Medieval: Total War
Creative Assembly return on top-form.
Indeed, religion plays a much larger role throughout the game. Special religious emissaries can be built and deployed to provinces to encourage the growth of a particular religion. A predominantly Orthodox province occupied by a Muslim power is more likely to revolt - sending an Orthodox priest can make a rebellion more likely as it encourages the growth of the Orthodox religion. Other diplomatic unit types include emissaries, princesses, and assassins. Emissaries are general diplomats, and can be used to spy, counterspy and bribe enemy generals into defection. Princesses can be uses as spies, but their primary use is cementing alliances through marriage. They can also be used to reward your generals and tie their loyalties to the royal house. Assassins, well, they kill people, and can be used to counter enemy assassins. One interesting group of units are the Inquisitors. Their primary function is to raise the zeal of the population of whatever province they're in. This is a delicate business, however, because leaving Inquisitors in a province too long results in them going a bit Monty Python, and attempting to burn everyone at the stake, at which point the zeal of the province falls through the floor. Inquisitors have other useful functions though - they can be used to accuse any catholic leader unit of heresy. This includes enemy generals, kings or even the Pope, with the rank of the Inquisitor and the piety level of the accused being used to decide the outcome.
Related
The three main faction groups each face different problems and inherit certain advantages. Catholics can call crusades, which given the right conditions can snowball into massive offensive armies once they arrive at their destination. Catholics alone also have access to the Inquisitor unit. Catholic factions, however, must at all times deal with the royal pain in the arse that is the Pope (unless you eliminate him). The Pope essentially enjoys poking his nose into everybody's business, and becomes especially uppity whenever Catholic factions attack each other. This situation usually results in somebody being excommunicated, and the Pope calling on other Catholic factions to attack the offending party. Muslim factions are capable of ordering a "Jihad". This is somewhat different from a crusade, in that it can only be used defensively to gain back a lost province. It is not, therefore, as useful as a crusade, but then Muslim factions don't have to worry about the Pope's meddling. Orthodox factions do not have an equivalent ability, but they do have the advantage that their provinces are less zealous than either of the other religions, and so they are largely immune to the effects of a late game crusade, as the crusade just dies off when it leaves catholic regions. There are several factions of each religion available for play, and each provides a different playing experience. Each faction has a specialised unit available only to itself - the English can produce longbowmen, for instance. The major difference, however, to how each faction plays results from two things. One is its starting position, and the second is the era you begin the game. You can choose to begin in the early, middle or high medieval period, and each faction's position is quite different in each time period. The French, for example, find themselves in a very difficult position in the early game, with the English occupying large parts of France and the Germans pressing from the east. Choosing to play in a different era will result in a different set of starting circumstances. These differences serve as providing different challenges outside of the main difficulty level of the game.
Comments
Something I should have mentioned in the review are system requirements. Despite being graphically very similiar to Shogun, Medieval in fact requires a beefier PC to stop things bogging down. Don't assume that because you ran Shogun perfectly, all is well here. Case in point, my 700Mhz Athlon ran Shogun like a dream, yet some of the battles in Medieval were practically unplayable if they involved more than a few hundered men. Keep this in mind...
I'd aggree in saying that maybe there are just too many units, making it hard to keepo track of what does what abd leading to some bloated and outdated armies roaming around your lands nearer the endgame. The interface for controlling the battles could have done with some more tweaking; for instance to make it easier to align your troops a certain direction or assign goup numberings.
But most of all, where the HELL is the campaign multiplayer???? It was promised for the Mongol expansion and hinted at for this release, so wtf is it?
If anything I found the 16 unit / 960 men limit one of the most disappointing things about the game.
Not to mention the huge lack of play testing apparent for XP and the corrupting save game bug...Big let downs on what might otherwise have been a great game - still good though, I just hope they patch it soon.
If there's demand for Civ3 multiplayer surely there'd be enough for this gamer as well. All I know who played Shogun wanted it. And seeing as this game is no great leap from the first one, apart from in terms of scale, considering the amount of time it has taken to complete I wonder what the developers were smoking that they couldn’t get round to including a multiplayer campaign.
Nice review....As for all those complaining of the lack of multiplayer, I think you overestimate it's importance to people. The developers clearly had to prioritise, and obviously deemed it less important than other new features. And btw, the sequel took around two years to make - a pretty standard development cycle, especially considering they also churned out an impressive expansion. Nope, I for one am impressed at the features they did include, though I expect we'll see a multiplayer campaign sooner or later...
There is a 16 Unit size limit but there is no 960 men limit. Check out the options in the game and you find that you can change the size of the unit.
Change the size of the unit but not the total numner in your army.
Ideas for the theme for the next game in the stable?
I would like to see a Roman theme, but not only the romans, but Huns, Vis goths, Vandals, Franks, Guals, Goths.
The history of the Roman Empire would make a suitable addtion.
In shogun Gieshas were something of an atomic bomb. Nothing in Mtw acts in this manner (thank goodness)but even a cursory reading of medieval history reveals the awe in which the English Longbowman were held. A regard not unlike the present SAS. This needs reflecting in the game and should be specific to the region of origin. Bowmen from Wales and Northumbria should have a battlefield presence second to none.
this is a great game but it is imposible to play it if you do not
have a damn PC with awesome
performance you need more than
a 3D 64MB card , 1.8 procesor
and 512 Ram to play it well.
This is not mentioned in any of the documentation and I cannot find it in other forums. There is no need to crudely do away with disloyal subjects, royal or commoner, if you leave the unit with the King(you need to be patient for a few 4-5+ years) the loyalty of the said unit will rise steadily and remains when the unit is removed from the Kings stack. This is a fantastis way to make useful governors from 5,6,7 quill generals with 2 shields,
i have a amd athlon 1ghz processor and a memory of 128mb can anybody give me any solutions whetther i should or i shouldn't buy the game because i'm unsure that if it might not run????
For the love of God, how do you put the medieval total war cheat codes in.
Why isnt there an 'age of rome'!
This is the most addictive game ever. Do not reccomend if you you have a demanding job, late nights with early mornings. Battles are excellent, the campaign map is supurb. once you start there is no trning back 10/10
do u have any full downloads of total war mongal invasion or total war viking invasion or tell me a website that would had them PLEASE DONT GIVE ME A DOWNLOAD THAT DOESNT WORK : - )
how do i play shogun totalwar on the pc
How du u get the cheats up???!!! iv bin tryin 2 find out 4 ages! pls tel me!
wers d cheats?!?!?!?!?! som1 pls tel me! pls pls pls pls pls pls pls pls pls tel me!
how do you put on the cheats on the map
Anyone happen ta know why i can only play the battle mode? Anytime i try to play a campaign or the tutorial, my screen freezes up and my cursor leaves trails of it self.
to put the cheats in u hav to end the year and type in the cheats while the com is taking its turn . k!
cheats :
.deadringer.:1,000,000 florins (money)
.badgerbunny.:fast construction of building
.worksundays.:builds building on 1 turn
welcome ppl!
when putting in the chests.............. dont forget the fullstop first...then the word...then finish with a full stop
well done
where can u get a download that worksof mtw!
I was late for the review but 2 YEARS PASSED WHERE IS THE MULTIPLAYER CAMPAIGN???? EVEN EUROPA UNIVERSALIS, HEARTS OF IRON HAVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!
hello my name is jessie
hello my name jessie
MY GAME DID NOT COME W/ A MANUAL. WHERE DO I GET ONE?
Before and after you write the cheats in campaign mode, press period.
how do u put cheats in for medieval total war?