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Micro-management of Medieval II's bloated grand campaign

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I like Medieval II Total War... but I believe it is heavily flawed, more so than even Rome Total War.

One of the major issues I had with it was that it tries to cram 500 years of history into ONE campaign, whereas Rome Total War only handled less than 300, and Medieval Total War divided the main campaign into three periods - Early, High, and Late, reflecting the major changes in technology and factions (example, the Ayyubid Sultanate of Salah ad-Din is in the Early period, but did not exist towards the later years, so Medieval II crams all the Egyptian factions into one generic "Egypt" faction, and the same goes with the Seljuqs and the Ottomans).

Their response was to make the game pass at a rapid pace, in which each turn would see two years pass, while characters still only aged at a rate of 6 months per turn.

Medieval II Total War Kingdoms cuts up the campaign into tiny pieces focusing on four major events in Medieval/Enlightenment history, those being the wars over Britannia, the Crusades, the Teutonic Knights in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Spanish voyage to the New World, and war with the Aztecs.

So rather than forcing a sluggish campaign, Kingdoms lets us micro-manage major events in Medieval history that in the base game would be tiny events passing by in a matter of hours.

Not only is the campaign improved with larger, more accurate, and more expansive maps, but the turn system is down to a base 1 year per turn, and a flood of new units is available for each campaign. There is twice as much music in the expansion as there was in the base game.

The expansion pack doesn't do much in the way of changing the game, rather giving you more of the base game, with the ability to focus the campaign on historical events more clearly. You can also play as Native American factions that you couldn't do in the base game.

On going Saga

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: July 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Much has been written already about this expansion pack. My experience with this series is a very positive one. With just the right mix of resource management and tactical skill, both on the large map and in each individual battle, this series is first rate.

A better technology tree and more advanced units to strive for are my only complaints.

Awesome Sequel to an Awesome game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Medieval II Total War taken to the next level.... In many ways it is more of the same, but thats not a bad thing in this case.... The only downside is the the Head to Head mode was a rather poor idea and is poorly implemented... but thats ok, it doesn't hurt the game which overall is just plain solid...

Works like a charm of my Mac OS X Leopard Macbook Pro... I run it faster than all my PC friends on my Mac... HA!

Good Strategy Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: May 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Its a great game and a good expansion for Medieval II that adds a great many things to the original one.

More of the same (but still good)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: February 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is kind of like 4 expansion packs in 1: The New World, Britian, the Baltic, and the Middle East. They're really aren't any major changes to the basic play of the game but it's kind of cool to have new maps to fight on.

The New World was a little disappointing; I thought that the Spanish (with gunpowder) should have more of an impact when fighting the natives. Britian was kind of fun (the Norse are the toughest to play, IMO). The Baltic has the Teutonic Order, who has cool units but they're tought to play because they're surrounded by enemies. The Crusades were pretty cool too, especially since the Mongols are less devastating that in MTW2 (although the Crusader states have things a little too easy, IMO).

I didn't have any problems with installing or with crashing. Like with MTW2 in general, I wish they had put more work into developing the mechanics rather than focusing mainly on the graphics. Overall, it's not great but it's worth the money.

Recommended.

Go Aztecs!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Ok, so if you're even considering buying this then you already know of the greatness that is Total War. Mind you, I am completely biased. I think the Total War series is the best wargame/ strategy series ever created. They constantly improve on their games and surprise me.

The England, Crusade, and Teutonic Crusade Campaigns all rate as 4 to 4.5 stars to me and dont really give us anything too new other than being able to play fun new factions such as the Irish and The pagan Lithuanians.

The real gem for this expansion pack is the Americas Campaign though! It is truly well done (5 stars).

The Armies (in particular, the Aztecs and Mayans) are the most colorful this series has seen. The landscapes range from jungle to desert to mountain passes. The jungle battles contain the best scenary the series has yet presented (though fighting the Chichimecs ("Dog People") in a cactus filled desert is great too!).

I have played all the factions in the new game (multiple times) but continually find myself going back to the Americas Campaign again and again (for a challenge, play as the Tlaxcallans on "hard" settings).

Overall it comes down to this; if you are a diehard fan of the series, you will most likely love this expansion, in particular the Americas and the Teutonic campaigns, if you are a casualy vistor to the Total War series, this game will probably not be worth your time. Stick to your World of Warcraft.

Go Aztecs!!!

Medieval II Kingdoms review

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

They make some decent changes to the game in this expansion. They fix assassin's so they are useful again, but priests seem to have a lower success rate against heretics. The different kingdoms campaigns are difficult but interesting. If you liked the first Medieval, this is a nice companion to it.

Medieval 2: Kingdoms - Best Expansion Ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The "Kingdoms" expansion pack brought back the depth of historical realism of Medieval: Total War 2, as it's historical emphasis seemed to have slightly faded from the original Medieval: Total War. An excellent expansion with four seperate campaigns that take you deep into the history and ambience of their specific region and era. Excellently designed and researched, while losing none of the excitement in play. I highly recommend this expansion to anyone who appreciates any of the total war games.

Be Aware

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 34 / 45
Date: October 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have been a loyal fan of TW since Shogun but I doubt I will buy another. This XP will install securom onto your PC without your permission and unless you are very computer savy you will not be able to remove it. Securom is known to conflict with many other programs (including other anti-piracy programs ironically enough). The only way we can fight this nonsense is to "vote with our wallets" and not purchase games that employ such tactics.

At the very least, SEGA should clearly state on the box what is installed on your PC when you install the game and the consequences of that action. Then you as the buyer would be able to make an educated decision about whether you still wanted to purchase it.

50/50

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: October 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I say 50/50 because as i do like the new units,features and new mini campaigns i was not happy that the new units and features were not included in the original campaign.I also did not like the fact that as a European you have a starting point in the Americas instead of playing the Spanish,French or English in the original campaign and at some point sail over seas to form a colony.I feel the game makers just took to many short cuts on this expansion.This could have been much better.So now i'll just wait untill some modder makes it better game mod like Rome Totalrealism that was modded over Rome Totalwar which turned out to be a much better game than the original from activision.

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