Medieval II: Total War

"We have found a witch may we burn her?"

I first saw Medieval II when my roommate got it at college. The shear depth of the game and the presentation drew me in. As fortune would have it I was at the time looking for a good Real Time Strategy game and decided to give Medieval II a shot.

The first thing that hit me was the sheer size the game requires, 9 gb is far more than necessary in my opinion, its like they forgot to have somebody go back and trim the code. Even so I had my 255 GB external hardrive so no worries. I let the game install and a few hours later I was showings the Scots the "benefits" of English Rule.

Dont get me wrong as a game Medieval II is very fun and I got sucked in for a long time. After a month or two the game was starting to lose its luster though. Why you ask well lets get to the meat of the review:

Graphics wise Medieval II will most likely dominate your graphics card but lag has never really been a big issue in the game and medium graphics settings should run fine on most PCs.

In terms of Gameplay, Medieval II is like playing Risk and Age of Empires at the same time only with more depth. Managing your empire can become tedious wants it gets to a certain size but by that time you should have so much money that you can afford to make mistakes. Battles can be epic too especially as the game progresses and technology improves.

The first big flaw with this game is the AI. Battles ceased to be fun when I found that I could pretty much beat any army just by standing back and using my longbowmen. I mean sure that sounds reasonable, or at least it would if the AI Army of Spearmen would charge my army of archers instead of just sitting there and taking a beating. "Sir can we charge them now?" "Quiet peasant, we must stand here until they run out of ammo and then they charge us, thats the mans way of fighti...*hit by arrow*"

The other big problem with AI is Diplomacy, Alliances are freaking impossible, and sometimes some random country will declare war on you and then do nothing for ten turns. Then you go and offer them peace and they refuse. Even when you have them down to one city which you have surrounded with 3 large armies, they spit in your face when you demand that they surrender or become your vassal. I mean good grief this isnt the Alamo. AI Armies are also terrible at sieges, both when defending and attacking.

Despite the amazingly random and dumb AI the game is enjoyable for a long time and I recommend it if you have the space for it. The largest problem though is the game is very glitchy when you mess with it. I cant even get a bloody patch to work and I was stupid enough to buy the expansion and have never been able to get it to work. Each attempt at downloading the patch has caused vital computer space to disappear so finally ive given up.

Overall I give Medieval II at 7 out of 10. Its fun for a good long while but once its lost its luster its history.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/05/07

Game Release: Medieval II: Total War (US, 11/13/06)