I loved this game the first day i got the game, just like having BiG war and get in. Good fun

This is honestly a superb game even more so than rome and like rome, it is different every single time you play through it. Unlike C&C and age of empires it doesnt have the repetative build a base, wait for a bit, get enough money to buy a few units then destroy the other base, there is so much more to it than that so many factions with unique units and as to how easy it is depends entirely on your decisions as to who to attack, and who to ally with and perseverance as it offers a good 30 hours of gameplay to complete it on your first time round. and for that reason it deserves 5 stars.

Total War is the no. strategy game. Good graphics, good controls, good and quick loading. Battles are perfectly awesome and the tactics available are amazing. The game is challenging in all concepts of battle, gameplay is very responsive. It gives many choices who to play as and there are so many units to choose from and building an army up takes a while but it's totally worth it for war. Also multiplayer online is brill and is exquisite for long-lasting medieval fights.

this game is just amazing, so much to it! battles are superb, campaign map is amazing by itself, with diplomacy, assassinations and marriage alliances etc, its so good. there are lots of factions to choose from, each with different advantages and disadvantages, such as geographical position or units available. if u have a computer with pretty good spec, this game must be brought as it is incredible, i would also recommend the expansion pack which i have played a lot on, "medieval 2 total war:kingdoms", that is also a fantastic game!

I`ve had this game since June 07 as i bought a new pc, a 6600core2duo, direct10x card and Vista,etc, so it is high end.
However, using Vista, i have found, can be annoying as can be a core2 duo cpu, when it comes to big army battles, both sides equalling about 1,500 men fighting in a seige situation(castle,fort,city), the game slows, as though the frame rates jump two or so at a time, slow motion like.It could be a bug issue as the Kingdoms expansion pack does other strange things with Vista, such as my reserves coming to help out my main army, (settings pretty high-resolution of 1650x1200 on an hdmi 22`screen, other settings set high), will not appear, a caption appearing instead saying they are delayed and telling me too up-grade my cpu!!
My system is more than capable of running a direct x9 game.Even with settings lower it still does weird things sometimes, but i have heard from other Vista/duo cpu users, with other games,that they have problems aswell, so it could be a conflict?
It is a novel game, if a little flawed.Flaws such as zooming in on the action and you`re soldiers seem too become like ghosts, half disappearing.
Another thing is when leaving an army beseiging a city, i go off too fight the enemy else where, then, after i`ve won previous battle,after my next turn comes round i go back to take the city and ...i find the game has taken my army of 1000 men away without any explanation, thay`ve just vanished!!I have found a couple of times that the game SEEMS to have a built in cheat system if it looks like you are going too win, so it ups the ante!
All in all, i found it a frustrating game, even in medium-difficult mode, as having spent hours playing a game,the game(AI) decides you will not win.
If, there is to be another MTW game on the horizon i`d like too see better control for armies(no bugs),units able too fight when the horse is killed,other units able too fight with fists and feet instead of running away and for goodness sakes lets see some blood and guts as it is the middle ages........

i got this game when it first came out, great game very similar to ROME TOTAL WAR which for me anyways is a really good thing,
i got a pc but i recently bought a laptop only £299 and it runs this game great i do get slow down in battles but other than that its works fine ,
obversely if you want the very best graphics and setting high do play this on a high tech PC because its worth it.
definitely a must have game !!!!!

well, this certainly takes after its brother, the units, diplomacy and the battles, very nice. One small thing is the campaign map. i dont like it cos it takes forever for units to get to one place to another, things such as launching a crusade from britain to jerusalem takes 20 games years by boat to get there, ridiculous. you can see the seasonal changes such as snow etc, but it comes every 8 years?!?!?! anyway its been made a bit more engaging to control, as of the first MTW in which you could control everything a lot easier. i will be buying the expansion pack as it is still a very good game. one last thing, you need a very good graphics card, i had to buy a sapphire radeon 512mb card and thats just about enough for a blown out war!!

When i first brought this game i used on my old computer it was very good but the game would sometimes crach randomly and the battles were very slow this made the game very annoying

However on my new computer this game is shown to be world class the graphics are incredible and the battles look very realistic i like the fact that it is now rome total war style but better you can march anywhere and the cities and towns are much more advanced my favourite new thing is the little movies you get when you use an assassin or a spy showing them succeding or failing.

The gameplay style is very simular to rome total war but more advanced just make sure your computer is very up-to-date otherwise it won't work properly and the game is ruined my old computer wasn't slow or bad but your computer must hi-tech for this to work

I was pretty impressed by this. It's a good improvement on the original MTW whilst being an entirely new game as it follows the Rome format. The new unit recruitment method is good and a I like the way you can order buildings even if you have no money, which is sometimes annoying in Rome. However my computer occasionally struggled with some of the graphics so check your machine is good enough to cope.

All in all it's a worthy successor to previous Total War games yet for some reason it's just not quite as much fun as Rome, and I've no idea why.

Ok I love the total war Series and cannot wait for empire Total war and a got a new £400 computer so that I could play Modern games but still WHY??? Damn it why. Don't get me wrong I love the fact that the little movies for spies and assassins are back from Shogun and the graphics in battles are amazing but the missions not just from the pope but from the council of noble (or the equivalent in other factions) I hated the missions from the senate in RTW and now every faction gets missions. I hate that the Maker feel the need to push a story line of some sort.
I would love to give this game a higher rating I mean the recruitment is far better as if you city/ castle has is capable you can recruit multiple units per turn making raising an army much quicker but for the speed you gain there you loose in movement. Each turn is two years in time and the distance you can move is very bad. I've sent a 22-year-old general of with an army to take a distant settlement and by the time he got there he was 50 I mean I know would take a long time in real life but still. The game feels rush as with in good day of playing you have gunpowder. I eventually got so sick of how quick the game is that I had to alter the text file to make one turn equal one year. Unit variety in this game is about the same as MTW but battle are a lot harder I mean un less you massively outnumber a enemy army you should not try to take a settlement by force as your forces will be decimated. I also Love the balance between castles and cities choosing between economic forces and military forces. And the new Merchant unit is very good.
Unfortunately this game in the end let me down to me it fell that they made this game to fill the gaps between RTW and ETW. As I said I'd love to give this game a higher rating as the graphics are amazing the battles are more challenging and the campaign map is much better as well, but for me the game is let down by the missions trying to force the game onwards the distance you can travel and the fact that it does not feel new. to me, it's like a recycled Rome total war with improved graphics.
Iff you like the missions from the senate in RTW and don't mind the time scale and didn't play RTW to death then you'll love this game.