Rome: Total War

[tbirds]

John -

Have you seen Rome: Total War yet?

I had to buy Shogun: Total War and give it a shot. Medieval is far superior. They made some good advances from one to the next.

Was just looking for an opinion before I drop the 50 clams.

[empire]

Haven't played it personally, but I have heard good things. I'll probably wait a bit to get it, until the price goes down a bit. Medieval is such a great game that I'll definitely end up buying Rome...

[tbirds]

The original Shogun was terrible. Great in concept but unstable as hell. I had to save after every move lest the bastard would shut down. At one point it shut down right after a particularly awesome triumph in battle and I sat there staring at the desktop, pissed as hell. You also couldn't choose your starting/reserve units when going into battle with more than 16 units. So they'd give me 16 units of archers that would hold out for a while but then my army would be running for their lives while I waited for foot units to join the fray. Selecting multiple units was difficult.

Shogun Warlord Edition seems to have worked out many of those bugs. Archers aren't nearly as potent and run out of arrows much more quickly (which is good). In Medieval you can load up on archers and arbalesters and the attackers will never get near you. You go into a battle in Shogun with all archers and you're gonna get slaughtered.

[empire]

In Medieval you can load up on archers and arbalesters and the attackers will never get near you.

While missile troops can be very effective if placed in such a way as to be protected by terrain, heavy cavalry can usually absorb the losses that they take reaching the archers' position and then clean them up. Archers supported by pikeman, on the other hand, is just about unbeatable if you are defending. I have found it much more difficult to take the offensive in Medieval-- a fact that reflects the accuracy of the game as compared to actual medieval warfare...