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A magnificent (old) addition to the Total War sequel, Medieval 2 basically carries on Medieval’s era, which in turn, carried on Rome : Total War’s late-period age.

If you’ve heard of the Total War games, then you probably know that it’s an excellent blend of Turn Based Strategy and Real Time Battles. Battles with a new accelerated, and greatly improved 3D engine, which now eliminates the ‘clone’ army found in Rome : Total War, meaning that each soldier has a different look. Not only are the visuals enhanced, but also how the AI acts, new sound effects, ambient battle music etc.

Battles are awesome to play. The units are so credible, and battles are so realistic. In the start of a battle, for example, your units will taunt the enemies, insulting them etc; In the actual fight, at the start of a charge battle cries are heard, you see how your men fight hand-to-hand combat lively (men dealing final blows in different ways, fighting weapons in different ways, dying in different ways etc.).

You can fight battles as campaign battles, quick battles or custom battles.

The Grand Campaign is the heart of the game, tho. Numerous improvements are seen throughout your playing experience in it. Firstly, the map is visually improved. It is more detailed, with dozens of trees, lakes, rivers, caravans, roads etc.

An epic battle

The most notable improvement in the campaign mode, however, is the fact that each faction has it’s different English accent (For example, Ze French speak in e different accent, mon roi), making it feel unique. Furthermore, a general on the map has it’s faction’s coat-of-arms on his armour, again, giving him a distinct look.

Religion plays an outstanding role in the game. Not only are you faced with new burdens, the Papacy, heretics, witches, inquisitors, but you also have to be a good follower of the faith in order to maintain peace amongst all of Christendom. For example, if you attack fellow Christians, the Pope will be angry at you, excommunicate you, might call a crusade against your cities, and make other Christians hate you too. This drastically limits your expansion capabilities, unless you’re prepared to have hordes of Christian armies at your gates. This feature can be exploited as well. For example, if a priest from your faction who is a preferati wins the papal elections once the previous pope dies, and you support the current one, he will reconcile your faction, and make it the most holiest of them all, forgetting your previous hostilities with them.

The Papal Elections

Speaking of papal elections, you have the abilities to train priests from churches, abbeys and other holy buildings you build in your cities. Your priest can be promoted and become a member of the College of Cardinals, and even become a preferati, a person that is a candidate to the papal elections. However, in order to even think about joining His Holiness’ ranks, your priest must be extremely pious, purge heretics all the time and spread the faith to the infidels.

Speaking of heretics, there will always be rebels in the game, just as previous Total War games. They can sometimes become a real pain, cause you might find that if they spread heresy too much without a priest sentencing them to trial, your people will also become heretics and will also revolt against you. Speaking of purging, your priest’s purging success against a heretic depends on his piety level. The more pious, the greater chance for him to burn the heretic on a stake. However, there is also a risk of him becoming a heretic as well, so it’s always good to have a plethora of priests in your empire.

Inquisitors can become a pain in the butt too, if you’re in poor relations with the Pope. Inquisitors act the same as priests do to heretics, but only this time, the inquisitors might accuse your priests of heresy, and burn them on the stake as well.

The Catholic religion, however, isn’t the only religion in the game. As you might’ve known, there’s the Orthodox religion (Byzantine Empire, Russia), the Muslims and Pagan (Aztecs). The Orthodox is the least favored religion cause it doesn’t have a religious papacy system of it’s own, it doesn’t have crusades or Jihads (muslim crusade/holy wars).

This pretty much covers religion.

In the beginning, your empire starts out as a small family controlling several regions. It is up to you to lead them to glory, and accomplish their objectives (based on the campaign type). Speaking of campaign types, there’s the small version of the campaign, where you must control 15 regions and a faction-specific city, whereas the huge campaign requires you to control 45. It is also notable that the campaign is extremely time-consuming, and hard, no matter what difficulty level you choose. Even I had to use the ‘add_money 40000′ cheat dozens of times…

Your family members have traits and retinue that influence their personality. Your actions contribute to the developement of them. For example, if you win a battle, you captured prisoners and you execute them, this will increase your character’s dread.

Each faction has its own units. But there are also universal units as well. There are also special units, for example, those that come from guilds. The Hospitalier Knights come from Knight’s of St. John’s Minor Chapter House, a guild that’s offered to you after one of your generals participated in a crusade.

The naval system, as you might know, is still the same as Rome : Total War, contrary to the more recent Empire : Total War.

Overall, Medieval 2 : Total War’s epic, realistic, nerve-etching battles, and the extremely addicting campaign makes it a perfect game to play. However, it requires a beefy system in order to appreciate the full epicness of battles and graphical effects, or  else you might experience some framerate drop and lagspikes.