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I bought this game on the strength of previous reviews, and overall, I can say I was not disappointed. The level of detail is remarkable, especially for the individual battles, and the game throws you variations on weather conditions and landscapes. On the master campaign map, things were a bit clunky when having to wait for turns to finish (but I believe this can be turned off to speed things up). I had minimal lag while playing, despite using a 2.8 GHz P4, 1GB, and a Radeon 9880 video card.
I cannot count the number of times that I have been doing an important battle and the game suddenly exits due to an "unspecified error." It would be a fun game if it worked correctly, but the bugs make it unplayable. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. There are so many bugs. The Timurids are especially buggy and you shouldn't expect to ever be able to fight your own battles against them. Don't buy this game unless you want to resolve all of your battles as "automatically resolved."Overall: A bad game.
Factions that you are allied with will frequently abandon the alliance and attack for no reason. That's kind of cool, except that the enemy merchants are way more likely to succeed than the player. This is one of the more aggravating games I've played. Which is all ok, except that you're always fighting on every front regardless of diplomacy efforts. Makes it almost impossible to conquer the required number of settlements in the time alotted.I really don't find this game any fun at all. It's definitely harder than other TW games too. That adds a bit of realism, but it's really aggravating to finally start making some headway and have a horde show up and take everything.You can raise Merchants, and merchants can seize eachother's assets.
That's probably the single most annoying part of the game. First, diplomacy is pointless. Aggravating.Then there's the Pope. Money is harder to raise, you're limited in the number of units you can create per turn, etc. And then other factions will appear at the edges of the map, such as the Mongols and Timurs. You'll be getting attacked by a faction, defend yourself, and when you counter attack the Pope will issue a decree to "cease hostilities." If you ignore him, your faction will be excommunicated and your cities will revolt. I'm glad someone gave it to me so I didn't spend my own money on it.
You will find yourself in massive battles in nothing flat. I became addicted to TOTAL WAR ROME quickly, so I was really happy when MEDIEVIL 2 came out, and I wasn't disappointed. The graphics are great, the AI is smart, and the interface is easy. Works best on high-powered systems, so that you can turn up the graphics and really watch the blood fly. Easily one of my favorite games, and I've played a LOT of them.
The next turn something that beyond their vision is now close enough to see, and it's blocking their path. Where you can go spend $60 on a console game and beat it in ten hours, you really get your moneys worth out of this. So, you'll tell your unit to move and they will suddenly take a huge long path that would take several moves to complete. When the enemy decide to run for their lives that's when you want to send your Calvary to mow them all down.
Maybe I'm not making enough money to upgrade cities or purchase troops. Well, the very next turn they can't see that unit blocking their path anymore, sot they'll go that way again, and again it's blocked. But, that is what makes it so great. Sometimes you don't notice another unit is blocking your path, or you see it but think there is plenty of room to go around. So, your troops will just ride around in that gap never getting close to either, instead of just picking one and going after it. You'll tell your units to head to point A, and they'll move as far as they can for that turn. But, often the enemy get spread out and your troops just run around in the middle of them doing nothing.
It doesn't really do anything to their abilities. I've only played the "grand campaign", and have had to do several Google searches for information for explanations to things that weren't covered fully in the manual. Not all the graphic goodies are turned all the way up, or on for that matter (vegetation), but it still looks amazing and runs very smooth unless it's a very large battle.It is a rather complicated game. Very minor frustration though.One thing that does really frustrate me is on the turn based part of the game, your units have very bad pathing. I would have liked to seen archers and artillery have slightly faster reload times and accuracy.
You'll send them to attack a town of another Catholic nation, and suddenly the Pope tells you if you attack them you will be excommunicated, and you can't attack them for X amount of turns. Near as I can tell, all it really does is give them a better attack rating or armor rating. At first I would let the computer decide the outcome of battles as I had no clue what I was doing. You can have only two enemy troops left to kill, but one got hung up on the castle gate and they are spread apart by say 200 meters. I chuckle a lot at the things my units say. The troops are detailed (probably more so if I were on a better computer), and they move very well. Your commander will give a little speech before a battle to bolster the men.
I'm so addicted to this game. Plus the land around them tended to be spread out so travel time was greatly increased, making hard to win in under 250 turns.It can be a very difficult game. Which is rather worthless for archers or artillery which don't normally get into hand to hand combat. They were fun to listen to at first, but now I tend to skip them just because the speeches are pretty much the same.Your units can benefit from battles by gaining experience. It's really bad if you need them to defend a city that is under attack.The paths that your units will choose to take are not marked. The sound of the French crying for mercy before you execute them as prisoners is one of my favorites.
Makes you wish there was an "undo" button somewhere on the game.Every game is different. So, they'll turn around and go back to go around them. But, slowly I learned and it is truly the battles that make this game stand out from normal turn based games like the Civilization series.The battles are amazing and I sometimes find myself with this odd euphoria after a grand comeback. I don't know how authentic the accent is, but it is amusing. I'm running it on a Sony Vaio laptop (Has a somewhat weak Nvidia graphics card, not an integrated card) and it generally runs very well.
Expect some false starts until you get a game worth playing.The voice acting is really good. This can go on for several turns. They have a new one coming out that is Civil War themed, think I'll have to try that. Well, you only have about 250 turns to win the game, so that can be quite a burden when you have to wait 6 turns here, 5 turns there before you can attack them. A friend of mine gave it to me when he found it too complicated, and I can't pull myself away from it. I think that would have added to the feel of the game.The religious aspect of the game can be a hindrance. You'll find yourself spending a few turns making troops and gathering them together.
Maybe I find myself under attack by many strong factions and am always on the defense without a chance to do much else.
I tried playing as the Moors and Russians as they aren't Catholic nations to avoid this, but they tended to have rather weak troops.
And, it seems like I can play the same faction the same way, and one time I'm broke, and another time I have enough to do what I need to do.
Although the AI can be somewhat lackluster.
It is filled with a lot of nuances and can be quite complicated.
A line showing what path they plan on taking before you committed to the move would be nice.
I find myself having a lot of false starts.
Being excommunicated can cause rioting in your cities.
Even if it was free:) I've been playing this game pretty solid for about three weeks now, and feel there is still a lot of life in it.
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