Good Medieval Game?

[Hooahguy]

well you could say M2TW if you then recommend him a realism mod, like stainless Steel, right?

[Martok]

Knights of Honor might be another good one to look at. I've not not really played it myself (although I think I've got the demo buried on my desktop somewhere), but it seems to be fairly well-received among those who've played it extensively. The battles aren't as large or realistic as MTW, but KoH's political, diplomatic, and economic aspects are supposed to be generally superior.

well you could say M2TW if you then recommend him a realism mod, like stainless Steel, right?

Meh. IMHO, Medieval 2 shares too many of the problems of the Rome engine. Graphics aside, MTW remains the better game in my experience, even when factoring in mods.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

There are some knock-out mods for MTW, which makes the comparison pretty unfair. ;P