THE GREATEST TOTAL WAR OF ALL TIME - Medieval 2: Total War 

Man - playing Medieval 2 to collect the footage for this video has really hit those nostalgia chords. What a gem! *Pick it up here for 75% off during the Steam Summer Sale* - store.steampowered.com/app/4700/Total_War_MEDIEVAL_II__Definitive_Edition/? - and feel free to let me know your favourite Total War! If it's Medieval 2, I'd love to know if your reasons are similar to mine or different!

This game taught me geography.

I'm 73 and I think Medieval 2 is one of the greatest games of all times. I play all tw games, but loved Medieval 2. I love the Mods out also for it.

i was so immersed in this game i remember i once drew the whole map on a paper and took it with me to school to plan out my campaign in class..

I had a General in a Turk campaign called "Kajuk of Mosul." He ended up basically single-handedly holding off the entire Mongol invasion in Georgia. His modus operandi was to always execute prisoners so that the Mongols wouldn't get any replenishment. So very soon he was known as "Kajuk the Merciless Mauler." After 4 or 5 battles against superior forces, his army had been reduced to just a handful of men clinging to a small hill as the remnants of 5 mongol stacks closed in. Even then he managed to hold out, routing one demoralized mongol unit after another. He was finally killed by the Generals Bodyguard of the last mongol stack and his army was completely destroyed only one turn before a reinforcing army entered the region to save Tiblisi just in time. It was the most epic campaign arc I'd ever had for a general. If I could have built a statue of Kajuk in Mosul or Tiblisi, I would!

If Medieval 3 was literally nothing but a Medieval II remastered* with up to date graphics, I'd pre order it at 60$ the instant they announced it. - *Hopefully *with* the Kingdoms bugfix to great weapons though

Medieval 2 is my favorite Total War game as well. The one thing I learned from that game after playing campaigns as the English, Spanish, Byzantines, and Holy Roman Empire... never trust the Duchy of Milan.

New visual look of units that got armor upgrade was the best feature ever!

Imagine being paid to talk about medieval 2! This is awesome man, I love creative assembly drawing attention back to this gem

Honestly the only things that could make Medieval 2 better are: -Add more settlements -Add more factions -Overhaul the diplomacy system I hope that if they make a remaster dont change the fucking engine because I will always hate the new engine

Actually I'd argue that the coolest thing traits could do was influence their pre battle speeches over the epithets. It's a shame the minor factions didn't have the same variety of speeches as the main factions.

"This video about why Medieval 2, a fourteen year old game, is still better than the modern games CA has released, was sponsored by CA to show how terrible their new games are." Yeah makes total sense.

You heard it here first folks, PartyElite confirms Medieval 3!!

Medieval 2 made a HUGE impact on me. The traits, the speeches and the slow paced battles... How I miss those. Don't get me wrong, I love Warhammer. I had no idea it existed before the game, but after a little researche I realized how fitting it was to be used in the Total War formula. And I'm in love with this game. However, my greatest criticism is the arcade feeling of the battles. They are too fast. How I miss sending my troops to battle and taking my time to appreciate the models and animations. It was amazing to watch my knights cuting the enemies down, my archer line raining arrows on the enemy frontline. Medieval 2 had a lot of little things that contributed to the immersion and in my humble opinion immersion is one of the top factors in a game. I hope that in the future CA give a little more attention to these details.

Battles in Medeival 2 have so much more weight to them than more modern Total War fare. The dynamic music also made it feel epic. I love Warhammer but there's some things about this game that are just flat out better and more immersive.

Loads up Steam. Clicks Install.

Agree!! probably one of the best games ever! it will always have a special place in my heart. The modding community was amazing and I still like it's general-less army system alot more

The best way to deal with the Pope’s negative opinion is to simply assasinate him. If you had Anouilh leveled up priests, chances are that the next pope will be yours. Some pope perks are hilarious too. I once had a pope that was actually a woman is disguise. +1 piety or something like. The best way to level up commanders was to send one commander’s guard unit against rebelling peasants. Charge, charge, charge! My record was something like 2-3 knights lost, 400-500 peasants killed. The commander instantly became a hero.

Aww man this menu music. The nostalgia! Nostalgia I tell you!

Man I remember helping in modding projects for Medieval II. Wish I still had this kind of time :3

The visual armour upgrade as you scale up blacksmiths was honestly one of my favorite things about any game ever. Getting those Turks kitted out in some bright shiny chainmail was so epic! Man party elites comments about 'the little things' is so spot on. I've always thought if I was a game dev I'd really go through the ropes to put fantastic 'little things' into every nook and cranny

I was 13 when I played this game. This game taught me so much, this game alone did not give me all my knowledge of war, diplomacy, hell even society a bit, but it did introduce me to them at a young age in a way I actually retained it. This is just another case of video games actually being really good educational tools. No joke. Creative assembly will always be a teacher to me.

I miss being able to have army's without always having to pay a general to keep the army. I feel as though the old way made the game more aggressive and easier to lock down an opponent and along with the Stainless Steel AI that is more aggressive it feels correct where as in the new games the AI doesn't do anything but sit in a city and wait on lower difficulty's.

*Hears Medieval 2 main menu music after many years* - Inner Crusader: "DEUS FUCKIN VULT!"

Medieval II was definitely where CA peaked with the old engine, Rome is a great game but this title stood up to so many of the new ones with most having quite a rocky start. I hope they take their time with Medieval III and that they'll be able to retain how well Med II played. Definitely my favorite Total War with Three Kingdoms coming in second.

I very much miss having the ability to just train units from a settlement and march them around without a general, you could have an army slowly marching through a nation while splitting of highly experienced but damaged units, and refilling your rankes with green recruits and having to actually maintain a supply line and keep it defended to do that. Also it meant that we had far more field battles and AI army's didn't just hid in settlements in a full stack, and you didn't just have to build a full 20 stack before it was really able to do anything because not many full stacks would be moving around, ahh so much better then the rome 2 and continuing systems.

For Medieval 3 to work for me, it would need to recreate the genius of the Papal system of Medieval 2. That was easily my favorite aspect, partly because the Pope often did completely irrational things, and therefore kept the gameplay interesting and unpredictable! It always made me smile to see him ally with the Moors, declare crusade on Paris or Milan, and hate my guts no matter how many cathedrals I built and crusades I won. It made assassinating him and installing my own Pope all the more satisfying. Good times!

Please talk about a good game we made 14 years ago because we have half assed every game since

What makes M2TW (and RTW) speical is the level of detail that went into the game that newer titles forgot. For example, the location of the battle on the campaign map is reflect on the battlefield of the RTT gameplay -- if there is a mountain or a sea behind your army, you will see it it behind you in battle; the cinematic cutscene that plays out every time you perform an agent action, the way seasons/weather completely changes the battlefield, or even the animations like Pavise crossbowmen reloading or Arquebusier firing in ranks. Its sad that TWW2 don't have reloading animations for guns/crossbows -- also gun units being able to volley fire like archers makes them OP when they should instead fire in ranks.

TW Medieval 2 Stainless Steel Mod is THE Best TW game of all TotalWars

I got it for free as an apology for closing off Total War: Arena.

CA should look at this and remember what worked so well. My favorites were the visual upgrades you can see on the battle maps (leather, chain mail, steel plate) and the role playing. If they were to add this with the great new features of current total war games (technology upgrades, TWTK’s diplomacy, etc) they could really make the perfect game.

hands down. Best total war game ever. what made me say that? The units actually changed appearance when upgraded. I remember getting confused the first time i noticed it.

Dynamic general speeches and assassin cutscenes must come back.

I have only found this video now but I am very happy to see how much of a fanbase M2TW still has after so many years. It truly is a timeless game, and your video did a great job compiling all the aspects of it that made it such an enjoyable and rewarding experience to play, thank you for that

MY proudest moment was handing over my collected retinues to my favourite son helping him be stacked and continue the fight.

Medieval 2 RP LP when?! It would be a cool change of pace from warhammer to have a nostalgia LP, showing off the complexity of this game compared to the more "arcadey" feel of TWWH. Great game, might have my next campaign be a Holy Roman Empire one rather than an Empire one!

It always seems like when a company gets too big the games get worse by trying to appease as much people as possible. Just like bands, the best stuff is always when they are on their way up.

Speaking of small details, the flavor text in this game was amazing. I loved this engine. The guns, the artillery, bows and crossbows just felt so good, so real. I loved the management aspects better too. Again it just felt more real, less game-y for lack of a better term that so many of the newer games have. I still have fond memories of getting really into a HRE game. One of the objectives was to control Rome. In conquering it I was excommunicated but there was an out; I had cardinals in position to be the successor of the Pope, but I could never militarily capture the bugger and execute him that way. So begun the Great Pope Hunt. Countless assassins were unleashed to see the Pope off this mortal coil. So many failures but I'd watch the videos each time because I wanted to remember how it went down when the success hit. The winner was the one with him hiding beneath the table. Was expecting him to be caught but then, bam, the knife hit home and I was like OH SHIT I DID IT! I was rightly hated but the new successor smoothed over everything. Forging a long lasting alliance with Milan only to have them betray me for no reason out of the blue. Perhaps the feared my growing power but I was more than happy to bring them along as friends into the future (then again maybe it was all that business with the Pope lol). My king was furious at the betrayal and personally lead our army of elites to destroy them, executing every prisoner of war and decimating the populace of every city he conquered, gaining more and more negative traits and becoming a twisted lunatic. Eventually his army would desert him and by the end, in his madness thinking himself invincible and craving more death, he charged the gates of Constantinople by himself where he was cut down, leaving the kingdom in his son's hands and a right mess to clean up. Such a fun game when you let yourself get immersed in it.

You forgot to mention the incredibly amazing siege battles, which, if not the best ones, they're definetly in the top 3 of total war. Man it was so epic going through the layered defence of the high tier castles, both on the offensive and the defensive, and the IA was actually pretty good at them too. The only downside I see in Medieval 2 is that you don't know where the cities are at the start, you have to manually scout everything around you to find them, which is quite frustrating and boring, that made me disable the fog of war every time I play.

14:40..." Sherwood Archers " One of the best Battles I ever had. TW: Kingdoms playing as Scotland vs. English. My front line was nearly overrun. The Sherwood archers got swarmed with their backs to a big tree. Left for dead. Won. @ the end the last two surviving models were " Robin " and " Little John ". The replay was insane.

I just love the med II physics model and animations. Everything feels so meaty and real.

Appart from the Obvious things in wich M2 is so good , people tend to forget the cinematics , it had the best and most original/epic/funny cinematics of all the Total war games.

units have wieight and fights play out in a sensible manner two against one means two people can attack the one with a big advantage, the soldiers arent just visual representation of number crunching

That running bush cracked me up =)))

I was rapt in this when it came out. I used to just stare at some of the close up battle scenes and do 360s to see every angle.

I play CK2 for the medieval intrigues, dynasties and such. But Medieval II Total War offers quite the spectacle in its battles and sieges. Despite owning the newer Total Wars, I still come back to this game regularly especially with Stainless Steel Mod.

The music in the game was also on point. Really have another depth of immersion. The sfx and voice overs were brilliant. They were so diverse and dynamic. You really never knew what you were going to get. Love this game. I never played any of that mods and now I want to.

How I loved this game ! My favorite as well with Shogun 2. I started the Total War Series with the very first Shogun Total War and I own almost all games in the main series (No Napoleon, Attila or TW Saga for me) The crusade mechanic in ME2TW was really fun but could be abused so much. Having a full stack army of generals sieging Jerusalem with a few full stack reinforcements nearby, just to have all of them gain the Crusader trait was kind of cheaty but really rewarding. There was also so many ways to cheese the mechanics in this game and so many exploits (like the infinite movement or the boat movement loop allowing reinforcements to cross the map in one turn) that were never patched thats its kind of sad. I'd love to see a Medieval 3 Total War at some point, but seeing the latest installments in the series and their core mechanics, I'm not so sure if it could be this fun and this good. At least for me.

My father probably has over 10 thousand hours in Total War games, and I can't see him ever quitting. Medieval 2 is his favourite, followed by the first Rome.

Oh God thank you for the nostalgia trip. I miss Kristophoros Moschos, best general I've ever had.

I've been playing this game since 2009 and just now I realized that when you play in the grand campaign (kingdom) you can reach the America's including Brazil. I wish they realized an all out America's campaign stretching from Canada to Argentina

Stainless Steel + Medieval 2...easily the best Total War game. If they could even recreate this game, with the ideas from Stainless Steel, updated graphics and harder difficulty/AI...it would be amazing.

Here I go installing again...

I was looking for reviews on the total war games In my steam cart, now I know which one to buy. Thanks

Medieval 2 was the game that got me started in the total war franchise. I find it harder and more thrilling than the newer ones, but I still play Warhammer 2 since it has a better multiplayer campaign. If they remastered Med 2 and updated the multiplayer campaign, I know that my brothers and I would buy it in a heartbeat! This is one game that I will never let go and still find myself returning to.

My first total war, good old times

Is it rare for a girl to play strategy video games?... well, seeing my dad play this game was what motivated me to do it and voila! ... today at 18, virtual strategy is the only thing I play on my computer

This is the game that got me into the series. I still have the boxes version stashed away with all the cool goodies.

I still reinstall it every now and then just to play the historical battles. "KEEP AFTER THEIR CHIEFS!!!" goosebumps to this day.

This game came out when I was in high school. I saw it at Walmart having never played pc games and bought it because the case looked cool. Best decion ever. One of my fav all time games.. so many hours spent in it and playing with friends

You will have to look very hard for a die hard fan for Thrones of Britannia.

You forgot to mention how the buildings in cities visible during battles are specific to whatever buildings you've built on the campaign which is also neat imo.

Liked this video when I saw the title:) The entry of the total war series is Rome total war for me, but my favorites total war is Medieval 2 total war. The are many systems in medieval 2 that I still consider to be the best of the series, for example, the general traits, dread and command. The RPG system might be interested at first glance, but pretty much every general fall into a few best builds eventually. It becomes a chore to level up your general. The units' design have the best variety of this series, ranging from different culture, different time, and even an individual unit can upgrade their armor. Last but not least, the music is epic! The main downside for me is the unit replenishment, it is quite inconvenient to travel all the way to the recruitment location to replenish your unit.

You know a game is good when the conversion mods can be considered as an entirely separate game. i.e Third Age TW, Westeros TW

Last Time I was this early, I don't remember what happened

One of my favourite parts of rome and medieval 2 total war is just looking at the Map in the corner and seeing youre color cover the map, mopping up some broder Gore

Its been 4 years and yall makin me want to play the game again goddamit

Medieval 3 with Current graphics gonna be my drug if it comes into being

I miss randomized perks your generals earned on their own. It gave them a bit of personality that later games lost.

The passion and excitement you show for this game is amazing, well done video :) Never really got into Medieval myself, not really my era. My personal favorite is Napoleon. The era is my favorite both in Total War and in RL history. The muskets, the lines of battle, the uniforms, the canons, the cavalry charges, and the ships.. oh my: HMS Victory vs.Santísima Trinidad, thats my childhood fantasy right there :) And of course the characters, Wellington, Blücher, Ney... ok, I stop now... While Napoleon wasn't that much fun in the overland map, always felt like it was just a means to an end, I absolutly love the battles, both land and sea. Using the Darthmod I still play a campaign every few years. Second favorite one is Shogun II, again the era and settings being the stonger pull for me then the actual gameplay. Growing up I must have read James Clavell Shōgun at least 20 times.

It also marks down important battles you’ve fought on the map, like if you destroyed a huge army with a small army somewhere in your territory, it’ll mark its date and what general won that battle. It’s awesome how much detail they put into this game and how much you discover later on in your play through

This is my favorite game, and Imo, the most complete game CA made, if they upgraded the graphics, fived some of the bugs, Id be more than happy with giving CA my wallet. Some times polishing and upgrading what you have, is better than trying to make something new and unique.

Saw Medieval 2, instant like for the video!

med 2 is for sure my most beloved tw game ever,i really wanna see medieval 3,i have many ideas i wanna see in it: 1.Give us the possibility to customize our settlements even more,let us build castles on strategic positions on the actual terrain of the strategic and tactical map. 2.Give us a series of modules we can choose from to customize them and so add a lot of variety so that they will be always different and strategically relevant in a siege battle(i ve never get the point of a citadel in the middle of nowhere). Let us build them on a hill,for example,with more defensive modules added (towers,additional circles or bastion and so on)resulting in higher construction cost and building time. In order to do that effectively,the grand campaign map should be bigger and detailed,they already did it in warhammer 2. 3.Make sieges great again and add more siege mmechanics,give us back a full settlement,not those 2 walls of WH:how one is supposed to use tactic if he does not have time and space to do it?You dont have to just rush to the walls;that's stupid and may let you loose or loose more men anyway without a reason. 4.i wish titles for our generals and vassals come back,as in med 1,it's an immersive and historically correct feature. 5.A more complex political mechanic,like for example what we have for the empire in wh2 must be added,where you have to manage your vassals to get them assist in your wars. 6.No more superheroes with superpowers,we want to use our mind,the terrain,the morale,the fatigue system and our superior tactic to win,we want men,not gods,we want to care about our troops and feel their fear and their courage on the battlefield:this is a part of what i call immersion. 7.a living and thriving population system from where you have to pick your troops is essential,bring it back exactly how it was in med2,that was the best system ever in my opinion in a tw game,was realistic and immersive,cause was bringing you back to your growing city and population and make you feel connection with all that stuff which was your true empire potential. 8.less streamlined and more complex trade and settlements,with more building options dependin on what do you need in a certain region...as it was,merchant mechanics rework 9.complete diplomacy rework,on the example of three kingdoms 10.if we can have all this stuff with the graphic we have in newer title,this could be the perfect tw. this is my opinion lol

This game taught me that buildings farms to feed the peasants is a bad thing, and that the best course of action after taking a city is happily hobbling through the streets, putting the population to the sword, they resisted or not

I've never played Med2, started with TW with Shogun 2 but maaaaan does your vid makes me wanna play! Any suggestions on where to start? The UI is so different from the newer titles!

I'm playing the Stainless Stell HIP mod as Rome right now. Amazing mod, check it out. Can't play rome 2/Attila. Although updates on diplomacy and auto-recruit, more factions and so on are cool, game is just too arcadie. Shogun 2 was the last good total war worth playing if you want a more realistic experience. I DREAM for a day where CA makes another expasion for MTW2 (IF AoE 2 got one, it's possible) or if CA remove Hard-coded limits.

I love this game so much. My favorite part of the game now is taking any faction eastwards and going on an endeavor of epic proportions: A war against the Mongols and wiping them all out by a tactic that I refer to as: Operation Kill All of Their Generals AT ALL COSTS!

The original shogun will always be my favourite as it was so unique at the time. Probably then followed by empire and napoleon as I loved that era

Having played most of the total war series while Warhammer bringing in the huge fantasy element. Medieval 2 is the only game able to hold my interest to beat the long campaign on every playable faction.

This got me into wishful thinking of Medieval 3. And hopefully there will be more Asian kingdoms for the play and hope they include the Khmer too... yeah, do the grand historical Total War with the scale of WH universe...

The dynamic traits were the best! Sit in a castle too long and your general will start seeing things, he becomes a loon! And the descriptions of these hilarious traits was superb

Now you've done it. Reinstalling Medival 2 right now.

I pref Rome 1 over Medieval 2. Played it for so long and used mods, created my own units by changing the equipment and models. That was so much fun. The best game of all and I still love is empire. The details of the ships, the era and units of the time, the battles. Best tw game ever. I hope they ll create empire 2 with a bigger map, more provinces(pls not like in Rome2 with a capital and two trashy non walled cities), better engine (multiple core and thread usage)... that would be nice.

Everything after Shogun 2, sucks.

Not only did I learn a lot about history and geography because of this game, but it really blew my mind visually and made me appreciate PC gaming. To this day I'm still predominantly a console game or, but before medieval 2 I never thought that I would want to own a gaming pc. In 2006 when this game came out, I had a middle of the road Dell machine that could run it on medium settings, and the game completely blew me away. Comparing it to what was my main console, the PS2 at the time, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. Thousands of character models each of them looking like a standard PS2 character. It was that moment that made me fall in love with strategy games on PC and to this day basically the only reason why I buy a gaming laptop every 4-5 years. I basically buy it to play the total war games and my new favorite ... With over 3000 hours, Europa Universalis IV. A game that took everything I loved about the medieval games and turned it up to 11.

One of the reason is when i was young Napoleon and Medieval 2 are the two Total Wars that i have. I play them for years after school. They sticked with my childhood, hard to replace... i wish one day Total War will make another topic relates to Medieval, since i heard that they wont make any topic for 3rd time

All who are waiting for the Medieval III, believe me, developers will never do better than the second part They simply can’t, and it would be better if they didn’t do it! Those people who made the first Rome, the second Medival and Shogun 2, apparently they haven’t been working in the SA campaign for a long time, since the last games are getting worse and sluggish where the main bet is made only on graphics and sales!

Lol everyone praising Rome total war and medieval 2 as still being the best, shows how CA can't seem to figure out what their demographic actually wants to play.

You forgot to mention (at least not directly) that because you have to move reinforcements through enemy terrain the map itself gave the possibility for insane maneuveres. You could literally go in all 4 directions, running or luring away the enemy, attacking it from unexpected directions, maneuver around armies and besiege cities behind their lines. And most importantly all of the above could be done TO YOU by the enemies! And THIS is one insane feature which I'm SO missing in the newer versions of TW games!

crazy how much i learned about history and geography from empire,medieval and rome total war

I really miss this old style of gameplay from the Total War games... this new ones are not as enjoyable for me because of that. The new gameplay system does work with warhammer, since its a game more oriented into fantasy and battles, but the historical ones are kinda disappointing.

Gotta agree. Medieval 2 was my first Total War game, and it still holds up after all these years. To be fair, though, I've been playing through all the historical titles chronologically the past few months, and I must admit I'm surprised how good they all are, in their respective current game states (currently playing Rome 2, which has become a fantastic game since the Emperor Edition, fingers crossed for Attila). It took CA quite a while on some titles, but for the most part it's become quite a solid franchise, in my opinion. Never played Thrones of Britannia or Three Kingdoms, so I look forward to trying those out soon.

this and the grand-grand campaing mod makes this game top-notch, now im rolling with atilla 1212 mod.

just wish it had full MP bot just hotseat, I play the game with mods ever damn day and would love to have like 8 ppl playing it together

Medieval 2 with Stainless Steel + mod was one of the most memorable game ever for me, the mod amplified everything good about the game to the next level or two. For example the overhauled units and recruitment system made it so that almost all units are regional units, in effect you would no longer see the Scots recruiting mass of highlanders on a conquered middle east province. Instead they could recruit mostly local units like berber spearmen or Arab archers etc and only Scotland's most elite, noble warriors and professional units would be available for the Scots in that region and even that they would come at lower pool than in Scots home ground. But it doesn't stop there, you can also recruit some of other factions' signature units if you conquer their original territories. Such system gave so much realism and diversity in every armies in the game and the AI get benefit from that too. This in turn, making playing with factions that are surrounded by other factions even more fun, playing with factions like Serbia, Hungary, Byzantium, Cumans etc would mean that your army would eventually be so diverse and varied as you annexed surrounding territories... It's really fun to see for example your Byzantium army that is comprised of Balkan and Anatolian units supported by Byzantium own professional units rampaging in Italy against militia styled Italian troops. I dream of medieval 2 with the most advanced version of stainless steel to be used as the base for medieval 3... Alas it's more likely just forever be a wishful thinking.

Getting a 'heroic victory' mark on the campaign map felt so good. Something you won't forget for a while.

One thing I love about M2 is the aesthetic. Specifically, I think they got the colors PERFECT. They didn't make everything just a shade of gray or brown, but they also didn't have cartoonishly bright colors. Grass and trees, both on the campaign map and in battles, were a very pleasing, reserved green color. Unit clothes and banners were vibrant, but not to a gross degree.

Gonna hop on the nostalgia train for this one. I got Medieval II when I was in middle school lol. Watching this video inspired me to reinstall it and I gotta say it is still good fun. I would absolutely adore a remaster with updated graphics and interface though.