I used to be a big RTS player back in the day with Red Alert and Starcraft, so I'm looking to get back to my roots with the Total War franchise. So which is the better game of the two -- Rome or Medieval? I like both historical eras, so that really has no bearing on my decision.
Rome Total War or Medieval Total War?
- Thread starter McBain
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If it's between Medieval 1 or Rome, then Rome easily. Medieval 1 was shitty and random events like civil wars and countries re-emerging would completely ruin you. I'm guessing you mean Medieval 2, though, which I've never played, but from what I've heard it's very similar to Rome only with more emphasis on religion and way less armies.
Well, when you say RTS player and mention Red Alert and Starcraft, keep in mind the Total War games are different beasts from those. Even just the real time battle parts play significantly differently than other RTS games.
But as for your question, if the Medieval you're mentioning is Medieval 1, then go for Rome. If it's Medieval 2, then go for Medieval 2 if you don't prefer the Roman era. Medieval 2 has a bit more unit variety, slightly nicer graphics, slightly better diplomacy, and the religion angle is pretty fun if you're playing a Catholic faction. It's definitely not less on armies, you're just mostly discouraged from attacking other Catholic factions by the pope, but there are ways around it.
Also, f you don't have any bandwidth limitations and have a good download speed, you can buy Rome Total War gold (Rome with both expansions) for $10 off of Steam. Might be the best option since it's easily found and cheap. Then if you enjoy that you can pick up the others.
But as for your question, if the Medieval you're mentioning is Medieval 1, then go for Rome. If it's Medieval 2, then go for Medieval 2 if you don't prefer the Roman era. Medieval 2 has a bit more unit variety, slightly nicer graphics, slightly better diplomacy, and the religion angle is pretty fun if you're playing a Catholic faction. It's definitely not less on armies, you're just mostly discouraged from attacking other Catholic factions by the pope, but there are ways around it.
Also, f you don't have any bandwidth limitations and have a good download speed, you can buy Rome Total War gold (Rome with both expansions) for $10 off of Steam. Might be the best option since it's easily found and cheap. Then if you enjoy that you can pick up the others.
Mr. Anderson
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Rome: Total War is awesome. I'll sell my old copy to ya for cheap!
Fonzarelli
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does anyone in here consider themselves consider themselves tech savy. I have a weird problem while running RTW on a Vista Laptop that has the game continually bog down after subsequent battles in the campaign mode. Meanwhile, custom battles run consistantly from battle to battle.
Thanks, I was planning to buy the Rome Gold pack for $10 on steam. It's on Amazon for $10 too, but I don't really like carrying around the boxes.
But I guess it's worth asking if Rome or Medieval 2 (which is the game I was talking about) will have any trouble on a Windows Vista PC? And what's the max res allowed in these games? My monitor's is 1920x1080.
And how's the multiplayer on Rome? Is it easy to play with a friend online?
But I guess it's worth asking if Rome or Medieval 2 (which is the game I was talking about) will have any trouble on a Windows Vista PC? And what's the max res allowed in these games? My monitor's is 1920x1080.
And how's the multiplayer on Rome? Is it easy to play with a friend online?
They should both run fine on Vista (I'm using Vista 64 to run rome) and the maximum resolution is the maximum resolution of your monitor (I'm running rome at 1920x1200). I never play them online so I can't say anything about that.
This thread and my room mate are really making me want to play Rome right now but I keep having problems with the game crashing right after battles (which might be due to the Rome Total Realism mod I'm running). Anybody know of fixes for that problem?
This thread and my room mate are really making me want to play Rome right now but I keep having problems with the game crashing right after battles (which might be due to the Rome Total Realism mod I'm running). Anybody know of fixes for that problem?
TruthinessFC
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If you're interested in both, I'd recommend playing Rome first and moving on to Medieval II once you're through with Rome. I haven't played Rome since I went to Vista, but M2 runs fine for me. I did have a hell of a time running it after it came out, but now it never crashes.
Make sure to get the patches.
Make sure to get the patches.
Holy_Headshot
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What about Empire Total War, just out?
OK never mind after playing the game for quite a while I haven't had any problems. Maybe I just had to run it in compatibility mode. As for Empire total war, I'm sure it's good and my room mate likes it a lot (although he never played the other games), but just from the demo I wasn't feeling it. On offense it just felt like no matter what I did I was just walking a bunch of my guys into the enemies firing range and getting 
ed up. Maybe I had to mess around with the artillery some more.
ed up. Maybe I had to mess around with the artillery some more.What kind of PC spec do you need to run Empire Total War? Or for that matter Medieval II Total war?
I used to have a decently powerful PC but unfortunately one of the RAM slots on my mobo went bad, and I was forced to remove half of my RAM. So now I'm only down to 1GB, which I feel won't cut it for Empire Total War? But maybe my spec is good enough to run Medieval II total war since it's an older game?
Athlon 64 4800+ X2
1GB RAM
ATi X1900GT 256MB Video card
WinXP SP3
In light of my recent hardware failure I plan on building a new PC sometime in the future. Maybe when the prices of i7 systems drops a little after their initial release premium. Maybe I should get M2TW now and get used to the game style, then step up to ETW when I get a new PC? Perhaps by then some of the release issues will have been worked out and maybe another expansion will be released (they seem to release one expansion for each game ni the series) with more content. If Windows 7 is not released by that time I will probably install XP x64 on it because I don't want to mess with Vista. Does anyone here run any of these Total War games on XP x64?
Plus the Medieval game is a lot cheaper on steam than ETW, although I think I would enjoy the time setting of ETW better than M2TW. Nevertheless the M2TW plus the expansion looks like a crapload of content!
I had another question: if you read the reviews of ETW, a lot of them say there are still a lot of bugs with the game. Is this really true? And if ETW is supposed to improve upon M2TW, then do those same bugs exist in the previous TW games as well? Some of the reviews say the bugs are pretty severe (i.e. pathfinding) but others pass them off as minor detractments from an essentially really strong game.
Also need to try out the ETW demo- although it probably will barely run on my PC given the low amount of RAM.
Ruahrc
I used to have a decently powerful PC but unfortunately one of the RAM slots on my mobo went bad, and I was forced to remove half of my RAM. So now I'm only down to 1GB, which I feel won't cut it for Empire Total War? But maybe my spec is good enough to run Medieval II total war since it's an older game?
Athlon 64 4800+ X2
1GB RAM
ATi X1900GT 256MB Video card
WinXP SP3
In light of my recent hardware failure I plan on building a new PC sometime in the future. Maybe when the prices of i7 systems drops a little after their initial release premium. Maybe I should get M2TW now and get used to the game style, then step up to ETW when I get a new PC? Perhaps by then some of the release issues will have been worked out and maybe another expansion will be released (they seem to release one expansion for each game ni the series) with more content. If Windows 7 is not released by that time I will probably install XP x64 on it because I don't want to mess with Vista. Does anyone here run any of these Total War games on XP x64?
Plus the Medieval game is a lot cheaper on steam than ETW, although I think I would enjoy the time setting of ETW better than M2TW. Nevertheless the M2TW plus the expansion looks like a crapload of content!
I had another question: if you read the reviews of ETW, a lot of them say there are still a lot of bugs with the game. Is this really true? And if ETW is supposed to improve upon M2TW, then do those same bugs exist in the previous TW games as well? Some of the reviews say the bugs are pretty severe (i.e. pathfinding) but others pass them off as minor detractments from an essentially really strong game.
Also need to try out the ETW demo- although it probably will barely run on my PC given the low amount of RAM.
Ruahrc
[quote name='Ruahrc'] Maybe I should get M2TW now and get used to the game style, then step up to ETW when I get a new PC? [/QUOTE]
That's what I would do. I'm sure you can run Medieval 2 but Empire would probably be pretty choppy. Just try the demo before you buy Empire. And yes I've heard Empire still has some glitches/bugs.
That's what I would do. I'm sure you can run Medieval 2 but Empire would probably be pretty choppy. Just try the demo before you buy Empire. And yes I've heard Empire still has some glitches/bugs.
bread's done