Poll: Favourite Total War game.`

[srm79]

Rome, without question. I play with a mod called Roma Surrectum II which is basically a complete rebuild of the game from the ground up. The building tree is significantly improved, more planning is required when establishing cities as economic or military strongholds, the unit tree is massively overhauled as well. Post-Marian units end up as being accurately named and numbered Legions, specific to where they are recruited from.

It also pretties up the visuals and terrain becomes much more of a factor due to the improvements to the tactical maps. Seriously, no matter how good Rome 2 turns out, I'll be frankly stunned if it tops Roma Surrectum II in any way other than graphically.

 

[The Harkinator]

I'll admit, this decision is made without mods. If I was taking mods into account I would choose Medieval II with Stainless Steel 6.4 (Or Medieval III as I like to call it) and SSMAP.

Without mods I choose Empire: Total War. I bought the game a couple of years after release when many of the problems had been fixed and I loved it for one reason: The scale. I loved being able to have multiple wars going on multiple continents against multiple foes in various different ways. Naval battles, artillery that works well and the devolution of construction to small towns were all things I liked (though I think some of them are more of a mirror of historical context) and while I did think the battles required less inventive thinking most of the time (use the cavalry to beat the artillery, use the artillery to damage the line, use the line to out-line their line and kill survivors with the cavalry) I still love the game.

 

[Radoh]

I'm going to have to go with Empire because it isn't nearly as bugged or slowed down as the others I've played in the series.
Though considering how often people laud Rome I may have to play that at some point.

 

[Christopher Fisher]

Rome: great game, but didn't have so many of the features that I love that were introduced later on such as trade ports
Medieval 2: I loved the setting, but the enemy AI was too damn annoying. I can't count how many times an enemy faction would just randomly declare war on me and blockade my ports. The expansion were a little better, and I loved the introduction of forts
Empire: another amazing game. It was just a little too big imo, and so many of the units felt useless. It also didn't have nearly as tight of gunplay as Shogun 2.
Shogun 2: definitely my favorite. The combat just feels excellent. The graphics are gorgeous. I love the smaller scale, and Fall of the Samurai--with its railroads and naval bombardment--was utter genius. And best of all: they brought back the assassination scenes!! I loved those so much in the first Shogun...which is probably the reason I loved the second one so much--it just felt like an amazing return to the game's roots, but with all the amazing additions that were added later.

 

[Alssadar]

As much as I like Rome, and for how much time I've spent on it, I prefer Medieval 2.
The two-town system was an interesting balance between military and economics/tech, and the many different sub-campaigns are a blast for different experiences (NORWEGIAN BRITTANIA!).
Sure, the majority of the armies play the same, but there's still a good amount of variation between all of them with separate army lists. The troops also fight longer, which allows for interesting strategies as the knights slog it out between each other.
For a personal perspective, Medieval is a bit more dark in the color scheme, which often makes the battles seem grittier and more tense, instead of Rome's never ending sunlight.
Besides, I like having Cavalry that can charge the back of a spear formation without taking 25% losses. Seriously.

 

[BlazeRaider]

As much as I like Rome, and for how much time I've spent on it, I prefer Medieval 2.
The two-town system was an interesting balance between military and economics/tech, and the many different sub-campaigns are a blast for different experiences (NORWEGIAN BRITTANIA!).
Sure, the majority of the armies play the same, but there's still a good amount of variation between all of them with separate army lists. The troops also fight longer, which allows for interesting strategies as the knights slog it out between each other.
For a personal perspective, Medieval is a bit more dark in the color scheme, which often makes the battles seem grittier and more tense, instead of Rome's never ending sunlight.
Besides, I like having Cavalry that can charge the back of a spear formation without taking 25% losses. Seriously.

I think your crazy (about the colour scheme)! Just look at these BAMFs, they look positively FABULOUS.

Not that I played Parthia anyway, I always went with Carthage, endless hordes of mercenaries ftw! Go ahead, kill them all, your just saving me a pretty penny!

 

[Xavier323]

Rome. Medieval 2 was good, but I remember the siege deployment and pathfinding being broken.

This wasn't the case in Rome?

No, it wasn't. M2's city deployment was far more restrictive and annoying than Rome's. There were a few oddities in Rome's siege pathfinding, but it all worked fairly well.

 

[saintdane05]

Mostly related: HD Footage of Rome II.

I jizzed. Seroiusly, I just jizzed my pants.

<youtube=EaDlihIqPws>

 

[Terrible Opinions]

For all that it had some god damn fucking bullshit (spoiler alert: it had some god damn fucking bullshit), my heart goes to Medieval II. I just love the Byzantines that much, I guess.

 

[SextusMaximus]

Rome hands down. BRING ON ROME 2.

(although I wish it had Shogun 2's multiplayer campaign feature)

 

[MarcellusMagnus]

I have a soft spot for Medieval II because my own nation - Hungary - is playable in it, and that rarely happens outside of Paradox titles like Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Artillery as defensive weapons are goddamn murderous. I always keep a catapult or ballista or two in every town, just for defense. Just park them in the main street, facing straight towards your own gates. As soon as the enemy break it down, you can kill literally scores of enemies with each flaming missile, as they clusterfuck their way through the gates.

Hmm, I once had a few ballistas in a town, and thought they were bloody useless, but this strategy could be very effective, I admit. But maybe thats because my defensive tactics usually consisted of 1000-man dogpiles at the gates, and yelling at my men to "PUSH! PUSH FOR YOUR LIVES!"

 

[maninahat]

Artillery as defensive weapons are goddamn murderous. I always keep a catapult or ballista or two in every town, just for defense. Just park them in the main street, facing straight towards your own gates. As soon as the enemy break it down, you can kill literally scores of enemies with each flaming missile, as they clusterfuck their way through the gates.

Hmm, I once had a few ballistas in a town, and thought they were bloody useless, but this strategy could be very effective, I admit. But maybe thats because my defensive tactics usually consisted of 1000-man dogpiles at the gates, and yelling at my men to "PUSH! PUSH FOR YOUR LIVES!"

It's fun to do it that way, but I tend to find that if I let the enemy in quite a bit before attacking them on all sides, that works out better than jamming the troops as close to the gate as possible. The enemy, as they come in, push your own units backwards to make room for themselves, and in the process, leave your own men more vulnerable (somehow). This is especially the case with mounted troops, who need more room and so squash your troops back further.

 

[maninahat]

Mostly related: HD Footage of Rome II.

I jizzed. Seroiusly, I just jizzed my pants.

<youtube=EaDlihIqPws>

It just made me angry, if only because I want them to diversify their games, and didn't want to hear them make yet another remake. I bet they'll do a medieval 3 after this as well.

 

[The Comedian]

In that situation France would eventually be excommunicated. At which point you could petition for a crusade against them, if you'd been a good Catholic. Frankly the frequency with which Western and Central European factions annoy the Pope and get excommunicated is a bit silly. You can very easily wage war practically from the beginning of the game without ever violating a papal decree if you just pick on excommunicated factions. The HRE in particular gets excommunicated like clockwork.

In my experience, it was Milan that was always, always in trouble. Probably for similar reasons as HRE (both are close to the Vatican, so the pope will always come hard on them whenever they pick on one of the Pope's other neighbours (Sicily, Venice etc.)

The pope is a bugger though; Always getting in the way of my sieges with cease and desist orders.

I don't know if this was a glitch or not but in my experience it was quite easy to fight factions with high papal favor
all you had to do was lay siege to two castles/cities belonging to that faction when you got you cease and desist order you could break the siege on that particular settliment but continu the other one as long as you didn't attack the pope did not care and if the enemy tryed to break the siege they got excomunicated.

 

[BristolBerserker]

Medieval 2 because I can have Viking Raiders fighting Portuguese Arquebusiers. And the Kingdoms expansions was brilliant, especially the Americas campaign. Also ELEPHANTS WITH ROCKETS!!

 

[Kirke]

I'll probably get a lot of hate for this but... Empire: Total War.

*waits out shitstorm under an umbrella*

The reason for this is the Darthmod Ultimate Commander. With that, I could have an army of swedes march up to the enemy, with no artillery support, and fire on salvo at point black range before charging. The swedes were almost always outnumbered, but with propper tactics, I smashed the russians time and again!

 

[SckizoBoy]

I think your crazy (about the colour scheme)! Just look at these BAMFs, they look positively FABULOUS.

I was scrolling up the page, and the first thing I thought when I saw that pic was 'why in fuck's name is the commanding officer a gods damned PEASANT?!?!'

Anyway, the Parthians always made me go a cross between of LOL and 'could do with some more purple dahling!' =P

Not that I played Parthia anyway, I always went with Carthage, endless hordes of mercenaries ftw! Go ahead, kill them all, your just saving me a pretty penny!

Eh... I hated mercenaries because you couldn't retrain them and the only decent ones were Cretan archers, Rhodian slingers, hoplites and elephants, if you could get them. And... most... of the cavalry. Also, their recruitment costs were usually not worth it IMO (besides, I enjoyed playing as the Greek Cities most, and they had the best Level 3 troops in early-mid game, so... eh!). Getting the mod that lets you recruit Cretan archers (in Kydonia only, of course) fucking broke the game for me... -_-

Hmm, I once had a few ballistas in a town, and thought they were bloody useless, but this strategy could be very effective, I admit. But maybe thats because my defensive tactics usually consisted of 1000-man dogpiles at the gates, and yelling at my men to "PUSH! PUSH FOR YOUR LIVES!"

Huh... reminds me of bridge battles. One of the biggest effective cheats in the game is that you declare war against a superior enemy and you can tarpit a massive army by occupying a bridge with spearmen and artillery (if you've got any), then just do like Stirling Bridge, over and over again... -_-

It just made me angry, if only because I want them to diversify their games, and didn't want to hear them make yet another remake. I bet they'll do a medieval 3 after this as well.

To be fair, though... can you name another era and locale that would provide opportunities for such in depth gameplay, variation (or at least attempts at it) in factions and rich political setting? 'Cos there aren't that many... (Warring States and German Unification are the only two that come to mind that haven't been explored for TW titles.)

I'll probably get a lot of hate for this but... Empire: Total War.

Eh... you like what you like, and I thoroughly enjoyed E:TW as well. From the strategy gameplay perspective, I wonder at why N:TW hasn't got more shit than it did, 'cos it's even more restrictive, if anything, though I fucking love the game.

 

[Chunga the Great]

Shogun II isn't winning?

A SHAMEFUL DISPRAY