Best Total War?

[Agesilaus]

Original Medieval. Original Rome.

 

[Severian Silk]

I have never played a TW.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Best original vanilla experience, modding scene and user-friendly modding: Medieval 2

LAUGHING
MY
FUCKING
ASS
OFF

Get the fuck out bro

 

[Raapys]

Medieval 1 by some margin. Board game feel is great and prevents excessive micromanagement, and end turn times are acceptable.

 

[A horse of course]

Best original vanilla experience, modding scene and user-friendly modding: Medieval 2

LAUGHING
MY
FUCKING
ASS
OFF

Get the fuck out bro

Compared to what?

 

[---]

Medieval II.

 

[dag0net]

Best original vanilla experience, modding scene and user-friendly modding: Medieval 2

LAUGHING
MY
FUCKING
ASS
OFF

Get the fuck out bro

Compared to what?

m2 once it was patched was fun, but 'original vanilla' it was a steaming pile of shit, nearly every unit interaction was broken in some way or another.

S1 I haven't replayed in so long I wouldn't trust myself to comment.
M1 was rapturous at the time. From the score to the differences between factions well.. one of the sexiest releases of all time imo, borked in it's own ways, but in those days nobody pretended they were simulating reality in the first place, so... <3 VI was a decent enough diversion..
R1 was satisfying, micro more dynamic, BI was quite excellent also.

R2 doesn't do anything better than R1 did.
Empire & Napo I never really got into enough to really comment, but that's because most of the appeal of the wars of the period [to me] are not even factored into the game.
S2 with it's "off shore bombardments" with pinpoint accuracy and numerous magic powers they gave units and commanders was a pile of horseshit. I don't have a single favorable memory of S2.

Ruhm und Ehre!

 

[HeroicBloodshed]

Rome 1 was far and away the best, just about every faction had truly unique aspects (instead of production bonuses or cheaper special units). Also, the AI didnt suck as much ass as previous entries.

I have some serious nostalgia for Shogun 1 though, game had a really cool atmosphere.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Best original vanilla experience, modding scene and user-friendly modding: Medieval 2

LAUGHING
MY
FUCKING
ASS
OFF

Get the fuck out bro

Compared to what?

m2 once it was patched was fun, but 'original vanilla' it was a steaming pile of shit, nearly every unit interaction was broken in some way or another.

Sieges were broken, overland AI was broken, any monopoly broke the economy, skirmish AI was stupid and poor ininitely more than in previous releases. This isn't even talking about diplomacy or scripted invasions

 

[dag0net]

yeah, that too. almost exclusively played mp tho so they didn't grate quite so much.

 

[oldmanpaco]

What I miss most about ME1 is the Glorious Achievement stuff. Much more satisfying than conquest victory.

 

[Lone Wolf]

It's interesting that posterity has given Rome 1 this reputation for excellence, whereas I remember how people reacted to the release. There was a lot of anger and a lot of bitterness. They called it arcade-y and a decline from Medieval 1. The teeth gnashing over the demo battle (Rome vs Carthage) was something to see.

 

[dag0net]

well, for a lot of peeps that had a lot to do with spending 2 hours to get one 15 minute mp game started, let alone completed thru desynchs and assorted crashes.
for others it had a lot to do with unit an faction balance which was even more shocking than how it ended up
for others it was simply that it was felt entirely different to the more err.. controlled.. battles and strategy of mtw,.

in mtw your army can go where it can go, it can't where it can't. none of this "oh crap, my army took a dumbass path around a river crosssing" and etc
some stuff in rtw got pretty crazy, like benefiting from depopulating your cities in mass army recruitment drives, yanno, which didn't factor into the more boardgamey mtw.
autoresolves which had chariots annihilating absolutely anything, i don't remember the demo with any clarity at all tho, have to say.

rtw wasn't what many ppl expected/wanted it to be, so annoyance ensued...and in part it drew an entirely different type of gamer.

 

[oldmanpaco]

It's interesting that posterity has given Rome 1 this reputation for excellence,

Its just that no one has played R1 without mods for many years. Its sort of like how people remember BG2. I cannot even remember what BG2 is like without SCS and I cannot remember R1 without EB. The base game and mods merge in memory after a while.

 

[JarlFrank]

Rome 1 and Medieval 2 because mods.

Seriously, just get mods and play the game for many hours, until you finally grow tired of the engine's quirks.

 

[JarlFrank]

It's interesting that posterity has given Rome 1 this reputation for excellence,

Its just that no one has played R1 without mods for many years. Its sort of like how people remember BG2. I cannot even remember what BG2 is like without SCS and I cannot remember R1 without EB. The base game and mods merge in memory after a while.

I replayed vanilla Rome two years ago, after having played nothing but mods for years, and was surprised at how silly it all was. I played Rome Total Realism, Europa Barbarorum, Roma Surrectum II, Invasio Barbarorum: Somnium Apostatae Iuliani (one of my favourites because I have a boner for the era), as well as some other non-Roman mods like Chivalry, Aristeia, Fourth Age...
I had played Barbarian Invasion vanilla not too long before that, which also influenced my vanilla memories.

Goddamn, Barbarian Invasion is such a GIGANTIC improvement upon vanilla Rome, it's unbelievable. Atmosphere, challenge, diversity of playstyles, everything is just so vastly superior.

Vanilla Rome... well, color-coded Romans and burning pigs are the least ridiculous things about it.

 

[Akratus]

Oh you mean Lackluster Empire Management and Lack of Fun once your Army Snowballs: The Videogame Series?

 

[muds_animal_friend]

It's interesting that posterity has given Rome 1 this reputation for excellence, whereas I remember how people reacted to the release. There was a lot of anger and a lot of bitterness. They called it arcade-y and a decline from Medieval 1

I can still remember my own personal ass ache like it was yesterday. Rome 1 marked the beginning of CA's love affair with ramping up the speed of battle resolution over each iteration of their games (Empire excepted, which had bigger problems), and the corresponding eternal battle of modders to slow down combat. Medieval 1 wasn't perfect, but it was the last vanilla TW where the combat speed allowed for some battlefield simulation: maneuver phase where armies jockeyed for the most advantageous position, a skirmish phase, first melee contact, flanking and counter flanking, holding back reserves because fatigue actually mattered, deploying reserves/withdrawing fatigued units, extended mopping up phase where it was possible for the enemy to regroup in force.

 

[A horse of course]

Ruhm und Ehre!

'Vanilla' means without mods, not unpatched, and 'original' means 'not including the addons'. I'm well aware of the problems on release as I was unable to progress in the campaign due to the Timurid elephant bug.

It's interesting that posterity has given Rome 1 this reputation for excellence, whereas I remember how people reacted to the release. There was a lot of anger and a lot of bitterness. They called it arcade-y and a decline from Medieval 1

I can still remember my own personal ass ache like it was yesterday. Rome 1 marked the beginning of CA's love affair with ramping up the speed of battle resolution over each iteration of their games (Empire excepted, which had bigger problems), and the corresponding eternal battle of modders to slow down combat. Medieval 1 wasn't perfect, but it was the last vanilla TW where the combat speed allowed for some battlefield simulation: maneuver phase where armies jockeyed for the most advantageous position, a skirmish phase, first melee contact, flanking and counter flanking, holding back reserves because fatigue actually mattered, deploying reserves/withdrawing fatigued units, extended mopping up phase where it was possible for the enemy to regroup in force.

Yeah, Rome added a lot of interesting stuff but it was the first of the games to have the Speedy Gonzalez chain-rout battles that Medieval 2 scaled back slightly - before they came screaming back with a vengeance in Shogun 2. Playing a very early version of the SPQR mod with slow-paced battles was like experiencing a completely different game. Also, Rome was frankly extremely boring as any faction other than Rome ( and even then only played as a map-painting simulator). The diplomacy was absolute trash (even compared to the extremely low standards of later games), the agents infuriating (watching the fucking diplomats trying to bribe your settlement 3000 times per turn), the civil disobedience mechanic idiotic, and the 'characters' utterly meaningless since there were about 30 of them and they died of old age so quickly anyway.

 

[Beastro]

Also, Rome was frankly extremely boring as any faction other than Rome ( and even then only played as a map-painting simulator).

For me it was Pontus with Phalanx, imitation legionaries and heavy cav with a good start position to expand from, just had to hire a ton of Creten Archers for your ranged, but that was RTR.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

Medieval 2.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

By the way: How is EB 2 coming along, did someone here test out the newest patch/iteration?

EB2 is really fucking good. It's still obviously not finished, since some factions (namely KH and Macedon) have retarded starting positions that are obviously only hard because the campaign isn't properly balanced yet. What they've presented so far though is of pretty damn high quality and I expect it's only going to improve with more updates.

I had some fun playing skirmish battles against a couple of my friends. My opinion on balance doesn't mean very much, but the game seems to really want you to use the really Legio-like units. So, like real life for the time period in other words.

 

[Raapys]

Rome 1 and Medieval 2 because mods.

Seriously, just get mods and play the game for many hours, until you finally grow tired of the engine's quirks.

It's been ages since I played Rome, but I did try Medieval 2 with Stainless Steel a year or two ago. How anyone can play it is beyond me. With a 4ghz intel CPU, a few turns in I'd have turn processing times of 20-30 seconds. In the worst cases it would take several minutes. Completely unplayable.

 

[JarlFrank]

Rome 1 and Medieval 2 because mods.

Seriously, just get mods and play the game for many hours, until you finally grow tired of the engine's quirks.

It's been ages since I played Rome, but I did try Medieval 2 with Stainless Steel a year or two ago. How anyone can play it is beyond me. With a 4ghz intel CPU, a few turns in I'd have turn processing times of 20-30 seconds. In the worst cases it would take several minutes. Completely unplayable.

Play in a borderless window

Alt-tab into your browser or whatever when enemy turns are processing

 

[Maggot]

Medieval 1. Medieval 2 for TC mods.