Interested In Medieval History? Check This Out!

**The Blue Meanie** · 11-08-2006 10:24 AM

The above is actual gameplay footage... in-game pictures, from the upcoming game, Medieval II: Total War, made by the Creative Assembly and published by SEGA. For PC.

Okay, right from the outset, this is a sort of semi-advertisement. I'm not being paid to post any of this by anybody, rather, this is just me, a massive fan of this game and the Total War series, trying to "spread the word". I've cleared this post with Seeker, too, so it SHOULD be okay...

Anyway. About the game. Medieval II: Total War comes out around about the 10th to the 16th of November. This month.

I think from the above screenshots, you can see that this game is just f$%&ing awesomely beautiful. I hope it's at least got you interested. So, come on, read a bit more. Not much, I promise, and I'll tell you a little about this game.

The game takes place between about 1050AD and 1520AD. The campaign game is a epic turn-based historical strategy game on a fully 3D map. Each turn is about two years. On this level of the game, you get to build cities, armies, castles, roads, interact with other medieval kingdoms and powers on a diplomatic basis. You can move your armies, priests, assassins, merchants and diplomats around a beautifully rendered 3D map of Europe, the Holy Land, North Africa, and even bits of Eastern Europe. And, later on in the game, you can imitate the spanish Conquistadores, and sail to... AMERICA. And, wrest control of the americas from the Aztecs. Later on in the game, you will also probably have to deal with a mongol invasion from the east.

This is what the turn-based level of the game looks like:

You can basically zoom in and out, and see the terrain and your armies up close.

Here's the deal: Whenever one of your armies and an army of a power you're at war with engage in combat, you get the option of zooming in and going to the battle level of the game. In this part, you get to fight out the battle, controlling your armies, in real-time. In these battles, like the ones shown at the start of the thread, you can control up to 10,000 men, and even more if your computer can handle it. EACH INDIVIDUAL MAN is fully rendered in 3D, and animated, and fight it out with the enemy guys they engage. They're not clones, either - within any unit, the men aren't totally uniform - different faces, surcoats, shields, horses, etc.

You can charge your cavalry into combat, you can form spearwalls with your spearmen, you can have your archers fire flaming arrows. You can lob boulders at castle walls with trebuchets, and later in the game when gunpowder is discovered, you can fire cannons. At both castles, and troop formations. You can watch as a unit of enemy spearmen is decimated by an exploding cannonball.

The battle level of this game is, in short, BEAUTIFUL.

And the best thing is, EVERYTHING you see on the turn-based strategy map, is reflected on the battlefield. If there's hills and mountains and rivers, they will be on the battlefield where they are on the campaign map. Bridges, castles, cities, forts, watchtowers, forests, roads, EVERYTHING. With much more too, like farms and villages and monastaries. All of which you can fire your catapuklts at if you so desire. If a cannonball or trebuchet shot hits the roof of a monastary, the roof will cave in and burst into flames. IF you hit the falls or towers, stones will crumble off. Fully localised damage. And, these buildings look BEAUTIFUL.

In the battles, whatever troops you brought along from the campaign map, you will have in your army. In the campaign and the battl4es, you can control your king as a character, your princes, and other family members.

This game is simply AWESOME. If that's got your attention, go visit Total War Dot Com and learn more about this AWESOME game. I've played all of the previous games in the series, they are brilliant, and don't get anywhere near the attention they should. I'm SUCH a fan of this series (you can probably kinda tell) that I'd be willing to answer any more questions you have about the game. Seriously. This game is brilliant. Look it up!

**Burns** · 11-08-2006 11:35 PM

Wow - those screenshots are unbelievable!!

Amazing detail!

**Jess** · 11-09-2006 12:30 AM

Word, I love the Total War games, unfortunately Rome: Total War (the last in the series) doesn't work on my PC so I doubt this game will! Looks amazing though....

**The Blue Meanie** · 11-09-2006 12:54 AM

My current computer WILL play it. Just, not a good frame-rate. I've decided to put together a completely new computer and perhaps sell my old one. But yeah. IF you can play this game, you should fully buy it.

The official minimum requirements are:

English version of Microsoft® Windows® 2000/XP.
Celeron 1.8GHz Pentium 4® (1500MHz) or equivalent AMD® processor.
512MB RAM.
8x Speed DVD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers.
11.0 Gigs of uncompressed free hard disk space.
100% DirectX® 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers.
100% Windows® 2000/XP compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers.
DirectX® 9.0c.
128MB Hardware Accelerated video card with Shader 1 support and the latest drivers.
Must be 100% DirectX® 9.0c compatible.
Monitor must be able to display 1024x768 resolution or above.

In reality, though, you probably want a dual-core athlon processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM, and a fairly decent 256MB Geforce card, or ATI.

But still. This game is GORGEOUS. I'll post some of my own screenshots when I get it and build my new computer.

**O'nus** · 11-09-2006 01:08 AM

I have been playing Rome: Total War for about a month now and I am really looking forward to Medieval Total War. I also study Roman and Medieval history in school so it has actually been really helpful with my geography, lol.

Fighting and winning battles in this game is one of the best feelings I have had in a video game - I highly recommend it to RTS fans.

~

**Ynot** · 11-09-2006 01:37 AM

off topic, I know
but I thought this was about battle re-enactments
The top pic, at first glance, looked like a real photo

one of my mates used to be heavily into battle re-enactments
so much so, that he made all his own equipment
(boiling cured cow hide, and stretching it over a wooden base, to make a shield, then decorating the hide surface with his "clans" colours, that sort of thing)

all the swords and whatnot were blunted, of course
but they were the real deal in terms of weight

They used to tour around local events (school fates, historical society meetings, etc.)
and from what I can gather there's a national fare every year, where everybody meets up in a field somewhere, and bashes the shit out of each other re-playing a full-scale ancient battle scene

anyway, thought you might like that TBM

**oh_stephanie** · 11-09-2006 01:40 AM

Woah!

**The Blue Meanie** · 11-09-2006 10:32 AM

Originally Posted by Ynot

off topic, I know
but I thought this was about battle re-enactments
The top pic, at first glance, looked like a real photo[/b]

Tell me about it! This time next week, hopefully I'll be able to post similar screenshots of my own...

Originally Posted by Ynot

one of my mates used to be heavily into battle re-enactments
so much so, that he made all his own equipment
(boiling cured cow hide, and stretching it over a wooden base, to make a shield, then decorating the hide surface with his "clans" colours, that sort of thing)

all the swords and whatnot were blunted, of course
but they were the real deal in terms of weight

They used to tour around local events (school fates, historical society meetings, etc.)
and from what I can gather there's a national fare every year, where everybody meets up in a field somewhere, and bashes the shit out of each other re-playing a full-scale ancient battle scene

anyway, thought you might like that TBM

[/b]

Heh. I know, sounds awesome, heard about it before. Not sure what the scene is in NZ though. Plus, I'd sort fo be too embarassed to actually dress up in armour and shit.

**Umbrasquall** · 11-09-2006 03:33 PM

I played the demo on my friend's 5000$ alienware laptop lol. Unfortunately I'm not into the Total War series so I won't be buying it.

**Burns** · 11-09-2006 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by The

Plus, I'd sort fo be too embarassed to actually dress up in armour and shit.

[/b]

Aw, come on! It would be so much fun to dress up like that! Or are you one of those guys that's too cool to do something like that?

**The Blue Meanie** · 11-09-2006 09:28 PM

Originally Posted by Squall

I played the demo on my friend's 5000$ alienware laptop lol. Unfortunately I'm not into the Total War series so I won't be buying it.[/b]

Ugh, you'd never get me buying anything from alienware or dell or anybody like that. Such a rip-off, especially with desktop computers. If you source all the components yourelf and build it yourself, rather than buy a big-brand rip-off setup, you could probably get a nice rig for less than half of the price of the dell/alienware/etc equivalent. If you buy alienware, you're paying mostly for the branding.

Originally Posted by Squall

Aw, come on! It would be so much fun to dress up like that! Or are you one of those guys that's too cool to do something like that?

[/b]

Ehhhh... It's just an embarassment thing. Acting. I can talk and lecture my ass off, but when it comes to acting, I freeze up.

**The Blue Meanie** · 11-17-2006 01:05 AM

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Just got my copy... this game is even more beautiful than I thought.... Oh... WOW...

**Pastro** · 11-17-2006 02:12 AM

Looks cool, though I hate rts games.
Graphics are nice I guess though

**SnoMan** · 11-22-2006 02:38 PM

I wish I'd not seen this.

I really enjoyed the first Medieval Total War....now I'm gonna have to upgrade my computer again...

**Jess** · 11-22-2006 03:16 PM

Originally Posted by Pastro

Looks cool, though I hate rts games.
Graphics are nice I guess though
[/b]

The good thing about Total War games are that they're half real-time strategy and half turn-based strategy: you don't have to fight the RTS battles if you can't be bothered. If you don't, then its a bit like Civilisation.

**Identity X** · 11-23-2006 11:37 AM

Bah! Medieval? If you want a real dose of history, try Europa Universalis 2 or for a real challenge the the obsessively detailed Victoria: Empire Under The Sun. (although the latter has nothing to do with medieval times)

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