Initial impressions thread: reviews ONLY

[econ21]

This thread is only for initial impressions and reviews of the full M2TW game.

Discussion and questions arising should be posted in the sister thread here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71568

Some member reviews of the game in other threads are:

Subedei's:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...9&postcount=29

Lusted's:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71619

Frogbeastegg's:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...86&postcount=1

Nagatasuka Shumi's:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71947

TinCow's:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...2&postcount=42

IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer's:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...28&postcount=1

RomoR's, with a MP emphasis:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...5&postcount=62

Whacker's, from a "veteran n00B":

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72319

Magnum's:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...43&postcount=1

[econ21]

Barney Bangs posted the following impressions:

Ok, played M2TW till 4am this morning, am quite hung-over in work now and may as well do something useful:

First Impressions :

Got it yesterday afternoon, decided for the English (just like finishing my enemi9es with the fancy longbows before they can even enter into hand-to-hand). Inital strategy was:

Military
1. Secure York before the Scots have a chance to seize it
2. Take Rennes to bolster my presence on the continent
3. Crush the Scots as long as they have only one province

Diplomacy
1. Anyone playing RTW knows what to do: secure Trade Rights, trade Maps, check who hates who and exploit it.
2. Marry off my Princess to get a fourth general
3. Send out those greedy merchants
4. Recruit an assassin before enemy priests, diplomats and generals are too high-level to hit right away.

Cities
1. Encourage trade with roads, markets and harbors.
2. Turn Nottingham into a strong castle for bowmen, Caen for Infantery.

Battle-Impressions
First few battles were over quite fast. As units moving faster than in RTW (my impression), battles tend to be shorter and more fierce. Also, as pointed out by CA-staff, cavalery will no longer charge through enemy lines that easily, which led to some precarious situations when taking York with only my general, four spear militas and one unit of bowmen. This led to some fierce fighting in the streets of York and even after charging an enemy unit of bowmen in the rear, they didn't even think about routing, but turned and killed of some of my horses. To fully harness the power of the cavallery, you have to be quite disciplined in charging, withdrawing, charging. No more sending your horses in to crush the flanks of an infantery unit, lean back and watch the carnage.

With faster battles, it is more important than ever to press "p" during the most heated phases, look around if any of your units is in trouble. It happened to me several times that I was telling my bowmen who to shoot and seeing that my Panzerritter were harrassed by spearmen. Fortunatly it seems easier to withdraw from battle, even with low morale troops (happened sometimes in RTW that when I tried to withdraw them, they routed).

In later battles, especially when meeting the Scots outside Edinburgh, I encountered the problem some of the CA-staffers pointed out: Bringing more men to the battle than the Scots, especially bowmen, the AI waited until I shot down most of his spearmen. They didn't try to braveheart their ways out, just stood there and were XP-Point generators for my archers.

On some other occasion, trying to crush some rebel troops outside of Wales, I had some map problems: Entering the battle, I found my army set up on some veeery steep hills. When letting them stay there, I couldn't move them around after the battle started (due to rocks and general lack of moving space), setting them up in the valley below always led to the same situation: the rebels up in the mountains, unable to move, me down in the vallye, unable to reach them or shoot them. Finally had to let the AI do the fighting, which I dread, because I tend to lose a significant larger amount of my men.


Strategy Map:

Looks lavish. Trees moving in the breeze, more movement options in key areas like the Pyrenaes (?) and the alps.

Princesses
Married mine off in the third turn, after turning another prospector down in the second (he was 41. Can't marry my beautiful 26-year old daughter to some forty-something hack, can I?), worked smoothley.

Assassins & Spies
They advance faster than in RTW, spies climbing in rank even if they only ever take 100% missions. Assassins, though I had them quite early had a hard time finding their first targets, are more powerful than in RTW: after some training, I managed to take out two cardinals (Milan and France) without any problems.

Diplomacy
Yeah, it is easier to see what the other side is thinking of you and your offers, though after killing off the Scots my reputation with other factions, it was quite hard to even get them to give me trade rights.

Two minor problems, more out of a lack of understanding than anything else:
Priests
It is fun to hunt down heretics and watch your priests climb in rank, yet not quite sure what raises their piety level besides killing heretics. The priests and cardinals of other factions seem to advance rapidly, while my guys preach in the wilderness.

Traders
Not quite sure what to do with them. Place them on ONE ressource in a far away land and leave them there. Or move around trying to visit as many diffrent ressources as possible. First thought the latter, but AI-traders stayed on one specific ressource for years, without moving away. So I think you have to find one good ressource, place your trader on it and leave him there, but I am not sure. The manual wasn'T very helpful either, due to the fact, that it is in German and translated very sloppily.

Which brings me to the main criticism:
German translation. I never played any Total War game in German, now I know why. Some translations of on screen texts are done literally, not taking the context into account. This leads to some downright ridicoulus sentences and phrasings (Especially the "Woodmen", which they translated with "Waldbewohner" meaning "People who live in the forest") Also I find the voice acting not that great, especially for the princesses, which sound like being account . The tutor on the battle map sounds like he is constantly annoyed by something. The option to install the English version is given upon installation, yet no English language or menues so far Which is understandable from the CA point of view, but for me a small let-down.

Sooo, after 30 turns I am surpreme ruler of the English Isles, the French and Spaniards are occupied with the moors and rebel provinces on the peninnsula. After taking Rennes one turn before the French army reached it, left the French rather weak in their core provinces and they turned south for expansion.
The Moors brought two large armies over the strait of Gibralta, hope they will cuase some problems for Spain and France there.
The HRE is occupied with wars against Venice and Milan, while their standing with the pope steadily deteriorates. I am massing armies in Caen to take the rebel province of Brugge and hope that the HRE is excommunicated rather sooner than later. Me killing off most of their priests, which leads to declining catholicism and heretcis springing up in their provinces, will hgelp this cause.
Prince Rufus is currently on his way to Jerusalem, yet a small army of Venice will probably beat me on the race there, due to the fact that they had a two
turn headstart.



Puhhh, a little bit longer than planned, not that structured (sorry for that). Excuse my bad English I am no native speaker.

Ok, some updates:

Battle speed has not changed, seems like I have been FUI (fighting under the influence). Yet, when not outnumbered and having no bowmen superiority, the AI attacks quite aggressively and rushes in for the fight fast. While being outnumbered, they just stand there waiting to be slaughtered most of the time (known "bug", fixed very soon with the first update, or so I read).


AI campaign map:

I can't see any papal favouritism for AI factions. HRE declared war on Venice and Milan, which led them to having one point left on the pope-o-meter. France had a skirmish with Milan, which took Metz, making them also not the pope favorites. Myself, the English, having wiped out the Scots in one single turn (attacked their borderguard, sieged Edinburgh, during the AI turn his remaining forces attacked me, while the beseiged army sallied forth) and contributing to the first crusade didn't have any problems with the pope so far. Yet other factions like Spain, Venice and Milan are advancing fast on the pope-o-meter, their cardinals becoming holier than thou, while my cardinal while preaching, converting and killing of heretics didn't become any more pious.

[econ21]

Monarch posted the following impressions:

Ok I thought I'd take a pause before my first attack on the Frenchies (playing as English) to make a initial impression.

I've not played enough to really review. But I must say it seems like very good so far. Scots are already amassing on my northern border and French have taken surrounding rebel towns, agressive play, and I'm only on medium difficulty.

I've found the battle a nice speed, I underestimated rebel province at Rennes and got beat back (they had more levy spearmen whilst I was just using a peasant army that you get at the start) however I took York.

I really need more generals though, I'm having to move one general around in order to get my cities going. My princees is currently out in Europe scouting the talent, oh and a sneaky Danish merchent bribed my own merchent to leave the resources I had him on.

Overall I'm liking the direction M2 is giving me. The council of nobles give an ealry mission, and its not "take this.." its "send a diplomat to..". Also castles/cities is genius. Very interesting, liek a prvious poster I'm gonig for caen/nottingham as castles and York/London as cities early on.

Anyway, top game.

[TB666]

Well played a bit as the danes. on H/H.
I got my butt handed to me by HRE .
Started softly with taking Stockholm and turn it into a city and turning Århus into a castle.
By the way the castle/city system rocks.
I went into an alliance with the poles and HRE and everything was going well until HRE for some reason got excommunicated.
But they didn't so anything so I thought they still liked me.
So I built a large army that was suppose to take Oslo when the pope asked for a crusade against Antioch. Eager to see how it works, I signed up my army for the crusade and off he marched(I didn't take the sea route since there are pirates everywhere around Denmark and they are highly exprienced). I managed to get to the mediterrainan before Venice took the target so there I was with a standard army in the middle of Europe making various faction pissed off because I'm on their lands.
And then a HRE army attacked Århus but I defeated that one and countered with attacking Hamburg and took that since it was drained because it was used for the army that attacked me.
But then a large HRE army came and defeated my army.
Since I had too little money I couldn't rebuild my army and my Århus and Stockholm fell to the might of HRE

This game is awesome
Diplomacy works, the AI is overall good even tho a bit passive but we know that will be fixed.
I'm really surprised to see how the AI handle himself in seiges. Once the first ring is breached it will move down and go to the next one.
The small videos they added are great, some are quite funny.
Music and sounds is great as well.
Only thing I'm disappointed about is that there are no general speeches
But it still rocks .
I give it a well deserved 9 out of 10.

[Myrddraal]

My Report
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71673

[PROMETHEUS]

Here is mine .....

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...61#post1297061

[econ21]

Here are my initial impressions based on a couple of dozen turns of an English campaign:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71819

[Burakius]

Burakius's Review

Im not gonna make this a huge review. Just something to share my thoughts about this game.

First off I started the campain with England. The first thing I did was take York. I was used to rtw and thought I would take the whole Island easily.

Turn 40. Those damned Scots have a HUGE army. BUT thats were the game lacks in. This Scottisch army could easily kick my butt in York. Yet the Scotts seem to do nothing at all. Just sail around all day or something.

Same problem I had with Milan. I took Milan and they had a huge army in front of me. Yet they sended it somewhere else? HELLOOOO I just took your CAPITAL??

Some nice things I noticed was that they were bribing my merchants :D.

The pope is weird. Making stupid demands like: "Train a priest in Paris". DUDE: THE AREA AROUND PARIS IS 99% Catholic!.

The battles are cool. I actually was slaughtered for the first time in my live! :D huahua :D. I had a huge superiour army. Normally I would always win ( in RTW). HERE I was absolutely SLAUGHTERed by the MOOrs and I LOVED it :D .

These are my inital impressions! :)

[Daveybaby]

Back to the org after a long hiatus for one simple reason : M2TW has restored my faith in the Total War series.

Wasnt going to buy it - just figured it would be Rome all over again. Fancy graphics but nowhere near as good gameplay as MTW or STW. And who the hell cares how good the soldiers look close up - you cant play the game zoomed in that close - but hey, it looks great in magazine screenshots...

So anyway i was in the supermarket and saw it in there... didnt even know it was out - so my defences were down. I guess my grocery bill might have doubled this week ;). Got home, unpacked food, thought to myself "what the hell did you buy that for?" and half-heartedly installed it.

And, so far i'm really, really loving it.


Pros:

Strategic map was the best bit of RTW IMO, and this is even better. Loads to do even when youre not fighting a war. Assassins, spies and merchants are all fun to use, and a lot less frustrating than before - if an agent fails his mission there is a pretty good chance he wont be killed as a result.

Missions are great. Great variety and keeps you from sitting safely at home turtling. Love it when the pope's requests are at odds with those of your council.

Town managment now much more interesting. Loving the city/fortress thing. Could do with some squalour producing buildings, but other than that everything is pretty straightforward and hassle-free.

Unit balance seems pretty good. Knights arent overpowered like in Rome, but still useful when used correctly. Defensive units now defend well. Attacking units now attack well. Archers back to their old dangerous selves after the anaemic ones in RTW. All of which leads to...

The tactical battles... have got tactics again!

Its got that 'just one more turn' factor going on which meant i got nothing done this weekend, got no sleep, and am sitting at work feeling very, very tired this morning.

Sieges are much more fun. Siege engines actually useful. Castles look great

Never much cared for the agent movies in STW, but i'm actually enjoying their return. Theyre actually pretty funny in some cases. Will still probably turn them off once ive seen them all though.


Cons:

No map / techtree in the standard edition. Pretty annoying, especially when your diplomat spends 5 turns zig-zagging across byzantine territory trying to find the city and not managing to do so before the mission expires. The map was essential for this sort of thing in RTW.

Some really annoying formation bugs. After arranging my units just how i want them, its really annoying to occasionally (by which i mean, about once per battle on average) have them revert to their random starting formations when i tell them to move. Sometimes they will be spread out all over the place. I have lost a few battles purely because of this.

Archers seem congenitally unable to target anyone who isnt in the front rank of enemy. Thus they will happily ignore the massed ranks of approaching spearmen to continue to fire on the remainign dozen men from a now utterly depleted crossbow unit standing in front of them. Taking off fire at will and telling them who to shoot makes no difference.

Sometimes the AI will just sit there while i slaughter them with my longbows. It seems to happen mostly when i vastly outnumber it, so it's scared to attack, but has nowhere to run to.


Minor Niggles:

Couple of CTDs - a first for a TW game with me.

2 DVDs... 10 gigs of HDD space required... 10 GIGS?? Ouch. Gonna need a bigger boat.

Still no controllable naval battles. Nice though the agent animations are... i would much rather the time and money had been spent letting us bombard each others ships with cannons and perform boarding actions in glorious 3d.

$^&%*ing Inquisitors! ;)


In Summary:
M2TW in 'as fun to play as MTW' shock!!!!

[Orda Khan]

Only had a short time to try out the game (I do not have it myself)

I decided to test the tactical AI.
All the battles I fought were on VH, two 1v1 and one 2v2


After six months or maybe longer I found myself forgetting things. The minimal UI does not help because you can not get rid of the radar map...and it's just too big and hides too much.


Normal interface shows less of the field but at least you can see all in front of you. I was not overly impressed with the AI.

In the 2v2, I noticed no significant improvement in AI behaviour either my ally or the enemies, they still seem to have their own agenda and march off into vulnerable positions. Maybe the patch will provide some AI challenge, hopefully

.........Orda

[Jambo]

Orda,

You're going to have to give us more info than just final battle screens. From the second one, can I presume you had a horse archer heavy army?

[Dave1984]

minimal UI does not help because you can not get rid of the radar map...and it's just too big and hides too much.

You can set it to hide during the battle by pressing esc, finding the UI options, having minimal UI selected and selecting hide (or slide if you want it to appear when you mouse over that area). I play with the radar hidden, the orders bar on slide so it's out of the way most of the time, and the unit cards in view permanantly.

[Orda Khan]

You can set it to hide during the battle by pressing esc, finding the UI options, having minimal UI selected and selecting hide (or slide if you want it to appear when you mouse over that area). I play with the radar hidden, the orders bar on slide so it's out of the way most of the time, and the unit cards in view permanantly.

Thanks for that info D Wilson
It just goes to show how out of touch I am, I presume these options were introduced in RTW? I remember using the F5 key. The command line is far less obtrusive but knowing how to get rid of the radar will improve things no end.

You're going to have to give us more info than just final battle screens. From the second one, can I presume you had a horse archer heavy army?

Sorry about the limited report,Jambo I was being harassed to do other things by a foe far more dangerous than the ones I faced in battle (the wife)

I will try to expand.

First Battle......Mongol v Poland.
Though set as defenders, the Poles began quite aggresively and manoeuvred to attack my right flank (the side that I had trouble seeing due to the radar)
First thing I noticed was very much like RTW AI, the infantry and cav attacked while their missile units stood back. I gave them decent archer content in the expectation they would indulge in some skirmish trade off before engagement.
I admit that I struggled and had to fight the battle viewed from one side (thanks to D Wilson that problem is solved). The Poles had hit my infantry flank by now and were over powering them easily. I had very few shock cav units ( Mongol units appear expensive, much like the Huns in RTW)
I used the two light lancers I had to flank and rear the Polish line and the one heavy lancer I sent to attack the Polish cav, knowing this was a no win mission. My HA had flanked and returned to shoot the Polish rear and when out of arrows they routed the Polish archer units. The Polish re grouped after chasing most of my infantry off but were surprisingly reduced. Their general decided to try and cut off two units of my archers who were marching back to my line. Some of his knights followed. This was the opportunity for my Heavy Archer general to attack while my HA hit the Polish line from both sides. The rout began and the Polish general was killed.

Second Battle......Mongol v Hungary.
Decided on normal interface. This battle began much like the first with Hungarians taking the offensive. I rotated my main force of infantry and sent HA and heavy archers to left and right flank respectively. The advancing Hungarians allowed their crossbows to get too far ahead and a charge by my heavy archer cav dealt a severe blow. On reflection that was a mistake on my part because from that point the AI was absolutely clueless. From the screenshot you can see I had 4 HA and 3 heavy archer. The rest of my army was on foot and I would have liked to see the AI determine an attack on my infantry as the best course of action. Instead it remained clueless even when I marched right up in its face. I then proceeded to hit it from 3 sides and the battle was over.

Third Battle.....2v2 Mongol v Russia.
This battle is not worth reporting. I deployed and basically did nothing. Any enemy unit that approached my line seemed to rout. Both Russian armies wandered around hopelessly and my ally made no effort to link with my army, just did his own thing. I put my whole army on guard mode and waited for the end screen. To my surprise I still killed more than my ally.

I ran the replay of battle 2 ...........desync.

At the risk of being called negative I did not notice any major improvement over RTW other than a decent formation, no single line deployment. It still seems quite hurried even though speeds are reduced. Probably this is due to the deployment zones being so close, which is one of my pet hates. There is still no place for manoeuvre, the battle starts and the enemy are in your face. At least that can be addressed when making your own historical battles as you decide the size and position of deployment zones

.......Orda

[KhaderKhan]

After playing the English faction I decided to play the Turks.

Because of the quality of troops available to this faction means that up untill you reach the Tech level to get Jannisaries your armies will tend to be HA heavy.

However I notice one flaw in the game. When shot at by either HA or long-range missile units the AI army immediately becomes immobilised, it just sits there (unless it has, usually a single unit, a missile unit of its own) whilst my units shoot it to pieces. Has this occured to anyone else?

[Darth Nihilus]

I have only had a little time to play the game so far, but it is a lot more complicated than MTW. The learning curve keeps increasing, but thats okay with me. When I first started I was at a loss for what to do. I played a few battles and they were semi difficult, and a lot better than RTW. So far so good.

[Dr_Who_Regen#4]

First some background on me. I have played MTW, VI, and RTW. I have been playing startegy computer games since the 80s (Started on Games like Eastern Front and Legionnaire). I have never played MP in Total War. The only Mod i have ever done is to unlock factions. I enjoy the campaign and battle aspect of the games. The games I like most are the ones that I lose (since I like the challenge). SO I liked MTW more then RTW. I usually do not play to win but to achieve some other goal (something I decide at the start). This helps because I keep my Nation smaller which means the others are more of peers. Additionally when I find a major advantage I do not use it (An example would be I did not use trade to earn 2500 florins a turn in MTW since the computer would not also do this)

Here is my quick impression as I have played only 50 turns as Venice on H/H. My goal being to really just play a failry quick game though to the end without trying to win, but with goals of conquring COnstantanople, controlling many islands in the Med, going on a few crusades, and conquring a couple New world provinces (in otherwords maintain about 10 to 15 provinces so I do not have to spend 30 minutes a turn managing everything). I also don't try to rush the other Nations by attacking their starting provinces for at least 25 turns.

First the Game packaging
I pre-ordered through EB games and got the limeted edition for the standard price. It came with the following

Map - Settlement names are so small as to be almost impossible to read or find (they are like font 2)

Tech tree and unit list - Tech tree is good and so is unit list except the symbols that say which country gets which items are so small and blury it is again hard to read

Sound track - have not tried it yet

History Channel DVDs on the Crusades - Saw a bit of this on TV and glad to have it for free

Overall I am glad I pre-ordered and got the extra stuff even if I got the game a day later then some. However, I would probably not pay any extra for the Map and tech tree included in the US version as they are a bit hard to read.

Campaign
It is a bit early to tell much but I like the different units and the challenges they add. I really like how the pope and Nobles council will ask you for conflicting missions (Nobles ask you to attack somone and Pope tells you not to). I find this realistic and a nice challenge. The map is great. Travel times and aging are a bit odd, but I usually just try and ignore these components as it would make for an odd game if in a two year turn a turkish army attacked from turkey into Toulouse as the French would not see it coming (OF course the army could move this far, but as the defender you would not have a reaction to it). To me these are just ways to make the gameplay work (not perfect for everyone but best not to worry about them).

The agents are a great addition but I am not sure if maybe there are too many of them (maybe this is just because I am in a congested area so I see at least 5 in the area around Venice at all times). Inquisitors are a bit too strong but hopefully CA will adjust. Also not sure what the pope standing is useful for. I think it only impacts if he will call a crusade for you and has no impact on inquisition or excummunication.

The AI seems to be more thoughtful in its army compisition and its strategy. Priamrily I seem to be involved in Sieges but I think this is representative of what occurred in most of the era. I have not noticed any strange Diplomacy actions yet. Although I have avoided Alliances with most of my neighbors and the muslim factions (In case I go on a crusade). My goal is to not break too many alliances if I can help it. It does seem a bit too easy to convince the AI to give you gold though. Of course this is up to the player to take advantage of this, but it is a bit silly that another Nation will give me 2000 florins for an alliance when we are not very close together.

Overall I would say the campaign game is improved over Rome. The AI is not the smartest but it is clearly doing things in a more logical manor. I like all of the new agents and missions; this can be a bit overwhelming at first but hopefully will keep the player on their toes.

Battles
I have only played a few battles so I will be brief. They look great. They are better then the Rome Battles because the AI is improved and the battle mechanics force a more even distribution of causalties. Gone are the days of killing 1000 of the enemy and losing 40 guys (at least I doubt I will achieve this level). I very much appreciate the variety of troops the other nations try and use. I think others are better off reviewing the battles as I do not consider myself a battle "expert". I have not fought any close battles yet as I have either been heavily favored or my opponent was.

Overall
So far the game seems great. It is not without some flaws that can be found in this forum (some to be fixed by CA soon). I think for someone interested in the camapign game it is much better then what was in standard RTW. I am sure there are great Mods for RTW that are better then this game, but I think with the shell M2TW has the M2TW Mods will be much better then MTW and RTW (This is in regards to SP as I am not familiar with MP although I might try it out a bit).

I would say for anyone intersted in a strategy game that is more then just an RTS that this game is a must buy as it looks great, plays reasonably well, and is a reasonable challenge (especially if you do not go through the forum to look for how to win the game as any game is easy when you are told the secrets). I think you will only be disappointed in this game if you allow yourself to get caught up in certain deatils or features that you would like instead of playing it for what it is (A fun strategy game)

Can't wait to get home and play some more

[Whacker]

Sorry, got a bit too excited about my writeup and didn't notice this thread, otherwise I would have stuck this here. At any rate, here's the link:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72319

[Afridi]

My first impressions about the game (and my first post )

Playing as Egypt - I'll leave the technical issues out of this since they have been brought up many times. Regardless to say that it was quite arduous beating the mongol horde when they sieged my city of Jerusalem, it's walls bristling with cannon towers. I don't know what's up with cannon towers but if you have these built in a city the AI prefers to stand back (and die). The mongol horde took over 6 hours to beat this way They kept bringing in troops and kept dying. Sometimes I had to lure them with a cavalry unit to have them move around (and jumble up) for effective bombardment. Why it took so long is because they were simply too many for my aging machine to handle (2.4ghz 6800 1gb) as the fps went down to 3'ish or even 1. Increasing time scale actually slowed down the process but I managed with a bit of tweaking the hardware and reloading the autosave. Two fully blown crusades died to the cannon towers as well but a lot faster (like 15 minutes for each) thanks to manageable numbers of their army. A slight warning here, if you let the Mongols capture a city they will acquire terrible siege weaponry (rocket launchers!) so it's best to finish them off without losing a city to them, and best way, for now, is to build cannon towers. The vultures of the desert must love me.

Units - Disappointing and boring. A marked decrease in power as compared to MTW, making it difficult to effectively assault Europe without the expensive help of a lot of mercenaries, atleast at medium (default) difficulty. Khwarizmi cav is now a merc unit. Hashhashyn can no longer be made on will. With almost 100 turns left I didn't receive the Hashashim guild so I could not recruit these units . It bored me enough to start over as the French. I did not see Nizaris, if I'm even supposed to.

Generals - Egyptian generals are perhaps one of the best ones as they will rarely get negative retinues/traits, or get burnt by inquisitors. Pre-battle speech by generals, something I have come to enjoy from RTW:BI, is only 1 lined (and unintelligent) in the case of Egyptian generals.

Empire - There are vast oppurtunities to build a very strong financial/defensive empire in this region. Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria were all the bigger money making cities, making almost 9000+ gold each turn with populations of 35k+ and I had almost a dozen merchants. That's when the black plague hit the world. IIRC, this is not historically correct, the black plague hitting the deserts of middle east? Moreover, I sent an emissary to a mongol warlord and it said his religion is Islam. Anyway, this faction could use some proper work but I happily moved on to playing the French.

Playing as French - To my pleasant surprise, this is where the shiny plate and all the eye candy with the bloom effect makes one happy with the visuals. My first battle with a few brigands had my faction heir with his crossbow men and knights started out in a forest. It was a beautiful scene and the general made a proper 3 lined speech this time. Knights are visually colorful and the later full plate Lancers look spectacular. Add to that the realistic outdoors with lush foliage and realistic terrain define the graphical superiority of this game. Voice acting is done quite well.

Gameplay - The battles can be slow or fast depending on how you play. Armor plays a bigger role, as well as unit's experience, in survivability of a unit it seems, because poorly armored units (anything less than plate), even cavalry, will get wasted if not handled correctly. Cannons are excellent against buildings but inaccurate and slow against troops but still deadly if they hit. There are no wild rampage units or gameplay mechanics, unlike RTW:BI where you just let lose the berserkers or use the what I call a 'cavalry sandwich'. Cavalry will die fast to spearmen and it is tricky to make an effective punch with them, certainly not head long for earlier cavalry. I had problems with regular non-spear infantry when attacking them with cavalry. I have to try the HRE Zeihanders or the Scottish infantry to see if I can find the equivalent of berserkers.

[lalartu]

Hey there

ok, I gotta hand it to you guys, you've overdone yourself in this one.

here are the things I absolutely love about MTW2:

- FMV sequences are back! I missed these from Shogun so so much. I thought the assassination movies were awesome. it's kinda cool wathcing your ninja sneak up on targets all the time and they were absent in every TW game ever since. They're back now and soooo goood.

I keep snickering every time that snake crawls away after the rat...

- religion is a major factor in populous mood maintenance. I like the idea of indertectly being controlled by the pope. I'm playing as England now and it seems every major catholic faction hates me and have the pope on their side. I've been excommunicated once and during those dark times, I had 3 rebellions in my cities and I'm not looking forward to having them again. I'm trying to suck up to pope now and use smarts to overcome his orders.

-all the MTW factions are present and look awesome. YAY to diversity!

- amazing voice work! I still can't believe every faction has its own accent. I was laughing when I first heard the scott emissary use its arggh. didnt see that one coming.

-superb graphics, nice effects, great overall look

thinks I think could use improvement:

- still no navy combat? I was sooo hoping you would implement this finally.

- resource hog: my new system had trouble so I had to take it for maintenance, so I'm playing this on my 2 year old computer and even tho I have a medium range ATI card, any siege involving a medium size city turns into a 1 frame per second slow fest. I can still play in the open areas, but for some reason cities are impossible. compared to RTW, MTW2 is very resource demanding.

- merchants are a good addition, but are kinda worthless. you pay 550 for one and it only gives you 10ish profit (which means it takes 50 turns for them to finally pay for themselves by which time they might be in their 70s and close to demise).
also there's aways a big chance someone will kill them and/or take over their business. so I think this needs major haul up or it's kinda useless. I stopped making them period after all 4 of my merchants were killed.
I had 2 of them on my mainland english soil though because nobody ever touches them there.

- comapred to RTW cities seem to have tons more profit (almost 2x as much I think) and unit maintenance costs a bit less. which means it's sort of easier to wage campaigns. but this could be just me. maybe I should have played on harder difficulty. I started on the default.

- heavy cavalry is very very weak compared to RTW. whenever they charge, you expect them to cut through lines with little resistance, but as of now they seem to stop and engage in very silly combat as soon as they reach the first line. I think this needs a lot of work.


conclusion: you've totally overdone yourself with this installment of total war, and hopefully wiht future patches all these little annoyances will be resolved (except for resource hogness and lack of navy combat probably).
keep up the good work!

[econ21]

ok, I gotta hand it to you guys, you've overdone yourself in this one.

Sadly, the Org can claim no credit for the game - it's all CAs work. We're an unofficial fansite - go to the .com if you want to talk direct to the game designers.

[phred]

Playing as the French (Hard/Hard)
I'm definitely seeing better AI on the campaign map.
Milan declared war on me and beseiged Marsaille with a decent sized stack, simultaneously sending another decent sized stack through the alps toward Dijon.

I don't think I ever saw a well-planned two-pronged attack in RTW.

The next turn the army besieging Marsaille attacked (!!) after having built one ladder, one seige tower and one ram. I lost the city but took it back the next turn. Once again the AI surprised me by attacking after one turn. I was planning on relieving the city, but the AI didn't wait for me to bring my reinforcements.

I sent a 3/4 stack and scared off the the army headed toward Dijon, but they returned a couple of turns later with a full stack. Apparently the Milanese retreated, recruited every mercenary they could find and then attacked me with superior numbers. I retreated, gathered all my reinforcements and attacked his full stack with my full stack. I won that battle and was planning on pressing my advantage when the Pope butted in and said "Cease hostilies for 6 turns or else" - So I waited, but the Milanese couldn't wait. They allied themselves with the Pope then attacked Marsaille again. I was expecting the Pope to turn a blind eye, but he surprised me and excommunicated Milan.

Overall it's been a nice, surprising campaign. I'm constantly running out of money and that's frustrating - I need to work on my finances.

Dislikes:
Rebel armies were spawning Feudal Knights, Chivalric Knights and Pikemen LONG before I (or anyone else) could recruit them.
The French accent got on my nerves very quickly.
France is a major crossroads for agents (emissaries, princesses, merchants, etc,) and the end turn sequence can really drag while the computer follows ever little AI character (I know I can turn off this option, but I like seeing the army movement around me).

[Kansas Bear]

Bought the game yesterday started with French on Med/Med.

Attacked and took Rebel cities/castles, nbd. Gained some generals(yet my faction leader is 60 and the year is 1160!!!) . Definitely an age bug there. After I had combined most of France, I start losing generals to these damned inquisitioners!

Was attacked by Milan, they took Marseilles and when I countered, I was excommunicated. Took Genoa killing the Milan faction leader in the process, offered ceasefire, refused.

Followed by an attempted invasion by the HRE, which resulted in the deaths of three of their princes and the loss of Metz(gained a Heroic Victory as well). Offered them ceasefire, it was refused.

Old Pope dies, I'm back in the good graces of the Lord, yet my standing with the New Pope remains at the same level as the Old Pope.

Now left Metz(after destroying what I could) to relieve a siege on one of my castles.

[Doug-Thompson]

Some quick points:

1. Software stabililty: Does the game run?

I've had fewer problems withn MTW II than anyother total war product. Frankly, I had no problems until last night, when the strategy map became unplayably laggy. Shutting it down restored normal gameplay.

On a technical note, the game does seem to leave behind a lot of fragmented files. Upon reflection, I don't know if that was because of the install or the game playing. I defragmented the disc before installilng and didn't check it again until after the lag problem developed.

2: Fewer bandits.

This is all for the better. I hated rat-killing.

3. Crusades and Jihads much better.

Frankly, a MTW II player with a Islamic faction and multiple Jihads was unbeatable, especially if he had command of the sea. He could put dozens of Jihads in the same province instantly.

4. Strategy

A much, MUCH more varied and interesting strategic environment than RTW.

5. Diplomacy

It seems to be the trendy thing to complain about the diplomacy. I think its vastly improved. For instance, you no longer have to haggle to buy map information. You start at something reasonable. The entire offer-counter offer process is skipped.

6. The Pope and missions

The Pope is considerably less of a pain in the side. Inquisitors, however, are deadly. Assassin skill needs boosting so you can kill inquisitors.

[Lochar]

First off was mildly surprised when I saw 2 DVD disks.

Anyways after installing I jumped right into a English campaign.

First off there is a learning curve from RTW. At first I was buying city upgrades for each town but soon found myself broke more often and having to be choosey with what I want to build during my turn.

I love the city/castles idea, plus the fact you can convert down the road.

I didnt mess wth the merchants but after seeing some threads I see where they shine more.

The AI seems great at times, I got slaughtered by a flanking move in the forest because I never saw the enemy until it hit my flanks.

The routing has ineed been adjusted as my units will usually stand there ground until they start suffering major casualties.

There are some AI gltiches tho and seeing other threads these seem to be known issues.

Graphically it looks good and even cool to see padded tunics on units that got upgraded.

The one siege I tried I had my engines all destroyed before even got them to the walls.

Diplomacy is more refined with seeing their stance towards you. The Princess seems a nice touch but trying to get charm up seems slow to me and wooing another general seems difficult w/o it.

Overall I like the game but the financial side I nee to learn better as I am paying a small fortune for my 1 army but then again I realistically shouldnt be able to have massive armies all over the place.

[Icerian Rex]

Well, I just got done with my first full length campaign, so I figured I'd throw my two cents (I played as the Venetians).

There's that age old adage "beware what you wish for, you just might get it". Well, this game seems to attempt to pack many (if not all) of the things people have been looking for, which is good, but also makes for a more confusing (and in some cases tedious) game.

PROS:
The landscapes are beautiful. Depending on where you set your graphics, things are getting as close to a realistic setting as possible. Castles are likewise beautiful. Overall, this portion of the graphics get a 10.

The battles are indeed huge, and the pregame speeches are carefully designed to fit the battle. Not exactly stirring, but at least entertaining.

The choice of buildings are numerous, and the ability to build guilds that give certain benefits also gives an additional level of interest.

Up close fighting: Even compared to RTW, you can just sit there immersed while watching guys duke it out, up close and personal.

Sound effects: Awesome. Fantastic. Especially listening to men about to be slaughtered, or the princesses, or scrolling over the occasional heretic or witch.

CONS:
The whole angle with the pope is interesting, but the "college of cardinals" portion seemed pretty boring. Honestly, I didn't pay much attention to who was a cardinal, or who voted for who, or found it made much difference. To me, it seems they could have used that time and effort elsewhere.

Archers - Slower than molasses at firing, and although they could inflict damage, didn't seem to inflict nearly enough, or as quickly as I would think they could. I mean, I could charge my infantry at them from their maximum range, and the archers might have gotten off two volleys.

Cavalry - I can understand a wall of spears stopping cavalry, but not a group of archers. You really had to babysit your cavalry, and they would often charge at a completely different group than the one you were hoping they would attack. Also, when units routed, the cavalry would first have to wait till everyone had passed, and then line up behind them, and then begin to pick them off.

Big city instability - Despite making a pointed effort at doing everything I could to make the city folks happy, they remained in a relative state of dissatisfaction. Ultimately, I had the choice of building some building that cost 4000 florins to maybe make them happy for another turn, or leave the city, let it revolt, and then slaughter them wholesale. I didn't like this part in RTW, and I didn't like it so much here either.

Family tree - I got so fed up with (just as in RTW) hunting down my family members, just so I could move them around the map to this province or that, and spending the equivalent of two years just to get them where they needed to go. True, the game has a feature where you could have control over all your provinces, but I considered that cheating. Also, the AI purposefully messes with your family tree: Too many family members? You won't get any children. Too few? Then finally you can adopt them or sponsor them. To me, if you protect your family members, you should eventually get plenty to choose from. The computer seems much more interested in carefully controlling this.

MISC
In battle, you can lose track of who's who, and who's where.

Cannons and siege equipment are fantastic at breaking into fortresses, but just about useless against other military units (Personally, I loved the catapults in RTW, which could take out a dozen people with one shot).

Probably 70% of your battles occur against cities / fortresses, and not out in the open. So the formula is: Break down the gate, charge, get to city center.

Merchants: Seem to do some good. Don't know how much, as I lose track of them, and then they get bought off.

Diplomats: Seem fine at making deals, but in over 10 different attempts at bribing various armies (Rebel or otherwise) I failed every time.

Ending (Victory) Scenes: Shogun's was the best, and to me, especially with as much disk space as the game takes up, they could have done something far far far far far far better. I felt like "I played for four days straight for THIS?!?!?".

FINAL OPINION
I think this game excels in it's art, imagery, sound effects, and scenery. Still, it is overly complex where it doesn't need to be, and not nearly complex enough where I was hoping it would be.

The arcade style fighting of RTW is more or less gone, but it seems the game has swung almost to the other side. Every battle is a slugfest. Losing half your forces is the norm, but at the same time I have a hard time determining if my tactics are doing any measurable good, or whether it's sheer manpower that's winning the day. Seriously, I preferred the Rock Paper Scissors of MTW1 and STW better (Cavalry beat archers, Archers beat infantry, Infantry beat cavalry).

The agents, in all their forms, are interesting, but most turns I spend way too much time sorting through the clutter, finding out who has moved vs who hasn't, to really take any more effort in messing around with spies, priests, merchants, etc...

P.S. Weren't there supposed to be Aztecs in this game or something?
P.P.S Short game vs Long game is fine, but I would have enjoyed the option of starting at a later point in time (in MTW1 you had early, middle, and high I think).

[Quickening]

I have been playing PC games for over a decade now and this is the first game I have ever upgraded my PC specially to play so I had a lot invested in this being good. So has my faith been rewarded? Yes, definately.
For the record, I have been playing with all settings at their best and on Very hard/Very Hard difficulty.


The Campaign:
The whole campaign map and the way it plays just feels right. The look of it and the animations are nothing less than beautiful. The music is perfectly suited for the player just taking his time and making sure his economy and armies are in order. This is in stark contrast to Rome where a lot of the campaign music got so annoying, that I found myself ending the turn as soon as possible.
The extremely irritating macho American speech of Rome Total War is also gone to be replaced with much more pleasant voices, each appropriate to it's own nation. This also includes the navies which I simply hated to click on in Rome.
I love the new castle/town system. It adds so much more depth to the whole thing as do the Guilds and every other addition and alteration.
One thing that both the campaign and battlemap are superb at is evolking the feel of time and place and no matter what faction you are, you begin to feel a real affinity with them.
The interface is clear and after two days of play I have had nothing but logical and crafty decisions from the AI in terms of army movement and diplomacy. Brilliant.


The Battlemap:
Well, in a word, stunning. When you fight a battle in a country, you actually feel like you are there. From wind swept Scottish moorland to the Egyptian desert, you will simply be immersed by the environment.
As has been much talked about, rather than getting unfair advantages on higher difficulty levels as in the previous Total War games, in Medieval 2 the AI is simply better. This is evident. Try a custom battle on Normal difficulty and then try again with the same armies on Very Hard difficulty. After two days play and countless battles, the AI has done nothing stupid whatsoever and has beaten me even when I outnumbered him.
Some problems that other people have been complaining about are clearly false. The cavalry works excellently using the one click method and I have seen no fault in the spacing between troops in a formation whilst engaged in combat.
Sieges are truly epic. Every inch of ground must be hard fought for and assaults are as costly as they should be. Very costly.
The battle speeches are excellent and almost Shakespearian. Although it is true that it seems like the General is talking to the guy next to him rather than the entire army, this takes nothing from them.
The only slight letdown for me on the battlemap is the music. It is simply not as thunderous as the music of Rome Total War was which is a shame. But it is still more than adequet.


Bugs and other Quibbles:
I was nearly put off buying this game after reading so much negative feedback on this forum. But I have to say that thankfully, people have been making a massive deal of nothing as usual.
I admit that I myself was not happy to hear that family members age disproportionately to the passing of time and it is something that I still hope that Creative Assembly fix. However, it is not as immersion shattering as I had thought it would be. In fact, I simply never think about it during play. Im having too much fun for that.
There are a few bugs, as expected but I can assure everyone that they do nothing to make the game "unplayable" as some have suggested. To be honest, if I hadn't been told about them, I would never have noticed them.
The only thing I have noticed is that if you breach a settlements walls, but do not take control of the walls before the ammo of your siege machines runs out, the game will give you an automatic loss. This is obviously not right when it is clear that your troops could march through the destroyed gate and walls. But again, once you know about it, it is easy to overcome and Im sure this issue will be resolved in the coming patch.


Conclusion:
Brilliant, to put it simply. There is no way I can go back to any previous Total War game now. This surpasses all of them by a mile. This game is amazing as it is so I cannot wait to see what CA can do with the patches. I haven't been so addicted to a game in years.

[SirGrotius]

Rome almost killed my interest in the franchise, which is ironic considering I've really enjoyed MTW2 that is based on the same engine.

My initial impression is very favorable.

Pros (bullets stolen blatantly from an earlier poster):

Diplomacy is much improved. I don't feel as though I'm being randomly attacked and the reputation is a nice touch which helps configure whether or not I can trust someone or not. When enemies attack, it seems clear to me that I am "on their land" have done something treacherous to them, etc. Relations are such an obvious feature I could never go back to an earlier Total War game. It's that big of a deal.

Castle/Town system. Not only does this add another level of thought to the game, but it also streamlines where one should build units vs. economic structures, etc. I also like the (upgrade) in parentheses, as it's a quick visual clue as to what I need to do to reduce squalor.

Public order is less of an issue, at least for me. Squalor used to be my bane, but now it's manageable and makes sense from a gameplay and historical perspective. Nice job.

AI controlled campaign map units -- move with purpose, and I can't just let a unit rome about on his own to find an army, he'll get attacked. I was shocked! What, the AI has a brain?

Aesthetics. The campaign map, units, movies, etc. all are aesthetically appealing. I've even invited my wife (a medievalist) to take a look at some of the gorgeous units!

Battles are less arcade like and I love that the paper-rock-scissors dynamic is less in your face. I'm so glad to be rid of the simplicity of prior games. If I wanted to play a game of counters I'd play AOE or some other elementary RTS.

CONS:

How did the unit stuck on mountain bug get past playtesting?

How did the passive army bug get...

I'd have appreciated an estimated path option for units on the battle map -- i.e., one could hold down control or something while right clicking on the battle map and the unit's estimated path would show in grey (minus any unexpected blocks), this would avoid some, oh crap, I didn't mean to miss that path and go around the mountain mistakes.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

I have been a long time total war fan, so I hope I can give some interesting feedback.

Just my initial impressions...

Great:

Presentation is very nice, clean and easy to read.

The new in game/battlefield engine is very good also, nice polish over RTW. Runs well on mostly high settings, no AA reduced AF to trilinear.. with an AMD athlon 64 X2 4200, 2Gb RAM, and a Gigabyte 6600 turbo (I was expecting to need to upgrade this!) Animations nice, smooth.
Music, wasn't blown away at ist, I liked the RTW more in yer face music, but it grows on you after a while, more subtle..but still good.
Main campaign map, again enhanced over RTW a little, does look nice, easy to use..no complaints really on this front.

Gameplay thoughts:

Started off playing england, had a couple of problems with scotland, but not that many. Currently I have most of france under my contol.

My impressions so far are that the campaign AI is not really able to effectively counter attacks at the medium level (difficulty), def feels easier compared to RTW. Many times I have had french armies more than able to inflict some damage on my conquest of their lands, but they seem to spend too long on a seige (rather than just building seige equipement and assaulting), they wait... allowing me to counter attack and wipe them out with armies from surrounding areas. Not good. Also AI tends to launch predictable attacks with forces that have no realistic chance of taking a settlement..I found this with scotland..again...not assaulting earlier has hindered this. Not once have I had to defend a settlement from assault...worrying.

Inquisitors seem to be there to wipe out faction leaders and heirs...pretty unrealistic...I mean you have you kind surrounded by elite troops..and they let one guy in a robe take him out? Seems like a ploy to counter for the lacking AI IMHO. THey need to be toned down..very irritating.

Assassins are almost useless...this needs a tweak.

Not convinced on merchants at present, though this may change later.

Diplomacy seems better, though less aggressive compared to RTW..to date I don't feel a huge threat, or highly challenged (maybe I am lucky or a great TW player! lol)

Option for castles of cities. Not convinced this really makes much difference to stategy. I would have liked some more depth here.

Why are there no moats? Strange considering this was a major feature of the period.

Much prefer the years instead of turns...this needs fixing! lol

Not sure if I feel battles are quicker or slower than RTW...maybe about the same...will get back on this one.

Battlefield AI is a step down from RTW IMO. Enemy units don't seem to react to flanking, which they did in RTW. AI also seems to pick strange mixes of troops, crossbows in particular seem a bit overpowered. Cavalry is causing a few problems, though not so much as some threads indicated, they seem less powerful than rome. In general battles seem to lack the punch and snap or RTW...and I feel that winning a battle has little bearing on skill and tactics, as the enemy cannot seem to pick a strategy...they are more passive and far less aggressive than rome. I think a number of units need a tweak..archers seem to fire too slow, cavalry needs more speed and force in charges.

Easier to manage settlements, less chance of revolts...but I think RTW was better in this respect, it made you think more about deployment.

Some problems with pathfinding, units hanging back, only the ist line attacking..can be frustrating.

Battles seem a bit more realistic with regards losses....not so much of the total massacre RTW effect...routing seems a bit less too...this is better IMO.

I have ignored most of the pope's missions and threats..doesnt seem to make a lot of difference..which is good if you don't want to bother with religion a whole lot.

Overall it gets a 7 out of 10 at present. I may be in a minority here..but I think RTW is the better game, I felt more involved in rome, and battles felt much more of a challenge, and more fun. With some major tweaks this could really be brilliant..as it is its a bit of a let down so far...starting to feel a bit bored already.

[DukeKent]

Agreed with previous impression. With the followin addition. Their is a memory bleed of some kind that needs to be patched in this game. It does not show up for hours, and appears to be triggered if you do not watch the AI turn moves, very irritating.

[Brass Eye]

Initial impressions? To cut a long story short, scroll to the end of this post.

I'll start by saying that I'm a vet of STW and MTW, but have hardly played RTW at all. I read a magazine review of STW back in the day where the reviewer said it was the game he'd been waiting to play since he'd first got into computers, and that's how I've felt about the series then and since.

Battles
I've played RTW enough to know that I don't like its battles for the same reasons that put off a lot of Org-ite posters. M2TW's battles are a welcome return to the sedate-but-tense pace of its grandfather. The battlefield graphics are nothing short of stunning, and it's no surprise that big city sieges cause this fairly recent PC of mine to break into a sweat.

I've noticed the tendancy of the AI to helpfully camp it's armies within easy longbow-rape range of my archers, especially during pitched battles away from walls. Top of my list for things I'd like to see fixed by CA is that. An AI should either retreat from the field, or attack. Or at least do anything but stand around soaking up as much of my missile fire as possible.

Campaign Map
The gameplay balance of the campaign map seems to be very strong. The pace of my expansion seems to be nicely checked even on a low difficulty setting, forcing me to use my brains to get the best of the situation. I wept for the loss of the pick-up-'n'-drop dobber system of MTW at first, but soon got over it and embraced the new.

Having to manage your diplomatic units seems like an annoyance at the moment; hopefully I will learn to use them successfully - hopefully I will learn to want to use them - as time goes on.

I love how CA have handled the Catholic Church and the catholic player's involvement with it.

The options offered by the diplomacy menu have changed a good deal since MTW, and the many new and detailed options are great fun, not least because they open up a myriad different ways of tacking any one problem. Suck 'em and see.

Interface
Given that I made the leap from MTW almost directly to M2TW, only stopping off at RTW for a chocolate bar and to borrow the use of its toilet, I found the battlefield interface awkward at first ("the right mouse button does that now?") but ultimately more intuitive. The ability to customise the battlefield HUD is appreciated, and I use a stripped-down version of same similar to those of the first two games in the series.

The campaign map interface is clumsily designed, however. I've yet to find a means of tidying this up, too. Much HUD space that could have been used to display functional buttons is wasted on unnecessary decoration. As a result, searching for certain types of information can be a confusing hunt through several sub-menus. Why not, for instance, have the College of Cardinals, the Family Tree and the Diplomacy menu available directly from the under-populated and over-ornamented area of HUD on the bottom right of the screen? This is one of those instances where, if someone stood with their hands on their hips and asked me if I thought I could do a better job, I'd say, well, yes.

Style
Style as in graphics and sound. Things that people often mistakenly dismiss as irrelevant to gameplay. The music in M2TW does nothing to shift my opinion that MTW VI had the best music in a series which has been blessed from the word go with very strong soundtracks. The music in M2TW is good without being exceptional. I do like the atmosphere of the opening menu screen, though, with it's lazy, threatening guitar and chanting-monk piece and customary background of striding, silhouetted soldiers.

The atmosphere on the battlefield is nothing short of awesome. It relies on a lot of eye-candy, but I cannot see this getting tired any time soon. This really is a stunning realisation of medieval warefare; CA have yet again set the standard in the RTS game stakes.

With the exception of the welcome return of the event movies, the stylistic triumph of the battlefield does not extend to the campaign map, though. Aside from the cluttered, arbitrary design of the HUD, CA have not learned that having your characters utter one from a very small collection of phrases every time you pick them up or order them around gets old very quickly. It would surprise me if most gamers do not turn the speech volume down within a few days of installing the game for this reason. (Note that this does not interfere with John Hurt's most competent narrative work, though; the wheat is generally sorted from the chaff. The excellent and amusing battlefield speeches are sacrificed, unfortunately).

Overall, the campaign map has an over-inflated, over-colourful, almost Hollywood-like interpretative feel of the middle ages which doesn't quite hit the right note.

This isn't a particularly balanced review in that I've paid more attention to the things I don't like than those I do. That said, this is the internet, and being a malcontented ingrate is part of the job description for those who use it.

Long story cut short: this is the best game in the TW series to date. However, the need for improvement is strangely more conspicuous in M2TW than STW or M2TW.