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Truly Amazing Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 30, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Medieval Total War is a fantastic game, I never played its predecessor, however I was blown away by its graphics and epic battles. The system requirements are rather steep and the unit facing is confusing, but I would highly reccomend this game.

Once You Get Past The Problems, It's Awsome!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 20, 2002
Author: Amazon User

After messing with direct 3d settings, and the help of a user forum I was able to make this program run the way it is supposed too. At higher resolutions the game is visually stunning and the sound is excellant. GET IT!

Hi it's me again

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 17
Date: February 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

To: The Creative Assembly
Re: Total War: Medieval Total War (MTW)
(I didn't play Viking Invasion yet)
Introduction: This in not a review of MTW but a plea to The Creative Assembly to develop the "dream" strategy war game. Because MTW is the closest I've ever played to the "dream" game it serves as the default. I'll highlight the positive aspects of MTW & suggest improvements. Sometimes I'll use examples from other war games.
1) Turn based with real time battles: This is the single most important aspect of a strategy war game because it allows for much more detail (as opposed to real time, like Age of Empires).
2) Three map "depths":
2.1) World: this we do have in MTW with some nice features like population loyalty influenced by the distance of the king from the province (you can make it even more difficult to hold non-homeland provinces far from the king), different agents etch.
2.2) Provincial: this map we do not have in MTW. The provincial management in MTW is not detailed enough. Lords of the Realm II (LotR) is preferred here:
2.2.a) Various resources that you need & can get hold of by exploitation or purchasing
2.2.b) Keeping the population happy by more than only low taxes (food, health, low conscription etch)
2.2.c) Armies on the provincial map destroying resources by marching over it
2.2.d) The calamities can be more severe: apart from what happen in MTW (floods, disease etch) the calamities must also infect the armies in the province where it occurs: army & population sizes may be reduced by disease & plagues. The bigger the army the higher the risk (see the game "Risk"). Armies & population can be protected against disease & plagues by high food quantities, bigger castles etch
2.2e) "Armies eat" - armies feeding from the food in the province: make sure you can feed the army AND the population (or your army only during a siege)
2.2.e) Desertion or revolt by armies due to non-payment or low food quantities etch
2.2.f) Moving away or revolt by the population due to low food quantities, high taxes etch
2.2.g) Dispatching resources between provinces
2.2.h) Buildings & exploitation of resources go quicker or slower depending on how many workers you assign
2.3) Battlefields: this justifies a separate paragraph:
3) Battlefields
3.1) Battlefields: this is the absolute highlight of MTW: high artificial intelligence, ranks of generals, fatigue, morale, valor, elevation, hiding in bush, group formations, re-enforcements etch etch. One big improvement needs to be made: the enemy generals practically commit suicide by storming into battle. I simply keep my general a bit to the background, protect my missile units by sending my hand-to-hand combat units into combat & then aim all my missiles at the enemy general. Once the enemy general is eliminated it's 70% easier to win the battle. Simply make the general 5 times more difficult to kill or figure out something else.
3.2) Castle sieges: give the attacker also limited time: practical factors like availability of food, desertion, disease etch may force the attacker to assault or withdraw, depending how long the defender can hold out (limited by similar factors, especially food quantities).
3.3) Castle assaults: why can MTW's brilliant battlefields not be extended to castle assaults? LotR is again preferred here (apart from low artificial intelligence & MTW's self-shooting towers). Moats, battering rams, siege towers, hot liquids, missile units on walls with advantage etch.
3.4) Enemy fleets in MTW don't combine, making it easier to destroy them one at a time.
3.5) Realistic naval battles shall be nice.
4) General: Other realistic features that can be added:
a) NB: The never-ending rivalry between heirs for the throne: princes murdered each other or their own father, kings murdered possible competitors (even their own sons), queens & concubines murdered kings etch etch. How many kings died peacefully? A heir inheriting the throne without incident (assassination, "accident" or downright civil war) was the exception rather than the rule. Build this reality into the game. My suggestion: the king & high-ranking generals must always be exposed to assassination by other members of their own faction (apart from civil war, which forms part of the game already). The risk attached to to a high-ranking official with low loyalty must not only be civil war but also assassination or "coup de tat". Every time a king dies there should be a high risk of civil war due to rivalry between royals even if all royalty was loyal to the previous king. The loyalty of generals may even change from time to time so the king has to keep an eye on them.
b) Instead of eliminating a faction you can choose to make it's king a loyal (or maybe not so loyal) vassal of your faction, paying tribute annually - in exchange for higher loyalty by the population, for instance - (or was this only a feature of antiquity, in the times of the city-state?).
c) This type of game for any age or location is possible, I suppose. You can, for instance, replay the rise of civilization in Mesopotamia, the Antique Greek civilization & the rivalry between Sparta & Athens, the history of antique Israel & the conquests of king David, the history of Rome, the Middle Ages, the age of (recent) colonization, up to the modern age with a replay of the recent Iraq War etch. I'm sure you can even re-play the Anglo-Boer War!
The more realistically one can re-play history the nicer. I'm looking forward for a realistic strategy war game for the older, more serious, historian!?
Well, if I didn't make my point by now I never will, I won't bother you again! I'll be waiting for that "dream" game!

Don't buy it if you want to run it on a laptop

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 25
Date: October 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Like the rest of these reviews mention, make sure you have a serious machine before you buy this.

Looked great and assumed because Shogun ran on my laptop this would too. Bad assumption. Activision help desk informed me that there currently are NO graphic cards on laptops that can handle this game. Too bad.

good game but too buggy...be careful

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: June 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

of course the right rating would be 3 stars if the game works, but unfortunally this is the only game i've tried that crashes every 5 minutes...and there is no software or hardware upgrade (at the moment) that can eliminate the problem...
And this is a "relaxing product" for just 50 euro...be careful

Excellent Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: October 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Having jumped to Medieval: Total War from Shogun: Total War, I was very pleased to see how they were able to greatly improve an already excellent game. I'm a history nut, and I love historical accuracy and historical themes in games, and if you do too you won't be disappointed in this game. The only thing I wish was different was diplomacy, but I understand why it is so limited, this is a war game.

I don't know what the people complaining about crashes are talking about, I've been playing the game for around a year now and I've NEVER had any problems with crashing or anything else.

I could go on, but I don't feel like writing a long review. Let the user rating speak for itself if you're into this type of game.

Can't run the game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 12
Date: September 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have problem running the game, I ran tutorial fine, once I click the Start Game button I got kicked out to the desk top. I run a late model Dell with Window XP, other games I ran like Civ3, Shogun War etc had no problem.

why do people like this game?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 13
Date: April 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is the biggest disappointment I've had in purchasing a game in years. This game has such high acclaims, but lives up to none. The graphics are poor, and the game play is dull. The real-time battle scenes reminded me of the Blue and the Gray (a great Civil War game 5 years ago!). The world conquering is slow and makes Civilization seem fast paced. I love the Civilivation games, I love real time strategy games, I love historical things, but I hated this game.

GREAT GAME Bad graphics!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: September 04, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Great game, really cool...really nice...better and bigger than Shogun. But the graphics stink bad..and obviously I am not the only one telling about the graphics..

So be ware...yes it is a nice, but WATCH OUT you might lose Europe in the middle of the War...it just dissapears...
and your soliders Well...they look like the BLOB. you cant tell which is a LAncer, a Spear man and which one is a Knight they all look like CHOCOLATE FUDGE...........THE BLOB EFFECT

Again dont be surprise if you see HUGE WHITE POLYGONS rather than the terrain or the MAp.......and rather than soliders BLOBS of colors...mixed up...

IF you play at 860 by 600 you might get away with a better looking game but hey I want to use 1024 which my card supports........

I play Shougun at 1024 and it looks nice...so....I have the directX that comes with XP. I asked these guys and they told me go and get the directx 8.1. But they are missing the point Windows XP comes with directX 8.1, there is no directx update for windows XP.

I saw in the screenshots they had online.......well forget it you will never see the game look like that..

Warning, Your computer has to be specially configured!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: May 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I got a 'Sony VAIO PCG-GRV670 Notebook',Intel P4 2.6GHz Processor w/400MHz,1024MB DDR RAM Memory,40GB Harddrive,ATI Radeon 9000(64MB of dedicated video memory),got big surprise when I loaded 'Medieval:Total War',it crashed after two minutes. Took 'laptop' back to store, technician downgraded 'laptop' to '512MB DDR RAM Memory',guess what? 'Medieval:Total War' plays smoothly,no freeze-ups,no more crashing. If you have '256MB DDR RAM Memory' or lower,'Medieval' will crash,if your 'laptop' or 'desktop' is at '1024MB DDR RAM Memory' or higher,it will also again crash. What I have learned is this game can't take that much memory,its just to much! If your 'laptop' or 'desktop' is crashing with '1024MB DDR RAM Memory'(1Gig) or higher memory,I highly recommend you downgrade and set your computer at '512MB DDR RAM Memory',you'll notice it plays smoother,I was in turn shocked by the change in performance. Also remember to get 'ATI Mobility Radeon 9000'(64MB of dedicated video memory),great graphics card,it also helps,ready for 'Rome: Total War',yaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

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