Topic: Rome: Total War vs. Medieval II Total War

[Chosen40k]

So I'm getting a new laptop and a great game to go with it, and I can't decide between Rome: Total War or Medieval II: Total War. 

So can anyone please post the plus and minuses of either games, as well as which I should get?

Also system requirements and performance (as well as Empire: Total War ) need not be taken into account. 


 Thank You.

[MyenTal]

Medieval 2 all the way. Both are great, but Med2 builds on and improves some of the things that were kind of lacking in Rome. Religion, diplomacy, etc, the graphics have a huge overhaul, the combat has been improved, you get a Americas campaign on top of the original, join/oppose the crusades, survive the black plague, get/invade excommunitcated, be top dog with the pope, etc. Imo, everything Rome has, Medieval 2 has, with alot of extra bonuses added into it. (Exept settings, of course)

Rome was awesome, but I say Medieval two.

Hope that helps.

[Space Marine Talon]

Can speak so much for Rome Total War, and only a little on Medieval 2.

Rome Total War is plenty awesome, you take control of one of the three Roman Factions (Julii, Brutii and Scipii) each with their own beginning advantages (i.e. Julii can expand very quickly and usually only has to tend with the barbarian factions first, while Brutii can expand similarly quickly but has to tend with the more advanced Greek nations for example). Ultimately, while odds are heavily stacked in your favour (trade rights with three other factions on the onset, superior infantry) you will have the hardest task, overthrowing the Senate and your two rival factions. Only then can you complete the Campaign (while getting 50 territories under your fold), and begin playing as the other factions. As such, it gets tedious towards the end because your main opponents in the endgame are the Roman factions and it's just a slugfest of Legionary v Legionary. But, it is worth the effort to finish the Roman Campaign, because the non-Roman Factions are plenty awesome too  Woohoo Carthage!

If you're feeling up to it, get the Barbarian Invasion expansion as well. It doesn't add on to the original campaign, but focuses more on the Late Roman Empire period. It is much harder to totally vanquish a faction (the entire civilian populace are converted to warriors and soldiers upon losing the last territory, becoming a neutral 'rebel' faction). IIRC, they add the Loyalty characteristic back too.

Appearance wise, Rome Total War is beautiful. The landscapes and battlefield scene are rich, and can even be destroyed by siege machines for morale . Fighting scenes are not as great as Medieval II but at least you don't have 2d images running across the field like Medieval I. Music works perfectly with the pace of the battle (changing from peaceful to marching to fighting).

If there is one thing that irks me about Rome Total War, it is the AI. I am not aware of any AI mods that makes them fight properly but sieges are awfully easy if your target only has wooden walls. I'll leave you to figure it out on your own, but the freebie I can drop is that the AI likes to move their units unnecessarily.


For Medieval II, mechanics are almost the same, and I am also aware that the Christian factions have the Pope to contend with if they want to expand. Since I've not played the full campaign yet I'll reserve my comments on its difficulty. Also, you should be able to get all available factions from the beginning.

However, I am aware of a Mod (Stainless Steel, iirc) that increases the AI's capabilities, and also includes new factions. Interaction between units  on the battlefield are also smoother and more seamless.

[PaxImperatrix]

Think of M2TW as an overall improvement on RTW, with the setting transplanted from classical antiquity to the middle ages. Unless you feel very strongly that the classics are awesome, M2TW is the better game purely based on graphics. I haven't noted so many major other differences, apart from the presence of merchants (micromanagement required) and the holy war mechanics in M2TW.

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

Talon Raven: You know you can set it to the short campaign, in which you only need to take 15 territories and defeat one or two specific factions to win?

[Lonewolf]

Think of M2TW as an overall improvement on RTW, with the setting transplanted from classical antiquity to the middle ages. Unless you feel very strongly that the classics are awesome, M2TW is the better game purely based on graphics. I haven't noted so many major other differences, apart from the presence of merchants (micromanagement required) and the holy war mechanics in M2TW.

Rome total War is an awesome game so i decided to get myself medieval 2, but for some reason it didnt do it to me like Rome. The main thing i found annoying in battles, that in M2 i had always the problem of charging my cavalry into battle. When i had positioned them for a flank or rear charge and ordered to attack, often only the first rank would attack, and they wouldn't exactly charge, but slowly walk into combat, which isn't exactly what i had in mind. In Rome i had never such problems. I also like the time in which Rome plays a lot more. Barbarian Invasion adds some new features like night fight, horde armies etc, which further improve the game in my eye.

I don't see M2 as an improved version of Rome but rather a modified one. Sure, graphics are better, but you will have to fight a lot more battle in M2, because you can faster recruit troops which becomes tiresome over time, especially with the before mentioned bug i had trouble with.

In a nutshell, i still prefer Rome over Medieval and never fully completed a campaign in the ladder, while i played with every fraction, partionally multiple times, in Rome.

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

Medieval 2 basically requires you to install the upgrade patch to get it to work properly. In addition to cavalry issues, the campaign will often screw you over by having your faction excommunicated with you having virtually no choice in the matter, and then everyone goes nuts at you. Once you install the upgrade patch it works much better.

I prefer M2 to Rome frankly, the setting is much more interesting to me and I find the game mechanics to be better once some adjustments are made

[Sheepz]

I'm surprised no one mentioned Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion, which is about the collapse of the Roman Empire. It's pretty awesome, there are new units and new nations, although some of the old ones are gone and there's no 'fair advantage' - Western Rome, for example, starts with like, 20 provinces [but they're all rioting], while the Franks get one, or two?

Religion is a big part of it, the map is primarily the same only a lot of the territories have been simplified to become bigger, getting rid of the need for so many provinces, although there are still loads. The historical slant is good (never did about the Fall of Rome), Generals are born in various cities rather than all in your capital. Yeah, it's good. I've not played medieval II (and one sucked so much), but I have to argue that Roman History = better than Dark Age history.

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

Got to disagree with you there, the Medieval period is fascinating to me, just as much as if not more than the Roman period. I intensely dislike the prevailing attitude that led to naming them "the Dark Ages"

[Sheepz]

Then the choice should be apparent

[Lonewolf]

I'm surprised no one mentioned Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion, which is about the collapse of the Roman Empire. It's pretty awesome, there are new units and new nations, although some of the old ones are gone and there's no 'fair advantage' - Western Rome, for example, starts with like, 20 provinces [but they're all rioting], while the Franks get one, or two?

Religion is a big part of it, the map is primarily the same only a lot of the territories have been simplified to become bigger, getting rid of the need for so many provinces, although there are still loads. The historical slant is good (never did about the Fall of Rome), Generals are born in various cities rather than all in your capital. Yeah, it's good. I've not played medieval II (and one sucked so much), but I have to argue that Roman History = better than Dark Age history.

I mentioned it shortly, especially since its less of an expansion to Rome but more kind of its own game. But i agree, its a very fun game. I remember playing the Huns in my first Barbarian Invasion game and making the mistake of conquering the first villages (you started in russia) instead of pillaging them. I had money problems the whole time so i conquered the seleucids (persia), egypt, africa... the goal was to get to rome, they never saw me coming 

I also enjoyed night fights very much. Religion was a minor Problem (if you didnt play west rome that is). The easiest race was Seleucids btw. I didnt even bother recruiting an army. 3-4 generals killed any army i ever came across and converted any city within 2 rounds to my religion.

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

Then the choice should be apparent

Indeed, and it should be apparent what I chose 

[Sheepz]

And it should be apparent, in a bout of epic fail, that I believed you to be the OP.

I didnt even bother recruiting an army. 3-4 generals killed any army i ever came across and converted any city within 2 rounds to my religion.

Generals were hard, but never that hard, IMO. Sure, an all general army could beat most armies, but four generals seems a little extreme.

[Lonewolf]

And it should be apparent, in a bout of epic fail, that I believed you to be the OP.

I didnt even bother recruiting an army. 3-4 generals killed any army i ever came across and converted any city within 2 rounds to my religion.

Generals were hard, but never that hard, IMO. Sure, an all general army could beat most armies, but four generals seems a little extreme.

It worked with Seleucids. Hard armour, bows and bone hard on the charge. You break the enemy one unit at a time, starting with the opponents general, until the army breaks.

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

And it should be apparent, in a bout of epic fail, that I believed you to be the OP.

I didnt even bother recruiting an army. 3-4 generals killed any army i ever came across and converted any city within 2 rounds to my religion.

Generals were hard, but never that hard, IMO. Sure, an all general army could beat most armies, but four generals seems a little extreme.

Only at the early levels. By the time you get to high level games an all cavalry army composed of elite units will get beslubbering ruined. Cavalry can't do sustained combat, even if they're beslubbering bad-asses like generals.

I tend to play with the AI turned up a notch, since I've played the Total War series since its inception and find that otherwise it's a walk-over, and at decent levels the enemy simply won't let you pick them off that way.

[Red-Fred]

I'm so looking forward to Empire: Total War...Mmm redcoats.

RTW and the expansion are both awesome, I preferred the original purely for the reason I couldn't do more than about 6 turns on Barbarian Invasion without failing epically. Especially with The Western Empire, which unfortunately, is my favourite faction .

I found the Julii in RTW to be a generally good faction but one that suffers from cumulative waves of savages. For example, beat the Spanish and the Gauls are on their way. Beat the Gauls and the Germans arrive. Beat them and you end up trying to fight horde upon horde of evil horse archers that my legionaries could never catch...

As for which one to purchase, I think it depends on which historical period you prefer. RTW is much more ordered and neat in its battles. Partly because all the soldiers in units are clones but also due to the uniforms and so on being more classical. And in MTW2 there are a feew additional features that others have mentioned.

Red-Fred

[Lonewolf]

And it should be apparent, in a bout of epic fail, that I believed you to be the OP.

I didnt even bother recruiting an army. 3-4 generals killed any army i ever came across and converted any city within 2 rounds to my religion.

Generals were hard, but never that hard, IMO. Sure, an all general army could beat most armies, but four generals seems a little extreme.

Only at the early levels. By the time you get to high level games an all cavalry army composed of elite units will get beslubbering ruined. Cavalry can't do sustained combat, even if they're beslubbering bad-asses like generals.

I tend to play with the AI turned up a notch, since I've played the Total War series since its inception and find that otherwise it's a walk-over, and at decent levels the enemy simply won't let you pick them off that way.

Well you can disbelieve all you want ( ) but  with mentioned 4 heroes i conquered egypt, got myself a boat conquered turkey wich was mostly roman territiories at that point iirc, went up to constantinople then Rome. I always played on hardest AI, though there might be mods i dont know about. I only hired a couple of mercenary units when i had to attack a city to break down the walls, which i then left back at the city as guards. And the cavallery never had to fight in a longer combat, because 2 hero units in the front and one into flank or rear breaks anything short of an elephant, especially since there are no longer phalanx units. You just have to look out for spearguys, which you bait a bit before getting off a flank charge or shoot them down a bit if you have the timee. And the general can not be protected enough, that you cant break through to him and if you kill him its over anyway. It was only anoying when one of the heroes died - of old age.

Oh and my hun all cavallery army also disagrees with your comment. Are we talking about the same game Chuckles? 

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

A mongolian all cavalry army and an army consisting of 4 heroes with bodyguard are not remotely the same

[Lonewolf]

A mongolian all cavalry army and an army consisting of 4 heroes with bodyguard are not remotely the same

Well i aimed at your statement that elite cavallery armies get weak later in the game.

[Chuckles, The Space Marine Clown]

A mongolian all cavalry army and an army consisting of 4 heroes with bodyguard are not remotely the same

Well i aimed at your statement that elite cavallery armies get weak later in the game.

I meant elite in the sense of "very small number of highly powerful warriors". You were talking about an army of around 4 heroes. A mongolian cavalry army is a very different beast