Medieval II: Total War

Format PC

Developer Creative Assembly

Publisher Sega

Genre Sim / Strategy

6 Comments

It's been some six months since news that the Total War family was soon to have a fourth arrival broke, but with The Creative Assembly's Ian Roxburgh and Mark Sutherns in the mood to extol the virtues of their game, it's immediately apparent that they're keen to spill enough Medieval II beans to cover almost three pieces of toast.

"Everything is bigger and better than Rome," says Roxburgh as he begins his presentation. "The battles have double the polygons, each troop is unique and there are numerous combat variations with thrusts, parries and fatality moves. We've also doubled the textures on the campaign map, and there are twice as many voiceovers and sound effects. We've even ensured that each nation has the correct accent."

SHOUT IT OUT
Roxburgh zooms into the campaign map, which radiates a refined clarity and depth of detail when compared to Rome's world-view. But the strategic map's enhancements run far deeper than cosmetics. "We're adding loads of new features," he states. "Click on any faction on the map and it'll give you a voiceover that reflects how it feels towards you. If a nation is amenable to you, they'll greet you, while a hostile nation will be far more aggressive. You'll no longer have to use the Diplomacy screen to find out how a nation feels."

While Total War has been at the forefront of strategic innovation for the best part of six years now, one area that's lacked depth has been diplomacy, a failing that the team are keen to rectify. "We've spent a lot of time improving diplomacy," explains Roxburgh.

"In Medieval II, the AI will not only remember previous dealings you've had with it but your dealings with other factions, too. It'll then base its stance towards you on all of those factors." Another new addition to the strategic map are princesses - pawns that can be used in a variety of underhand ways. Little more than whores in expensive garbs, these harlot diplomats can be prostituted to make alliances with rival factions (through arranged marriages), or sent to seduce enemy generals to your cause.

While we're on the subject of generals... "Each general's personality will have different effects on the battlefield or within cities," adds Roxburgh. "A general's attributes can also change, depending on how they conduct themselves on the battlefield."

Mercilessly slaughter the prisoners you capture during a battle (a feature reprised from the original Medieval) and your general's 'dread' rating will rocket, making enemies fearful on the battlefield and civilians more obedient within cities. And while showing mercy in war may make your generals a target for 'big girly girl' remarks from opposing armies, at least the people will love them should you order them to babysit a settlement. Unless of course they raid the fridge, invite over their girlfriend and leave sticky stains on the sofa, in which case, they could be faced with a revolution.

HOSTILE INTENT
Also adding to the campaign map's strategic depth are merchants, a group of money-grabbing capitalists whose sole purpose in life is to amass money and resources through any means necessary.

"If you want to delve a little deeper into the economy, you'll be able to move merchants to pockets of resources dotted around the map," reveals Roxburgh. "If allied factions have merchants guarding a resource, you can attempt a hostile takeover and force them off. It's like an economic rivalry that's totally separate to being at war with a faction."

Next up are heretics and witches, heathen wanderers who spread religious doubt throughout your provinces (causing social unrest) and convert impressionable priests to their way of thinking.

"Heretics and witches will appear at various times and permeate through your land spreading heresy," Roxburgh continues. "You can send in priests to convert them, but if they fail, they'll be turned into heretics too." And yes, you can burn them.

KICK UP THE ARSE
Avid Total War fans will be happy to know that the assassination animations - brief cut-scenes, which chart the success or failure of a professional hit - are back after their disappearance in Medieval and Rome. "We have loads of these, so it's unlikely you'll ever see the same one twice," Roxburgh says. "There are different movies for all of the different targets you can kill, for successes, failures and even ones for when the target manages to escape," adds Mark Sutherns. Unlike Shogun's basic and repetitive animations, these murderous moments prove of the highest quality, perfectly raising that tension before reaching their unpredictable conclusions.

Another criticism of Rome was the relative comfort you'd enjoy once you'd built up a sizeable empire. With your capital city surrounded by vassal states, your kingdom's epi-centre would rarely feel threatened. Not this time, though. "We're making the campaign map AI far more proactive than before. You'll find that your homeland will be attacked a lot more. Your enemies may stick a large army on a fleet and come and attack you at your main city. That's why all of the city fortifications you've built up for your main cities will become far more important this time around," Roxburgh tells us.

What's more, once your medieval empire becomes overwhelmingly powerful, you'll quickly find your rivals rallying together to oppose your expanding kingdom, a feature which the team hopes will make the game challenging from beginning to end. So, with the strategic map clearly enjoying a sizeable makeover, we move on to the part I've really been waiting for the most, the real-time battles...

TO WAR!
During the course of the next 20 minutes, I sit through three battles, each one more brutal and cinematic than the last.

First off is the age-old grudge match between the English and the French, set in lush surroundings flanked on both sides by dense forests. With Roxburgh's English forces dug in along a ridge, the French infantry launch an audacious bid to turn themselves into gallic kebabs as they march straight onto a row of spikes placed down by his archers (an all-new feature), while they send their cavalry through the trees to launch a surprise attack. Misjudged in the extreme, Roxburgh quickly dispatches an attempted foot soldier diversion, leaving the French mounted knights isolated and vulnerable.

What strikes me most though isn't the French tactical naivety, but the breathtaking level of detail that these battles contain. Gone are the clone armies of Rome, replaced by rows of unique soldiers, their armour acquiring blood and mud as they duel with their opponents, before visibly scanning their surroundings for their next victim.

Dead bodies now stack up in horrific mounds - rather than the flat 2D corpses of Rome - while the battle physics have clearly enjoyed a makeover, with clashes looking more brutal and jarring than ever before. Individual blades of grass sway in the breeze, shrubs look prunable, weather changes dynamically and night-time battles are looking more visually impressive than ever, while every armour and weapon upgrade you make in the strategic map is now visually represented on the real-time battlefield.

WALL FALL
Battle number two is a desert skirmish. English crusaders battle the Egyptians, pounding the massed enemy ranks with mighty cannons. Finally, Roxburgh takes on an Aztec tribe. After obliterating their city walls with siege weapons (walls now crumble brick by brick, rather than in massive sections), the painted South Americans spill out of the gates in their thousands, only to be to slaughtered by superior tactics and swords that aren't made from wood.

"There'll be loads of new features in these battles that you'll have to take into account, like impassable terrain. The AI will look at that and think of how it can use it to its advantage," explains Sutherns. "We've done hundreds of hours on the animation work, so that the battles feel far more realistic and fluid."

For now, that's all there is, but I've seen and heard more than enough to reinforce my belief that this next Total War instalment could well pick up the baton from Rome and raise the RTS bar to even greater heights.

Will Porter