Medieval 2 is the best Total War.

[Jackbrick]

Not to mention the mods, Third Age Total War, Divide and Conquer, need I say more.

All the modern titles are way too flashy with ridiculous units and annoying overly complicated campaign map features, research, politics and other annoying nonsense. Let me just upgrade a settlement when it reaches a certain threshold in population, done. The recruitment system is better, since your armies will still have low tier units, since elites are not always available. And some units can have region restrictions, like elephant/camels, and others. I don't like magic, I don't like factions having really weird mechanics. Sometimes less is more. Units do ridiculously fancy animations when killing units in more modern titles.

In Medieval 2 when units engage in melee multiple units will hit a unit at the same time. Hypothetically let's say we have five peasants vs one swordsman. When a unit is hit it causes a brief stunlock. Which leaves them an opening to be hit again. A unit also has a chance to block an attack, stopping a stunlock. Sometimes, a unit even misses. I seen a unit strike the air in front of him and hit nothing. This is like an intimidation move rather than an attack. Armored units generally require more hits to go down. Sometimes units will fall down but not necessarily die, this can give them a window of an opening to be helped by a friend.

Simple and effective combat, no ridiculous twirly whirly animations.

[pauloandrade224]

good for u... tho if u think that warhammer 3 has some "annoying overly complicated campaign map features" then u should check that game called total war medieval 2.

great game but very "annoying overly complicated campaign map features"

[coffeemm8]

it's great but is definitely showing its age. I wouldn't begrudge anyone for preferring the more recent titles

[Wizard of Woz]

Totally agree with OP. All the modern Total War games are terrible.
Don't know what the 2nd person is talking about. What campaign features are complicated?

[Gooseman]

Real population is a great feature that never should have left. Attrition should be modeled in a war game. It was also really neat that improvements reflected on the campaign map and sieges. Also cool that upgrades for your troops showed on the battlefield too. "Streamlining"
is just another word for cut features. M2 is still better than any modern total war but just wish we had fixes for some legacy bugs, better siege pathing and optimized for modern machines and hd textures.

[Gigantus]

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

Totally agree with OP. All the modern Total War games are terrible.
Don't know what the 2nd person is talking about. What campaign features are complicated?

I would assume the features that usually get neglected in the base game because of the 2 year per turn progression. Like character development and use: using the daughter to cement relationships, turning your favourite general\leader into something Attila the Hun would weep tears of joy about. Doing a Donald and inciting insurrection in a opponents settlement, be it by priest or spy\assassin - which requires capable agents....
Stopping a general becoming disloyal while he is at the other side of the map, Which only happens at multiple turns per year.

Stuff like that. The settlement development mechanics as such are simple, keeping the peace in them however can provide a challenge under certain circumstances.

And then there is logistics on really large maps with ZoC recruitment.

Summary: vanilla is training wheels with a helmet on. Nothing complicated about it. But then who plays vanilla when he can have mods?

[Gigantus]

Originally posted by Gooseman:

Real population is a great feature that never should have left.

It ruined RTW for me - latest when I conquered Gaul after defeating stack after stack of them. And then conquered one settlement after the other that each had 400 occupants and two base buildings.

The AI spends money on recruiting first, which means population will not rise if the faction is in a conflict.

And then the newer games ruined it for me when Napoleon's elite guard auto replenished outside Moscow.

[Gooseman]

Originally posted by Gigantus:

Originally posted by Gooseman:

Real population is a great feature that never should have left.

It ruined RTW for me - latest when I conquered Gaul after defeating stack after stack of them. And then conquered one settlement after the other that each had 400 occupants and two base buildings.

The AI spends money on recruiting first, which means population will not rise if the faction is in a conflict.

And then the newer games ruined it for me when Napoleon's elite guard auto replenished outside Moscow.

Yeah, it's immersion breaking. I never liked Rome 2. There really isn't that much to do besides the battles and I think they are worse as well. Unit Collision, impact of cav charges both feel better in the old games and I don't like the switch to matched combat animations. As OP said always being able to spam elite or any units leads to poor or repetitive army composition by the AI. I don't like the look of Rome 2's UI either. Attila was better but is optimized poorly. Unlike most grognards I liked Warhammer but eventually the novelty wore off and I'm annoyed we're not getting good historical titles anymore. Porting the mobile UI to Rome Remastered also really pissed me off.

Amusingly they were touting another cut feature (dynamic weather) for Pharaoh which was also in the original games (Speeches were great too). Battlefields were much bigger and if you chose your terrain carefully you could win with smaller numbers or inferior units. The last one where I felt like that was really the case was Shogun 2 and perhaps Attila somewhat. The new games kind of feel more like an "Ultimate Battle Simulator" than a wargame.

[Cabeça]

Shogun 2 is the best

[Gigantus]

Vade Retro "Realm Divide"!

Although I have to admit I had a great WTF moment the first time I saw simple unit's of the attacker climbing up walls assassin's creed style.

[Tembies]

Yeah as someone who's most recent Total War release played was Rome 2, and only first receiving it in December 2024 on a massive sale... what were they thinking?

The enjoyment I got out of rome 2 was hard carried by my love of the time period. Population systems were entirely gone by shogun 2 but everything else a straight downgrade. The music, the sounds, the missile trails, the needing a general -and- only being able to have a limited amount of armies around, super boring tech trees. Most victory conditions being ungodly long. AI factions just being able to support an infinite amount of units even on lower difficulties. Not the biggest fan of the province system but it kind of has potential. Units just feeling like glorified stat sticks where tactics matter very little to the result of combat. The politics system was actually okay, but it needed a little more depth and by default it feels like you're practically forced to have at least 1 civil war a game and that's just annoying.

Shogun 2 felt like one step back and three forward. Rome 2 feels like three steps back and one forward. From what I hear the series sputters out even more with modern titles, as they use more or less the same engine/groundwork. For all its many faults, and I understand those that despise it for them, at least Empire was ambitious.

[Gooseman]

Originally posted by Gigantus:

Vade Retro "Realm Divide"!

Although I have to admit I had a great WTF moment the first time I saw simple unit's of the attacker climbing up walls assassin's creed style.

Yeah, I think the sieges are fun in Shogun 2 but still a bit immersion breaking with the wall climbing stuff. As time has gone on they've resorted to more gimmicks like that in order to compensate for broken siege mechanics and AI. Like the the infamous gate torchers on the release of Rome 2 and the AI mindlessly zerging into one sport or doing nothing at all.

[Hammer Of Evil]

would really care for a 1:1 remaster of medieval 2, the polygons and animations are painful to look at. using the rome 2 engine would be sublime.

however, definitely not at the cost of its superb performance.

[coffeemm8]

Do people really hate every TW after Med 2?

Shogun 2 is excellent. Empire and Napoleon were decent.

Even some of the newer ones definitely aren’t bad such as Three Kingdoms

[Gigantus]

I don't think it's 'hating' as such - personally I simply don't get immersed as much as I do with M2. The added mechanics simply either feel like 'let's just put something new in for the heck of it' (realm divide, wall climbing, gate torching, 'provinces') or a simple acknowledgement that users are not able\willing to execute simple mechanics like replenishment which now is an auto function regardless of where the unit is.
Never mind the general simplification of the strategic part of the game. Which apparently is supposed to be set off by new battle mechanism. Which to me look either like convenient crutches or overblown abilities.

Summary - it just ain't M2's ambience\immersion. I blame it on being old enough to have grown up with the game, eg a time when being spoon fed was frowned upon.

[PaxAetA]

Originally posted by Gigantus:

Vade Retro "Realm Divide"!

Although I have to admit I had a great WTF moment the first time I saw simple unit's of the attacker climbing up walls assassin's creed style.

Salve, Gigantus! How to reduce the sailing distance of ships in EB2 version 2.4?