Effective unit management is critical to battlefield success. Each unit has
its strengths and weaknesses and you must take these into account if you want to
have any chance of victory. Leading a cavalry charge into ranks of spearmen is
suicide, but harassing the spearmen from a distance with archers and then
bringing your cavalry around to charge their rear as they try to reach your
archers gives you a good chance of success. The game’s AI is pretty adept at
battlefield tactics and using the right unit for the right job, so expect some
challenging battles during the campaign.
Battles in Medieval II can either take place on the field or as a siege of a
city or castle. If you are entering into a siege, you may need to hold the siege
for a few turns in order to build siege weapons while encamped outside the
enemy’s walls. You can also hold the siege in an attempt to whittle down the
enemy’s strength before engaging them in battle. When a siege battle begins your
first goal is to get your men inside the city or castle, which will require you
to bring your siege weapons into action. If you succeed in breaching the walls,
the action then moves to the streets of the enemy’s stronghold. To win the
battle at this point you’ll need to either eliminate all of the enemy forces or
capture the stronghold’s central square and maintain control of it for three
minutes.
The real-time battles really are the star of the show here. The strategic
component of the game is enjoyable enough, but it is not nearly as engaging as
the battles. The strategic game can even grow a bit tiresome during the long
campaign games as the latter stages of the mid-game and the endgame can really
drag out as you try to reach and knock out the few remaining provinces standing
between you and victory while scrambling to knock down the rebellions which tend
to pop-up in random provinces under your control. A quick version of the
campaign would be a welcome addition so that you can win a game without needing
to dedicate a week of gameplay to it. It would also help if the game would make
all of the playable factions available from the beginning. You can play as one
of five nations at the start, but to unlock the others you need to beat the game
with one of the original factions and you do so one by one. It could literally
take months of play before you have your choice of each of the game’s seventeen
playable factions.
Outside of the campaign the game can be played in real-time mode in a number of
ways. Several historical battles are included that allow you to try and change
history or make it repeat itself. There is also a skirmish mode which lets you
choose the units for the battle and then go at it. Multiplayer is supported for
battles of up to eight players in which you can fight to be the last man
standing or achieve the highest performance-based score after the dust settles.
Eight player matches can involve a tremendous number of units, but the game
moves only as fast as the player with the slowest computer system allows.
Because of this you’ll more likely stick with smaller scale battles or spend a
little time in the game’s lobby setting up an optimal match. Online play is both
challenging and enjoyable, but most players will probably spend most of their
time with the campaign which is really the heart of the game.
Overall Medieval 2 is a good game. It is one great looking game and it backs up
its pretty face with some deep strategic gameplay. It takes a certain amount of
dedication to get through the long campaigns, but strategy gamers who enjoy
sticking it out for the long haul will thoroughly enjoy the game.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
88%. What strategy gamer wouldn’t want to lead
thousands of armored knights onto the field of battle?
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