Medieval: Total War Preview

Apart from the standard battles, the game also features castle sieges, which is something that was sorely missing in the Shogun serial. Most players will find this quite refreshing. This mode of play offers many new tactical possibilities; you can go for the full frontal attack, or you can just surround the castle and wait till everybody inside dies of hunger. On the other hand, castle can be constantly upgraded and repaired during the siege, so that it longer resists your catapults and cannons.

The old ambush-in-forest ploy...

We have them cornered!

The thing that makes this game especially appealing are the scenes of massive battles with over 10,000 soldiers. Before each battle, you will have just enough time to displace your troops in coherence with the strategy you devised. Your tactics will constantly have to adapt to terrain characteristics and current battlefield situation. You will have countless possibilities at your disposal - scouting enemy positions, flanking, using units as bates, using terrain for cover... anything is allowed, and each trifle can influence the final outcome of the battle. Taking control of higher grounds is very important as they give your archers a longer shooting range. Not all victories in this game are won by brute force; it is highly important to have good relations with the rulers of the lands your army has to pass. You can also arrange your children to marry the successors of kings of neighboring countries and thus spread your influence. If you wish to transport your troops by boat, you will have to be in good relations with all the rulers who control the waters you need to pass. All rulers have a set of RPG-like characteristics which they use in decision making. Much the same as in Shogun, if a king goes to battle himself, he substantially raises the morale of his units, and may overturn the outcome of the battle. If you happen to utterly ignore your people and their opinion, you may face a revolution, and you know what that means.

The individual AI is good and will make units act more rationally; they will find the shortest path without much ado. Units will use only necessary means to attack the enemy: if you sent an army somewhere, and they encounter ten enemy guards, only a dozen of your soldiers will engage in combat, and the rest will continue their way. If the programmers can indeed deliver on their promises, these improved AI routines will surely represent a big step forward for the 'Total War' series of games, and should considerably increase the game's playability.

You will also be able to reassemble your scattered troops if you bring them a general worthy of their trust and confidence. The tactical AI contains nine scripts which will be combined and used depending on the situation.

The graphics are not exactly the most important element in this type of games, but the developers did introduce some enhancements in comparison to Shogun. The engine has been brushed up, the units and surroundings are far richer and the battles are more detailed. The different types of units will now be more easily recognized, which will make it easier to control them in the midst of battle. The terrains and surroundings are in full 3D, but the units remained 2D objects, for one simple reason; If all units were 3D, it would be impossible to have more than a hundred units on screen at a time, and we could kiss those lovely epic battles goodbye. The developers decided to focus on quality gameplay rather than on eye-candy, which was a wise choice. The suggested minimum configuration for the game is a 300MHz rig, which is good, as it will let more people play the game, but the game will still look far better on more powerful computers.

Medieval Total War supports up to eight players in multiplayer skirmishes, in King of the Hill, Assassin and Last Man Standing mods. The scenario and campaign editors that will ship with the game will enable players to design their own maps, and the developers announced that they would be publishing additional downloadable items, units, campaigns and scenarios on the official game site.

There is still about six months left before the game appears, and the project is currently entering its alpha stage of development. Most things have already been done, but the game still has to be polished, tweaked, and debugged. According to what we do know, Medieval will certainly surpass the previous Total War games, and will offer longer gameplay (it should take about 70 hours of play to finish the campaign mode) and many new possibilities for the fans of the genre. The developers would obviously like Medieval to become the No. 1 strategy on the market. Will they succeed? We cannot tell, but they sure seem to be heading in the right direction.