Medieval Total War Review (PC) By manutdfan_2006

8 / 10
03 May 2006 at 15:48

Review by: manutdfan_2006

Medieval: total war is a very religious orientated game. It is like its predecessor a turn-based strategy game. I didn’t play this game for a massive period of time, but I played it for enough hours to make a good assessment of the game. Although I am not a religious believer I did struggle to carry on playing the game but nonetheless it is a superb game. In my opinion you need to be somewhat religious to enjoy this game to its full potential. But on the plus side you can control hundreds or even thousands of troops in battle. At the time it was definitely one of the best strategy games to come out at the time. The game is made by the increasingly respected creative assembly. The game is rated an 11+ game boasting 3d battles with the possibility of over 10,000 warriors. You can build mighty castles and spectacular siege assaults, featuring catapults and cannons. If you are thinking of comparing this game to shogun, don’t! The strategy portion is much improved over shogun. You can have 12 playable factions and over 100 unique unit types.

You can play famous historical heroes such as the Joan of Arc, Richard the Lion heart and William Wallace. The RPG style character development of your kings and generals is worked well, the epic multiplayer warfare with 8-player online battles. PCGAMER described this “the year’s best strategy game, 93%”. This is by its strong popularity and of its time very true indeed.

Medieval: total war comes complete with a map of the different levels of development you will under-go in the game. From level one to level five, where you start off with a fort, then a keep, then a castle, citadel, and finally a fortress. There is a key that shows you which is catholic, Muslim, common and orthodox.

You always have a faction leader. Your faction leader is the most important unit that you command. If he dies the effects can be catastrophic, including bringing the game and your plans of conquest to an abrupt and! The faction leaders are called a king, khalifah, emperor, doge or grand prince. Regardless of abilities your faction leader always acts as general. He will always lead any army he is part of in battle. Even if there is another general in the force who is a better commander!


Your provinces are the places where you earn money and train troops. Without land, your faction will not last long in the face of harsh competition from other peoples. You will need to decide which province is the most important to your faction and hang on to them, and which provinces are ripe targets for your armies!

Resources are obviously vital if you wish to survive. A little tip from me to you is always check a provinces natural resources, whether you own it or not, because this can be useful when deciding where to invade. Obviously these can be exploited to raise income, or can be very useful in other ways. There are four ways to collect resources:

Income: The number of florins that the province generates as tax. This is a grand total, so it is affected by the tax rate, that the Governors acumen rating, farming improvements and whether or not any trading posts, merchants or mines have been constructed.

Trade goods: The number and type of trading goods gives some indication of the potential income from a province when trade routes in place and functioning.

Iron deposits: Where iron is plentiful, you can build a metal smith to improve the quality of weaponry for troops trained in province.

Other factors: Some provinces are particularly noted for the soldiers they produce. Switzerland produces superb Pike men, for example, while Wales is noted for Longbow men. It can often be worth invading a province to be able to train these specialists.

The battles are realistic with you being able to lay mighty castles to siege. I have already briefly spoken about the battlefield but it is really good; and well worth you buying this game. Trust my friend, go and buy it.

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