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Shogun 2 is a true gem of a game, not just the beauty, but also the atmosphere. The battle AI is still somewhat predictable, but it has beaten me on occasion when I behaved arrogantly. It is a well rounded game.
I have a very fond place in my heart for ETW. It was a great idea that was never finished properly. But I have played it more than any other tw game.
M2 is a game I still play. I have modded it extensively. I play hotseats. There is something about its simplicity that works. However, I played a vanilla campaign recently to warm up for S2 and unfortunately it looks very dated now.
RTW was a favourite for a long time. But it has passed into the realm of "a long time ago", so that playing it has that sort of very cartoonish feeling. Like looking at a school book from the 1950ies. It is a relic. It's bugs have passed from the realm of the annoying into the dark kingdom of the cultish and outlandish ("having armies chase you round the walls until everybody in them is dead").
Least favourite game is NTW. It smelled like an expansion, it felt like an expansion, it WAS (in my eyes) an expansion. The scope was very limited. Yeah, sure, the polish was great. But there was never enough difference to ETW to make it an outstanding game.
(these are my own private views, and do -of course- not reflect any official view)
I understand the cliche that everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
But being a history major, I just don't understand how can anyone consider the 18-19th century to be a boring time period at all. It was the era of the scientific revolution, enlightenment, colonialism, technological advances and origins of the most drastic and exciting changes ever in human history.
You can spend half a lifetime studying this time period and still not know everything because its scope literally covers the entire globe from Europe to China, from New World to Africa, etc, and the legacy of that period still heavily affects the world we live in today.
ETW, boring time period? I just simply don't understand at all.
I mostly meant I found the era a boring one for total war, I didn't particularly enjoy the warfare or controling nations in this game. It was by far the most boring gameplay in terms of combat and strategy for me.
My opinion of course as I have friends who enjoyed it immensely.
I guess I didn't think it was a comment worth reading into so I didn't explain myself properly, academically it is an interesting time period (although I've only studied scientific advancement of that period).
Apologies for the miscommunication.
"No man is invincible, and therefore no man can fully understand that which would make him invincible"
— Miyamoto Musashi
I think it was Lords of the Realm and TW Medieval 1 that got me into this genre. Too bad Lords failed. Still I am too much of a gfx wahore to ever really go back and play the games that got me into it in the first place.
Before you read this you should know i not played SHOGUN 2, NAPOLEON, MEDIEVAL or SHOGUN. I have not played the warpath campaign for Empire. If i don't put the game here i have not played this or i don't like it unless it is mentioned before.
Campaign's
1. Rome Total Realism
2. Rome Total War
3. Empire Total War
4. Medieval II Total War Britannia (expansion)
5. Medieval II Total War Americas (expansion)
6. Rome Total War Alexander (expansion)
7. Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion (expansion)
Battle's
1. Rome Total War
2. Empire Total War
3. Medieval II Total War Americas (expansion)
4. Rome Total War Alexander (expansion)
5. Rome Total Realism
6. Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion (expansion)
7. Medieval II Total War Britannia (expansion)
I own SHOGUN II and i pre-ordered it ages ago, i have not played it as my laptop is not powerful enough, the good news is that i am getting a dell XPS 8300.
Rome - multiple stacks armies on the battle field which made the battles epic, super awesome with mods
shogun2 - best graphics ai artwork, agent/generals skills are a great edition the tech tree was better done in empire I thought but overall best game out of the box
Med and shogun - great games for their time,
Empire I didn't own but played it afew times I loved the scope and tech tree.
Med2 - This to me was the worst game out of the series basicly you needed to use a MOD to get any real challenge and had quite afew bugs.
For expansions I'd rather buy an exp that adds to the orginal game then buy a separate campain since it will have little replay value. The way I see it after afew expansions you should end up with a map like Empire. This would make a new campain rather epic as well as giving you different fractions to play.
1. Shogun2 for me is the best game out of the series. It's compelling, addictive, interesting, rewarding and challenging. I've played the game for almost 300 hours, and yet I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the game. I don't know if I'll ever get tired of it, lol.
2. My favorite part of History is the middle ages in Europe, so naturally MEDIEVAL 2 is my second favorite game. Medieval2 (and of course I include all of the expansions in this discussion) is interesting and fun, but of course there are serious issues with it. One of the worst is the stamina, or lack there of, with certains units, like the English armored swordsmen. I had a full army of them once, against an army of Irish peasants, and the peasants won because the English swordsmen got tired!
I was leaving expansions out of the list. While Napoleon can be argued as a stand alone(since it is). Its limited scope compared to empire made it feel like an expansion verse a full blown game. Secondly the fact that it stopped updates for Empire really put it on my POS list.
Ignore my nic, it's just random. But actually, Napoleon's "limited" scope is the very reason why I'd put it as the No. 1 TW game of the series so far. Napoleon's map scale is smaller than Empire because it's historically accurate and meant to be an objective focused campaign to give depth to the storyline. Empire kept lagging to the point where I stopped playing it. Shogun 2 is great, but I prefer Napoleon's soundtracks. Most Medieval 2 factions had to obey the pope, which goes against my independent playing style. Rome was also great, but the lack of faction variety even after unlocking all factions did not appeal to me for replayability, broadly speaking, you were either a legionary, hoplite or cavalry faction. But if I have to rank according to your list, I'd put them in this order: S2TW, Rome, M2TW and Empire.
Rome was also great, but the lack of faction variety even after unlocking all factions did not appeal to me for replayability, broadly speaking, you were either a legionary, hoplite or cavalry faction. But if I have to rank according to your list, I'd put them in this order: S2TW, Rome, M2TW and Empire.
You might accuse Rome for a variety of reasons but on the grounds not having unit variety and using this as reason to rank the utterly one dimension S2TW above?!
Napoleon - Its was the most polished and felt very strategic. For me it really did make you feels like a commander.
Empire - Love the variety and campaign
Rome - Its was my first total war. But don't really like the setting
Shogun 2 - Classic Total-War game and great multilayer but lacks variety and is hard to get into.
Simple Rome Kicks all ****. Rome still holds higher game scores over the other 3 anyway.
With mods especially Rome Serrectum II installed Rome blows them all away! Large Campaign map, lots of customizable options city build wise and armies too.
Why Rome: Well Empire was great, Napoleon a let down campaign map and 1 player wise (it sucked) though naval battles were the best by far!
Shogun 2: No content boring army units, with mods it has a a lot more playability but other than that its a pretty Barbie doll with no car!
I'm struggling with this right now actually. I have a Shogun 2 campaign going that's just getting to the interesting part, but then for some reason I started loading up ETW and NTW and watching battle replays. I just love gunpowder. How can you not? I mean, that's war! Shogun 2...it's fun, and I've put a lot of hours into it, but there's just something missing. There's a lack of OOMPH...especially naval. Shogun 2 naval battles seem as pew pew as you can get. But hey...we're lucky that they're all good enough for us to have a debate about it
You might accuse Rome for a variety of reasons but on the grounds not having unit variety and using this as reason to rank the utterly one dimension S2TW above?!
If you're a die hard Rome fan, you're entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to mine. As much as this topic has been discussed to death about unit variety in S2TW, I will just have to explain. S2TW allows you to make the best use of your units by differentiating them through maximising your resources. Rome was an empire of diverse cultures, Japan was a country with mainly one ethnic group and fighting doctrine. Comparing them based on unit variety is like comparing tomatoes and oranges. In TW however, S2TW makes up for it with better graphics, better interface, more refined diplomacy, exotic real time naval battles and the element of making radical choices like conversion, which was not available in Rome.
I have played total war games since Shogun was released and I have played them all except for empire and napoleon. My favorites are:
1. Medieval 2: A lot of different factions and units and you could just always bribe the pope.
2. Teutonic and Britannia campaigns of kingdoms.
3. Shogun 2. Although it lacked diversity I really really like it. Great setting, better combat.
4. Rome. I like it but it was way to hard to face the roman legions with any faction other then another roman one.
I can't remember much about medieval 1 and shogun 1 so I've excluded them from the list
I completely agree with you. Rome total war is by far the greatest in my opinion. I enjoy the roman setting with the barbarian tribes, greeks, and the carthaginians. I think if Rome Total War was remade with shogun 2 graphics and multiplayer campaign, it would be the best game ever made.
I will add Napoleon was a great engine graphics wise and I had completed over 272 battles online. The limited single player campaign/scope is a issue that persists to Shogun 2. While multiplayer may draw the audience, it is the replay ability and the depth of the details that creates greatness.
Napoleon: Lots of units if you like France/Britain/Prussia......boring, caused a lot of same same in the multiplayer.
Shogun2: Looks great but after you zoom in and get set to play your kind of missing 2/3 of the roller coaster.
Rome: Simple outline, but if your willing to dig in the mod section you can transform the game anyway you wish!
MTW2: Loved it, castle sieges were awesome great scope, replay ability; mods abound.
When you face facts:
1. Limited scope of SINGLE PLAYER concepts: Shogun 2/Napoleon
2. Mulitplayer based (believe it or not lots of folks still kick Rome multiplayer around!) Focus is on action not campaign.
3. While taking leaps in graphics (eye candy) they fell behind in content and depth.
4. Gamers care about looks...but Panzer Corps the squeal to Panzer General (1999) stayed true to its core, its attraction that gamers fell in love with. To this day there are still websites for mods/content for that game and that came out over 10 years ago!
5. Can we say the same for this series?
6. The "true grit" of this game series has gotten shallower and shallower. The forums and other forums about this game are the true fixes for it. The modding community has duck taped this Total War Series together, with the step away from Addons to DLC is just a punch in the face.
7. Bring the content and the re-playability back and you will have your Field of Dreams again!
Reading this thread is amusing. Couple pages dedicated to posts trying to convince other readers that just because their favorite color is green, it should be the favorite color of everyone.
1. Shogun2
2.Empire
3.Med2 and Rome
a Rome 2 would be great but i honestly think rome and med2 is just a bit old now.But sayin that rome and med2 were great for its time(;
M2 my favourite has so much more replayability for me than the other games
then Rome would be my favourite but im one of those people that eventually cant play a game due to the graphics being to old and thus makes it hard to play
Shogun 2 I really enjoy it but there isnt enough unit variety and building variety to keep me interested
Lastly empire and napoleon, i really didnt like these games most battles were sit in a trench and let the enemy walk into my line of fireand get obliterated *yawn* really really enjoyed the idea of the huge map but guns for me are boring in games where battles are so much more realistic (compared to other games)
I have already commented on this, but forgot to say my wish list for total wars, so here goes.
and when they make them in this order.
--- Rome Total War II*
--- Greece Total War (expansion)
--- Egypt Total War (expansion)
--- Persia Total War
--- Alexander Total War (expansion)
--- China Total War
--- Mongol Total War (expansion)
--- Medieval Total War III
--- Civil (war) Total War
--- Africa Total War
--- Empire Total War 2
--- Crusade Total War
--- America Total War**
*i think they should make the campaign map much bigger as Rome conquered Italy and that took ages but in the game it takes 10 turns (five years), and make it last from 300/bc - 100 AD, but you can start off from different ages like:
1. 300BC
2. 200BC
3. 100BC
**They should have the Aztecs and Mayans and the other empires that were forged
I have played total war games since Shogun was released and I have played them all except for empire and napoleon.
4. Rome. I like it but it was way to hard to face the roman legions with any faction other then another roman one.
I can't remember much about medieval 1 and shogun 1 so I've excluded them from the list
I have to say I always used to play as the Carthaginians on difficult game settings and I always used to whup Rome's ass! :cool:
are you talking about campaign or battle, as the a.i on Rome for battles is like playing a baby on multiplayer and thats on very hard mode. the campaign is impossible if your the Gauls Rome takes your southern territory's and then germania but usually Britons beat the hell out of you
Comments
I have a very fond place in my heart for ETW. It was a great idea that was never finished properly. But I have played it more than any other tw game.
M2 is a game I still play. I have modded it extensively. I play hotseats. There is something about its simplicity that works. However, I played a vanilla campaign recently to warm up for S2 and unfortunately it looks very dated now.
RTW was a favourite for a long time. But it has passed into the realm of "a long time ago", so that playing it has that sort of very cartoonish feeling. Like looking at a school book from the 1950ies. It is a relic. It's bugs have passed from the realm of the annoying into the dark kingdom of the cultish and outlandish ("having armies chase you round the walls until everybody in them is dead").
Least favourite game is NTW. It smelled like an expansion, it felt like an expansion, it WAS (in my eyes) an expansion. The scope was very limited. Yeah, sure, the polish was great. But there was never enough difference to ETW to make it an outstanding game.
(these are my own private views, and do -of course- not reflect any official view)
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0 · Disagree AgreeI mostly meant I found the era a boring one for total war, I didn't particularly enjoy the warfare or controling nations in this game. It was by far the most boring gameplay in terms of combat and strategy for me.
My opinion of course as I have friends who enjoyed it immensely.
I guess I didn't think it was a comment worth reading into so I didn't explain myself properly, academically it is an interesting time period (although I've only studied scientific advancement of that period).
Apologies for the miscommunication.
— Miyamoto Musashi
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0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree80.MTW
80.STW
75. M2TW
70.S2TW
70.NTW
40. ETW
(O.o)
(> <) This is Bunny. Copy Bunny into your signature to help him on his way to world domination.
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0 · Disagree AgreeCampaign's
1. Rome Total Realism
2. Rome Total War
3. Empire Total War
4. Medieval II Total War Britannia (expansion)
5. Medieval II Total War Americas (expansion)
6. Rome Total War Alexander (expansion)
7. Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion (expansion)
Battle's
1. Rome Total War
2. Empire Total War
3. Medieval II Total War Americas (expansion)
4. Rome Total War Alexander (expansion)
5. Rome Total Realism
6. Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion (expansion)
7. Medieval II Total War Britannia (expansion)
I own SHOGUN II and i pre-ordered it ages ago, i have not played it as my laptop is not powerful enough, the good news is that i am getting a dell XPS 8300.
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0 · Disagree AgreeRome - multiple stacks armies on the battle field which made the battles epic, super awesome with mods
shogun2 - best graphics ai artwork, agent/generals skills are a great edition the tech tree was better done in empire I thought but overall best game out of the box
Med and shogun - great games for their time,
Empire I didn't own but played it afew times I loved the scope and tech tree.
Med2 - This to me was the worst game out of the series basicly you needed to use a MOD to get any real challenge and had quite afew bugs.
For expansions I'd rather buy an exp that adds to the orginal game then buy a separate campain since it will have little replay value. The way I see it after afew expansions you should end up with a map like Empire. This would make a new campain rather epic as well as giving you different fractions to play.
- Report
0 · Disagree Agree2. My favorite part of History is the middle ages in Europe, so naturally MEDIEVAL 2 is my second favorite game. Medieval2 (and of course I include all of the expansions in this discussion) is interesting and fun, but of course there are serious issues with it. One of the worst is the stamina, or lack there of, with certains units, like the English armored swordsmen. I had a full army of them once, against an army of Irish peasants, and the peasants won because the English swordsmen got tired!
3. Rome
4. Napoleon
5. Empire.
1. I5-2500k
2. 24 GB RAM
3. GTX 780
4. 750 Watt PSU
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0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree AgreeYou might accuse Rome for a variety of reasons but on the grounds not having unit variety and using this as reason to rank the utterly one dimension S2TW above?!
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0 · Disagree AgreeEmpire - Love the variety and campaign
Rome - Its was my first total war. But don't really like the setting
Shogun 2 - Classic Total-War game and great multilayer but lacks variety and is hard to get into.
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0 · Disagree AgreeWith mods especially Rome Serrectum II installed Rome blows them all away! Large Campaign map, lots of customizable options city build wise and armies too.
Why Rome: Well Empire was great, Napoleon a let down campaign map and 1 player wise (it sucked) though naval battles were the best by far!
Shogun 2: No content boring army units, with mods it has a a lot more playability but other than that its a pretty Barbie doll with no car!
- Report
0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree1. Medieval 2: A lot of different factions and units and you could just always bribe the pope.
2. Teutonic and Britannia campaigns of kingdoms.
3. Shogun 2. Although it lacked diversity I really really like it. Great setting, better combat.
4. Rome. I like it but it was way to hard to face the roman legions with any faction other then another roman one.
I can't remember much about medieval 1 and shogun 1 so I've excluded them from the list
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0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree AgreeNapoleon: Lots of units if you like France/Britain/Prussia......boring, caused a lot of same same in the multiplayer.
Shogun2: Looks great but after you zoom in and get set to play your kind of missing 2/3 of the roller coaster.
Rome: Simple outline, but if your willing to dig in the mod section you can transform the game anyway you wish!
MTW2: Loved it, castle sieges were awesome great scope, replay ability; mods abound.
When you face facts:
1. Limited scope of SINGLE PLAYER concepts: Shogun 2/Napoleon
2. Mulitplayer based (believe it or not lots of folks still kick Rome multiplayer around!) Focus is on action not campaign.
3. While taking leaps in graphics (eye candy) they fell behind in content and depth.
4. Gamers care about looks...but Panzer Corps the squeal to Panzer General (1999) stayed true to its core, its attraction that gamers fell in love with. To this day there are still websites for mods/content for that game and that came out over 10 years ago!
5. Can we say the same for this series?
6. The "true grit" of this game series has gotten shallower and shallower. The forums and other forums about this game are the true fixes for it. The modding community has duck taped this Total War Series together, with the step away from Addons to DLC is just a punch in the face.
7. Bring the content and the re-playability back and you will have your Field of Dreams again!
8. We all long for this moment!
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0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree2.Empire
3.Med2 and Rome
a Rome 2 would be great but i honestly think rome and med2 is just a bit old now.But sayin that rome and med2 were great for its time(;
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0 · Disagree Agreethen Rome would be my favourite but im one of those people that eventually cant play a game due to the graphics being to old
Shogun 2 I really enjoy it but there isnt enough unit variety and building variety to keep me interested
Lastly empire and napoleon, i really didnt like these games most battles were sit in a trench and let the enemy walk into my line of fireand get obliterated *yawn* really really enjoyed the idea of the huge map but guns for me are boring in games where battles are so much more realistic (compared to other games)
- Report
0 · Disagree Agreeand when they make them in this order.
--- Rome Total War II*
--- Greece Total War (expansion)
--- Egypt Total War (expansion)
--- Persia Total War
--- Alexander Total War (expansion)
--- China Total War
--- Mongol Total War (expansion)
--- Medieval Total War III
--- Civil (war) Total War
--- Africa Total War
--- Empire Total War 2
--- Crusade Total War
--- America Total War**
*i think they should make the campaign map much bigger as Rome conquered Italy and that took ages but in the game it takes 10 turns (five years), and make it last from 300/bc - 100 AD, but you can start off from different ages like:
1. 300BC
2. 200BC
3. 100BC
**They should have the Aztecs and Mayans and the other empires that were forged
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0 · Disagree Agree-Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree AgreeHave to say I have taken a 2 year break from TW as I couldn't get my head round ETW (never played it though have the game...)
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0 · Disagree AgreeI have to say I always used to play as the Carthaginians on difficult game settings and I always used to whup Rome's ass! :cool:
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0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree