Poll: Which Total War game would you recommend?
- Thread starter Zhukov
- Start date
Medieval 2 is the apex of the series. That's as good as it's gotten. It's a direct upgrade over Rome, gets everything more or less right. The earlier games feel stripped down in comparison. Empire is a mess, not just in bugs, but in design as well. Also, the AI took a nosedive at that point.
Shogun 2 is the second best game in the series and should be your choice if Medieval 2 feels dated in the technical department. A very good game, though limited in scope and with very limited unit variety (everyone has pretty much the same stuff).
That only leaves the fresh new Rome 2, but by all reports the AI is at the level of a lobotomized snail and it's almost as bug-ridden as Empire, so I'd hold off on that one for a while.
Shogun 2 is the second best game in the series and should be your choice if Medieval 2 feels dated in the technical department. A very good game, though limited in scope and with very limited unit variety (everyone has pretty much the same stuff).
That only leaves the fresh new Rome 2, but by all reports the AI is at the level of a lobotomized snail and it's almost as bug-ridden as Empire, so I'd hold off on that one for a while.
Maybe its not worth starting then?[/quote]Zhukov said:
What, because I don't want to play 5 long arse games, not to mention expansions, back-to-back?
Sadly, I do have to turn up to work from time to time, not to mention eat and sleep.[/quote]
No, if you dont want to spend more than 3 hours in the game before you loose interest.
Err.. who said anything about 3 hours?Strazdas said:
All he's said is that he doesn't want to splash out for the Master Collection and then spend the next few months not playing anything else. Which is fine - I'm about as big a Total War fanboy as you can get, but I probably wouldn't do a marathon of all of them without wanting to play something else at some point in the several months that would take.
And there's no point in paying £60 or whatever if he isn't sure he'll like the games. It's a great franchise, but they aren't for everyone so why take the risk? Far more sensible to start with one, then get the collection later if it's enjoyed. Hence the thread.
I'm gonna say Shogun 2.
I don't know what everyone's talking about when they say "Rock, paper, scissors." I didn't get any of that, and I crushed it on legendary--couple times. Yeah, some unit types fare better against other unit types, but playing smart is always superior to whatever bonuses the units get against other units.
Samurai are strong, yes, which is why you don't fight armies full of samurai on even footing on the higher difficulties. You always make sure you have the advantage; i.e. more units, or you're defending from a fort. And if you're playing on the lower difficulties, you can do basically whatever you want, so again, "Rock, paper, scissors"--moot. All of the TW games have had some sort of "Unit X beats unit Y" mechanic such as yari > cavalry, and it's not a bad thing. I don't know why Shogun 2 is getting singled out.
There are are some issues with it, but they're few & far between.
-Sea battles are, honestly, pretty lame. There's just not much to 'em, and they're extremely boring. UNLESS you go Nanban... Nanban is super fun!
-Enemy army compositions are sometimes a little whacky. Like occasionally you'll go up against a squad of, say, 2 samurai, 1 general, and 17 bow samurai. They have no chance of winning, but you've no chance of not sustaining extremely heavy losses. It's like a kamikaze attack, but with no follow up. This comes back to the hit-or-miss AI that's been present in, well, every TW game.
-The Realm Divide mechanic is a little silly. If you've been allied with someone--or someone's been your vassal--since the beginning of the game, it doesn't really make sense for them to turn on you, especially if you're much stronger. But they still do it, although sometimes they'll give you a few extra turns.
-Choosing how to level up your generals pretty much always goes the same way. Leveling them up as melee combatants just doesn't work on anything but the lowest difficulty settings, which is kind of a shame. If any TW game was begging for kick ass, Dynasty Warriors-esque generals, it's Shogun 2.
-Diplomacy is kind of stupid at times. There were some memorable diplomatic moments in one of my legendary campaigns... towards the end of the game, I had a treasury of about 50k and about 40 provinces. Otomo, who owned 6 provinces, had virtually no income and was at war with pretty much everyone (including me), continually asked (talking almost every turn) for the ENTIRETY of my treasury in exchange for a trade agreement that would've made me about 300 income per turn, and a peace treaty...
That's more or less all that really frustrated me about it, but I may be forgetting some stuff. Now onto the good stuff.
+"Hey, everybody, I'm a ninja! I'm doing ninja stuff now!" PLUS! CGI assassination cinematics.
+Samurai. Samurai everywhere.
+Graphics scale well, and you can even scale how many units are in each squad.
+Zooming in and watching the action unfold is not unlike watching a movie. As long you have the blood pack. Though, you probably won't be doing this much on higher difficulties.
Honestly, I'm realizing, everything that's good about it is more or less what's good about other TW games, but Shogun 2 just does it real well, and in my opinion, has the fewest flaws. The learning curve is solid. You'll suck at everything at first, but you'll get better. The tutorial is solid, too.
I don't know what everyone's talking about when they say "Rock, paper, scissors." I didn't get any of that, and I crushed it on legendary--couple times. Yeah, some unit types fare better against other unit types, but playing smart is always superior to whatever bonuses the units get against other units.
Samurai are strong, yes, which is why you don't fight armies full of samurai on even footing on the higher difficulties. You always make sure you have the advantage; i.e. more units, or you're defending from a fort. And if you're playing on the lower difficulties, you can do basically whatever you want, so again, "Rock, paper, scissors"--moot. All of the TW games have had some sort of "Unit X beats unit Y" mechanic such as yari > cavalry, and it's not a bad thing. I don't know why Shogun 2 is getting singled out.
There are are some issues with it, but they're few & far between.
-Sea battles are, honestly, pretty lame. There's just not much to 'em, and they're extremely boring. UNLESS you go Nanban... Nanban is super fun!
-Enemy army compositions are sometimes a little whacky. Like occasionally you'll go up against a squad of, say, 2 samurai, 1 general, and 17 bow samurai. They have no chance of winning, but you've no chance of not sustaining extremely heavy losses. It's like a kamikaze attack, but with no follow up. This comes back to the hit-or-miss AI that's been present in, well, every TW game.
-The Realm Divide mechanic is a little silly. If you've been allied with someone--or someone's been your vassal--since the beginning of the game, it doesn't really make sense for them to turn on you, especially if you're much stronger. But they still do it, although sometimes they'll give you a few extra turns.
-Choosing how to level up your generals pretty much always goes the same way. Leveling them up as melee combatants just doesn't work on anything but the lowest difficulty settings, which is kind of a shame. If any TW game was begging for kick ass, Dynasty Warriors-esque generals, it's Shogun 2.
-Diplomacy is kind of stupid at times. There were some memorable diplomatic moments in one of my legendary campaigns... towards the end of the game, I had a treasury of about 50k and about 40 provinces. Otomo, who owned 6 provinces, had virtually no income and was at war with pretty much everyone (including me), continually asked (talking almost every turn) for the ENTIRETY of my treasury in exchange for a trade agreement that would've made me about 300 income per turn, and a peace treaty...
That's more or less all that really frustrated me about it, but I may be forgetting some stuff. Now onto the good stuff.
+"Hey, everybody, I'm a ninja! I'm doing ninja stuff now!" PLUS! CGI assassination cinematics.
+Samurai. Samurai everywhere.
+Graphics scale well, and you can even scale how many units are in each squad.
+Zooming in and watching the action unfold is not unlike watching a movie. As long you have the blood pack. Though, you probably won't be doing this much on higher difficulties.
Honestly, I'm realizing, everything that's good about it is more or less what's good about other TW games, but Shogun 2 just does it real well, and in my opinion, has the fewest flaws. The learning curve is solid. You'll suck at everything at first, but you'll get better. The tutorial is solid, too.
Shogun 2, while it doesn't have the truly grand scope of some of the others I enjoy the focused play and easy to follow unit progression. Basically I've never played a Total War as "fully" as I've played Shogun 2. It also easily has the prettiest presentation with its calligraphy ink drawings, woodcut paintings etc.
Also... I just love Samurai...
Also... I just love Samurai...
Medieval 2 is the high point of the series, but Rome 1 is close, with tons of mods and variety to keep you coming back for more.
Shogun 2 is a beautiful game, polished to a mirror's shine, though it lacks the variety and therefore some of the re-playability of earlier outings.
Rome 2... is just okay. It will get better once they patch the broken AI and glitches, and optimize the graphics, although I fear the UI will always be a hideous mess.
I would rate them thusly: Medi2 > Rome1/Shogun2 > Medi1/Shogun1 > Rome2/Empire
Although I expect Rome 2 to eventually move up the ranks.
Shogun 2 is a beautiful game, polished to a mirror's shine, though it lacks the variety and therefore some of the re-playability of earlier outings.
Rome 2... is just okay. It will get better once they patch the broken AI and glitches, and optimize the graphics, although I fear the UI will always be a hideous mess.
I would rate them thusly: Medi2 > Rome1/Shogun2 > Medi1/Shogun1 > Rome2/Empire
Although I expect Rome 2 to eventually move up the ranks.
Bizarrely, one of the best reviews I've seen of the game so far has been from Kotaku, of all places.SmashLovesTitanQuest said:
Medieval 2 and Rome 1 are probably the safest bets. Easy to run on a computer, and the most highly moddable out of the various games. and there are a lot of good mods for those two games-you are getting a lot more than one game by buying either of these games. By contrast the more modern games are severely limited in the complexity and number of mods available.
why is everyone saying empire is broken. The game isnt broken bloody rome fanboys. Rome total war 1 was great ages ago now all you see are little red blops on the maps and its incredibly dated.
Why dont you play myth II
every time zhukov I mention this and I totally forgot to mention myth II as the best real tactical stratergy ever made. Oh and its about the same price as rome total war, more mofications free downloadable content with a nice multiplayer community.
Otherwise ignore these Empire total war haters, you get this mod with empire total war the game is amazingly one of the best total war games. Vanillia is fixed also so unless anyone here has something specific they want to say is broken ill shoot them down like a AA gunner.
Also the mod adds music battle marches, so listening to the british grenadiers drumming while you gun down French line infantry is so satisfying.
this is what im talking about with the music, just really gets you into that imperialistic mood. Unlike boring Rome where you get some sodding General talk about how he is going to stab those pesky barbarians.
Why dont you play myth II
every time zhukov I mention this and I totally forgot to mention myth II as the best real tactical stratergy ever made. Oh and its about the same price as rome total war, more mofications free downloadable content with a nice multiplayer community.Otherwise ignore these Empire total war haters, you get this mod with empire total war the game is amazingly one of the best total war games. Vanillia is fixed also so unless anyone here has something specific they want to say is broken ill shoot them down like a AA gunner.
Also the mod adds music battle marches, so listening to the british grenadiers drumming while you gun down French line infantry is so satisfying.
this is what im talking about with the music, just really gets you into that imperialistic mood. Unlike boring Rome where you get some sodding General talk about how he is going to stab those pesky barbarians.
The original Rome isn't bad by any means, it hold up incredibly well today. The AI is pretty good, there's tons of depth, your computer should be more than capable of playing it, and there are plenty of mods and expansions. The graphics hold up very well too. It also won't break the bank. The older titles before Rome were good for their time, but they had some mechanics issues that Rome fixed, so any game from Rome onward is brilliant. Either that or Medieval 2 I'd say. If you change your mind you can always get the whole pack on sale later, and Rome 2 will probably have an expansion by then.Zhukov said:
It depends on whether you like melee-focused or gunpowder-focused combat. I would personally recommend either Empire: Total War for the shear number of campaign map possibilities, or Napoleon: Total War because I feel that it has the best combat in the series.
I'm really not a fan of Rome: Total War to be honest. I know that is basically sacrilege for a hardcore Total War fan, but it is just kind of boring. Maybe it is because I played it years after it came out, so I never had the same connection to it that some people have.
I'm really not a fan of Rome: Total War to be honest. I know that is basically sacrilege for a hardcore Total War fan, but it is just kind of boring. Maybe it is because I played it years after it came out, so I never had the same connection to it that some people have.
Rome 1, Medieval 1, Medieval 2, Shogun 2 for me in that order. Still waiting on Rome 2 to arrive in my box. I already heard the complaints about the AI, hopefully it will be patched by the time I get it. Rome 1 in particular had the best soundtrack ever.
Some of my favourites.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkRgWU1FS3U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4sNBfbbBDg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo84RJsHgQQ
Some of my favourites.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkRgWU1FS3U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4sNBfbbBDg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo84RJsHgQQ