Medieval: Total War Preview

Every new quality strategy game that appears on the market attracts a lot of attention both from the genre fans and occasional strategists. Do you remember Shogun: Total War, in which Creative Assembly successfully merged turn-based and real-time strategy elements bringing us great epic battles from the feudal Japan? Several months ago, they published Mongol Invasion - an expansion pack for Shogun, which surpassed the original game. This success only encouraged Creative Assembly to use their skills and knowledge to create a completely new game in the Total War serial - Medieval: Total War.

Enemy sited!

Chaaarge!

The British based Creative Assembly (founded in 1987) is best known for its Shogun Total War (Mongol Invasion expansion pack and Warlords edition) and a Rugby simulation that appeared on the PC and PS2. All their games have been published by one of the greatest publishers on the market - Electronic Arts, but from this title on, Creative Assembly started cooperation with another big-time publisher - Activision, famous for publishing titles like Quake, Wolfenstein 3D and Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

The already proficient developer team and the publisher make us confident that we are looking into a high quality title. The game is still being developed and is supposed to appear on the market by this autumn.

Now, if you thought that covering one hundred years of history of feudal Japan was much, rest your seaters before continuing... Medieval: Total War deals with four hundred years of European history; all from the first crusade in 1095 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. which is a huge time-span crammed with historical events.

In the last Total War game, the players were in a position to choose between playing two different nations, and in Medieval: Total War there will be twelve different nations: French, English, Spanish, German, Byzantine, Turk, Russian, Mongolian, etc. and a number of lesser fractions (Scottish, Irish, Hungarian, independent states, rebels...) which will act as NPCs only. The larger time-span and territory the game covers are direct reasons for this number of nations, and this will also make the game far more interesting and versatile. The historical period this game deals with is considered to be the dark age of European civilization. Game will cover the most important historical events of the age like the crusades, the hundred-year war between England and France and the Mongolian invasion. The hardest thing here is to find the right balance between verisimilitude and sheer playability when dealing with a game based solely on historical facts. The developers certainly paid a lot of heed to history, and through the course of the game, you will have a chance to meet more than two hundred historical characters, some of which you may remember from your history books like: Richard Lion Heart, Kublai Kan, Marko Polo, William Wallas (Braveheart), Jean D'Arc, Saladin, El Sid, Robin Hood and others (Age of Kings, anyone - Ed).

The game also features more than a hundred period and nation specific units, including Highlander clansmen, Saracen infantry, Bedouin camel-mounted warriors, Turkish janissaries, German armored knights, English longbow men and Cossacks.

This game has two basic types of gameplay: the tactical real-time 3D combat and the strategic turn-based mode in which you control your empire and forces on a larger scale. In the tactical mode, your basic goal is to defeat the enemy on the field in classical RTS combat. The strategic mode, on the other hand, requires you to maintain your opposition by trade, diplomacy, and development of your country. You will initially have to choose the nation you wish to play and hence secure your place in the world... or to be more specific, on the map. Your choice of nation will also determine the number of your initial territories and your basic strategy. All maps have been designed to the tiniest of details and you will at all times have access to all tactical information you may require. Terrain characteristics will have great influence on your choice of tactics; natural obstacles can substantially slow your forces on their conquest. You will have to take care of a lot of things, including the territory climate. For instance, using heavily armored units in the middle of the desert would be practically suicidal, and lead to utter failure.