Which total war?

[Makabb]

Which total war game is the one to play shogun 1 medieval 1 or 2 ?

 

[Galdred]

I would say Shogun 1, despite the lower unit variety, as it is the most focused.
Medieval 1 has more tedious "strategic" micromanagement, especially later on. However, if you prefer European medieval warfare, the amount of micro management is still bearable.
Medieval 2 has way too much micro management, but it seems to have some cool mods, and sieges are better than in Medieval 1 (as you can scale walls, and not only destroy them or breach the door).
so I would say :
for the battles :
Medieval 2> medieval 1 > Shogun 1
for the strategic layer being bearable :
Shogun 1> medieval 1 > medieval 2.
That said, I didn't play medieval 2 that much so I might be off.

 

[Makabb]

Yea it sometimes feel the later games add unecessary stuff like with dungeon keeper 2 and the first game is from the original creators mind. I played Rome 1 but i can't say that i loved it, i'll try shogun 1.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Rome.

 

[cw8]

Played TW since the first Medieval. But my favourite has always been Medieval 2 with or without mods. Waiting for Med 3, whenever it comes.

 

[Raghar]

Which total war game is the one to play shogun 1 medieval 1 or 2 ?

What's question is that?

Empire 1.6 pirated edition.

 

[Monocause]

I say start with older TW titles as the newer introduce some interface improvements that you get used to FAST and it's really an annoyance to go back and struggle without improved group controls (yes, while CA fucked up plenty of things in newer titles the controls were one thing they were steadily refining and improving)

 

[racofer]

GD

 

[Tigranes]

Shogun 1 is focused. MTW1 is a flawed gem which brings out the ambition of TW best. Rome already starts the decline but can be very fun, esp. with Europa Barbarorum. Ignore the rest until you're done with them. If you really need more, then look to Shogun 2 and modded TW2.

 

[Declinator]

Battles are what Total Wars are all about and Medieval 1 battle AI is greatly inferior to that of Medieval 2 so Medieval 2 is better than Medieval 1.

Rome 1 is very similar to Medieval 2 but Medieval 2 does feature a slightly improved AI which is further improved by Stainless Steel mod.

If one could only play one Total War then I would probably still recommend Rome because I think ancient Rome as a setting has more universal appeal and because the papal system in MTW2 is annoying.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Medieval 2 is a piece of shit, do not listen to any of the clueless posters recommending it. By far the most buggy one, worse than Empire when it comes to the battle map. You will quickly get nausea from the sluggishness of unit movements.

If you want a 3D total war get Shogun2, Fall of the Samurai or Rome1. If you don't mind 2D and aren't interested in mods, get Medieval 1.

Ignore Empire, Napoleon and Rome 2.

In Medieval 2 they messed up unsuccessfully the Rome 1 engine by trying to add more unit animations. Something happened with the collision and weight systems. The result is that the individual's soldiers pathfinding is completely messed up, so you get results like a unit of elite infantry dying to peasant levies and a cavalry charge being broken by a thousand invisible rock or a single soldier. There is some sort of entropy which encourages soldiers to spread backward in a fight and stay away as much as possible form the thin spread frontline. The more they spread the more sluggish the unit as a whole becomes to a point where the unit will not move at all.
When things go farther, half a unit is stuck in a permanent mental limbo, acting like a drag for the entire unit, being unable to engage anything and be engaged by the enemy.

This is why the warscape engine was created and they've kept it since Empire. They completely removed the unit collision factor because they were incapable to code it properly with their new animations systems and larger unit sizes. They have the soldiers lock on each other to the death, which leads to what critics call individual duels for this reason as well.

 

[KoolNoodles]

The only answer, if you had to pick one, is MTW2 + Kingdoms. It refined what Rome was trying to do in almost every way, and the mod support is astronomical(even much better than RTW). The battle AI is competent(with mods), the campaign AI can be very hard(with mods), and the graphics(with mods) hold up extremely well for such an old game. There is nothing that RTW does better than MTW2. It's the same engine, except improved(after patching and mods). Yeah, sometimes the micro can get tedious, but you are playing a strategy game. Deal with it.

 

[leferd]

Shogun 2 is probably the best polished of the series, being solid in both the strategic and tactical elements, and it has fantastic presentation.

The amount of flair in the cutscenes is impressive.

 

[A user named cat]

Medieval 1 by a landslide, just make sure to use the resolution fix and button fix. Series declined massively when it ditched the flat 2D Risk board style campaign map which not only made managing and moving units between nations a lot easier, but also was just much more atmospheric.

If you really need 3D campaign map, then play Medieval 2 with Stainless Steel or Rome 1 with Roma Surrectum (I believe it was called). Fuck the rest.

 

[Steve]

Medieval 2 just because of the sheer amount and variety of mods. Shogun 2: Fall of the samurai if you want the best vanilla total war experience.

 

[markec]

Shogun 1 is good but Medieval 1 is by far the best one, try others later only to see how much the series have declined.

 

[Makabb]

So i've went with the proper total war

Maxed out AA and AF, now those are real graphics.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Shamefur dispray

 

[Dead Guy]

So wait, I've been out of the loop for quite a while when it comes to STW/MTW, but wasn't there some completely game-stopping shit with modern graphics cards that made it impossible to play them on modern machines?

There's a fix for that now?

Does this... does this mean I can play MTW again?

*cries*

 

[General Maxson]

How about quality fantasy mods for Total War games? Good submods can be included too.

 

[bloodlover]

How about quality fantasy mods for Total War games? Good submods can be included too.

I think there are some LOTR mods around.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/third-age-total-war for example.

 

[General Maxson]

How about quality fantasy mods for Total War games? Good submods can be included too.

I think there are some LOTR mods around.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/third-age-total-war for example.

What about submods? MOS vs. Divide & Conquer?

How about Rage of the Dark Gods (former Call of Warhammer)? Is it finished?

 

[A user named cat]

Does this... does this mean I can play MTW again?

Yep, just grab the two fixes I linked above and you should be good to go. I haven't had the game crash in ages. I'd recommend setting both the campaign and strat map at 1024x768 too because the UI doesn't scale well at higher resolutions.

 

[oscar]

How about quality fantasy mods for Total War games? Good submods can be included too.

Call of Warhammer is a nuts Russian total conversion. Fantastic maps and units (I think largely helped by "borrowing" a lot of the graphics from that awful Mark of Chaos) that even manages to include things like Steam Tanks. Some of the campaigns are actually very challenging as well.

 

[General Maxson]

How about quality fantasy mods for Total War games? Good submods can be included too.

Call of Warhammer is a nuts Russian total conversion. Fantastic maps and units (I think largely helped by "borrowing" a lot of the graphics from that awful Mark of Chaos) that even manages to include things like Steam Tanks. Some of the campaigns are actually very challenging as well.

Is that the same mod as Rage of the Dark Gods? Is it finished? Does it have quality submods?