Total War games?

[Duppin]

Anyone still play these?

Due to MMORPG burnout, I'm going back through my game library and have rediscovered Medieval: Total War. I'm having a blast with it, aside from a lot of crashing to desktop (which seems to be a directX "surface lost" error, anyone know what that might be? I have the most up-to-date DX)

I also have Rome: Total War, which is much, much prettier and has some nice additions, but isn't as strategically deep, nor is the enemy AI as good.

[Millie]

Never tried Medieval, but I loved (and still occasionally play) Shogun. Just bought Rome a few weeks ago and kinda got into it. The AI is a joke, but maybe that's because I'm playing on the default setting. Seems like it has lots of potential, though.

Not sure about Medieval, but Shogun crashes every so often due to some graphics error. I make a habit of saving every few turns, just in case. Most older games will do that to you.

[Duppin]

Unfortunately, that's Rome's biggest weakness. The AI is, in fact, a joke.

I'm told there's mods out there that improve it some, but the default AI does a lot of very, very stupid things strategically. I'm not sure I've ever lost a battle to the AI, and I'm no Clausewitz.

If you like Rome and liked Shogun, you should track down Medieval. It's in the 20 dollar bargain bin by now, and I think the crashes I'm having are atypical, so don't let that scare you away. It's less pretty, but a much deeper game.

[Millie]

Deeper in what sense? One thing I really like about Rome is that, unlike in Shogun, it allows you to choose your heirs from the family tree -- rather than simply forcing you to go down a list of all available family members. And there's a slightly deeper sense of city management.

Anything like that in Medieval?

[ChewieTobbacca]

Think of Medieval as being between Shogun and Rome

Actually pretty much all of the changes from Shogun to Rome were first made in Medieval

There are hundreds of units in Shogun and they change depending on the era/year period, religion plays a large role (Crusades and Jihads, the Pope, etc.) and there are 3 basic styles of fighting depending on the army you use (Catholic armies fight differently from Orthodox armies and different from Islamic armies as well).

Medieval has general and heir traits and so on, though I've never had a problem with heirs, I'd just send in my master assassins and let them do the work..

Although if you want deeper sense of city management and family trees and all, this game doesn't quite have it, though the AI in this game is a lot better

Personally I'm waiting for a couple of mods to come out for Rome: Total War... some are excellent

[Cybsled]

I like Shogun because once you got the Geisha, the game was over. The only unit that could kill her was a really high skill ninja, but then you basically lost the ninja to kill her if he did it. The movie for the Geisha/Ninja kill was cool though.

[Deathwing]

I've never really noticed a difference in the AI between Medieval and Rome, I handily defeat both of them(OMG, cavalry up the rear ftw!). In the end, I'd say Medieval is better only because it has better mods and I think Rome downplayed the importance of assassins. In Rome, I found it very tough to eliminate rival factions with assassins. It was very fun to do that in Medieval, nice way to get around that fucking Pope. What, I can't attack France? Ok, I'll turn all of it's lands into rebels.

Overseas trade importance is almost gone in Rome, which makes the naval part of the game practically useless. I never build up fleets of any importance unless it's to ferry around units between lands I already control. Otherwise, I just take lands adjascent to my territories. Opening up new fronts is a big no-no.

Man, makes me want to play Medieval again and rule the world with my legions of Byzantine Swordsmen, Varangian Guard, and Kataphracts(early period Byzantines were seriously overpowered). Middle period Turks put them to shame though. Anyone know of that mod for Medieval that added a bunch of factions(like Capedocians, Burgundians, etc.)?

[Duppin]

Deathwing:

Check out totalwar.org. There's some links there in the forums to mods.

As far as the AI goes; try massing archers against the enemy in Rome. You'll take hardly any casualties. Then try that against Medieval's AI.

Terrain also seems to be less of a factor in Rome.

[xregg]

I havnt tried Rome Total War yet but i will pic it up next time im at the store.

Ive been playing Warhammer : Dawn of War and I havnt had this much fun since Starcraft with a rts.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by Cybsled

I like Shogun because once you got the Geisha, the game was over. The only unit that could kill her was a really high skill ninja, but then you basically lost the ninja to kill her if he did it. The movie for the Geisha/Ninja kill was cool though.

That was actually my biggest gripe with Shogun. The Geisha totally broke the game. One Geisha was all you needed to beat anybody and anything. All you have to do is systematically kill off daimyos and heirs for all the factions, then mop up the remaining rebels after the various clans are eliminated.

A highly skilled ninja could theoretically take out a Geisha, but the amount of time needed to build up the ninja -- just to get to the level of a freshly made Geisha -- wasn't really worth it. Your time and efforts are better spent building up the tech tree to get the Geisha House. Also, Geishas can kill other Geishas more easily than even the best ninja can.

[Millie]

I am playing Rome more often these days and really digging the faction management system and family tree. So far it seems as though you can have an endless family line, so long as your family members keep breeding or you keep finding suitable adoptees. I like that. Shogun cut you off after about 10 generations or so, and most of them were born within 2 years of each other -- forcing you to play the game fairly quickly, as all your heirs would start dying off around the same time.

To counterbalance this, Rome seems to kill off my family members pretty often. "Natural causes" were a real bitch back in Roman times, I guess.

[ChewieTobbacca]

No geisha's in Medieval thats for sure

The assassins were fun in MTW, especially having 4 or so top ranked ones kiilling off entire faction lines at one turn, though it did unbalance the game - I literally created a trade empire (+ $$$$$$$$ each turn), turned a country into rebels, then bribed all of them off, until I won (I was Denmark so what do you expect.. I started with one piece of land!)

I'm looking foward to RTW's expansion Barbarian Invasions though... tons of mods will come out then also

(MTW does have a ton of mods out already... personally I enjoyed Napoleonic Total War a lot.. extremely well done mod)

[Millie]

So far I've found no use for assassins in Rome, and I don't even want to bother with them. Battles -- and killing off enemy generals -- are easy enough without resorting to assassination.

[Duppin]

Originally Posted by Millie

So far I've found no use for assassins in Rome, and I don't even want to bother with them. Battles -- and killing off enemy generals -- are easy enough without resorting to assassination.

Yes, assassins are almost entirely useless in Rome. It's disappointing because they were very useful in Medieval.

It's difficult because both Rome and Medieval have great things about them. It'd be nice if you could glom all the features together into one game.

Give me the combat AI, unit balance, and territory bonuses of Medieval; and the city management, graphics, and dynamic battlefields of Rome; and I'd be a very happy man.

[VariaVespasa]

Actually I've found assassins fairly useful in Rome as defense against enemy assassins, and to kill enemy diplomats during wars to prevent them assasinating/bribing my generals/troops. And I just love phalanxes... I will grant that perhaps MTW is better overall though.

*Hugs*
Varia