Total War: MEDIEVAL II

Total War: MEDIEVAL II is a highly acclaimed turn-based strategy game that immerses players in the Middle Ages as they embark on a quest for continental dominance. You can choose from 17 distinct factions, developing your nation while building a formidable army. Through the use of diplomats to secure trade agreements and alliances—or by crushing rival states with your military might—you must strive to become the supreme ruler of the entire continent. The game offers a diverse array of unit types, including infantry, cavalry, archers, and spearmen; you must carefully manage their positioning and formations to defeat your opponents with minimal losses.

Features:

Total War: MEDIEVAL II offers players a wide variety of armies. When you first play the game, you will have to follow specific instructions to move your armies. Using different units, the player can develop many interesting strategies while learning the specifics of each enemy. You’ll choose the right units to eliminate them quickly.

This game has a lot of battle locations spread out over a huge world. You will then move your army on to another area, where you will encounter a new set of enemies. Players will need to be careful not to put their troops in danger by wasting them and choose the right tactics when facing multiple enemies

Total War: MEDIEVAL II’s cinematic, real-time battles are legendary, and MEDIEVAL II does not disappoint. The game allows players to command thousands of soldiers on a vast battlefield by directing infantry, cavalry and archers. Players can use medieval weapons to overwhelm their enemies with heavy knight charges or kill them with deadly arrows volleys. These clashes are viscerally exciting because of their scale and spectacle.

The scheming that goes on behind the scenes is just as important. Diplomacy, trade and espionage are used to undermine rivals and strengthen empires. Marriage to the right princess will cement an alliance while funding rebels discreetly can destabilize your neighbor. This combination of real-time combat and turn-based strategies creates an engaging, diverse experience.

Total War: MEDIEVAL II spans 500 years of history on three continents. It depicts war from England to Arabia. You can lead one of five major empires, such as England or France, to victory through eight scenario-driven stories. The Kingdoms expansion expands the game’s scope dramatically, adding four new campaigns as well as 19 additional factions from Baltic pagans and Mesoamerican tribal groups.

Strategies:

Managing Your Troops – The Importance of Strengths and Weaknesses: It’s of utmost importance that you understand how to manage an army, and how to use your troops to the strongest of their potential.Know how to manage your infantry and position them properly. Never leave your archers exposed.Don’t use your cavalry as front-line units, for crying out loud!Know how to manage your units, read their strengths and weaknesses, and you’ll survive any attack – even if only to retreat and regroup.

Take Advantage of Ambushes: Some of your units will have the ability to hide in bushes, trees, or even in open fields with special abilities.Lure your enemies into falling into ambushes, and remember that troops that can ambush tend to benefit from the element of surprise.There’s nothing more demoralizing for your enemies than thinking your army is weak, only to come across thousands of soldiers more than they expected.Kill them mentally, and then actually kill them physically. That’s how you’ll win.

The High Ground Matters! Defend from Above: As our good old friend Obi-Wan Kenobi used to say: a long time ago, in a galaxy far away, it’s over when you have the high ground.If you manage to take the high ground and force your enemies into attacking you, that’s half of the work done to win a battle.You don’t even need to have more numbers than your foes – having the high ground goes a long way into winning siege battles or even open combat.

Take Weather into Account if Using Ranged Troops: I know that many people don’t pay attention to this, but the weather has a huge influence on the effectiveness of ranged troops.Their aim, the way the missiles travel, and even their range will be affected by the weather.Do not over-rely on your ranged troops if it’s raining or foggy – that could very well be the end of your army. Learn to retreat when you can.

Take Care of Your General: One of the easiest ways to get your army to lose all hope is by losing control of your general.You need to take care of him as much as possible if you want to win a battle.The death of a general will result in the total demoralization of most of your troops, which can end up costing you dearly. Even if you have the numerical advantage in a battle.

Know How to Handle Your Cavalry: Cavalry has one purpose in the game: to wreak havoc amongst enemy lines.Don’t kid yourself into thinking that cavalry is the best unit to rush your enemies upfront – cavalry needs to be used to annihilate anything that comes in your way, but from the flanks.Force your enemies to move around, force them to break formation.Divide them and win.

Categories:

Spear infantry: Typically lose against heavy infantry but are effective against cavalry. Can use formations such as schiltrom and phalanx.

Light infantry: Cheap and mobile but not particularly effective unless flanking.

Heavy infantry: Beat most other types of infantry at close range but struggle against cavalry. Particularly excel in siege battles, as spearmen cannot use their formations on top of walls. Many Heavy Infantry have high protective values and are valuable for holding most foes at place.

Missile infantry: Effective at range but weak at close range. Firearm-equipped missile infantry also heavily damages enemy morale.

Light cavalry: Not particularly effective in direct combat against other cavalry and most infantry but excel at scouting, chasing routed enemies, flanking attacks, and harassing ranged enemies.

Heavy cavalry: Their charges can heavily damage infantry morale and a flanking charge is likely to completely break an infantry unit.

Missile cavalry: Use ranged weapons from horseback and is most effective at skirmishing. Very effective against melee infantry, though typically lose in a shootout against missile infantry.

Siege engines: Can be used both in sieges and as field artillery, though any army with siege engines moves much less per turn than one without them. Can also cause heavy morale damage, particularly if the siege weapons in question are cannons. Unlike in Rome: Total War, siege artillery can be moved through city gates and wall breaches.

Vessels: Vessels can be used to transport ground units on the seas. The game has no naval battle mechanics however and naval battles can only be fought through auto-resolve.

Player Comments:

There's a reason why I have 2000+ hours on this game. Not only is it the best Total War game ever created, it's one of the best strategy games of all time.

Medieval II is based off the Rome: Total War engine, but it took everything great about that and improved upon it while fixing most issues: the AI is better, even if it feels outdated now. It gets very little cheats. You have cool mechanics as in the crusades and jihads as well as the Mongol and Timurid invasions. Not to mention, the four Kingdoms campaigns which are all unique from one another and well worth the playtime. A plethora of mods (shoutout to modders!) like DaC (a LoTR conversion mod), Stainless Steel 6.4, Vanilla Beyond, and even M2EX which is a straight up fan-made remaster, adds to this game's near infinity replayability. This was Creative Assembly hitting their stride.

Unit recruitment is the best its ever been. you have a pool of every unit type that replenishes over time, but has a maximum, so spamming 1 unit type armies isn't possible. This means when you wipe out a full stack of armies, the AI can't just spawn a new elite 20 stack out of thin air, they have to recruit it just like you would. The variety is well done as well. Factions with similar cultures will share a good unit pool (ex. European factions all have access to feudal knights), but each feels different enough from each other to not feel like you're playing the same thing.

Splitting the settlements into castles vs cities (even if historically, it makes little sense) adds choice to how to build up your settlements - whether you want an economic or a military powerhouse. Some factions like Venice even have great militia units from cities, one of their strengths.

The soundtrack is elite stuff. Written by Jeff van Dyck, Richard Vaughan and James Vincent, it captures the feeling of medieval Europe and the Middle-East perfectly, according to most situations. You can tell just by listening to the main menu what kind of music you're in for: legendary. Tracks like "Duke of Death" during European battles will definitely get your heart pumping. My favorite is "War of Kings", but it's only in the Kingdoms campaigns. I also really like "Honour Moment", the new march theme in the Crusades campaign. I digress, but just the fact that I was able to name some individual tracks should speak volumes.

Battles are probably the best in the series as well. As mentioned above, the AI gets little cheats. To win battles, tactics are what matter the most. The game rewards an aggressive playstyle. If you slay the enemy general, their army gets a massive morale debuff that could derail into a mass rout. Also, if your general has high dread, the enemy's base morale lowers. So your actions with a character throughout a campaign actually matters in battle and in governing cities.

For the negatives, not much to say. The AI is usually quite terrible, as this is a 20 year old game now, so it's easy to exploit it. The diplomacy system also is rather pointless - the AI could sign an alliance with you and break it the very next turn because they blockaded your port in Caernarvon. There's usually no rhyme or reason to it. But this it Total War, not Total Diplomacy. Pathfinding and unit responsiveness can also sometimes be an issue and does take some getting used to, but isn't so bad once you do.

I could go on and on about why I love this game. For those not into the modern Total War and want to relive the glory days and simpler times (this is not just the nostalgia talking), this is strategy game for you. If you're playing it for the first time, I'd recommend England. So yes, I highly recommend this masterpiece of a game.

Final words:

Total War: MEDIEVAL II brings the acclaimed Total War series to Android, immersing players in the turbulent political machinations and spectacular battles of the Middle Ages. With 17 distinct factions across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, the game captivates with its grand scale and intricate gameplay.