Napoleon who???

Author's Rating:

Pros: It`s complexity and much much more!

Cons: Computer Requirements

The Bottom Line: 
If you like strategy, or happen to be war-happy general, then buy this game!

Author's Review
You ever dream of being the king of Spain, or maybe the duke of Moscow? In Medieval Total War you have the chance to put your foreign politic ideas into life, and if you`re really good, conquer all of Europe.

The two first games in the Total War series, Shogun and The Mongolian Invasion, is among many considered as the best strategy games ever made. They were original since the plot took place in both 2 and 3 dimensional environments, and never before had so many soldiers participated in a single battle - could be thousands. Last, but not least you had the opportunity of testing not only your tactical and strategical abilities, but also your diplomatic skills. And as both of them, this is also real-time strategy.

I Medieval Total War the action is moved from the feudal Japan to the middle-age Europe where you can crush your opponents fortifications and lay Europe by your feet.

In short, the game can be described as a combination of a board game and a strategy game in full 3d. Those who have Risk or Axis and Allies will familiarize at once, but the dices have been exchanged with battles in a beautiful 3d scenery.

Another thing that distinguishes this game from all of the other different strategy games, is that the units` strengths and weaknesses is very prominent. That means that the one with the biggest army is not necessarily the winner of a battle, but the one who uses his forces correctly is more likely to win. This demands that you really get into the game and get to know the variety of units. But it`s definitely worth it when your inferior number of men kicks some a... because you use the right tactics and know your units. You should know your enemies units as well.

When you start a campaign you must first choose which section or wing you will play as, the difficulty, in which time period, and define a goal for the whole campaign. All of these choices will affect the game, and some wings are easier to play than others because of their geographical position, e.g. it`s much easier to defend a country with one border, than four.

To build an empire, you have to start by training your military forces, build different buildings which train different units, farming, and collect taxes from your inhabitants. This might to some sound boring, but that is not the fact. It is in fact a lot of things that need to be looked after all of the time, so your empire won`t collapse. You can be struck with catastrophes like years where crops are bad, assassins and spies can hit you, and disloyal citizens may start a rebel. E.g you might be in a rush building your army and run out of money. Then you can raise taxes to make some more money, but at the same time risk that the population may get angry and break out of your republic.

If it wasn`t enough to keep the internal situation under control, you have to keep a good eye on your neighbors who are dying to get their hands on your country. That it sometimes might be smart to ally with some of your neighbors. If you were to be unsatisfied with your allies, nobody will stop you stabbing them back and attacking them, except maybe their defense.

Medieval Total War is a very complex game and you might be overwhelmed by all of the details at the beginning, but as time pass you will discover that all of the details provide you with the opportunity of winning not only by military supremacy, but with spies and assassins as well. Emissaries are sent out to build alliances.

If you don`t want to be bothered the first couple of times, you can ask the computer to serve as your right hand, and control many of the functions. It can help you build military forces and buildings, as well as control the tax levels. But don`t trust the computer to do all the right choices.

If you are to reach your goals, there is no avoiding battles against your enemies. And the battles in Medieval Total War can be magnificent with thousands of soldiers clashing together. I find the graphics to be good, and it creates a nice atmosphere, but with thousands of men on the ground in full 3d, something have to suffer. The trees turn after how you turn the camera, the landscape is pretty, but looks a bit dead, and sometimes it`s hard to see the details on the units. It`s not a big problem, and after playing while you can easily distinguish them from one and other.

The game has huge requirements for the hardware, and on my computer with AMD 1.4 gHz, Geforce 4 ti 4400 card and 512 ddr RAM, I experienced some lagging. The doesn`t have many options concerning the graphics, but you can choose the sizes of the armies participating. The sound in the game is probably the most impressing. The battles is accompanied by excellent music which really gets you in the mood, and the sound of hundreds of horses and guns going off, made the room shake. The support of surround sound is excellent.

The Key to Success

As the attacking party you have a couple of big advantages. You can study your enemies strengths and weaknesses before you attack, and in that way adjust your own army to use their weaknesses as your strength. Before the battle you can actually study the terrain, and make up some tactical dispositions.

The different units is divided into different groups, that way you don`t control one individual soldier, but e.g. 50 archers in one command. Several groups that are alike can be joined together into one, if you wish. This is obviously smart if you have a couple of thousand soldiers, but the units often use pretty long time organizing.

The key to success lies in knowing your units, as I have mentioned earlier, knowing the use of different terrain is also useful. After you have fought some battles, and met some of the hundred different units, you will learn how to defeat the enemy. You have to be prepared to take some losses to begin with, but as you gain experience you will be rewarded with victories and maybe becoming the dictator of all of Europe.

Conclusion

Medieval Total War is a time demanding and complex game, which needs time to get into. But the reward is hours and hours of great entertainment. I recommend it to everyone who`s got some experience in strategy-gaming and wants a real challenge.

The games single-player campaign is long lasting, but if you want to wipe the floor with you friends over LAN or Internet as well, this is the game for you!