Total War Medieval 2: How to stay fresh.

Medieval 2: Total War is a Grand Strategy/RTS a game set in the year 1080. The gameplay is mostly based around kingdom management, army building and conquering your way across Europe. You can do a dice roll to see who wins a battle. Or jump into the battle, and it seamlessly switches to an RTS-style game where you can use your strategic mind to win a seemingly impossible battle.

You can play as England and conquer France or the British Isles. You can also play as Scotland and conquer England: play as Russia and expand from Novgorod to take over the whole of eastern Europe: play as the Roman Empire (Byzantines) try to fight back against the endless hordes of Turkish armies. These are my favourite factions, but there are so many more.

Image: Creative Assembly Brisbane

The endless possibilities are great, the game also has well-balanced difficulty settings, and if you cannot be bothered fighting, you can use the auto-resolve feature to have a computer immediately fight the battle for you. The game has managed to stay incredibly playable throughout the many, many years since it came out. The game has an expansion pack that now comes free with the game; it includes: the Teutonic order battling the Lithuanian pagans in the Baltics, the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the fighting in the British Isles in the late 1200’s, the middle east and Anatolia in 1174.

It’s like other games in its franchise, but is most like Rome: Total War; they both include not historically accurate but “Historically fun” settings and have the quirk and charm of the early Total War games. It’s also similar to the Mount and Blade games but on a less personal scope. The game is also similar to Civilisation 6 in some ways, with you building up cities slowly and the army tactics side of it.

When you first open the game, you will only have: England, France, Spain, Venice and the HRE. Each faction must conquer its own immediate area, then conquer a set list of places that vary depending on faction. Each faction has their own unique playstyle and challenges for example, Russia will be spammed with the Mongols until they die, or Denmark will have the Holy Roman Empire bearing down on them.

The smooth map to battlefield transitions is wonderful; it runs smoothly on any gaming laptop because of the old graphics. This makes it incredibly easy to pick up and play without having to faff with graphic settings, you can also crank the graphics to max, and it will not lag. The visual style is bright and colourful.

Image: Creative Assembly Brisbane

It has got a great mod community, my personal favourite being Westeros total war, but others also shine, like LOTR: Total War, set during the Lord of The Rings & Stainless Steel, an overhaul mod that makes the game next-gen. There is no steam workshop, but the mods are still simple to set up.

Screenshot: Yelling At Children

(Seen above is Third Age: Total War)

I love this game a lot, and I cannot count the number of good times I have had in this game. The game is fun, well rounded and is appealing to all history nerds the world around. I thoroughly recommend this game I think anyone can have a lot of fun with it.

All in all, this game is really good and is thoroughly worth your time. It has aged spectacularly and is fantastic despite its faults. This game is proof that age is indeed just a number.

1 comment

Leave a comment