Which is the best Total War game?

[econ21]

For me, while I appreciate the atmosphere of Shogun and the elegant simplicity of its battles, I think Medieval is a better game because the campaign map and variety of factions makes for a much more interesting strategic layer. It's early days for Rome Total War, but the transition from a Risk-style campaign map to a more open one with movement points seems another big improvement in the strategic aspect. Hence, I've voted for RTW.

[shingenmitch2]

STW had by far the best game-play. I did, however, like the addition of multiple-direction routing added in MTW and the map size increase of MI.

Graphics? They have improved in each version, and in some ways it is difficult to look at the old STW maps.

The RTW units look fantastic, but there is something a tad "small" about them when zoomed out that makes them difficult to click on. The MTW and RTW trees annoy the hell out of me, forest fighting has only gotten worse from the STW days where I used to love getting into the trees.

I am also a HUGE supporter of HTW. I think it is near the tops in SP and the limited MP I've done with it has been a lot of fun.


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In RTW SP, with the transition from campaign-map to battle-map and the ability to move within a province are great additions. However, for me, those improvements are far outweighed by all the massive changes that have hurt battles (both in SP and MP) and the battles were reason I play the game. Also, the fighting in cities was a great idea, however I've found the execution of it to be, as of now, too buggy -- especially with pathfinding-- to consider it a plus.

[CBR]

From a SP perspective RTW is clearly an improvement. From a MP perspective its the worst (patches might improve on some of the issues but I fear it wont be enough)

All in all MTW was the best for me as Im primarily a MP'er.


CBR

[a_ver_est]

these afternoon I'm going to shop, next week I will finally answer !!!!!!

[nokhor]

i liked the setting for shogun [sengoku japan] the best out of the 3 settings. i also liked the fact that most every building and unit had a specific military function. you built churches to get guns, not just for the population control function. a geisha killed enemy leaders as well as spied. it seems like the later games are bringing in more and more concepts that have less direct military applications. i.e. VnVs in medieval and squalor in rome but along with these concepts is lesser understanding of how they interact and why things are happening. i.e. why did all my provinces suddenly revolt in medieval [king is isolated] or why does rome feel like riot police total war at times? 1. as toranaga keeps saying, better documentation. i would like the manual to specifically say, as cities grow, you need to destroy building x and build buildings y and do z or civil riots will be a serious problem. because the amount of time i spend on adminstration in these later games in contrast to troop movement and battles is huge compared to the previous games. if i have to spend time on management, i'd rather spend it on logistics which has a direct military purpose [troops suffer attrition as they move, food supply issues etc] than on acting as police in cities. the campaign map is huge and detailed and lovely but in some sense a waste of resources because most players are still only going to go from city a in province 1 to city b in province 2 along the roads. so it might as well be a province to province map like it was in medieval with maybe an abstract calculation for chance of ambush. how many players are actually going to places on the map with no direct baring to cities, or how many have even fought against the amazon city of themiskyra? i think that campagin map is a huge effort and obviously a labor of love but most of it will be underappreciated and underutilized because a lot of it doesn't directly affect gameplay.

[Spino]

Rome is clearly the best game in the series. The new features, strategic map gameplay, graphics, animations, scope, depth, etc. all help it rise head and shoulders above its predecessors. My marathon sessions of Medieval don't even come close to the ones I've devoted to playing Rome.

My primary reason for loving the TW series are the tactical battles, it's what gets my blood up, especially when the opportunity to fight a massive battle presents itself. Now that we have thousands of 3D animated soldiers to play with instead of 2D sprites the experience is made that much better and much more immersive. The randomly generated battle maps add to the experience, especially now that they better reflect the local terrain and climate. The fact that the strategic gameplay has been so drastically improved over previous TW games sweetens the overall experience but it still comes down to the battles.

Tragically the tactical AI in Rome is either insufficiently improved over the last patched version of Medieval or is in some ways worse and I have a hard time coming to terms with this. Unless corrected it will seriously affect my long term enjoyment of this game.

For right now the game has put me in a most pleasant state of mind...

[Colovion]

I'm abstaining.

Rome has problems which will be worked out in a patch - so until Rome gets to be the same in terms of patchness as MTW then I can't contribute to the poll. It's only fair.

[DisruptorX]

Vote MTW

Rome is flawed on a basic level. The engine is awful, nothing responds to your controls. Unit movement looks and feels silly. They need to go in and fix everything from the ground up. The game feels like a graphical engine demo with a game half-heartedly taped on. The very basics of the way troops move is inherant, it will not be fixed in a patch. Its possible, but the chances are next to zero.

I played a game of MTW the other night, for the first time since getting Rome, and it was so much of an improvement that if I didn't know better, I would have thought that Rome was made first.

I haven't played Shogun, but given how dissapointed I am in Rome, I might go and pick it up.

[Lemur]

I haven't played Shogun, but given how dissapointed I am in Rome, I might go and pick it up.

Trust me, the transition from Shogun to Medieval was pretty rough. If you'd been through that one, you might have a touch more patience with this one.

The new engine is fantastic. Does it need a bit of tweaking? Sure. Do I want to move back to 2-D graphics and a standard staple of battle maps? Nope. Do I want to go back to cavalry that charge like sclerotic poodles and hit like feather dusters? Nope.

Let it have some patching before you get anxious and/or angry.

Patience, Padewan.

[DisruptorX]

Trust me, the transition from Shogun to Medieval was pretty rough. If you'd been through that one, you might have a touch more patience with this one.

The new engine is fantastic. Does it need a bit of tweaking? Sure. Do I want to move back to 2-D graphics and a standard staple of battle maps? Nope. Do I want to go back to cavalry that charge like sclerotic poodles and hit like feather dusters? Nope.

Let it have some patching before you get anxious and/or angry.

Patience, Padewan.

You are probably right....... but I'd rather have the cavalry from MTW that win in melee than the ones from Rome that move like a school of fish, make 180 degree turns, and, in the case of chariots, teleport.

I don't want to go back to sprite graphics, but the units in MTW actually moved like real people. RTW has an inhuman, fast forward feel. Units in RTW can pull turns and make jumps at several times the speed of real men. It just looks silly. I'm not even talking about gameplay, although the weird movement and troops getting stuck on each other doesn't help. I don't feel like I am commanding men, I feel like I'm fighting against the horrible controls. The fact that my men move like insects doesn't help. Its all good when your men are marching, but when they turn or run, it looks so stupid that I actually cannot describe it with words. I would have to show you a video...but oh wait, for no reason, you can no longer save replays.

But hey, I payed 50 dollars for it, so I'm willing to wait for some patches. Realism mods don't really do anything for me (besides the kill rate one), because the main problem is the troop movement itself. It just makes me mad that they took a good thing, and changed it for what seems to be no reason at all. I think the old maxim is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"