Better than Medieval 2? - A Review of Chivalry Total War (Rome Total War Mod Review) 

Way to go, RU-vid!

then you have doomed yourself

Same here! xD

Hi Brakonierrr, thanks so much for subscribing! Yes, Chivalry is one of my favorite mods of all time. Actually I haven't had CTD issues with Chivalry when compared to some other mods... But unfortunately those are inevitable. Perhaps the d3d8 dll and enabling 4gb ram could help somewhat.

I totally agree. Despite Medieval 2 (and Chivalry 2 for Medieval 2) being out for so long, I still go back to Chivalry a lot when I want to play around in a medieval setting in Total War. I think it's the balance they have achieved with the good looking and not overwhelming number of units, the excellent buildings, the original medieval atmosphere (which I prefer over Medieval 2's), and the well-developed and distinct factions. Add in the great Crusader State system and it all adds up to an excellent experience. I definitely want to do a playthrough (or a couple, highlighting different factions) that shows off the best features of the mod.

Yeah, Chivalry is a great mod, a real classic. For those that prefer the RTW engine over Med 2 in some ways, it's a great way to play a medieval campaign. Will check it out sometime.

Thank you! I appreciate it :)

Yes I really really like the soundtrack of Medieval 1, probably a bit more than Medieval 2.

I'll have to add to that as the Total War series went on, unit cohesion and interaction's gotten worse and worse. Absolutely the worst examples of that can be seen in Empire and Rome 2: TW. TW: Warhammer 1 and 2 have tried to sort that out, but there's still no "real" oomph and physics in the engine. One of the reasons why cavalry absolutely blows in those games on higher difficulties.

Definitely, Medieval 2's unit response is so... slow and infuriating (see my EB2 let's play for example lol). In terms of feel, I actually like the feel of Shogun 2 and Attila quite a bit, especially the cavalry response and charges (Rome 2 is ok for me), I like how they kind of stampede into enemy units when you get a good charge from the flank, perhaps even more realistically than Rome 1. I think I will talk about this in another video (Rome vs. Med 2, Rome vs. Rome 2, Shogun 2, etc.).

@@Aelendris Yeah in Empire and Rome 2 (vanilla) cavalry doesn't feel good at all... I do like how it feels in Shogun 2 - it has a sort of "trample" effect if you get a good charge off from behind that I like. Attila as well. Medieval 2's, even when the charge is good, feels very anti-climactic. I like Rome's quite a bit - it probably has my favorite charges in TW. Haven't played Warhammer.

One of the things I will never understand is how the recent games spent so much time making the units look so good, but so little time making the battles fun to watch. Sure, your shining line of late Roman legionnaires or your Sassanid heavy cav looks great when they're formed up for battle ... but as soon as they make contact, men fold into each other like an accordion or a pack of cards. Zoom in and you can see them opening their mouths and closing them, while staring at each other, occasionally giving a halfhearted jab with a spear. Cavalry charges are better, as you say, but once you're in melee the action is "muddier" and extremely difficult to follow - and when you can see what's going on, it's usually pretty boring. So you end up spending most of the time zoomed way out, because while the man-vs-man combats are slow and dull, the macro level of combat moves pretty quickly, and you need to pay attention. Why bother with all those high-res units if watching them in battle is a distraction at worst and boring at best? In RTW, visual fidelity was considerably lower, but something about the battles is just *more fun* to watch. They don't seem as "locked in" to 1-v-1 duel animations, so you can actually have a unit charge another from the flank and cut down some guys from behind. The animations are basic, but it's clear what's going on, and through the course of a battle you can follow one man as he cuts down 3 foes before meeting his own fate. Even in MTW, where you just had 2d sprites with no detail, the pace of battle and the impact of the units meant you could appreciate how the combat was progressing. Gah. Better stop now or pretty soon you'll be hearing how in my day I could get candy for a nickel. A NICKEL!!!

@@countmrvhs776 LOL I agree about watching the melees. I have mixed feelings about the mo-cap animations... I actually like watching battles in Shogun 2 (and actually in Napoleon as well, since they aren't in melee most of the time anyway and cavalry actually works ok), but Rome 2 definitely has a blandness during melee that is strange. I think Shogun 2 is probably my favorite in terms of how they handled the new engine. I hope they update the engine soon, or migrate to a new one so that Total War can really be next-gen..

Denmark and Sicily are good choices, England too

Hi Revan, there is a patch that adds the Roma Surrectum environments that really makes the map look nicer and less bland. I do agree that it is unusually flat when compared to other maps though. What campaign AI difficulty are you playing on? The AI is pretty good in Chivalry compared to some other mods, but I don't think it's necessarily more aggressive than others...

Oh I haven't tried that, was it recently released?

here: www.moddb.com/mods/chivalry-total-war/downloads/rs-2-environments-for-chivalry

Hi Flo Flo - I'm uploading a review of the Chivalry 2 mod for Medieval 2 now. The Vlachs are playable in the Renaissance (and perhaps Late) era campaign in that mod (the successor to this one!). Check it out!

You can play as the Kingdom of Vlachs and Bulgarians. I'm really glad that they actually made as much research, as to find out about this fairly obscure historical fact, that the romanians and bulgarians were once united under the same ruler.

haha disregard that, I just noticed your Chivalry 2 video that was uploaded 19 hours ago

Haha yes, glad you saw it! It was one of my favorites back in the day so I had to give it some attention. I still like it a lot, it's really a jack of all trades kind of mod. I wish the original Chivalry had High and Late era campaigns... (well, it did get a High Era submod with the FCRC campaign, but nobody seems to have that mod anymore...)

I was just about to ask you if you had a copy of FCRC around... too bad. I've gotten back into the TW games after some years of a break and have downloaded a couple of mods. Always sad when old download links are dead and nobody has a backup. Now I'm downloading as many old Rome and Med2 mods as I can for archival purposes, hah!

I actually was a beta tester for Fcrc... Making it doubly sad...

Hi Igor, in Medieval 2 when your horsemen take casualties, the horsemen are all stuck to their horse even after falling to the ground due to how the Med 2 engine is designed to handle horse models. Even original RTW handled it better, with the horse and rider being separate models and the rider falling off. It's one of my biggest issues with Medieval 2.

@@GudeaTW got it. Thank you for reply.

Cavalry is much slower (Of course, they have heavier armors. but they are also slow to react to orders) And you have to click multiple times to make your cavalry disengage

Hey Giorgios, it's definitely a campaign I want to play on the channel!

I haven't played Rome Medieval in quite awhile (have to give it a shot again). I think the units looks nicer in Rome Medieval, but I like the pace of Chivalry's campaign better (and it has some nice looking units as well, and it runs more smoothly).

@@GudeaTW thanks!

Hi Wandering Skeleton, I have been testing Stainless Steel recently. Back in the day I simply never got around to playing it that much. I've been enjoying my time with it!

I don't have the mobile version of RTW, but as far as I understand it is impossible to install mods for RTW on Android/iOS.

@@GudeaTW for the Android it would be possible if we would have emulator for the latest Android, as the game hash (.obb) is editable. But for the iOS, it's definitely impossible

@@Lanjane Thanks for the info!

I know- I was one of the testers for FCRC! Unfortunately when my old computer died I lost all my files, including any backup I had of FCRC (pre-cloud era). If someone has it I would love to download it again...

Yes I agree, in medieval 2 it is too sticky...

are you playing with the steam version or no?

@@GudeaTW yes I am playing the steam version

That shouldn't happen. I would reinstall rtw and then reinstall Chivalry.

You can also use my guide to installing rtw mods on steam

Absolutely

they did.

Check my guide to installing rtw mods on steam

How are you liking it? It's definitely one of my favorite medieval era Total War campaigns, outshining many Medieval 2 campaigns even (it might even be my favorite).

@@GudeaTW "How are you liking it?" I enjoy it a lot: I'm actually on my second campaign as the Fatimids (I also have a Roman campaign under my belt; also took a look at the others) Egypt is a personal fav. It's generally well-depicted, but there are some pet peeves of mine regarding the physical appearance of the local units (the units themselves are by and large historical: I wouldn't change too much regarding the types and stats of the units: mostly change some names, and maybe cut out a couple of units that are superfluous)

Hi God of Warhammer, check the guide video I made for installing Rome total war mods on steam

@@GudeaTW thx

Indeed

@@GudeaTW chivalry remastered when?

Heheh for me it has a very different feel compared to Med 2, very different atmosphere and mechanics.

@@GudeaTW Yes... Oneself must build his/her own richness from zero (simulating you just came to the throne, of one medieval country)... Oneself must spent some time investigating & choosing WELL which building is better in this or that settlement (recruitment and bonus, them are really specials in each region)... Walls and towers, in battlefield, are really a beauty work (and some buildings too)... And ZERO (0) CTD, a random CTD can happens according your hardware (I have no GPU, eg, so some random CTD, due some "bottle neck" by there, is reasonable); but basically you can play HOURS without any CTD... Really, one of the bests mods Ive seen... For that Im making a revamp soldier´s models, althought its a WIP yet ( -> media.moddb.com/images/members/2/1926/1925429/nnnlll.png )

That's awesome! You should join the rtw community discord to showcase your work on the Chivalry units

​@@GudeaTW Working on my main proyect for now... no time´s 100% with Chiv, but I give some news, when I can, in moddb -> www.moddb.com/members/bertoweb

@@monchobullet8006 I'm sure the community would love to see your units. If you like, you can showcase them here, but I understand if you don't want to: discord.gg/2YH2YYcf

This is adjusted in my port of chivalry to remastered

@@GudeaTW Thanks for the answer Gudea, most appreciated. Do you know if there's any fix in the original?

@@mornarmo5833 there is no fix for the original