MTW or MTW2?

[Jaguara]

First: I didn't know where to put this thread now, so if you mods want to move it, that is cool with me. I did not see a "General TW" discussion thread, just threads for each particular game in TW, and a thread for non-TW games. Since this question bridges two TW games, I just put it here since this room seems to get the most traffic.

So, the question is, for someone wanting to try a Medieval TW game in single player, would you recommend MTW or MTW2?

Feel free to add comments below about the plusses & negatives of the two.

I have never played Medieval Total War (at the time of release my PC could not handle either - just like now it cannot handle Empire/Napoleon & certainly not STW2), but I grow weary of RTW & BI, so I am looking for a change...

[drone]

If your PC will play it, the original MTW is a wonderful piece of work, and there are mods that improve on the already great gameplay. The Risk-style campaign map makes for a better CAI, and if you can put up with sprites the battle engine mechanics are superior. There are some frustrating things hard-coded in, but it's still a game you can lose on occasion.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I played a little bit of MTW not long ago for the first time in years, and I think it took away the rose-tinted specs a bit. I have to say, navagating the battlemep was a bit of a nightmare, the camera is a lot more awkward than in M2TW.

Although when I played MTW in the past, I never really took it seriously enough to maybe appreciate the AI like others here. Although I still remember the AI being a lot smarter than in M2TW. With M2TW I could practically play battles on auto-pilot, the AI never did anything interesting.

On the other hand, M2TW looks and handles much nicer. Plus Kingdoms was a great expansion pack, I loved the atmosphere of the Americas campaign.

So I'm not voting, I'm just going to say they are different.

[Motep]

rose-tinted specs

It is definitely so. The original has so much the air of nostalgia that my mind makes it more godly than it is, I am sure. My computer wont play it, I am too lazy to get it to work, and for some reason this box crashes for M2TW, so that advantage was lost. And since it has been a while for that, I feel that I may adequately compare memories. One simply provided more entertainment.

[Monk]

If you have an nvidia card you, very likely, will not be able to run MTW. My 9x nvidia card simply cannot render the 2d sprites properly with both stw or mtw, as such i can't either on my desktop. I never heard of a 100% fix for that issue so i gave up. My laptop has an ATI graphics chip in it however, and it can run the old total war games just fine. But nevermind that for a second and let's just answer the question.

Out of box MTW is the better game provided your hardware doesnt conflict with the engine. The modding scene however makes M2 so much better with efforts like Stainless Steel and Broken Crescent (to name a couple). If you choose to get M2 stay away from the steam version. I say this as one of the minority on this board who enjoys steam. The steam version of M2 has serious conflicts with mods that require you to run the game through a different exe (like stainless steel does). If you have a mind to play m2 grab a retail version.

[Zim]

I started playing tw games with MTW (bought it at the same time as RTW, actually...). Out of the box in SP campaigns I found it better, and at the time I especially enjoyed the reduced scope of the Viking Invasion campaign. Don't think I ever finished a grand campaign, but I conquered the isles with just about everyone. MTW2 has a few advantages, but the fact that I could play on mtw and have more of a challenge on Medium than MTW2 on VH/VH was nice.

However, even if I could play MTW on my current computer I think I'd barely play it for two reasons. MTW2 has a far more extensive modding scene with mods like those mentioned above (and also an outstanding Lord of the Rings mod, something I'd never have expected, among others) and hotseats. Playing with/against other people really is a completely different experience, and I never had any interest in mp battles.