Medieval II Gold Pack (Total War, Total War Kingdoms)

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $26.50

Features:

• Richly detailed battles that feature thousands of 3D units and intense combat.
• Manage the economic, civil, religious and military arms of your empire.
• Over 100 different units, including knights, men-at-arms, English longbowmen, and more.
• Spectacular sieges, as you pound castles into dust with cannons, catapults, and ballistae.
• Multiplayer battles with up to seven other players over the Internet.

Customer Reviews:

Very Addictive [Posted on 2008-03-18]
If you have digs in micromanaging, you'll love the depth of this game. Though you don't have to follow everything for general immersion, there's plenty of potential to, the kind Maxis is known for. And speaking of potential, I'd love to see where this series goes.

However this game does have shortcomings, and perhaps this only pertains to me, but after I've conquered about a quarter of the main game map in it's longer settings, I tend to get bored and I rarely continue, rather start anew with a new faction. Also, after playing the main game, I found the expansion's "scenario style" campaigns rather impersonal and boring regardless to the fact it included a few tidbits. I removed the expansion 2 days after I installed it because I didn't like it, and I did try out all 4. There are little bugs here and there too, most of which would fall under unit "pathfinding", but you rarely notice it unless every siege is in a citadel or one of those damned Arab towns (2 of the places it's most frequently occurred). I guess I wish the unit drawing for a few faction's placards was a little better too; I'd like to play as the Russians, but the drawings are horrible and drive me crazy.

Still, I really do love this game. You can blow through half a day on this game without really realizing it. Watch out!

Good GamePlay but the installation is suck! [Posted on 2008-03-29]
I am a fans of the total war series. I have fun with this version of total war even though I think the Unit in this version do not have much special ability as Rome Total War.

The big complain to this version is the installation process, I really feel frustrate for the installation process. The securom is the worst software I ever seen. The first time I install the game, the error box comes out to said that the installation cannot create a secure installation process. I try all my home computer and none of them works. Also, my DVD rom starts not working anymore and requires a reboot. I finally find out the problem which is because my computer did not connect to the internet (which my internet connection is down at that time). The bad thing is that the error dialog box never tell you what is going on, expect to mess up my DVD rom. Some of my DVD rom cannot even read the disk!

After the long installation process (almost an hour), I can start to play the game. However, the start up process is super slow since that stupid securom do some crazy check every time I start the game, and properly try to connect to the internet again a do some crazy thing without notice me. One thing I notice is that if I left the disk in my dvd rom when I boot up my windows, it will then takes forever to start the machine, again, I am sure it is the securom, just like a melware to mess up my machine.

I can understand that company need to employ some security technology to prevent the privacy issue, but it is very bad if this security causes a lot of trouble to the normal player. I buy the game and I don't want to get into trouble of mess up my machine. Anyway, there are cracks for this game online already and that stupid securom is useless expect to penalize the normal player like me who really buy the game. I will suggest Sega or Creative Assembly to reconsider this issue again otherwise it forces the fans of this game to download the crack in order to bypass the stupid and troublesome installation process!!

The Grandest of Strategy games [Posted on 2008-04-17]
How many games do you know where your political machinations include plotting the assassination of the Pope so as to be able to elect a pontiff more favorable to your own faction? It's not just because the in-battle graphics are the best you've ever seen in any strategy game, it's not that you can influence the life course of your individual family members by the kinds of actions they take in of off the battlefield, it's not that you can become an economic powerhouse by deploying an army of merchants to conquer markets and put competing merchants out of business for good, what makes this game truly grand is the diplomatic warfare in which all of this is shrouded.

Military might is important, but not necessarily primordial. Have a giant, all-engulfing, land-hungry neighbor that threatens your national security? No problem. Assassinate the current Pope, elect one that's favorable to you and not so much to him, find a way to get him to be excommunicated and ask the pope to call a crusade against him! Now you'll have five or more other factions attack him in the name of Holy religion and he'll be weaker as a result. You may even manage to expand your borders in the bargain.

Now, you may just be one of these people for whom this will be insufficient. Maybe the 21 different playable factions don't quite do it for you. Maybe the different roles your agents (priests, assassins, spies, diplomats/princesses, and merchants) can play don't impress you. Maybe you don't care much for the guilds that offer to quarter themselves into your cities. This is where the Kingdom campaigns come in. All of them are beautiful mods of the original game with a variety of interesting twists. But even without the expansion, this game is worth buying. This said, allow me one warning: stay away from this game if you are addiction-prone.

Very Fun [Posted on 2008-06-27]
I have version 1, and the upgrade was worth it. I hesitated until I got Rome Total War and thought, well that is a great improvement, MTW2 should be awesome. And it is and was. I am still hooked on RTW so I will play this more later. Good job, good buy.

Medieval - Total War [Posted on 2008-06-28]
Graphics and gameplay are good. Visuals are nice. Intricate. Clunky to load on XP Pro. Overall - my son loves it. That's really all that matters!

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