Poll: Favourite Total War game.`

[BloatedGuppy]

Ladders, I send feudal knights against a wooden wall on ladders defended by spear militia. The militia won. Sorry but that's a step too far for me

Were the militia well armored? Did the defenders have a high level general, and your attackers did not? Were your attackers subjected to withering arrow fire during the approach, lowering their morale? How thick were the defenders? Was it a single unit of 60 dismounted knights against 300 spears?

1 for 1, Knights will destroy spears on a wall, even coming up a ladder, unless their morale is already shot by the time they get there. Ladders alone are insufficient against a heavily defended/entrenched position. You need towers and/or a breach.

Steam rolling, Sorry but I have never accomplished it when I send hundreds of troops at a single target they push at first but then space out and wait for their turn rather that pushing up and it being 4 against one in close

That's just an AI quirk. And I agree it's annoying. You can actually force a more high impact battle with your infantry by charging through/into the enemy instead of just clicking on them.

Archers, Even the late archers had shockingly poor accuracy compared to any other total war game. Even late game you are lucky to hit one man in ten.

We have different experiences there, then. Higher level and/or experienced archers can be absolutely deadly, especially against the lightly armored rabble they're meant to be effective against.

Pope, I just hate the pope there are no two ways around this, for example the french fucking invaded me so I retaliated and when I was one city from finishing them off he called me off, next turn the french attack and took a city back and he told me to stop again before I could even get the city back, so no under no circumstances will I agree the pope is good.

In that situation France would eventually be excommunicated. At which point you could petition for a crusade against them, if you'd been a good Catholic. Frankly the frequency with which Western and Central European factions annoy the Pope and get excommunicated is a bit silly. You can very easily wage war practically from the beginning of the game without ever violating a papal decree if you just pick on excommunicated factions. The HRE in particular gets excommunicated like clockwork.

 

[TheTechnomancer]

The Original Shogun. I may have only been 10 and not very good at it, but that was one of the games that really got me into strategy. Then getting a LAN cable and playing with my dad... Good times.

 

[TrevHead]

I really can't decide on Rome or Shogun 1 (I haven't played 2 yet as I need a new GFX card to enjoy it properly)

I think Japan is a more interesting place for the over world map and the fact it's small makes the games shorter.
Rome however is more interesting in the RTS section, commanding a Roman or Greek army never gets old.

 

[veloper]

I just love the romans thematically and it's a pretty good game, so RTW

 

[Zeckt]

I hate to pick because of graphics but damn shogun 2 is beautiful. Also I can play the Oda clan, who were the ultimate bad asses of japan.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

My vote goes to Medieval II. I've really been playing the shit out of that - I like the setting, I like the factions and I like the game as a whole. Denmark, the Byzantines and Scotland for the win!

I do have to admit, I do love Rome as well though. I mean, it's an awesome era, but I guess I'm just not quite as in love with it as much as I am with Medieval II. It's a fine line though.

 

[Korzack]

Rome for me, but the first Medieval as well I have a soft spot for (Viking Invasion was a cool expansion, and it let me pilot the rise of Aragon, because world domination is twice as amusing when your foot-soldiers are fabulously Pink), which is a pity because I've not been able to play the damn thing in years for whatever reason. Rome has its irritating moments (Specially as I always like to play as the Greeks, although playing as anyone with Romans starting nearby was a big problem as the legions were definitely OP, even before-Marius) Medieval 2 was cool, especially once you get fed up of listening to the Pope and you can picture the guy just getting wound up as you do the logical thing and Invade France, but Rome gets it as its my favourite period in history.

 

[Collin Stewart]

on the base game rome total war

shogun 2 has the best installment of darthmod tho and i find darthmod shogun more fun than darthmod rome

 

[maninahat]

It was a tough choice between Medieval 2 and Empire. Empire loses only because of its less diverse gameplay in terms of units and tactics. Almost every force depends on walls of line infantry, which inevitably encourages the same approach to every battle - that gets tiresome, especially as the pace is much much slower than Medieval 2. I appreciated every other aspect of Empire over Medieval 2, including diplomacy, trade routes, naval warfare, towns and research.

 

[maninahat]

In that situation France would eventually be excommunicated. At which point you could petition for a crusade against them, if you'd been a good Catholic. Frankly the frequency with which Western and Central European factions annoy the Pope and get excommunicated is a bit silly. You can very easily wage war practically from the beginning of the game without ever violating a papal decree if you just pick on excommunicated factions. The HRE in particular gets excommunicated like clockwork.

In my experience, it was Milan that was always, always in trouble. Probably for similar reasons as HRE (both are close to the Vatican, so the pope will always come hard on them whenever they pick on one of the Pope's other neighbours (Sicily, Venice etc.)

The pope is a bugger though; Always getting in the way of my sieges with cease and desist orders.

 

[maninahat]

Artillery couldn't aim for shit

It's devastating, so if it was more accurate it would be ridiculous. Ballistas are quite accurate vs troops, mind you. It's catapults that aren't, but they're meant for walls, not anti-personnel.

The fucking pope wouldn't stop crying.

Restricted to Catholic factions, but true. It's an interesting check/balance that adds a layer of strategy to the game, but it can be very annoying. If you're in North-Western Europe and your enemies are all Catholics you might as well call the game Total Pope.

Artillery was hilariously random. My brother once faced an absurdly large Mongol horde (who hasn't?) and was spectacularly screwed. But he DID have a cannon, which promptly shot the opposing general on its first go. This demoralized his foes enough for him to eke out a victory, and for once the crusading Europeans didn't have everything taken from them by dirty horse-loving Mongols.

Artillery as defensive weapons are goddamn murderous. I always keep a catapult or ballista or two in every town, just for defense. Just park them in the main street, facing straight towards your own gates. As soon as the enemy break it down, you can kill literally scores of enemies with each flaming missile, as they clusterfuck their way through the gates.

 

[SckizoBoy]

CARTHAGE SHALL RISE AGAIN!

Good... Scipio Junior is looking for a city to clobber! XD

I always liked the way Carthage operated in terms of military, mercenary armies from all corners of the mediterranean, Balearic slingers, Numidian cavalry, light infantry from Iberia and heavy infantry from Gaul, Libyan levies, it all just seems so awesome how they make an army from the best the world has to offer.

Don't forget Greeks... depending on source, Hannibal used Macedonian mercenaries as well. And the heavy Celtic cavalry as well... -_-

Anyway, that throws up a bit of a debate regarding the relative strengths and weaknesses of different military systems. Rome had a citizen army with a common language and a common goal (at first, that is, to defend Latium), while there was a very large number of questions regarding the organisation of the typical Carthaginian army which was multi-lingual and multi-cultural. There is a reason why Hamilcar and Hannibal succeeded to a far greater degree than most other Punic commanders, insomuch that while they were indeed good at their jobs, others were not. It takes a great deal of skill, charisma and Machiavellianism to hold such an army together because it'll fall apart at the slightest display of either weakness or frailty. If Hannibal was any less of a personality, the Second Punic War would never have started, or failed before he even left Iberia. Still, props to the man for taking it as far as he did (and I say this is as an unashamed pro-Africanus partisan).

Napoleon for the Era (especially the naval battles) but I can't find the drive to learn a campaign system not based on Rome.

Good grief how?! N:TW was a piece of cake... no thanks to the restrictive building variety. Everything was pretty much: spend money to upgrade, and that was it. Still, Napoleon is awesome just for the naval battles. The land battles... uh... outflank & curbstomp. The strategy side is a little too much on the easy side, even VH-VH, but I still enjoyed it. Went to mid-game with the Prussians god only knows how many times. Collecting my corps commanders was so much *glee* ^_^ Thing is, though, because I know about the period, I play it more for the 'story' (what little of it there is), than the gameplay... *shrug*

Other than that... R:TW for the mods. These days, I start up a game, complete a short campaign then go through a library of mods and pick one. Then I'll be incommunicado for about a week.

 

[Canadish]

Gotta be Medieval 2.

It was an interesting period in history, with a great aesthetic and some fun mechanics and factions. I liked how units became hard to control once they were ordered into battle, unlike Rome where they were obedient robots.

Funny enough, I think the one thing that really puts it a tier above Rome is the Religion/Culture system, including Mr. Pope and his army of bullshit 10 piety Inquisitors.
I LOVED manipulating the Church by bumping off Cardinals and getting my own man to the top of the food chain. Weakening your enemies with religious strife and confusion was boss.
I wish the Islamic and Orthodox religious system had been a little more developed like the Catholic one.

It lost the way with Empire sadly. The game was rushed and it felt over-world map was just way to "busy" and not much fun to play on.
Still enjoyed it, but it just didn't grip me like the others. I still play those at least once every year.

Only played a bit of Shogun 2 because my toaster can't run it. Seems fun, looks wonderful. I really don't like how they've murdered mod support in order to help boost DLC sales.
And speaking of that, I hate how they're just cutting content and selling it as bloody DLC now. Rome 2 has no chance if they keep this up.

 

[Elvaril]

Definitely Rome. It was fantastic. Spent hundreds of hours playing it and actually bought the game three times because the first two times my brother broke the disc. Currently in the middle of a Germania campaign where the Julii just betrayed and invaded. Lost one city and am on the verge of taking it back before pushing South.
After that I would have to say Medieval II. Only problem I have with it is that I wish that the Vikings were available as a Pagan culture. Still, kind of got bored with MII until I found a fantastic mod for the Britannia Kingdoms campaign called "Rule Britannia." I played that one a ton.
Never really got into the later games. Played the America intro and then tried to do an India campaign only to get about 10 turns away from victory before the game crashes every time. I have won the campaign. All that I need to do is wait the turns out and I win and it always crashes. Pisses me off so much. Played the intro for Napoleon and turned it off. Can't remember why.
As for Shogun II, I would have loved to play it. I have the game and almost all the DLC downloaded from Steam. Only problem is that my laptop is not nearly good enough to run it well. Which makes me terrified for Rome II, because I want to play it so badly but there is absolutely no way that my laptop will be able to run it.

 

[srm79]

Rome, without question. I play with a mod called Roma Surrectum II which is basically a complete rebuild of the game from the ground up. The building tree is significantly improved, more planning is required when establishing cities as economic or military strongholds, the unit tree is massively overhauled as well. Post-Marian units end up as being accurately named and numbered Legions, specific to where they are recruited from.

It also pretties up the visuals and terrain becomes much more of a factor due to the improvements to the tactical maps. Seriously, no matter how good Rome 2 turns out, I'll be frankly stunned if it tops Roma Surrectum II in any way other than graphically.

 

[The Harkinator]

I'll admit, this decision is made without mods. If I was taking mods into account I would choose Medieval II with Stainless Steel 6.4 (Or Medieval III as I like to call it) and SSMAP.

Without mods I choose Empire: Total War. I bought the game a couple of years after release when many of the problems had been fixed and I loved it for one reason: The scale. I loved being able to have multiple wars going on multiple continents against multiple foes in various different ways. Naval battles, artillery that works well and the devolution of construction to small towns were all things I liked (though I think some of them are more of a mirror of historical context) and while I did think the battles required less inventive thinking most of the time (use the cavalry to beat the artillery, use the artillery to damage the line, use the line to out-line their line and kill survivors with the cavalry) I still love the game.

 

[Radoh]

I'm going to have to go with Empire because it isn't nearly as bugged or slowed down as the others I've played in the series.
Though considering how often people laud Rome I may have to play that at some point.

 

[Christopher Fisher]

Rome: great game, but didn't have so many of the features that I love that were introduced later on such as trade ports
Medieval 2: I loved the setting, but the enemy AI was too damn annoying. I can't count how many times an enemy faction would just randomly declare war on me and blockade my ports. The expansion were a little better, and I loved the introduction of forts
Empire: another amazing game. It was just a little too big imo, and so many of the units felt useless. It also didn't have nearly as tight of gunplay as Shogun 2.
Shogun 2: definitely my favorite. The combat just feels excellent. The graphics are gorgeous. I love the smaller scale, and Fall of the Samurai--with its railroads and naval bombardment--was utter genius. And best of all: they brought back the assassination scenes!! I loved those so much in the first Shogun...which is probably the reason I loved the second one so much--it just felt like an amazing return to the game's roots, but with all the amazing additions that were added later.

 

[Alssadar]

As much as I like Rome, and for how much time I've spent on it, I prefer Medieval 2.
The two-town system was an interesting balance between military and economics/tech, and the many different sub-campaigns are a blast for different experiences (NORWEGIAN BRITTANIA!).
Sure, the majority of the armies play the same, but there's still a good amount of variation between all of them with separate army lists. The troops also fight longer, which allows for interesting strategies as the knights slog it out between each other.
For a personal perspective, Medieval is a bit more dark in the color scheme, which often makes the battles seem grittier and more tense, instead of Rome's never ending sunlight.
Besides, I like having Cavalry that can charge the back of a spear formation without taking 25% losses. Seriously.

 

[BlazeRaider]

As much as I like Rome, and for how much time I've spent on it, I prefer Medieval 2.
The two-town system was an interesting balance between military and economics/tech, and the many different sub-campaigns are a blast for different experiences (NORWEGIAN BRITTANIA!).
Sure, the majority of the armies play the same, but there's still a good amount of variation between all of them with separate army lists. The troops also fight longer, which allows for interesting strategies as the knights slog it out between each other.
For a personal perspective, Medieval is a bit more dark in the color scheme, which often makes the battles seem grittier and more tense, instead of Rome's never ending sunlight.
Besides, I like having Cavalry that can charge the back of a spear formation without taking 25% losses. Seriously.

I think your crazy (about the colour scheme)! Just look at these BAMFs, they look positively FABULOUS.

Not that I played Parthia anyway, I always went with Carthage, endless hordes of mercenaries ftw! Go ahead, kill them all, your just saving me a pretty penny!