Is Medieval 2 Total War worth buying?

[Il Duce]

Good: Awesome game. Better than RTW in gameplay in that you have to be, 1) a bit more judicious about when/how to use your units in combat 2)you now have more political issues to deal with (eg the Pope & smarter diplomacy) 3) and that you have to contend with a generally smarter AI...generally speaking...besides those points, the music is great, but I think some of the songs from RTW were more "epic." And of course, the graphics are bar-none, compared to the other TW games.

BAD: Not much. Except for the bugs--oh dear god, the bugs. The only REAL glitch that I'm having issues with is the game's console opening up when I press a key for extended periods of time (it becomes a real pain in the arse when I'm in the middle of a battle and the console pops up and the sound is magically placed on MUTE). Apparently this happens with people who use wireless keyboards...and you can find a temporary fix...but I'm still running into problems with it. People talk about how sieges are rather slow and stuff but I haven't noticed too much of a slowdown yet.


BTW, if anyone can figure out another way to deal with the wireless keyboard issue, PLEASE let me know. THe damn consoles that pop up from time to time really kill the momentum during the heat of the battle.

[sapi]

Yes - it's a good game which can only get better as time goes by.

[Dayve]

It's worth buying yes... The graphics and gameplay are much better than RTW, but the AI is still mind bendingly stupid, like blockading it's allies port with 1 ship for 1 turn, then refusing a ceasefire for the rest of the game, laying siege to heavily defended cities with 2 or 3 depleted units of ****, making armies composed of 10 units of catapults and 2 units of peasants, never using trebuches or catapults in siege battles, not combining armies on the campaign map, allowing their units to be massacred by archer fire in siege/normal battles, suicidal diplomacy, and other ****.

Other bugs include your royalty and generals never gaining piety and constantly being executed by inquisitioners, your archers firing at everything except what you tell them to, your cavalry refusing to charge, and units generally refusing to engage the enemy at various points in battle.

Other than this, it's a good game...