Towns are large, open areas, very susceptible to attack but capable of producing a greater financial benefit to your empire. Where the previous game offered a single generic settlement type, Medieval II requires players to plan out what types of settlements they'd like to develop. One of Medieval II's most important new concepts is the distinction it draws between castle and town settlements. There's even a small side trip you can take to battle the Aztecs in the Americas. The grand campaign covers several centuries, from longbows to cannons, and lets fight and conspire with nations from England to Egpyt, Portugal to Poland.

This time around players will be returning to the Age of Chivalry - when knights went crusading in the Holy Land, when Italian city-states warred against each other with hired mercenaries, when succession crises provoked kings to make war upon their neighbors. What's more impressive is that both aspects of the game are well integrated into a cohesive whole. On the other hand it offers intense real-time battles that capture the cinematic pageantry and intense savagery of warfare. On the one hand, it offers a turn-based strategic game where you manage the development of your settlements, handle foreign relations, create and move armies around the map. The Total War series gives players the best of both worlds. There are a few new touches here and there that are worth investigating, as well as some substantial improvements in the graphics department. In terms of the overall gameplay, there aren't that many surprises here for fans of the series. The new sequel takes the basic package of Rome and revisits the basic campaign setting of the original Medieval: Total War. This is not the revolutionary leap forward we saw in Rome: Total War. It should come as no surprise then that the latest in the series, Medieval II: Total War, is an undeniably thrilling strategy experience.īe warned, however. Through three different iterations and a handful of expansions, the series has consistently delivered some of the most exciting and visually appealing tactical action in any strategy game, historical or otherwise.

The Total War series has yet to let us down.

Medieval 2 total war aztecs