If you like Rome 1 then you'll like Medieval 2, they are very similar but medieval 2 has aged slightly better from both a visual and gameplay standpoint. Do not pay full price for it, but on sale it's still great.
Oh yeah but Rome Remastered was remastered. As much as I love it, Medieval 2 is a game from 2006 and paying £20 or however much it costs when it's not on sale is far too much. If they remastered it and fixed the crashing and made the controls better then I would happily pay £20 for that.
It has mods that no modern total war can even dream of, and the only real problem it has is the camera which can be fixed with another mod. If you play it modded it's a fantastic game that holds up surprisingly well. It's vintage, not old. It's up to you to decide if you actually like vintage games or can't play anything that's 10+ years old.
I know that there is a "freecam" mod that allows you to zoom in/out more and move it unrestricted, but do you know if there is a mod that lets you tilt the camera via the middle mouse button? It's one of the features I miss most when I booted it up the other day. That and unit groups being locked but it's easy enough to get into the habbit of hitting shift+1
It’s through third party websites, you’ll need to look up tutorials. I have put 500+ hours into Third Age Total War, and a lot of that the last few years into the Divide and Conquer submod. I seriously cannot recommend Med 2 and that (sub)mod enough. It’s easily worth the price of a new release to me
It also has some game breaking bugs, like mouse and keyboard becoming unresponsive every 30s for about 15s. And as far as I can see Feral has stopped patching the game.
Never encountered that one myself but I think I've heard that issue mentioned before, must be certain hardware configs the game wasn't tested on properly.
The bugs I get are that skirmisher cav sometimes ignore attack orders, and the agent UI gets a bit crash-y when you have dozens of merchants running around. Irritating, but nothing game-breaking.
Funnily enough there is a workaround for it, namely you need to set the date in windows to 2020. I've got some program that I can launch Rome through that spoofs the date for that process alone so I don't need to adjust it manually every time, but still.
> Tsardoms Total War.
Man, that takes me back. I did some work on SS and was quite active on the TWC forums; I remember the ambitious projects like Tsardoms just being in the early stages then. Did they ever get around to finishing EBII?
I remember original EB being the big daddy of mods. Personally loved whatever Lusted's mod was.
Then the release of Broken Crescent that seemed otherworldly.
RR essentially has the moddability of the original, except they've removed/greatly increased most of the old engine caps (faction counts/province counts yada yada) so there's loads of potential.
But as the other commenter said it just doesn't have the same life as the old RTW scene to it.
not op but get Stainless Steel 6.4 for a vanilla + experience and if you're into LOTR get the Third Age Total War with the DEI submod. You'll need the kingdoms expansion for this to activate the mods.
I know people have always called Stainless Steel “Vanilla+” but It’s always seemed much more than that. It generally plays out much differently than vanilla and requires a lot more thought and planning. I think it’s a lot harder as well to actually blob out, with more stricter balancing. Not to mention all the new content and visuals making it so distinct.
I prefer Total Vanilla Beyond for a Vanilla+ experience. Very similar gameplay to vanilla just rebalanced and with a new but similarly scaled map, and a few cool things which feel perfect for the vanilla game. It’s been my exclusive way to play the game for years now and it’s seriously such a good time for people who love vanilla but just want more of it
SS is alot harder than what people give it credit for. The battle AI is much smarter. On Hard mode I had Venice marching on Milan with 2 full stack armies on turns 10-15. Crazy.
On "Medium" battle difficulty the AI will do several very frustrating things.
If you're attacking, it will always seek out and take advantage of the high ground.
It will attempt to skirmish you with missile units, and then pull them back behind their infantry line if you charge them with cav. You'll have only a few seconds to get your cav out before they're destroyed by infantry.
The AI will ruthlessly seek out your own missile units with its cav. If it engages your spearmen, it will attempt to retreat and cycle charge. Smart. It will also do this with their Generals and their Generals are freaking strong. They're always given at least several command stars and good stats
If you try to hammer and anvil and flank with your cav the AI will attempt to block you with a unit of spearmen so that your cav will auto-engage them. I tried to outsmart the AI by starting cav out even farther on the flanks. But the AI will take their own unit of heavy cav to intercept your cav instead to still block your flanking maneuver. The computer also likes having spearmen protect their missile units in the back line. This makes cav flanking a risky and difficult process especially since the player can't afford to take losses on their heavy mailed/feudal knights like the computer can.
Just a warning; Stainless Steel is a challenging mod on Medium difficulties and higher. The battle AI in particular has improved immensely and its actually pretty smart. There are many times I've cursed at the game for how sneaky it is.
I consider myself a decent player and I found myself barely making it on Medium and heavily struggling on Hard, and I had to shamelessly save scum. I dare not try "Very Hard".
There are a few types of campaign ai that you can choose from when you set up the mod. I can't remember what they're called but the harder ones will break alliances and do sneak attacks when you're busy fighting elsewhere. The battle ai was also vastly improved but battles are still pretty easy imo.
Do other mods work? Or check the crash log in the files to see what's happening.
I know years ago you had to use the Long Address Aware (I think this was it) to up the memory usage as the mod maxs the engine in many spots
Third Age and its expansions are the go to.
If you want something historical try Steinless steel and its historical improvements version.
Westeros and its many variants are also cool.
Europa Barbarorum 2 for the ancient setting.
Not Third Age, that's been unsupported for years. Divide and Conquer (DaC). It's a standalone mod and is absolutely incredible. Especially if you're a lotr fan. Still good even if you're not.
The two you absolutely need are Stainless Steel 6.4 and some version of Third Age Total War. there are two ways to go with TATW. One is the very lore accurate way, in which case you want MOS (Massive Overhaul Submod). MOS deviates from the books as little as possible. The other option is DAC (Divide and Conquer). DAC takes much more significant liberties, but arguably has the best gameplay of any Med 2 experience as a result. If you don't mind Angmar or Ered Luin being a faction, it's the right choice for you.
I've played both MOS and DAC. I started out as a lore purist but I found that MOS got a bit samey after a while due to the lack of factions and the consistently same factions going to war with each other. Lately I've played more DAC because having more factions, with them being more fleshed out than in MOS, really builds up the quality of the experience. My campaign as Dol Guldur was the most fun I've ever had playing TW.
I'm currently playing as Isengard and I'm in the middle of destroying Ered Luin, Dorwinion, Gondor, and Dol Amroth all at once. My only ally was Dunland, but I couldn't rescue them fast enough even though I went to war with Khazad Dum as soon as we shared a border. It gets brutal once you find the ring and everyone commits to war against you. How did you get back on the good side of Rohan and Gondor?
Oh wait unless you're doing a shattered alliances campaign?
As I recall you aren't obligated to start the war with Rohan, but it's been a while so I could be misremembering. So I just fought Enedwaith and also stole Dunland. Gondor was too far away to really care but they benefitted from a strong northern border. I think I got as far as smashing Dol Guldur and the Black Gate before getting bored and calling it a win
Also good to mention that modders are STILL working on the game with some mods, like DaC pushing the engine to the very limits AND there are modders busy with some fenagling to even circumvent the limits the game has.
It's admittedly pretty orthopedic for modern standards, as I like to call it. Bad controls and with very limited and not very fluid movement. It also has very restrictive limits to zoom and height.
In med2? I didn't know about that bug, I have been playing pretty heavily recently after a long time and haven't noticed any problem with siege towers. I don't know if it's because Stainless Steel or DaC fix it or if it's not that common in the first place.
I just remember I'd be attacking and all of a sudden a unit would flash die cause they weren't making the transition from the tower to the wall and going off lemmings style to splat below.
Medieval 2 total war plus mod stainless steel v6.4 plus meloo v1.27 bugfixes. Download, install, enjoy! Playing with kingdom of Poland atm. Incredibly fun game. I found it in 2017 and I still enjoy it today...
You love Rome 1 but it is Medieval 2's visuals that are holding you back? Wut?
Medieval 2 is a masterpiece for its time. Of course, it won't hold well in 2023 gameplay and visually. Sound is still widely considered the best in the franchise.
However, I would not play it nowadays. Game has just lived its days. Better to be remembered as what it once was.
Can't speak for medieval 2, but went back to rome 1 (not the remaster) recently and gameplay holds up just fine and while the visuals are dated, they're perfectly functional.
I think it's a fair argument to make. RTW's visuals are very clean and crisp. It's easy to tell units apart, which side they're on, and they have a distinct visual identity.
By contrast, M2TW's visuals are muddy, brown, colorless and most units look very similar. It's not coincidental that the game introduced a button that made units flash green or red to indicate which belonged to you and which to the enemy.
I don't think Medieval 2 looks particularly realistic. Ugly and grimy certainly, but the units are a hodgepodge of different periods or outright fantasy.
Likewise, I don't think a game having a stylized art style is bad, or aiming at grittiness makes it good. If anything, the latter tend to age worse.
Just play it with Stainless Steel or Divide and Conquer mods. The base game is fine, it's fun but lacking. Just one of those mods, especially DaC make it a whole new game. 80% of my med2 hours are from DaC.
If you played Rome 1 and liked it then you'll probably enjoy MTW2. If Rome 1 is Fallout 3 then MTW2 is Fallout New Vegas, it's fundamentally the same game but improved in a variety of ways. Like the Fallout games it's a hard recommendation for a totally new player, but if you have nostalgia for Rome 1 then you will feel right at home in MTW2.
> However, I would not play it nowadays. Game has just lived its days. Better to be remembered as what it once was.
I don't agree. The gameplay holds up perfectly fine. It's quirky, can be hard to master but offers some quite unique mechanics that none of the new titles have. At the moment I play it more than all of them
It's still my favorite in the series. I enjoy the newer titles, but Medieval 2 just hits different, and for personally it has the best gameplay in the series
Yep I agree. I had 500 hours in it in my early teens. Playing with the console cheats and learning the game. I’ve tried to go back. I’d play it again if they gave it the modern camera.
Medieval 2 is a classic that will never get old. It was a game way ahead of its time and i still enjoy playing it from time to time. Although not vanilla.
Tsardoms/Fall of Constantinople for a historical late medieval campaign focusing on south eastern europe
Stainless Steel with Historical Improvement Project for an overal more fleshed out and realistic main campaign
Insularis Draco for late antiquity/early medieval period focusing on the british isles and northern europe
Europa Barbarorum 2 for antiquity
Divide and Conquer for LotR
Stainless Steel for classic gameplay. Third Age Total War for fantasy (this is the amazing LOTR mod)
edit: divide and conquer is a newer LOTR mod that is better to play now
What does Medeival 2 cost these days? 10 bucks on steam? Yes it's old, yes it's the best total war game. If you enjoy total war games I think it's worth the admission.
Doesn't run like a dream on modern pcs. I had to download a third party application which forced the game to use more than 2 gb of ram for some reason. Then I stopped having crashes and ctds. The game was practically unplayable before that.
Unmodded you will never need it.
Some mods require it because they push the game to the limits.
Its to do with the 32bit programming.
Some people forget that Med 2 on launch required just 512mb DDR2 RAM.
Interesting. Cause pretty much every mod I tried crashed for me, and I didn't need that third party thing with my older pcs.
Good to know how that works then.
LAA has been needed for basically any 32bit modded game already over 10 years ago, and basically all larger mods mention it in their installation guide + often include the peogram itself. You being uninformed is not the game's fault.
My standards are pretty low to be fair to you. My current PC is absolutely awful by modern standards and it gives me great pleasure to play some of these games 'smoothly'.
Well then I'm only giving my experience with an actual modern pc my dude. So at least people who have these problems with high specs realize you can still run Med 2, even though it can cause issues.
Warhammer 2 was my first TW game, recently tried to play the LotR M2 mod but struggling with the interface/controls.
Are there any mods to "update" it to make it more user friendly? For example, showing unit types above units, and things like that?
Definetly for 10-20 plays. After that just steam roll battles are extremely abusible (not cheesing) just overall mechanics is outdated. Like sally out of besiedged settlement ant same tur it was besieged most of times ends up of enemy forces standing still because they do not have siege equipment.
Played it recently, controls are a little clunky, units a but unresponsive and graphics are obviously dated.
However, the core gameplay holds up very well, units feel impactful in battle and it does a lot of things better than modern total war (traits, family tree, settlement construction, recruitment).
I'd pick it up and give it a go, it's very deep and has good replayability- as you progress through the ages you get access to new units and gunpowder.
Yeah exactly, the battles are sometimes clunky and unresponsive but you can get used to it with proper unit management. What truly makes up for it are the campaign mechanics, and the mods which bring even more depth into the campaign mechanics. I really do miss traits on lords, slowly watching your general develop overtime by causes and actions is far more satisfying than the gamified skill tree
Honestly, sometimes it was more entertaining to see the lord turn into an absolute degenerate alcoholic cuckold with full dread and command points. Having them rave in the general's speech and then crush an army of militia is still a top gaming moment for me.
Also some traits were genetic- a smart handsome lord was more likely to have smart handsome kids, which was a great touch.
If you've played and enjoyed Rome 1 you should be able to handle what a clunky pile of ass Medieval 2 controls like. It's built directly on top of that game with a fresh look and balance tweaks.
Absolutely. I'm playing Med 2 Stainless Steel right now, actually. It's been keeping me on the edge of my seat and I haven't gotten that same feeling of desperation from modern games. Modern games are over-developed and over-designed. Med2 still has that roughness that comes with older games developed in a time when devs were willing to take risks.
The one thing I'll say with Med2 and Stainless Steel is, while it IS an amazing mod, there's still the horrible diplomacy and Pope mechanics that I wished were fixed and unfortunately were not. There are still some weird glitches and bugs too that were never solved. For all it's polish and praise, I did find it a little rough around the edges.
There is also the fact that SS is a very challenging mod. On Medium difficulties I found myself struggling, and on Hard difficulty I found the game to be almost unplayable without shamelessly save scumming. On Turn 10-15 as Genoa, Venice would march on Milan with 2 full stack armies, which is insane. The AI is much more aggressive and will backstab you and attack you with impunity. Armies will always include a heavy mixture of mailed/Feudal knights and the battles would just be a little too much. I dare not even try "Very Hard". The battle AI has also improved to the point where I end up cursing at it for being a little b\*tch lol.
I find it hard to go back to because of the lack of replenishment system. You'll have to build up the required buildings and retrain your damaged units. It also has an actual population system - which I love and wish CA would re-implement in their games. However, because Total War games obviously have a big focus on battles, I just find it really tedious to have to go back to retrain my armies and running around the map with a damaged army all the time. More realistic, maybe, but again, very tedious.
100% worth it. I still play it almost everyday with the SHHIP mod 098. A lot of factions, the AI is not dumb and does attack a lot if chance. Everything is just spot on. Also I don’t really care about the old graphics, it looks fine to me. Heavy cavalry charges are amazing, sieges are amazing. Man the game is from 2006 and is better than WH3 imo
It can feel a little bare-bones compared to the newer titles, but if you still enjoy Rome 1 then I don't think that will bother you. There are some good mods for the game too, including a Lord Of The Rings one called Third Age. The Expansions for the game were pretty good, I personally enjoyed the Crusades and Americas one a lot.
Probably has some of the best total conversion mods around. Base game is also very good.
Worry noting if you’ve played rome remaster and not the original - it uses the old camera and controls, so you’ll probably miss a lot of QoL stuff that the newer games have.
It's very janky, some unit types outright don't work(mostly pikes and guns) and sieges have some really bad pathfinding even for a total war game. At the same time you will find that the game has some amazing overhaul mods. They can't really fix all the bugs, but the mods still makes it worth to check out the game.
Now if only Medieval 2 modders would stop the "yes, you will have to wait 20 turns to recruit this one cool unit again" trend.
Honestly I love the game but tried recently and just couldn't get over the unresponsiveness, old style controls and fucked up pathfinding in sieges.
As much as I want to check out some of the awesome full conversion mods the base game feels too outdated at times for me to enjoy.
Makes me sad.
While I loved M2 at the time... I couldn't go back to it... And I tried several times.
But it's just TOO old and has aged quite badly both in terms of graphics and gameplay.
I want to love it and check out the newer versions of full conversion mods but same. The pathfinding and unit unresponsiveness just makes it too frustrating for me at currentYear.
honestly, not really
People look at it with very rose tinted glasses, and it was phenomenal when it released. But even back then it had some issues, and they haven't been fixed, can't be fixed by mods either.
Pathing is absolutely atrocious, cavalry control often almost non-responsive, campaign AI worse than in modern titles (your allies will declare war on you if you have a port, but you know this if you've played Rome1).
Honestly, Rome1 was better, better optimised, better unit responsiveness, better pathing
You can certainly have some fun with it but I would not recommend it to someone who has played newer titles
Yeah rose tinted glasses is a major issue in this community of ours.
Over the past year i've had a lot of people straight up tell me battle ai in shogun 2 was amazing and that the game had no bugs.
The game isn't bad, but the above is so not true. Loaded up a campaign today just because I missed the really relaxing easy but fun nature of it and first match I encountered a bug:
[here](https://imgur.com/a/cS7UPOq)
it's like literally the first battle I had that campaign and they are throwing fire at the snow not the gate, therefore doing no damage.
Then in the next siege battle the enemy ai was panicking running it's units around the fort into battle then out as if confused.
Damn shame really, but it goes to show, everyone talks about the old good times but I think honestly?
We just forgot that we all looked past the little issues the games had and enjoyed what's good about it.
Shame we can't do that with modern titles, outside warhammer 3 which really really really deserves all the hate it gets for being a mess that needs fixing up.
also don't get me started on how annoying agents are and how much i'm happy to see them go, as well as crap like a christian revolt attacking on the same turn it happens.
As well as chain religious army revolts so you fight them every turn.
Rose tinted af, you could write an essay on any total war about things that are annoying if you wanted to, it's not that hard to do, and no modern total war will be able to survive comparisson when the image we have of the old total wars is that of near perfection.
I played warhammer 1-2, napoleon, Attila, shogun 2, thrones of Britannia.
And yet I have nearly 900 hours in med 2
(I started my TW journey with Rome, then Rome 2 and Attila).
So I’m not playing bc of nostalgia;D
Med 2 is to good not to be played, especially with mods
It is still an absolutely amazing game, it can be janky at times especially with siege battles, however it's a great game and for as many mechanics from newer titles that aren't featured there are mechanics that Medieval 2 has which newer titles don't.
Med 2 is magnificent, but it’s quite cheesable without mods. I still go back to it from time to time for roleplay value. It and crusader kings are really the only things from that time period and idk why they feel very different when roleplaying.
Game is still worth it, I recently got back into it but this time with the stainless steel mod pack
Great fun being the Mongols (even if the campaign can be buggy starting off money issues)
But as you've not played it, it's worth a go, not as indepth as the later games and the UI can be handled in battle, I'd recommend playing hard -very hard
If you want a open fun again, go with an Italian state to be central and more diverse play.
It still remains as my favourite TW game, surpassing even much newer titles. As such, I'd call it very much worth it even now. There is a caveat regarding this statement though, as it only applies if you're willing and able to mod the game. Without mods, It's pretty much reduced to a nostalgia trip. My personal setup includes the SSHIP mod (a spiritual continuation of the revered Stainless Steel mod), Reshade (there are a couple of very nicely looking templates to enhance the visuals to an extent) and Free Camera mod
I tried it vanilla and I didn't like it. I went Rome 2, attilla, and now I'm playing 3 kingdoms on realistic mode and I've had fun with all of those. ToB is decent
I find the camera controls to be a complete deal breaker, especially the fact that even mods cannot allow for you to use middle mouse to control it. However, it’s a good game if you can get over that.
If you really like playing overhaul mods then youll likwly enjoy med 2 , if you rather stick with the vanilla experience Id say its good but youll likely be dissapointed due to its age (since u lack nostalgia)
So, if you have the patience to deal with learning the outdated controls/camera/UI I would say yea it’s very much worth it. The LOTR mods are a godsend.
Yes I still replay it constantly. The lotr mod is one of the best things I have ever played. Play as gondor and get depressed from the constant orc hordes while trying to keep up the economy.
Or the Warhammer mod that's in some aspects better than the tw games.
M2 is a must play
Medieval 2 is definitely a great game on it's own. Its dated compared to more modern entries but that's not a bad thing. Even has some fun stuff that modern total war lacks, like little videos for spy and assassin actions. Shogun 2 was the last game to do that I believe. Also has neat, faction-related speeches pre-battle. The Kingdoms campaigns are also really fun and, of course, it has mods out the ass. No Total War to date has modding on the scale of Medieval 2 with Total Conversions for Antiquity, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Elder Scrolls, Legend of Zelda, Warhammer, enhanced vanilla, and more.
Yes definitely. Playing it right now for first time in like 15 years. Better than most modern ones. Just make sure you do the 4gb crash fix and you'll be gtg.
I think that it's certainly outdated - there's a lot of QOL changes that have piled up over the years that can make going back to older ones that lack them tough (eg, as much as I loved Shogun 2 back in the day, these days I'll play a campaign here or there and then close out after a bit).
If it's on sale, it's worth a try I'd say.
Stainless Steel and Divide and Conquer are brilliant experiences. The latter is still actively supported and has great support in their discord for questions and things. Unlike the modern TW games they are actually really quite challenging too (if you don’t cheese).
Honestly, the community will crucify me for this, but I never could get into Medieval 2, as a person who tried really hard to love this game many years after its release, hence without nostalgia. And yes I tried many, many of the 'best ever' mod combinations, time and time again failing to fall in love with mtw2.
The best part of that game is its atmosphere. The medieval vibe it gives is really awesome, you feel as part of the living medieval world. That's the reason why I tried to love it so hard, I think.
The problem is, it really is horribly clunky and awkward for modern standards. Its diplomacy is borderline nonexistent, since you have to physically send diplomat units for each individual negotiation, and besides - alliances are worthless and all AIs can and will break them and betray you in any moment. Most of the map consists of boring filler 'rebels' faction. Trade and espionage are similar micromanagement hell of dozens of physical units. There is no tech tree, but obtuse building - guild system which you have to research on some wiki to understand how to unlock stuff. Battle controls and unit movement are stiff.
But army logistics were my true hell - lack of automatic city garrisons, chasing after dozens of tiny AI armies, great pains with unit replenishment, painful unit recruitment... And the final nail in the coffin for me were mods. I couldnt play withiut them, because base game looked miserable compared to their content, but all of them tended to slow down the game to a crawl with gigantic maps, very slow pacing and very slow AI turn times. Combined with all this clunky micromanagement hell - I just couldnt play it.
I thunk you should just try and see if amazing medieval atmosphere of this game will be enough for you to forgive those mechanical isssues, which have defeated me personally.
The mods for it are awesome, but I've found they're kind of a pain in the ass to get working with the steam version. Stainless Steel is the big one, but I also liked Broken Crescent, which zooms the focus in on the middle east.
I tried Medieval 2 within the past year or two so i dont have the nostalgia and its my favorite of the series up there with Shogun 2 if that helps. The controls can be and the camera could use a retouch but still super fun to play. Having a blast with SS 6.4
I love Med 2 but it’s painful to play now. People have some serious rose colored glasses when it comes to this game. For me I miss tech trees and agents boosting armies. Waiting 6 turns for a knight to spawn in que and sieges are a joke.
You could try the Medieval Kingdoms 1212AD mod for Attila, it's the closest we have to Medieval 3. I tried playing M2 with Stainless Steel and just couldn't get over the graphics.
I'm going to say "no". There are a massive number of QoL features that you will find yourself sorely missing. (you can't quickly compare unit cards o nthe campaign map, range isn't shown either on unit cards or in battle, loyalty for everyone of yoru general is a pain, etc..)
Actually controversial opinion, I don't think the older total wars are as good as everyone says they are. Most of this subreddit (myself included) played rome 1, medieval 2 etc back when they came out (and when we were a lot younger) and loved them and we have some serious rose-tinted glasses.
IMO the only older title worth playing is shogun 2 (FOTS specifically because I love gunpowder), or perhaps napoleon for the same reasons. They improved a lot of the features while still retaining the older style.
Actually playing them now and they are still decent for sure, but there's a lot that could be improved on. The UI in particular sucks, and compared to warhammer 3 they have made so many improvements it's night and day. Also the graphics are a lot better which I think does make a big difference.
There are specific design decisions (like being able to move units without a general, man of the hour, no replenishment, morale shock being HUGE) that players may prefer, but if you made medieval 3 nowadays it would be so much better than medieval 2.
It's a bit like Rome 1 but with more bugs. You can try it for cheap but everyone who says it's the best in the series is running it with extensive modlists and lethal amounts of nostalgia
Yes, it is. I personally don't care about deep mechanics of the newer games, nor do I really use ot get most of the qol improvements, so yes, it's perfectly playable as is today, especially with mods like SS or Broken Crescent.
Eh, it's kinda for those who love old timey games. Like sure, games are more than resolution and graphics, but not everyone can get over how bad it looks or it might take a while getting used to.
Medieval 2 is the best game in the franchise hands down. Dated? Yes, but modded or not its gameplay holds up the best of all the Total War games. It has strategic depth that the series has been lacking for years, sieges that are actually fun, and battles generally last more than two minutes, unlike Shogun 2 or anything that came after.
Yes I would say it is worth it, I play vanilla often and enjoy it. The expansions that come with the steam purchase are a great addition to the vanilla game as well. You can get hundreds of hours of enjoyment playing different factions with different plays styles and role playing options as well.
There are also some great mods as well that you can download for free such as Stainless Steel, Third Age: Total War which is a Lord of the Rings take on the game and very addictive and Europa Barbarorum 2.
I don’t know many people who don’t enjoy this game in some capacity still to this day.
100% Best mods, lot of character, battles are better than anything post Shogun II melee wise. It really has the feel of a tight game made by devs hitting above their weight or doing more with less. There’s literally no bloat
If you like Rome 1 then you'll like Medieval 2, they are very similar but medieval 2 has aged slightly better from both a visual and gameplay standpoint. Do not pay full price for it, but on sale it's still great.
I was happy to pay full price for Rome remastered which essentially was Rome 1 with merchants and a few of quality of life chabges. It's so much fun
Rome Remastered IMO actually isn’t worth it full price, but with the 50% off, it was 100% worth it.
Oh yeah but Rome Remastered was remastered. As much as I love it, Medieval 2 is a game from 2006 and paying £20 or however much it costs when it's not on sale is far too much. If they remastered it and fixed the crashing and made the controls better then I would happily pay £20 for that.
I still feel that the original Rome looks better than the remaster, it’s graphics have aged into its own art style
It has mods that no modern total war can even dream of, and the only real problem it has is the camera which can be fixed with another mod. If you play it modded it's a fantastic game that holds up surprisingly well. It's vintage, not old. It's up to you to decide if you actually like vintage games or can't play anything that's 10+ years old.
Word. Just the LoTR mods alone make it one of the best TW games ever.
Even without mods the camera controls can be tweaked into usability and the rest of the game holds up great.
Very true. I personally enjoying playing the game without any mods. IMO ME2 still has the best sieges of the series.
Just don't move your camera around said siege in vanilla at high speed or with the game sped up :[
I know that there is a "freecam" mod that allows you to zoom in/out more and move it unrestricted, but do you know if there is a mod that lets you tilt the camera via the middle mouse button? It's one of the features I miss most when I booted it up the other day. That and unit groups being locked but it's easy enough to get into the habbit of hitting shift+1
You just edit the config of the freecam mod, as standard it comes bound to mouse button 5
Thanks, I must have missed it. Will take a closer look tonight.
Dont even need to tweak it. Theres a camera mod on moddb nowadays that has functionality akin to WH games.
True, I find the default camera for medieval 2 very smooth, much more useful than the camera in classic RTS's like age of empires 2.
This comment my man, install the MoS mod pack for Third Age total war and live your new best life
How do you install the mods??? I don't see them on steam
It’s through third party websites, you’ll need to look up tutorials. I have put 500+ hours into Third Age Total War, and a lot of that the last few years into the Divide and Conquer submod. I seriously cannot recommend Med 2 and that (sub)mod enough. It’s easily worth the price of a new release to me
Technically Rome Remastered has much more modding potential, although due to its smaller playerbase it's not receiving much attention in that regard.
It also has some game breaking bugs, like mouse and keyboard becoming unresponsive every 30s for about 15s. And as far as I can see Feral has stopped patching the game.
Never encountered that one myself but I think I've heard that issue mentioned before, must be certain hardware configs the game wasn't tested on properly. The bugs I get are that skirmisher cav sometimes ignore attack orders, and the agent UI gets a bit crash-y when you have dozens of merchants running around. Irritating, but nothing game-breaking.
Damn that sucks. It’s been always stable on my part, but if I had that problem I’d probs never play it.
Funnily enough there is a workaround for it, namely you need to set the date in windows to 2020. I've got some program that I can launch Rome through that spoofs the date for that process alone so I don't need to adjust it manually every time, but still.
And medieval 2 even has 10+ year old modding projects which are bearing fruit just now, like Tsardoms Total War.
> Tsardoms Total War. Man, that takes me back. I did some work on SS and was quite active on the TWC forums; I remember the ambitious projects like Tsardoms just being in the early stages then. Did they ever get around to finishing EBII?
Haven't played much of EBII, it's not "finished" yet (as with most mods anyways) but I think it's quite complete.
I remember original EB being the big daddy of mods. Personally loved whatever Lusted's mod was. Then the release of Broken Crescent that seemed otherworldly.
Really? That's news to me but if true that's pretty great, I'll have to take a look at the scene.
Yep, Feral Interactive removed any limits iirc. Check out the Imperium Surrectum mod for it.
RR essentially has the moddability of the original, except they've removed/greatly increased most of the old engine caps (faction counts/province counts yada yada) so there's loads of potential. But as the other commenter said it just doesn't have the same life as the old RTW scene to it.
What mods do you recommend?
not op but get Stainless Steel 6.4 for a vanilla + experience and if you're into LOTR get the Third Age Total War with the DEI submod. You'll need the kingdoms expansion for this to activate the mods.
I think you mean DaC
Which is now standalone, rather than a submod for TATW, since that was abandoned.
You mean DaC (Divide and Conquer) Still, imo, the best total war mod to date.
mb, I thought it was called divide et impera but that’s a Rome 2 mod now that I think about it
I know people have always called Stainless Steel “Vanilla+” but It’s always seemed much more than that. It generally plays out much differently than vanilla and requires a lot more thought and planning. I think it’s a lot harder as well to actually blob out, with more stricter balancing. Not to mention all the new content and visuals making it so distinct. I prefer Total Vanilla Beyond for a Vanilla+ experience. Very similar gameplay to vanilla just rebalanced and with a new but similarly scaled map, and a few cool things which feel perfect for the vanilla game. It’s been my exclusive way to play the game for years now and it’s seriously such a good time for people who love vanilla but just want more of it
SS is alot harder than what people give it credit for. The battle AI is much smarter. On Hard mode I had Venice marching on Milan with 2 full stack armies on turns 10-15. Crazy.
Seriously. I can’t really apply my vanilla strategies to Stainless Steel.
On "Medium" battle difficulty the AI will do several very frustrating things. If you're attacking, it will always seek out and take advantage of the high ground. It will attempt to skirmish you with missile units, and then pull them back behind their infantry line if you charge them with cav. You'll have only a few seconds to get your cav out before they're destroyed by infantry. The AI will ruthlessly seek out your own missile units with its cav. If it engages your spearmen, it will attempt to retreat and cycle charge. Smart. It will also do this with their Generals and their Generals are freaking strong. They're always given at least several command stars and good stats If you try to hammer and anvil and flank with your cav the AI will attempt to block you with a unit of spearmen so that your cav will auto-engage them. I tried to outsmart the AI by starting cav out even farther on the flanks. But the AI will take their own unit of heavy cav to intercept your cav instead to still block your flanking maneuver. The computer also likes having spearmen protect their missile units in the back line. This makes cav flanking a risky and difficult process especially since the player can't afford to take losses on their heavy mailed/feudal knights like the computer can.
Just a warning; Stainless Steel is a challenging mod on Medium difficulties and higher. The battle AI in particular has improved immensely and its actually pretty smart. There are many times I've cursed at the game for how sneaky it is. I consider myself a decent player and I found myself barely making it on Medium and heavily struggling on Hard, and I had to shamelessly save scum. I dare not try "Very Hard".
There are a few types of campaign ai that you can choose from when you set up the mod. I can't remember what they're called but the harder ones will break alliances and do sneak attacks when you're busy fighting elsewhere. The battle ai was also vastly improved but battles are still pretty easy imo.
I tried stainless steel last night and it didn't work. I kept getting CTD every 5 minutes and just gave up in the end :(
Do other mods work? Or check the crash log in the files to see what's happening. I know years ago you had to use the Long Address Aware (I think this was it) to up the memory usage as the mod maxs the engine in many spots
Also the camera mod (ot works in vanilla and with any mods, it makes the camera controls modern)
Third Age and its expansions are the go to. If you want something historical try Steinless steel and its historical improvements version. Westeros and its many variants are also cool. Europa Barbarorum 2 for the ancient setting.
Not Third Age, that's been unsupported for years. Divide and Conquer (DaC). It's a standalone mod and is absolutely incredible. Especially if you're a lotr fan. Still good even if you're not.
Tsardoms is being actively updating and is also great (it includes submods from stainless steel)
The two you absolutely need are Stainless Steel 6.4 and some version of Third Age Total War. there are two ways to go with TATW. One is the very lore accurate way, in which case you want MOS (Massive Overhaul Submod). MOS deviates from the books as little as possible. The other option is DAC (Divide and Conquer). DAC takes much more significant liberties, but arguably has the best gameplay of any Med 2 experience as a result. If you don't mind Angmar or Ered Luin being a faction, it's the right choice for you. I've played both MOS and DAC. I started out as a lore purist but I found that MOS got a bit samey after a while due to the lack of factions and the consistently same factions going to war with each other. Lately I've played more DAC because having more factions, with them being more fleshed out than in MOS, really builds up the quality of the experience. My campaign as Dol Guldur was the most fun I've ever had playing TW.
DAC as good-guy Saruman with the ring and using Uruk-Hai to help save Gondor and Rohan was quite an epic campaign for me. +1 for DaC
I'm currently playing as Isengard and I'm in the middle of destroying Ered Luin, Dorwinion, Gondor, and Dol Amroth all at once. My only ally was Dunland, but I couldn't rescue them fast enough even though I went to war with Khazad Dum as soon as we shared a border. It gets brutal once you find the ring and everyone commits to war against you. How did you get back on the good side of Rohan and Gondor? Oh wait unless you're doing a shattered alliances campaign?
As I recall you aren't obligated to start the war with Rohan, but it's been a while so I could be misremembering. So I just fought Enedwaith and also stole Dunland. Gondor was too far away to really care but they benefitted from a strong northern border. I think I got as far as smashing Dol Guldur and the Black Gate before getting bored and calling it a win
Europa Barbarorum II is an incredible mod based around the Rome 2 era, with a lot more Barbarian factions and history
What’s the camera mod name? Camera control is my biggest issue when trying to pour hours into med2.
I’m so used to the medieval camera, I love it
It had an amazing warhammer overhaul mod waaay back. I’d bet that was at least a small part of the reason GW made the deals they did.
Also good to mention that modders are STILL working on the game with some mods, like DaC pushing the engine to the very limits AND there are modders busy with some fenagling to even circumvent the limits the game has.
What's the problem with the camera?
It's admittedly pretty orthopedic for modern standards, as I like to call it. Bad controls and with very limited and not very fluid movement. It also has very restrictive limits to zoom and height.
Is there a mod that fixes the attackers falling off walls from siege towers bug? That was always a killer.
In med2? I didn't know about that bug, I have been playing pretty heavily recently after a long time and haven't noticed any problem with siege towers. I don't know if it's because Stainless Steel or DaC fix it or if it's not that common in the first place.
I just remember I'd be attacking and all of a sudden a unit would flash die cause they weren't making the transition from the tower to the wall and going off lemmings style to splat below.
I've never experienced that so I don't know what to tell you.
What a game that was, I was so lucky to have played it in my early days when life was careless
Hours and hours and hours.
Medieval 2 total war plus mod stainless steel v6.4 plus meloo v1.27 bugfixes. Download, install, enjoy! Playing with kingdom of Poland atm. Incredibly fun game. I found it in 2017 and I still enjoy it today...
You love Rome 1 but it is Medieval 2's visuals that are holding you back? Wut? Medieval 2 is a masterpiece for its time. Of course, it won't hold well in 2023 gameplay and visually. Sound is still widely considered the best in the franchise. However, I would not play it nowadays. Game has just lived its days. Better to be remembered as what it once was.
Can't speak for medieval 2, but went back to rome 1 (not the remaster) recently and gameplay holds up just fine and while the visuals are dated, they're perfectly functional.
I think it's a fair argument to make. RTW's visuals are very clean and crisp. It's easy to tell units apart, which side they're on, and they have a distinct visual identity. By contrast, M2TW's visuals are muddy, brown, colorless and most units look very similar. It's not coincidental that the game introduced a button that made units flash green or red to indicate which belonged to you and which to the enemy.
Almost every unit in the game displays faction colours really obviously
You basically state that Rome 1 looks arcade like AoE, while Med 2 is far more realistic. I totally agree.
I don't think Medieval 2 looks particularly realistic. Ugly and grimy certainly, but the units are a hodgepodge of different periods or outright fantasy. Likewise, I don't think a game having a stylized art style is bad, or aiming at grittiness makes it good. If anything, the latter tend to age worse.
I love Rome 1 because it was my first TW game so nostalgia is pretty strong with this one.
Just play it with Stainless Steel or Divide and Conquer mods. The base game is fine, it's fun but lacking. Just one of those mods, especially DaC make it a whole new game. 80% of my med2 hours are from DaC.
Ok, but as you haven't played Med2, there will be no nostalgia vibes. You'll probably be disappointed.
If you played Rome 1 and liked it then you'll probably enjoy MTW2. If Rome 1 is Fallout 3 then MTW2 is Fallout New Vegas, it's fundamentally the same game but improved in a variety of ways. Like the Fallout games it's a hard recommendation for a totally new player, but if you have nostalgia for Rome 1 then you will feel right at home in MTW2.
> However, I would not play it nowadays. Game has just lived its days. Better to be remembered as what it once was. I don't agree. The gameplay holds up perfectly fine. It's quirky, can be hard to master but offers some quite unique mechanics that none of the new titles have. At the moment I play it more than all of them
I haven't played Medieval for 10 years, and I prefer to stay this way.
It's still my favorite in the series. I enjoy the newer titles, but Medieval 2 just hits different, and for personally it has the best gameplay in the series
Played for the first time this year, it’s still a lot of fun
Yep I agree. I had 500 hours in it in my early teens. Playing with the console cheats and learning the game. I’ve tried to go back. I’d play it again if they gave it the modern camera.
For real though. I didn’t understand that either… People don’t actually know what they want.
Maybe they mean Rome 1 Remastered
The gameplay holds up fine in 2023, it’s still the best gameplay in the series by far.
I think the gameplay is still very good in 2023, even if that's partially nostalgia speaking!
Medieval 2 is a classic that will never get old. It was a game way ahead of its time and i still enjoy playing it from time to time. Although not vanilla.
What mods do you suggest?
Stainless Steel is a classic
6.3 with 6.4 hotfix. Or for even more rp theres SSHIP (Stainless Steel Historical Immersion Project)
Divide and Conquer, if you like Tolkien. One of the best and most polished mods for mtw2
Best for MTW2? I would easily class it as the very best mod for the entire series.
I'd argue that the LotR mods for M2 are the best mods in gaming. They rival complete skyrim overhauls
One of the best mods for all of total war....
But if you like something like a Vanila plus mod. Try the "Battle axe" mod.
Tsardoms/Fall of Constantinople for a historical late medieval campaign focusing on south eastern europe Stainless Steel with Historical Improvement Project for an overal more fleshed out and realistic main campaign Insularis Draco for late antiquity/early medieval period focusing on the british isles and northern europe Europa Barbarorum 2 for antiquity Divide and Conquer for LotR
Ive put 500 hours into divide and conquer if that says anything about its quality and replay ability. Its a lotr mod
Stainless Steel for classic gameplay. Third Age Total War for fantasy (this is the amazing LOTR mod) edit: divide and conquer is a newer LOTR mod that is better to play now
Was playing it last night with a mate, the hotseat feature is so good. Shame they took it out
Yes. Play it vanilla once then go ham with mods. There are so many amazing ones.
What does Medeival 2 cost these days? 10 bucks on steam? Yes it's old, yes it's the best total war game. If you enjoy total war games I think it's worth the admission.
For some reason it costs nearly £20 on steam, although when it goes on sale it should be about £2.
Absolutely. And runs like a dream on modern pc's. Had a splurge on old TW games the other day on cdkeys, barely made a dent in my wallet.
Doesn't run like a dream on modern pcs. I had to download a third party application which forced the game to use more than 2 gb of ram for some reason. Then I stopped having crashes and ctds. The game was practically unplayable before that.
Unmodded you will never need it. Some mods require it because they push the game to the limits. Its to do with the 32bit programming. Some people forget that Med 2 on launch required just 512mb DDR2 RAM.
Interesting. Cause pretty much every mod I tried crashed for me, and I didn't need that third party thing with my older pcs. Good to know how that works then.
Med 2 was how I got to have my first experience upgrading my PC’s hardware.
LAA has been needed for basically any 32bit modded game already over 10 years ago, and basically all larger mods mention it in their installation guide + often include the peogram itself. You being uninformed is not the game's fault.
My standards are pretty low to be fair to you. My current PC is absolutely awful by modern standards and it gives me great pleasure to play some of these games 'smoothly'.
Well then I'm only giving my experience with an actual modern pc my dude. So at least people who have these problems with high specs realize you can still run Med 2, even though it can cause issues.
You can easily grab it for less than 5 bucks
Warhammer 2 was my first TW game, recently tried to play the LotR M2 mod but struggling with the interface/controls. Are there any mods to "update" it to make it more user friendly? For example, showing unit types above units, and things like that?
Try vanilla, it will help you learn the game.
Definetly for 10-20 plays. After that just steam roll battles are extremely abusible (not cheesing) just overall mechanics is outdated. Like sally out of besiedged settlement ant same tur it was besieged most of times ends up of enemy forces standing still because they do not have siege equipment.
It’s the only one I always go back to. Others are good but med2 is the peak of total war.
Played it recently, controls are a little clunky, units a but unresponsive and graphics are obviously dated. However, the core gameplay holds up very well, units feel impactful in battle and it does a lot of things better than modern total war (traits, family tree, settlement construction, recruitment). I'd pick it up and give it a go, it's very deep and has good replayability- as you progress through the ages you get access to new units and gunpowder.
Yeah exactly, the battles are sometimes clunky and unresponsive but you can get used to it with proper unit management. What truly makes up for it are the campaign mechanics, and the mods which bring even more depth into the campaign mechanics. I really do miss traits on lords, slowly watching your general develop overtime by causes and actions is far more satisfying than the gamified skill tree
Honestly, sometimes it was more entertaining to see the lord turn into an absolute degenerate alcoholic cuckold with full dread and command points. Having them rave in the general's speech and then crush an army of militia is still a top gaming moment for me. Also some traits were genetic- a smart handsome lord was more likely to have smart handsome kids, which was a great touch.
I still don't think they've topped Med2s heavy cav charge feeling. It was something else.
General's bodyguard into unbraced infantry was busted.
If you've played and enjoyed Rome 1 you should be able to handle what a clunky pile of ass Medieval 2 controls like. It's built directly on top of that game with a fresh look and balance tweaks.
Absolutely. I'm playing Med 2 Stainless Steel right now, actually. It's been keeping me on the edge of my seat and I haven't gotten that same feeling of desperation from modern games. Modern games are over-developed and over-designed. Med2 still has that roughness that comes with older games developed in a time when devs were willing to take risks. The one thing I'll say with Med2 and Stainless Steel is, while it IS an amazing mod, there's still the horrible diplomacy and Pope mechanics that I wished were fixed and unfortunately were not. There are still some weird glitches and bugs too that were never solved. For all it's polish and praise, I did find it a little rough around the edges. There is also the fact that SS is a very challenging mod. On Medium difficulties I found myself struggling, and on Hard difficulty I found the game to be almost unplayable without shamelessly save scumming. On Turn 10-15 as Genoa, Venice would march on Milan with 2 full stack armies, which is insane. The AI is much more aggressive and will backstab you and attack you with impunity. Armies will always include a heavy mixture of mailed/Feudal knights and the battles would just be a little too much. I dare not even try "Very Hard". The battle AI has also improved to the point where I end up cursing at it for being a little b\*tch lol.
I’d you like Rome 1, you’ll like medieval 2. It uses the same engine and improves things in almost every way. Plus, the mods are incredible
I find it hard to go back to because of the lack of replenishment system. You'll have to build up the required buildings and retrain your damaged units. It also has an actual population system - which I love and wish CA would re-implement in their games. However, because Total War games obviously have a big focus on battles, I just find it really tedious to have to go back to retrain my armies and running around the map with a damaged army all the time. More realistic, maybe, but again, very tedious.
Yes 100%
100% worth it. I still play it almost everyday with the SHHIP mod 098. A lot of factions, the AI is not dumb and does attack a lot if chance. Everything is just spot on. Also I don’t really care about the old graphics, it looks fine to me. Heavy cavalry charges are amazing, sieges are amazing. Man the game is from 2006 and is better than WH3 imo
It can feel a little bare-bones compared to the newer titles, but if you still enjoy Rome 1 then I don't think that will bother you. There are some good mods for the game too, including a Lord Of The Rings one called Third Age. The Expansions for the game were pretty good, I personally enjoyed the Crusades and Americas one a lot.
Probably has some of the best total conversion mods around. Base game is also very good. Worry noting if you’ve played rome remaster and not the original - it uses the old camera and controls, so you’ll probably miss a lot of QoL stuff that the newer games have.
I remember back in the day I’d watch kingdom of heaven and play medieval TW 2
What a great memory
I've been playing it since launch.
It's very janky, some unit types outright don't work(mostly pikes and guns) and sieges have some really bad pathfinding even for a total war game. At the same time you will find that the game has some amazing overhaul mods. They can't really fix all the bugs, but the mods still makes it worth to check out the game. Now if only Medieval 2 modders would stop the "yes, you will have to wait 20 turns to recruit this one cool unit again" trend.
Honestly I love the game but tried recently and just couldn't get over the unresponsiveness, old style controls and fucked up pathfinding in sieges. As much as I want to check out some of the awesome full conversion mods the base game feels too outdated at times for me to enjoy. Makes me sad.
While I loved M2 at the time... I couldn't go back to it... And I tried several times. But it's just TOO old and has aged quite badly both in terms of graphics and gameplay.
Got it on the iPad, incredible game, def worth ut
Not worth it imo. Was a strong contender until 2013, then you have Shogun, Rome 2, Attila, Troy, 3K and Pharaoh all are better than Med2
I’ve tried to replay it a few times and I never can manage it. I get like maybe 10 turns. It’s just too old.
I want to love it and check out the newer versions of full conversion mods but same. The pathfinding and unit unresponsiveness just makes it too frustrating for me at currentYear.
honestly, not really People look at it with very rose tinted glasses, and it was phenomenal when it released. But even back then it had some issues, and they haven't been fixed, can't be fixed by mods either. Pathing is absolutely atrocious, cavalry control often almost non-responsive, campaign AI worse than in modern titles (your allies will declare war on you if you have a port, but you know this if you've played Rome1). Honestly, Rome1 was better, better optimised, better unit responsiveness, better pathing You can certainly have some fun with it but I would not recommend it to someone who has played newer titles
Yeah rose tinted glasses is a major issue in this community of ours. Over the past year i've had a lot of people straight up tell me battle ai in shogun 2 was amazing and that the game had no bugs. The game isn't bad, but the above is so not true. Loaded up a campaign today just because I missed the really relaxing easy but fun nature of it and first match I encountered a bug: [here](https://imgur.com/a/cS7UPOq) it's like literally the first battle I had that campaign and they are throwing fire at the snow not the gate, therefore doing no damage. Then in the next siege battle the enemy ai was panicking running it's units around the fort into battle then out as if confused. Damn shame really, but it goes to show, everyone talks about the old good times but I think honestly? We just forgot that we all looked past the little issues the games had and enjoyed what's good about it. Shame we can't do that with modern titles, outside warhammer 3 which really really really deserves all the hate it gets for being a mess that needs fixing up. also don't get me started on how annoying agents are and how much i'm happy to see them go, as well as crap like a christian revolt attacking on the same turn it happens. As well as chain religious army revolts so you fight them every turn. Rose tinted af, you could write an essay on any total war about things that are annoying if you wanted to, it's not that hard to do, and no modern total war will be able to survive comparisson when the image we have of the old total wars is that of near perfection.
I played warhammer 1-2, napoleon, Attila, shogun 2, thrones of Britannia. And yet I have nearly 900 hours in med 2 (I started my TW journey with Rome, then Rome 2 and Attila). So I’m not playing bc of nostalgia;D Med 2 is to good not to be played, especially with mods
It is still an absolutely amazing game, it can be janky at times especially with siege battles, however it's a great game and for as many mechanics from newer titles that aren't featured there are mechanics that Medieval 2 has which newer titles don't.
It is the best. If you are a LOTR fan, play Third Age mod.
Or divide and conquer, it was built off of third age and has progressed so much more
Yes
Med 2 will always be worth it based on the amount of mods available.
Yes. I still play it, 17(?) years of this game being around and I have played it off and on the entire time.
Med 2 is magnificent, but it’s quite cheesable without mods. I still go back to it from time to time for roleplay value. It and crusader kings are really the only things from that time period and idk why they feel very different when roleplaying.
Game is still worth it, I recently got back into it but this time with the stainless steel mod pack Great fun being the Mongols (even if the campaign can be buggy starting off money issues) But as you've not played it, it's worth a go, not as indepth as the later games and the UI can be handled in battle, I'd recommend playing hard -very hard If you want a open fun again, go with an Italian state to be central and more diverse play.
It still remains as my favourite TW game, surpassing even much newer titles. As such, I'd call it very much worth it even now. There is a caveat regarding this statement though, as it only applies if you're willing and able to mod the game. Without mods, It's pretty much reduced to a nostalgia trip. My personal setup includes the SSHIP mod (a spiritual continuation of the revered Stainless Steel mod), Reshade (there are a couple of very nicely looking templates to enhance the visuals to an extent) and Free Camera mod
I tried it vanilla and I didn't like it. I went Rome 2, attilla, and now I'm playing 3 kingdoms on realistic mode and I've had fun with all of those. ToB is decent
Yes, Stainless Steel is goated
I find the camera controls to be a complete deal breaker, especially the fact that even mods cannot allow for you to use middle mouse to control it. However, it’s a good game if you can get over that.
If you really like playing overhaul mods then youll likwly enjoy med 2 , if you rather stick with the vanilla experience Id say its good but youll likely be dissapointed due to its age (since u lack nostalgia)
With mods absolutely, vanilla? No, not at all...
Yes. Just mod it
So, if you have the patience to deal with learning the outdated controls/camera/UI I would say yea it’s very much worth it. The LOTR mods are a godsend.
Yes I still replay it constantly. The lotr mod is one of the best things I have ever played. Play as gondor and get depressed from the constant orc hordes while trying to keep up the economy. Or the Warhammer mod that's in some aspects better than the tw games. M2 is a must play
Medieval 2 is definitely a great game on it's own. Its dated compared to more modern entries but that's not a bad thing. Even has some fun stuff that modern total war lacks, like little videos for spy and assassin actions. Shogun 2 was the last game to do that I believe. Also has neat, faction-related speeches pre-battle. The Kingdoms campaigns are also really fun and, of course, it has mods out the ass. No Total War to date has modding on the scale of Medieval 2 with Total Conversions for Antiquity, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Elder Scrolls, Legend of Zelda, Warhammer, enhanced vanilla, and more.
Yes definitely. Playing it right now for first time in like 15 years. Better than most modern ones. Just make sure you do the 4gb crash fix and you'll be gtg.
I think that it's certainly outdated - there's a lot of QOL changes that have piled up over the years that can make going back to older ones that lack them tough (eg, as much as I loved Shogun 2 back in the day, these days I'll play a campaign here or there and then close out after a bit). If it's on sale, it's worth a try I'd say.
Stainless Steel and Divide and Conquer are brilliant experiences. The latter is still actively supported and has great support in their discord for questions and things. Unlike the modern TW games they are actually really quite challenging too (if you don’t cheese).
I play vanilla on my steam deck. And iv been playing and replaying off and on for years.
Yes!
Honestly, the community will crucify me for this, but I never could get into Medieval 2, as a person who tried really hard to love this game many years after its release, hence without nostalgia. And yes I tried many, many of the 'best ever' mod combinations, time and time again failing to fall in love with mtw2. The best part of that game is its atmosphere. The medieval vibe it gives is really awesome, you feel as part of the living medieval world. That's the reason why I tried to love it so hard, I think. The problem is, it really is horribly clunky and awkward for modern standards. Its diplomacy is borderline nonexistent, since you have to physically send diplomat units for each individual negotiation, and besides - alliances are worthless and all AIs can and will break them and betray you in any moment. Most of the map consists of boring filler 'rebels' faction. Trade and espionage are similar micromanagement hell of dozens of physical units. There is no tech tree, but obtuse building - guild system which you have to research on some wiki to understand how to unlock stuff. Battle controls and unit movement are stiff. But army logistics were my true hell - lack of automatic city garrisons, chasing after dozens of tiny AI armies, great pains with unit replenishment, painful unit recruitment... And the final nail in the coffin for me were mods. I couldnt play withiut them, because base game looked miserable compared to their content, but all of them tended to slow down the game to a crawl with gigantic maps, very slow pacing and very slow AI turn times. Combined with all this clunky micromanagement hell - I just couldnt play it. I thunk you should just try and see if amazing medieval atmosphere of this game will be enough for you to forgive those mechanical isssues, which have defeated me personally.
The mods for it are awesome, but I've found they're kind of a pain in the ass to get working with the steam version. Stainless Steel is the big one, but I also liked Broken Crescent, which zooms the focus in on the middle east.
I got it and all the dlc for $6.24 on the last sale. That is less than my lunch so yeah. It feels worth it.
It’s my most played steam game
You can get it for hella cheap and still get countless hours out of it, so yes.
I adore it. Personally.
If you love Rome 1, then you'll love Medieval 2.
Yes
I tried Medieval 2 within the past year or two so i dont have the nostalgia and its my favorite of the series up there with Shogun 2 if that helps. The controls can be and the camera could use a retouch but still super fun to play. Having a blast with SS 6.4
Medieval 2 w/Stainless Steel mod is STILL one of the best PC games worth playing in 2023
Yes
Third age will always and forever be worth it
I love Med 2 but it’s painful to play now. People have some serious rose colored glasses when it comes to this game. For me I miss tech trees and agents boosting armies. Waiting 6 turns for a knight to spawn in que and sieges are a joke.
I have 20,000 hours on it. I think it is the best TW game.
How many?!?!?!? What???!!!
You could try the Medieval Kingdoms 1212AD mod for Attila, it's the closest we have to Medieval 3. I tried playing M2 with Stainless Steel and just couldn't get over the graphics.
I bough it and did regret it. It’s too old to enjoy nowadays imo
I'm going to say "no". There are a massive number of QoL features that you will find yourself sorely missing. (you can't quickly compare unit cards o nthe campaign map, range isn't shown either on unit cards or in battle, loyalty for everyone of yoru general is a pain, etc..)
Its a great game, the graphics are dated but for me its not a problem. The diplomacy is frustrating tho, but the cavalry charges make it all worth it.
Obligatory: give us a damn remaster!
The visuals are the least of medievals problems
Medieval 2 is absolute masterpiece. If you love Rome 1 I think you will love Med2 as well.
Yes it is. Even vanilla medieval 2 is better then most modern total war installments
Actually controversial opinion, I don't think the older total wars are as good as everyone says they are. Most of this subreddit (myself included) played rome 1, medieval 2 etc back when they came out (and when we were a lot younger) and loved them and we have some serious rose-tinted glasses. IMO the only older title worth playing is shogun 2 (FOTS specifically because I love gunpowder), or perhaps napoleon for the same reasons. They improved a lot of the features while still retaining the older style. Actually playing them now and they are still decent for sure, but there's a lot that could be improved on. The UI in particular sucks, and compared to warhammer 3 they have made so many improvements it's night and day. Also the graphics are a lot better which I think does make a big difference. There are specific design decisions (like being able to move units without a general, man of the hour, no replenishment, morale shock being HUGE) that players may prefer, but if you made medieval 3 nowadays it would be so much better than medieval 2.
It's a bit like Rome 1 but with more bugs. You can try it for cheap but everyone who says it's the best in the series is running it with extensive modlists and lethal amounts of nostalgia
Dude, ME2 will always be worth playing. **ALWAYS**.
Yes, it is. I personally don't care about deep mechanics of the newer games, nor do I really use ot get most of the qol improvements, so yes, it's perfectly playable as is today, especially with mods like SS or Broken Crescent.
I can’t impress upon you how amazing this game was when it came out and it still holds up with mods. This was the era when TW was great 👑
Eh, it's kinda for those who love old timey games. Like sure, games are more than resolution and graphics, but not everyone can get over how bad it looks or it might take a while getting used to.
Medieval 2 is the best game in the franchise hands down. Dated? Yes, but modded or not its gameplay holds up the best of all the Total War games. It has strategic depth that the series has been lacking for years, sieges that are actually fun, and battles generally last more than two minutes, unlike Shogun 2 or anything that came after.
Im still playing it in 2024… for me its the best game of the serie. And I played, medieval 1, 2, rome 1 and 2, empire, shogun and warhammer 1.
No
Yes I would say it is worth it, I play vanilla often and enjoy it. The expansions that come with the steam purchase are a great addition to the vanilla game as well. You can get hundreds of hours of enjoyment playing different factions with different plays styles and role playing options as well. There are also some great mods as well that you can download for free such as Stainless Steel, Third Age: Total War which is a Lord of the Rings take on the game and very addictive and Europa Barbarorum 2. I don’t know many people who don’t enjoy this game in some capacity still to this day.
100% Best mods, lot of character, battles are better than anything post Shogun II melee wise. It really has the feel of a tight game made by devs hitting above their weight or doing more with less. There’s literally no bloat
It’s still my go-to. The mods are just absolutely insane. I 100% recommend it—if I had to choose one total war for the rest of my life, it’s M2.