MTW vs. M2TW?

[Martok]

First off, welcome to the Org, Rugon! Good to see you here.

Hi, I apologize in advance if this topic has already been discussed.

Heh. This topic gets brought up pretty regularly, about every other month or so. (You can practically set your watch to it!) No worries, though.

So basically i'm wondering how close to medieval or rome total war that medieval 2 total war is? can anyone comment on the status of those differences in the second one? I"m trying to figure out which to buy and i don't want to have annoying things like that in a new game when the old one was so good.

Thanks

Well I think most folks here agree that Medieval 2 certainly plays differently than MTW; there's simply too many changes between the two titles to deny it. Now if you were to ask which game does it "feel" closer to, then it would depend more on which one of us you're talking to.

I would say that the majority of players (including myself) do find that Medieval 2 is a lot closer to RTW than MTW in terms of both atmosphere and gameplay. That said, however, many people still enjoy M2TW on its own merits -- after all, it does include features (such as merchants and the Papal election system) that the original MTW never had.

In the end, I'd say it largely depends on what exactly you're looking for, and what you liked (and missed) most about MTW. As an admitted aficionado of the original game, it'd be easy for me to advise that you to just go out and buy it, but that would be doing you a disservice -- without having some idea of what features you appreciate the most, I'm reluctant to simply give you a blind recommendation.

[Rugon]

Mainly I just want to be able to give my people titles, and not worry about that weird movement system in Rome Total War. I'm finicky about that.

[Martok]

If that's the case, then I would in fact recommend you pick up the original MTW again. Medieval 2 has the same movement system as Rome, and there's no title system either.

[Rhyfelwyr]

You could download a mod some of them have scripts for giving titles.

[Ethelred Unread]

Stainless steel and Deus Lo Vult both add titles AFAIK.

IMHO MTW2 is better in almost every way features wise except with a weak AI. As this is pretty essential to a good gaming experience I'd look for a mod that improves the AI as much as possible!

There's some hosted here e.g. Lusted's or over at the other place.

As a rough comparison here's a list of how (again IMHO) MTW2 is better.

- More realistic sieges - e.g. defending walls, stone forts etc etc.
- More diverse troop roster (although this may be just the mods I'm playing)
- (if you can pull them off) awesome Heavy Cav charges
- Controllable AI reinforcements (though as said before sometimes the AI is a bit lame)

But you can't

- Assassinate your own family members
- have jedi kings
- give titles (at least in vanilla)
- Choose your heir



Was there a particular area of MTW that you liked?

[Rugon]

I just really liked the simplicity of the game. Everything was very straightforward, and I feel like Rome added in all of these extra bits that were unnecessary and made the game more complicated in a negative way.

hows the AI as compared to Medieval total war, better, worse, etc?

i'm probably getting the first one but i want to see what number 2 has to offer. is the movement system still frustrating? Is the map cartoony like it was in Rome or more realistic like MTW?

[Martok]

hows the AI as compared to Medieval total war, better, worse, etc?

The AI in MTW is better, especially the battle AI. The gap between the games' strategic-level AI is narrower, but MTW still holds the overall edge (it handles the Risk-style map better than Medieval 2's 3D map).

i'm probably getting the first one but i want to see what number 2 has to offer. is the movement system still frustrating? Is the map cartoony like it was in Rome or more realistic like MTW?

Personally, I find MTW to be superior in both regards. This is admittedly a more subjective issue, however, and I'm sure that just as many (if not more) will say that M2TW is better. Either way, your mileage may vary.