Total War Games - Recommendations

[SerapisIV]

Hi, I'm looking for a new game to play. I've gtten tired of Civ style guys for a little while and have always been interested in the Total War games but never got around to buying one.

As background, i rarely play Civ games on maps bigger then standard, usually playing small with single player games lasting about 6-12 hours. I like to cover the game in depth, but don't want to deal with huge maps and managing several dozen cities.

Graphics aren't a huge seller for me as I haven't really played many games except for the Civs and Gal Civ 2. The last non-Civ-style game I played was Halo 2 on the basic Xbox system, several years ago. Polish in the game is more interesting to me then graphics.

Whats the best Total War game to try out? I've heard Empire was just too big in scope. Is Shogun 2 good? Is it better then Rome?

 

[Maniacal]

We have a Total War subforum btw

I'd recommend getting Rome and Medieval 2 as they are quite good (and amazing with mods, Europa Barbarorum and Stainless Steel respectively as well as numerous others like The Fourth Age). Shogun 2 looks great though I am waiting for the gold edition. Empire and Napoleon (get them in the Empire Gold Edition) are good but flawed (though there is nothing else like them that is anywhere close to as good).

 

[Skwink]

Get Rome. It's #1. So fun to make massive armies and watch them murder each other!

 

[LightSpectra]

Whatever you do, do not get Empire. It's my most hated game of all time. If you want me to, I can list up to 100 reasons why that game is treacherous.

Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 might feel a bit too dated, but they're great games. Napoleon is alright, but once you get over the learning curve, it's far too easy. Haven't tried Shogun 2, and I probably won't for awhile, though I hear it's pretty good.

I would recommend either Rome: Total War with the Europa Barbarorum mod, or Medieval II (and the Kingdoms expansion pack) with the Stainless Steel mod; those are the best in the series.

 

[Skwink]

Hell, I play RTW modless and love it.

 

[Maniacal]

You really should fix that.

And Empire Gold Edition is worth it if you want the only game for the 1700s (and early 1800s for Napoleon) that is anything like it and decent. Empire is flawed yeah, but some mods help and its not like its much worse than the vanilla of the other TW games either (Rome vanilla isn't very great either). Was $29.99 Canadian for the Gold Edition and had Empire & Napoleon + all the DLC units and campaigns.

I'm still recommend starting with Rome and Medieval 2 though.

 

[sophie]

Rome and M1 are easily the best. Get those.

RTW with EB mod is probably one of my all time top 5 favorite games.

 

[thelastmccabe]

I've played quite a bit of Rome, and it's definitely a fun game. I played vanilla along with some of the total realism mod. Timing that perfect cavalry charge into your enemy's flank just never gets old. I had this really really badass leader in one game, and one of my favorite gaming moments was watching and listening to his speech before the biggest battle in the game.

I got sick of it when I realized the ai isn't very good, particularly at sieges. If the ai is laying siege to your castle, I've seen it do literally nothing and just stand there with its army or alternately utterly fail to use any of its siege equipment. On the other hand, if your besieging its city then it sometimes just sallies forth its army and gets crushed instead of staying behind the walls like they should. The ai in open field battles I remember being better and good enough for my purposes.

I played mainly normally normal difficulty as Rome, which ended up being pretty easy. I'd recommend cranking the difficulty up a bit to make up for some of the ai gaffes or playing as one of the tougher "civs." Also, mods like total realism (and probably E.B. as well) restrict your ability to build walls, which also makes it tougher. In vanilla, IIRC, walls were fairly cheap and could be built anywhere, which made things too easy and also didn't seem particularly realistic.

 

[Maniacal]

The AI isn't good in ANY of the games.EB doesn't restrict walls, they just cost a wee bit more.

 

[Yeekim]

From best to worst:
1) Shogun 2.
Why? Mostly because diplo/strategic AI is by miles better than its older counterparts (and battle AI seems better as well).
Also, by limiting scope they have managed to make the game more immersive and give it greater depth, imho.
It looks gorgeous. Not just battle graphics - UI, loading screens, everything.
"Legendary" difficulty mode is addictive.

2-3) RTW, MTW2
4) NapoleonTW
5) Older titles I have not played.

 

[SerapisIV]

We have a Total War subforum btw

Wow that was foolish. Looked over the Other Games forums and just missed that. Sorry

 

[tycoonist]

Idk why you guys think RTW was bad modless, I never played it with mods and it still by far and away my favourite.

 

[LightSpectra]

It was okay modless, it's just better with RTR, or, more preferably, EB. It was just way too easy. Even on VH/VH, I could win any campaign within 20-30 turns.

EB is legitimately difficult. I'm playing a campaign as Rome right now and I can barely build any infrastructure, just because recruiting full armies is painfully expensive.

 

[tycoonist]

You could take 50 territories in 20-30 turns?? I don't buy it.

 

[LightSpectra]

If you figure out the quirks with the enemy AI you can win battles with 1/4 as many troops. By around turn 10, you can take three or four settlements a turn.

 

[Maniacal]

I absolutely hated that the Romans were split into 4 factions. That is what made me start looking at mods in the first place, and they add so much more detail to the game (wider variety of factions, units, history, better maps, etc).

 

[Akka]

Shogun II definitely feels full of immersiveness, which is nice because I felt the game was a bit lacking in it since Medieval 1. But I have a hard time liking it because it's just far too "small-scale" (not in-game, Japan is actually quite big, but it's hard to feel like a great conqueror when your scope is limited to a few small islands). If this doesn't bother you, it's probably the best of the serie (it requires Steam though).

I found Rome the best unmodded, and Medieval 2 became my favourite once I could find what to mod to make the battle feel more brutal (the vanilla game has incredibly soporific battles).
I can't talk about Empire, because the period and the firearms are a mood-killer for me and I barely tried it.

 

[tycoonist]

This is the same game where you can set up dogs up a hill and fight off anything that's not an elephant. Besides, if you go the opposite route of not micro-ing every battle, you can still win with the POWER OF MONEY.

Seriously, my last few pre-EB RTW games were just me sitting back and auto-resolving everything with wave after wave of huge stacks of Hastati out to conquer everything.

You said any campaign.... winning as Rome is easy (take Greece, have the best army ==> profit.)

you couldn't do the same as say Germania or Britain etc.

 

[sophie]

You said any campaign.... winning as Rome is easy (take Greece, have the best army ==> profit.)

you couldn't do the same as say Germania or Britain etc.

Germania is so hilariously broken they aren't even worth playing after the first 5 turns.

 

[Traitorfish]

It was okay modless, it's just better with RTR, or, more preferably, EB.

EB is good, but RTR is probably an acquired tasted. "Realism", among other things, means "battles where nobody dies for like half an hour", which isn't everyone's cup of tea.