Still the best Total War Game
I am a man of opinions. You may have figured that out already. I often ramble on and on from dusk until dawn about opinions. After all, without opinions, what exactly is a man?
So it will be little shock to you when I say that Medieval II is, in my opinion, the best Total War game and, in my opinion, Empire sucks the mightiest of cocks.
Medieval II seemed intimidating at first. It boasts a large amount of "new" features (I put new in quotes because they were new at the time, while they are curiously removed from more recent editions like Empire and Napoleon, just to farther show how much of a failure those games were) such as generals, royal family members, and a different campaign AI. All of this accumulates and is significantly improved with in comparison to Empire and Napoleon.
The issue, as you may have guessed, is that those games came out later than Medieval II, yet somehow failed to improve and indeed only made things worse.
Anyways, now that I have repeatedly bashed Empire and Napoleon into a firm, red paste that no longer resembles a game, let us move on to the crown jewel, the magnum opus if you will, of the Total War franchise.
Medieval II, as you may of guessed, takes place in Medieval Europe. It goes from the Dark Ages well into the Renaissance and even into the discovery of America. You can originally play as 1 of 5 major historical nations, but defeating the smaller countries in the campaign allows you to go and play as them later. I quite enjoy this unlocking system because it gives actual, tangible rewards and gives a reason for going out of your way to conquer these nations rather than just some flat, meaningless achievement.
Of the 5, I chose England, because the game implied they would be the easiest. What followed was an enjoyable experience indeed, one that I quite enjoyed.
First off, I had only played Empire's campaign, and thoroughly hated it for it's awful AI and micromanaging. In Medieval II, there is a massively helpful addition to cities curiously absent from Empire which allows you to select certain cities to be AI controlled either completely, building only, or recruitment only, along with the AI's style (military, growth, culture, e.t.c). Auto-managing was available in Empire, but not even close to this extent of customization, which made it almost useless.
I also enjoyed the Royal Family feature, in which most of your leaders and generals are family members. Thus, your valiant king can ride fourth unto the battlefield with his men (and possibly be killed) or hang back and watch from afar.
The biggest questions though had to do with the AI. Was it any better? Unfortunately, siege AI is poor. Enemy AI will fling it's siege guns at the walls until at least 3 spots have been opened (a good but time consuming tactic) and yet does amazingly stupid things like charge general first into a line of stakes set by archers, guarded by pikemen. They also have major clipping issues so ordering them through the city to specific spots is neigh impossible. You can just hope they end up close to where you click, and even that is unlikely. Plus, the AI can be cheap at times. It knows how to exploit the city square (the area of the city where routing units regroup and join into the fight) to mercilessly kill as many of you as possible by having it's men retreat to the square and gain the "Fighting to the death" condition that makes them fucking steroid-pumped super soldiers.]
The normal battle AI is less cheap but is still effective, often using a decent array of tactics and actually utilizing units properly. I have had issues with units not moving when told, but they are scarce at best.
As for the scale, it is surprisingly the smallest Total War to date, with only a maximum of 5,000 troops per player. In Napoleon or Empire, the game could be easily modded to gain access to 20,000 and even 30,000 unit battles if you could handle it. The game is also unoptimized for more than 2 cores, so it can lag if more than about 6,000 men are present on the field.
Despite these drawbacks, the game is simply too fun to ignore. It still holds up even today. Shogun II was also excellent, taking lessons well learned from all of the games and mixing it into a working combination, and Medieval II is on par with Shogun II and it's expansions.
If you want to get into Total War, Medieval II is easily the best to start with. Rome might be worth it and Shogun II is a must buy, but Medieval II is, in my opinion, still the best.
