Best Total War Game Yet - Poll

[Vuk]

I forgot the poll, so I am gonna post it again, this time with it hopefully. The description to the thread is here.

[Vuk]

Come on guys! You cannot just vote! You gotta tell us why you voted as you did. 5 votes now and not one reason!

[everyone]

Rome, I've never played the 1st Medieval so I don't know what's it like, but I'd prefer Rome's campaign over Shogun's. and also I don't really like Med II's UI, it's all rather cramped at some places (character traits) and unnecessarily large at others (e.g. settlement management)

[Drunk-Monk]

Is this poll based on vanilla alone? If so MTW is the best due to the atmosphere and and general excellence. But if you include mods then RTW has a slight edge due to the variety you can experience, and just because I find it generally more playable and I can play it when in any mood. Despite that I still voted for MTW and I don't own the others.

[Scurvy]

MTW, kept balance and atmosphere of Shogun and improved campaign the campaign

[Monk]

CA love to use the line "A revolution, and then an evolution." They've done it countless times, in countless interviews.

That is to say they redefine the series, evolve the series, and then redefine it again. STW was the revolution. Probably one of the best games if you're going for sheer immersion. The throne room aspect with the map of Japan laid out before you, your adviser at your left and your geisha at your right. All the factions used the same units, but in a sense that made you work even harder to come up with strategies and ways to win. And the AI was vicious. If you were trying to take a bridge from the AI I hope you set your will in order. It was gonna take a lot of men.

MTW was its evolution. It took the STW series as far as you could go with a bigger map, tons more factions and units, ect. But it lost a lot of the immersion factor by taking out assassination movies and the throne room. But still, the sheer scale that was introduced as well as the polish (I can't remember any huge game-breakers, the 56 year death bug introduced in VI comes to mind but that's it) is what really made the game worthy to be STW's successor. It's also to date the only TW game I ever seriously played in MP with.

Then came RTW, the revolution again. My my, such a chance and so many bugs. We made the move to 3D and completely redefined the campaign map by going 3D as well. City sieges were introduced, as well as little things like letting horse archers fire on the more. But for all the good things RTW did, there were just as many bad. It was buggy, oh lord was it. There was the bug where if you loaded a save the AI in a sense forgot what it was doing, and took up to 3 turns to realize "Oh wait. I was gonna seige something" and then get back to it.

The AI stunk, until RTW the AI had been taking gradual steps down but it could still put up a good fight. RTW saw the end of that. Cavalry was stupidly overpowered. The battles lasted for 30 seconds because the kill speed was too high. I could go on and on. Lest I forget, Bronze Age Egyptians.

Lastly, there was M2. There was a lot of high hopes for M2 and, quite frankly, none of mine were fulfilled. As good as it looked graphically the same problems from RTW made their way into m2. Sure it was (imo) less buggy than RTW was, but the AI was still a mess. Sieges became even more common place and made up a huge portion of the battles you fought, and cavalry, while not hugely overpowered, could still do way too much. Generals were still tanks. The only thing that even kept me in the community was the mods.

This has become a rant. I'm gonna go outside.

[Hooahguy]

i voted RTW.
never played shogun and MTW, but i did play MTWII.
what a failure MTWII was. i was dissapointed.
RTW was a fun game, but i only really got to appreciate the game when i began playing EB, which is a mod for the game. in EB the battles are longer, units are 100% historically accurate, and the map (which is much larger) is more detailed and fun to look at.

[Vuk]

CA love to use the line "A revolution, and then an evolution." They've done it countless times, in countless interviews.

That is to say they redefine the series, evolve the series, and then redefine it again. STW was the revolution. Probably one of the best games if you're going for sheer immersion. The throne room aspect with the map of Japan laid out before you, your adviser at your left and your geisha at your right. All the factions used the same units, but in a sense that made you work even harder to come up with strategies and ways to win. And the AI was vicious. If you were trying to take a bridge from the AI I hope you set your will in order. It was gonna take a lot of men.

MTW was its evolution. It took the STW series as far as you could go with a bigger map, tons more factions and units, ect. But it lost a lot of the immersion factor by taking out assassination movies and the throne room. But still, the sheer scale that was introduced as well as the polish (I can't remember any huge game-breakers, the 56 year death bug introduced in VI comes to mind but that's it) is what really made the game worthy to be STW's successor. It's also to date the only TW game I ever seriously played in MP with.

Then came RTW, the revolution again. My my, such a chance and so many bugs. We made the move to 3D and completely redefined the campaign map by going 3D as well. City sieges were introduced, as well as little things like letting horse archers fire on the more. But for all the good things RTW did, there were just as many bad. It was buggy, oh lord was it. There was the bug where if you loaded a save the AI in a sense forgot what it was doing, and took up to 3 turns to realize "Oh wait. I was gonna seige something" and then get back to it.

The AI stunk, until RTW the AI had been taking gradual steps down but it could still put up a good fight. RTW saw the end of that. Cavalry was stupidly overpowered. The battles lasted for 30 seconds because the kill speed was too high. I could go on and on. Lest I forget, Bronze Age Egyptians.

Lastly, there was M2. There was a lot of high hopes for M2 and, quite frankly, none of mine were fulfilled. As good as it looked graphically the same problems from RTW made their way into m2. Sure it was (imo) less buggy than RTW was, but the AI was still a mess. Sieges became even more common place and made up a huge portion of the battles you fought, and cavalry, while not hugely overpowered, could still do way too much. Generals were still tanks. The only thing that even kept me in the community was the mods.

This has become a rant. I'm gonna go outside.

STW was really good because there was never a game like it and it opened up doors. Unfortunately, opening up the door to RTW was I believe one of the only good things it did. I think everyone likes it so much because it was the first they played. It was the third I played though (after both MTW and RTW), so I did not have this prejiduce. I found the gameplay in Shogun extremely lacking and the atmosphere very artificial. I am not bashing it for it, as it was a very old game, and a try at something that had never been done before. It was excellent for its time, but I do think people make too much of it. (Just my opinion, I am sure that I will have lots of people disagreeing with me)
MTW for the longest time was the only TW game I played, so when the new ones came out, I had a great deal of prejiduce to get over. I refused to admit the limits of MTW for a long time. After a few months of playing RTW without ever opening MTW up though, when I went back and played MTW I was shocked at the lack of depth in the gameplay and shocked that I could ever have thought it better than RTW. When M2TW came out, it did not do that too me. In fact, I had not played RTW since Kingdoms came out, and when I went back to RTW today, I fell in love with it all over again.

As much as I like MTW and STW (which I very much do), they are very shallow compared to M2TW and RTW IMHO. RTW opened up sooo many doors for modders and added so much depth. You could finally see exact amounts on unit detail. The UI and game system was much smarter. So much tactical depth was added with changes to ranged unit systems, sieges and siege machines, and with horses (and I will be the first to admit that they did it in a very flawed way, but at least they did it). If you could shock an army in real life, it would run, and in real life some battles did not last more than a few mins. The reason that battles take too long in RTW is because the unit MOVEMENT, not the combat speed is too high, and formations are not as important as they should be. Things like reserves are not important because of this, so battles go by way too fast.
Long and the short of it is though, that when I did my own rebalance of RTW and M2TW, battles take a much more realistic amount of time (I spent 15 minutes fighting a battle in M2TW), horses and cavalry behave as they should and are not invincible, and the game can be played with an enormous amount of depth. The same cannot be said for MTW and STW rebalances. The level of accuracy that CAN be achieved with RTW and M2TW is reason enough to make them top IMHO. When you are talking about developing the game, you are talking about developing the system, not just the content and setup. I also think that considering the huge steps that had to be taken to make RTW and M2TW, people make way too much of the bugs. They were not game breakers and were quickly fixed. MTW and STW were not buggless either if I remember correctly.
I am sorry that this turned into somewhat of a rant of my own, but I just think that RTW recieves way more critism than is fair. It was such a major leap in the right direction that (while it should not be held out as a paragon of games) it should recieve due recognition for that fact. Just the graphics alone make the game so much more immersive. (and no, I am not a graphics noob. I wouldn't complain one bit if ETW was done with RTW graphics, as long as it is 3-d and I can see what is going on)

[Lemur]

I'm a Roman history fanatic anyway, so when CA did Rome it was like a nerdgasm Christmas on a hard drive. With lorica segmentata.

Throw in the outstanding mods such as RTR (in the early days) and EB (now) ad you've got a gift that keeps on giving. Long after most other game have been uninstalled and given away or sold on Ebay, Rome keeps it place of pride on my PC.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I never really played STW/MTW long enough to do them justice, I was too young at the time to appreciate the strategy involved. Although I did have quite a good go on Shogun, which I got after MTW.

However I voted M2TW for favourite. The graphics do count for something, and mods can do a lot to improve things like historical accuracy and the AI. However, its Kingdoms that really brought M2TW into its own for me, the immersion in those 4 campaigns is fantastic, especially the Americas campaign.

[Vuk]

I never really played STW/MTW long enough to do them justice, I was too young at the time to appreciate the strategy involved. Although I did have quite a good go on Shogun, which I got after MTW.

However I voted M2TW for favourite. The graphics do count for something, and mods can do a lot to improve things like historical accuracy and the AI. However, its Kingdoms that really brought M2TW into its own for me, the immersion in those 4 campaigns is fantastic, especially the Americas campaign.

I think RTW is the best game, but I would say handsdown that Kingdoms is the best expansion. It expanded the game so much in terms of features and gameplay rebalancing. I am a huge fan of it, and hope that when they put an expansion for Empire out, that they look back at what made Kingdoms so good.

[LittleGrizzly]

Gave it to Shogun, as an avid mp player the battle is what the game was all about for me, RTW and MTW both of course thrash STW in comparisons for sp, but the battles were by far and away superior in STW, this lead to a much better experience in STW multiplayer, some brilliant battles and any map could be taken as long as the attackers were quick and skilled enough. I remember many great 4v4's on Hitachi for example, a huge hill which the attackers start oractically at the bottom off, but i had more victory's attacking this map than defeats...

MTW is probably a close-ish second but RTW is a distant third, they destroyed the battles in this edition which destroyed the game for me, even with all the great stuff in sp i find it hard to get over the crappy battles in rtw...

[KukriKhan]

Shogun = tops for me. It's the only game I ever stayed up all night, on multiple nights, for months, to MP battle fellow players from around the world. Guys at work would ask me: "Dude, hard night drinkin'?". "No", answered I, "just killin' perfectly good virtual Japanese guys with my friends across the pond."

MTW = 2nd place (for me) for the immersive SP game, which I virtually ignored in STW.

The other titles are OK, I guess. I've bought them all and played through them. I mean no offense, and highly respect you fellas who praise those games, but: they bored me, even with all the flashy graphics. Neverthless, I will certainly buy and try ETW. Thousands of you guys can't all be wrong. :)

[Gregoshi]

STW for me too. While not as much into the MP aspect as a vast majority of the other STW fans, the game was really all about the battles and it is here that the game excelled. The campaign, while lacking depth, made up for it with atmosphere (throne room, movies, etc). At the time we all asked for improvements to the SP campaign to make it more interesting - navies, more diplomacy options and so on. CA had done just that with MTW and RTW (can't comment on M2TW), but at the same time, they gradually sucked all the fun out of the battles. I never did finish a RTW campaign, though I played one casually over several months (no "can't wait to play again" urgency). One night while playing, I simply realized I was not having fun and haven't played it since. Despite all the improvements (graphics, 3D map, amazing variety actions/factors on the campaign map), the game lack any spirit, which is a real shame, as it could have been good and should have been good. The battles in RTW were awful - they were over so quick it wasn't worth the time to meticulously set up your army formation. The RTW battles gave me a sense of what a woman must feel like after sex - "It's over already?" while the campaign map, having been satisfied with achieving a result, smokes a cigarette.

Er, not that that is a problem with me.

Anyway, after skipping the series' last offering, I'm hoping good things for ETW. I'll be reading the reviews, listening to your feedback here at the Org and hoping for a nice replacement for my ancient PC with to run ETW adequately

[InsaneApache]

As I said in the original thread. Shogun. Nuff said.

@Kukri did we ever meet on Totomi in MP? Did I win?

[Gregoshi]

@Kukri did we ever meet on Totomi in MP? Did I win?

Didn't everyone meet on Totomi?

[rasoforos]

Ranking as follows:


1. MTW

My favorite TW game. First TW game I bought. I love it. Good atmosphere. The map was nice and plain. The factions were good and it gave you a nice level of satisfaction.

2. STW

The second game I bought. Amazing immersion. I love the Throne Room and would love to see it back. The Portuguese and Dutch appearing on the throne room were just fantastic. Great gameplay, sometimes challenging. Pure and Simple TW without unnecessary frills.


3. RTW

I had high hopes for this one but they were crushed by a bunch of anachronistic egyptian troops speaking funny English. I wanted to see a historically accurate RTW with the factions speaking their respective languages (they did not even get the accents right for Greek). Instead of it I got... well... RTW.

I did not like all the unnecessary complicated 'new features' of the map. I found 'locked' factions silly...In general the game was a step backwards. A TW game concentrating on graphics and throwing accuracy, immersion and simplicity down the drain in an effort to become more mainstream


4. M2TW

Looks good but the AI makes it nearly unplayable. Is it that hard to make AI work in a simple yet efficient way (I.E Civ4)? If it was not a TW game it would have been dumped after 10 hours of game play. It shouldn't have been released like this.

[InsaneApache]

Didn't everyone meet on Totomi?

Aye. I remember Lord Ted handing me my posterior the first time I ventured there. Great days.

[Veho Nex]

It was a strong race between shogun and Medieval 1 but shogun beat it in the end. Those are the two best titles so far, and im hoping empire will pass it.

[KukriKhan]

As I said in the original thread. Shogun. Nuff said.

@Kukri did we ever meet on Totomi in MP? Did I win?

Like Greg-san said: Didn't we all, eventually?

I played many Insane Clan fellas in friendlies. You were likely one, and you likely won, too. Although I tried hard to give a good game and not have to slink away in shame (having made some rookie mistake), I didn't really care deeply about winning. My "success rate" was probably about 48-50% wins, better than my high school batting average. :) And I was happy with that.

With my dail-up 'net connection at the time, I mostly played 2v2's.

[Strike For The South]

MTW. From age 12-15 I played this game religiously. I played RTW for 3 weeks like I played MTW for 3 years.

[InsaneApache]

respect Kukri, respect.

You know, I actually re-played a Totomi battle in my head when I read that! (I won BTW )

Like I said, great times mate.

[CountArach]

Rome was my first and thus I will always have a sweet spot for it in my heart.

I like Medieval 1, hate Medieval 2 and I don't hold out any hope for Empire.

[Ibrahim]

they are all good to me, but I judge in this case by how much "brains", if you will, is in an AI (hence challenge). based on this, I'd pick shogun TW, of which I have played.

[Thermal]

All every single one, just voted for medieval 2 because it needs and deserves more votes

[Crazed Rabbit]

I first came to the TW series when I bought STW for some friends' birthday.

I bought MTW for myself later. To me, it was the height of the series gameplay wise.

RTW I bought, or rather got for Christmas, and played for several weeks than abandoned. Partly because my comp sucked. It abandoned gameplay for graphics and gimmicks.

MTW2 I didn't bother with.

I recently reinstalled RTW, downloaded the latest EB version, and started playing. But I stopped a day later because the core game is terrible - so much AI stupidity - that even with all the magnificent work put in by the EB team I couldn't be arsed to play - it felt like pulling teeth. While getting my own teeth pulled.

I do hope they get good AI and good gameplay, and not just fancy graphics, in Empire.

CR

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Mediaeval
.

[seireikhaan]

1) Medieval. My first total war game, picked up from a bargain bin about two years ago. I played vanilla MTW religiously for about a year before I even realized there was an expansion. I keep coming back to it all the time even now.

2) Shogun. I must confess to never having actually played Shogun. However, I have played the Samurai Warlords mod for MTW, which gives me a bit of an idea of what the game is like in terms of rosters and such. I may still go get Shogun one day and hope it works on my newer computer.

Of course, if I put Shogun at numero 2, without having played it, you can guess my opinion on the latter two games, but I digress-

3) Medieval II- Still in the medieval setting, which, by the time I tried the game, was familiar with. Way too many sieges, especially given the siege AI is totally broken- not bugged, broken. It will actually leave a perfectly good ram sitting their after battering a gate down, not bothering to notice there's a second gate they have to get through. Cavalry are far too strong, particularly generals, who are practically tanks. I can't even bring myself to finish a single campaign....

4) Rome- As bad as the medieval II AI was(and it was pretty darn nonsensical), Rome's was appalling. Whether it was running its own units to exhaustion around the town square when defending, blockading every random port I had, or not even having a clue of what to form a proper army with, the game is just unplayable. Even with the incredible amount of work that some of the modders have put it, the core of the game is just totally rotten in every aspect. Rome actually gets bonus "negative" points from me because the time period is sooooo promising...



Despite my disappointment with the last two games, however, I confess I will very likely get Empire regardless....

[Vuk]

4) Rome- ...

[PershsNhpios]

I played Rome 'Vanilla' for six months, then I found Darth mod.. I played that for a year, and I was completely satisfied with the game - I had never played anything like it.
Then I found Europa Barbarorum, which I played for a year, and which I still adore for it's detail.
Yes, the AI is disappointing - only because there are so many features which it fails to comprehend.

Whilst playing EB, I curiously ventured to the MTWI forum after reading a thread like this, and soon bought the game with Viking Invasion.
I installed the XL mod, and almost forgot EB as I admired the simplicity, and difficulty, which was caused by the flourishing of a simple AI in a simple method of gameplay.

I still play MTW with different mods, and due to the weakness of this computer I can no longer play EB.

I have never been able to play MTWII, as I have never had a strong enough computer.
But that game does seem fun.

Thanks to comments from forum members, I may soon try Shogun.

Could someone outline how ruthless the Shogun AI is in comparison with the MTW? Exactly?

(MTW Favourite)