. Aside from the princesses, diplomats, and priests, there are also merchant units that can move to resources scattered on the map and produce income from them. The diplomatic options are greatly expanded and can be an additional source of income by trading things like information or trade rights with other factions for money. Spies play a valuable role and the Pope can cause all sorts of headaches in Medieval 2 that were not part of Medieval 1.
The tactical game has also changed dramatically. First of all you will fight far fewer battles. Second, you will fight even less in the open, most of your bigger fights will be sieges. In Medieval 1 you could usually avoid siege fights because your force of 2000 men would overwhelm a castle that was only able to hold a few hundred enemies. You could simply automatically resolve most sieges with very little fear. In Medieval 2, this has changed. You will need a spy to tell you what is inside a city, and a spy may also open the gates for you when the battle comes if you get lucky. If you don't know what is inside a city and you go to attack it, you may find that you have seriously underestimated and be forced to wait for reinforcments or even withdraw. Conducting sieges is a major part of the game that was possible with Medieval 1 but practically unnecessary.
Other things that have been incorporated into Medieval 2 are missions or tasks from the Pope or a "counsel" of nobles. Ultimately you can ignore the missions but there can be consequences and lost rewards. The rewards can be very valuable. Sometimes the missions are too demanding because they will require doing something that is tough to accomplish at the time you receive it. The addition of the missions is welcome and will sometimes end up taking you in a direction where you might not have been sure what to do next.
At this point the game is not without flaws. Sometimes your units will not respond properly during a battle. For that matter sometimes the AI units don't respond properly either, or so it would appear. I've seen units go back and forth or run at an angles towards an enemy formation and right past them, when they were ordered to attack. Cavalry units are particularly adept and speeding right past an enemy formation that is on the run, completely missing it. Enemy units will sometimes take a horrible pounding from missiles without moving, running, or charging. In one battle I had 3 or 4 archer units expend all arrows from hilltop safety on enemy missile and infantry forces. They just sat there and got reduced by half their strength over 5 minutes. There have also been a few crashes to the desktop here and there, usually right after a battle starts. Hopefully a patch will fix these relatively minor issues.
The computer requirements have been stated by many as being too demanding. However, if you turn down the settings, the game will play pretty smoothly on 2 year old hardware at 1280x1024 resolution. I've got a large amount of RAM (2.5GB) which may help. But my video card is only an ATi X800 AGP and I have an old AMD XP 3200 processor. The game runs fine with the settings turned down.
Overall, I give the game 4 of 5 stars. It is a worthy successor and contains far more depth than Medieval 1. It's not flawless, but definately worth playing.
31 of 37 found the following review helpful:
Makes me want to read Machiavelli...Dec 04, 2006
By Acoma
I loved Rome:Total War like little kids love Christmas. I just got done with Medieval II playing the Spanish Grand Campaign and...well, wow.
Rome was a definate step-up in terms of the fun factor and graphics, but there was always those elements of the original Medieval that I missed - Namely, the diplomatic features and perhaps the era itself. The map is reminiscent of Rome: Total War, but it is broken up to reflect the medieval period. Starting off you can only choose five factions - England, France, Spain, The Holy Roman Empire and ummm...Milan I think. However, when you beat the game it unlocks all the playable factions which is around 15ish.
I won't really go into what is better over Medieval I to Medieval 2, because there is a large technological leap. It is better to make a comparison to Rome. The graphics, by and large, remain the same with minor tweaks like making the trees sway on the campaign map, and the terrain will actually change as you farm and irrigate the land in your provinces.
The most notable difference to me was it is harder than Rome. No matter what faction you play, it is going to be a challenge. Any catholic faction you play puts you into contention with the Pope. Most of the popes don't like catholic countries fighting each other, so when I was at war with Portugal in the beginning I had them on their last province with my armies approaching and here comes his Popeness, "Ahem...Spain, you need to stop. You are doing too well and might have an increased economy as well as hegemony over the Iberian pennisula. Sooo, stop or i'll excommunicate the lot of you!" You can ignore his Popeness, but you recieve a severe penalty to the morale of your cities, you can have a crusade called against you (REALLY not fun) and generally upset every other catholic nation. This might not be such a big deal in the later stages of the game, but if you do it when you are starting out then you get a bunch of nutty crusaders at your doorstep (Thank you Saved Games).
The time period is static. That is to say, you start in the 12th century and ends with the conquest of the New World. So, if you want to play with the later muskets, cannons and all sorts of goodies you need to play a very long game to get to the time period where the "trigger" comes into play of discovering gunpowder and its practical application to firearms.
All of the playable factions are distinct, with their pluses and minuses. Each playable faction has a equal shot at conquering Europe, Asia and America. It really depends on your play style. If you like whittling away the enemy with arrow fire then England is a good choice. If you like slow, powerful calvary then France is a good choice and so on, and so on.
It does have some minor flaws; some techinical hiccups here and there, but nothing game killing. I have a 3.2ghz Pentium IV, 1 gig of ram and a 6800 GT Nvidia graphics card. No major problems.
The AI is improved over Rome, but there is a few things to improve on such as the computer not charging you if he lacks missile troops. For example, I have 6 units of archers and 4 units of infantry and he has 8 units of infantry and no archers. I hammer him until he has barely 100 guys and i'm out of arrows before he will make a move on me. Now, this is good for me because I win, but I really think the computer should say to itself, "Hey, I have no missile troops. I'm going to charge him now!"
To wrap it up, let me just say one final note. I...Love...Cannons. This game is worth it to buy just to watch a row of cannons go off, the ground shake and men get thrown around like rag dolls at your volleys. It is most choice...
Pros:
- Solid Graphics
- Fun Gameplay
- Great tutorial (Just like Rome)
- Distinct and varied voice-acting.
- Lots and lots of replayability.
Cons:
- Minor AI tweaks needed
13 of 14 found the following review helpful:
 5/5 for newbies to series. 3.5/5 for veteransMar 31, 2007
By WiltDurkey
If you like turn based or real time wargames and if you haven't played any of the Total War franchise (Shogun, Medieval 1, Rome) so far, you are in for a treat. Medieval is a gorgeously rendered game that immerses you in lengthy nation & economy-building, back in the middle ages. But the key are the real time battles and boy are they fun to play and watch. In any case, the other reviews speak for themselves.
On the flip side, if you have played games in this series before, Medieval 2 is not without its flaws...
AI:
Med 2's strategic AI is pretty easy to beat, even at the highest level. This is unlike Rome which is much more challenging. My _guess_ is this: Rome and earlier games were heavily scripted, meaning that the computer would be _told_ to always play the same aggressive and effective way at the start of the game. With one script for each possible human player faction. I remember playing Scipio in Sicily 3 or 4 times before I finally learned how to stay alive. Sure, once you knew how to play a faction, you would win, but getting there was fun.
Medieval is, I think, less scripted and relies more on the AI actually figuring things out on its own. And it isn't very good at it, so the campaigns are actually a tad boring. If the AI does improve (a big if) then the game should have more replay value in the future. In the meantime, I'm not playing Medieval 2 much. The tactical battle AI is better, imho.
Graphics/individual soldier animation:
The graphics are eye candy. Graphics shouldn't make or break a game of this type. Wargames _can_ work with iconic/stylized graphics. I remember being thrilled by playing Harpoon, which had very very rudimentary graphics, even for its day. In fact, I rather prefer Rome's campaign map to Medieval's, because it is more stylized and easier to grasp at a glance. Granted, Medieval's battle map is a _big_ improvement, but I would have preferred to get naval battles instead of upgraded graphics.
Other new things:
The Pope: great idea. What a annoyance he is with his constant orders, just like Popes apparently were in those days.
Resources + merchants: good idea, would be better if resources weren't such a pixel hunt on the main map and if merchants weren't so preposterously difficult to assassinate.
Artillery: pretty good idea and fairly well represented - they are invaluable for city attacks and pretty good elsewhere. They sometimes can't fire somewhere and it is unclear why - no LOS? no spotters?
Princesses: what are they for anyway? I would have liked more strengthening of existing alliances by marriage, not just an underpowered Diplomat.
Religion: getting better and better in its effects.
Heretics: waste of time as shown, mostly useful to ramp your bishops' Piety and there aren't enough of them for that purpose.
City happiness: they've tuned the system a bit. Large cities do need lots of stuff to keep the locals happy. But it can be made to work and large cities don't _always_ oscillate between growth, revolt, suppression, growth...
May '07 addition: I've now installed the 1.2 patch and the strategic AI is as lame as ever, at 'hard' level. Nations that have me outnumbered send in their armies one by one so I can deal with them piecemeal. The AI really shows very little _strategic_ initiative. Again, this should not deter new players from this great game, but veterans will find little new challenge, just a different setting.
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