MTW and M2TW

[Martok]

To be honest, my knowledge & experience with Medieval 2 is rather limited. I've not played any of the mods, nor have I played the game with Kingdoms installed. I can only comment on vanilla M2TW, and even there I've not played it that extensively.

My feelings are that it recaptures a fair bit of the flavor & atmosphere that Rome lacked, but it doesn't truly compare to MTW (much less Shogun). The AI is....better than its predecessor, but still displays a certain degree of incompetence -- the combat AI is now at least okay, but the campaign AI is terrible at economics and teching up properly. Diplomacy is still broken, but then it's not that great in MTW either. I will admit that I find the religious aspects are somewhat improved (IMHO) -- only the Papacy can train/dispatch Inquisitors now, which helps, and I've found that maneuvering for votes in Papal elections is actually rather enjoyable. The battle UI in Medieval 2 is generally a bit easier to use than its predecessor, and cities/castles don't need to be micromanaged anymore than they do in MTW.

Gah! I could go on, but the bottom line (from my perspective) is this: M2TW is a decent game. Not great -- not on the level of MTW or Shogun -- but it's still probably better than most.